Part 6 (1/2)

A child of brighter than the morning's birth And lovelier than all smiles that may be smiled Save only of little children undefiled, Sweet, perfect, witless of their own dear worth, Live rose of love, mute melody of mirth, Glad as a bird is when the woods are mild, Adorable as is nothing save a child, Hails with wide eyes and lips his life on earth, His lovely life with all its heaven to be.

And whoso reads the name inscribed or hears Feels his own heart a frozen well of tears, Child, for deep dread and fearful pity of thee Whom G.o.d would not let rather die than see The inc.u.mbent horror of impending years.

II.

Man, that wast G.o.dlike being a child, and now, No less than kinglike, art no more in sooth For all thy grace and lordliness of youth, The crown that bids men's branded foreheads bow Much more has branded and bowed down thy brow And gnawn upon it as with fire or tooth Of steel or snake so sorely, that the truth Seems here to bear false witness. Is it thou, Child? and is all the summer of all thy spring This? are the smiles that drew men's kisses down All faded and transfigured to the frown That grieves thy face? Art thou this weary thing?

Then is no slave's load heavier than a crown And such a thrall no bondman as a king.

III.

Misery, beyond all men's most miserable, Absolute, whole, defiant of defence, Inevitable, inexplacable, intense, More vast than heaven is high, more deep than h.e.l.l, Past cure or charm of solace or of spell, Possesses and pervades the spirit and sense Whereto the expanse of the earth pays tribute; whence Breeds evil only, and broods on fumes that swell Rank from the blood of brother and mother and wife.

'Misery of miseries, all is misery,' saith The heavy fair-faced hateful head, at strife With its own l.u.s.ts that burn with feverous breath Lips which the loathsome bitterness of life Leaves fearful of the bitterness of death.

_THE RESURRECTION OF ALCILIA._

(Gratefully inscribed to Dr. A.B. Grosart.)

Sweet song-flower of the Mayspring of our song, Be welcome to us, with loving thanks and praise To his good hand who travelling on strange ways Found thee forlorn and fragrant, lain along Beneath dead leaves that many a winter's wrong Had rained and heaped through nigh three centuries' maze Above thy Maybloom, hiding from our gaze The life that in thy leaves lay sweet and strong.

For thine have life, while many above thine head Piled by the wind lie blossomless and dead.

So now disburdened of such load above That lay as death's own dust upon thee shed By days too deaf to hear thee like a dove Murmuring, we hear thee, bird and flower of love.

_THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY._

(On the refusal by the French Senate of the plenary amnesty demanded by Victor Hugo, in his speech of July 3rd, for the surviving exiles of the Commune.)

Thou shouldst have risen as never dawn yet rose, Day of the sunrise of the soul of France, Dawn of the whole world's morning, when the trance Of all the world had end, and all its woes Respite, prophetic of their perfect close.

Light of all tribes of men, all names and clans, Dawn of the whole world's morning and of man's Flower of the heart of morning's mystic rose, Dawn of the very dawn of very day, When the sun brighter breaks night's ruinous prison, Thou shouldst have risen as yet no dawn has risen, Evoked of him whose word puts night away, Our father, at the music of whose word Exile had ended, and the world had heard.

_July 5, 1880._

LAUNCH OF THE LIVADIA

Mala soluta navis exit alite.

HOR.

Rigged with curses dark.