Bertram Dobell

“ Bradlaugh, the man of action and enterprise, ever striving for practical ends, yet loving a contest, whether physical or mental, as much for its own sake as for any advantage it might bring him: of firm and inflexible determination, who, when he has once resolved to attain an object, never rests until that object is achieved. Thomson, the student, the idealist and poet, or say the dreamer, who shrank with almost morbid dislike from the noise and tumult of publicity, and who, like Hamlet, was fitted rather for contemplation than for action. ”

“ There's no alternative, alas! but 'shove,'
For 'move' and 'prove' are makeshifts at the best,
Though you must oft with them contented rest.
Suppose you write of something that doth gladden,
To find your choice is limited to 'sadden'
Or 'madden' makes you mad as any hatter,
And fit your head against the wall to batter:
Then too when you have said your love's a pattern,
It's hard to find that you must drag in 'slattern';
'Tis Hobson's choice; as also 'tis with amorous,
To which the only rhyme, alas! ”

“ All speech is music, and all music speech,
And there no discords vex the golden hours,
Nor curse nor shriek the destinies impeach:
Life there to blithest symphonies is set,
No evil passions there its concords stain,
No dashing elements are there to fret,
No force compels and no conventions chain:
No need of heaven is there, no fear of hell,—
Such wondrous power in harmony doth dwell. ”

“ Only by virtue of possessing unusual depth of feeling, intensity of aspiration, or wealth of intellect, does an author produce a masterpiece; and his success is always in direct proportion to the fineness and richness of his own personality. Sometimes, indeed, the character of an author will impart a factitious importance to his works. How dim and shadowy a figure would Dr. Johnson now appear, had his reputation depended solely upon his writings! Our interest in the works of Burns, Byron, and Shelley is surely doubled, at least, by the knowledge we possess of the events of their lives. ”

“ What youthful spirit, what rapture of delight,
What scorn of baseness, what contempt of fear!
How doth it put all sombre thoughts to flight!
Once more the world is full of old romance,
Once more the jarring keys are all in tune,
Once more in woodland scenes the fairies dance,
And desolate winter turns to glorious June!
Ah! could man's life to such a tune be set,
Its dull beat changed for these exultant strains,
What room were there for sorrow or regret,
Or who could doubt that God exists and reigns! . . . ”

“ In you my heart, my soul, life's whole romance is,
Without you all my life's bare, bleak, and poor.
Yet if you love me not, ah! still deceive me,
And feign the tenderness you do not feel:
Despise me, scorn me, but ah! do not leave me;
Indifferent, strive indifference to conceal.
But oh how vain to ask you to dissemble!
Your white soul never could a falsehood stain ”

“ Also I trust that an intellect informed by so much passionate energy as yours will soon give us more heroic strains with a wider embrace of human fellowship in them—such as will be to the labourers of the world what the odes of Tyrteus were to the Spartans, thrilling them with the sublimity of the social order, and the courage of resistance to all that would dissolve it. ”

“ Time was I gloried in the thought of strife,
And with a dauntless breast
Opposed myself to all the storms of life—
But now I ask but Rest!
Best gift man may receive or fate bestow,
The only one that never can deceive ”

“ Whose wealth the faster it is spent
The richer doth remain.
"Stars crown me with their aureole,
The sea flows through my veins,
The heavens clothe me, and my soul
Infinity contains. [1]
"I look beyond Earth's petty span,
And worlds of light I see,
Where, cleansed from sin and suffering, man
Ascends to deity,
"Until, at variance no more
With the eternal Will,
I see him, strife and effort o'er,
His destiny fulfil."
1902
↑ "You never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars."—Thomas Traherne. ”

“ JAMES THOMSON.
━━0━━
"You would have kept me from the Desert sands
Bestrewn with bleaching bones,
And led me through the friendly fertile lands,
And changed my weary moans
To hymns of triumph and enraptured love,
And made our earth as rich as Heaven above."
A Poem, a Drama, or a Novel, the perusal of which has moved our admiration, or affected our feelings, can hardly fail to make us desire to know something of its creator. We feel that the powers developed by the author must correspond with the faculties inherent in the man, and that the man must be at least as interesting as his work. ”

“ When an its other glories are forgot,
Here begs, in deep humility and shame,
To be, even by his friend, remembered not:
But while that friend compounded is with day,
All Time is now our poet's endless day. ”

“ And if, in becoming acquainted with their aspirations and their achievements, their errors and their sins are also made known to us, even so we have to consider that their faults were such as belong to mankind in general, while their genius belonged to themselves alone. The faults of common men die with them because the men themselves are forgotten, whereas the sins of a Burns or a Byron are remembered because he has himself immortalised them.
Mr. Thomson's works are excellent enough to stand upon their own merits ”

“ And reason pleads in vain,
Even then the poet's words will reach
The heart and soothe its pain:
There's no dark corner of the soul
The poet may not scan—
Philosophers see part—the whole
Only the poet can. ”

“ Winter will have his reign,
But my lost summer never more
Shall I, like earth, regain.
The poet lives on love and hope,
And they his muse inspire;
When they have fled his soul is dead,
And silent is his lyre ”

“ My friend, when I can wander in the sun
Divested of my shadow, then will I
Seek from myself and mine own thoughts to run.
And strive new worlds of fancy to descry.
The poet, though a Shakespeare, is a man. ”

“ When no man to his brother man shall act the part of Cain,
And none from others' loss shall seek unhallowed wealth to gain:
Oh haste, most blessèd dawn!
Then no man's interest apart from that of all shall be,
Nations no more in battle-shock shall meet on land or sea,
And universal Love shall make mankind one Family
Come soon, oh blessèd dawn!
Might we but live to see the day when ancient wrong departs,
And man no more contends with man save in the peaceful arts! ”

“ The Truth of Truths perchance man ne'er may know,
Yet he the search for it may not forego:
'Tis good to climb the mountain's craggy side,
Though we reach not its pinnacle of snow.
Falsehood's a harlot with seductive smile,
Practised in every loose and wanton wile;
To every temper she doth suit herself
By flattery, cajolery, or guile:
But Truth all art or artifice disdains,
No painting uses, no false beauty feigns;
Cares not though men regardless pass her by,
And all-sufficient to herself remains. ”

“ Gifted as he who doth our past illume,
Or who shall ev'n his wondrous powers exceed,
And so th' Arch-Poet's rank and fame assume?
Yes! her past exploits nature can repeat,
Though she loves best new miracles to prove,
And howsoe'er she seems our hopes to cheat
Doth ever forward to new victories move. ”

“ For then naught can touch me that's ill,
And no loss can my spirit bereave:
While we live joy is shadowed with fear,
And pleasure is purchased with pain;
Whatever to us is most dear
Fate forbids us to reach or retain. ”

“ Expansive, not repressive, is true life,
⁠Man passionless is scarcely man at all,
We win our way to peace through toil and strife,
⁠Nectar he shall not taste who shuns life's gall:
They never truly live who love disown—
A truth to poets and to lovers known. ”

“ Of the foe's assault in front,
'Tis harder much our doubtings and our fears to subjugate;
But we never will despair,
We will dare and ever dare,
Till our constancy and courage win at last the smile of fate! ”

“ In waking dreams we pass the day,
And dreams the hours of darkness sway,
(Day-dreams or night-dreams—who can guess
Whether their truth is more or less?)
Perchance even Death is but a dream,
And fleshless skulls with visions teem.
The Gods we pray to and adore
Are shadows of our dreams—no more ”

“ Cease to complain and life's full glory see:
I grant you seem most wretched; but in truth
If you are so, why God and I can find
Excellent reasons for it: in good sooth
He who denies all's well is deaf and blind. ”

“ As creatures full of fiery life we see:
Thine own strong soul thou usest to inform
These scenic puppets with the breath of life,
So that we see them, passion-breathing, warm,
Through all the gamut of their nature's strife ”

“ No jarring note doth fret my soul, which sings
A song of perfect and unmingled joy.
The world before has never seemed so fair,
No murmur of its miseries I hear:
Can I have reached a nobler region where
There is no sorrow, suffering, or fear? ”

“ THE CRY OF HUMANITY
Oh what a weary pilgrimage I've paced
In learning only that I've nothing learned!
What will o' th' wisps and shadows have I chased!
For what unworthy objects have I yearned!
How vainly searched for truth in falsehood's mines!
What trust I've given only to be betrayed! ”

“ In your spirit so fervent there burns ever-glowing
That love for the lovely which never can wane.
Leave 'success' to the sordid and 'slim' money-spinner,
His wealth is the price of the sale of his soul ”

“ Spite of himself his vulgar soul he shows,
Which to no great ideal allegiance owes,
But ever doth by self's mean compass steer:
So self-convicted and condemned he stands,
Despite the multitude's loud-clapping hands. ”

“ He who loves not
⁠Loveliness
Forfeits wholly
⁠Life's best bliss:
Grace and beauty,
⁠Eyes of fire,
No true man
⁠But must desire.
The richest gifts
⁠From nature's loom
Are youth and beauty
⁠In their bloom:
Priceless treasures! ”

“ Must we be deaf for ever; never hear
Thy voice proclaiming that relief is near?
Father! our tongues are tied; we cannot speak
Our heart-felt yearnings, howsoe'er we seek.
Our throats swell with the words we fain would say;
In murmurs hoarse and thick they die away.
When will our dumb and dark despair be o'er,
And like a rushing stream our fervent pray'rs outpour? ”

“ We listen ever with delight intense,
And drink it in as drinks the dew the flower:
The hours go by and yet we sit entranced,
And rise at last unwearied and unsated,
Our joy in life rekindled or enhanced,
In spirit and in senses recreated. ”

“ Britain at length shall glory in thy name,
Thy fame shall ever with the ages grow,
And none shall censure thee but to their shame;
Not Omar's—or FitzGerald's—name shall shine
More brightly in the years to come than thine! ”

“ Alas! how many sad Farewells
Even in a happy life are taken!
How often sound Death's tolling bells
Our sorrow and regret to waken!
Yet who would choose to be unmoved
When death our dearest from us rendeth? ”

“ Some day the sun will rise, but I shall rise
No more its warmth and radiance to enjoy,
But lie, a cold unconscious sacrifice
To treacherous time's fierce passion to destroy:
And shall the world when I am gone proceed
All heedlessly on its accustomed way? ”

“ As lovers will sometimes each other rally
With many a bantering and witty sally,
Their tender accents all the time revealing
The love that lurks beneath their words' concealing.—
I want no better, more expressive tongue
Than that in which our master, Shakespeare, sung ”

“ Sport of ever-adverse fate,
Helpless, hopeless, desolate!
Wherefore do I linger here,
Naught to hope for, all to fear?
Disarmed, defeated, comfort gone,
Why await another dawn?
Courage then and end thy woe. . . . ”

“ And wing with joy time's weary flight:
To analyse our joys away
Is but mere folly to display;
If all our joys are but illusions
Our sorrows also are delusions:
If nature cheats us into grief
Should we not thank her for relief? ”

“ A spark of her divinest energy,
With power to create the world of Art,
And intellect to solve all mystery:
So great and yet so little! blessed and cursed,—
Nature's most noble offspring—yet her worst! ”

“ Zephyr, filled with the ancient fire,
As eagerly doth Flora court;
The bee yet shews his old desire
With lilies in the mom to sport.
While love is present in the heart
The Golden Age can ne'er depart. ”