_A.D. Mdcccxcv_

A STUPOR on the heath, And wrath along the sky; Space everywhere; beneath A flat and treeless wold for us, and darkest noon on high.

Sullen quiet below, But storm in upper air! A wind from long ago, In mouldy chambers of the cloud had ripped an arras there,

And singed the triple gloom, And let through, in a flame, Crowned faces of old Rome: Regnant o'er Rome's abandoned ground, processional they came.

Uprisen as any sun Through vistas hollow grey, Aloft, and one by one, In brazen casques the Emperors loomed large, and sank away.

In ovals of wan light Each warrior eye and mouth: A pageant brutal bright As if once over loudly passed Jove's laughter in the south;

And dimmer, these among, Some cameo'd head aloof, With ringlets heavy-hung, Like yellow stonecrop comely grown around a castle roof.

An instant: gusts again, Then heaven's impacted wall, The hot insistent rain, The thunder-shock; and of the Past mirage no more at all,

No more the alien dream Pursuing, as we went, With glory's cursèd gleam: Nor sin of Cæsar's ruined line engulfed us, innocent.

The vision great and dread Corroded; sole in view Was empty Egdon spread, Her crimson summer weeds ashake in tempest: but we knew

What Tacitus had borne In that wrecked world we saw; And what, thine heart uptorn, My Juvenal! distraught with love of violated Law.

Horologion

THE frost may form apace, The roses pine away: Nomæa! if I see thy face, Then is the summer day.

A word of thine, a breath, And lo! my joy shall seem To peer far down where life and death Stir like a forded stream;

Or else shall misery sound And travel in that hour All utmost things in their shut round, As a bee feels his flower.

Thought lags and cries Alas, Love ranges quick and free. Oh, figured clock and sanded glass, They mark no term for me.

And since I can but rue The calendar gone wrong, And dials never telling true If dreams be short or long,

Dear, from these arts that fail To thee I will repair. Till the last eve dance down the gale With no star in her hair,

Be thou my solar chime, Be thou my wheel of night, Be thy bright heart, not ashen Time, My measure, law, and light.

His Angel to his Mother

WHAT would you do for your fairest one, Wild as the wind and free as the sun, Born a fugitive, sure to slip Soon from secular ownership? Men in search of the heart's desire, Wearily trampling flood and fire, Rove betimes into some abyss Darker far than eternity's. (Ah, the hazard! it awes one so!)

And shall it be thus with the boy, or no? Sweet, if you love him, let him go.

Happy the Frontier to have gained Undetaining and undetained, Quick and clean, like a solar ray Shot through spindrift across the bay! Men would follow a long vain quest, Feed on ashes and forfeit rest, Bleed with battle and flag with toil, Only to stifle in desert soil. (Ah, the failure! it stings one so!)

And shall it be thus with the boy, or no? Sweet, if you love him, let him go.

Vats fill up, and the sheaves are in: Never a blessing is left to win Save for the myrtle coronal Round the urn at the end of all. Men will clutch, as they clutched of old, Souring honey or dimming gold, Not the treasure-trove of the land Here shut fast in a roseleaf hand. (Ah, the folly! it irks one so!)

And shall it be thus with the boy, or no? Sweet, if you love him, let him go.

Autumn Magic

SOON as divine September, flushing from sea to sea, Peers from the whole wide upland into eternity,

Soft as an exhalation, ghosts of the thistle start: Never a poet saw them but ached in his baffled heart.

Gossamer armies rising thicker than snowflakes fall, Waken in blood and marrow, aware of the unheard call.

Oh, what a nameless urging through avenues laid in air, Hints of escape, unbodied, intricate, everywhere,

Sense of a feared denial, or access hard to be won; Gleams of a dubious gesture for guesses to feed upon!

Flame goes flying in heaven, the down on the cool hillside: Earth is a bride-veil glory to show and conceal the Bride.

Five Carols for Christmastide