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But is ever the one thing silent here.
She is not of us, as I divine;

She comes from another stiller world of the dead,
Stiller, not fairer than mine.

8

But I know where a garden grows,

Fairer than aught in the world beside,

All made up of the lily and rose

That blow by night, when the season is good,
To the sound of dancing music and flutes:
It is only flowers, they had no fruits,

And I almost fear they are not roses, but blood;
For the keeper was one, so full of pride,
He linkt a dead man there to a spectral bride;
For he, if he had not been a Sultan of brutes,
Would he have had that hole in his side?

9

But what will the old man say?

He laid a cruel snare in a pit

To catch a friend of mine one stormy day;
Yet now I could even weep to think of it;
For what will the old man say

When he comes to the second corpse in the pit?

ΙΟ

Friend, to be struck by the public foe,
Then to strike him and lay him low,
That were a public merit, far,
Whatever the Quaker holds, from sin;
But the red life spilt for a private blow-
I swear to you, lawful and lawless war
Are scarcely even akin.

II

O me, why have they not buried me deep enough? Is it kind to have made me a grave so rough,

Me, that was never a quiet sleeper?

Maybe still I am but half-dead;
Then I cannot be wholly dumb:

I will cry to the steps above my head,
And somebody, surely, some kind heart will come
To bury me, bury me

Deeper, ever so little deeper.

PART III

VI

I

My life has crept so long on. a broken wing
Thro' cells of madness, haunts of horror and fear,
That I come to be grateful at last for a little thing:
My mood is changed, for it fell at a time of year
When the face of night is fair on the dewy downs,
And the shining daffodil dies, and the Charioteer
And starry Gemini hang like glorious crowns
Over Orion's grave low down in the west,
That like a silent lightning under the stars

She seem'd to divide in a dream from a band of the blest,

And spoke of a hope for the world in the coming wars—

66

'And in that hope, dear soul, let trouble have rest, Knowing I tarry for thee," and pointed to Mars,

As he glow'd like a ruddy shield on the Lion's breast.

2

And it was but a dream, yet it yielded a dear delight
To have look'd, tho' but in a dream, upon eyes so fair,
That had been in a weary world my one thing bright;
And it was but a dream, yet it lighten'd my despair
When I thought that a war would arise in defence of the
right,

That an iron tyranny now should bend or cease,

The glory of manhood stand on his ancient height,
Nor Britain's one sole God be the millionaire:
No more shall commerce be all in all, and Peace
Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note,
And watch her harvest ripen, her herd increase,

Nor the cannon-bullet rust on a slothful shore,
And the cobweb woven across the cannon's throat
Shall shake its threaded tears in the wind no more.

3

And as months ran on and rumour of battle grew, "It is time, it is time, O passionate heart," said I (For I cleaved to a cause that I felt to be pure and true), "It is time, O passionate heart and morbid eye, That old hysterical mock-disease should die." And I stood on a giant deck and mix'd my breath With a loyal people shouting a battle-cry, Till I saw the dreary phantom arise and fly Far into the North, and battle, and seas of death.

4

Let it go or stay, so I wake to the higher aims
Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of gold,
And love of a peace that was full of wrongs and shames,
Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told;

And hail once more to the banner of battle unroll'd!
Tho' many a light shall darken, and many shall weep
For those that are crush'd in the clash of jarring claims,
Yet God's just wrath shall be wreak'd on a giant liar;
And many a darkness into the light shall leap,
And shine in the sudden making of splendid names,
And noble thought be freer under the sun,
And the heart of a people beat with one desire;
For the peace, that I deem'd no peace, is over and done,
And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic deep,
And deathful-grinning mouths of the fortress, flames
The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire.

5

Let it flame or fade, and the war roll down like a wind,
We have proved we have hearts in a cause, we are noble still,
And myself have awaked, as it seems, to the better mind;
It is better to fight for the good, than to rail at the ill;
I have felt with my native land, I am one with my kind,
I embrace the purpose of God, and the doom assign'd.

1098 RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, LORD HOUGHTON

650

CROSSING THE BAR

SUNSET and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the
bar,

When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the
boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of fare-.

well,

When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time

and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

651

RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES,

LORD HOUGHTON

[1809-1885]

SONNET

BECAUSE the Few with signal virtue crowned,
The heights and pinnacles of human mind,
Sadder and wearier than the rest are found,

Wish not thy Soul less wise or less refined.
True that the small delights which every day
Cheer and distract the pilgrim are not theirs;

652

True that, though free from passion's lawless sway,
A loftier being brings severer cares.
Yet have they special pleasures, even mirth,

By those undreamt of who have only trod
Life's valley smooth; and if the rolling earth
To their nice ear have many a painful tone,
They know, Man does not live by Joy alone
But by the presence of the power of God.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
[1811-1863]

THE END OF THE PLAY

THE play is done; the curtain drops,
Slow falling to the prompter's bell:

A moment yet the actor stops,

And looks around, to say farewell.
It is an irksome word and task;

And, when he 's laughed and said his say,
He shows, as he removes the mask,
A face that 's anything but gay.

One word, ere yet the evening ends,
Let's close it with a parting rhyme,
And pledge a hand to all young friends,
As fits the merry Christmas-time.
On life's wide scene you, too, have parts,
That Fate ere long shall bid you play;
Good night! with honest gentle hearts
A kindly greeting go alway!

Good night!-I'd say, the griefs, the joys,
Just hinted in this mimic page,
The triumphs and defeats of boys,
Are but repeated in our age.

I'd say, your woes were not less keen,

Your hopes more vain than those of men;

Your pangs or pleasures of fifteen

At forty-five played o'er again.

Um

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