Ionica Part 6

And when the sun and day-breeze fell, She kept with him the vigil of despair; Knit hands for comfort, blended sounds of prayer, Saw him at dawn face death, and take farewell;

Saw him grow holier through his grief, The early grief that lined his withering brow, As one by one her stars were quenched. And now He that so mourned can play, though life is brief;

Not gay, but gracious; plain of speech, And freely kindling under beauty's ray, He dares to speak of what he loves; to-day He talked of art, and led me on to teach,

And glanced, as poets glance, at pages Full of bright Florence and warm Umbrian skies; Not slighting modern greatness, for the wise Can sort the treasures of the circling ages;

Not echoing the sickly praise, Which boys repeat, who hear a father's guest Prate of the London show-rooms; what is best He firmly lights upon, as birds on sprays;

All honest, and all delicate: No room for flattery, no smiles that ask For tender pleasantries, no looks that mask The genial impulses of love and hate.

Oh bards that call to bank and glen, Ye bid me go to nature to be healed!

And lo! a purer fount is here revealed: My lady-nature dwells in heart of men.

MERCURIALIA

Sweet eyes, that aim a level shaft At pleasure flying from afar, Sweet lips, just parted for a draught Of Hebe's nectar, shall I mar By stress of disciplinary craft The joys that in your freedom are?

Shall the bright Queen who rules the tide Now forward thrown, now bridled back, Smile o'er each answering smile, then hide Her grandeur in the transient rack, And yield her power, and veil her pride, And move along a ruffled track:

And shall not I give jest for jest, Though king of fancy all the while, Catch up your wishes half expressed, Endure your whimsies void of guile, Albeit with risk of such unrest As may disturb, but not defile?

Oh, twine me myrtle round the sword, Soft wit round wisdom over-keen: Let me but lead my peers, no lord With brows high arched; and lofty mien, Set comrades round my council board For bold debates, with jousts between.

There quiver lips, there glisten eyes, There throb young hearts with generous hope; Thence, playmates, rise for high emprize; For, though he fail, yet shall ye cope With worldling wrapped in silken lies, With pedant, hypocrite, and pope.

REPARABO

The world will rob me of my friends, For time with her conspires; But they shall both to make amends Relight my slumbering fires.

For while my comrades pa.s.s away To bow and smirk and gloze, Come others, for as short a stay; And dear are these as those.

And who was this? they ask; and then The loved and lost I praise: "Like you they frolicked; they are men: "Bless ye my later days."

Why fret? the hawks I trained are flown: 'Twas nature bade them range; I could not keep their wings half-grown, I could not bar the change.

With lattice opened wide I stand To watch their eager flight; With broken jesses in my hand I muse on their delight.

And, oh! if one with sullied plume Should droop in mid career, My love makes signals:--"There is room, Oh bleeding wanderer, here."

A BIRTHDAY

The graces marked the hour, when thou Didst leave thine ante-natal rest, Without a cry to heave a breast Which never ached from then till now.

That vivid soul then first unsealed Would be, they knew, a torch to wave Within a chill and dusky cave Whose crystals else were unrevealed.

That fine small mouth they wreathed so well In rosy curves, would rouse to arms A troop then bound in slumber-charms; Such notes they gave the magic sh.e.l.l.

Those straying fingerlets, that clutched At good and bad, they so did glove, That they might pick the flowers of love, Unscathed, from every briar they touched.

The bounteous sisters did ordain, That thou one day with jest and whim Should'st rain thy merriment on him Whose life, when thou wert born, was pain.

For haply on that night they spied A sickly student at his books, Who having basked in loving looks Was freezing into barren pride.

His squalid discontent they saw, And, for that he had worshipped them With incense and with anadem, They willed his wintry world should thaw;

And at thy cradle did decree That fifteen years should pa.s.s, and thou Should'st breathe upon that pallid brow Favonian airs of mirth and glee.

A NEW YEAR'S DAY

Our planet runs through liquid s.p.a.ce, And sweeps us with her in the race; And wrinkles gather on my face, And Hebe bloom on thine: Our sun with his encircling spheres Around the central sun careers; And unto thee with mustering years Come hopes which I resign.

'Twere sweet for me to keep thee still Reclining halfway up the hill; But time will not obey the will, And onward thou must climb: 'Twere sweet to pause on this descent, To wait for thee and pitch my tent, But march I must with shoulders bent, Yet farther from my prime.

I shall not tread thy battle-field, Nor see the blazon on thy shield; Take thou the sword I could not wield, And leave me, and forget Be fairer, braver, more admired; So win what feeble hearts desired; Then leave thine arms, when thou art tired, To some one n.o.bler yet.

A CRUISE

Your princely progress is begun; And pillowed on the bounding deck You break with dark brown hair a sun That falls transfigured on your neck.

Sail on, and charm sun, wind, and sea.

Oh! might that love-light rest on me!

Vacantly lingering with the hours, The sacred hours that still remain From that rich month of fruits and flowers Which brought you near me once again, By thoughts of you, though roses die, I strive to make it still July.

Soft waves are strown beneath your prow, Like carpets for a victor's feet; You call slow zephyrs to your brow, In listless luxury complete: Love, the true Halcyon, guides your ship; Oh, might his pinion touch my lip!

I by the shrunken river stroll; And changed, since I was left alone, With tangled weed and rising shoal, The loss I mourn he seems to own: This is, how base soe'er his sloth, This is the stream that bore us both.

For you shall granite peaks uprise As old and scornful as your race, And fringed with firths of lucent dyes The jewelled beach your limbs embrace.

Oh bather, may those Western gems Remind you of my lilied Thames.

I too have seen the castled West, Her Cornish creeks, her Breton ports, Her caves by knees of hermits pressed, Her fairy islets bright with quartz: And dearer now each well-known scene, For what shall be than what hath been.