_To Lionel Johnson._

I.

THE TOW-PATH.

Furrow to furrow, oar to oar succeeds, Each length away, more bright, more exquisite; The sister shells that hither, thither flit, Strew the long stream like dropping maple-seeds. A comrade on the marge now lags, now leads, Who with short calls his pace doth intermit: An angry Pan, afoot; but if he sit, Auspicious Pan among the river reeds. West of the glowing hay-ricks, (tawny-black, Where waters by their warm escarpments run), Two lovers, slowly crossed from Kennington, Print in the early dew a married track, And drain the aroma’d eve, and spend the sun, Ere, in laborious health, the crews come back.

II.

THE OLD DIAL OF CORPUS.

Warden of hours and ages, here I dwell, Who saw young Keble pass, with sighing shook For good unborn; and, towards a willow nook, Pole, princely in the senate and the cell; And doubting the near boom of Osney bell, Turning on me that sweetly subtile look, Erasmus, in his breast an Attic book: Peacemakers all, their dreams to ashes fell. Naught steadfast may I image nor attain Save steadfast labour; futile must I grope After my god, like him, inconstant bright. But sun and shade must unto you remain Alternately a symbol and a hope, Men, spirits! of Emmanuel your Light.

III.

AD ANTIQUARIUM.

My gentle Aubrey, who in everything Hadst of thy city’s youth so lovely lust, Yet never lineal to her towers august Thy spirit could fix, or perfectly upbring, Sleep, sleep! I ope, not unremembering, Thy comely manuscript, and, interthrust, Find delicate hueless leaves more sad than dust, Two centuries unkissed of any spring. Filling a homesick page beneath a lime, Thy mood beheld, as mine thy debtor’s now, The endless terraces of ended Time, Vague in green twilight. Goodly was release Into that Past where these poor leaves, and thou, Do freshen in the air of eldest peace.

IV.

ROOKS IN NEW COLLEGE GARDENS.

Through rosy cloud, and over thorny towers, Their wings with darkling autumn distance filled, From Isis’ valley border, hundred-hilled, The rooks are crowding home as evening lowers: Not for men only, and their musing hours, By battled walls did gracious Wykeham build These dewy spaces early sown and stilled, These dearest inland melancholy bowers. Blest birds! A book held open on the knee Below, is all they guess of Adam’s blight: With surer art the while, and simpler rite, They follow Truth in some monastic tree, Where breathe against their docile breasts, by night, The scholar’s star, the star of sanctity.

V.

ON THE PRE-REFORMATION CHURCHES ABOUT OXFORD.

Imperial Iffley, Cumnor bowered in green, And Templar Sandford in the boatman’s call, And sweet-belled Appleton, and Marcham wall That dost upon adoring ivies lean; Meek Binsey; Dorchester, where streams convene Bidding on graves thy solemn shadow fall; Clear Cassington that soars perpetual; Holton and Hampton Poyle, and towers between: If one of all in your sad courts that come, Belovèd and disparted! be your own, Kin to the souls ye had, while yet endures Some memory of a great communion known At home in quarries of old Christendom,— Ah, mark him: he will lay his cheek to yours.

VI.

ON THE SAME (CONTINUED).

Is this the end? Is this the pilgrim’s day For dread, for dereliction, and for tears? Rather, from grass and air and many spheres, In prophecy his spirit sinks away; And under English eaves, more still than they, Far-off, incoming, wonderful, he hears The long-arrested, the believing years Carry the sea-wall! Shall he, sighing, say: “Farewell to Faith, for she is dead at best Who had such beauty”? or, with kisses lain For witness on her darkened doors, go by With a new psalm: “O banished light so nigh! Of them was I, who bore thee and who blest: Even here remember me when thou shalt reign.”

VII.

A DECEMBER WALK.

Whithersoever cold and fair ye flow, Calm tides of moonlit midnight, bear my mind! Past Christchurch gate, with leafy frost entwined, And Merton in a huge tiara’s glow, And groves in bridal gossamers below Saint Mary’s armoured spire; and whence aligned In altered eminence for dawn to find, Sleep the droll Cæsars, hooded with the snow. White sacraments of weather, shine on me! Upbear my footfall, and my fancy sift, Lest either blemish an ensainted ground Spread so with childhood. Bid with me, outbound, On recollected wing mine angel drift Across new spheres of immortality.

VIII.

UNDERTONES AT MAGDALEN.

Fair are the finer creature-sounds; of these Is Magdalen full: her bees, the while they drop Susurrant in the garth from weeds atop; And round the priestless Pulpit, auguries Of wrens in council from a hundred leas; And Cherwell fish in laughter fain to stop The water-plantain’s way; and deer that crop Delicious herbage under choral trees. The cry for silver and gold in Christendom Without, threads not her silence and her dark. Only against the isolate Tower there break Low rhythmic rumours of good men to come: Invasive seas of hushed approach, that make Memorial music, would the ear but hark.

IX.

PORT MEADOW.

The plain gives freedom. Hither, from the town, How oft a dreamer and a book of yore Escaped the lamplit Square, and heard no more From Cowley border surge the game’s renown; But bade the vernal sky with spices drown His head by Plato’s in the grass, before Yon oar that’s never old, the sunset oar, At Medley Lock was lain in music down! So seeming far the confines and the crowd, The gross routine, the cares that vex and tire, From this large light, sad thoughts in it, high-driven, Go happier than the inly-moving cloud That lets her vesture fall, a floss of fire, Abstracted, on the ivory hills of heaven.

X.

MARTYRS’ MEMORIAL.

Such natural debts of love our Oxford knows, So many ancient dues undesecrate, I marvel how the landmark of a hate For witness unto future time she chose; How out of her corroborate ranks arose The three, in great denial only great, For Art’s enshrining! . . Thus, averted straight, My soul to seek a holier captain goes: That sweet adventurer whom Truth befell Whenas the synagogues were watching not; Whose crystal name on royal Oriel Hangs like a shield; who to an outland spot Led hence, beholds his Star; and counts it well Of all his dear domain to live forgot.

XI.

A LAST VIEW.

Where down the glen, across the shallow ford, Stretches the open aisle from scene to scene, By halted horses silently we lean, Gazing enchanted from our steeper sward. How yon low loving skies of April hoard An hundred pinnacles, and how with sheen Of spike and ball her languid clouds between, Grey Oxford grandly rises riverward! Sweet on those dim long-dedicated walls, Silver as rain the frugal sunshine falls; Slowly sad eyes resign them, bound afar. Dear Beauty, dear Tradition, fare you well: And powers that aye aglow in you, impel Our quickening spirits from the slime we are.

XII.

RETRIEVAL.

Stars in the bosom of thy triple tide, June air and ivy on thy gracile stone, O glory of the West, as thou wert sown, Be perfect: O miraculous, abide! And still, for greatness flickering from thy side, Eternal alchemist, upraise, enthrone True heirs in true succession, later blown From that same seed of fire which never died. Nor love shall lack her solace, to behold Ranged to the morrow’s melancholy verge, Thy lights uprisen in Thought’s disclosing spaces; And round some beacon-spirit, stable, old, In radiant broad tumultuary surge For ever, the young voices, the young faces.

LYRICS.