Poems of the Past and the Present | Page 6

to them,?And we who love them cling to them
And clasp them joyfully;?And cry, "O much we'll do for you
Anew for you,?Dear Loves!--aye, draw and hew for you,
Come back from oversea."
III
Some told us we should meet no more,
Should meet no more;?Should wait, and wish, but greet no more
Your faces round our fires;?That, in a while, uncharily
And drearily?Men gave their lives--even wearily,
Like those whom living tires.
IV
And now you are nearing home again,
Dears, home again;?No more, may be, to roam again
As at that bygone time,?Which took you far away from us
To stay from us;?Dawn, hold not long the day from us,
But quicken it to prime!
THE SICK GOD
I
In days when men had joy of war,?A God of Battles sped each mortal jar;
The peoples pledged him heart and hand,?From Israel's land to isles afar.
II
His crimson form, with clang and chime,?Flashed on each murk and murderous meeting-time,
And kings invoked, for rape and raid,?His fearsome aid in rune and rhyme.
III
On bruise and blood-hole, scar and seam,?On blade and bolt, he flung his fulgid beam:
His haloes rayed the very gore,?And corpses wore his glory-gleam.
IV
Often an early King or Queen,?And storied hero onward, knew his sheen;
'Twas glimpsed by Wolfe, by Ney anon,?And Nelson on his blue demesne.
V
But new light spread. That god's gold nimb?And blazon have waned dimmer and more dim;
Even his flushed form begins to fade,?Till but a shade is left of him.
VI
That modern meditation broke?His spell, that penmen's pleadings dealt a stroke,
Say some; and some that crimes too dire?Did much to mire his crimson cloak.
VII
Yea, seeds of crescive sympathy?Were sown by those more excellent than he,
Long known, though long contemned till then -?The gods of men in amity.
VIII
Souls have grown seers, and thought out-brings?The mournful many-sidedness of things
With foes as friends, enfeebling ires?And fury-fires by gaingivings!
IX
He scarce impassions champions now;?They do and dare, but tensely--pale of brow;
And would they fain uplift the arm?Of that faint form they know not how.
X
Yet wars arise, though zest grows cold;?Wherefore, at whiles, as 'twere in ancient mould
He looms, bepatched with paint and lath;?But never hath he seemed the old!
XI
Let men rejoice, let men deplore.?The lurid Deity of heretofore
Succumbs to one of saner nod;?The Battle-god is god no more.
GENOA AND THE MEDITERRANEAN?(March, 1887)
O epic-famed, god-haunted Central Sea,?Heave careless of the deep wrong done to thee?When from Torino's track I saw thy face first flash on me.
And multimarbled Genova the Proud,?Gleam all unconscious how, wide-lipped, up-browed,?I first beheld thee clad--not as the Beauty but the Dowd.
Out from a deep-delved way my vision lit?On housebacks pink, green, ochreous--where a slit?Shoreward 'twixt row and row revealed the classic blue through it.
And thereacross waved fishwives' high-hung smocks,?Chrome kerchiefs, scarlet hose, darned underfrocks;?Since when too oft my dreams of thee, O Queen, that frippery mocks:
Whereat I grieve, Superba! . . . Afterhours?Within Palazzo Doria's orange bowers?Went far to mend these marrings of thy soul-subliming powers.
But, Queen, such squalid undress none should see,?Those dream-endangering eyewounds no more be?Where lovers first behold thy form in pilgrimage to thee.
SHELLEY'S SKYLARK?(The neighbourhood of Leghorn: March, 1887)
Somewhere afield here something lies?In Earth's oblivious eyeless trust?That moved a poet to prophecies -?A pinch of unseen, unguarded dust
The dust of the lark that Shelley heard,?And made immortal through times to be; -?Though it only lived like another bird,?And knew not its immortality.
Lived its meek life; then, one day, fell -?A little ball of feather and bone;?And how it perished, when piped farewell,?And where it wastes, are alike unknown.
Maybe it rests in the loam I view,?Maybe it throbs in a myrtle's green,?Maybe it sleeps in the coming hue?Of a grape on the slopes of yon inland scene.
Go find it, faeries, go and find?That tiny pinch of priceless dust,?And bring a casket silver-lined,?And framed of gold that gems encrust;
And we will lay it safe therein,?And consecrate it to endless time;?For it inspired a bard to win?Ecstatic heights in thought and rhyme.
IN THE OLD THEATRE, FIESOLE?(April, 1887)
I traced the Circus whose gray stones incline?Where Rome and dim Etruria interjoin,?Till came a child who showed an ancient coin?That bore the image of a Constantine.
She lightly passed; nor did she once opine?How, better than all books, she had raised for me?In swift perspective Europe's history?Through the vast years of Caesar's sceptred line.
For in my distant plot of English loam?'Twas but to delve, and straightway there to find?Coins of like impress. As with one half blind?Whom common simples cure, her act flashed home?In that mute moment to my opened mind?The power, the pride, the reach of perished Rome.
ROME: ON THE PALATINE?(April, 1887)
We walked where Victor Jove was shrined awhile,?And passed to Livia's rich red mural show,?Whence, thridding cave and Criptoportico,?We gained Caligula's dissolving pile.
And each ranked ruin tended to beguile?The outer sense, and shape itself as though?It wore its marble hues, its pristine glow?Of scenic frieze and pompous peristyle.
When lo, swift hands, on strings nigh over-head,?Began to melodize a waltz