I.A MOUNTAIN SPRING.
PEACE hath an altar there.The sounding feet Of thunder and the 'wildering wings of rain Against fire-rifted summits flash and beat,And through grey upper gorges swoop and strain;But round that hallowed mountain-spring remain,Year after year,the days of tender heat,And gracious nights whose lips with flowers are sweet,And filtered lights,and lutes of soft refrain.
A still bright pool.To men I may not tell The secret that its heart of water knows -The story of a loved and lost repose;
Yet this I say to cliff and close-leaved dell:
A fitful spirit haunts yon limpid well,Whose likeness is the faithless face of Rose.
II.LAURA
IF Laura -lady of the flower-soft face -
Should light upon these verses,she may take The tenderest line,and through its pulses trace What man can suffer for a woman's sake.
For in the nights that burn,the days that break,A thin pale figure stands in Passion's place,And peace comes not,nor yet the perished grace Of youth,to keep old faiths and fires awake.
Ah!marvellous maid.Life sobs,and sighing saith,"She left me,fleeting like a fluttered dove;But I would have a moment of her breath,So I might taste the sweetest sense thereof,And catch from blossoming,honeyed lips of love Some faint,some fair,some dim delicious death.''
III.BY A RIVER
BY red ripe mouth and brown luxurious eyes Of her I love,by all your sweetness shed In far fair days,on one whose memory flies To faithless lights,and gracious speech gainsaid,I pray you,when yon river-path I tread,Make with the woodlands some soft compromise Lest they should vex me into fruitless sighs With visions of a woman's gleaming head!
For every green and golden-hearted thing That gathers beauty in that shining place,Beloved of beams and wooed by wind and wing,Is rife with glimpses of her marvellous face;And in the whispers of the lips of Spring The music of her lute-like voice I trace.
IV.ATTILA.
WHAT though his feet were shod with sharp fierce flame,And Death and Ruin were his daily squires,The Scythian helped by Heaven's thunders came:
The time was ripe for God's avenging fires.
Lo,loose lewd trulls and lean luxurious liars Had brought the fair fine face of Rome to shame And made her one with sins beyond a name -That queenly daughter of imperial sires!
The blood of elders like the blood of sheep Was dashed across the circus!Once while din And dust and lightnings,and a draggled heap Of beast-slain men made lords with laughter leap,Night fell,with rain.The Earth so sick of sin Had turned her face into the dark to weep.
V.A REWARD.
Because a steadfast flame of clear intent Gave force and beauty to full-actioned life;Because his way was one of firm ascent,Whose stepping-stones were hewn of change and strife;Because as husband loveth noble wife He loved fair Truth;because the thing he meant To do,that thing he did,nor paused,nor bent,In face of poor and pale conclusions;yea,Because of this,how fares the Leader dead?
What kind of mourners weep for him to-day?
What golden shroud is at his funeral spread?
Upon his brow what leaves of laurel,say?
About his breast is tied a sackcloth grey,And knots of thorns deface his lordly head.
VI.TO
A HANDMAID to the Genius of thy song Is sweet fair Scholarship.'Tis she supplies The fiery Spirit of the passioned eyes With subtle syllables whose notes belong To some chief source of perfect melodies.
And glancing through a laurelled lordly throng Of shining singers,lo,my vision flies To William Shakespeare!he it is whose strong Full flute-like music haunts thy stately Verse.
A worthy Levite of his court thou art!
