English

Thou art eternal, and thy flowers as well. —
The gold-brown ripples curling by the banks
Of Esk, — the meadow-sweet in tufted ranks, —
The vast eternal ocean's moonlit swell, —
The purple heather broidering moor and fell, —
The green rich grass, — the blossoms by the way, —
All that Love saw in Love's one perfect day, —
The yellow laughing corn, — the fern-lined dell: —

All these for ever, though we pass, abide:
The grey or green cliffs sloping to the tide;
The great black ships that clove the yielding deep;

Singer, who sawest that England loved of old
Was to herself and her own glory untrue, —
Singer, whose passionate heart, unerring, knew
That when the truculent foolish wild drums rolled
It was indeed that Honour's knell was tolled, —
Thou hast thy place among the nobler few
Whose spirits an austere destiny pursue,
Whose thoughts are flames, whose words are flawless gold.

Because thy voice condemned the deadly wrong,
Because thy sword flashed, quivering, from its sheath
When other bards stood mute, and robed in shame,

The boundless life of music now at times
Descends upon us: — lo! we form a part
Of music's wide unutterable heart,
And mix, in rapture, with the eternal rhymes.
We traverse, in a dream, strange spirit-climes;
We hear strange oceans beating on white shores;
We thread strange rivers to the plash of oars
Unearthly, ringing round us silvery chimes.

The spirit of music lifts us, — and our love
Becomes a passion every change above:
The spirit of music aids us, and its fire
Is one with us in one intense desire:

How few there are on whom their City fair
And sweet as Athens in the old days shines!
London I loved, — her houses smoke-veiled lines,
Her towers, her sunless stream, her fog-damp air,
The tiger-lily in a London square
To me meant all things. What the soul divines
Of mystery, thrilling through a thousand signs,
This is our own, — this, fearless, we declare.

London I loved, — each Park, and every tree
In each, the red-billed swans, the sparrows gay,
The teeming busy life of every day.

Yet deeper is my passionate tenderness.
The nearer that thou art, the more thine eyes
Are ever to me, love, a sweet surprise;
Purer than fancy's is thy warm caress.
If at a distance I had cause to bless,
What shall I say now that God's bluest skies
Of cordial summer, deep with ecstasies,
Beam round me, freed for e'er from each distress?

Oh whiter than the soul of which I dreamed
Is this thine own soul, now its wealth has gleamed
Upon me, brought by God for ever close;
Sweeter the body of wonder I adored,

Something of the awe has vanished from my strain,
It may be; now that thou art wholly near
It is a softer task to sing thee, dear;
There is not the old yearning, nor the pain.
We cannot crave the rose that we retain
In our own hands, made fragrant from the touch:
We cannot long for present joys so much
As for the gifts no passionate prayer could gain.

O white rose, perfect lady of my song,
Desired and sought and struggled for so long,
Now that thy petals sweet within my clasp
Abide, the passionate agony is over,

The force of Christ, his everlasting might
We need, the spirit superb that through him flows.
We also need the Christ within the rose:
We also need the sun-god's glance of light.
No one Ideal can content us quite.
Ever man's unextinguished yearning glows,
Fervent and deep the more, the more he knows.
Christ's hands were pierced. Apollo's limbs were white

O God, whom all the universe explains,
Reveals, expresses, surely thou art found
Enthroned in every heart, whose shrine contains

My life is hid with Beatrice in God, —
And hidden with her in all things sweet as well;
In every flower whereon her footstep fell,
Each rose rich-blushing on the sunny sod.
She, being sweet, can clothe my soul with sweetness
And subtle mystic power too fair to tell,
And all poetic passionate completeness;
She, being glad, can lift from sorrow's hell.

My life is hid with Beatrice in pleasure, —
My life is hid with her beyond the sky:
My fair delight, my love, my sweet-winged treasure,

Pessimist.

The world grows dark. — The poet's heart is dreaming;
But when he wakes from sleep,
Will he not see proud War's red harvest gleaming
Beneath white moons that weep?

Will he not understand the bitter anguish
Of all things here below?
Will he not mark the flowers and green leaves languish,
The sweet loves fade and go?

Will he not learn that God dwells at a distance,
Far past the reach of prayer?
Will he not teach, and teach with stern insistence,

I sometimes fancy in France is left alone
The love of beauty. — What our world will be
When foul-breathed iron-clads possess the sea
That once was white-armed Venus white-waved throne —
When with one piteous cry, one deathless moan,
She feels that fragrance from her rose must flee, —
What then from earth will fade eternally
Art dimly guesses; not the worst is known.

America, with England in her wake,
Worships alone success and wealth. She strives
On the waste debris of uncounted lives