Poems & Ballads Volume II Part 16

And far to the fair south-westward lightens, Girdled and sandalled and plumed with flowers, At sunset over the love-lit lands, The hill-side's crown where the wild hill brightens, Saint Fina's town of the Beautiful Towers, Hailing the sun with a hundred hands.

Land of us all that have loved thee dearliest, Mother of men that were lords of man, Whose name in the world's heart works as a spell, My last song's light, and the star of mine earliest, As we turn from thee, sweet, who wast ours for a span, Fare well we may not who say farewell.

III. SUMMER IN AUVERGNE

The sundawn fills the land Full as a feaster's hand Fills full with bloom of bland Bright wine his cup; Flows full to flood that fills From the arch of air it thrills Those rust-red iron hills With morning up.

Dawn, as a panther springs, With fierce and fire-fledged wings Leaps on the land that rings From her bright feet Through all its lava-black Cones that cast answer back And cliffs of footless track Where thunders meet.

The light speaks wide and loud From deeps blown clean of cloud As though day's heart were proud And heaven's were glad; The towers brown-striped and grey Take fire from heaven of day As though the prayers they pray Their answers had.

Higher in these high first hours Wax all the keen church towers, And higher all hearts of ours Than the old hills' crown, Higher than the pillared height Of that strange cliff-side bright With basalt towers whose might Strong time bows down.

And the old fierce ruin there Of the old wild princes' lair Whose blood in mine hath share Gapes gaunt and great Toward heaven that long ago Watched all the wan land's woe Whereon the wind would blow Of their bleak hate.

Dead are those deeds; but yet Their memory seems to fret Lands that might else forget That old world's brand; Dead all their sins and days; Yet in this red clime's rays Some fiery memory stays That sears their land.

IV. AUTUMN IN CORNWALL

The year lies fallen and faded On cliffs by clouds invaded, With tongues of storms upbraided, With wrath of waves bedinned; And inland, wild with warning, As in deaf ears or scorning, The clarion even and morning Rings of the south-west wind.

The wild bents wane and wither In blasts whose breath bows. .h.i.ther Their grey-grown heads and thither, Unblest of rain or sun; The pale fierce heavens are crowded With shapes like dreams beclouded, As though the old year enshrouded Lay, long ere life were done.

Full-charged with oldworld wonders, From dusk Tintagel thunders A note that smites and sunders The hard frore fields of air; A trumpet stormier-sounded Than once from lists rebounded When strong men sense-confounded Fell thick in tourney there.

From scarce a duskier dwelling Such notes of wail rose welling Through the outer darkness, telling In the awful singer's ears What souls the darkness covers, What love-lost souls of lovers, Whose cry still hangs and hovers In each man's born that hears.

For there by Hector's brother And yet some thousand other He that had grief to mother Pa.s.sed pale from Dante's sight; With one fast linked as fearless, Perchance, there only tearless; Iseult and Tristram, peerless And perfect queen and knight.

A shrill-winged sound comes flying North, as of wild souls crying The cry of things undying, That know what life must be; Or as the old year's heart, stricken Too sore for hope to quicken By thoughts like thorns that thicken, Broke, breaking with the sea.

THE WHITE CZAR

[In an English magazine of 1877 there appeared a version of some insolent lines addressed by "A Russian Poet to the Empress of India." To these the first of the two following sonnets was designed to serve by way of counterblast. The writer will scarcely be suspected of royalism or imperialism; but it seemed to him that an insult levelled by Muscovite lips at the ruler of England might perhaps be less unfitly than unofficially resented by an Englishman who was also a republican.]

I

Gehazi by the hue that chills thy cheek And Pilate by the hue that sears thine hand Whence all earth's waters cannot wash the brand That signs thy soul a manslayer's though thou speak All Christ, with lips most murderous and most meek-- Thou set thy foot where England's used to stand!

Thou reach thy rod forth over Indian land!

Slave of the slaves that call thee lord, and weak As their foul tongues who praise thee! son of them Whose presence put the snows and stars to shame In centuries dead and d.a.m.ned that reek below Curse-consecrated, crowned with crime and flame, To them that bare thee like them shalt thou go Forth of man's life--a leper white as snow.

II

Call for clear water, wash thine hands, be clean, Cry, _What is truth?_ O Pilate; thou shalt know Haply too soon, and gnash thy teeth for woe Ere the outer darkness take thee round unseen That hides the red ghosts of thy race obscene Bound nine times round with h.e.l.l's most dolorous flow, And in its pools thy crownless head lie low By his of Spain who dared an English queen With half a world to hearten him for fight, Till the wind gave his warriors and their might To s.h.i.+pwreck and the corpse-enc.u.mbered sea.

But thou, take heed, ere yet thy lips wax white, Lest as it was with Philip so it be, O white of name and red of hand, with thee.

RIZPAH

How many sons, how many generations, For how long years hast thou bewept, and known Nor end of torment nor surcease of moan, Rachel or Rizpah, wofullest of nations, Crowned with the crowning sign of desolations, And couldst not even scare off with hand or groan Those carrion birds devouring bone by bone The children of thy thousand tribulations?

Thou wast our warrior once; thy sons long dead Against a foe less foul than this made head, Poland, in years that sound and s.h.i.+ne afar; Ere the east beheld in thy bright sword-blade's stead The rotten corpse-light of the Russian star That lights towards h.e.l.l his bondslaves and their Czar.

TO LOUIS KOSSUTH

1877

Light of our fathers' eyes, and in our own Star of the unsetting sunset! for thy name, That on the front of noon was as a flame In the great year nigh thirty years agone When all the heavens of Europe shook and shone With stormy wind and lightning, keeps its fame And bears its witness all day through the same; Not for past days and great deeds past alone, Kossuth, we praise thee as our Landor praised, But that now too we know thy voice upraised, Thy voice, the trumpet of the truth of G.o.d, Thine hand, the thunder-bearer's, raised to smite As with heaven's lightning for a sword and rod Men's heads abased before the Muscovite.

TRANSLATIONS FROM THE FRENCH OF VILLON

THE COMPLAINT OF THE FAIR ARMOURESS

I

Meseemeth I heard cry and groan That sweet who was the armourer's maid; For her young years she made sore moan, And right upon this wise she said; "Ah fierce old age with foul bald head, To spoil fair things thou art over fain; Who holdeth me? who? would G.o.d I were dead!

Would G.o.d I were well dead and slain!

II

"Lo, thou hast broken the sweet yoke That my high beauty held above All priests and clerks and merchant-folk; There was not one but for my love Would give me gold and gold enough, Though sorrow his very heart had riven, To win from me such wage thereof As now no thief would take if given.

III

"I was right chary of the same, G.o.d wot it was my great folly, For love of one sly knave of them, Good store of that same sweet had he; For all my subtle wiles, perdie, G.o.d wot I loved him well enow; Right evilly he handled me, But he loved well my gold, I trow.

IV

"Though I gat bruises green and black, I loved him never the less a jot; Though he bound burdens on my back, If he said 'Kiss me and heed it not'

Right little pain I felt, G.o.d wot, When that foul thief's mouth, found so sweet, Kissed me--Much good thereof I got!

I keep the sin and the shame of it.