The Portrait Of A Grandfather

With mild eyes agaze, and lips ready to speak, Whereon the yearning of love, the warning of wisdom plays, One portrait ever charms me and teaches me when I seek: It is of him whom I, remembering my young days, Imagine fathering my father; when he, in sonship afore, Liv'd honouring and obeying the eyes now pictur'd agaze, The lips ready to speak, that promise but speak no more.

O high parental claim, that were not but for the knowing, O fateful bond of duty, O more than body that bore, The smile that guides me to right, the gaze that follows my going, How had I stray'd without thee! and yet how few will seek The spirit-hands, that heaven, in tender-free bestowing, Holds to her children, to guide the wandering and aid the weak.

And Thee! ah what of thee, thou lover of men? if truly A painter had stell'd thee there, with thy lips ready to speak, In all-fathering passion to souls enchanted newly, --Tenderer call than of sire to son, or of lover to maiden,-- Ever ready to speak to us, if we will hearken duly, 'Come, O come unto me, ye weary and heavy-laden!'

[1880.]

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AN INVITATION TO THE OXFORD PAGEANT, JULY 1907

Fair lady of learning, playfellow of spring, Who to thy towery hospice in the vale Invitest all, with queenly claim to bring Scholars from every land within thy pale; If aught our pageantry may now avail To paint thine antique story to the eye, Inspire the scene, and bid thy herald cry Welcome to all, and to all comers hail!

Come hither, then he crieth, and hail to all. Bow each his heart a pilgrim at her shrine, Whatever chance hath led you to my call, Ye that love pomp, and ye that seek a sign, Or on the low earth look for things divine; Nor ye, whom reverend Camus near-allied, Writes in the roll of his ennobled pride, Refrain your praise and love to mix with mine.

Praise her, the mother of celestial moods, Who o'er the saints' inviolate array Hath starr'd her robe of fair beatitudes With jewels worn by Hellas, on the day She grew from girlhood into wisdom gay; And hath laid by her crozier, evermore With both hands gathering to enrich her store, And make her courts with music ring alway.

Love her, for that the world is in her heart, Man's rude antiquity and doubtful goal, The heaven-enthralling luxury of art, The burden'd pleading of his clay-bound soul, The mutual office of delight and dole, The merry laugh of youth, the joy of life Older than thought, and the unamending strife 'Twixt liberty and politic control.

There is none holier, not the lilied town By Arno, whither the spirit of Athens fled, Escap't from Hades to a less renown, Yet joyful to be risen from the dead; Nor she whose wide imperious arms were spread To spoil mankind, until the avenger came In darkening storm, and left a ruin'd name, A triple crown, upon a vanquish't head.

What love in myriad hearts in every clime The vision of her beauty calls to pray'r: Where at his feet Himâlaya sublime Holds up aslope the Arabian floods, or where Patriarchal Nile rears at his watery stair; In the broad islands of the Antipodes, By Esperanza, or in the coral seas Where Buddha's vain pagodas throng the air;

Or where the chivalry of Nipon smote The wily Muscovite, intent to creep Around the world with half his pride afloat, And sent his battle to the soundless deep; Or with our pilgrim-kin, and them that reap The prairie-corn beyond cold Labrador To California and the Alaskan shore, Her exiled sons their pious memory keep:

Bright memories of young poetic pleasure In free companionship, the loving stress Of all life-beauty lull'd in studious leisure, When every Muse was jocund with excess Of fine delight and tremulous happiness; The breath of an indolent unbridled June, When delicate thought fell from the dreamy moon: But now strange care, sorrow, and grief oppress.

'Ah! fewer tears shall be,--'tis thus they dream,-- Ah, fewer, softer tears, when we lie low: On younger brows shall brighter laurel gleam: Lovelier and earlier shall the rosebuds blow.' For in this hope she nurs'd them, and to know That Truth, while men regard a tetter'd page, Leaps on the mountains, and from age to age Reveals the dayspring's inexhausted glow.

Yet all their joy is mingled with regret: As the lone scholar on a neighbouring height, Brooding disconsolate with eyelids wet Ere o'er the unkind world he took his flight, Look'd down upon her festal lamps at night, And while the far call of her warning bell Reach't to his heart, sang us his fond farewell, Beneath the stars thinking of lost delight;

'Farewell! for whether we be young or old, Thou dost remain, but we shall pass away: Time shall against himself thy house uphold, And build thy sanctuary from decay; Children unborn shall be thy pride and stay. May Earth protect thee, and thy sons be true; And God with heavenly food thy life renew, Thy pleasure and thy grace from day to day.'

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