Part 2

All these their mirth and pleasure made Within the plain Elysian, The fairest meadow that may be, With all green fragrant trees for shade And every scented wind to fan, And sweetest flowers to strew the lea; The soft Winds are their servants fleet To fetch them every fruit at will And water from the river chill; And every bird that singeth sweet Throstle, and merle, and nightingale Brings blossoms from the dewy vale,— Lily, and rose, and asphodel— With these doth each guest twine his crown And wreathe his cup, and lay him down Beside some friend he loveth well.

There with the shining Souls I lay When, lo, a Voice that seemed to say, In far-off haunts of Memory, Whoso death taste the Dead Men’s bread, Shall dwell for ever with these Dead, Nor ever shall his body lie Beside his friends, on the grey hill Where rains weep, and the curlews shrill And the brown water wanders by!

Then did a new soul in me wake, The dead men’s bread I feared to break, Their fruit I would not taste indeed Were it but a pomegranate seed. Nay, not with these I made my choice To dwell for ever and rejoice, For otherwhere the River rolls That girds the home of Christian souls, And these my whole heart seeks are found On otherwise enchanted ground.

Even so I put the cup away, The vision wavered, dimmed, and broke, And, nowise sorrowing, I woke While, grey among the ruins grey Chill through the dwellings of the dead, The Dawn crept o’er the Northern sea, Then, in a moment, flushed to red, Flushed all the broken minster old, And turned the shattered stones to gold, And wakened half the world with me!

L’Envoi.

To E. W. G.

(Who also had rhymed on the Fortune Islands of Lucian).

Each in the self-same field we glean The field of the Samosatene, Each something takes and something leaves And this must choose, and that forego In Lucian’s visionary sheaves, To twine a modern posy so; But all any gleanings, truth to tell, Are mixed with mournful asphodel, While yours are wreathed with poppies red, With flowers that Helen’s feet have kissed, With leaves of vine that garlanded The Syrian Pantagruelist, The sage who laughed the world away, Who mocked at Gods, and men, and care, More sweet of voice than Rabelais, And lighter-hearted than Voltaire.

THE NEW MILLENIUM.

(THE UNFORTUNATE ISLANDS.)

A VISION IN THE STRAND.

THE jaded light of late July Shone yellow down the dusty Strand, The anxious people bustled by, Policeman, Pressman, you and I, And thieves, and judges of the land.

So swift they strode they had not time To mark the humours of the Town, But I, that mused an idle rhyme, Looked here and there, and up and down, And many a rapid cart I spied That drew, as fast as ponies can, The Newspapers of either side, These joys of every Englishman!

The Standard here, the Echo there, And cultured ev’ning papers fair, With din and fuss and shout and blare Through all the eager land they bare, The rumours of our little span.

’Midst these, but ah, more slow of speed, A biggish box of sanguine hue Was tugged on a velocipede, And in and out the crowd, and through, An earnest stripling urged it well Perched on a cranky tricycle!

A seedy tricycle he rode, Perchance some three miles in the hour, But, on the big red box that glowed Behind him, was a name of Power, JUSTICE, (I read it e’er I wist,) The Organ of the Socialist!

The paper carts fled fleetly by And vanished up the roaring Strand, And eager purchasers drew nigh Each with his penny in his hand, But Justice, scarce more fleet than I, Began to permeate the land, And dark, methinks, the twilight fell, Or ever Justice reached Pall Mall.

Oh Man, (I stopped to moralize,) How eager thou to fight with Fate, To bring Astraea from the skies; Yet ah, how too inadequate The means by which thou fain wouldst cope With Laws and Morals, King and Pope! “Justice!”—how prompt the witling’s sneer,— “Justice! Thou wouldst have Justice here! And each poor man should be a squire, Each with his competence a year, Each with sufficient beef and beer, And all things matched to his desire, While all the Middle Classes should With every vile Capitalist Be clean reformed away for good, And vanish like a morning mist!

“Ah splendid Vision, golden time, An end of hunger, cold, and crime. An end of Rent, an end of Rank, An end of balance at the Bank, An end of everything that’s meant To bring Investors five per cent!”

How fair doth Justice seem, I cried, Yet oh, how strong the embattled powers That war against on every side Justice, and this great dream of ours, And what have we to plead our cause ’Gainst Masters, Capital, and laws, What but a big red box indeed, With copies of a weekly screed, That’s slowly jolted, up and down, Behind an old velocipede To clamour Justice through the town: How touchingly inadequate These arms wherewith we’d vanquish Fate!

Nay, the old Order shall endure And little change the years shall know, And still the Many shall be poor, And still the Poor shall dwell in woe; Firm in the iron Law of things The strong shall be the wealthy still, And (called Capitalists or Kings) Shall seize and hoard the fruits of skill. Leaving the weaker for their gain, Leaving the gentler for their prize Such dens and husks as beasts disdain,— Till slowly from the wrinkled skies The fireless frozen Sun shall wane, Nor Summer come with golden grain; Till men be glad, mid frost and snow To live such equal lives of pain As now the hutted Eskimo! Then none shall plough nor garner seed, Then, on some last sad human shore, Equality shall reign indeed, The Rich shall be with us no more, Thus, and not otherwise, shall come The new, the true Millennium!

ALMAE MATRES.

(ST. ANDREWS, 1862. OXFORD, 1865)

St. Andrews by the Northern sea, A haunted town it is to me! A little city, worn and grey, The grey North Ocean girds it round. And o’er the rocks, and up the bay, The long sea-rollers surge and sound. And still the thin and biting spray Drives down the melancholy street, And still endure, and still decay, Towers that the salt winds vainly beat. Ghost-like and shadowy they stand Dim mirrored in the wet sea-sand.

St. Leonard’s chapel, long ago We loitered idly where the tall Fresh budded mountain ashes blow Within thy desecrated wall: The tough roots rent the tomb below, The April birds sang clamorous, We did not dream, we could not know How hardly Fate would deal with us!

O, broken minster, looking forth Beyond the bay, above the town, O, winter of the kindly North, O, college of the scarlet gown, And shining sands beside the sea, And stretch of links beyond the sand, Once more I watch you, and to me It is as if I touched his hand!

And therefore art thou yet more dear, O, little city, grey and sere, Though shrunken from thine ancient pride And lonely by thy lonely sea, Than these fair halls on Isis’ side, Where Youth an hour came back to me!

A land of waters green and clear, Of willows and of poplars tall, And, in the spring time of the year, The white may breaking over all, And Pleasure quick to come at call. And summer rides by marsh and wold, And Autumn with her crimson pall About the towers of Magdalen rolled; And strange enchantments from the past, And memories of the friends of old, And strong Tradition, binding fast The “flying terms” with bands of gold,—