Poems of the Past and the Present | Page 6

unkindly,
These, these have their heeds."
XII
--"Alas! then it seems that our glory
Weighs less in their thought
Than our old homely acts,
And the
long-ago commonplace facts
Of our lives--held by us as scarce part
of our story,
And rated as nought!"
XIII
Then bitterly some: "Was it wise now
To raise the tomb-door
For such knowledge? Away!"
But the rest:
"Fame we prized till to-day;
Yet that hearts keep us green for old
kindness we prize now
A thousand times more!"
XIV
Thus speaking, the trooped apparitions
Began to disband
And resolve them in two:
Those whose record
was lovely and true
Bore to northward for home: those of bitter
traditions
Again left the land,

XV
And, towering to seaward in legions,
They paused at a spot
Overbending the Race -
That engulphing,
ghast, sinister place -
Whither headlong they plunged, to the
fathomless regions
Of myriads forgot.
XVI
And the spirits of those who were homing
Passed on, rushingly,
Like the Pentecost Wind;
And the whirr of
their wayfaring thinned
And surceased on the sky, and but left in the
gloaming
Sea-mutterings and me.
December 1899.
SONG OF THE SOLDIERS' WIVES
I
At last! In sight of home again,
Of home again;
No more to range and roam again
As at that bygone time?
No more to go away from us
And stay from us? -
Dawn, hold not long the day from us,
But quicken it to prime!
II

Now all the town shall ring to them,
Shall ring 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