Walter Richard Cassels

“ Give me a child to guide me—e'en the least.
Then on! thou giant, child-led, through the land,
Tottering feebly with uncertain stride,
With heavy moans along the mountain side,
Groping the darkness wildly, staff in hand,
Staying, deep-voiced, the quick steps of thy guide;
On! with wild sightless sockets to the sun,
Thirsting for the light-streams that around it run;
Far on yon summit, turning eastward, stand!
God! let me rather die than thus, child-led,
Totter about the world an infant's slave—
Ay! die, and darkly slumber in the grave!—
Peace! proud one, bow thine unsubmitting head ”

“ Though not in Earth's eyes, still in Heaven's, which see
Each task accomplish'd not in poor degree,
But as fain workings out of Duty's plan,—
The hewers and the drawers of the land,
No whit behind the mighty and the great,
Bearing unmoved the burden of the State,—
Alike each duty challenged at man's hand.
Life is built up of smallest atomics,
Pile upon pile the ramparts still increase,
And as those, Roman walls, o'er which in scorn
The scoffer leapt, soon held the world at bay,
So shall thy deeds of duty, lowly born,
Be thy strong tower and glory ere the set of day. ”

“ So that there is no joy 'neath sun and moon,
No rarest charm can move me, lacking it;
Tell me then all the dangers of the quest,
That I may measure well my strength, and know
If mortal man may meet it and o'ercome."
With sad dissenting mien, and solemn voice,
That trembled 'neath its burden, thus spake he,—
"Full many of the good and bold have come
From every land the pilgrim-sun looks on,
All thirsting for this water golden bright;
These darkening eyes have seen them all pass on,
But ne'er a one return; and I am old. ”

“ Thou setting life against thy glory light,
As men hold up a crystal 'gainst the sun,
Making its frame as nothing in the blaze!
Lo! my heart was like a chaotic world,
Still, silent, 'mid the dreary waste of time.
Man there was not in all its desert bounds,
But hoary ruins of past wondrous things,
Old unbeliefs, fierce doubts, unsightly dreams,
That wearing out their wild hot-breathing life,
Wearily stretch'd their writhing shapes to die;
Then came she moving o'er my awe-hush'd soul,
Like God's own Spirit over earth's void waters,
And there arose order and life through all. ”

“ Blending sad voices with thine own,—
Voices that once with cheerful tone
Made music round the sleeping land?
ORAN (from the Greenhouse, unperceived) .
Ah! her dear voice. How all my nature thrills,
My heart, my brain, beneath the mellow sound,
Like some great dome with holy music fill'd!
She is the lark, above my listening soul
Hovering still with carols from Heaven's gate.
She is the perfumed breeze, that evermore
Sweeps music from the Aeolian strings of life.
She is the sea, that fills with sweetest sound
The yearning earth that folds it in its arms. ”

“ Soft as the singing of a little child,
Heaven's music on light pinions floateth near,
Through all the strife of Earth, so harsh and wild;
Time's stream is rippling on its marges clear.
The end is nigh—the end of grief and pain,
And Life's broad gates are opening to my soul;
O'er my weak heart no more shall sorrow reign,
Enfranchised soon 'twill spurn the harsh control,
And never feel its empiry again.
No more, Filippo, shall my hapless life
Stand betwixt thee and pleasure,—Duty's knot
Shall soon be sever'd by the headsman's knife ”

“ That from the earth a man had pass'd away—
A mighty Man, that over many a field
Roll'd back the tide of Battle on the foe,—
Thus far, no further, shall thy billows go.
Who Freedom's falchion did right nobly wield,
Like potter's vessel smiting Tyrants down,
And from Earth's strongest snatching Victory's crown;
Upon the anvil of each Battle-plain,
Still beating swords to ploughshares. All is past,—
The glory, and the labour, and the pain—
The Conqueror is conquer'd here at last. ”

“ Opening Earth's portals wide to let thee wend
Forth to Plutonian realms of gloom away;
And never more about the waiting land
Stray'd thy light steps at morn or shady eve.
No fountain hid thine image in its heart;
No flowers leapt up to wreathe thy golden hair;
No more the fawns within the forest glade
Follow'd a foot more lightsome than their own;
The moon stole through the night in dim surprise;
And all the stars look'd pale with wondering;
For thou cam'st not, O lost Eurydice!
Earth found thee not, O lost Eurydice! ”

“ Yet now, methinks, I seem to see
One spot of burning brightness, beaming clear
Through all the floating glory, like a sphere
Quenching light with its own intensity.
Yes! yes! it is the Holy City I behold,
With God's sun, from its towers of burnish'd gold,
Reflected broadly through immensity!
I must gaze out, although I die:
Ah! yes, I see it through my longing tears—
A great clear glow of glory there appears,
Like a light-fountain in the eastern sky,
That as I gaze pours forth its living light,
Flooding Creation, till the dazzled sight
Sees Heaven in all things that around it lie. ”

“ Till the leaves open, and the glory streams
Down through my trancèd soul in radiant dreams.
Too short—too short—soon comes the chilly morn,
To shake from love's boughs all their sleep-born bloom,
And wake my heart back to its bitter doom,
Sending me through the land down-cast, forlorn,
Whilst thou, my Beautiful, art far away,
Bearing the brightness from my joyless day.
I stand and gaze across Earth's fairest sea,
And still the plashing of the restless main,
Sounds like the clashing of a prisoner's chain,
That binds me, oh! my Beautiful, from thee. ”

“ Till glory flood my vision utterly.
The sun! the sun! I see it upward roll'd,—
Day for the world, but life, fire-life for me,
Smiting asunder Death's night-mystery
With lightning-blade of strength and ecstasy!
Now, on to work and action, seeing clear—
Blindness swift throwing to Time's charnel-place—
Eyeing, unscathed, the Sun-god face to face!
Ho! light! more light! dissolving sphere on sphere!
Would that my very life could lighten space,
Shining out like some constellation bright,
Back beating all the myrmidons of Night,
With starry splendors flashing sword and spear! ”

“ We are all one with Nature—every breeze
Stealeth about the chambers of the soul,
Haunting their rest with sounds of joy or dole;
And every cloud that creepeth from the seas,
Traileth its shade o'er human sympathies.
Blow! blow, thou weird wind, till the clouds be rent,
And starlight glimmer through the riven seams,
Scatter their darkness like the mist of dreams,
Till all the fleeting, spectre-gloom be spent,
And the bright Future gem the firmament.
Blow! blow! Night's "Mene Tekel" even now
Glows on her palace-walls, and she shall pass
Like the dim vapour from a burnish'd glass ”

“ Strength, hope, and love of life all seeming gone.
But she went onward with no word or plaint,
Clasping the child unto her bosom still,
Unflagging when all else began to faint,
Intent to save her little one from ill;
And they look'd on her as she sped along,
Wond'ring what made so frail a creature strong.
At eve she bent above her sleeping treasure,
With eyes that wept for pity and for love,
Filling its cup of life in richer measure,
With the blest care that watches us above;
And in the morn they bound the babe again,
And so drew on the mother in their train. ”

“ Clash'd their burnish'd targets, waved their flashing steel
A goodly gath'ring look'd they, arm'd from head to heel.
"Child! my heart beats proudly, now I feel a king,
As I look around me on this martial ring;
There I see the sinews that support a state,
There I see the strength that makes a monarch great.
Men whose life is glory—men whose death is fame,
Living still in story past the reach of shame."
Many years pass'd over—the old King was dead,
And his child, his first-born, reignèd in his stead. ”

“ Where 'neath its ruthless tide on hill or plain,
No flower or shady leaf shall bud again.
Slowly thus the ocean creeping,
Creeping coldly o'er the world of old,
Stole many an Eden from the Age of Gold,
And gazing now we see blank billows sweeping,
Long cheerless wavings of the sullen seas,
Were once the sun shone bright on flowery leas.
Over Earth, and over Being,
Over many glories of the Past,
Remorseless floods are flowing fierce and fast,
Snatching sun-lighted Tempes from our seeing,
Rolling their dreary surges o'er the shore,
Where Love had hoped to dwell for evermore. ”

“ MORGAN. But in this one act all his fury pass'd;
And turning softly from the dead child there,
Suffering none to touch it where it lay,
He sat him down in awful calmness nigh,
And gazed forth blankly like a sculptured face;
And when we fain would pass to take the child,
A strange wild voice still warns us back again,
"Hush! for the boy is sleeping." It would seem
He will not think that Death hath struck the babe,
But blinds his willing soul, and deems it sleep.
MONK. A longer sleep, whose waking is not here!
Poor soul! that, catching at the skirts of Truth. ”

“ The night-breeze bore sweet incense-breath away.
The dew lay thick upon the unstirr'd leaves;
The glow-worm glisten'd brightly as he pass'd;
The thrush still chaunted, but the swallows fast
Hied to their home beneath lone cottage eaves.
He had been straying through the land that day,
Dreaming of beauty as some dream of love;
And all the earth beneath, the heaven above,
In mirror'd glory on his spirit lay. ”

“ Trickles among them o'er thine unmoved ear,
Though every grove doth multiply the sound,
And all the land sigh forth "Eurydice"?
My heart is all untamed for evermore;
The strings hang loose and warp'd for evermore;
The rocks resound not with my olden songs,
Nor melt in echoes on the trancèd breeze;
The streams flow on to music all their own;
The magic of my lyre hath pass'd away,
For Love ne'er sweeps sweet music from its chords;
For thou art pass'd away, Eurydice ”

“ Stand forth, thou Conqueror, before God's throne,
Thou ruler, thou Earth-leader, great and strong,
Behold thy work, thy doing, labour'd long,
Before that mighty Presence little grown.
Stand forth, thou Man, low toiling 'mid the lees,
That measurest Duty out in poor degrees;
Are not all deeds, beside the deeds of Heaven,
But as the sands upon the ocean shore,
Which, softly breath'd on by God's winds, are driven
Into dim deserts, thenceforth seen no more! ”

“ Vain thine endeavour our spirits to sever,
Take my soul with thee, Angel of Heaven,
Bear me unto her, Angel of Heaven.
THE MOTHER. There is a land whereon the sun's warm gaze,
God-like, all-seeing, falls right down through space,
And the weak Earth, quite smitten by its rays,
Lies scorch'd and powerless with mute silent face,
Like a tranced body, where no changing glow
Tells that the life-streams through its channels flow. ”

“ No joys too blissful o'er her life to shed.
And thus the land became a Paradise,
A new-made Eden, redolent of joy,
Where beauty blossom'd under sunny skies,
And peaceful pleasure reign'd without alloy.
THE LAND'S END. I stood on the Land's End, alone and still.
Man might have been unmade, for no frail trace
Of mortal labour startled the wild place,
And only sea-mews with their wailing shrill,
Circled beneath me over the dark sea,
Flashing the waves with pinions snowy white,
That glimmer'd faintly in the gloomy light
Betwixt the foaming furrows constantly. ”

“ What dost thou when the thunder is unloosed?
"I sit amongst the crags, and feel the Earth
Tremble beneath me, whilst my heart is firm.
I gaze upon the lightning, and my lid
Quivers not. Is their aught 'neath which my gaze
Quaileth, or waxeth faint—I read the sun
Undazzled where the stars grow dim and pale.
"Men gather them to battle—host meets host—
And I am borne aloft to marshal them,—
I, the great King of Battles, that go forth
Conquering and to conquer. ”

“ For that far Golden Water in the East,
Whence one bright drop would fill her fountain full,
With glistening jets still rising in the midst.
She rose up straight, and donning man's attire,
For that the road was hard and difficult,
Took horse, and towards the sunrise swiftly rode,
Saying, "Thus much life lacks of perfectness,
In God's name on to gain it then, or die."
She sped right onward nineteen days in haste,
Morning and noontide turning not aside;
Then, as the next day dawn'd, afar she saw
The aged Dervise 'neath his lonely tree. ”

“ Thus from the streams, and rivers, from the sea,
From the stirr'd bosom of the mighty hills,
From every glade there rose continually
A blessing for her, till with joyous thrills
Earth's bosom heaved, and in man's heart a voice
Echoed the anthem—"Spring is come! Rejoice!"
THE BITTERN. The reeds are idly waving o'er the marshy ground,
The rank and ragged herbage rots on many a mound,
And desolate pools and marshes deadly lie around. ”

“ Steals o'er her fragile body, dulls her sense,
And wraps her wholly in its chill embrace;
That thus, spell-bound, lost to the living world,
She lies till thou again unwind her chain,
And wak'st her feebly to this life of earth.
Thus dost thou peril her, thou blinded man!
Sett'st her dear life against thy moonstruck thought,
And slay'st thy dove on Folly's altar-steps.
MAURICE. Ay! if you loved her, would your eyes have miss'd
The moonish faintness that o'erlaps her now,
Melting the fresh, full, ruddy glow of health
To loveliness most heavenly, yet most sad? ”