Humanitad

. IT is full Winter now: the trees are bare,

    Save where the cattle huddle from the cold

  Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear

    The Autumn's gaudy livery whose gold

  Her jealous brother pilfers, but is true

  To the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it blew

  From Saturn's cave; a few thin wisps of hay

    Lie on the sharp black hedges, where the wain

  Dragged the sweet pillage of a summer's day

    From the low meadows up the narrow lane;                        

  Upon the half-thawed snow the bleating sheep

  Press close against the hurdles, and the shivering house-dogs creep

  From the shut stable to the frozen stream

    And back again disconsolate, and miss

  The bawling shepherds and the noisy team;

    And overhead in circling listlessness

  The cawing rooks whirl round the frosted stack,

  Or crowd the dripping boughs; and in the fen the ice-pools crack

  Where the gaunt bittern stalks among the reeds

    And flaps his wings, and stretches back his neck,                

  And hoots to see the moon; across the meads

    Limps the poor frightened hare, a little speck;

  And a stray seamew with its fretful cry

  Flits like a sudden drift of snow against the dull grey sky.

  Full winter: and the lusty goodman brings

    His load of faggots from the chilly byre,

  And stamps his feet upon the hearth, and flings

    The sappy billets on the waning fire,

  And laughs to see the sudden lightening scare

  His children at their play; and yet,—the Spring is in the air,    

  Already the slim crocus stirs the snow,

    And soon yon blanchèd fields will bloom again

  With nodding cowslips for some lad to mow,

    For with the first warm kisses of the rain

  The winter's icy sorrow breaks to tears,

  And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the rabbit peers

  From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie,

    And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runs

  Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds fly

    Across our path at evening, and the suns                        

  Stay longer with us; ah! how good to see

  Grass-girdled Spring in all her joy of laughing greenery

  Dance through the hedges till the early rose,

    (That sweet repentance of the thorny briar!)

  Burst from its sheathèd emerald and disclose

    The little quivering disk of golden fire

  Which the bees know so well, for with it come

  Pale boys-love, sops-in-wine, and daffadillies all in bloom.

  Then up and down the field the sower goes,

    While close behind the laughing younker scares                  

  With shrilly whoop the black and thievish crows,

    And then the chestnut-tree its glory wears,

  And on the grass the creamy blossom falls

  In odorous excess, and faint half-whispered madrigals

  Steal from the bluebells' nodding carillons

    Each breezy morn, and then white jessamine,

  That star of its own heaven, snapdragons

    With lolling crimson tongues, and eglantine

  In dusty velvets clad usurp the bed

  And woodland empery, and when the lingering rose hath shed        

  Red leaf by leaf its folded panoply,

    And pansies closed their purple-lidded eyes,

  Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy

    Unload their gaudy scentless merchandise,

  And violets getting overbold withdraw

  From their shy nooks, and scarlet berries dot the leafless haw.

  O happy field! and O thrice happy tree!

    Soon will your queen in daisy-flowered smock

  And crown of flowre-de-luce trip down the lea,

    Soon will the lazy shepherds drive their flock                  

  Back to the pasture by the pool, and soon

  Through the green leaves will float the hum of murmuring bees at

        noon.

  Soon will the glade be bright with bellamour,

    The flower which wantons love, and those sweet nuns

  Vale-lilies in their snowy vestiture

    Will tell their beaded pearls, and carnations

  With mitred dusky leaves will scent the wind,

  And straggling traveller's joy each hedge with yellow stars will

        bind.

  Dear Bride of Nature and most bounteous Spring!

    That can'st give increase to the sweet-breath'd kine,            

  And to the kid its little horns, and bring

    The soft and silky blossoms to the vine,

  Where is that old nepenthe which of yore

  Man got from poppy root and glossy-berried mandragore!

  There was a time when any common bird

    Could make me sing in unison, a time

  When all the strings of boyish life were stirred

    To quick response or more melodious rhyme

  By every forest idyll;—do I change?

  Or rather doth some evil thing through thy fair pleasaunce range?  

  Nay, nay, thou art the same: 'tis I who seek

    To vex with sighs thy simple solitude,

  And because fruitless tears bedew my cheek

    Would have thee weep with me in brotherhood;

  Fool! shall each wronged and restless spirit dare

  To taint such wine with the salt poison of his own despair!

  Thou art the same: 'tis I whose wretched soul

    Takes discontent to be its paramour,

  And gives its kingdom to the rude control

    Of what should be its servitor,—for sure                      

  Wisdom is somewhere, though the stormy sea

  Contain it not, and the huge deep answer "'Tis not in me."

  To burn with one clear flame, to stand erect

    In natural honour, not to bend the knee

  In profitless prostrations whose effect

    Is by itself condemned, what alchemy

  Can teach me this? what herb Medea brewed

  Will bring the unexultant peace of essence not subdued?

  The minor chord which ends the harmony,

    And for its answering brother waits in vain,                    

  Sobbing for incompleted melody

    Dies a Swan's death; but I the heir of pain

  A silent Memnon with blank lidless eyes

  Wait for the light and music of those suns which never rise.

  The quenched-out torch, the lonely cypress-gloom,

    The little dust stored in the narrow urn,

  The gentle XAIPE of the Attic tomb,—

    Were not these better far than to return

  To my old fitful restless malady,

  Or spend my days within the voiceless cave of misery?            

  Nay! for perchance that poppy-crownèd God

    Is like the watcher by a sick man's bed

  Who talks of sleep but gives it not; his rod

    Hath lost its virtue, and, when all is said,

  Death is too rude, too obvious a key

  To solve one single secret in a life's philosophy.

  And Love! that noble madness, whose august

    And inextinguishable might can slay

  The soul with honied drugs,—alas! I must

    From such sweet ruin play the runaway,                          

  Although too constant memory never can

  Forget the archèd splendour of those brows Olympian

  Which for a little season made my youth

    So soft a swoon of exquisite indolence

  That all the chiding of more prudent Truth

    Seemed the thin voice of jealousy,—O Hence

  Thou huntress deadlier than Artemis!

  Go seek some other quarry! for of thy too perilous bliss

  My lips have drunk enough,—no more, no more,—

    Though Love himself should turn his gilded prow                

  Back to the troubled waters of this shore

    Where I am wrecked and stranded, even now

  The chariot wheels of passion sweep too near,

  Hence! Hence! I pass unto a life more barren, more austere.

  More barren—ay, those arms will never lean

    Down through the trellised vines and draw my soul

  In sweet reluctance through the tangled green;

    Some other head must wear that aureole,

  For I am Hers who loves not any man

  Whose white and stainless bosom bears the sign Gorgonian.        

  Let Venus go and chuck her dainty page,

    And kiss his mouth, and toss his curly hair,

  With net and spear and hunting equipage

    Let young Adonis to his tryst repair,

  But me her fond and subtle-fashioned spell

  Delights no more, though I could win her dearest citadel.

  Ay, though I were that laughing shepherd boy

    Who from Mount Ida saw the little cloud

  Pass over Tenedos and lofty Troy

    And knew the coming of the Queen, and bowed                    

  In wonder at her feet, not for the sake

  Of a new Helen would I bid her hand the apple take.

  Then rise supreme Athena argent-limbed!

    And, if my lips be musicless, inspire

  At least my life: was not thy glory hymned

    By One who gave to thee his sword and lyre

  Like Æschylus at well-fought Marathon,

  And died to show that Milton's England still could bear a son!

  And yet I cannot tread the Portico

    And live without desire, fear, and pain,                        

  Or nurture that wise calm which long ago

    The grave Athenian master taught to men,

  Self-poised, self-centred, and self-comforted,

  To watch the world's vain phantasies go by with unbowed head.

  Alas! that serene brow, those eloquent lips,

    Those eyes that mirrored all eternity,

  Rest in their own Colonos, an eclipse

    Hath come on Wisdom, and Mnemosyne

  Is childless; in the night which she had made

  For lofty secure flight Athena's owl itself hath strayed.        

  Nor much with Science do I care to climb,

    Although by strange and subtle witchery

  She draw the moon from heaven: the Muse of Time

    Unrolls her gorgeous-coloured tapestry

  To no less eager eyes; often indeed

  In the great epic of Polymnia's scroll I love to read

  How Asia sent her myriad hosts to war

    Against a little town, and panoplied

  In gilded mail with jewelled scimetar,

    White-shielded, purple-crested, rode the Mede                  

  Between the waving poplars and the sea

  Which men call Artemisium, till he saw Thermopylæ

  Its steep ravine spanned by a narrow wall,

    And on the nearer side a little brood

  Of careless lions holding festival!

    And stood amazèd at such hardihood,

  And pitched his tent upon the reedy shore,

  And stayed two days to wonder, and then crept at midnight o'er

  Some unfrequented height, and coming down

    The autumn forests treacherously slew                          

  What Sparta held most dear and was the crown

    Of far Eurotas, and passed on, nor knew

  How God had staked an evil net for him

  In the small bay of Salamis,—and yet, the page grows dim,

  Its cadenced Greek delights me not, I feel

    With such a goodly time too out of tune

  To love it much: for like the Dial's wheel

    That from its blinded darkness strikes the noon

  Yet never sees the sun, so do my eyes

  Restlessly follow that which from my cheated vision flies.        

  O for one grand unselfish simple life

    To teach us what is Wisdom! speak ye hills

  Of lone Helvellyn, for this note of strife

    Shunned your untroubled crags and crystal rills,

  Where is that Spirit which living blamelessly

  Yet dared to kiss the smitten mouth of his own century!

  Speak ye Rydalian laurels! where is He

    Whose gentle head ye sheltered, that pure soul

  Whose gracious days of uncrowned majesty

    Through lowliest conduct touched the lofty goal                

  Where Love and Duty mingle! Him at least

  The most high Laws were glad of, he had sat at Wisdom's feast,

  But we are Learning's changelings, know by rote

    The clarion watchword of each Grecian school

  And follow none, the flawless sword which smote

    The pagan Hydra is an effete tool

  Which we ourselves have blunted, what man now

  Shall scale the august ancient heights and to old Reverence bow?

  One such indeed I saw, but, Ichabod!

    Gone is that last dear son of Italy,                            

  Who being man died for the sake of God,

    And whose unrisen bones sleep peacefully.

  O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto's tower,

  Thou marble lily of the lily town! let not the lour

  Of the rude tempest vex his slumber, or

    The Arno with its tawny troubled gold

  O'erleap its marge, no mightier conqueror

    Clomb the high Capitol in the days of old

  When Rome was indeed Rome, for Liberty

  Walked like a Bride beside him, at which sight pale Mystery      

  Fled shrieking to her farthest sombrest cell

    With an old man who grabbled rusty keys,

  Fled shuddering for that immemorial knell

    With which oblivion buries dynasties

  Swept like a wounded eagle on the blast,

  As to the holy heart of Rome the great triumvir passed.

  He knew the holiest heart and heights of Rome,

    He drave the base wolf from the lion's lair,

  And now lies dead by that empyreal dome

    Which overtops Valdarno hung in air                            

  By Brunelleschi—O Melpomene

  Breathe through thy melancholy pipe thy sweetest threnody!

  Breathe through the tragic stops such melodies

    That Joy's self may grow jealous, and the Nine

  Forget a-while their discreet emperies,

    Mourning for him who on Rome's lordliest shrine

  Lit for men's lives the light of Marathon,

  And bare to sun-forgotten fields the fire of the sun!

  O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto's tower,

    Let some young Florentine each eventide                        

  Bring coronals of that enchanted flower

    Which the dim woods of Vallombrosa hide,

  And deck the marble tomb wherein he lies

  Whose soul is as some mighty orb unseen of mortal eyes.

  Some mighty orb whose cycled wanderings,

    Being tempest-driven to the farthest rim

  Where Chaos meets Creation and the wings

    Of the eternal chanting Cherubim

  Are pavilioned on Nothing, passed away

  Into a moonless void,—and yet, though he is dust and clay,      

  He is not dead, the immemorial Fates

    Forbid it, and the closing shears refrain,

  Lift up your heads ye everlasting gates!

    Ye argent clarions sound a loftier strain!

  For the vile thing he hated lurks within

  Its sombre house, alone with God and memories of sin.

  Still what avails it that she sought her cave

    That murderous mother of red harlotries?

  At Munich on the marble architrave

    The Grecian boys die smiling, but the seas                      

  Which wash Ægina fret in loneliness

  Not mirroring their beauty, so our lives grow colourless

  For lack of our ideals, if one star

    Flame torch-like in the heavens the unjust

  Swift daylight kills it, and no trump of war

    Can wake to passionate voice the silent dust

  Which was Mazzini once! rich Niobe

  For all her stony sorrows hath her sons, but Italy!

  What Easter Day shall make her children rise,

    Who were not Gods yet suffered? what sure feet                  

  Shall find their graveclothes folded? what clear eyes

    Shall see them bodily? O it were meet

  To roll the stone from off the sepulchre

  And kiss the bleeding roses of their wounds, in love of Her

  Our Italy! our mother visible!

    Most blessed among nations and most sad,

  For whose dear sake the young Calabrian fell

    That day at Aspromonte and was glad

  That in an age when God was bought and sold

  One man could die for Liberty! but we, burnt out and cold,        

  See Honour smitten on the cheek and gyves

    Bind the sweet feet of Mercy: Poverty

  Creeps through our sunless lanes and with sharp knives

    Cuts the warm throats of children stealthily,

  And no word said:—O we are wretched men

  Unworthy of our great inheritance! where is the pen

  Of austere Milton? where the mighty sword

    Which slew its master righteously? the years

  Have lost their ancient leader, and no word

    Breaks from the voiceless tripod on our ears:                  

  While as a ruined mother in some spasm

  Bears a base child and loathes it, so our best enthusiasm

  Genders unlawful children, Anarchy

    Freedom's own Judas, the vile prodigal

  Licence who steals the gold of Liberty

    And yet has nothing, Ignorance the real

  One Fratricide since Cain, Envy the asp

  That stings itself to anguish, Avarice whose palsied grasp

  Is in its extent stiffened, monied Greed

    For whose dull appetite men waste away                          

  Amid the whirr of wheels and are the seed

    Of things which slay their sower, these each day

  Sees rife in England, and the gentle feet

  Of Beauty tread no more the stones of each unlovely street.

  What even Cromwell spared is desecrated

    By weed and worm, left to the stormy play

  Of wind and beating snow, or renovated

    By more destructful hands: Time's worst decay

  Will wreathe its ruins with some loveliness,

  But these new Vandals can but make a rainproof barrenness.        

  Where is that Art which bade the Angels sing

    Through Lincoln's lofty choir, till the air

  Seems from such marble harmonies to ring

    With sweeter song than common lips can dare

  To draw from actual reed? ah! where is now

  The cunning hand which made the flowering hawthorn branches bow

  For Southwell's arch, and carved the House of One

    Who loved the lilies of the field with all

  Our dearest English flowers? the same sun

    Rises for us: the seasons natural                              

  Weave the same tapestry of green and grey:

  The unchanged hills are with us: but that Spirit hath passed away.

  And yet perchance it may be better so,

    For Tyranny is an incestuous Queen,

  Murder her brother is her bedfellow,

    And the Plague chambers with her: in obscene

  And bloody paths her treacherous feet are set;

  Better the empty desert and a soul inviolate!

  For gentle brotherhood, the harmony

    Of living in the healthful air, the swift                      

  Clean beauty of strong limbs when men are free

    And women chaste, these are the things which lift

  Our souls up more than even Agnolo's

  Gaunt blinded Sibyl poring o'er the scroll of human woes,

  Or Titian's little maiden on the stair

    White as her own sweet lily and as tall,

  Or Mona Lisa smiling through her hair,—

    Ah! somehow life is bigger after all

  Than any painted angel could we see

  The God that is within us! The old Greek serenity                

  Which curbs the passion of that level line

    Of marble youths, who with untroubled eyes

  And chastened limbs ride round Athena's shrine

    And mirror her divine economies,

  And balanced symmetry of what in man

  Would else wage ceaseless warfare,—this at least within the span

  Between our mother's kisses and the grave

    Might so inform our lives, that we could win

  Such mighty empires that from her cave

    Temptation would grow hoarse, and pallid Sin                    

  Would walk ashamed of his adulteries,

  And Passion creep from out the House of Lust with startled eyes.

  To make the Body and the Spirit one

    With all right things, till no thing live in vain

  From morn to noon, but in sweet unison

    With every pulse of flesh and throb of brain

  The Soul in flawless essence high enthroned,

  Against all outer vain attack invincibly bastioned,

  Mark with serene impartiality

    The strife of things, and yet be comforted,                    

  Knowing that by the chain causality

    All separate existences are wed

  Into one supreme whole, whose utterance

  Is joy, or holier praise! ah! surely this were governance

  Of Life in most august omnipresence,

    Through which the rational intellect would find

  In passion its expression, and mere sense,

    Ignoble else, lend fire to the mind,

  And being joined with in harmony

  More mystical than that which binds the stars planetary,          

  Strike from their several tones one octave chord

    Whose cadence being measureless would fly

  Through all the circling spheres, then to its Lord

    Return refreshed with its new empery

  And more exultant power,—this indeed

  Could we but reach it were to find the last, the perfect creed.

  Ah! it was easy when the world was young

    To keep one's life free and inviolate,

  From our sad lips another song is rung,

    By our own hands our heads are desecrate,                      

  Wanderers in drear exile, and dispossessed

  Of what should be our own, we can but feed on wild unrest.

  Somehow the grace, the bloom of things has flown,

    And of all men we are most wretched who

  Must live each other's lives and not our own

    For very pity's sake and then undo

  All that we live for—it was otherwise

  When soul and body seemed to blend in mystic symphonies.

  But we have left those gentle haunts to pass

    With weary feet to the new Calvary,                            

  Where we behold, as one who in a glass

    Sees his own face, self-slain Humanity,

  And in the dumb reproach of that sad gaze

  Learn what an awful phantom the red hand of man can raise.

  O smitten mouth! O forehead crowned with thorn!

    O chalice of all common miseries!

  Thou for our sakes that loved thee not hast borne

    An agony of endless centuries,

  And we were vain and ignorant nor knew

  That when we stabbed thy heart it was our own real hearts we      

        slew.

  Being ourselves the sowers and the seeds,

    The night that covers and the lights that fade,

  The spear that pierces and the side that bleeds,

    The lips betraying and the life betrayed;

  The deep hath calm: the moon hath rest: but we

  Lords of the natural world are yet our own dread enemy.

  Is this the end of all that primal force

    Which, in its changes being still the same,

  From eyeless Chaos cleft its upward course,

    Through ravenous seas and whirling rocks and flame,            

  Till the suns met in heaven and began

  Their cycles, and the morning stars sang, and the Word was Man!

  Nay, nay, we are but crucified and though

    The bloody sweat falls from our brows like rain,

  Loosen the nails—we shall come down I know,

    Staunch the red wounds—we shall be whole again,

  No need have we of hyssop-laden rod,

  That which is purely human, that is Godlike, that is God.