Andromeda and Other Poems Part 3

Eversley, 1845.

CHILD BALLAD

Jesus, He loves one and all, Jesus, He loves children small, Their souls are waiting round His feet On high, before His mercy-seat.

While He wandered here below Children small to Him did go, At His feet they knelt and prayed, On their heads His hands He laid.

Came a Spirit on them then, Better than of mighty men, A Spirit faithful, pure and mild, A Spirit fit for king and child.

Oh! that Spirit give to me, Jesu Lord, where'er I be!

1847.

AIRLY BEACON

Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon; Oh the pleasant sight to see Shires and towns from Airly Beacon, While my love climbed up to me!

Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon; Oh the happy hours we lay Deep in fern on Airly Beacon, Courting through the summer's day!

Airly Beacon, Airly Beacon; Oh the weary haunt for me, All alone on Airly Beacon, With his baby on my knee!

1847.

SAPPHO

She lay among the myrtles on the cliff; Above her glared the noon; beneath, the sea.

Upon the white horizon Atho's peak Weltered in burning haze; all airs were dead; The cicale slept among the tamarisk's hair; The birds sat dumb and drooping. Far below The lazy sea-weed glistened in the sun; The lazy sea-fowl dried their steaming wings; The lazy swell crept whispering up the ledge, And sank again. Great Pan was laid to rest; And Mother Earth watched by him as he slept, And hushed her myriad children for a while.

She lay among the myrtles on the cliff; And sighed for sleep, for sleep that would not hear, But left her tossing still; for night and day A mighty hunger yearned within her heart, Till all her veins ran fever; and her cheek, Her long thin hands, and ivory-channelled feet, Were wasted with the wasting of her soul.

Then peevishly she flung her on her face, And hid her eyeb.a.l.l.s from the blinding glare, And fingered at the gra.s.s, and tried to cool Her crisp hot lips against the crisp hot sward: And then she raised her head, and upward cast Wild looks from homeless eyes, whose liquid light Gleamed out between deep folds of blue-black hair, As gleam twin lakes between the purple peaks Of deep Parna.s.sus, at the mournful moon.

Beside her lay her lyre. She s.n.a.t.c.hed the sh.e.l.l, And waked wild music from its silver strings; Then tossed it sadly by.--'Ah, hush!' she cries; 'Dead offspring of the tortoise and the mine!

Why mock my discords with thine harmonies?

Although a thrice-Olympian lot be thine, Only to echo back in every tone The moods of n.o.bler natures than thine own.'

Eversley, 1847 From Yeast.

THE BAD SQUIRE

The merry brown hares came leaping Over the crest of the hill, Where the clover and corn lay sleeping Under the moonlight still.

Leaping late and early, Till under their bite and their tread The swedes and the wheat and the barley Lay cankered and trampled and dead.

A poacher's widow sat sighing On the side of the white chalk bank, Where under the gloomy fir-woods One spot in the ley throve rank.

She watched a long tuft of clover, Where rabbit or hare never ran; For its black sour haulm covered over The blood of a murdered man.

She thought of the dark plantation, And the hares, and her husband's blood, And the voice of her indignation Rose up to the throne of G.o.d.

'I am long past wailing and whining-- I have wept too much in my life: I've had twenty years of pining As an English labourer's wife.

'A labourer in Christian England, Where they cant of a Saviour's name, And yet waste men's lives like the vermin's For a few more brace of game.

'There's blood on your new foreign shrubs, squire, There's blood on your pointer's feet; There's blood on the game you sell, squire, And there's blood on the game you eat.

'You have sold the labouring-man, squire, Body and soul to shame, To pay for your seat in the House, squire, And to pay for the feed of your game.

'You made him a poacher yourself, squire, When you'd give neither work nor meat, And your barley-fed hares robbed the garden At our starving children's feet;

'When, packed in one reeking chamber, Man, maid, mother, and little ones lay; While the rain pattered in on the rotting bride-bed, And the walls let in the day.

'When we lay in the burning fever On the mud of the cold clay floor, Till you parted us all for three months, squire, At the dreary workhouse door.

'We quarrelled like brutes, and who wonders?

What self-respect could we keep, Worse housed than your hacks and your pointers, Worse fed than your hogs and your sheep?

'Our daughters with base-born babies Have wandered away in their shame, If your misses had slept, squire, where they did, Your misses might do the same.

'Can your lady patch hearts that are breaking With handfuls of coals and rice, Or by dealing out flannel and sheeting A little below cost price?

'You may tire of the jail and the workhouse, And take to allotments and schools, But you've run up a debt that will never Be paid us by penny-club rules.

'In the season of shame and sadness, In the dark and dreary day, When scrofula, gout, and madness Are eating your race away;

'When to kennels and liveried varlets You have cast your daughter's bread, And, worn out with liquor and harlots, Your heir at your feet lies dead;

'When your youngest, the mealy-mouthed rector, Lets your soul rot asleep to the grave, You will find in your G.o.d the protector Of the freeman you fancied your slave.'

She looked at the tuft of clover, And wept till her heart grew light; And at last, when her pa.s.sion was over, Went wandering into the night.

But the merry brown hares came leaping Over the uplands still, Where the clover and corn lay sleeping On the side of the white chalk hill.

Eversley, 1847.

From Yeast.