Grass of Parnassus
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Many of the verses and translations in this volume were published first in Ballads and Lyrics of Old France (1872). Though very sensible that they have the demerits of imitative and even of undergraduate rhyme, I print them again because people I like have liked them. The rest are of different dates, and lack (though doubtless they need) the excuse of having been written, like some of the earlier pieces, during College Lectures. I would gladly have added to this volume what other more or less serious rhymes I have written, but circumstances over which I have no control have bound them up with Ballades, and other toys of that sort.
It may be as well to repeat in prose, what has already been said in verse, that Grass of Parnassus, the pretty Autumn flower, grows in the marshes at the foot of the Muses’ Hill, and other hills, not at the top by any means.
Several of the versions from the Greek Anthology have been published in the Fortnightly Review, and the sonnet on Colonel Burnaby appeared in Punch. These, with pieces from other serials, are reprinted by the courteous permission of the Editors.
The verses that were published in Ballades and Lyrics, and in Ballads and Verses Vain (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York), are marked in the contents with an asterisk.
GRASS OF PARNASSUS
Pale star that by the lochs of Galloway, In wet green places ’twixt the depth and heightDost keep thine hour while Autumn ebbs away, When now the moors have doffed the heather bright, Grass of Parnassus, flower of my delight,How gladly with the unpermitted bay—Garlands not mine, and leaves that not decay— How gladly would I twine thee if I might!The bays are out of reach! But far below The peaks forbidden of the Muses’ Hill,Grass of Parnassus, thy returning snow Between September and October chillDoth speak to me of Autumns long ago, And these kind faces that are with me still.DEEDS OF MEN
SEEKERS FOR A CITY
“Believe me, if that blissful, that beautiful place, were set on a hill visible to all the world, I should long ago have journeyed thither.. But the number and variety of the ways! For you know, There is but one road that leads to Corinth.”
Hermotimus (Mr Pater’s Version).“The Poet says, dear city of Cecrops, and wilt thou not say, dear city of Zeus?”
M. Antoninus.To Corinth leads one road, you say:Is there a Corinth, or a way?Each bland or blatant preacher hathHis painful or his primrose path,And not a soul of all of theseBut knows the city ’twixt the seas,Her fair unnumbered homes and allHer gleaming amethystine wall!Blind are the guides who know the way,The guides who write, and preach, and pray,I watch their lives, and I divineThey differ not from yours and mine!One man we knew, and only one,Whose seeking for a city’s done,For what he greatly sought he found,A city girt with fire around,A city in an empty landBetween the wastes of sky and sand,A city on a river-side,Where by the folk he loved, he died. 1Alas! it is not ours to treadThat path wherein his life he led,Not ours his heart to dare and feel,Keen as the fragrant Syrian steel;Yet are we not quite city-less,Not wholly left in our distress —Is it not said by One of old,Sheep have I of another fold?Ah! faint of heart, and weak of will,For us there is a city still!Dear city of Zeus, the Stoic says, 2The Voice from Rome’s imperial days,In Thee meet all things, and disperse,In Thee, for Thee, O Universe!To me all’s fruit thy seasons bring,Alike thy summer and thy spring;The winds that wail, the suns that burn,From Thee proceed, to Thee return.Dear city of Zeus, shall we not say,Home to which none can lose the way!Born in that city’s flaming bound,We do not find her, but are found.Within her wide and viewless wallThe Universe is girdled all.All joys and pains, all wealth and dearth,All things that travail on the earth,God’s will they work, if God there be,If not, what is my life to me?Seek we no further, but abideWithin this city great and wide,In her and for her living, weHave no less joy than to be free;Nor death nor grief can quite appalThe folk that dwell within her wall,Nor aught but with our will befall!THE WHITE PACHA
Vain is the dream! However Hope may rave,He perished with the folk he could not save,And though none surely told us he is dead,And though perchance another in his stead,Another, not less brave, when all was done,Had fled unto the southward and the sun,Had urged a way by force, or won by guileTo streams remotest of the secret Nile,Had raised an army of the Desert men,And, waiting for his hour, had turned againAnd fallen on that False Prophet, yet we knowGordon is dead, and these things are not so!Nay, not for England’s cause, nor to restoreHer trampled flag – for he loved Honour more —Nay, not for Life, Revenge, or Victory,Would he have fled, whose hour had dawned to die.He will not come again, whate’er our need,He will not come, who is happy, being freedFrom the deathly flesh and perishable things,And lies of statesmen and rewards of kings.Nay, somewhere by the sacred River’s shoreHe sleeps like those who shall return no more,No more return for all the prayers of men —Arthur and Charles – they never come again!They shall not wake, though fair the vision seem:Whate’er sick Hope may whisper, vain the dream!MIDNIGHT, JANUARY 25, 1886
To-morrow is a year since Gordon died! A year ago to-night, the Desert still Crouched on the spring, and panted for its fillOf lust and blood. Their old art statesmen plied,And paltered, and evaded, and denied; Guiltless as yet, except for feeble will, And craven heart, and calculated skillIn long delays, of their great homicide.A year ago to-night ’twas not too late. The thought comes through our mirth, again, again;Methinks I hear the halting foot of Fate Approaching and approaching us; and thenComes cackle of the House, and the Debate! Enough; he is forgotten amongst men.ADVANCE, AUSTRALIA
ON THE OFFER OF HELP FROM THE AUSTRALIANS AFTER THE FALL OF KHARTOUMSons of the giant Ocean isle In sport our friendly foes for long,Well England loves you, and we smileWhen you outmatch us many a while, So fleet you are, so keen and strong.You, like that fairy people set Of old in their enchanted seaFar off from men, might well forgetAn elder nation’s toil and fret, Might heed not aught but game and glee.But what your fathers were you are In lands the fathers never knew,’Neath skies of alien sign and starYou rally to the English war; Your hearts are English, kind and true.And now, when first on England falls The shadow of a darkening fate,You hear the Mother ere she calls,You leave your ocean-girdled walls, And face her foemen in the gate.COLONEL BURNABY
συ δ’ εν στροφάλιγγι κονίης
κεισο μέγας μεγαλωστι, λελασμένος ιπποσυνάων
Thou that on every field of earth and sky Didst hunt for Death, who seemed to flee and fear,How great and greatly fallen dost thou lie Slain in the Desert by some wandering spear:‘Not here, alas!’ may England say, ‘not here Nor in this quarrel was it meet to die, But in that dreadful battle drawing nighTo thunder through the Afghan passes sheer:Like Aias by the ships shouldst thou have stood, And in some glen have stayed the stream of flight, The bulwark of thy people and their shield,When Indus or when Helmund ran with blood, Till back into the Northland and the Night The smitten Eagles scattered from the field.’MELVILLE AND COGHILL
(THE PLACE OF THE LITTLE HAND.)
Dead, with their eyes to the foe, Dead, with the foe at their feet,Under the sky laid low Truly their slumber is sweet,Though the wind from the Camp of the Slain Men blow, And the rain on the wilderness beat.Dead, for they chose to die When that wild race was run;Dead, for they would not fly, Deeming their work undone,Nor cared to look on the face of the sky, Nor loved the light of the sun.Honour we give them and tears, And the flag they died to save,Rent from the rain of the spears, Wet from the war and the wave,Shall waft men’s thoughts through the dust of the years, Back to their lonely grave!RHODOCLEIA
TO RHODOCLEIA
ON HER MELANCHOLY SINGING
(Rhodocleia was beloved by Rufinus, one of the late poets of the Greek Anthology.)Still, Rhodocleia, brooding on the dead,Still singing of the meads of asphodel, Lands desolate of delight?Say, hast thou dreamed of, or rememberèd, The shores where shadows dwell, Nor know the sun, nor see the stars of night?There, ’midst thy music, doth thy spirit gaze As a girl pines for home, Looking along the way that she hath come,Sick to return, and counts the weary days!So wouldst thou flee Back to the multitude whose days are done,Wouldst taste the fruit that lured Persephone,The sacrament of death; and die, and be No more in the wind and sun!Thou hast not dreamed it, but rememberèd I know thou hast been there,Hast seen the stately dwellings of the dead Rise in the twilight air,And crossed the shadowy bridge the spirits tread, And climbed the golden stair!Nay, by thy cloudy hair And lips that were so fair,Sad lips now mindful of some ancient smart, And melancholy eyes, the haunt of Care,I know thee who thou art! That Rhodocleia, Glory of the Rose,Of Hellas, ere her close, That Rhodocleia who, when all was done The golden time of Greece, and fallen her sun,Swayed her last poet’s heart.With roses did he woo thee, and with song, With thine own rose, and with the lily sweet, The dark-eyed violet, Garlands of wind-flowers wet,And fragrant love-lamps that the whole night long Burned till the dawn was burning in the skies, Praising thy golden eyes, And feet more silvery than Thetis’ feet!But thou didst die and flit Among the tribes outworn, The unavailing myriads of the past: Oft he beheld thy face in dreams of morn,And, waking, wept for it, Till his own time came at last, And then he sought thee in the dusky land!Wide are the populous places of the deadWhere souls on earth once wed May never meet, nor each take other’s hand,Each far from the other fled!So all in vain he sought for thee, but thou Didst never taste of the Lethæan stream, Nor that forgetful fruit, The mystic pom’granate;But from the Mighty Warden fledst; and now, The fugitive of Fate, Thou farest in our life as in a dream, Still wandering with thy lute,Like that sweet paynim lady of old song,Who sang and wandered long, For love of her Aucassin, seeking him!So with thy minstrelsy Thou roamest, dreaming of the country dim,Below the veilèd sky!There doth thy lover dwell, Singing, and seeking still to find thy face In that forgetful place: Thou shalt not meet him here, Not till thy singing clearThrough all the murmur of the streams of hell Wins to the Maiden’s ear!May she, perchance, have pity on thee and call Thine eager spirit to sit beside her feet,Passing throughout the long unechoing hall Up to the shadowy throne, Where the lost lovers of the ages meet; Till then thou art alone!AVE
CLEVEDON CHURCH
In MemoriamH. BWestward I watch the low green hills of Wales, The low sky silver grey,The turbid Channel with the wandering sails Moans through the winter day.There is no colour but one ashen light On tower and lonely tree,The little church upon the windy height Is grey as sky or sea.But there hath he that woke the sleepless Love Slept through these fifty years,There is the grave that has been wept above With more than mortal tears.And far below I hear the Channel sweep And all his waves complain,As Hallam’s dirge through all the years must keep Its monotone of pain.* * * * *Grey sky, brown waters, as a bird that flies, My heart flits forth from theseBack to the winter rose of northern skies, Back to the northern seas.And lo, the long waves of the ocean beat Below the minster grey,Caverns and chapels worn of saintly feet, And knees of them that pray.And I remember me how twain were one Beside that ocean dim,I count the years passed over since the sun That lights me looked on him,And dreaming of the voice that, save in sleep, Shall greet me not again,Far, far below I hear the Channel sweep And all his waves complain.TWILIGHT ON TWEED
Three crests against the saffron sky, Beyond the purple plain,The kind remembered melody Of Tweed once more again.Wan water from the border hills, Dear voice from the old years,Thy distant music lulls and stills, And moves to quiet tears.Like a loved ghost thy fabled flood Fleets through the dusky land;Where Scott, come home to die, has stood, My feet returning stand.A mist of memory broods and floats, The Border waters flow;The air is full of ballad notes, Borne out of long ago.Old songs that sung themselves to me, Sweet through a boy’s day dream,While trout below the blossom’d tree Plashed in the golden steam.* * * * *Twilight, and Tweed, and Eildon Hill, Fair and too fair you be;You tell me that the voice is still That should have welcomed me.1870.METEMPSYCHOSIS
I shall not see thee, nay, but I shall know Perchance, the grey eyes in another’s eyes,Shall guess thy curls in gracious locks that flow On purest brows, yea, and the swift surmise Shall follow and track, and find thee in disguiseOf all sad things, and fair, where sunsets glow,When through the scent of heather, faint and low, The weak wind whispers to the day that dies.From all sweet art, and out of all old rhyme, Thine eyes and lips are light and song to me;The shadows of the beauty of all time, In song or story are but shapes of thee;Alas, the shadowy shapes! ah, sweet my dear, Shall life or death bring all thy being near?LOST IN HADES
I dreamed that somewhere in the shadowy place, Grief of farewell unspoken was forgot In welcome, and regret remembered not;And hopeless prayer accomplished turned to praiseOn lips that had been songless many days; Hope had no more to hope for, and desire And dread were overpast, in white attireNew born we walked among the new world’s ways.Then from the press of shades a spirit threw Towards me such apples as these gardens bear;And turning, I was ’ware of her, and knew And followed her fleet voice and flying hair, —Followed, and found her not, and seeking you I found you never, dearest, anywhere.A STAR IN THE NIGHT
The perfect piteous beauty of thy face Is like a star the dawning drives away; Mine eyes may never see in the bright dayThy pallid halo, thy supernal grace;But in the night from forth the silent place Thou comest, dim in dreams, as doth a stray Star of the starry flock that in the greyIs seen, and lost, and seen a moment’s space.And as the earth at night turns to a star, Loved long ago, and dearer than the sun,So in the spiritual place afar, At night our souls are mingled and made one,And wait till one night fall, and one dawn rise,That brings no noon too splendid for your eyes.A SUNSET ON YARROW
The wind and the day had lived together, They died together, and far awaySpoke farewell in the sultry weather,Out of the sunset, over the heather, The dying wind and the dying day.Far in the south, the summer levin Flushed, a flame in the grey soft air:We seemed to look on the hills of heaven;You saw within, but to me ’twas given To see your face, as an angel’s, there.Never again, ah surely never Shall we wait and watch, where of old we stood,The low good-night of the hill and the river,The faint light fade, and the wan stars quiver, Twain grown one in the solitude.ANOTHER WAY
Come to me in my dreams, and then,One saith, I shall be well again,For then the night will more than payThe hopeless longing of the day.Nay, come not thou in dreams, my sweet,With shadowy robes, and silent feet,And with the voice, and with the eyesThat greet me in a soft surprise.Last night, last night, in dreams we met,And how, to-day, shall I forget,Or how, remembering, restrainMine incommunicable pain?Nay, where thy land and people are,Dwell thou remote, apart, afar,Nor mingle with the shapes that sweepThe melancholy ways of Sleep.But if, perchance, the shadows break,If dreams depart, and men awake,If face to face at length we see,Be thine the voice to welcome me.HESPEROTHEN
By the example of certain Grecian mariners, who, being safely returned from the war about Troy, leave yet again their old lands and gods, seeking they know not what, and choosing neither to abide in the fair Phæacian island, nor to dwell and die with the Sirens, at length end miserably in a desert country by the sea, is set forth the Vanity of Melancholy. And by the land of Phæacia is to be understood the place of Art and of fair Pleasures; and by Circe’s Isle, the place of bodily delights, whereof men, falling aweary, attain to Eld, and to the darkness of that age. Which thing Master Françoys Rabelais feigned, under the similitude of the Isle of the Macræones.
THE SEEKERS FOR PHÆACIA
There is a land in the remotest day, Where the soft night is born, and sunset dies;The eastern shore sees faint tides fade away, That wash the lands where laughter, tears, and sighsMake life, – the lands below the blue of common skies.But in the west is a mysterious sea, (What sails have seen it, or what shipmen known?)With coasts enchanted where the Sirens be, With islands where a Goddess walks alone,And in the cedar trees the magic winds make moan.Eastward the human cares of house and home, Cities, and ships, and unknown gods, and loves;Westward, strange maidens fairer than the foam, And lawless lives of men, and haunted groves,Wherein a god may dwell, and where the Dryad roves.The gods are careless of the days and death Of toilsome men, beyond the western seas;The gods are heedless of their painful breath, And love them not, for they are not as these;But in the golden west they live and lie at ease.Yet the Phæacians well they love, who live At the light’s limit, passing careless hours,Most like the gods; and they have gifts to give, Even wine, and fountains musical, and flowers,And song, and if they will, swift ships, and magic powers.It is a quiet midland; in the cool Of the twilight comes the god, though no man prayed,To watch the maids and young men beautiful Dance, and they see him, and are not afraid,For they are neat of kin to gods, and undismayed.Ah, would the bright red prows might bring us nigh The dreamy isles that the Immortals keep!But with a mist they hide them wondrously, And far the path and dim to where they sleep, —The loved, the shadowy lands, along the shadowy deep.A SONG OF PHÆACIA
The languid sunset, mother of roses, Lingers, a light on the magic seas,The wide fire flames, as a flower uncloses, Heavy with odour, and loose to the breeze.The red rose clouds, without law or leader, Gather and float in the airy plain;The nightingale sings to the dewy cedar, The cedar scatters his scent to the main.The strange flowers’ perfume turns to singing, Heard afar over moonlit seas:The Siren’s song, grown faint in winging, Falls in scent on the cedar trees.As waifs blown out of the sunset, flying, Purple, and rosy, and grey, the birdsBrighten the air with their wings; their crying Wakens a moment the weary herds.Butterflies flit from the fairy garden, Living blossoms of flying flowers;Never the nights with winter harden, Nor moons wax keen in this land of ours.Great fruits, fragrant, green and golden, Gleam in the green, and droop and fall;Blossom, and bud, and flower unfolden, Swing, and cling to the garden wall.Deep in the woods as twilight darkens, Glades are red with the scented fire;Far in the dells the white maid hearkens, Song and sigh of the heart’s desire.Ah, and as moonlight fades in morning, Maiden’s song in the matin grey,Faints as the first bird’s note, a warning, Wakes and wails to the new-born day.The waking song and the dying measure Meet, and the waxing and waning lightMeet, and faint with the hours of pleasure, The rose of the sea and the sky is white.THE DEPARTURE FROM PHÆACIA
THE PHÆACIANSWhy from the dreamy meadows, More fair than any dream,Why seek ye for the shadows Beyond the ocean stream?Through straits of storm and peril, Through firths unsailed before,Why make you for the sterile, The dark Kimmerian shore?There no bright streams are flowing, There day and night are one,No harvest time, no sowing, No sight of any sun;No sound of song or tabor, No dance shall greet you there;No noise of mortal labour Breaks on the blind chill air.Are ours not happy places, Where gods with mortals trod?Saw not our sires the faces Of many a present god?THE SEEKERSNay, now no god comes hither, In shape that men may see;They fare we know not whither, We know not what they be.Yea, though the sunset lingers Far in your fairy glades,Though yours the sweetest singers, Though yours the kindest maids,Yet here be the true shadows, Here in the doubtful light;Amid the dreamy meadows No shadow haunts the night.We seek a city splendid, With light beyond the sun;Or lands where dreams are ended, And works and days are done.A BALLAD OF DEPARTURE. 3
Fair white bird, what song art thou singing In wintry weather of lands o’er sea?Dear white bird, what way art thou winging, Where no grass grows, and no green tree?I looked at the far-off fields and grey, There grew no tree but the cypress tree,That bears sad fruits with the flowers of May, And whoso looks on it, woe is he.And whoso eats of the fruit thereofHas no more sorrow, and no more love;And who sets the same in his garden stead,In a little space he is waste and dead.THEY HEAR THE SIRENS FOR THE SECOND TIME
The weary sails a moment slept, The oars were silent for a space,As past Hesperian shores we swept, That were as a remembered faceSeen after lapse of hopeless years, In Hades, when the shadows meet,Dim through the mist of many tears, And strange, and though a shadow, sweet.So seemed the half-remembered shore, That slumbered, mirrored in the blue,With havens where we touched of yore, And ports that over well we knew.Then broke the calm before a breeze That sought the secret of the west;And listless all we swept the seas Towards the Islands of the Blest.Beside a golden sanded bay We saw the Sirens, very fairThe flowery hill whereon they lay, The flowers set upon their hair.Their old sweet song came down the wind, Remembered music waxing strong, —Ah now no need of cords to bind, No need had we of Orphic song.It once had seemed a little thing To lay our lives down at their feet,That dying we might hear them sing, And dying see their faces sweet;But now, we glanced, and passing by, No care had we to tarry long;Faint hope, and rest, and memory Were more than any Siren’s song.