The Poems of William Watson Part 13

AT THE GRAVE OF CHARLES LAMB, IN EDMONTON

Not here, O teeming City, was it meet Thy lover, thy most faithful, should repose, But where the mult.i.tudinous life-tide flows Whose ocean-murmur was to him more sweet Than melody of birds at morn, or bleat Of flocks in Spring-time, _there_ should Earth enclose His earth, amid thy thronging joys and woes, There, 'neath the music of thy million feet.

In love of thee this lover knew no peer.

Thine eastern or thy western fane had made Fit habitation for his n.o.ble shade.

Mother of mightier, nurse of none more dear, Not here, in rustic exile, O not here, Thy Elia like an alien should be laid!

LINES IN A FLYLEAF OF "CHRISTABEL"

Inhospitably hast thou entertained, O Poet, us the bidden to thy board, Whom in mid-feast, and while our thousand mouths Are one laudation of the festal cheer, Thou from thy table dost dismiss, unfilled.

Yet loudlier thee than many a lavish host We praise, and oftener thy repast half-served Than many a stintless banquet, prodigally Through satiate hours prolonged; nor praise less well Because with tongues thou hast not cloyed, and lips That mourn the parsimony of affluent souls, And mix the lamentation with the laud.

LINES TO OUR NEW CENSOR

[Mr. Oscar Wilde, having discovered that England is unworthy of him, has announced his resolve to become a naturalised Frenchman.]

And wilt thou, Oscar, from us flee, And must we, henceforth, wholly sever?

Shall thy laborious _jeux-d'esprit_ Sadden our lives no more for ever?

And all thy future wilt thou link With that brave land to which thou goest?

Unhappy France! we _used_ to think She touched, at Sedan, fortune's lowest.

And you're made French as easily As you might change the clothes you're wearing?

Fancy!--and 'tis so hard to be A man of sense and modest bearing.

May fort.i.tude beneath this blow Fail not the gallant Gallic nation!

By past experience, well we know Her genius for recuperation.

And as for us--to our disgrace, Your stricture's truth must be conceded: Would any but a stupid race Have made the fuss about you _we_ did?

RELUCTANT SUMMER

Reluctant Summer! once, a maid Full easy of access, In many a bee-frequented shade Thou didst thy lover bless.

Divinely unreproved I played, Then, with each liberal tress-- And art thou grown at last afraid Of some too close caress?

Or deem'st that if thou shouldst abide My pa.s.sion might decay?

Thou leav'st me pining and denied, Coyly thou say'st me nay.

Ev'n as I woo thee to my side, Thou, importuned to stay, Like Orpheus' half-recovered bride Ebb'st from my arms away.

THE GREAT MISGIVING

"Not ours," say some, "the thought of death to dread; Asking no heaven, we fear no fabled h.e.l.l: Life is a feast, and we have banqueted-- Shall not the worms as well?

"The after-silence, when the feast is o'er, And void the places where the minstrels stood, Differs in nought from what hath been before, And is nor ill nor good."

Ah, but the Apparition--the dumb sign-- The beckoning finger bidding me forego The fellowship, the converse, and the wine, The songs, the festal glow!

And ah, to know not, while with friends I sit, And while the purple joy is pa.s.sed about, Whether 'tis ampler day divinelier lit Or homeless night without;

And whether, stepping forth, my soul shall see New prospects, or fall sheer--a blinded thing!

_There_ is, O grave, thy hourly victory, And there, O death, thy sting.

"THE THINGS THAT ARE MORE EXCELLENT"

As we wax older on this earth, Till many a toy that charmed us seems Emptied of beauty, stripped of worth, And mean as dust and dead as dreams,-- For gauds that perished, shows that pa.s.sed, Some recompense the Fates have sent: Thrice lovelier shine the things that last, The things that are more excellent.

Tired of the Senate's barren brawl, An hour with silence we prefer, Where statelier rise the woods than all Yon towers of talk at Westminster.

Let this man prate and that man plot, On fame or place or t.i.tle bent: The votes of veering crowds are not The things that are more excellent.

Shall we perturb and vex our soul For "wrongs" which no true freedom mar, Which no man's upright walk control, And from no guiltless deed debar?

What odds though tonguesters heal, or leave Unhealed, the grievance they invent?

To things, not phantoms, let us cleave-- The things that are more excellent.

Nought n.o.bler is, than to be free: The stars of heaven are free because In amplitude of liberty Their joy is to obey the laws.

From servitude to freedom's _name_ Free thou thy mind in bondage pent; Depose the fetich, and proclaim The things that are more excellent.

And in appropriate dust be hurled That dull, punctilious G.o.d, whom they That call their tiny clan the world, Serve and obsequiously obey: Who con their ritual of Routine, With minds to one dead likeness blent, And never ev'n in dreams have seen The things that are more excellent.

To dress, to call, to dine, to break No canon of the social code, The little laws that lacqueys make, The futile decalogue of Mode,-- How many a soul for these things lives, With pious pa.s.sion, grave intent!

While Nature careless-handed gives The things that are more excellent.

To hug the wealth ye cannot use, And lack the riches all may gain,-- O blind and wanting wit to choose, Who house the chaff and burn the grain!

And still doth life with starry towers Lure to the bright, divine ascent!-- Be yours the things ye would: be ours The things that are more excellent.

The grace of friendship--mind and heart Linked with their fellow heart and mind; The gains of science, gifts of art; The sense of oneness with our kind; The thirst to know and understand-- A large and liberal discontent: These are the goods in life's rich hand, The things that are more excellent.

In faultless rhythm the ocean rolls, A rapturous silence thrills the skies; And on this earth are lovely souls, That softly look with aidful eyes.

Though dark, O G.o.d, Thy course and track, I think Thou must at least have meant That nought which lives should wholly lack The things that are more excellent.

BEAUTY'S METEMPSYCHOSIS

That beauty such as thine Can die indeed, Were ordinance too wantonly malign: No wit may reconcile so cold a creed With beauty such as thine.

From wave and star and flower Some effluence rare Was lent thee, a divine but transient dower: Thou yield'st it back from eyes and lips and hair To wave and star and flower.

Shouldst thou to-morrow die, Thou still shalt be Found in the rose and met in all the sky: And from the ocean's heart shalt sing to me, Shouldst thou to-morrow die.