The Pre-Raphaelites- From Rossetti to Ruskin
Page 8
A hush along the ground,
110 And all sound with the sunlight seemed to leave.
By my still gaze she must have known
The mighty bliss that filled
My whole soul, for she thrilled,
Drooping her face, flushed, on my own;
115 I felt that it was such
By its light warmth of touch,
My lady was with me alone:
That vague sensation brought
More real joy than thought.
120 I am without her now, truly alone.
We had no heed of time: the cause
Was that our minds were quite
Absorbed in our delight,
Silently blessed. Such stillness awes,
125 And stops with doubt, the breath,
Like the mute doom of death.
I felt Time’s instantaneous pause;
An instant, on my eye
Flashed all Eternity: –
130 I started, as if clutched by wild beasts’ claws,
Awakened from some dizzy swoon:
I felt strange vacant fears,
With singings in my ears,
And wondered that the pallid moon
135 Swung round the dome of night
With such tremendous might.
A sweetness, like the air of June,
Next paled me with suspense,
A weight of clinging sense –
140 Some hidden evil would burst on me soon.
My lady’s love has passed away,
To know that it is so
To me is living woe.
That body lies in cold decay,
145 Which held the vital soul
When she was my life’s soul.
Bitter mockery it was to say –
‘Our souls are as the same:’
My words now sting like shame;
150 Her spirit went, and mine did not obey.
It was as if a fiery dart
Passed seething thro’ my brain
When I beheld her lain
There whence in life she did not part.
155 Her beauty by degrees,
Sank, sharpened with disease:
The heavy sinking at her heart
Sucked hollows in her cheek,
And made her eyelids weak,
160 Tho’ oft they’d open wide with sudden start.
The deathly power in silence drew
My lady’s life away.
I watched, dumb with dismay,
The shock of thrills that quivered thro’
165 And tightened every limb:
For grief my eyes grew dim;
More near, more near, the moment grew.
O horrible suspense!
O giddy impotence!
170 I saw her fingers lax, and change their hue.
Her gaze, grown large with fate, was cast
Where my mute agonies
Made more sad her sad eyes:
Her breath caught with short plucks and fast: –
175 Then one hot choking strain.
She never breathed again:
I had the look which was her last:
Even after breath was gone,
Her love one moment shone, –
180 Then slowly closed, and hope for ever passed.
Silence seemed to start in space
When first the bell’s harsh toll
Rang for my lady’s soul.
Vitality was hell; her grace
185 The shadow of a dream:
Things then did scarcely seem:
Oblivion’s stroke fell like a mace:
As a tree that’s just hewn
I dropped, in a dead swoon,
190 And lay a long time cold upon my face.
Earth had one quarter turned before
My miserable fate
Pressed on with its whole weight.
My sense came back; and, shivering o’er,
195 I felt a pain to bear
The sun’s keen cruel glare;
It seemed not warm as heretofore.
Oh, never more its rays
Will satisfy my gaze.
200 No more; no more; oh, never any more.
O When and Where
All knowledge hath taught me,
All sorrow hath brought me,
Are smothered sighs
That pleasure lies,
5 Like the last gleam of evening’s ray,
So far and far away, – far away.
Under the cold moist herbs
No wind the calm disturbs.
O when and where?
10 Nor here nor there.
Grass cools my face, grief heats my heart.
Will this life I swoon with never part?
Emblems
I lay through one long afternoon,
Vacantly plucking the grass.
I lay on my back, with steadfast gaze
Watching the cloud-shapes pass;
5 Until the evening’s chilly damps
Rose from the hollows below,
Where the cold marsh-reeds grow.
I saw the sun sink down behind
The high point of a mountain;
10 Its last light lingered on the weeds
That choked a shattered fountain,
Where lay a rotting bird, whose plumes
Had beat the air in soaring.
On these things I was poring: –
15 The sun seemed like my sense of life,
Now weak, that was so strong;
The fountain – that continual pulse
Which throbbed with human song:
The bird lay dead as that wild hope
20 Which nerved my thoughts when young.
These symbols had a tongue,
And told the dreary lengths of years
I must drag my weight with me;
Or be like a mastless ship stuck fast
25 On a deep, stagnant sea.
A man on a dangerous height alone,
If suddenly struck blind,
Will never his home path find.
When divers plunge for ocean’s pearls,
30 And chance to strike a rock,
Who plunged with greatest force below
Receives the heaviest shock.
With nostrils wide and breath drawn in,
I rushed resolved on the race;
35 Then, stumbling, fell in the chase.
Yet with time’s cycles forests swell
Where stretched a desert plain:
Time’s cycles make the mountains rise
Where heaved the restless main:
40 On swamps where moped the lonely stork,
In the silent lapse of time
Stands a city in its prime.
I thought: then saw the broadening shade
Grow slowly over the mound,
45 That reached with one long level slope
Down to a rich vineyard ground:
The air about lay still and hushed,
As if in serious thought;
But I scarcely heeded aught,
50 Till I heard, hard by, a thrush break forth,
Shouting with his whole voice,
So that he made the distant air
And the things around rejoice,
My soul gushed, for the sound awoke
55 Memories of early joy:
I sobbed like a chidden boy.
JOHN TUPPER
A Sketch from Nature
The air blows pure, for twenty miles,
Over this vast countrié:
Over hill and wood and vale, it goeth,
Over steeple, and stack, and tree:
5 And there’s not a bird on the wind but knoweth
How sweet these meadows be.
The swallows are flying beside the wood,
And the corbies are hoarsely crying;
And the sun at the end of the earth hath stood,
10 And, thorough the hedge and over the road,
On t
he grassy slope is lying:
And the sheep are taking their supper-food
While yet the rays are dying.
Sleepy shadows are filling the furrows,
15 And giant-long shadows the trees are making;
And velvet soft are the woodland tufts,
And misty-grey the low-down crofts;
But the aspens there have gold-green tops,
And the gold-green tops are shaking:
20 The spires are white in the sun’s last light; –
And yet a moment ere he drops,
Gazes the sun on the golden slopes.
Two sheep, afar from fold,
Are on the hill-side straying,
25 With backs all silver, breasts all gold:
The merle is something saying,
Something very very sweet: –
‘The day – the day – the day is done:’
There answereth a single bleat –
30 The air is cold, the sky is dimming,
And clouds are long like fishes swimming.
Viola and Olivia
When Viola, a servant of the Duke,
Of him she loved the page, went, sent by him,
To tell Olivia that great love which shook
His breast and stopt his tongue; was it a whim,
5 Or jealousy or fear that she must look
Upon the face of that Olivia?
’Tis hard to say if it were whim or fear
Or jealousy, but it was natural,
As natural as what came next, the near
10 Intelligence of hearts: Olivia
Loveth, her eye abused by a thin wall
Of custom, but her spirit’s eyes were clear.
Clear? we have oft been curious to know
The after-fortunes of those lovers dear;
15 Having a steady faith some deed must show
That they were married souls – unmarried here –
Having an inward faith that love, called so
In verity, is of the spirit, clear
20 Of earth and dress and sex – it may be near
What Viola returned Olivia?
A Quiet Evening
From mere ennui the very cat
Walked out – it was so precious flat.
Due on the sofa Gabriel sat,
And next to him was Stephens found;
5 I think, but am not certain, that
The fender William’s legs were round.
However, all was drowsy, mild,
And nothing like to break the charm,
Though John essayed in some alarm
10 To read his latest muse-born child;
Then Gabriel moved his active arm,
And some believe that Stephens smiled.
But certain ’tis that Aleck, who
Had watched that arm, as anglers do
15 Their quiet float, an hour or two,
Was pleased to find it move at last.
He therefore filled his pipe anew,
And doubled the mundungus blast.
The poem yet went on and on:
20 The poet kept his eyes upon
The paper till the piece was done;
And then the coke-fire’s roof fell in.
Another accident, which one
Should mention, William scorched his shin.
25 And nothing more till supper time:
Except that Gabriel read a rhyme
Of Hell and Heaven and ghosts and crime
That gave the room a kind of chill,
And rapture followed – so sublime
30 That forty minutes all was still.
Till all the solemn company
Went down to supper – verily
The supper went off quietly.
Trying to talk was all in vain:
35 And then we went up silently
Into the lonesome room again.
Oh was it quiet? I can swear
I heard the separate gas lights flare,
The creak of the vibrating chair
40 The balanced Aleck swung upon:
The balanced Aleck swinging there
Knew it, and so went swinging on.
Six men, each seated in his seat,
With body, arms, and legs complete –
45 A passive mass of flesh, alack!
That none but human cattle make!
The wonder was that they could meet
So silent and so long awake.
But Gabriel coiled himself, at last,
50 Upon the sofa – Stephens cast
His weary arms out, William past
A thoughtful hand across his eyes,
And George has blown a fainter blast
To listen till the snores arise.
55 And somewhat quickly they arose –
He could distinguish Gabriel’s nose
From William’s mouth in sweet repose,
Whose measured murmurs now began;
While John L. Tupper, half in dose,
60 Was crooning as he only can.
And Stephens – no, he took to flight
Before he slept. Then Aleck’s sight
Denied his pipe was yet alight;
He put it down and grimly stared,
65 Then crammed it to the muzzle tight,
And listened – that was all he dared.
For not a waking P.R.B.
Was left; a blinding mystery
Of smoke was over all the three
70 Enduring souls that kept awake.
They listened – ’twas the harmony
Of cats! – or there was some mistake.
Then looking on the garden plot
Without, they verified the not
75 Unwelcome fact: the cats had got
Convivial, sure enough; and we
Could recognize friend Thomas hot
In mirth-like Burns ‘among the three.’
But if the cats held conference,
80 What then? We might not make pretence
To such – witness the prudent sense
Of Stephens getting up to go.
I’d give my cat the preference,
Who left us somewhat sooner, though.
WALTER HOWELL DEVERELL
The Sight Beyond
I
Though we may brood with keenest subtlety,
Sending our reason forth, like Noah’s dove,
To know why we are here to die, hate, love,
With Hope to lead and help our eyes to see
5 Through labour daily in dim mystery,
Like those who in dense theatre and hall,
When fire breaks out or weight-strained rafters fall,
Towards some egress struggle doubtfully;
Though we through silent midnight may address
10 The mind to many a speculative page,
Yearning to solve our wrongs and wretchedness,
Yet duty and wise passiveness are won, –
(So it hath been and is from age to age) –
Though we be blind, by doubting not the sun.
II
Bear on to death serenely, day by day,
Midst losses, gains, toil, and monotony,
The ignorance of social apathy,
And artifice which men to men display:
5 Like one who tramps a long and lonely way
Under the constant rain’s inclemency,
With vast clouds drifting in obscurity,
And sudden lightnings in the welkin grey.
To-morrow may be bright with healthy pleasure,
10 Banishing discontents and vain defiance:
The pearly clouds will pass to a slow measure,
Wayfarers walk the dusty road in joyance,
The wide heaths spread far in the sun’s alliance,
Among the furze inviting us to leisure.
III
Vanity, say they, quoting him of old.
Yet, if full knowledge lifted us serene
To look beyond mortality
’s stern screen,
A reconciling vision could be told,
5 Brighter than western clouds or shapes of gold
That change in amber fires, – or the demesne
Of ever mystic sleep. Mists intervene,
Which then would melt, to show our eyesight bold
From God a perfect chain throughout the skies,
10 Like Jacob’s ladder light with winged men.
And as this world, all notched to terrene eyes
With Alpine ranges, smoothes to higher ken,
So death and sin and social miseries;
By God fixed as His bow o’er moor and fen.
A Modern Idyl
‘Pride clings to age, for few and withered powers,
Which fall on youth in pleasures manifold,
Like some bright dancer with a crowd of flowers
And scented presents more than she can hold:
5 ‘Or as it were a child beneath a tree,
Who in his healthy joy holds hand and cap
Beneath the shaken boughs, and eagerly
Expects the fruit to fall into his lap.’
So thought I while my cousin sat alone,
10 Moving with many leaves in under tone,
And, sheened as snow lit by a pale moonlight,
Her childish dress struck clearly on the sight:
That, as the lilies growing by her side
Casting their silver radiance forth with pride,
15 She seemed to dart an arrowy halo round,
Brightening the spring time trees, brightening the ground;
And beauty, like keen lustre from a star,
Glorified all the garden near and far.
The sunlight smote the grey and mossy wall
20 Where, ’mid the leaves, the peaches one and all,
Most like twin cherubim entranced above,
Leaned their soft cheeks together, pressed in love.
As the child sat, the tendrils shook round her;
And, blended tenderly in middle air,
25 Gleamed the long orchard through the ivied gate:
And slanting sunbeams made the heart elate,
Startling it into gladness like the sound, –