LONDON BRIDGE

The midnight moaning stream

Draws down its glassy surface through the bridge

That o'er the current casts a tower'd ridge,

Dark sky-line forms fantastic as a dream;

And cresset watch-lights on the bridge-gate gleam,

Where‘ neath the star-lit dome gaunt masts upbuoy

No flag of festive joy,

But blanching spectral heads;— their heads, who died

Victims to tyrant-pride,

Martyrs of Faith and Freedom in the day

Of shame and flame and brutal selfish sway.

And one in black array

Veiling her Rizpah-misery, to the gate

Comes, and with gold and moving speech sedate

Buys down the thing aloft, and bears away

Snatch'd from the withering wind and ravens’ prey:

And as a mother's eyes, joy-soften'd, shed

Tears o'er her young child's head,

Golden and sweet, from evil saved; so she

O'er this, sad-smilingly,

Mangled and gray, unwarm'd by human breath,

Clasping death's relic with love passing death.

So clasping now! and so

When death clasps her in turn! e'en in the grave

Nursing the precious head she could not save,

Tho’ through each drop her life-blood yearn'd to flow

If but for him she might to scaffold go:—

And O! as from that Hall, with innocent gore

Sacred from roof to floor,

To that grim other place of blood he went —

What cry of agony rent

The twilight,— cry as of an Angel's pain,—

My father, O my father!... and in vain!

Then, as on those who lie

Cast out from bliss, the days of joy come back,

And all the soul with wormwood sweetness rack,

So in that trance of dreadful ecstasy

The vision of her girlhood glinted by:—

And how the father through their garden stray'd,

And, child with children, play'd,

And teased the rabbit-hutch, and fed the dove

Before him from above

Alighting,— in his visitation sweet,

Led on by little hands, and eager feet.

Hence among those he stands,

Elect ones, ever in whose ears the word

He that offends these little ones... is heard,

With love and kisses smiling-out commands,

And all the tender hearts within his hands;

Seeing, in every child that goes, a flower

From Eden's nursery bower,

A little stray from Heaven, for reverence here

Sent down, and comfort dear:

All care well paid-for by one pure caress,

And life made happy in their happiness.

He too, in deeper lore

Than woman's in those early days, or yet,—

Train'd step by step his youthful Margaret;

The wonders of that amaranthine store

Which Hellas and Hesperia evermore

Lavish, to strengthen and refine the race:—

For, in his large embrace,

The light of faith with that new light combined

To purify the mind:—

A crystal soul, a heart without disguise,

All wisdom's lover, and through love, all-wise.

— O face she ne'er will see,—

Gray eyes, and careless hair, and mobile lips

From which the shaft of kindly satire slips

Healing its wound with human sympathy;

The heart-deep smile; the tear-concealing glee!

O well-known furrows of the reverend brow!

Familiar voice, that now

She will not hear nor answer any more,—

Till on the better shore

Where love completes the love in life begun,

And smooths and knits our ravell'd skein in one!

Blest soul, who through life's course

Didst keep the young child's heart unstain'd and whole,

To find again the cradle at the goal,

Like some fair stream returning to its source;—

Ill fall'n on days of falsehood, greed, and force!

Base days, that win the plaudits of the base,

Writ to their own disgrace,

With casuist sneer o'erglossing works of blood,

Miscalling evil, good;

Before some despot-hero falsely named

Grovelling in shameful worship unashamed.

— But they of the great race

Look equably, not caring much, on foe

And fame and misesteem of man below;

And with forgiving radiance on their face,

And eyes that aim beyond the bourn of space,

Seeing the invisible, glory-clad, go up

And drink the absinthine cup,

Fill'd nectar-deep by the dear love of Him

Slain at Jerusalem

To free them from a tyrant worse than this,

Changing brief anguish for the heart of bliss.

— O moaning stream of Time,

Heavy with hate and sin and wrong and woe

As ocean-ward dost go,

Thou also hast thy treasures!— Life, sublime

In its own sweet simplicity:— life for love:

Heroic martyr-death:—

Man sees them not: but they are seen above.