Part 17

Nor from Apollo did I shrink Like Titans chained; but sweet and low Whispered the Nymphs, who seldom think: "Up, up for action, run and row!"

He let me, though his smile was grave, Seek an Egeria out of town Beneath the chestnuts; he forgave; And should the jealous Muses frown?

Fieldward some remnants of their lore Went with me, as the rhymes of Gray Annealed the heart of Wolfe for war When drifting on his starlit way.

Much lost I; something stayed behind, A snatch, maybe, of ancient song; Some breathings of a deathless mind, Some love of truth, some hate of wrong.

And to myself in games I said, "What mean the books? Can I win fame? I would be like the faithful dead A fearless man, and pure of blame.

I may have failed, my School may fail; I tremble, but thus much I dare; I love her. Let the critics rail, My brethren and my home are there.

July 28th, 1863.

CLOVELLY BEACH

Oh, music! breathe me something old to-day, Some fine air gliding in from far away, Through to the soul that lies behind the clay.

This hour, if thou did'st ever speak before, Speak in the wave that sobs upon the shore, Speak in the rill that trickles from the moor.

Known was this sea's slow chant when I was young; To me these rivulets sing as once they sung, No need this hour of human throat and tongue.

The Dead who loved me heard this selfsame tide. Oh that the Dead were listening by my side, And I could give the fondness then denied.

Once in the parlour of my mother's sire One sang, "And ye shall walk in silk attire." Then my cold childhood woke to strange desire.

That was an unconfessed and idle spell, A drop of dew that on a blossom fell; And what it wrought I cannot surely tell.

Far off that thought and changed, like lines that stay On withered canvas, pink and pearly grey, When rose and violet hues have passed away.

Oh, had I dwelt with music since that night! What life but that is life, what other flight Escapes the plaguing doubts of wrong and right!

Oh music! once I felt the touch of thee, Once when this soul was as the chainless sea. Oh, could'st thou bid me even now be free!

April, 1865.

AN EPOCH IN A SWEET LIFE

This sun, whose javelins strike and gild the wheat, Who gives the nectarine half an orb of bloom, Burns on my life no less, and beat by beat Shapes that grave hour when boyhood hears her doom.

Between this glow of pious eve and me, Lost moments, thick as clouds of summer flies, Specks of old time, which else one could not see, Made manifest in the windless calm, arise.

Streaks fairy green are traced on backward ways, Through vacant regions lightly overleapt, With pauses, where in soft pathetic haze Are phantoms of the joys that died unwept.

Seven years since one, who bore with me the yoke Of household schooling, missed me from her side. When called away from sorrowing woman folk A prouder task with brothers twain I plied.

I came a child, and home was round me still, No terror snapt the silken cord of trust; My accents changed not, and the low "I will" Silenced like halcyon plumes the loud "you must."

I lisped my Latin underneath the gloom Of timbers dark as frowning usher's looks, Where thought would stray beyond that sordid room To saucy chessmen and to feathered hooks.

And soon I sat below my grandsire's bust, Which in the school he loved not deigns to stand, That Earl, who forced his compeers to be just, And wrought in brave old age what youth had planned.

But no ancestral majesties could fix The wistful eye, which fell, and fondly read, Fresh carven on the panel, letters six, A brother's name, more sacred than the dead.

How far too sweet for school he seemed to me, How ripe for combat with the wits of men, How childlike in his manhood! Can it be? Can I indeed be now what he was then?