·Later·Poems·

SWEET bird, what makes thee glad? Beneath this sky so wan and sad, And leafless poplars, thin and grey, Bowed down before the wintry sway.

What tuneful thought of days gone by Doth make thee sing? Or knowest thou why Thy soul is lifted up, sweet bird? Or dost thou hear Spring’s voice, unheard Of earth that sleeps, nor, dreaming, minds The herald blast of trumpet winds That make old Winter’s fortress quail, And force him cast his coat of mail.

What secret bower thy shape doth keep? Close hidden by the buds that sleep; Thy voice—the firstling bloom that blows— Breaks joyful through the wintry boughs, That bear thy song of promise, meet For happy hours when lovers greet, When every leaf-lorn tree shall bear Flower, fruit, and song upon the air, And summer’s choir is full, and gay The soft winds on the sun’s feast-day.

Sweet bird, as thou dost sing, my soul Doth partly catch the speechless whole Of joyful pain that lifts the wings Of thy sequestered music—things Remembered half, and half forgot, Of sight, or sound, or sense begot, Confused in love’s ambrosial streams, And hidden in the house of dreams; As frail sweet scent of flowers that hold Past time and days in some book’s fold, Which, when the leaves are turned again, Doth warm, like wine, the wintry brain.

O bird, thy heart doth sing in me, I hear what thou dost hear—I see Upon a high green land, untrod Of men, upon the flower-wrought sod The feet of Spring, and her bright throng Break from the woods with shout and song; Soft piping winds with pleasant cheer Before her go, her path to clear, Sweet maids come with her, and behind, Light-footed as the lifting wind: Some bear her canopy on high, And warm gleams gild it from the sky; Some strew with flowers the flower-strewn ground, Some bind them garlands, some are bound, And still, with all the happy rout, Fleet little loves wind in and out; Some hide in maiden’s fluttering weed, And ply their pretty arts, nor heed, While wilful gusts make sport, like them, With mantle’s fold, and garment’s hem; Or some, more bold, soft vengeance wreak On lifting hair, and glowing cheek.

But, scarce the wood hath set them free, Some forceful sprite in winter’s fee To snatch Spring’s garland would make bold, Whom shrill the shrinking maids do scold, Until the sun, their champion bright, Doth drive aback the wintry knight, Whose wild assault being overthrown, Far in the woodland makes he moan, And gentle Spring with all her train Doth hold high court on earth again.

ROCKED as in some fairy boat, By swift fancy set afloat, ’Twixt the oceans, blue and green, Of grass beneath, and sky serene, Where the streams of dusk and day Meet and mingle, far away, On the universal tide, Still with time and life to glide.

Boat, that, pendent ’mid the trees, Swingeth moored, yet sails the seas, Stem and stern from east to west, Bound upon an unknown quest, Past the marge of night and day, Blanched or strewn with starry spray; By the oar-strokes of the blood, Glides the shallop of my mood, On the windings of the flood, Shadowed by the summer wood, Dusk with dreams yon leaves that play With the falling blooms of May.

Like the web the Fates do spin Helpless man to cradle in— Hung, with life, upon a thread, Here I swing, and, o’er my head, Maze of apples, boughs and leaves, Meshed wherein, my thought enweaves Tapestry, phantasmic, strange, Shot with shifting dyes of change: So my shallow bark and frail Spreads a rich emblazoned sail, Filled, as now the summer breeze Fans my brain and stirs the trees, Where, a hidden heart of fire, Strives the moon in her desire Still to pierce the leafy fret Her celestial seat to get.

Cynthia’s self that silver shape, Boskage dark, she doth escape, Long her gleaming body hid Forth from its embraces slid, Doth naked, glorious, emerge Upon the lucent starry verge.

Let me linger in the wood, Hear the sound of pipings rude, Watch the shapes of nymph and fawn, Centaurs fleet across the lawn, Satyrs brown, in rhythmic dance, By the stream great Pan, perchance, Hidden in the vocal reed— All the happy antique breed.

I would turn again the book, Yet again to steal a look, Back to where Time’s firstling ran— Arboreal ancestral man: Wooing shy his dusky mate, Wild-eyed, half articulate: In his rude canoe, askance, See him poise his flint-tipped lance, Flashing in the ardent noon O’er the sedgy broad lagoon, When Thames reeds the river-horse Crushed in his unconscious force.

Swinging on the pendent bough Had he sweet content enow? Basking in the primal sun Recked he how his race should run? How, for forest night of trees, Cities spreading, dense as these, Where the shade of gilded pride, Starved and savage men, should hide Human vampires, hawks and flies, Gliding snakes and lustrous eyes, Dainty beauty, plumaged fair, Hollow masks for smiling care, Hopeless toil that smileth not, Misery, untold, forgot— Where the throng of fashion flaunts, Where, in dark unwholesome haunts, Lurks a darker race, to prowl Desert streets when night doth scowl, Desert stoney streets, and bare, ’Neath a strange electric glare, Fiery eyed to track them down, Homeless on the heartless town.

Ah! could early man, or late, Set his ways, or Nature’s, straight, Who life’s stream doth careless pour, Lets the cup brim o’er and o’er, Who will drink, or, drinking, dream, With the chosen skim the cream, Struggle with the ravening swine, For residue, or helpless whine, Lazarus at Dives’ gate, Dives at his feast of state, Rising with a hungry heart, As, one by one, life’s guests depart.

Could we chain those monsters up That on human lives do sup— Shameless lust of rule and gold, Lawless greed grown overbold, Vice and drink with palsied hand Riding down the joyless land— Then, if humanity could be From these, and other tyrants, free To win its bread—to win, I wot, Vine, and fig, and breathing plot, Joy in work, and joy in leisure, Love and art to fill life’s measure, Force and fraud might vainly rage To see, new born, the golden age.

Sailing thus, as thought doth steer, With the moon through cloud and clear, Fancy flutt’ring at the prow, Sirens singing soft and low, From the opal shores and streams, Where they dye the cloth of dreams— From the present and the past Have I touched the land at last! Voyaging the world around Yet anchored still to English ground.

June, 1884.