A CHURCHYARD IN OXFORDSHIRE

Sweet air and fresh; glades yet unsear'd by hand

Of Midas-finger'd Autumn, massy-green;

Bird-haunted nooks between,

Where feathery ferns, a fairy palmglove, stand,

An English-Eastern band:—

While e'en the stealthy squirrel o'er the grass

Beside me to the beech-clump dares to pass:—

In this still precinct of the happy dead,

The sanctuary of silence,— Blessed they!

I cried, who‘ neath the gray

Peace of God's house, each in his mounded bed

Sleep safe, nor reck how the great world runs on;

Peasant with noble here alike unknown.

Unknown, unnamed beneath one turf they sleep,

Beneath one sky, one heaven-uplifted sign

Of love assured, divine:

While o'er each mound the quiet mosses creep,

The silent dew-pearls weep:

— Fit haven-home for thee, O gentlest heart

Of Falkland! all unmeet to find thy part

In those tempestuous times of canker'd hate

When Wisdom's finest touch, and, by her side,

Forbearance generous-eyed

To fix the delicate balance of the State

Were needed;— King or Nation, which should hold

Supreme supremacy o'er the kingdoms old.

— God's heroes, who?... Not most, or likeliest, he

Whom iron will cramps to one narrow road,

Driving him like a goad

Till all his heart decrees seem God's decree;

That worst hypocrisy

When self cheats self, and conscience at the wheel

Herself is steer'd by passion's blindfold zeal;

A nether-world archangel! Through whose eyes

Flame the red mandates of remorseless might;

A gloom of lurid light

That holds no commerce with the crystal skies;

Like those rank fires that o'er the fen-land flee,

Or on the mast-head sign the wrath to be.

As o'er that ancient weird Arlesian plain

Where Zeus hail'd boulder-stones on the giant crew,

And changed to stone, or slew,

No bud may burgeon in Spring's gracious rain,

No blade of grass or grain:

— So bare, so scourged, a prey to chaos cast

The wisest despot leaves his realm at last!

Though for the land he toil'd with iron will,

Earnest to reach persuasion's goal through power,

The fruit without the flower!

And pray'd and wrestled to charm good from ill;

Waking perchance, or not, in death,— to find

Man fights a losing fight who fights mankind!

And as who in the Theban avenue,

Sphinx ranged by Sphinx, goes awestruck, nor may read

That ancient awful creed

Closed in their granite calm:— so dim the clue,

So tangled, tracking through

That labyrinthine soul which, day by day

Changing, yet kept one long imperious way:

Strong in his weakness; confident, yet forlorn;

Waning and waxing; diamond-keen, or dull,

As that star Wonderful,

Mira, for ever, dying and reborn:—

Blissful or baleful, yet a Power throughout,

Throned in dim altitude o'er the common rout.

Alas, great Chief! The pity of it!— For he

Lay on his unlamented bier; his life

Wreck'd on that futile strife

To wed things alien by heaven's decree,

Sword-sway with liberty:—

Coercing, not protecting;— for the Cause

Smiting with iron heel on England's laws:

— Intolerant tolerance! Soul that could not trust

Its finer instincts; self-compell'd to run

The blood-path once begun,

And murder mercy with a sad‘ I must!’

Great lion-heart by guile and coarseness marr'd;

By his own heat a hero warp'd and scarr'd.

Despot despite himself!— And when the cry

Moan'd up from England, dungeon'd in that drear

Sectarian atmosphere,

With glory he gilt her chains; in Spanish sky

Flaunting the Red Cross high;—

Wars, just or unjust, ill or well design'd,

Urged with the will that masters weak mankind.

— God's hammer Thou!— not hero!— Forged to break

The land,— salve wounds with wounds, heal force by force;

Sword-surgeon keen and coarse:—

To all who worship power for power's own sake,—

Strength for itself,— Success, the vulgar test,—

Fit idol of bent knee, and servile breast!

— O in the party plaudits of the crowd

Glorious, if this be glory!— o'er that shout

A small still voice breathes out

With subtle sweetness silencing the loud

Hoarse vaunting of the proud,—

A song of exaltation for the vale,

And how the mountain from his height shall fail!

How God's true heroes, since this earth began,

Go sackcloth-clad through scourge and sword and scorn,

Crown'd with the bleeding thorn,

Down-trampled by man's heel as foes to man,

And whispering Eli, Eli! as they die,—

Martyrs of truth and Saint Humility.

These conquer in their fall: Persuasion flies

Wing'd, from their grave: The hearts of men are turn'd

To worship what they burn'd:

Owning the sway of Love's long-suffering eyes,

Love's sweet self-sacrifice;

The might of gentleness; the subduing force

Of wisdom on her mid-way measured course

Gliding;— not torrent-like with fury spilt,

Impetuous, o'er Himalah's rifted side,

To ravage blind and wide,

And leave a lifeless wreck of parching silt;—

Gliding by thorpe and tower and grange and lea

In tranquil transit to the eternal sea.

— Children of Light!— If, in the slow-paced course

Of vital change, your work seem incomplete,

Your conquest-hour defeat,

Won by mild compromise, by the invisible force

That owns no earthly source;

Yet to all time your gifts to man endure,

God being with you, and the victory sure!

For though o'er Gods the Giants in the course

May lord it, Strength o'er Beauty; yet the Soul

Immortal, clasps the goal;

Fair Wisdom triumphs by her inborn force:

— Thus far on earth!... But, ah!— from mortal sight

The crowning glory veils itself in light!

— Seal'd of that holy band,

Rest here, beneath the foot-fall hushing sod,

Wrapt in the peace of God,

While summer burns above thee; while the land

Disrobes; till pitying snow

Cover her bareness; till fresh Spring-winds blow,

And the sun-circle rounds itself again:—

Whilst England cries in vain

For thy wise temperance, Lucius!— But thine ear

The violent-impotent fever-restless cry,

The faction-yells of triumph, will not hear:

— Only the thrush on high

And wood-dove's moaning sweetness make reply.