Volume Ii Part 2 (1/2)

This b.u.t.ter-woman's market-trot Of verse is pa.s.sing market-bounds.

XLII

Adieu! the sun sets; he is gone.

On banks of fog faint lines extend: Adieu! bring back a braver dawn To England, and to me my friend.

November 15th, 1867.

TIME AND SENTIMENT

I see a fair young couple in a wood, And as they go, one bends to take a flower, That so may be embalmed their happy hour, And in another day, a kindred mood, Haply together, or in solitude, Recovered what the teeth of Time devour, The joy, the bloom, and the illusive power, Wherewith by their young blood they are endued To move all enviable, framed in May, And of an aspect sisterly with Truth: Yet seek they with Time's laughing things to wed: Who will be prompted on some pallid day To lift the hueless flower and show that dead, Even such, and by this token, is their youth.

LUCIFER IN STARLIGHT

On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose.

Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend Above the rolling ball in cloud part screened, Where sinners hugged their spectre of repose.

Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.

And now upon his western wing he leaned, Now his huge bulk o'er Afric's sands careened, Now the black planet shadowed Arctic snows.

Soaring through wider zones that p.r.i.c.ked his scars With memory of the old revolt from Awe, He reached a middle height, and at the stars, Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank.

Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank, The army of unalterable law.

THE STAR SIRIUS

Bright Sirius! that when Orion pales To dotlings under moonlight still art keen With cheerful fervour of a warrior's mien Who holds in his great heart the battle-scales: Unquenched of flame though swift the flood a.s.sails, Reducing many l.u.s.trous to the lean: Be thou my star, and thou in me be seen To show what source divine is, and prevails.

Long watches through, at one with G.o.dly night, I mark thee planting joy in constant fire; And thy quick beams, whose jets of life inspire Life to the spirit, pa.s.sion for the light, Dark Earth since first she lost her lord from sight Has viewed and felt them sweep her as a lyre.

SENSE AND SPIRIT

The senses loving Earth or well or ill Ravel yet more the riddle of our lot.

The mind is in their trammels, and lights not By tr.i.m.m.i.n.g fear-bred tales; nor does the will To find in nature things which less may chill An ardour that desires, unknowing what.

Till we conceive her living we go distraught, At best but circle-windsails of a mill.

Seeing she lives, and of her joy of life Creatively has given us blood and breath For endless war and never wound unhealed, The gloomy Wherefore of our battle-field Solves in the Spirit, wrought of her through strife To read her own and trust her down to death.