VICTORIAN POETRY Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night, The market boat is on the stream, Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name CXXII/22 Oh, wast thou with me, dearest, then, To feel once more, in placid awe, If thou wert with me, and the grave Be quicken'd with a livelier breath, I slip the thoughts of life and death; And all the breeze of Fancy blows, And every dew-drop paints a bow, The wizard lightnings deeply glow, And every thought breaks out a rose. There rolls the deep where grew the tree. O earth, what changes hast thou seen! There where the long street roars, hath been The stillness of the central sea. The hills are shadows, and they flow From form to form, and nothing stands; They melt like mist, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves and go. But in my spirit will I dwell, And dream my dream, and hold it true; For tho' my lips may breathe adieu, I cannot think the thing farewell. That which we dare invoke to bless; ༢ I found Him not in world or sun, Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye; Nor thro' the questions men ma The petty cobwebs we have spun: If e'er when faith had fall'n aslee I heard a voice believe no more And heard an ever-breaking sho That tumbled in the Godless deep A warmth within the breast would The freezing reason's colder par And like a man in wrath the hea Stood up and answer'd 'I have fe No, like a child in doubt and fear But that blind clamour made me Then was I as a child that cries, But, crying, knows his father near And what I am beheld again What is, and no man understand And out of darkness came the h That reach thro' nature, moulding 1 CXXV 25 Whatever I have said or sung, Some bitter notes my harp would Yea, tho' there often seem'd to li A contradiction on the tongue, Yet Hope had never lost her youth She did but look through dimmer Or Love but play'd with gracious Because he felt so fix'd in truth: And if the song were full of care, He breathed the spirit of the song And if the words were sweet and He set his royal signet there; Abiding with me till I sail To seek thee on the mystic deeps. And this electric force, that keeps A thousand pulses dancing, fail. CXXVI 1268 Love is and was my Lord and King And in his presence I attend To hear the tidings of my friend, Which every hour his couriers bring Love is and was my King and Lord And will be, tho' as yet I keep Within his court on earth, and slee Encompass'd by his faithful guard, And hear at times a sentinel Who moves about from place to And whispers to the worlds of spa In the deep night, that all is well. CXXVII 127 1950 And all is well, tho' faith and form Be sunder'd in the night of fear; Well roars the storm to those that A deeper voice across the storm, I Love is his king. He wait in Love's court on ear bie friend is dire You'd kingdour, pare Iron and to end Sagesfassurance told Proclaiming social truth shall spread, The fortress crashes from on high, The love that rose on stronger_wings, That sees the course of human things. No doubt vast eddies in the flood Of onward time shall yet be made, And throned races may degrade; Yet O ye mysteries of good, Wild Hours that fly with Hope and Fear, . If all your office had to do With old results that look like new; If this were all your mission here, 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, To make old bareness picturesque And tuft with grass a feudal tower; Why then my scorn might well descend On you and yours. I see in part That all, as in some piece of art, Is toil coöperant to an end. Dear friend, far off, my lost desire, Known and unknown; human, divine; Sweet human hand and lips and eye; Dear heavenly friend that canst not die, Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine; Strange friend, past, present, and to be; 130 CXXX Thy voice is on the rolling air; My love involves the love before; Far off thou art, but ever nigh; 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, Than in the summers that are flown, Let all my genial spirits advance And hearts are warm'd and faces b As drinking health to bride and gro We wish them store of happy days. Nor count me all to blame if I But they must go, the time draws on, Again the feast, the speech, the glee, The shade of passing thought, the we Of words and wit, the double health The crowning cup, the three-times-thre 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, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves. THE EAGLE FRAGMENT HE clasps the crag with crooked hands; ODE ON THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON [1852] I BURY the Great Duke With an empire's lamentation, Let us bury the Great Duke To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation, Mourning when their leaders fall, II Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore? Here, in streaming London's central roar. III Lead out the pageant: sad and slow, Let the long long procession go, IV Mourn, for to us he seems the last, Remembering all his greatness in the Past. No more in soldier fashion will he greet O good grey head which all men knew, All is over and done: Let the bell be toll'd. Render thanks to the Giver, That shines over city and river, And a reverent people behold The towering car, the sable steeds: Let the bell be toll'd: And a deeper knell in the heart be knoll'd; And the sound of the sorrowing anthem roll'd Thro' the dome of the golden cross; For many a time in many a clime The tyrant, and asserts his claim In that dread sound to the great name, And down we swept and charged and of threw. So great a soldier taught us there, And thro' the centuries let a people's vo A people's voice! we are a people yet. Tho' all men else their nobler drea forget, Confused by brainless mobs and lawl Powers; Thank Him who isled us here, and roug His Briton in blown seas and stormi showers, We have a voice, with which to pay Of boundless love and reverence and reg To those great men who fought, and k And keep it ours, O God, from brute co Of Europe, keep our noble England who And save the one true seed of freedo Betwixt a people and their ancient thro That sober freedom out of which the springs Our loyal passion for our temperate king For, saving that, ye help to save manki Till public wrong be crumbled into dus And drill the raw world for the march Till crowds at length be sane and crow But wink no more in slothful overtrust. |