A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems Part 8

'Clumsy and shallow sn.o.bbery--can do no hurt.'--_Ibid._

I.

O Lords our G.o.ds, beneficent, sublime, In the evening, and before the morning flames, We praise, we bless, we magnify your names.

The slave is he that serves not; his the crime And shame, who hails not as the crown of Time That House wherein the all-envious world acclaims Such glory that the reflex of it shames All crowns bestowed of men for prose or rhyme.

The serf, the cur, the sycophant is he Who feels no cringing motion twitch his knee When from a height too high for Shakespeare nods The wearer of a higher than Milton's crown.

Stoop, Chaucer, stoop: Keats, Sh.e.l.ley, Burns, bow down: These have no part with you, O Lords our G.o.ds.

II.

O Lords our G.o.ds, it is not that ye sit Serene above the thunder, and exempt From strife of tongues and casualties that tempt Men merely found by proof of manhood fit For service of their fellows: this is it Which sets you past the reach of Time's attempt, Which gives us right of justified contempt For commonwealths built up by mere men's wit: That gold unlocks not, nor may flatteries ope, The portals of your heaven; that none may hope With you to watch how life beneath you plods, Save for high service given, high duty done; That never was your rank ign.o.bly won: For this we give you praise, O Lords our G.o.ds.

III.

O Lords our G.o.ds, the times are evil: you Redeem the time, because of evil days.

While abject souls in servitude of praise Bow down to heads unt.i.tled, and the crew Whose honour dwells but in the deeds they do, From loftier hearts your n.o.bler servants raise More manful salutation: yours are bays That not the dawn's plebeian pearls bedew; Yours, laurels plucked not of such hands as wove Old age its chaplet in Colonos' grove.

Our time, with heaven and with itself at odds, Makes all lands else as seas that seethe and boil; But yours are yet the corn and wine and oil, And yours our worship yet, O Lords our G.o.ds.

_December 15._

_ON THE BICENTENARY OF CORNEILLE_,

CELEBRATED UNDER THE PRESIDENCY OF VICTOR HUGO.

Scarce two hundred years are gone, and the world is past away As a noise of brawling wind, as a flash of breaking foam, That beheld the singer born who raised up the dead of Rome; And a mightier now than he bids him too rise up to-day, All the dim great age is dust, and its king is tombless clay, But its loftier laurel green as in living eyes it clomb, And his memory whom it crowned hath his people's heart for home, And the shade across it falls of a lordlier-flowering bay.

Stately shapes about the tomb of their mighty maker pace, Heads of high-plumed Spaniards shine, souls revive of Roman race, Sound of arms and words of wail through the glowing darkness rise, Speech of hearts heroic rings forth of lips that know not breath, And the light of thoughts august fills the pride of kindling eyes Whence of yore the spell of song drove the shadow of darkling death.

_IN SEPULCRETIS._

'Vidistis ipso rapere de rogo coenam.'--CATULLUS, LIX. 3.

'To publish even one line of an author which he himself has not intended for the public at large--especially letters which are addressed to private persons--is to commit a despicable act of felony.'--HEINE.

I.

It is not then enough that men who give The best gifts given of man to man should feel, Alive, a snake's head ever at their heel: Small hurt the worms may do them while they live-- Such hurt as scorn for scorn's sake may forgive.

But now, when death and fame have set one seal On tombs whereat Love, Grief, and Glory kneel, Men sift all secrets, in their critic sieve, Of graves wherein the dust of death might shrink To know what tongues defile the dead man's name With loathsome love, and praise that stings like shame.

Rest once was theirs, who had crossed the mortal brink: No rest, no reverence now: dull fools undress Death's holiest shrine, life's veriest nakedness.

II.

A man was born, sang, suffered, loved, and died.

Men scorned him living: let us praise him dead.

His life was brief and bitter, gently led And proudly, but with pure and blameless pride.

He wrought no wrong toward any; satisfied With love and labour, whence our souls are fed With largesse yet of living wine and bread.

Come, let us praise him: here is nought to hide.

Make bare the poor dead secrets of his heart, Strip the stark-naked soul, that all may peer, Spy, smirk, sniff, snap, snort, snivel, snarl, and sneer: Let none so sad, let none so sacred part Lie still for pity, rest unstirred for shame, But all be scanned of all men. This is fame.

III.

'Now, what a thing it is to be an a.s.s!'[1]

If one, that strutted up the brawling streets As foreman of the flock whose concourse greets Men's ears with bray more dissonant than bra.s.s, Would change from blame to praise as coa.r.s.e and cra.s.s His natural note, and learn the fawning feats Of lapdogs, who but knows what luck he meets?

But all in vain old fable holds her gla.s.s.

Mocked and reviled by men of poisonous breath, A great man dies: but one thing worst was spared, Not all his heart by their base hands lay bared.

One comes to crown with praise the dust of death; And lo, through him this worst is brought to pa.s.s.

Now, what a thing it is to be an a.s.s!

[Footnote 1: _t.i.tus Andronicus_, Act iv., Scene 2.]

IV.

Shame, such as never yet dealt heavier stroke On heads more shameful, fall on theirs through whom Dead men may keep inviolate not their tomb, But all its depths these ravenous grave-worms choke And yet what waste of wrath were this, to invoke Shame on the shameless? Even their twin-born doom, Their native air of life, a carrion fume, Their natural breath of love, a noisome smoke, The bread they break, the cup whereof they drink, The record whose remembrance d.a.m.ns their name, Smells, tastes, and sounds of nothing but of shame.

If thankfulness nor pity bids them think What work is this of theirs, and pause betimes, Not Shakespeare's grave would scare them off with rhymes.

_LOVE AND SCORN._

I.

Love, loyallest and lordliest born of things, Immortal that shouldst be, though all else end, In plighted hearts of fearless friend with friend, Whose hand may curb or clip thy plume-plucked wings?

Not grief's nor time's: though these be lords and kings Crowned, and their yoke bid va.s.sal pa.s.sions bend, They may not pierce the spirit of sense, or blend Quick poison with the soul's live watersprings.

The true clear heart whose core is manful trust Fears not that very death may turn to dust Love lit therein as toward a brother born, If one touch make not all its fine gold rust, If one breath blight not all its glad ripe corn, And all its fire be turned to fire of scorn.

II.

Scorn only, scorn begot of bitter proof By keen experience of a trustless heart, Bears burning in her new-born hand the dart Wherewith love dies heart-stricken, and the roof Falls of his palace, and the storied woof Long woven of many a year with life's whole art Is rent like any rotten weed apart, And hardly with reluctant eyes aloof Cold memory guards one relic scarce exempt Yet from the fierce corrosion of contempt, And hardly saved by pity. Woe are we That once we loved, and love not; but we know The ghost of love, surviving yet in show, Where scorn has pa.s.sed, is vain as grief must be.