On, chariot—on, soul, Ye are all the more fleet— Be alone at the goal Of the strange and the sweet! Love as, God! love us, man! We believe, we achieve— Let ns love, let us live, For the acts correspond— We are glorious—and Dik! And again on the knee of a mild Mystery That smiles with a change, Here we lie! O Death. O Bevond, THE HOUSE OF CLOUDS. I Would build a cloudy House For my thoughts to live in: When for earth too fancy-loose, And too low for Heaven! I build it bright to see,— To which I looked with thee. Cloud-walls of the morning's grey. Faced with amber column. Crowned with crimson cupola From a sunset solemn I May-mists, for the casements, fetch, Pale and glimmering; With a sunbeam hid in each, And a smell of spring. Build the entrance high and proud, Darkening and then brightening. Of a riven thunder-cloud, Veined by the lightning. Use one with an iris-stain For the door within; Turning to a sound like rain As we enter in. Build a spacious hall thereby: Boldly, never fearing. Which the wind is clearing; Flecked with winding stairs— I Such as children wish to climb. In the mutest of the house, I will have my chamber: Silence at the door shall use Evening's light of amber, Solemnising every mood, Softening in degree, Turning sadness into good As I turn the key. ! Be my chamber tapestried With the showers of summer, Close, but soundless,—glorified When the sunbeams come here; Wandering harper, harping on Waters stringed for such, Drawing colour for a tune, With a vibrant touch, Bring a shadow green and sti'.l From the chestnut forest, Bring a purple from the hill. When the heat is sorest; Spread them out from wall to wall, Carpet-wove around, Whereupon the foot shall fall In light instead of sound. Bring the fantastic cloudlets home From the noontide zenith; Range for sculptures round the room Named as Fancy weeneth: Some be Junos, without eyes; Naiads, without sources; Some be birds of paradise. Some, Olympian horses. Bring the dews the birds shake off, Waking in the hedges,— Those too, perfumed for a proof, From the lilies' edges: From our England's field and moor. Bring them calm and white in; Whence to form a mirror pure For love's self-delighting. Bring a grey cloud from the east Something of the song at least, That shall be a morning chair. When it leans out on the air, Bring the red cloud from the sun! • While he sinketh, catch it. That shall be a couch,—with one Sidelong star to watch it,— At the curfew-sounding. Than the seen, around him. Poet's thought,—not poet's sigh*-. 'Las, they come together! Cloudy walls divide and fly. As in April weather! Structure bright to see— To which I looked with thee! Let them! Wipe such visionings From the Fancy's cartel— Love secures some fairer things Dowered with his immortal. The sun may darken, — heaven be bowed— But still unchanged shall be,— Here in my soul,—that moonlit cloud. To which I looked with Thee! CATARINA TO CAMOENS. Dying in his absence abroad, and referring to the poem in tvhich he recorded the sweetness of her eyes. On the door you will not enter, I have gazed too long—adieu! Hope withdraws her peradventure— Death is near me,—and not you! Come, O lover! Close and cover These poor eyes, you called, I ween, 'Sweetest eyes, were ever seen.' When I heard you sing that burden In my vernal days and bowers, Only saying In heart-playing, 'Blessed eyes mine eyes have been. If the sweetest, His have seen!' But all changes. At this vesper, Cold the sun shines down the door. If you stood there, would you whisper * Love, I love you,' as before,— Death pervading Now, and shading Eyes you sang of, that yestreen, As the sweetest ever seen? Yes! I think, were you beside them, Near the bed I die upon,— Though their beauty you denied them, As you stood there looking down, You would truly Call them duly. For the love's sake found therein,— 'Sweetest eyes were ever seen.' And if you looked down upon them, And if they looked up to you. All the light which has foregone them Would be gathered back anew! They would tndy Be as duly Love-transformed to Beauty's sheen,— 'Sweetest eyes, were ever seen.' But, ah me! you only see me In your thoughts of loving man, While my spirit leans and reaches From my body still and pale. O my poet, O my prophet. When you praised their sweetness so. Did you think, in singing of it. That it might be near to go? Had you fancies From their glances, No reply! The fountains warble * Sweetest eyes, were ever seen.' Will you come? when I'm departed Where all sweetnesses are hid— When the angelus is ringing. Near the convent will you walk. And recall the choral singing Which brought angels down our talk? Spirit-shriven I viewed Heaven, Till you smiled—' Is earth unclean, Sweetest eyes, were ever seen?' When beneath the palace-lattice. You ride slow as you have done, And you see a face there—that is Not the old familiar one,— Will you oftly Murmur softly, 'Here, ye watched me morn and e'en. Sweetest eyes, were ever seen!' When the palace ladies sitting Round your gittern, shall have said, * Poet, sing those verses written For the lady who is dead,' Will you tremble, Yet dissemble,— Or sing hoarse, with tears between, 'Sweetest eyes, were ever seen V Sweetest eyes! How sweet in flowings, The repeated cadence is! Still the best one would be this. I can hear it 'Twixt my spirit But the priest waits for the praying, Strains more solemn high than these! Keep my rihand, take and keep it, But—but now—yet unremoved Up to Heaven, they glisten fast: Eyes of mine, what aie ye doing? Faithless, faithless—praised amiss I will look out to his future— I will bless it till it shine: WINE OF CYPRUS. Given to me by H. S. Boyd, Esq., author of " Select Passages from the Greek Fathers" etc., to whom these stanzas are addressed. If old Bacchus were the speaker He would tell you with a sigh, Of the Cyprus in this beaker I am sipping like a fly,— Like a fly or gnat on Ida At the hour of goblet-pledge, By Queen Juno brushed aside, a Full white arm-sweep, from the edge. Sooth, the drinking should be ampler When the drink is so divine; And some deep-mouthed Greek exemplar Would become your Cyprus wine; Cyclops' mouth would plunge aright in, While his one eye over-leered— Nor too large were mouth of Titan, Drinking rivers down his beard. Pan might dip his head so deep in Fauns around him, pressing, leaping. While the Naiads like Bacchantes, Cry—' O earth, that thou wouldst grant us Springs to keep, of such a taste!' But for me, I am not wortby And my lips are pale and eartby Since you heard them speak the last time. They have faded from their blooms; And the laughter of my pastime Has learnt silence at the tombs. Ah, my friend! the antique drinkers Crowned the cup and crowned the brow: Can I answer the old thinkers In the forms they thought of, now? Who will fetch from garden closes Some new garlands while I speak? That the forehead, crowned with roses, May strike scarlet down the cheek 1 Do not mock me! with my mortal. Suits no wreath again, indeed! I am sad-voiced as the turtle Which Anacreon used to feed: Yet as that same bird demurely Wet her beak in cup of his. So, without a garland, surely I may touch the brim of this. Go !—let others praise the Chian !— This is soft as Muses' string— This is rapid r.s its spring. Light as ever trod her feet! Make their honey not so sweet. Very copious are my praises, Though I sip it like a fly !— Ah—but, sipping—times and places Change before me suddenly— As Ulysses' old libation Drew the ghosts from every part, So your Cyprus wine, dear Grecian, Stirs the Hades of my heart. And I think of those long mornings, Which my Thought goes far to seek. When, betwixt the folio's turnings, Solemn flowed the rbythmic Greek. Past the pane the mountain spreading. Swept the sheep-bell's tinkling noise, While a girlish voice was reading, Somewhat low for az's and oi's. Then what golden hours were for us !— While we sate together there, How the white vests of the chorus Seemed to wave up a live air! How the cothurns trod majestic Down the deep iambic lines: And the rolling anapaestic Curled like vapor over shrines! Oh, our /Escbylus, the thunderous! How he drove the bolted breath Through the cloud, to wedge it ponderous In the gnarled oak beneath. Oh, our Sophocles, the royal, Who was born to monarch's place— And who made the whole world loyal, Less by kingly power than grace. Our Euripides, the human— With his droppings of warm tears; And his touches of things common. Till they rose to touch the spheres! Our Theocritus, our Bion, And our Pindar's shining goals!— These were cup-bearers undying, Of the wine that's meant for souls. And my Plato, the divine one. If men know the gods aright By their motions as they shine on With a glorious trail of light! And your noble Christian bishops, Who mouthed grandly the last Greek: Though the sponges on their hyssops Were distent with wine—too weak. Yet, your Chrysostom, you praised him As a liberal mouth of gold; And your Basil, you upraised him To the height of speakers old: And we both praised Heliodorus For his secret of pure lies ;— Who forged first his linked stories In the heat of lady's eyes. And we both praised your Synesius, For the fire shot up his odes: Though the Church was scarce propitious As he whistled dogs and gods. And we both praised Nazianzen, For the fervid heart and speech: Only I eschewed his glancing At the lyre hung out of reach. Do you mind that deed of Ate, •Which you bound me to so fast,— Reading "De Virginitate," From the first line to the last? How I said at ending, solemn, As l turned and looked at you. That St. Simeon on the column Had had somewhat less to do? For we sometimes gently wrangled Very gently, be it said. By no breaking of the thread! On the nobler fames of old— Ay, and sometimes thought your Porsons Stained the purple they would fold. For the rest—a mystic moaning, Kept Cassandra at the gate, With wild eyes the vision shone in And wide nostrils scenting fate. And Prometheus, bound in passion By brute Force to the blind stone. Showed us looks of invocation Turned to ocean and the sun. And Medea we saw burning At her nature's planted stake: And proud OZdipus, fate-scorning While the cloud came on to break— While the cloud came on slow—slower Till he stood discrowned, resigned! But the reader's voice dropped lower When the poet called him Blind! Ah, my gossip! you were older. And more learned, and a man! Yet that shadow—the enfolder Of your quiet eyelids—ran Both our spirits to one level; And I turned from hill ana lea And the summer-suns green revel, To your eyes that could not see. Now Christ bless you with the one light Which goes shining night and day! May the flowers which grow in sunlight Shed their fragrance in your way! Is it not right to remember All your kindness, friend of mine, When we two sat in the chamber. And the poets poured us wine? So, to come hack to the drinking Of this Cyprus !—it is well— Make a better cenomel: None can murmur with a sigh That, in drinking from that beaker, I am sipping like a fly. |