Lewis Morris

“ The Prince he sought, only great princes, strong
And valorous he found, who bowed them down
Before the power of Evil; but for them
He took no thought, who had seen their master blench
Before the Lord of Light; but him indeed
He saw not yet; filled with the pride of life,
A satisfied soul which bowed not down to wrong,
Touched with desire for good, since good was strong,
But loving strength alone. ”

“ For right or wrong there is no further place than here,
No sanctities of hope, no chastening fear?
"There is nowhere else," she said.
"There is nowhere else," and in the wintry ground
When we have laid the darlings of our love—
The little lad with eyes of blue,
The little maid with curls of gold,
Or the beloved aged face
On which each passing year stamps a diviner grace—
That is the end of all, the narrow bound.
Why look our eyes above
To an unreal home which mortal never knew—
Fold the hands on the breast, the clay-cold fingers fold?
No waking comes there to the uncaring dead! ”

“ Through all those hidden depths he strode unmoved,
A strong, laborious, unrewarded soul.
Was it because the stain and blot of wrong
Were on him still uncleansed? I cannot tell.
The stain of ill eats deep, and nought can cleanse it,
Nay hardly tears of blood. But to my thought
Not thus the legend runs; rather I deem
That what of good he loved was only strength,
The pride of conscious Power—that which had led him
To strong rude wrong, the same sense, working on him,
Led him through weariness of wrong to use
His strength for goodness. ”

“ Fate, the ineffable Word of an Eternal Will.
All things that are or seem,
Whether we wake who see or do but dream,
Are of that Primal Will phantasms, if no more;
He who sees these sees God, and seeing doth adore.
Joy, suffering, evil, good,
Whatever our daily food,
Whate'er the mystery and paradox of things,
Low creeping thoughts and high imaginings.
The laughters of the world, the age-long groan,
Bring to his mind one name, one thought alone;
All beauty, right, deformity, or wrong,
Sing to his ear one high unchanging song ”

“ As life's blithe springtide passed upon its way
And all youth's infinite hope and bloom
Shone round her; nor might any shadow of gloom
Fall on her as she passed from flower to flower;
Love sought her, with full dower
Of happy wedlock and young lives to rear;
Nor shed her eyes a tear,
Save for some passing pity, fancy bred.
All good things were around her—riches, love,
All that the heart and mind can move,
The precious things of art, the undefiled
And innocent affection of a child.
Oh girl, who amid sunny ways dost tread,
What curse is this that blights that comely head? ”

“ The stream is bound fast and the wolds are chill;
And by the dead flats, where the cold blasts moan,
A bent body wearily plods alone.
THE PATHOS OF ART. Oft seeing the old painters' art,
We find the tear unbidden start,
And feel our full hearts closer grow
To the far days of long ago.
Not burning faith, or godlike pain,
Can thus our careless thought enchain;
The heavenward gaze of souls sublime,
At once transcends, and conquers time.
Nor pictured form of seer or saint,
Which hands inspired delight to paint;
Art's highest aims of hand or tongue,
Age not, but are for ever young. ”

“ Of a new sorrow and gloom,
And when his soul to comfort them is fain
Finds his voice mute, his form unknown, unseen,
And thinks with irrepressible pain
Of all the happy days which late have been,
And feels his new life's inmost chambers stirred
If only of his own, he might be seen or heard;
Then if, at length,
The father's yearning and overburdened soul
Burst into shape and voice which scorn control
Of its despairing strength,—
Ah Heaven! ah pity for the present dread
Which strikes the old affection, dull and dead! ”

“ If it was love that drove, or only pride
To hold what others grudged me. Vain he was,
And selfish, and a coward, as you shall hear,
Handsome enough, I grant you, to betray
A stronger soul than mine. Indeed, I think,
He never cared for me nor I for him
(For there were others after him) : I knew it,
Then chiefest, when our comedy of life
Was turning at the last to tragedy.
"Now that I was unfaithful, a false wife,
I value not men's sneers at a pin's point,
We have a right to love and to be loved;
Not the mere careless tolerance of the spouse
Who has none to give. ”

“ By Thy great winds as by an unknown word;
Thy fair, light-winged creatures, blithe and free;
Thy dear brutes living, dying, silently:
Shall I from them no voice to praise Thee find?
Thy praise is hymned by every balmy wind
That wanders o'er a wilderness of flowers;
By every happy brute which asks not why,
But rears its brood and is content to die.
From Thee has come whatever good is ours;—
The gift of love that doth exalt the race;
The gift of childhood with its nameless grace;
The gift of age which slow through ripe decay,
Like some fair fading sunset dies away ”

“ Old as the tale of passing hopes and fears!
New as the springtide air, which day by day
Breathes on young lives, and speeds them on their way.
The Roman knew it, and the Hellene too;
Assyrian and Egyptian proved it true;
Who found for youth's young glory and its glow
Serener life, and calmer tides run slow.
And them oblivion takes, and those before,
Whose very name and race we know no more,
To whom, oh Spirit of the World and Man,
Thou didst reveal Thyself when Time began,—
They felt, as I, what none may understand ”

“ Which scarce has risen ere it die;
Or to a bird, whose rapid flight
Eludes the dazed observer's sight,
Or a stray shaft of glancing light,
That breaks upon the gathered gloom
Which veils some monumental tomb;
Or some sweet Spring flowers' fleeting bloom;—
Mixed part of reason, part belief,
Of pain and pleasure, joy and grief,
As changeful as the Spring, and brief;—
A wave, a shadow, a breath, a strife,
With change on change for ever rife:—
This is the thing we know as life. ”

“ The stains of life. No harm shall come to thee,
Nor in those chill dark waters shall thy feet
Slip, nor thy life be swallowed. It is thine
To bear in thy strong arms the fainting souls
Of pilgrims who press onward day and night
Seeking the Lord of Light. Thou, who so long
Didst serve the Lord of Evil, now shalt serve
A higher; and because great penances
Are fitting for great wrong, here shalt thou toil
Long time till haply thou shalt lose the stain
Of sense and of the world, then shall thy eyes
See that thou wouldst.
Go suffer and be strong. ”

“ Here the eternal problems grow,
And with each day are solved and done,
When some spent life, like melting snow,
Breathes forth its essence to the sun.
As death is, life is—without end;
Wrong with right mingles, joy with pain;
Forbid two meeting streams to blend,
'Twere not more hopeless, nor more vain.
Though Death with Life, though Wrong with Right,
Are bound within the scheme of things,
Yet can our souls, on soaring wings,
Gain to a loftier purer height,
Where death is not, nor any life,
Nor right nor wrong, nor joy nor pain ”

“ Held him nor sensual ease who was too great
For silken fetters, a strong soul and hand
Bent to a higher end than theirs, and touched
To higher issues; a fair beacon set
Upon a lordly hill above the marsh
Of common life, but all the more laid bare
To the beating of the whirlwind.
Every soul
Knows its particular weakness: so for him
This great strong soul set in its pride of place;
The charm of Power worked like a spell; high power
Unchecked, untrammelled, fixed with none to rule
Above it, this could bend the nobler soul
Which naught might conquer. ”

“ The burden of the Race—and a great cry
Came from him, "Help! I sink, I faint, I die,
I perish beneath my burden! Help, O King
Of Heaven, for I am spent and can no more!
My strength is gone, the waters cover me,
I stand not of myself. Help, Lord and King!"
Then suddenly from his spent life he felt
The great load taken; through the midnight gloom
There burst the glorious vision of his dream—
The palace of the King, the domes, the spires,
The shining oriels sunlit into gold,
The heaven of heavens discovered; then a voice,
"Rise, Christopher! ”

“ Now, therefore, since to wed is good, and life
To the unwedded woman seems a load
Which few may bear, and none desire, I prithee,
This jewelled chalice taking, mingle wine
As well thou knowest, and the honeyed draught
Give to some noble youth of those thou seest
Along the well-ranged tables, knowing well
That him to whom thou givest, thou shalt wed.
I fetter not thy choice, girl. I grow old;
I have no son to share the weight of rule,
And fain would see thy children ere I die."
Then, with a kiss upon her blushing cheek,
He gave the maid the cup. ”

“ Eternal are the worlds, and all that them do fill;
Eternal is the march of the Creative Will;
Eternal is the life of man, and sun, and star;
Ay, even though they fade a while, they are;
And though they pause from shining, speed for ever still.
A GREAT GULF. If any tender sire
Who sits girt round by loving faces
And happy childhood's thousand graces,
Through sudden crash or fire
Should 'scape from this poor life to some mysterious air,
And, dwelling solitary there,
Should feel his unfilled yearning father's heart
Pierced through by some intolerable smart ”

“ New busy crowds pass on with hurrying feet,
The young lives grow old and the old pass away;
But unchanged, 'mid the graves, at the fated day,
The green sheath bursts upwards and grows complete.
From the grave it bursts forth, 'mid the graves it shall die,
It shall die as we die, as it lives we shall live;
And this poor flower has stronger assurance to give,
Than volumes of learning, which blunder or lie.
For out of the dust and decay of the tomb,
It springs, the sun calling, to beauty and bloom ”

“ Thou art, which doth transcend and doth determine Force!
Fare onward to the end; not from Force, dead and blind,
Thou comest, but from the depths of the Creative Mind.
Fare on to the end, but how should ending be,
If Will be in the Universe, and plan?
Some higher thing shall be, that which to-day is Man.
Undying is each cosmic force:
Undying, but transformed, it runs its endless course;
It cannot wane, or sink, or be no more.
Not even the dust and lime which clothe us round
Lose their own substance in the charnel-ground,
Or carried far upon the weltering wind ”

“ With passionate stress and mighty yearning stirred,—
It strives to stand revealed in shape and word
In vain; or by strong travail visible grown,
Finds but a world estranged, and lives and dies alone!
ONE DAY. One day, one day, our lives shall seem
Thin as a brief forgotten dream:
One day, our souls by life opprest,
Shall ask no other boon than rest.
And shall no hope nor longing come,
No memory of our former home,
No yearning for the loved, the dear
Dead lives that are no longer here? ”

“ But is filled with great love for them as Thou art for these,
And would give his life for their good, and is filled day and night
With fatherly thoughts of fear and yearning for right,
And grows sick, if evil come nigh them body or soul,
And yet is but a feeble thing, without strength or control.
But Thou art almighty for good; yet Thy plagues, they come,
Hunger and want and disease, in a terrible sum;
And the poor fathers waste, and are stricken with slow decay ”

“ The petty crafts which make the pleader's art,
The dolts who sit in judgment, when the one
Who knows all must be silent; but you know not
The intolerable burden of suspense,
The hard and hateful gaze of hungry eyes
Which gloat upon your suffering. When doom came
It was well to know the worst, and hear no more
The half-forgotten horrors. But I think
The sense of common peril, common wrong,
Knits us in indissoluble unity,
Closer than years of converse. ”

“ When life ebbs fast and the dim light is low,
When sunk in gloom the day of pleasure ends,
And the night cometh, and your being runs slow,
And nought is left you of your revelries,
Your drunken days, your wantonness, your ill—
And lo! the last dawn rises cold and chill,
And lo! the lightning of All-seeing eyes,
What will you do? ”

“ Have pity on me; let me love my love,
If not with recompense of love, alone;
For I can love none else."
Then the King said:
"Daughter, to me thy happiness is life,
And more; but now, I pray thee, let my words
Sink deep within thy mind. Thou canst not know
If this strange vision through the gate of truth
Came or the gate of error. Oftentimes
The gods send strong delusions to ensnare
Too credulous hearts. Thou canst not know, in sooth,
If 'twas the Prince thou saw'st, or, were it he,
If love be his to give ”

“ Which to heights greater than the earth can gain,
And can our little minds project to Thee,
Through Infinite Space—across Eternity.
For these I praise Thy name; but above all
The precious gifts Thy bounteous hand lets fall,
I praise Thee for the power to love the Right,
Though Wrong awhile show fairer to the sight;
The power to sin, the dreadful power to choose
The evil portion and the good refuse ”

“ The weakling to his breast, through the great might
Of Pity, grown to strength, he took the deep
With that light load in his arms.
But as he went,
The strength greater than human, the strong limbs
Which bore long time unfaltering the great pain
And burden of our life ”

“ Comes not of hatred of the wrong, nor love
Of the good, but rather from the shame which Pride
Knows which has gone astray and spent itself
Upon unworthy ends. So this strong soul
Laboured on unfulfilled. Yet who shall trace
By what hidden processes of waste and pain
The great Will is fulfilled, and doth achieve
The victory of Good? ”