Poems & Ballads Volume III Part 11

Deep dens wherein the wrestling water sobs And pants with restless pain of refluent breath Till all the sunless hollow sounds and throbs With ebb and flow of eddies dark as death--

I know not what more glorious world, what waves More bright with life,--if brighter aught may live Than those that filled and fled their tidal caves-- May now give back the love thou hast to give.

Tintagel, and the long Trebarwith sand, Lone Camelford, and Boscastle divine With dower of southern blossom, bright and bland Above the roar of granite-baffled brine,

Shall hear no more by joyous night or day From downs or causeways good to rove and ride Or feet of ours or horse-hoofs urge their way That sped us here and there by tower and tide.

The headlands and the hollows and the waves, For all our love, forget us: where I am Thou art not: deeper sleeps the shadow on graves Than in the sunless gulf that once we swam.

Thou hast swum too soon the sea of death: for us Too soon, but if truth bless love's blind belief Faith, born of hope and memory, says not thus: And joy for thee for me should mean not grief.

And joy for thee, if ever soul of man Found joy in change and life of ampler birth Than here pens in the spirit for a span, Must be the life that doubt calls death on earth.

For if, beyond the shadow and the sleep, A place there be for souls without a stain, Where peace is perfect, and delight more deep Than seas or skies that change and s.h.i.+ne again,

There none of all unsullied souls that live May hold a surer station: none may lend More light to hope's or memory's lamp, nor give More joy than thine to those that called thee friend.

Yea, joy from sorrow's barren womb is born When faith begets on grief the G.o.dlike child: As midnight yearns with starry sense of morn In Arctic summers, though the sea wax wild,

So love, whose name is memory, thrills at heart, Remembering and rejoicing in thee, now Alive where love may dream not what thou art But knows that higher than hope or love art thou.

"Whatever heaven, if heaven at all may be, Await the sacred souls of good men dead, There, now we mourn who loved him here, is he,"

So, sweet and stern of speech, the Roman said,

Erect in grief, in trust erect, and gave His deathless dead a deathless life even here Where day bears down on day as wave on wave And not man's smile fades faster than his tear.

Albeit this gift be given not me to give, Nor power be mine to break time's silent spell, Not less shall love that dies not while I live Bid thee, beloved in life and death, farewell.

NEW YEAR'S DAY

New Year, be good to England. Bid her name s.h.i.+ne sunlike as of old on all the sea: Make strong her soul: set all her spirit free: Bind fast her homeborn foes with links of shame More strong than iron and more keen than flame: Seal up their lips for shame's sake: so shall she Who was the light that lightened freedom be, For all false tongues, in all men's eyes the same.

O last-born child of Time, earth's eldest lord, G.o.d undiscrowned of G.o.dhead, who for man Begets all good and evil things that live, Do thou, his new-begotten son, implored Of hearts that hope and fear not, make thy span Bright with such light as history bids thee give.

_Jan. 1, 1889._

TO SIR RICHARD F. BURTON

(ON HIS TRANSLATION OF "THE ARABIAN NIGHTS")

Westward the sun sinks, grave and glad; but far Eastward, with laughter and tempestuous tears, Cloud, rain, and splendour as of orient spears, Keen as the sea's thrill toward a kindling star, The sundawn breaks the barren twilight's bar And fires the mist and slays it. Years on years Vanish, but he that hearkens eastward hears Bright music from the world where shadows are.

Where shadows are not shadows. Hand in hand A man's word bids them rise and smile and stand And triumph. All that glorious orient glows Defiant of the dusk. Our twilight land Trembles; but all the heaven is all one rose, Whence laughing love dissolves her frosts and snows.

NELL GWYN

Sweet heart, that no taint of the throne or the stage Could touch with unclean transformation, or alter To the likeness of courtiers whose consciences falter At the smile or the frown, at the mirth or the rage, Of a master whom chance could inflame or a.s.suage, Our Lady of Laughter, invoked in no psalter, Adored of no faithful that cringe and that palter, Praise be with thee yet from a hag-ridden age.

Our Lady of Pity thou wast: and to thee All England, whose sons are the sons of the sea, Gives thanks, and will hear not if history snarls When the name of the friend of her sailors is spoken; And thy lover she cannot but love--by the token That thy name was the last on the lips of King Charles.

CALIBAN ON ARIEL

"_His backward voice is to utter foul speeches and to detract_"

The tongue is loosed of that most lying slave, Whom stripes may move, not kindness. Listen: "Lo, The real G.o.d of song, Lord Stephano, That's a brave G.o.d, if ever G.o.d were brave, And bears celestial liquor: but," the knave (A most ridiculous monster) howls, "we know From Ariel's lips what springs of poison flow, The chicken-heart blasphemer! Hear him rave!"

Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself Upon thy wicked dam, the witch whose name Is darkness, and the sun her eyes' offence, Though h.e.l.l's hot sewerage breed no loathlier elf, Men cry not shame upon thee, seeing thy shame So perfect: they but bid thee--"Hag-seed, hence!"

THE WEARY WEDDING

O daughter, why do ye laugh and weep, One with another?

For woe to wake and for will to sleep, Mother, my mother.

But weep ye winna the day ye wed, One with another.

For tears are dry when the springs are dead, Mother, my mother.

Too long have your tears run down like rain, One with another.

For a long love lost and a sweet love slain, Mother, my mother.

Too long have your tears dripped down like dew, One with another.

For a knight that my sire and my brethren slew, Mother, my mother.

Let past things perish and dead griefs lie, One with another.

O fain would I weep not, and fain would I die, Mother, my mother.

Fair gifts we give ye, to laugh and live, One with another.

But sair and strange are the gifts I give, Mother, my mother.