Poems of the Past and the Present | Page 4

SAPPHIC FRAGMENT
CATULLUS: XXXI
AFTER
SCHILLER
SONG: FROM HEINE
FROM VICTOR HUGO

CARDINAL BEMBO'S EPITAPH ON RAPHAEL

RETROSPECT -
"I HAVE LIVED WITH SHADES"
MEMORY AND I

[GREEK TITLE]
V.R. 1819-1901
A REVERIE
Moments the mightiest pass uncalendared,
And when the Absolute
In backward Time outgave the deedful word
Whereby all life is stirred:
"Let one be born and throned whose
mould shall constitute
The norm of every royal-reckoned attribute,"
No mortal knew or heard.
But in due days the purposed Life outshone
-
Serene, sagacious, free;
--Her waxing seasons bloomed with deeds
well done,
And the world's heart was won . . .
Yet may the deed of hers most
bright in eyes to be
Lie hid from ours--as in the All-One's thought lay

she -
Till ripening years have run.
SUNDAY NIGHT,
27th January 1901.
EMBARCATION
(Southampton Docks: October, 1899)
Here, where Vespasian's legions struck the sands,
And Cerdic with
his Saxons entered in,
And Henry's army leapt afloat to win

Convincing triumphs over neighbour lands,
Vaster battalions press for further strands,
To argue in the self-same
bloody mode
Which this late age of thought, and pact, and code,

Still fails to mend.--Now deckward tramp the bands,
Yellow as
autumn leaves, alive as spring;
And as each host draws out upon the
sea
Beyond which lies the tragical To-be,
None dubious of the
cause, none murmuring,
Wives, sisters, parents, wave white hands and smile,
As if they knew
not that they weep the while.
DEPARTURE
(Southampton Docks: October, 1899)
While the far farewell music thins and fails,
And the broad bottoms
rip the bearing brine -
All smalling slowly to the gray sea line -
And
each significant red smoke-shaft pales,
Keen sense of severance everywhere prevails,
Which shapes the late
long tramp of mounting men
To seeming words that ask and ask
again:
"How long, O striving Teutons, Slavs, and Gaels
Must your wroth reasonings trade on lives like these,
That are as
puppets in a playing hand? -
When shall the saner softer polities

Whereof we dream, have play in each proud land,
And patriotism,
grown Godlike, scorn to stand
Bondslave to realms, but circle earth

and seas?"
THE COLONEL'S SOLILOQUY
(Southampton Docks: October,
1899)
"The quay recedes. Hurrah! Ahead we go! . . .
It's true I've been
accustomed now to home,
And joints get rusty, and one's limbs may
grow
More fit to rest than roam.
"But I can stand as yet fair stress and strain;
There's not a little steel
beneath the rust;
My years mount somewhat, but here's to't again!
And if I fall, I must.
"God knows that for myself I've scanty care;
Past scrimmages have
proved as much to all;
In Eastern lands and South I've had my share
Both of the blade and ball.
"And where those villains ripped me in the flitch
With their old iron
in my early time,
I'm apt at change of wind to feel a twitch,
Or at a change of clime.
"And what my mirror shows me in the morning
Has more of blotch
and wrinkle than of bloom;
My eyes, too, heretofore all glasses
scorning,
Have just a touch of rheum . . .
"Now sounds 'The Girl I've left behind me,'--Ah,
The years, the
ardours, wakened by that tune!
Time was when, with the crowd's
farewell 'Hurrah!'
'Twould lift me to the moon.

"But now it's late to leave behind me one
Who if, poor soul, her man
goes underground,
Will not recover as she might have done
In days when hopes abound.
"She's waving from the wharfside, palely grieving,
As down we
draw . . . Her tears make little show,
Yet now she suffers more than at
my leaving
Some twenty years ago.
"I pray those left at home will care for her!
I shall come back; I have
before; though when
The Girl you leave behind you is a grandmother,
Things may not be as then."
THE GOING OF THE BATTERY
WIVES' LAMENT

(November 2, 1899)
I
O it was sad enough, weak enough, mad enough -
Light in their
loving as soldiers can be -
First to risk choosing them, leave alone
losing them
Now, in far battle, beyond the South Sea! . . .
II
0. Rain came down drenchingly; but we unblenchingly Trudged on
beside them through mirk and through mire, They stepping
steadily--only too readily! - Scarce as if stepping brought
parting-time nigher.
III
Great guns were gleaming there, living things seeming there, Cloaked
in their tar-cloths, upmouthed to the night;
Wheels wet and yellow
from axle to felloe,
Throats blank of sound, but prophetic to sight.

IV
Gas-glimmers drearily, blearily, eerily
Lit our pale faces outstretched
for one kiss,
While we stood prest to them, with a last quest to them

Not to court perils that honour could miss.
V
Sharp were those sighs of ours, blinded these eyes of ours, When at last
moved away under the arch
All we loved. Aid for them each woman
prayed for them,
Treading back slowly the track of their march.
VI
Someone said: "Nevermore will they come: evermore
Are they now
lost to us." O it was wrong!
Though may be hard their ways, some
Hand will guard their ways, Bear them through