To draw, to sheathe a useless sword, To fool the crowd with glorious lies, To cleave a creed in sects and cries, To change the bearing of a word, To shift an arbitrary power, To cramp the student at his desk, Why then my scorn might well descend CXXVIII. DEAR friend, far off, my lost desire, Known and unknown; human, divine; Strange friend, past, present, and to be; TRUE and tried, so well and long, Demand not thou a marriage lay; In that it is thy marriage day Is music more than any song. Nor have I felt so much of bliss Since first he told me that he loved A daughter of our house; nor proved Since that dark day a day like this; Tho' I since then have number'd o'er came, Remade the blood and changed the frame, And yet is love not less, but more; No longer caring to embalm In dying songs a dead regret, But like a statue solid-set, And moulded in colossal calm. Regret is dead, but love is more Than in the summers that are flown, For I myself with these have grown To something greater than before; Which makes appear the songs I made But where is she, the bridal flower, On me she bends her blissful eyes, And then on thee; they meet thy look And brighten like the star that shook Betwixt the palms of paradise. O when her life was yet in bud, He too foretold the perfect rose. And thou art worthy; full of power; And I must give away the bride; For I that danced her on my keee, That watch'd her on her nurse's arm, That shielded all her life from harm, At last must part with her to thee; Now waiting to be made a wife, Her feet, my darling, on the dead; Their pensive tablets round her head, And the most living words of life Breathed in her ear. The ring is on, The "wilt thou," answer'd, and again The "wilt thou" ask'd, till out of twain Her sweet "I will" has made ye one. Now sign your names, which shall be read, Begins the clash and clang that tells The joy to every wandering breeze; The blind wall rocks, and on the trees The dead leaf trembles to the bells. O happy hour, and happier hours O happy hour, behold the bride To-day the grave is bright for me, For them the light of life increased, Who stay to share the morning feast, Who rest to-night beside the sea. Let all my genial spirits advance To meet and greet a whiter sun; My drooping memory will not shun The foaming grape of Eastern France. It circles round, and fancy plays, And hearts are warm'd, and faces bloom As drinking health to bride and groom We wish them store of happy days. Nor count me all to blame if I Conjecture of a stiller guest, Perchance, perchance, among the rest And, tho' in silence, wishing joy. But they must go, the time draws on, And those white-favor'd horses wait; They rise, but linger; it is late; Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone. A shade falls on us like the dark From little cloudlets on the grass, But sweeps away as out we pass To range the woods, to roam the park, Discussing how their courtship grew And talk of others that are wed, ve And how she look'd, and what he said, And back we come at fall of dew. Again the feast, the speech, the glee, Dumb is that tower which spake so loud, And high in heaven the streaming cloud, And on the downs a rising fire; And rise, O moon, from yonder down, All night the shining vapor sail The white-faced halls, the glancing rills, And touch with shade the bridal doors, To spangle all the happy shores By which they rest, and ocean sounds, And, moved thro' life of lower phase, Of those that, eye to eye, shall look On knowledge; under whose command Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand Is Nature like an open book; No longer half-akin to brute, For all we thought and loved and did, And hoped, and suffer'd, is but seed Of what in them is flower and fruit; Whereof the man, that with me trod This planet, was a noble type Appearing ere the times were ripe, That friend of mine who lives in God, That God, which ever lives and loves. MAUD, AND OTHER POEMS. MAUD. I. I. I HATE the dreadful hollow behind the little wood, Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath, 2. For there in the ghastly pit long since a body was found, 3. Did he fling himself down? who knows? for a vast speculation had fail'd, 4. I remember the time, for the roots of my hair were stirr'd By a shuffled step, by a dead weight trail'd, by a whisper'd fright, 5. Villany somewhere! whose? One says, we are villains all. 6. Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace? we have made them a curse, Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own; And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own hearthstone? 7. But these are the days of advance, the works of the men of mind, When who but a fool would have faith in a tradesman's ware or his word Is it peace or war? Civil war, as I think, and that of a kind The viler, as underhand, not openly bearing the sword. 8. Sooner or later I too may passively take the print Of the golden age-why not? I have neither hope nor trust; Cheat and be cheated, and die: who knows? we are ashes and dust. 9. Peace sitting under her olive, and slurring the days gone by, When the poor are hovell'd and hustled together, each sex, like swine, 10. And the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian's head, II. And Sleep must lie down arm'd, for the villanous centre-bits 12. When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial fee, 13. For I trust if an enemy's fleet came yonder round by the hill, 14. What! am I raging alone as my father raged in his mood? 15. Would there be sorrow for me? there was love in the passionate shriek, 16. I am sick of the Hall and the hill, I am sick of the moor and the main. 17. There are workmen up at the Hall: they are coming back from abroad; I have heard, I know not whence, of the singular beauty of Maud; 18. Maud with her venturous climbings and tumbles and childish escapes, 19. What is she now? My dreams are bad. She may bring me a curse. II. LONG have I sigh'd for a calm: God grant I may find it at last! Dead perfection, no more; nothing more, if it had not been Or an underlip, you may call it a little too ripe, 'too full, Or the least little delicate aquiline curve in a sensitive nose, From which I escaped heart-free, with the least little touch of spleen. III. COLD and clear-cut face, why come you so cruelly meek, IV. I. A MILLION emeralds break from the ruby-budded lime 2. Below me, there, is the village, and looks how quiet and small! 3. When have I bow'd to her father, the wrinkled head of the race? 4. I keep but a man and a maid, ever ready to slander and steal; I know it, and smile a hard-set smile, like a stoic, or like A wiser epicurean, and let the world have its way: For nature is one with rapine, a harm no preacher can heal; The Mayfly is torn by the swallow, the sparrow spear'd by the shrike, And the whole little wood where I sit is a world of plunder and prey. |