Alec de Candole | Poems 1 to 42

Poems 1 to 42, I to XLII

"The number of stars in this Universe is finite—say 500,000,000.
After that, there may be other Universes. It is, of course,
impossible to calculate their distance ; but it may be estimated
(from the distance between one Solar System and the nearest
fixed star) that the nearest is about 520, 000,000,000,000,000,000
miles."

OH, if this Universe whereby our lore
Is bounded, is a grain of dust before
The God Who made Creation, and beholds
All things in space,—Who sees them, and enfolds
All in His love and power, and guides them all,—
Oh, what a worm is man, how infinitely small !
November, 1912.

NOT once, but often, Truth has been rewarded
With fiercest hatred, foulest calumny,
While Vice has reigned supreme, by men belauded,
And punished all who would not bow the knee;
Not once, but often, Truth with instant crying
Has called for champions till her champions came,
And then has giv'n them nought but tears and sighing,
A life of sorrow and a death of shame;
Oft, having called on hero-souls to save her,
She seemed to grant them nothing but a frown ;
Yet these have known her secret smile of favour,
A nobler guerdon than a kingly crown.
December, 1913.

III

O SLEEP, sweet sleep, come over me,
And waft me to the land of dreams,
Where everywhere flow copious streams
Of honeyed wine, and every tree
Hangs down its branches to the ground
Fruit-laden, and on all sides round
The land smiles, beautiful and free.
No pain is there, nor any toil;
Far from the din of human life,
Far from the harsh unlovely strife,
Far from the tumult and the moil
Of struggling men,—there, far away,
In that sweet land the flowers of May
Spring aye unbidden from the soil.

3

O glorious land of dreams ! I long
To visit thee and see thy bowers,
And lay myself amid thy flowers,
And spread my weary limbs among
Thy fragrant herbs, that so I may
Return to meet the toils of day
With manly heart, content and strong.
MARLBOROUGH, Lent Term, 1914.

TIME

O TIME, that fliest on never-failing wings,
Consuming years, consuming memory,
Consuming strength, and bringing vain regrets
For lost delight and ne'er-recurring hours,
Yet bringing with thee healing for the past,
Hope for the future, pardon, comfort, peace;
O kindly Time, thou canst not e'er return
To give us back the past, but thou canst give
Things better for the future; this is thine,
To soothe where thou hast wounded, and to dry
The tears that thou hast caused and at the last
To still life's tumult thou hast raised, in death.
MARLBOROUGH, Lent Term, 1914.

NOW Summer's foliage with its dying hues
Paints all the world with beautiful decay,—
The mournful trees are drooping as they lose
Their beauteous leafy clothing day by day,
Torn from them by the winds from storm-clouds grey,
Though decked in scarlet and in black and gold,
Far gaudier than the brightest hues of May,
As if to mock the blasts of Boreas cold,
Who drives them on to death, like sheep into a fold.
The angry streams in swollen torrents roar
Beneath the lash of storm-wind and of rain,
That sweep o'er hill and vale and down and moor
Their churned waters toward the mighty main ;
For Heaven's doors are opened, as again
The world were doomed, as when of old mankind
Fled to the useless hilltops in dire pain
Through fear of death, seeking a shelter kind,
To save them, but could ne'er a place of safety find.
September, 1914.

THE DEAD

PERCHANCE with greatness suffering is increased;
Perchance with glory, sorrow. Deeper depths
Are theirs to fathom, higher heights to climb.
August 8th, 1915.

VII

O GOD, for Truth, or some faint glimpse of Truth,
To smite through mists of night, and pierce the sense,
And drive away the dreary vast offence
That 'wilders all the desperate heart of youth !
Mazes of life and death, of guilt and ruth,
And all that binds the world in one intense
Creative whole, that understanding dense
Can compass not, nor know a whit in sooth.
Yet grant us, wretched as we are, and weak,
Grant to our earth-dimm'd spirit and fleshly mind
Even here, through this world, like some twilight-streak
Of dawn, a vision of that which lies behind;
Or if Thou wiliest we must ever seek,
Yet, ever seeking, may we ever find !
MARLBOROUGH, November 21st, 1915.

VIII

VIRGIL, Eclogue Iv. 1-12.

A NOBLER song, Sicilian Muses, raise !
Not all delight in shrub and lowly tree;
If lofty woods we sing, then worthily
Let lofty woods attest a consul's praise.
The latest age of prophecy has birth;
A mighty cycle is begun again;
Justice returns, and Saturn's happy reign;
A Child is sent from heav'n upon the earth.
Favour, we pray, this boy who first shall bring
Upon the world the promis'd age of gold,
And make to cease the thousand wars of old,
Lucina; now is thy Apollo king.
November, 1915.

FLANDERS is filled with War's terrific broil,
Where nations strive in close-locked deadly fight ;
And many a hideous crime and horrid sight
Fouls and pollutes fair France's sacred soil;
And Russia's myriads share the world's great toil;
And patient Serbia battles for the right ;
And all the nations all their strength unite
To free them from the dragon's deathly coil;
But here, to us, day still succeeds to day
Just as before; and still we work and play
And laugh and talk, as all were still the same;
Only we hear the news from near and far,
Faint echoes of the central din of war,
Cold ashes scattered from the burning flame.
MARLBOROUGH, November, 1915.

BUT on the rarer uplands of the soul,
Where, buffeted, she enjoys the buffeting,
And strength is hers, and noble purity.
December 4th, 1915.

WE weep for our own loss, and not the dead ;
We wander darkling still, till night has fled;
A nobler morn is shining round their head.
December, 1915.

XII

IN MEMORIAM

THIS life thus nobly ended, forth again
Still to another !
Still God, through all thy future joy or pain,
Be with thee, brother !
HASTINGS, January, 1916.

XIII

THE ways of thought are barren, and the ways
Of all the feelings shifting and unsure ;
No good they know is wholly right and pure;
No truth they find is free from all dispraise.
For good is dimm'd with evil, truth's bright rays
With falsehood; thus from ourselves we are kept secure;
God's glory mortal eyes could ne'er endure ;
Therefore He hides Him from our eager gaze.
To see His fulness now would not be sight,
But blindness ; yet, as purity and strength
Shall make us able to behold aright
The forms unveiled of Truth and Good at length,
We shall in vision and in knowledge grow,
And ever more and more shall see and know.
MARLBOROUGH, February, 1916.

XIV

—THE old, the bitter, everlasting Why,
That rises ever to the throne of God,
His human creatures' wail. And some have cursed
His name, as Fiend and Devil. Some have sworn
lie is not. Some have said, "It is the LORD."—
Shall all things, at the end, be one, and good,
Or is it but the sport of careless Fates,
Or the blind workings of a hidden Chance?
* * * * * *
No; for a blow is God's own love, I think;
Not chastisement, but strength. The greater grief,
The greater love of God, the greater chance,
The greater strength. And God is with us still.
March 21st, 1916.

HORACE, Odes I. 24.
WHAT shame for grief, to woe what bound
For one so dear? Lead thou the quire,
To whom a voice of sweetest sound
The Father gave, and tuneful lyre.
Quinctilius, then, eternally
Is fall'n asleep ! Shall noble Shame,
Justice, or Truth, or Loyalty,
E'er find a peer to such a name?
All noble men lament his death;
Most, Virgil, thou dost mourn thy friend;
With thee the gods have broken faith—
Not so his life thou didst commend.

But could'st thou ev'n with sweeter strain
Than Orpheus charm deaf trees to hear,
Ne'er could the empty shell again
Receive and know the soul so dear,
Which once th'unpitying god has driv'n
Within his fold, of Death the thrall.
'Tis hard: yet 'neath the doom of heav'n
Unchanging, patience lightens all.
April, 1916.

XVI

THE STORM

"The darkness and the thunder and the rain."—C. H. S.
HE calls us from our dreams of joy and ease !
He calls us, and we answer. Clouds ahead,
And clouds around us ever, big with dread,
We front perforce. The soft and twilight breeze
Of pleasure passes, and the cold winds freeze,
The tempest howls and beats us. Faint and sped,
We struggle on, in the teeth of the storm we tread,
That lashes into strength our weaknesses.
Are we not nobler thus? And shall not strife,
Mother of strength and brave endurance, still
Be found our chosen lot through many a life?—
To fix our aim on some infinite goal,
To struggle to 't for aye, with stedfast will,
This be our noblest rapture of the soul !
May, 1916.

XVII

POETS' CORNER
WESTMINSTER ABBEY

THE pile is hushed; with deep solemnity
The mighty rose the distant vaults endues;
And from the splendour of its myriad hues
A hundred Christian saints and Pagan see
The hallowed transept, where there rest in thee
The broken dwellings of the noblest souls
Of England, whose immortal echo rolls
In songs divine sung for eternity,
The stainless soul who sang of Arthur pure,
The seer who knew earth's work complete above,
And him whose kind eyes looked on all with love,
And tongue told tales of mirth, and many more;—
Their spirits to nobler, worthier work are gone;
In thee their bodies still lie mouldering on.
May 8th, 1916.

XVIII

HAIL to the Past ! When once, most fair, in thee,
I drank "deep-storied secrets of delight " ;
Whereto, when lone or sad, by day or night,
I go again, and drink satiety.
As some faint traveller, toiling wearily,
Finds sudden, when o'er-laboured and dismayed,
A springing well beneath the palm-trees' shade,
So drinks, and goes his way rejoicingly;
So I to the fair Past return again,
And see again the Forest's arching trees,
And know the splendour of the Downs, and feel
The God-given blast and rushing of the breeze,—
Then all I have seen, and known, and loved, can heal
All that now is, or yet may be, of pain.
MARLBOROUGH, May 25th, 1916.

XIX

A LITTLE shadow on a summer's day,
Cast by a cloud, at once to pass away,
Such is man's life: and once departed hence,
Whither he goeth, who, ah ! who shall say?
A little moment only shall we last,
And Death with stealthy foot approaches fast ;
Ah! seize the pleasures of the passing hour,
For soon, too soon, all pleasure shall be past !

AVALON

A WONDROUS isle is Avalon,
Where grey mists cover all
The face of earth; and there, upon
Their floating, rises tall
The shadow-shape of that sweet island, where
There rest, in all delight,
Past ages' fame and might,
Who now rejoicing hold that valley fair.
There Arthur might we see,
Noblest of Kings that are,
And valiantest in war;
With new-won chastity
Lancelot and Guinevere, those sinful lovers ;
And there is Merlin wise,
All knowledge in his eyes ;
And all the swimming mist o'ershades and covers.

And there our own sweet past
We might possess again,
Sweet-recollected pain,
And joy that could not last
There, could we come there, there we still might dwell,
And love and laugh once more,
As we laughed and loved before,
And rest for ever 'neath the past's soft spell.
But onward is the call;
We must not, cannot, stay.
Still onward day by day
The future summons all
' Still onward thro' the heat and toil of the plain—
Yet, travelling on—who knows?
Ere the endless day's long close,
Perchance we may find Avalon again !
CLIFTON, June 9th, 1916.

XXI

I HAVE not lived in vain, if one of men,
Who trod the earth and breathed the air with me,
Have felt the touch of man's divinity
From God through me, and learned to hope again.
And yet once more, I have not lived in vain
If, barren here, I have gathered into me
Seed that shall ripen in eternity,
Fruit to mature, and buds to blossom, then.
Therefore I pray that God would fill my soul
Full of the might and splendour of His grace,
That I may journey toward Him not alone,
But that full many another of His own
May travel with me, and at last the whole
Of all mankind may see revealed His face.
July, 1916.

XXII

WEARINESS

TO all that's old and lovely and remote
From all the shock of facts we would were not,
Where pain and care and toil are clean forgotten,—
Ay, all's forgot,
Where we might fashion to our heart's desire
A world where all is happy, all is sweet,
Thither, in hours when all my heart is weary,
Thither would I retreat.
Where souls may find the calm they still must crave,
Nor further toil, nor further strive nor stray,
Where hearts may find repose from sin and sorrow,
For such a land we pray.

But yet no answer from the leaden sky
Comes down, nor voice, nor any that regard,
And so we struggle on, unstrength'd and weary,
Although the way is hard,
And strengthen'd so by pain and need's sharp spur
We tread the roughen'd path that all have trod,
Until we fall at length, content and fainting,
Before the throne of God.
OXFORD, September 2nd, 1916.

XXIII

METRE FROM " THE LENTEN LILY," IN
" A SHROPSHIRE LAD."

WE'LL lie and take our leisure
Amid these fragrant bowers,
To-day enjoy our pleasure,
And idly pluck the flowers;
To-day at least is ours.

We know that life is passing,
To death a fearful slave;
Why spend to-day amassing
Wealth for to-morrow's grave ?
To-day is all we have.
To-morrow may be evil,
To-morrow may be death;
We'll fear no god nor devil,
But while we yet have breath,
We'll lie and laugh at death.

By grief we're still surrounded,
Our heritage of birth,
The knell of death has sounded
For every man on earth,
To turn again to earth.
For every day we're dying,
And death is drawing near;
To-morrow we'll be lying
Where's never a laugh nor tear ;
But we will have no fear.
For we shall know no morrow,
And we shall feel no woe,
And o'er our buried sorrow
The violets shall blow;
And 'twill be better so.
September 7th, 1916.

XXIV

THE Lord of all is hid,
We know not where he dwells.
To seek his face we rise,
And search the clouds amid.
We seek him in the skies,
But ever 'tis in vain.
And then we turn again,
To seek him in the hells.
On earth we note his way;
The colours of the sky
That gleam translucent through
The sun's departing ray,
The mountains' majesty,
The splendour of the wind,
All whisper, "Here you find
God's love and glory too."

And sometimes on the soul
There bursts a glorious ray
That seems of heav'n's own day,
Until we seem to hold
Truth's unpolluted gold,
And know at last the whole.
The vision fades in pain,
And darkness falls again.
And sometimes rises sin,
Grief, and despair, and pain,
And all the ills of life;
And where such things remain,
And pain and woe are rife,
And love and beauty die,
In such a world can I
Find power divine within?

But some have cried, "We know,
We know, and we have known,
We have seen the Lord, but lo !
'Tis only to his own
He is revealed." And I,
Who know that all mankind
Must seek the Lord, and find,
Turn from them with a sigh.
And one there is who saith,
That all who have but faith
May know where Truth is stored.
"But what is faith? " ask I.
"Whoever will receive
Whatever I believe
Has faith and knows the Lord."
Loathing, I pass him by.

And one cries out, "'Tis chance,
And blind almighty fate,
That brought thee to this dance,
And soon will lead thee out
By death's oblivious gate,
And thou shalt know no more."—
I answer nought, but doubt,
There is a farther shore.
I ask the ocean-bed,
The earth's calm smiling face,
The deep serene o'erhead,—
I ask his hiding-place.
They cry with one accord,
Each wave and cloud and tree,
"Wisdom is not in me,
I do not know the Lord."

I seek to all mankind,
I ask the hearts of men,
And find an answer then ;
"Seek on, for as thou seekest
Thou drawest near, when weakest.
Seek on, through toil and woe !
To long is still to know,
To seek is aye to find."
Hid God, where'er Thou art,
Grant Truth be in my heart,
And fill me with the fire
Of ardent true desire,
That thus, as on I go,
Though ne'er the journey's ended,
Yet splendid and more splendid
The vision aye may grow.
WARWICK, September 7th, 1916.

XXV

FROM Salisbury's windswept plain they throng,
Where stand the ancient stones,
The echo of their heaving song
Stirs yet their fathers' bones.
By Avon's peaceful stream they dwelt,
Or Wylie's pleasant vale,
Till on a sudden there they felt
A call, and could not fail.
And some from Pewsey's fertile meads,
'Mid hills on either hand,
Come forth to succour England's needs
In many a weary land.
[And they whose fathers stoutly held
The rampart Martinsell,
And where the rains and tempests dwelled
Strove on, and striving fell,]

And they whose fathers fought and bled
On Barbury's steep hillside,
Hail gloriously those glorious dead
From Flanders, where they died.
Through many generations gone
'Tis Wiltshire's majesty
To hand the glorious watchword on
Nobly to strive and die.
September 26th, 1916.

XXVI

"THE truth of God is known,
"Give up," some cry, "thy own
Weak thought ;
Learn what thou ought,"
Is truth to some revealed,
From all the rest concealed,
That so
It may not grow ?
And must we then seek God
By paths by others trod,
And He
Eternally

The same for us to know,
That knowledge now may grow
No more
For evermore?

What men knew once, must we
Unincreased endlessly
The whole
For every soul

Believe? But no such bound
Compasseth God around,
The Light
All-infinite.

Who filleth endless space
With majesty and grace,
Doth man,
With finite span,

All in full comprehend,—
That glory without end ?
Or say
Is it that our clay
Can never hope to hold
More than we now are told
Of Him,
Whose darkness dim
Our eyes shall never pierce ?
Oh ! lay not such a curse
On us,
Who know that thus,

When we, (and thus alone,)
Shall know as we are known,
Our earth
Shall prove its worth

And life shall cease to seem
A loose and raving dream,
And be
Divinity.
Then trouble not, nor bind
The souls that seek to find,
With chain
Of the Past again.
Rising from what has been,
In ever-widening scene,
May man
Behold God's plan,
And still to hope and zeal,
May He Himself reveal,
And each
His wisdom teach,

That each, receiving so
What his own soul may know,
May build
God's Temple filled
By every spirit free,
That all for aye may see
And own
God better known.
October 3rd, 1916.

XXVII

WAR

WE never dreamed that war would come again,
That we should see men fight round windy Troy,
That we ourselves should feel the battle-joy,
That we should know ourselves the battle-pain.
We read of all the wounds and toil and heat,
Of noble acts, and mighty deeds of fame,
The building up of many a glorious name;
But, far away, 'twas bitterness grown sweet.
And now ourselves we plunge beneath its wave,
And feel the loss; and yet with purpose sure
All things, to save the world, we can endure :
—They save the world ; themselves they cannot save.
But those who found thus nobly with their blood
A newer world, and those whose harder call
'Twill be to build it true, alike we all
Work in one hope and trust one boundless God.
November 4th, 1916.

XXVIII

SUNSET

THE same sun sets, and spreads its colours due
Broad on the evening sky, with gold, and grey,
Translucent crimson, and each perfect hue
That ever makes divine departing day,
As when to happier days it bade farewell,
Ere yet I left the hills and trod the plain,
But fresh and careless still I felt the spell,
Unhandselled almost yet of toil and pain.
And still it lifts me up from where I stray,
This vision of the loveliness of God,
This sight of coming or departing day,
Brightening with heav'n all earth's dull period.
And past, and future, and this setting sun,
In hope's clear light knit all my life in one.
ROMSEY, November 8th, 1916.

XXIX

AY, here we are : can any say
Why we are here, why day by day
We draw our breath and go our way?
Some things we touch, or hear, or see;
More things we dimly feel to be;
The best has worst obscurity.
We see the stars; what made them so ?
We feel the wind ; what makes it blow ?
The inmost things we cannot know.

Yet such as these concern us more
Than all our superficial lore
Of what we felt, or heard, or saw.

The greatest is the hardest ; yes,
By labour we can learn the less :
The best is hid, we must confess.
The greatest, the supremest Thing,—
Mind, Spirit, Fate, or God,—the King,
Hides from our eager questioning.

His works, His subjects, these we may
Examine, sift, discover, sway;
Himself, Himself, He hides away.

Yet some have sworn that He is found,
For all who list the voice, His sound
Has gone the mighty world around :

All's known, for which the world has striv'n,
And all who trust the message giv'n
May know the lore of highest heav'n.

Which message, then, believe? "'Tis here,
This is the revelation clear :
Take it, believe it : never fear."
But many other words there be,
That also claim divinity,
And do not well with these agree :
How know'st them wrong? "Here's truth," he saith,
"Cling to this word thro' life and death,
Cling firmly here with child-like faith."
Of faiths and systems manifold
A child-like faith will surely hold
Whichever chance it first be told.

What difference, then, what grace is thine ?
He only answers, "Truth is mine.
This revelation is divine."

What then? Another bids me turn
To thought, and by the mind to learn
Whate'er the reason can discern.

"Thought may not, like the feelings, soar,
But trust it : all its work is sure,
Found firm thy search on reason's lore.

I tread the rock, and leave the sand
Of faith's high holdings : here I stand,
Safe from doubt's waves on reason's strand.
Let others soar, let others fly,
On wings unsure to seek the sky;
Unmoved, unshaken, here stand I.
Let others boast of matters high
With `peradventure': not so I;
You question me, I'll answer why.

Whatever I believe, I'll prove,
Nought else believe, below, above :
I say the best of things is love.

Not that my spirit spurneth hate,
But just because no loveless state
Against its foes can hold the gate.

Ay more, God's very self I own
To be, for one sole cause alone,---
Easier to say the stars were strown,

Like golden dust in heav'n, the sun
Set on his daily course to run,
The filmy moonbeams lightly spun,

The sweet flow'rs brought from earth, the trees
Made green in spring, the gentle breeze
Set blowing, and the mighty seas

Gathered and chained, the lightning's flash
Set forth the echoing thunder's crash,
And roaring tempest's stinging lash,

By one Creator, than to call
The earth, the sky, the ocean,—all
Results of chance, or atoms' fall.
'Tis true, confined is reason's might,
'Tis true, I scale not every height ;
But where I tread, I tread aright."

Nay, but the quagmire shows beneath !
Thou art not more secure than faith;
Thy boasted rock-floor quivereth.

Thy reason is of no avail;
For reason answers reason : stale
It grows, its ancient voices fail.

For logic logic can refute,
By reason, reason's voice is mute;
The quagmire trembles under foot.
Thought wars with thought eternally,
Now boast thy firm security,
And mock faith's rash futility !
What is it, then, what is't, shall tell
The truth to man? In heav'n or hell,
What voice is found infallible?
"Take thought with faith, compare, combine
Thy reason with that heart of thine :
And follow thence thy judgment's sign."

Is this your answering word to me,
The seeker after certainty?
Is truth a probability?

Perchance, each soul that is, with fire
Divine, to answer that desire
It gave, just Heaven doth inspire,
And every spirit of the whole
Great company, each seeking soul,
Shall find through this, its longed-for goal,

Like one who climbs some lofty hill
Ere morning, while the darkness still
Enwraps the sleeping earth, until

The sun shoots forth his first bright rays,
And he is filled with dumb amaze,
To find a world beneath his gaze.

So each, to his own vision clinging,
Shall find before his sight upspringing
The truth, all satisfaction bringing.

Yet not to each the same, I deem,
His vision of the truth will seem;
How vast is truth ! And can we dream

That any single soul of man,
This weakling creature of a span,
Truth's whole great universe can scan ?

But each shall help the other's sight,—
Though each shall see, and see aright,
On all, not one, shall shine full light.

This fire divine, this heav'nly spark,
That lights alone our earthly dark,
Illumes both faith and reason, mark.
For all the man is God's, and shall,
When plain he hears the trumpet-call
Of God, obey it, all in all.

And faith shall hail the vision wide,
And reason know 't a trusty guide,
And all the soul be satisfied.

To each is giv'n a separate sight,
And none may use another's light
To seek the High and Infinite.
Yet this the whole in one doth bind ;—
Though each must seek, to others blind,
It is not each, but all, shall find.
To others blind : yet each may learn
From other, for himself discern :
No help from God or man must spurn,
But yet the final judgment's his,
His to discern 'twixt this and this,
To judge between the differences.

Each power of man is man's to use,
Each faculty, to employ or lose,
No gift that's giv'n we must refuse.

For they, who faith alone invite,
If right, 'tis chance that leads them right,
If wrong, they will not see the light.

Who only follow reason's law
Are chained to earth for evermore,
All the vast spirit-sphere ignore.
The highest certainty they miss,
And over-prudent, wise amiss,
Make God a mere hypothesis.
Perfect is found no power, no part
Of man, but each, the head, the heart,
The spirit, ends where each did start

And even as one whom light of day
Deserts, with stumbling and delay
Feels in the dark, and gropes his way,
Finds out his path by starlight pale,
By lamp or torch explores his trail,—
Whate'er he has that may avail ;

So we grope darkling, find our path
With reason, inspiration, faith
To light a darkness deep as death.
And yet, beyond the curse of fools,
The doubts or dogmas of our schools,
(Believe it !) still He rules, He rules.

Ay, and methought 'twas reason spoke :
" This world is no unmeaning joke,
No senseless, chance-appointed yoke."

But One there is, Who rules and reigns,
Who knows the secret of our pains,
Nor any honest zeal disdains.
And all the souls shall find, that seek.
Sincere, though erring oft and weak,
And scale at length the topmost peak.
But ah ! not yet that song can be,
Not yet the shout of victory,
Not yet 'tis ours that sight to see.

Still are we bound in blindness drear,
But strive; for every soul sincere
Some day shall see the vision clear,

Some day, in some far higher land,
What dafts it now shall understand,
And see in whole what God has plann'd.

But now we err, and strive, and stray
'Mid gloom, and in despair we say,
"Alas! He hides Himself away."
Yet as we wander, as we grope,
Beyond the reason's power, or scope
Of faith, we yet may dare to hope ;
And if to desperate hope we cling,
And every beam enlightening
Our dark, we yet may see the King;
Who, pitying us poor souls that stray,
Will help us ever on our way
As still we strive for light and day.
For faith is rash and overbold,
And reason, like a man grown old,
Is prudent, fearful, wise and cold.
RoMSEY, December 1st, 1916.

XXX

I T is a thought that often thrills my soul,
That each and all, of every race and clime,
Of every tribe and nation, age and time,
Of whatsoever faith and creed,—the whole,
Shall reach by various paths the same great goal,
In one vast unison, diviner far
Than all the outcries of the petty war
We hear, like croak of frogs when thunders roll.
And love and peace and unity and joy
Shall blend together in resistless force,
Nor man shall man with wordy strife annoy,
But one harmonious and resistless course
Together keep, and with unwasted might
Serve one all-true, all comprehensive Light.
December 26th, 1916.

XXXI

FRIENDSHIP

LIFE'S wheel runs back; and back Time rolls his page,
That we may read where once we read before,
For one sweet day : the old wine, more rich with age,
For this brief space is ours to taste once more.
Dear God ! how sweet it was, how sweet to taste
The joy of friendships old, yet ever new,
To pause, and there bid stand the years that haste,
So many as they pass, in all so few.
Grasp hands once more, let eyes meet loving eyes,
Ere to the future and the dark we go,
Then part; yet still, whatever fates arise,
We'll hope to meet again the souls we know.
Ay, somewhere—or the world's a lie indeed
Our souls shall find the old friends, the old love, they need.
LONDON, January 8th, 1917.

XXXII

THE soil of the land is holy,
Sacred to love and laughter,
But 't will only light the lowly,
Our skyey temple-rafter.
Others will deem the scene
Too desolate and dreary,
And hearts unschool'd and mean
Will find the worship weary.
But we will adore with tears
Earth below and sky above,
And anoint the perished years
With the unction of our love.
BOURNEMOUTH, January 15th, 1917.

XXXIII

NIGHTFALL
(AN EVENING RIDE BETWEEN CORFE AND LULWORTH)

FROM day to night I rode, through evening chill;
The rolling moors around gave summons keen
And called me on; and as the rainbow sheen
Of sunset faded, there, 'twixt hill and hill,
I touched the heart of Purbeck ! Deeper still
Grew heaven's blue above me ; shone serene
The kindly moon, benignant o'er the scene,
And God's sweet loneliness my soul did fill.
And as I rode, I felt a sweeping might,
For now the day was gone, the wind upblew,
The hills stood sharp against the sky's deep hue,
The trees were black 'gainst the moon's sovran light,
The rushing wind embraced me, and I knew
The wonder and the splendour of the night.
WAREHAM, March 8th, 1917.

XXXIV

AS one that stands upon the beetling sheer
Of some dread precipice, when midmost night
With whelming dark has hidden from his sight
The path before, behind him, far and near,
Nor knows he, blind, alone, what course to steer,
Yet still must on, though vast despair affright,
And wandering loneliness without the light,
The end so lost, the road unknown and drear;
So I, still following where my life did lead,
As on that hell-black peak have stood, to hear
And question fate; the future was a fear,
The past a phantom; yet for comfort's meed
Silence, no sound of wrath, no voice of cheer,
No strength save blind unalterable need.
SUTTON VENY, March 28th, 1917.

XXXV

TRANSLATION, HORACE c. 11. 14.
"EHEU FUGACES "

LACK, the years fly by to greet the past,
Nor all thy piety can hold the vast
Threatenings of wrinkled age, nor stay the hand
Of death inevitable that cometh fast.

Not thrice a hundred heifers slain each day
Could e'er avail to alter or allay
The unpitying wrath of Him who hath inbound
Geryon and Tityon with Cocytus grey.

And all who feed upon the earth and air
Must cross that river and must travel there,
Alike the peasant tiller of the ground
And monarch on his throne in purples rare.

In vain we shun the wars where blood runs free;
In vain the angry ragings of the sea
Tumultuous, we avoid ; and all in vain
The hurtful breezes of the autumn flee.
For all must stand by that black river's flow,
And see the sluggish stream that winds below,
Behold the race of Danaus foul with shame,
And Sisyphus' long toil of endless woe.
Thy mansion thou must leave, thy wife adored,
While of the spreading trees that deck thy sward
So proudly, save the hated cypress none
Shall follow thee, so brief a space their lord.
Thy richest wine, beneath a hundred keys
Fast locked, and nobler than the cups that please
Kings at their feasts, thy heir, more blest than thou,
Shall drink, and tinge the pavement with the lees.
SUTTON VENY, March 26th, 1917.

XXXVI

THE sunset clouds are glowing blue and red;
Methinks they speak of past and future fate;
For like blue hills behind I leave the state
I knew of old, and distant days now dead.
And crimson tells of days that lie ahead ;
For crimson are the hours that I await
Of death, perchance, and pain and strife and hate,
And blood in darkness and in anguish shed.
And yet the blue still whispers of a love
That led me hitherto, and evermore
Will lead, through time and vast eternity;
Therefore with GOD behind me and before,
Therefore with GOD around me and above,
I yet may front the future hopefully.
In the train near ROUEN,
April 28th, 1917.

XXXVII

THE wind that blustered yestermorn,
And swept the ground and shook the treetops,
Then, howling, to the hills forlorn
Passed on, and struck with rain their free tops,
Seems like a mock of Nature's mirth
In scorn of man's strange piteous madness,
That shakes the heaven and scars the earth,
And turns to horror all her gladness.
But when's at end this war of men,
And all the world is at agreement,
Perhaps I'll stand and ponder then,
And wonder what this wild weird dream meant.
Or from life's wilder dream again
If first kind death shall gently wake me,
Or by his harsher angel Pain
With fierce and cruel hand shall take me;

Still, when I've done with fleshly pain,
And all the earth is left behind me,
Perchance I'll suffer yet again,
And yet again may anguish find me.
Strange paths my soul must yet have trod,
Strange sights beheld, around, above her;
Yet still in all is one same God,
My Shield, my Stay, my King, my Lover.
FRANCE, May, 1917.

XXXVIII

LAUDABUNT ALII

LET others tell of far away,
Of peoples strange and cities gay,
Of mighty hills and rushing streams,
More fair than hope, more grand than dreams.
But England—give me England yet,
Land the heart can ne'er forget;
Where bounteous nature's riches all,
With man's to aid, are found in small,
As where wood and ferried hill
Grace the gently flowing folds
Of slumberous Wye, whose bosom holds
All wealth of green by Tintern, till
A view majestic bursts upon
The sight to Chepstow, and 'tis gone,
Clear from the hills, to join its course
With rolling Severn, and the force

Of endless ocean, past the home
Of princely merchants, whence have come
Men who ventured lands unknown,
And threatening hills, and isles alone,
And over seas uncharted went,
And left enduring monument
In Canynge's soaring house of prayer,
And Temple's rounded pillars fair,
Of pious faith and love their own.
Southward thence my steps I turn
Where Mendip calls me, and I burn
To see once more the stretching plain
Beneath me, and behold again
The hill, where yet dead ages reign
By haunted Glaston—there the rest
Of Arthur and of Guinevere,
And Lancelot, of his knights the best;
Remains the spell. And now I go
O'er the old stone fences low
By Cheddar's cliffs, as yester year,

And by the lonely mines, and so
To where, 'neath Mendip's nestling breast,
I'll find the fairest and the best,
Methinks, of all the lovely west ;
For there it crouches—ay, 'tis there,
Fragrant with beauty, safe from care
Beside the waters, ever-sweet
Beloved Wells ! And there 'tis meet
Where saints have praised of old, I praise
The God who thus inspired to raise
These living arches' span, and mould
These breathing capitals of old,
And plan the Chapter's octave-sweep,
Here, in the place I love the best,
The home of sweetness and of rest.
Or may I awful silence keep
Amid the brown, mysterious waves
Of Purbeck's hills, where Lulworth laves
Its curved shores, and Corfe uprears
Its windy turrets, grey with years.

Or bid me seek the early flow
Of "stripling Thames," and happy go
Where swelling Cotswold hides his birth,
And loving hollows of the earth
Hold me alone from all but heaven.
Thence, by many a hidden town,
Where his silvery path is driven,
Down I'll go, and gently down
To Oxford city, home of peace
And patient learning's still increase,
Where Newman strove and Keble prayed,
And Morris, in that cloistered shade
Of Beauty, found it 'mid the past,
And toiled to make the world at last
Lovely, through work and beauty wed,
As once, he dreamed, in days long dead.
And on I'll go to Dorchester,
And bid adieu the river there,
And enter the long Church and pray
'Mid beauty of an earlier day.

So to those bare hills I come,
Whence I may view my final home.
I shall stand where runs the Horse
In ceaseless and unmoving course
By Uffington, and gaze around
On many leagues of smiling ground,
Bleak hills and leafy vale, as forth
I gaze on pasture to the north,
And Chiltern east and Cotswold west ;
Yet from all the lovely rest
Southward with sudden joy I turn
To where I dimly can discern
The tufted trees that shade on high,
Distant against the clouds and sky,
The mighty head of Barbury !
And so to those dear lands I know
I'll go, as once I used to go,
By Liddington and hidden Snap
(Lost in the rolling downs' green lap),
By Poulton, or Four Miler's head,
Where I seem to grandly tread

Above the earth, or Savernake ;
And so my joyful road I'll take
To happy Marlborough, name to wake
Sweet ghosts of memory, for the sake
Of pleasures gone, but dwelling yet
Secure where heart can ne'er forget !
There I'll go, and there I'll dwell
Amid the ever-happy spell
Of friendship's laughter, ever-new,
As in memory, firm and true.
So, in weak and faltering phrase,
Have I dreamed that I would praise
With loving heart the glorious land
Of England, where the generous hand
Of nature still has lavished free
All beauty, and has given me
To love it, wood and field and sea,
And flowing stream and barren hill,
Alive or dead, I'll love them still.
YPRES, June 1st, 1917.

XXXIX

CHANGEFUL with glow and chequered shade, a sight
Now gloom'd with grief, and now with joy elate,
How strange, how sweet, is life, how poised our state,
Now fair as day, now black as midmost night,
Well woofed with sorrow, webbed with strong delight,
And love outlined above distrust and hate
(Soul that with soul can conquer hell or fate),
Gladness that strives with gloom that strives with light.
And as we watch the shuttle to and fro
Weave out the pattern of our joy and woe,
And bind the warp and weft's opposing strain,
We note the nobler unity, and know
By dark and light the beauty fuller so,
And life more rich through joy's commingling pain.
RENINGHELST, June 10th, 1917.

FOR them, the bitterness of death is past;
For us, we know not how our lot is cast,
To live or die, or worse, to suffer pain,
That rends and tears the body and soul atwain,
Until death come, a kindly friend, at last.

And stirrings deeper yet—I have loved the earth,
Known sorrow that enriched the after-mirth;
The past was good, the future bright ; I burn
Still, still, to see the golden years return,
And plenty bear oblivion of our dearth.

But still, if hope, with each departing wing,
Should leave me starless, night-bound, sorrowing,
Yet fate, my master, bids me follow still,
Content, perchance : and if against my will,
I follow on, a bound and helpless thing.

Therefor I cling to hope : and yet my soul
Shall follow fate content whate'er the goal,
So free, though every lightsome hope be gone,
Can rest secure upon herself alone,
One small firm rock whatever surges roll.
June, 19t7.

XLI

IN that rough barn we knelt, and took and ate
Simply together there the bread divine,
The body of God made flesh, and drank in wine
His blood who died, to man self-dedicate.
And even while we knelt, a sound of hate
Burst sudden on us, as our shrieking line
Of guns flashed bursting death, a thunderous sign
Of raging evil in our human state.
Strange state ! when good must use (nor other can)
The tools of ill, itself from ill to free,
And Christ must fight with Satan's armoury.
What strange and piteous contrast may we scan,
The shell that slays, and Christ upon the tree,
The love that died, and man that murders man !
PALACE CAMP, near DICKEBUSCH,
June 19th, 1917.

XLII

ON A PICTURE IN ROME
(" THE CRUCIFIXION," by Guido Reni, in S. Lorenzo in Lucina).

AND so He died, alone. The eddying night
Of utmost dark that whelmed Him, when the cry
Exceeding bitter ascended up on high
Of one that dies abandoned of the light,
Seized on His spirit's fierce and desolate fight;
" Ah, why hast Thou forsaken me, oh why,
My God? " Despairing so He seemed to die;
Yet still His Church adores Him in the height.
Ev'n so. And we, too, by His grace, have known
The fierce and bitter joy of sacrifice
From Him, who at such all unmeasured price
Of blood and riving pain, to man hath shown
The love of God; therefore in all men's eyes
Was lifted up. And so He died, alone.
LA PANNE, NORD,
July, 1917.