Keats to Morris

L. E. L.'S LAST QUESTION.

Nor mourn, O living One, because her part in life was mourning.

Would she have lost the poet's fire for anguish of the burning?

The minstrel harp, for the strained string? the tripod, for the afflated

251

By tears the solemn seas attested true-
Forgetting that sweet lute beside her hand
She asked not-Do you praise me, O my land?--
But "Think ye of me, friends, as I of you?"

Hers was the hand that played for many a year

Woe? or the vision, for those tears in which it Love's silver phrase for England-smooth and shone dilated?

Perhaps she shuddered while the world's cold hand her brow was wreathing,

But never wronged that mystic breath which breathed in all her breathing,

Which drew from rocky earth and man, abstractions high and moving,

Beauty, if not the beautiful, and love, if not the loving.

well.

Would God, her heart's more inward oracle
In that lone moment might confirm her dear!
For when her questioned friends in agony
Made passionate response, "We think of thee,"
Her place was in the dust, too deep to hear.

Could she not wait to catch their answering
breath?

Was she content, content, with ocean's sound,
Which dashed its mocking infinite around

Such visionings have paled in sight; the Saviour One thirsty for a little love?-beneath
she descrieth,

And little recks who wreathed the brow which on His bosom lieth.

The whiteness of His innocence o'er all her garments flowing,

There, learneth she the sweet "new song," she will not mourn in knowing.

Be happy, crowned and living One! and, as thy dust decayeth,

May thine own England say for thee, what now
for Her it sayeth-

"Albeit softly in our ears her silver song was
ringing,
[her singing!"
The foot-fall of her parting soul is softer than

L. E. L.'S LAST QUESTION.

Those stars content, where last her song had
gone-

They mute and cold in radiant life-as soon
Their singer was to be, in darksome death? *

Bring your vain answers-cry, "We think of
thee!"

How think ye of her? warm in long ago
Delights?-or crowned with budding bays? Not

80.

None smiled and none are crowned where lieth
she,

With all her visions unfulfilled save one,
Her childhood's-of the palm-trees in the sun-
And lo! their shadow on her sepulchre !

"Do ye think of me as I think of you?"-
O friends, O kindred, O dear brotherhood
Of all the world! what are we, that we should
For covenants of long affection sue?

"Do you think of me as I think of you?" From her poem written during the voyage to the Cape Why press so near each other when the touch Is barred by graves? Not much, and yet too much,

"Do you think of me as I think of you,

My friends, my friends?"-She said it from the Is this "Think of me as I think of you."

sea,

The English minstrel in her minstrelsy,
While, under brighter skies than erst she knew,
Her heart grew dark, and groped there, as the
blind,

To reach across the waves friends left behind-
"Do you think of me as I think of you?"

It seemed not much to ask-as I of you?
We all do ask the same. No eyelids cover
Within the meekest eyes, that question over.
And little in the world the Loving do
But sit (among the rocks ?) and listen for
The echo of their own love evermore-
"Do you think of me as I think of you?"

Love-learned she had sung of love and love—
And like a child that, sleeping with dropped head
Upon the fairy-book he lately read,
Whatever household noises round him move,
Hears in his dream some elfin turbulence-
Even so, suggestive to her inward sense,
All sounds of life assumed one tune of love.

And when the glory of her dream withdrew,
When knightly gestes and courtly pageantries
Were broken in her visionary eyes

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The poet's star-tuned harp, to sweep,
The patriot's voice, to teach and rouse,
The monarch's crown, to light the brows?-
He giveth His beloved, sleep.

What do we give to our beloved?

A little faith all undisproved,

A little dust to overweep,

And bitter memories to make

The whole earth blasted for our sake.
He giveth His beloved, sleep.

"Sleep soft, beloved!" we sometimes say, But have no tune to charm away

Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep.
But never doleful dream again
Shall break the happy slumber when
He giveth His beloved, sleep.

O earth, so full of dreary noises!

O men, with wailing in your voices!

O delved gold, the wailers heap!
O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall!
God strikes a silence through you all,
And giveth His beloved, sleep.

His dews drop mutely on the hill;
His cloud above it saileth still,
Though on its slope men sow and reap.
More softly than the dew is shed,
Or cloud is floated overhead,
He giveth His beloved, sleep.

Ay, men may wonder while they scan
A living, thinking, feeling man
Confirmed in such a rest to keep;
But angels say, and through the word
I think their happy smile is heard-
"He giveth His beloved, sleep.

For me, my heart that erst did go
Most like a tired child at a show,
That sees through tears the mummers leap,
Would now its wearied vision close,
Would childlike on His love repose,
Who giveth His beloved, sleep.

And, friends, dear friends-when it shall be
That this low breath is gone from me,
And round my bier ye come to weep,
Let One, most loving of you all,
Say, "Not a tear must o'er her fall;
He giveth His beloved, sleep."

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,

And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows, The young birds are chirping in the nest, The young fawns are playing with the shadows,

But the young, young children, O my brothers, They are weeping bitterly!

They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In the country of the free.

Do you question the young children in the sorrow,
Why their tears are falling so?

The old man may weep for his to-morrow
Which is lost in Long Ago.

The old tree is leafless in the forest,

The old year is ending in the frost,
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest,
The old hope is hardest to be lost.
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
Do you ask them why they stand
Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,
In our happy Fatherland?

They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
And their looks are sad to see,
For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses
Down the cheeks of infancy.
"Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary;
Our young feet," they say, "are very weak!
Few paces have we taken, yet are weary—
Our grave-rest is very far to seek.
Ask the aged why they weep, and not the chil-
dren;

For the outside earth is cold; And we young ones stand without, in our be wildering,

And the graves are for the old.

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Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking
Death in life, as best to have.
They are binding up their hearts away from
breaking,

With a cerement from the grave. Go out, children, from the mine and from the city,

Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do. Pluck your handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty,

Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through! But they answer, meadows

"Are your cowslips of the

Like our weeds anear the mine?

The young flowers are blowing toward the Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal-shadows,

west

From your pleasures fair and fine!

A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.

"For oh," say the children, "we are weary,
And we cannot run or leap.

If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
To drop down in them and sleep.
Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping,
We fall upon our faces, trying to go;
And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,
The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
For, all day, we drag our burden tiring

Through the coal-dark underground

Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron

In the factories, round and round.

253

We know no other words, except 'Our Father,'
And we think that, in some pause of angels'

song,

God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,

And hold both within his right hand which is

strong.

'Our Father!' If He heard us, He would surely

(For they call him good and mild) Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, Come and rest with me, my child.'

For, all day, the wheels are droning, turning-“But
Their wind comes in our faces-

Till our hearts turn-our head, with pulses
burning,

And the walls turn in their places. Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling,

Turns the long light that drops adown the wall, Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling, All are turning, all the day, and we with all. And all day, the iron wheels are droning,

And sometimes we could pray,
'O ye wheels' (breaking out in a mad moaning),
'Stop! be silent for to-day!'"

Ay, be silent! Let them hear each other breath-
For a moment, mouth to mouth! [ing
Let them touch each other's hands in a fresh
wreathing

Of their tender human youth!

Let them feel that this cold metallic motion
Is not all the life God fashions or reveals.
Let them prove their living souls against the
notion

That they live in you, or under you, O

wheels!

Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,

Grinding life down from its mark; And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward,

Spin on blindly in the dark.

Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers,
To look up to Him and pray;

So the blessed One who blesseth all the others,
Will bless them another day. [us,
They answer: "Who is God that He should hear
While the rushing of the iron wheel is stirred?
When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us
Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word.
And we hear not (for the wheels in their resound-
ing)

Strangers speaking at the door.

Is it likely God, with angels singing round him,
Hears our weeping any more?

"Two words, indeed, of praying we remember,
And at midnight's hour of harm,
'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber,
We say softly for a charm.*

A fact rendered pathetically historical by Mr. Horne's

report of his commission. The name of the poet of "Orion" and "Cosmo de' Medici" has, however, a change of associations, and comes in time to remind me that we have some noble poetic heat of literature still

no!" say the children, weeping faster,
"He is speechless as a stone.

And they tell us, of His image is the master
Who commands us to work on.

Go to!" say the children-" up in heaven,

Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find. Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelievingWe look up for God, but tears have made us

blind."

Do you hear the children weeping and disproving,
O my brothers, what ye preach?
For God's possible is taught by his world's lov-
ing,

And the children doubt of each.

And well may the children weep before you !
They are weary ere they run.
They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory,.
Which is brighter than the sun.
They know the grief of man, without his wisdom.
They sink in man's despair, without its calm;
Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom,
Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm-
Are worn, as if with age, yet unretrievingly

The harvest of its memories cannot
reap-
Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly.
Let them weep! let them weep!

They look up, with their pale and sunken faces,
And their look is dread to see,

For they mind you of their angels in high places,
With eyes turned on Deity!—

"How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation,
Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's
heart-

Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,
And tread onward to your throne amid the

mart?

Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper,

And your purple shows your path! But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper Than the strong man in his wrath."

A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.
WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river?

however open to the reproach of being somewhat gelid He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river.

in our humanity.-1844.

The limpid water turbidly ran, And the broken lilies a-dying lay, And the dragon-fly had fled away,

Ere he brought it out of the river.

High on the shore sate the great god Pan,
While turbidly flowed the river,
And hacked and hewed as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed

To prove it fresh from the river.

He cut it short, did the great god Pan,
(How tall it stood in the river!)

Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,
Steadily from the outside ring,

Then notched the poor dry empty thing
In holes as he sate by the river.

"This is the way," laughed the great god Pan,
(Laughed while he sate by the river!)
"The only way since gods began

To make sweet music they could succeed." Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,

He blew in power by the river.

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan,

Piercing sweet by the river! Blinding sweet, O great god Pan! The sun on the hill forgot to die,

And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly Came back to dream on the river.

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan
To laugh, as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man.
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain-
For the reed that grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river.

CONFESSIONS.

FACE to face in my chamber, my silent chamber, I saw her.

God and she and I only, . . . there, I sate down to draw her

Soul through the clefts of confession. . . . Speak,

I am holding thee fast,

Has smouldered away from His first decrees!

The cypress praiseth the fire-fly, the ground-leaf praiseth the worm

I am viler than these!"

When God on that sin had pity, and did not trample thee straight

With His wild rains beating and drenching thy light found inadequate;

When He only sent thee the north-winds, a little searching and chill,

To quicken thy flame. . . didst thou kindle and flash to the heights of His will?

"I have sinned," she said,

"Unquickened, unspread [knees! My fire dropped down, and I wept on my

I only said of His winds of the north as I shrank from their chill, .

What delight is in these?"

When God on that sin had pity, and did not meet it as such,

But tempered the wind to thy uses, and softened the world to thy touch,

At least thou wast moved in thy soul, though unable to prove it afar,

Thou couldst carry thy light like a jewel, not giving it out like a star?

I have sinned," she said, "And not merited

The gift He gives, by the grace He sees! The mine-cave praiseth the jewel, the hill-side praiseth the star;

As the angels of resurrection shall do it at the Again with a lifted voice, like a choral trumpet

last.

"My cup is blood-red

With my sin," she said,

"And I pour it out to the bitter lees,

As if the angels of judgment stood over me strong at last,

Or as thou wert as these!"

When God smote His hands together, and struck

out thy soul as a spark

that takes

The lowest note of a viol that trembles and tri

umphing breaks

On the air with it solemn and clear-"Behold! I have sinned not in this!

Where I loved, I have loved much and well-I have verily loved not amiss.

Let the living," she said,
"Inquire of the Dead,

In the house of the pale-fronted Images:

Into the organized glory of things, from deeps My own true dead will answer for me, that I

of the dark

Say, didst thou shine, didst thou burn, didst thou

honor the power in the form,

As the star does at night, or the fire-fly, or even the little ground-worm?

"I have sinned," she said,
"For my seed-light shed

have not loved amiss

In my love for all these.

"The least touch of their hands in the morning, I keep it by day and by night. Their least step on the stair, at the door, still throbs through me, if ever so light.

THE LADY'S YES.

255

Their least gift, which they left to my childhood,

far off, in the long-ago years,

Is now turned from a toy to a relic, and seen through the crystals of tears.

Dig the snow," she said,

"For my church-yard bed,

Yet I, as I sleep, shall not fear to freeze,

If one only of these my beloveds, shall love me with heart-warm tears,

As I have loved these!

"If I angered any among them, from thenceforth my own life was sore.

If I fell by chance from their presence, I clung to their memory more.

Their tender I often felt holy, their bitter I sometimes called sweet;

And wheneyer their heart has refused me, I fell down straight at their feet.

I have loved," she said

"Man is weak, God is dread, [ease, Yet the weak man dies with his spirit at Having poured such an unguent of love but once on the Saviour's feet,

As I lavished for these."

Lead her from the festive boards, Point her to the starry skies, Guard her, by your truthful words, Pure from courtship's flatteries.

By your truth she shall be true, Ever true as wives of yore; And her yes, once said to you, SHALL be Yes for evermore.

TO BETTINE,

THE CHILD-FRIEND OF GOETHE,

"I have the second-sight, Goethe!"-Letters of a Child.

BETTINE, friend of Goethe,
Hadst thou the second-sight-
Upturning worship and delight
With such a loving duty

To his grand face, as women will,
The childhood 'neath thine eyelids still?

Before his shrine to doom thee Using the same child's smile That heaven and earth, beheld erewhile

For the first time, won from thee, Ere star and flower grew dim and dead, Save at his feet and o'er his head?

Digging thine heart and throwing
Away its childhood's gold,
That so its woman-depth might hold
His spirit's overflowing.

For surging souls, no worlds can bound,
Their channel in the heart have found.

O child, to change appointed,
Thou hadst not second-sight!
What eyes the future view aright,
Unless by tears anointed?
Yea, only tears themselves can show
The burning ones that have to flow.

O woman, deeply loving,
Thou hadst not second-sight!
The star is very high and bright,

And none can see it moving.
Love looks around, below, above,
Yet all his prophecy is-love.

The bird thy childhood's playing Sent onward o'er the sea, Thy dove of hope came back to thee Without a leaf. Art laying Its wet cold wing no sun can dry, Still in thy bosom secretly?

Our Goethe's friend, Bettine,

I have the second-sight!
The stone upon his grave is white,
The funeral-stone between ye;
And in thy mirror thou hast viewed
Some change as hardly understood.

Where's childhood? where is Goethe?
The tears are in thine eyes.
Nay, thou shalt yet reorganize
Thy maidenhood of beauty

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