_W. H. 1778-1830_

BETWEEN the wet trees and the sorry steeple, Keep, Time, in dark Soho, what once was Hazlitt, Seeker of Truth, and finder oft of Beauty;

Beauty ’s a sinking light, ah, none too faithful; But Truth, who leaves so here her spent pursuer, Forgets not her great pawn: herself shall claim it.

Therefore sleep safe, thou dear and battling spirit, Safe also on our earth, begetting ever Some one love worth the ages and the nations!

Nothing falls under to thine eyes eternal. Sleep safe in dark Soho: the stars are shining, Titian and Wordsworth live; the People marches.

The Vigil-at-Arms

KEEP holy watch with silence, prayer, and fasting Till morning break, and all the bugles play; Unto the One aware from everlasting Dear are the winners: thou art more than they.

Forth from this peace on manhood’s way thou goest, Flushed with resolve, and radiant in mail; Blessing supreme for men unborn thou sowest, O knight elect! O soul ordained to fail!

A Madonna of Domenico Ghirlandajo

LET thoughts go hence as from a mountain spring, Of the great dust of battle clean and whole, And the wild birds that have no nest nor goal Fold in a young man’s breast their trancèd wing; For thou art made of purest Light, a thing Art gave, beyond her own devout control; And Light upon thy seeing, suffering soul Hath wrought a sign for many journeying; Our sign. As up a wayside, after rain, When the blown beeches purple all the height And clouds sink to the sea-marge, suddenly The autumn sun (how soft, how solemn-bright!) Moves to the vacant dial, so is lain God’s meaning Hand, thou chosen, upon thee.

Spring Nightfall

APRIL is sad, as if the end she knew. The maple’s misty red, the willow’s gold Face-deep in nimble water, seem to hold In hope’s own weather their autumnal hue. There is no wind, no star, no sense of dew, But the thin vapors gird the mountain old, And the moon, risen before the west is cold, Pale with compassion slopes into the blue. Under the shining dark the day hath passed Shining; so even of thee was home bereaved, Thou dear and pensive spirit! overcast Hardly at all, but drawn from light to light, Who in the doubtful hour, and unperceived, Rebuked adoring hearts with change and flight.

A Friend’s Song for Simoisius

THE breath of dew, and twilight’s grace, Be on the lonely battle-place; And to so young, so kind a face, The long, protecting grasses cling! (Alas, alas, The one inexorable thing!)

In rocky hollows cool and deep, The bees our boyhood hunted sleep; The early moon from Ida’s steep Comes to the empty wrestling-ring. (Alas, alas, The one inexorable thing!)

Upon the widowed wind recede No echoes of the shepherd’s reed, And children without laughter lead The war-horse to the watering. (Alas, alas, The one inexorable thing!)

Thou stranger Ajax Telamon! What to the loveliest hast thou done, That ne’er with him a maid may run Across the marigolds in spring? (Alas, alas, The one inexorable thing!)

With footstep separate and slow The father and the mother go, Not now upon an urn they know To mingle tears for comforting. (Alas, alas, The one inexorable thing!)

The world to me has nothing dear Beyond the namesake river here: O Simois is wild and clear! And to his brink my heart I bring; (Alas, alas, The one inexorable thing!)

My heart no more, if that might be, Would stay his waters from the sea, To cover Troy, to cover me, To save us from the perishing. (Alas, alas, The one inexorable thing!)

Athassel Abbey

FOLLY and Time have fashioned Of thee a songless reed; O not-of-earth-impassioned! Thy music ’s mute indeed.

Red from the chantry crannies The orchids burn and swing, And where the arch began is Rest for a raven’s wing;

And up the bossy column Quick tails of squirrels wave, And black, prodigious, solemn, A forest fills the nave.

Still faithfuller, still faster, To ruin give thy heart: Perfect before the Master Aye as thou wert, thou art.

But I am wind that passes In ignorant wild tears, Uplifted from the grasses, Blown to the void of years,

Blown to the void, yet sighing In thee to merge and cease, Last breath of beauty’s dying, Of sanctity, of peace!

Tho’ use nor place forever Unto my soul befall, By no belovèd river Set in a saintly wall,

Do thou by builders given Speech of the dumb to be, Beneath thine open heaven, Athassel! pray for me.

Florentin

HEART all full of heavenly haste, too like the bubble bright On loud little water floating half of an April night, Fled from the ear in music, fled from the eye in light, Dear and stainless heart of a boy! No sweeter thing can be Drawn to the quiet centre of God who is our sea; Whither, thro’ troubled valleys, we also follow thee.

Friendship Broken