Louise Imogen Guiney

“ Thro’ holy hours, be yet unsatisfied,
Loose me betimes! for in my soul abide
Urgings of memory; and exile’s pain
Weighs on me, as the spirit of one slain
May throb for the old strife wherein he died.
Often and evermore, across the sea
Of dark and dreams, to fatherlands of day
O speed me! like that outworn king erewhile
From kind Phæacia shoreward borne; for me,
Thy loving healèd Greek, thou too shall lay
Beneath the olive boughs of mine own isle. ”

“ Signalling with the white exultant sail!
‘So that I live, this thing,’ he said, ‘is sworn:
Watch! you that keep your faith and love in me.’
Such tales of Theseus’ youth his father’s mind
Rehearsed, while at his vigil in the night,
Deep pondering on each noble circumstance,
As a man shifteth, thro’ an idle hour,
Anon with hand in light, anon in shade,
The lustres of his one memorial gem. ”

“ To measure the hours, to moan for the dead;
To moan for the dead, ah me! ah me!
Where the wild gold parasites suck and spread,
Where the sea-flower rears her dreamy head;
In the grots of immortality{69}
The cool weird singing mermaids dwell in;
In the still city, with its empurpled air
Shaken upon the eye from bastions fair
Of coral, and pearl, and unbought jasper’s glisten,
I toll and wail, I burst and fail, ah, listen!
I, the holy bell, the gift of the Lord Llewellyn,
Now the keel of a Cornish ship looms over my prison,
Call from the underworld in mine old despair. ”

“ Impels thee out of bondage to thy bourn:
Ere thou art half forlorn,
Farewell, farewell! for from thy golden stem
Thou slippest like a wild enchanter’s gem.
Swift are the garden-ghosts, and swiftest thou of them!
Yea, speed thy freeborn life no doubts debar,
O blossom-breath of that which was delight!{123}
In cooling whirl and undulation far
The wind shall be thy bearer all the night
Thro’ ether trembling-white:
And I that clung with thee, as exiles may
Whose too slight roots in every zephyr sway,
Thy little soul salute along her homeward way! ”

“ Thro’ the æons, in a cell
Hangs Saint Cadoc’s loveless bell,
Orbèd, like a mortal’s tear,
On the moony atmosphere,
Bearing, the refrain of time,
Memory, and unrest, and crime.
Thou that hast the world sublime!
I that was free, I am lost, I am damned, I am here!
And whenever a child among men by a blow is dead,
Docile for aye from the deeps must I lift my head,
And from the heathen heart of me that breaks,
The unextinguishable music wakes,
Naught availing, naught deterred.{75}
And the sailor heareth me,
Even as thou, alas! ”

“ All Rome was aroused with the thunder that buried her shame.
On surged the Sabini to battle. O you that aspire!
Tarpeia the traitor had fill of her woman’s desire.
Woe: lightly to part with one’s soul as the sea with its foam! ”

“ Then leaped quicksilvered Theseus thro’ the fray,
With love’s suspicion kindling in his veins,
And gained that space before the startled host
Whence from her couch Medea shrieked away:
Limned beautiful and clear from front to feet,
Shod with the shoon Ægean; and his arm
Sabred with the one sword that Ægeus knew!
Who, blanching ’neath roused memory’s ebb and flow,
Among the wrangling merry-makers all,
Clarioned ‘My own!’ and strained him to his breast. ”

“ Not for my lease immortal the serpent shall be cajoled.
‘To strike her down avenges her slain; but is evil ended?
The fashion dies; the function abides, and has fresher scope.
What is to be won? He cringes who would seize, were the choice extended,
For the risk elsewhere of living, here only survival’s hope!
‘I would keep my lot mine purely, cast in with men’s forever;
Their transient tempest sooner than these Sybaritic calms;{61}
Tho’ against the cobra, surely, I would pit my soul’s endeavor,
Her crown and its lonely meaning I would scorn to take in alms. ”

“ Vaulting on wave thro’ all her caverns loud,
Far upon Oliaros boomed the sea.
Then bearded Rhodalus, compassionate,
Spied leaning o’er the crags the frenzied king,
Rending his garment to the paling moon;
And yet evasive of those pleading eyes,
Knotting his arms against his breast, downcast,
Adjured him: ‘O most reverend, O most dear!
The heart of life is rotten; prayer is vain.
Stay up thy soul: for lo! the sail is black.’
And all the trancèd host burst into moan.{29} ”

“ Holding, losing, thro’ one first last moment,
One mad moment worth dull life forever,
Triumphing in anguish, let us hymn thee!
Thine, beholden Beauty, thine this heart-break,
Thine, O Hope forsworn! this salutation,
Youth, ah, Youth! all men’s desire and sorrow. ”

“ Some thrill for this same snake-tussle, and the heirdom of life Elysian,
Long peace, long loving, long praises: but I’ve kindled and cooled on that!
‘Ten years have I been a ranger, I have hewn all dread to the centre;
I have learned to sift out values; my soul is at rest and free.{60}
If that be your boon for danger, on a dull safe youth to enter,
Tho’ some may covet the guerdon, ’tis a poor enough thing to me. ”

“ Down-glittered with the breaker’s volleying foam
Visioned before him in the level dark:
Ægeus, of wronged Pandion heir, and king.
And round about his knees, and at his feet,
In saffrons and sad greens alone bedight,
Sat, clustered in dim wayward sidelong groups
Sheer to the ocean’s edge, those liegemen fond
Who with him wished and wept. As thro’ the hours
Of ebbing autumn, on a northward hill,
Lies summer’s russet ruined panoply,
Knotted and heaped by the fantastic winds
Hap-hazard, while the first adventuring snow
Globes itself on the summit ”

“ And the barbed tongue tempts and entices, and the fire-eyes acquiesce.
‘Once she was a wily woman, whose glory the gods have finished,
Whose handicraft still is ruin, whose glee is to snare and kill,
Defier of spearman and bowman, her empery undiminished;
But whoso can overcome her, shall bend the world to his will!
‘Therefore the knights importune to spur thro’ the jungles fruity,
Many a lad and a hunter and a dreamer there ventureth;{59}
For the king tends power and fortune to the slayer of that demon-beauty,
And awards him her crown thrice-charmèd whose captor can outwit Death ”

“ Shall speed us, so uplifted, so redeemed,
Along the old worn channel of our lives.
{120}
CYCLAMEN.
ON me, thro’ joy’s eclipse, and inward dark,
First fell thy beauty like a star new-lit;
To thee my carol now! albeit no lark
Hath for thy praise a throat too exquisite.
O would that song might fit
These harsh north slopes for thine inhabiting,
Or shelter lend thy loveliest laggard wing,
Thou undefiled estray of earth’s o’ervanished spring!
Here is the sunless clime, the fallen race ”

“ TARPEIA.
WOE: lightly to part with one’s soul as the sea with its foam!
Woe to Tarpeia, Tarpeia, daughter of Rome!
Lo, now it was night, with the moon looking chill as she went:
It was morn when the innocent stranger strayed into the tent.
The hostile Sabini were pleased, as one meshing a bird;
She sang for them there in the ambush: they smiled as they heard.
Her sombre hair purpled in gleams, as she leaned to the light;
All day she had idled and feasted, and now it was night.{36}
The chief sat apart, heavy-browed, brooding elbow on knee ”

“ Dance, you starry striplings! round the fountain-spray;
With its mellow music out of sunshine falling,
With its precious waters trickling into clay,
Youth is slipping, dripping, pearl on pearl, away! ”

“ I HEAR in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,
All day, the commotion of sinewy, mane-tossing horses;
All night, from their cells, the importunate tramping and neighing.
Cowards and laggards fall back; but alert to the saddle,
Straight, grim, and abreast, vault our weather-worn, galloping legion,
With a stirrup-cup each to the one gracious woman that loves him.
The road is thro’ dolor and dread, over crags and morasses ”

“ JOHN BROWN: A PARADOX.
COMPASSIONATE eyes had our brave John Brown,
And a craggy stern forehead, a militant frown;
He, the storm-bow of peace. Give him volley on volley,
The fool who redeemed us once of our folly,
And the smiter that healed us, our right John Brown!
Too vehement, verily, was John Brown!
For waiting is statesmanlike; his the renown
Of the holy rash arm, the equipper and starter
Of freedmen; aye, call him fanatic and martyr:
He can carry both halos, our plain John Brown.
A scandalous stumbling-block was John Brown,
And a jeer; but ah! ”

“ With eye that wanes and waxes at doings of mankind.
Slow, slow creeps the invader upon that happy mind.
The apple breasts his fellow; doves wheel by two and three,
And ever dance in circle the shallops on the sea ”

“ Of what angelic lineage was she born,
Bred in what rapture?—These her sires and friends:
Censure, Denial, Gloom, and Hunger’s throe.
Praised be the Spirit that thro’ thee, Schubert! so
Wrests evil unto wholly heavenly ends. ”

“ My wonder-land and my island, where the chance of a knight is best.
‘There from the black mid-forest, past hemlock guards in waiting
(Heard you not of the legend?) , when the wide sun winks at noon,
On the rock-ways sharpest, hoarest, warily undulating,
A star-dappled serpent hurries, with the odorous grace of June.
‘Over her human forehead, reared among glens abysmal,
Glitters a crown gold-gossamer; only a moment’s arc{58}
Crosses the creature torrid, flexile, palpitant, prismal,
Then breaks on the earth, a terror spiralling into the dark. ”

“ Trembling, the bees’ on-coming chant discern;
Hail the rash hyacinth, the ambushed fern,
High-bannered boughs that green defiance make,
And watch from sheathing ice the brave Spring take
Her broad, bright river-blade. Ah! then, in turn
Long-hushèd forces stir in me; I feel
All the most sharp unrest of the young year ”

“ A thing pearl-pale, yet stung
With fire, as the morning’s beam is;
Hid underground thro’ a solar round,
Hardy and fragile, antique and young,
More exquisite than a dream is.
No rose had so bright birth;
No gem of romance surpassed it,
By a minstrel-knight, for his maid’s delight,
Borne from the moon-burnt marge of the earth,
Where Paynim breakers cast it.{104}
Rude-named, memorial, quaint,
The dews and the darkness mould it:
Scarce twice in an age is our heritage
This glory and mystery without taint.
Dear Stevenson, do you hold it
A text of grace, ah! ”

“ Like a soft child, flower-plucking all forenoon,
Gathers the ages from this garden old.{56}
Calm housemates with them in their forest lone
Do Freedom, Innocence and Joy, abide:
And aye as one who into Heaven hath died
Thro’ mortal aisleways of melodious moan,
The boatman sees, at dusk, from Arno’s tide,
The Everlasting Lover with his own! ”

“ So one brother’s fetter be loosened, or one tyrant trampled down?
‘Why, see! this diadem’s pleasure a Turk might sigh to inherit,—
Heart-beats thrumming; a torpid and solitary cheer;
No call to arms, no measure of progress! Well, let him wear it
{62} Unquestioned ... I spurned the bauble when I killed your snake last year.’
MOUSTACHE.
A FRIENDLESS pup that heard the fife
Sprang to the column thro’ the clearing,
And on to Switzerland and strife
Went grenadiering.
Much he endured, and much he dared
The long hot doomsday of the nations:
He wore a trooper’s scars ”