Eric Mackay

“ I fall subservient, as a man in shame
May own a fault; albeit, as with a flame,
I burn all day, abash'd and unforgiven,
And all unfit to touch the hand I claim!
[64]
[65]
[67]
i.
Glory to thee, my Queen! whom far away
My thoughts aspire to,—as the birds of May
Aspire o' mornings,—as in lonely nooks
The gurgling murmurs of neglected brooks
Aspire to moonlight,—aye! as earth aspires
When through the East, alert with wild desires,
The rapturous sun surveys the welkin's height,
And flecks the world with witcheries of his fires.
ii.
[68]
Oh, I should curb my grief. ”

“ And shrew-like women whom no faith uplifts!
Show me the place where Nature keeps the gifts
She most approves, and where the song-birds dwell,
And I'll forego the land of little thrifts.
xvi.
[89]
The moon is mother and the sun is sire
Of those young planets which, with infant fire,
Have late been found in regions too remote
For quicklier search; and these, in time, will dote
And whirl and wanton in the realms of space.
For there are comets in the nightly chase
Who see strange things untalk'd of by the bards;
And earth herself has found a trysting-place. ”

“ Why were they bann'd? Oh, why in Reason's name,
Were they abolished? They were good to claim,
And good to dream of, and to crown with bays,
Far-seen of men, far-shining in the haze
Of withering doubts. They were the world's elect,
As thou art mine, to bow to and to praise.
xiii.
Night after night I see thee, in my dreams,
As fair as Daphne, with the morning beams
Of thy bright locks about thee like a cloak,—
Fair as the young Aurora when she woke
At Phæthon's call, athwart the mountain-heights. ”

“ When earth was young, and love without alloy
Made all things glad and all the thoughts of things.
And like a man who wonders when he sings,
And knows not whence the power that in him lies,
I made a madrigal of all my sighs
And bade thee heed them; and I join'd therewith
The texts of these my follies that I prize.
xii.
[17]
I spoke of men, long dead, who wooed in vain
And yet were happy,—men whose tender pain
Was fraught with fervor, as the night with stars.
And then I spoke of heroes' battle-scars
And lordly souls who rode from land to land
To win the love-touch of a lady's hand ”

“ My fervor blinds me to the withering end
Of all good council, and, accurst thereby,
I vaunt anew the faults I cannot mend.
[78]
[79]
[81]
i.
I tell thee Sweet! there lives not on the earth
A love like mine in all the height and girth
And all the vast completion of the sphere.
I should be proud, to-day, to shed a tear
If I could weep. But tears are most denied
When most besought; and joys are sanctified
By joys' undoing in this world of ours
From dusk to dawn and dawn to eventide. ”

“ But Father Time, old Time with Janus-face
Looks o'er the sphere, and sees no fitting place
For thine acceptance; for the thrones of earth
Are much too mean, and in thy maiden worth
Thou'rt crown'd enough, and throned in very sooth
More than the queens who lord it in their youth
O'er men's convictions; and He names thy name
As one belov'd of Nature and of Truth.
xix.
He sees the nights, he sees the veering days,
The sweet spring season with its hymn of praise,
The summer, frondage-proud, the autumn pale,
The winter worn with withering of the gale,—
All this he sees ”

“ My last on earth, and, ere the frondage green
Had changed to gold, I should have join'd the ranks
Of dull dead men who lived for little thanks
And made the most thereof, though penance-bound.
I should have known that in the daily round
Of mine existence, there are griefs to spare,
But joys, alas! too few on any ground.
xv.
And here I stand to-day with bended head,
My task undone, my garden overspread
With baneful weeds. Am I the lord thereof? ”

“ That are at once my joy and my despair.
xv.
Winter is wild; but spring will come again;
For there's compunction in the fever-pain
That earth endures when, clamorous down the steep,
The wind out-blows the curse it cannot keep. ”

“ And far from memory of his land's defence.
vii.
Be this my meed,—to die for love of thee,
As when the sun goes down upon the sea
And finds no mate in all the realms of earth.
I, too, have look'd on Nature in its worth
And found no resting-place in all the spheres,
And no relief beyond my sonnet-tears,—
The soul-fed shudderings of my lonely harp
That knows the gamut now of all my fears.
viii.
[57]
I wear thy colours till the day I die:
A glove, a ribbon, and a rose thereby,
All join'd in one. I revel in these things ”

“ I knew 'twas thine; its color, creamy-pale,
Fill'd me with joy. "A prize!" I cried aloud,
And snatch'd it up, as zealous then, and proud,
As one who wins a knighthood in his youth;
And I was moved thereat, in very sooth,
And kiss'd it oft, and call'd on kindly Heaven
To be the sponsor of mine amorous truth. ”

“ The bath, the plunge, the combing of the hair,
All this I view,—a sight beyond compare
Since Daphne died in all the varied charms
Of her chaste body,—rounded regal arms,
And shape supreme, too fair for human gaze,
But not too fair to win the mirror's praise
That throbs to see thee in thy déshabille
And loves thee well through all the nights and days.
vii.
I see thee thus in fancy, as in books
A man may see the naïads of the brooks;—
As one entranced by potions aptly given
May see the angels where they walk in Heaven,
And may not greet them in their high estate. ”

“ I changed my purpose; and to-day I stand
Thine amorous vassal, though denounced afresh
And warn'd away, unkiss'd, from Edenland.
xi.
O flower unequall'd here from morn to morn,
Is't well, bethink thee, with a rose's thorn
To deck thyself, thou lily! and to seem
So irresponsive to my passion-dream?
Is't a caprice of thine to look so proud,
And so severe, athwart the shining cloud
Of thy long hair? And shall I never learn
How least to grieve thee when my vows are vow'd? ”

“ All that I am, and all I hope to be,
Is thine till death; and though I die for thee
Each day I live; and though I throb and thrill
At thoughts that seem to burn me, and to chill,
In my dark hours, I revel in the same ”

“ I was ordain'd thy minstrel, but alas!
I dare not greet thee when I see thee pass;
I scarce, indeed, may hope at any time,
To work my will, or triumph in a rhyme
To do thee honour; no, nor make amends
For unsought fervor, in the tangled ends
Of my despair. How sad, how dark to me
All things have grown since thou and I were friends!
viii.
[43]
It is the fault of thy despotic glance,
It is the memory of a day's romance
When, true to thee, though taunted for my truth,
I dared to solemnise the joys of youth
In one wild chant. It is thy fault, I say! ”

“ A night-betrothal, near the Southern Cross;
And all the stars will pause thereat and sing.
xviii.
[90]
What wonder, then, what wonder if to-day
I, too, assert my right, in roundelay,
To talk of rings and posies and the vows
That wait on marriage? 'Tis the wild carouse
Of soul with soul athwart the sense of touch.
'Tis this uplifts us when, with fever-clutch,
The world would claim us; and our hopes revive
In spite of fears that daunt us over-much. ”

“ How fairy-like the scene!
How gay with lamps! How fraught with tender sheen
Of life and languor! I was thine alone:—
Alert for thee,—intent to catch the tone
Of thy sweet voice,—and proud to be alive
To call to heart a peace for ever flown.
iii.
Had I not vext thee, as a monk in prayer
May vex a saint by musing, unaware,
On evil things? A saint is hard to move,
And quick to chide, and slow,—as I can prove,—
To do what's just; and yet, in thy despite,
We met again, we too, at dead of night ”

“ That thou wilt throb thereat, as throbs a lyre,
And give thine answer, too, without restraint,
And neither frown at me nor fear a taint
In my much zeal, that knows not any pause
But, night and day, is constant to the laws
Of its own making, and is fain to prove
How leagued it is throughout to Honor's cause. ”

“ Yea, I would wrestle with those arms of thine,
And, like a victor, I would vanquish thee,
And, tyrant-like, I'd teach thee to be mine.
v.
For, what is peace that we should cling thereto
If war be wisest? If the death we woo
Be fraught with fervor there's delight in death!
There is persuasion in the tempest's breath
Not known in calm; and raptures round us flow
When, like an arrow through the bended bow
Of two fond lips, the quivering dart of love
Brings down the kiss which saints shall not bestow.
vi.
[56]
The soldier dies for country and for kin ”

“ Thou wouldst entwine me in thine arms so white,
As soldier-nymphs, with rapt and raging sight,
Made war with spearsmen in the vales of song,
The vales of Sparta where, for right or wrong,
The gods were potent, and, for beauty's sake,
Upheld the tourneys of the fair and strong. ”

“ Or mine own slave, without the power to doff
My misery's badge? Am I so weak withal,
That I must loiter, though the bugle's call
Shrills o'er the moor, the far-off weltering moor,
Where foemen meet to vanquish or to fall? ”

“ Where thou'rt absorb'd in silence or in prayer,
There stands a throne, there gleams a fairy shrine.
viii.
[141]
I am, indeed, more subject to thy sway
Than trees are subject, in their tender way,
To earth's great king revolving round the sphere.
I am thy suffering servant all the year ”

“ To save my soul from night's entire eclipse.
ix.
Till I have heard from thee my doom of death
I shall be proud to serve thee with my breath,
And with my labour, and be thine withal
As Man is God's,—content with any thrall
That's bound in thee; content with any lot
That's link'd with thine, in some secluded spot
Which thou hast lov'd, O Lady! in the past,
And where remorse and wrong will find us not.
x.
[142]
To know thee fair, ah God! ”

“ Would find fulfilment; and the curse of Cain
Which fell on woman, as on men it fell,
Would fly from us, as at a sorcerer's spell,
And leave us wiser than the sophists are
Who love not folly. Night should not debar,
Nor day dissuade us, from those ecstacies
That have Anacreon's fame for guiding-star.
ix.
Aye! thou wouldst kneel and seek in me apace
A transient shelter for thine amorous face
Which then I'd screen ”

“ For the curious a few PROOF copies of KENSINGTON: Picturesque And Historical at five guineas, bound in full morocco, have painted in water-colours on the front, under the gilt edges of the leaves, a couple of Kensington views, which until the leaves are bent back at an angle, are invisible.
[150]
In the Press.]
Through England on a Side-saddle in the Time of William and Mary: being the Diary of Celia Fiennes. With an explanatory Introduction by The Hon. Mrs. Griffiths. LONDON: Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, E. C.
In the Press.] ”

“ One Guinea.
"With bad paper, one's Best is impossible."
The Author's Paper Pad (Issued by the Proprietors of The Leadenhall Press.)
Contains, in block form, fifty sheets of paper, fibrous and difficult to tear as a piece of linen, over which—being of unusual but not painful smoothness—the pen slips with perfect freedom. ”

“ This work contains full and descriptive accounts of the parish of Kensington and the adjoining Palace and Gardens, with the changes and improvements of the past half century or more; notices of Kensington celebrities and of the great national institutions which have sprung up at Kensington Gore and Brompton Park; and a fund of discursive matter of local and historical interest. The engravings include artistic exteriors and interiors; glimpses of Kensington Gardens; the Palace in which the Queen was born; the park; the people, streets, houses, churches, and ruins ”

“ Easily detachable, the size of the sheets is about 71⁄2 x 83⁄4 in., and the price is only that usually charged for common scribbling paper. THE AUTHOR'S PAPER PAD may be comfortably used, whether at the desk, held in the hand, or resting on the knee. As being most convenient for both author and compositor, the paper is ruled the narrow way, and of course on one side only.—Sixpence each, 5/- per dozen, ruled or plain. ”