The Germ Part 28

Now while the air is warm, the heavens blue, Give full abandonment to all your gay Swift childlike impulses in rompish play;-- The while your sisters in shrill laughter shout, Whirling above the leaves and round about,-- Until at length it drops behind the wall,-- With awkward jerks, the particoloured ball: Winning a smile even from the stooping age Of that old matron leaning on her page, Who in the orchard takes a stroll or two, Watching you closely yet unseen by you.

Then, tired of gambols, turn into the dark Fir-skirted margins of your father's park; And watch the moving shadows, as you pa.s.s, Trace their dim network on the tufted gra.s.s, And how on birch-trunks smooth and branches old, The velvet moss bursts out in green and gold, Like the rich l.u.s.tre full and manifold On b.r.e.a.s.t.s of birds that star the curtained gloom From their gla.s.s cases in the drawing room.

Mark the spring leaf.a.ge bend its tender spray Gracefully on the sky's aerial grey; And listen how the birds so voluble Sing joyful paeans winding to a swell, And how the wind, fitful and mournful, grieves In gusty whirls among the dry red leaves; And watch the minnows in the water cool, And floating insects wrinkling all the pool.

So in your ramblings bend your earnest eyes.

High thoughts and feelings will come unto you,-- Gladness will fall upon your heart like dew,-- Because you love the earth and love the skies.

Fair pearl, the pride of all our family: Girt with the plenitude of joys so strong, Fashion and custom dull can do no wrong: Nestling your young face thus on Nature's knee.

"Jesus Wept"

Mary rose up, as one in sleep might rise, And went to meet her brother's Friend: and they Who tarried with her said: "she goes to pray And weep where her dead brother's body lies."

So, with their wringing of hands and with sighs, They stood before Him in the public way.

"Had'st Thou been with him, Lord, upon that day, He had not died," she said, drooping her eyes.

Mary and Martha with bowed faces kept Holding His garments, one on each side.--"Where Have ye laid him?" He asked. "Lord, come and see."

The sound of grieving voices heavily And universally was round Him there, A sound that smote His spirit. Jesus wept.

Sonnets for Pictures

1. For a Virgin and Child, by Hans Memmelinck; in the Academy of Bruges

Mystery: G.o.d, Man's Life, born into man Of woman. There abideth on her brow The ended pang of knowledge, the which now Is calm a.s.sured. Since first her task began, She hath known all. What more of anguish than Endurance oft hath lived through, the whole s.p.a.ce Through night till night, pa.s.sed weak upon her face While like a heavy flood the darkness ran?

All hath been told her touching her dear Son, And all shall be accomplished. Where he sits Even now, a babe, he holds the symbol fruit Perfect and chosen. Until G.o.d permits, His soul's elect still have the absolute Harsh nether darkness, and make painful moan.

2. A Marriage of St. Katharine, by the same; in the Hospital of St.

John at Bruges.

Mystery: Katharine, the bride of Christ.

She kneels, and on her hand the holy Child Setteth the ring. Her life is sad and mild, Laid in G.o.d's knowledge--ever unenticed From Him, and in the end thus fitly priced.

Awe, and the music that is near her, wrought Of Angels, hath possessed her eyes in thought: Her utter joy is her's, and hath sufficed.

There is a pause while Mary Virgin turns The leaf, and reads. With eyes on the spread book, That damsel at her knees reads after her.

John whom He loved and John His harbinger Listen and watch. Whereon soe'er thou look, The light is starred in gems, and the gold burns.

3. A Dance of Nymphs, by Andrea Mantegna; in the Louvre.

(It is necessary to mention, that this picture would appear to have been in the artist's mind an allegory, which the modern spectator may seek vainly to interpret.)

Scarcely, I think; yet it indeed _may_ be The meaning reached him, when this music rang Sharp through his brain, a distinct rapid pang, And he beheld these rocks and that ridg'd sea.

But I believe he just leaned pa.s.sively, And felt their hair carried across his face As each nymph pa.s.sed him; nor gave ear to trace How many feet; nor bent a.s.suredly His eyes from the blind fixedness of thought To see the dancers. It is bitter glad Even unto tears. Its meaning filleth it, A portion of most secret life: to wit:-- Each human pulse shall keep the sense it had With all, though the mind's labour run to nought.

4. A Venetian Pastoral, by Giorgione; in the Louvre.

(In this picture, two cavaliers and an undraped woman are seated in the gra.s.s, with musical instruments, while another woman dips a vase into a well hard by, for water.)

Water, for anguish of the solstice,--yea, Over the vessel's mouth still widening Listlessly dipt to let the water in With slow vague gurgle. Blue, and deep away, The heat lies silent at the brink of day.

Now the hand trails upon the viol-string That sobs; and the brown faces cease to sing, Mournful with complete pleasure. Her eyes stray In distance; through her lips the pipe doth creep And leaves them pouting; the green shadowed gra.s.s Is cool against her naked flesh. Let be: Do not now speak unto her lest she weep,-- Nor name this ever. Be it as it was:-- Silence of heat, and solemn poetry.

5. "Angelica rescued from the Sea-monster," by Ingres; in the Luxembourg.

A remote sky, prolonged to the sea's brim: One rock-point standing buffetted alone, Vexed at its base with a foul beast unknown, h.e.l.l-spurge of geomaunt and teraphim: A knight, and a winged creature bearing him, Reared at the rock: a woman fettered there, Leaning into the hollow with loose hair And throat let back and heartsick trail of limb.

The sky is harsh, and the sea shrewd and salt.

Under his lord, the griffin-horse ramps blind With rigid wings and tail. The spear's lithe stem Thrills in the roaring of those jaws: behind, The evil length of body chafes at fault.

She doth not hear nor see--she knows of them.

6. The same.

Clench thine eyes now,--'tis the last instant, girl: Draw in thy senses, set thy knees, and take One breath for all: thy life is keen awake,-- Thou may'st not swoon. Was that the scattered whirl Of its foam drenched thee?--or the waves that curl And split, bleak spray wherein thy temples ache?-- Or was it his the champion's blood to flake Thy flesh?--Or thine own blood's anointing, girl?....

....Now, silence; for the sea's is such a sound As irks not silence; and except the sea, All is now still. Now the dead thing doth cease To writhe, and drifts. He turns to her: and she Cast from the jaws of Death, remains there, bound, Again a woman in her nakedness.

Papers of "The M. S. Society"

No. IV. Smoke.

I'm the king of the _Cadaverals_, I'm _Spectral_ President; And, all from east to occident, There's not a man whose dermal walls Contain so narrow intervals, So lank a resident.

Look at me and you shall see The ghastliest of the ghastly; The eyes that have watched a thousand years, The forehead lined with a thousand cares, The seaweed-character of hairs!-- You shall see and you shall see, Or you may hear, as I can feel, When the winds batter, how these _parchments_ clatter, And the beautiful tenor that's ever ringing When thro' the _Seaweed_ the breeze is singing: And you should know, I know a great deal, When the _bacchi arcanum_ I clutch and gripe, I know a great deal of wind and weather By hearing my own cheeks slap together A-pulling up a pipe.

I believe--and I conceive I'm an authority In all things ghastly, First for tenuity For stringiness secondly, And sallowness lastly-- I say I believe a cadaverous man Who would live as _long_ and as _lean_ as he can Should live entirely on bacchi-- On the bacchic ambrosia entirely feed him; When living thus, so little lack I, So easy am I, I'll never heed him Who anything seeketh beyond the _Leaf:_ For, what with mumbling pipe-ends freely, And snuffing the ashes now and then, I give it as my firm belief One might go living on genteelly To the age of an antediluvian.

This from the king to each spectral _Grim_-- Mind, we address no _bibbing smoker_!

Tell not us 'tis as broad as it's long, We've no breadth more than a leathern thong Tanned--or a tarnished poker: Ye are also lank and slim?-- Your king he comes of an ancient _line_ Which "length without breadth" the G.o.ds define, And look ye follow him!

Lanky lieges! the G.o.ds one day Will cut off this _line_, as geometers say, Equal to any given line:-- PI,--PE--their hands divine Do more than we can see: They cut off every length of clay Really in a most extraordinary way-- They fill your bowls up--Dutch C'naster, s.h.a.g, York River--fill 'em faster, Fill 'em faster up, I say.

What Turkey, Oronoko, Cavendish!

There's the fuel to make a chafing dish, A chafing dish to peel the petty Paint that girls and boys call pretty-- Peel it off from lip and cheek: We've none such here; yet, if ye seek An infallible test for a raw beginner, Mundungus will always discover a sinner.

Now ye are charged, we give the word Light! and pour it thro' your noses, And let it hover and lodge in your hair Bird-like, bird-like--You're aware Anacreon had a bird-- A bird! and filled _his_ bowl with roses.

Ha ha! ye laugh in ghastlywise, And the smoke comes through your eyes, And you're looking very grim, And the air is very dim, And the casual paper flare Taketh still a redder glare.

Now thou pretty little fellow, Now thine eyes are turning yellow, Thou shalt be our page to-night!

Come and sit thee next to us, And as we may want a light See that thou be dexterous.

Now bring forth your tractates musty, Dry, cadaverous, and dusty, One, on the sound of mammoths' bones In motion; one, on Druid-stones: Show designs for pipes most ghastly, And devils and ogres grinning nastily!

Show, show the limnings ye brought back, Since round and round the zodiac Ye galloped goblin horses which Were light as smoke and black as pitch; And those ye made in the mouldy moon, And Ura.n.u.s, Saturn, and Neptune, And in the planet Mercury, Where all things living and dead have an eye Which sometimes opening suddenly Stareth and startleth strangely