The Poems of William Watson Part 2

Unto the Lady of The Nook Fly, tiny book.

There thou hast lovers--even thou!

Fly thither now.

Seven years hast thou for honour yearned, And scant praise earned; But ah! to win, at last, _such_ friends, Is full amends.

ON EXAGGERATED DEFERENCE TO FOREIGN LITERARY OPINION

What! and shall _we_, with such submissive airs As age demands in reverence from the young, Await these crumbs of praise from Europe flung, And doubt of our own greatness till it bears The signet of your Goethes or Voltaires?

We who alone in latter times have sung With scarce less power than Arno's exiled tongue-- We who are Milton's kindred, Shakespeare's heirs.

The prize of lyric victory who shall gain If ours be not the laurel, ours the palm?

More than the froth and flotsam of the Seine, More than your Hugo-flare against the night, And more than Weimar's proud elaborate calm, One flash of Byron's lightning, Wordsworth's light.

ENGLAND TO IRELAND

(FEBRUARY 1888)

Spouse whom my sword in the olden time won me, Winning me hatred more sharp than a sword-- Mother of children who hiss at or shun me, Curse or revile me, and hold me abhorred-- Heiress of anger that nothing a.s.suages, Mad for the future, and mad from the past-- Daughter of all the implacable ages, Lo, let us turn and be lovers at last!

Lovers whom tragical sin hath made equal, One in transgression and one in remorse.

Bonds may be severed, but what were the sequel?

Hardly shall amity come of divorce.

Let the dead Past have a royal entombing, O'er it the Future built white for a fane!

I that am haughty from much overcoming Sue to thee, supplicate--nay, is it vain?

Hate and mistrust are the children of blindness,-- Could we but see one another, 'twere well!

Knowledge is sympathy, charity, kindness, Ignorance only is maker of h.e.l.l.

Could we but gaze for an hour, for a minute, Deep in each other's unfaltering eyes, Love were begun--for that look would begin it-- Born in the flash of a mighty surprise.

Then should the ominous night-bird of Error, Scared by a sudden irruption of day, Flap his maleficent wings, and in terror Flit to the wilderness, dropping his prey.

Then should we, growing in strength and in sweetness, Fusing to one indivisible soul, Dazzle the world with a splendid completeness, Mightily single, immovably whole.

Thou, like a flame when the stormy winds fan it, I, like a rock to the elements bare,-- Mixed by love's magic, the fire and the granite, Who should compete with us, what should compare?

Strong with a strength that no fate might dissever, One with a oneness no force could divide, So were we married and mingled for ever, Lover with lover, and bridegroom with bride.

MENSIS LACRIMARUM

(MARCH 1885)

March, that comes roaring, maned, with rampant paws, And bleatingly withdraws; March,--'tis the year's fantastic nondescript, That, born when frost hath nipped The shivering fields, or tempest scarred the hills, Dies crowned with daffodils.

The month of the renewal of the earth By mingled death and birth: But, England! in this latest of thy years Call it--the Month of Tears.

"UNDER THE DARK AND PINY STEEP"

Under the dark and piny steep We watched the storm crash by: We saw the bright brand leap and leap Out of the shattered sky.

The elements were minist'ring To make one mortal blest; For, peal by peal, you did but cling The closer to his breast.

THE BLIND SUMMIT

[A Viennese gentleman, who had climbed the Hoch-Konig without a guide, was found dead, in a sitting posture, near the summit, upon which he had written, "It is cold, and clouds shut out the view."--_Vide_ the _Daily News_ of September 10, 1891.]

So mounts the child of ages of desire, Man, up the steeps of Thought; and would behold Yet purer peaks, touched with unearthlier fire, In sudden prospect virginally new; But on the lone last height he sighs: "'Tis cold, And clouds shut out the view."

Ah, doom of mortals! Vexed with phantoms old, Old phantoms that waylay us and pursue,-- Weary of dreams,--we think to see unfold The eternal landscape of the Real and True; And on our Pisgah can but write: "'Tis cold, And clouds shut out the view."

TO LORD TENNYSON

(WITH A VOLUME OF VERSE)

Master and mage, our prince of song, whom Time, In this your autumn mellow and serene, Crowns ever with fresh laurels, nor less green Than garlands dewy from your verdurous prime; Heir of the riches of the whole world's rhyme, Dow'r'd with the Doric grace, the Mantuan mien, With Arno's depth and Avon's golden sheen; Singer to whom the singing ages climb, Convergent;--if the youngest of the choir May s.n.a.t.c.h a flying splendour from your name Making his page ill.u.s.trious, and aspire For one rich moment your regard to claim, Suffer him at your feet to lay his lyre And touch the skirts and fringes of your fame.

SKETCH OF A POLITICAL CHARACTER

(1885)

There is a race of men, who master life, Their victory being inversely as their strife; Who capture by refraining from pursuit; Shake not the bough, yet load their hands with fruit; The earth's high places who attain to fill, By most indomitably sitting still.

While others, full upon the fortress hurled, Lay fiery siege to the embattled world, Of such rude arts _their_ natures feel no need; Greatly inert, they lazily succeed; Find in the golden mean their proper bliss, And doing nothing, never do amiss; But lapt in men's good graces live, and die By all regretted, n.o.body knows why.

Cast in this fortunate Olympian mould, The admirable * * * * behold; Whom naught could dazzle or mislead, unless 'Twere the wild light of fatal cautiousness; Who never takes a step from his own door But he looks backward ere he looks before.

When once he starts, it were too much to say He visibly gets farther on his way: But all allow, he ponders well his course-- For future uses h.o.a.rding present force.

The flippant deem him slow and saturnine, The summed-up phlegm of that ill.u.s.trious line; But we, his honest adversaries, who More highly prize him than his false friends do, Frankly admire that simple ma.s.s and weight-- A solid Roman pillar of the State, So inharmonious with the baser style Of neighbouring columns grafted on the pile, So proud and imperturbable and chill, Chosen and matched so excellently ill, He seems a monument of pensive grace, Ah, how pathetically out of place!

Would that some call he could not choose but heed-- Of private pa.s.sion or of public need-- At last might sting to life that slothful power, And snare him into greatness for an hour!

ART MAXIMS

Often ornateness Goes with greatness; Oftener felicity Comes of simplicity.

Talent that's cheapest Affects singularity.

Thoughts that dive deepest Rise radiant in clarity.

Life is rough: Sing smoothly, O Bard.

Enough, enough, To have _found_ life hard.