In dusty velvets clad usurp the bed

  And woodland empery, and when the lingering rose hath shed

  Red leaf by leaf its folded panoply,

  And pansies closed their purple-lidded eyes,

  Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy

  Unload their gaudy scentless merchandise,

  And violets getting overbold withdraw

  From their shy nooks, and scarlet berries dot the leafless haw.

  O happy field! and O thrice happy tree!

  Soon will your queen in daisy-flowered smock

  And crown of flower-de-luce trip down the lea,

  Soon will the lazy shepherds drive their flock

  Back to the pasture by the pool, and soon

  Through the green leaves will float the hum of murmuring bees at noon.

  Soon will the glade be bright with bellamour,

  The flower which wantons love, and those sweet nuns

  Vale-lilies in their snowy vestiture

  Will tell their beaded pearls, and carnations

  With mitred dusky leaves will scent the wind,

  And straggling traveller’s-joy each hedge with yellow stars will bind.

  Dear Bride of Nature and most bounteous spring,

  That canst give increase to the sweet-breath’d kine,

  And to the kid its little horns, and bring

  The soft and silky blossoms to the vine,

  Where is that old nepenthe which of yore

  Man got from poppy root and glossy-berried mandragore!

  There was a time when any common bird

  Could make me sing in unison, a time

  When all the strings of boyish life were stirred

  To quick response or more melodious rhyme

  By every forest idyll;—do I change?

  Or rather doth some evil thing through thy fair pleasaunce range?

  Nay, nay, thou art the same: ’tis I who seek

  To vex with sighs thy simple solitude,

  And because fruitless tears bedew my cheek

  Would have thee weep with me in brotherhood;

  Fool! shall each wronged and restless spirit dare

  To taint such wine with the salt poison of his own despair!

  Thou art the same: ’tis I whose wretched soul

  Takes discontent to be its paramour,

  And gives its kingdom to the rude control

  Of what should be its servitor—for sure

  Wisdom is somewhere, though the stormy sea

  Contain it not, and the huge deep answer “ ’Tis not in me.”

  To burn with one clear flame, to stand erect

  In natural honour, not to bend the knee

  In profitless prostrations whose effect

  Is by itself condemned, what alchemy

  Can teach me this? what herb Medea brewed

  Will bring the unexultant peace of essence not subdued?

  The minor chord which ends the harmony,

  And for its answering brother waits in vain

  Sobbing for incompleted melody,

  Dies a swan’s death; but I the heir of pain,

  A silent Memnon with blank lidless eyes,

  Wait for the light and music of those suns which never rise.

  The quenched-out torch, the lonely cypress-gloom,

  The little dust stored in the narrow urn,

  The gentle ΧΑΙΡΕ of the Attic tomb—

  Were not these better far than to return

  To my old fitful restless malady,

  Or spend my days within the voiceless cave of misery?

  Nay! for perchance that poppy-crownèd god

  Is like the watcher by a sick man’s bed

  Who talks of sleep but gives it not; his rod

  Hath lost its virtue, and, when all is said,

  Death is too rude, too obvious a key

  To solve one single secret in a life’s philosophy.

  And Love! that noble madness, whose august

  And inextinguishable might can slay

  The soul with honeyed drugs—alas! I must

  From such sweet ruin play the runaway,

  Although too constant memory never can

  Forget the archèd splendour of those brows Olympian

  Which for a little season made my youth

  So soft a swoon of exquisite indolence

  That all the chiding of more prudent Truth

  Seemed the thin voice of jealousy—O Hence

  Thou huntress deadlier than Artemis!

  Go seek some other quarry! for of thy too perilous bliss

  My lips have drunk enough—no more, no more—

  Though Love himself should turn his gilded prow

  Back to the troubled waters of this shore

  Where I am wrecked and stranded, even now

  The chariot wheels of passion sweep too near,

  Hence! Hence! I pass unto a life more barren, more austere.

  More barren—ay, those arms will never lean

  Down through the trellised vines and draw my soul

  In sweet reluctance through the tangled green;

  Some other head must wear that aureole,

  For I am hers who loves not any man

  Whose white and stainless bosom bears the sign Gorgonian.

  Let Venus go and chuck her dainty page,

  And kiss his mouth, and toss his curly hair,

  With net and spear and hunting equipage

  Let young Adonis to his tryst repair,

  But me her fond and subtle-fashioned spell

  Delights no more, though I could win her dearest citadel.

  Ay, though I were that laughing shepherd boy

  Who from Mount Ida saw the little cloud

  Pass over Tenedos and lofty Troy

  And knew the coming of the Queen, and bowed

  In wonder at her feet, not for the sake

  Of a new Helen would I bid her hand the apple take.

  Then rise supreme Athena argent-limbed!

  And, if my lips be music-less, inspire

  At least my life: was not thy glory hymned

  By One who gave to thee his sword and lyre

  Like Aeschylos at well-fought Marathon,

  And died to show that Milton’s England still could bear a son!

  And yet I cannot tread the Portico

  And live without desire, fear and pain,

  Or nurture that wise calm which long ago

  The grave Athenian master taught to men,

  Self-poised, self-centred, and self-comforted,

  To watch the world’s vain fantasies go by with unbowed head.

  Alas! that serene brow, those eloquent lips,

  Those eyes that mirrored all eternity,

  Rest in their own Colonos, an eclipse

  Hath come on Wisdom, and Mnemosyne

  Is childless; in the night which she had made

  For lofty secure flight Athena’s owl itself hath strayed.

  Nor much with Science do I care to climb,

  Although by strange and subtle witchery

  She drew the moon from heaven: the Muse of Time

  Unrolls her gorgeous-coloured tapestry

  To no less eager eyes; often indeed

  In the great epic of Polymnia’s scroll I love to read

  How Asia sent her myriad hosts to war

  Against a little town, and panoplied

  In gilded mail with jewelled scimitar,

  White-shielded, purple-crested, rode the Mede

  Between the waving poplars and the sea

  Which men call Artemisium, till he saw Thermopylae

  Its steep ravine spanned by a narrow wall,

  And on the nearer side a little brood

  Of careless lions holding festival!

  And stood amazèd at such hardihood,

  And pitched his tent upon the reedy shore,

  And stayed two days to wonder, and then crept at midnight o’er

  Some unfrequented height, and coming down

  The autumn forests treacherously slew

  What Sparta held most dear and was the crown

  Of far Eurotas, and passed on, nor knew

  How God had staked an evil net for him

  In the small bay at Salamis—and yet, the page grows dim,

  Its cadenced Greek delights me not, I feel

  With such a goodly time too out of tune

  To love it much: for like the Dial’s wheel

  That from its blinded darkness strikes the noon

  Yet never sees the sun, so do my eyes

  Restlessly follow that which from my cheated vision flies.

  O for one grand unselfish simple life

  To teach us what is Wisdom! speak ye hills

  Of lone Helvellyn, for this note of strife

  Shunned your untroubled crags and crystal rills,

  Where is that Spirit which living blamelessly

  Yet dared to kiss the smitten mouth of his own century!

  Speak ye Rydalian laurels! where is He

  Whose gentle head ye sheltered, that pure soul

  Whose gracious days of uncrowned majesty

  Through lowliest conduct touched the lofty goal

  Where love and duty mingle! Him at least

  The most high Laws were glad of, He had sat at Wisdom’s feast,

  But we are Learning’s changelings, know by rote

  The clarion watchword of each Grecian school

  And follow none, the flawless sword which smote

  The pagan Hydra is an effete tool

  Which we ourselves have blunted, what man now

  Shall scale the august ancient heights and to old Reverence bow?

  One such indeed I saw, but, Ichabod!

  Gone is that last dear son of Italy,

  Who being man died for the sake of God,

  And whose unrisen bones sleep peacefully,

  O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower,

  Thou marble lily of the lily town! let not the lour

  Of the rude tempest vex his slumber, or

  The Arno with its tawny troubled gold

  O’er-leap its marge, no mightier conqueror

  Clomb the high Capitol in the days of old

  When Rome was indeed Rome, for Liberty

  Walked like a bride beside him, at which sight pale Mystery

  Fled shrieking to her farthest sombrest cell

  With an old man who grabbled rusty keys,

  Fled shuddering, for that immemorial knell

  With which oblivion buries dynasties

  Swept like a wounded eagle on the blast,

  As to the holy heart of Rome the great triumvir passed.

  He knew the holiest heart and heights of Rome,

  He drave the base wolf from the lion’s lair,

  And now lies dead by that empyreal dome

  Which overtops Valdarno hung in air

  By Brunelleschi—O Melpomene

  Breathe through thy melancholy pipe thy sweetest threnody!

  Breathe through the tragic stops such melodies

  That Joy’s self may grow jealous, and the Nine

  Forget awhile their discreet emperies,

  Mourning for him who on Rome’s lordliest shrine

  Lit for men’s lives the light of Marathon,

  And bare to sun-forgotten fields the fire of the sun!

  O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower,

  Let some young Florentine each eventide

  Bring coronals of that enchanted flower

  Which the dim woods of Vallombrosa hide,

  And deck the marble tomb wherein he lies

  Whose soul is as some mighty orb unseen of mortal eyes.

  Some mighty orb whose cycled wanderings,

  Being tempest-driven to the farthest rim

  Where Chaos meets Creation and the wings

  Of the eternal chanting Cherubim

  Are pavilioned on Nothing, passed away

  Into a moonless void—and yet, though he is dust and clay,

  He is not dead, the immemorial Fates

  Forbid it, and the closing shears refrain.

  Lift up your heads ye everlasting gates!

  Ye argent clarions, sound a loftier strain

  For the vile thing he hated lurks within

  Its sombre house, alone with God and memories of sin.

  Still what avails it that she sought her cave

  That murderous mother of red harlotries?

  At Munich on the marble architrave

  The Grecian boys die smiling, but the seas

  Which wash Aegina fret in loneliness

  Not mirroring their beauty; so our lives grow colourless

  For lack of our ideals, if one star

  Flame torch-like in the heavens the unjust

  Swift daylight kills it, and no trump of war

  Can wake to passionate voice the silent dust

  Which was Mazzini once! rich Niobe

  For all her stony sorrows hath her sons; but Italy!

  What Easter Day shall make her children rise,

  Who were not Gods yet suffered? what sure feet

  Shall find their grave-clothes folded? what clear eyes

  Shall see them bodily? O it were meet

  To roll the stone from off the sepulchre

  And kiss the bleeding roses of their wounds, in love of Her,

  Our Italy! our mother visible!

  Most blessed among nations and most sad,

  For whose dear sake the young Calabrian fell

  That day at Aspromonte and was glad

  That in an age when God was bought and sold

  One man could die for Liberty! but we, burnt out and cold,

  See Honour smitten on the cheek and gyves

  Bind the sweet feet of Mercy: Poverty

  Creeps through our sunless lanes and with sharp knives

  Cuts the warm throats of children stealthily,

  And no word said:—O we are wretched men

  Unworthy of our great inheritance! where is the pen

  Of austere Milton? where the mighty sword

  Which slew its master righteously? the years

  Have lost their ancient leader, and no word

  Breaks from the voiceless tripod on our ears:

  While as a ruined mother in some spasm

  Bears a base child and loathes it, so our best enthusiasm

  Genders unlawful children, Anarchy

  Freedom’s own Judas, the vile prodigal

  Licence who steals the gold of Liberty

  And yet has nothing, Ignorance the real

  One Fraticide since Cain, Envy the asp

  That stings itself to anguish, Avarice whose palsied grasp

  Is in its extent stiffened, moneyed Greed

  For whose dull appetite men waste away

  Amid the whirr of wheels and are the seed

  Of things which slay their sower, these each day

  Sees rife in England, and the gentle feet

  Of Beauty tread no more the stones of each unlovely street.

  What even Cromwell spared is desecrated

  By weed and worm, left to the stormy play

  Of wind and beating snow, or renovated

  By more destructful hands: Time’s worst decay

  Will wreathe its ruins with some loveliness,

  But these new Vandals can but make a rainproof barrenness.

  Where is that Art which bade the Angels sing

  Through Lincoln’s lofty choir, till the air

  Seems from such marble harmonies to ring

  With sweeter song than common lips can dare

  To draw from actual reed? ah! where is now

  The cunning hand which made the flowering hawthorn branches bow

  For Southwell’s arch, and carved the House of One

  Who loved the lilies of the field with all