Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) | Page 6

and reverent love recall,?The sign to friends on earth of that dear head?Alive, which now long since untimely dead?The wan grey waters covered for a pall.?Their trustless reaches dense with tangling stems?Took never life more taintless of rebuke,?More pure and perfect, more serene and kind,?Than when those clear eyes closed beneath the Thames,?And made the now more hallowed name of Luke?Memorial to us of morning left behind.
May 1881.
DYSTHANATOS
_Ad generem Cereris sine c?de et vulnere pauci?Descendunt reges, aut sicca morte tyranni._
By no dry death another king goes down?The way of kings. Yet may no free man's voice,?For stern compassion and deep awe, rejoice?That one sign more is given against the crown,?That one more head those dark red waters drown?Which rise round thrones whose trembling equipoise?Is propped on sand and bloodshed and such toys?As human hearts that shrink at human frown.?The name writ red on Polish earth, the star?That was to outshine our England's in the far?East heaven of empire--where is one that saith?Proud words now, prophesying of this White Czar??"In bloodless pangs few kings yield up their breath,?Few tyrants perish by no violent death."
March 14, 1881.
EUONYMOS
[Greek: eu m��n h�� tim��n edidou nik��phoros alk��?ek nik��s onom' esche phobou kear aien athiktos.]
A year ago red wrath and keen despair?Spake, and the sole word from their darkness sent?Laid low the lord not all omnipotent?Who stood most like a god of all that were?As gods for pride of power, till fire and air?Made earth of all his godhead. Lightning rent?The heart of empire's lurid firmament,?And laid the mortal core of manhood bare.?But when the calm crowned head that all revere?For valour higher than that which casts out fear,?Since fear came near it never, comes near death,?Blind murder cowers before it, knowing that here?No braver soul drew bright and queenly breath?Since England wept upon Elizabeth.
March 8, 1882.
ON THE RUSSIAN PERSECUTION OF?THE JEWS
O son of man, by lying tongues adored,?By slaughterous hands of slaves with feet red-shod?In carnage deep as ever Christian trod?Profaned with prayer and sacrifice abhorred?And incense from the trembling tyrant's horde,?Brute worshippers or wielders of the rod,?Most murderous even of all that call thee God,?Most treacherous even that ever called thee Lord;?Face loved of little children long ago,?Head hated of the priests and rulers then,?If thou see this, or hear these hounds of thine?Run ravening as the Gadarean swine,?Say, was not this thy Passion, to foreknow?In death's worst hour the works of Christian men?
January 23, 1882.
BISMARCK AT CANOSSA
Not all disgraced, in that Italian town,?The imperial German cowered beneath thine hand,?Alone indeed imperial Hildebrand,?And felt thy foot and Rome's, and felt her frown?And thine, more strong and sovereign than his crown,?Though iron forged its blood-encrusted band.?But now the princely wielder of his land,?For hatred's sake toward freedom, so bows down,?No strength is in the foot to spurn: its tread?Can bruise not now the proud submitted head:?But how much more abased, much lower brought low,?And more intolerably humiliated,?The neck submissive of the prosperous foe,?Than his whom scorn saw shuddering in the snow!
December 31, 1881.
QUIA NOMINOR LEO
I
What part is left thee, lion? Ravenous beast,?Which hadst the world for pasture, and for scope?And compass of thine homicidal hope?The kingdom of the spirit of man, the feast?Of souls subdued from west to sunless east,?From blackening north to bloodred south aslope,?All servile; earth for footcloth of the pope,?And heaven for chancel-ceiling of the priest;?Thou that hadst earth by right of rack and rod,?Thou that hadst Rome because thy name was God,?And by thy creed's gift heaven wherein to dwell;?Heaven laughs with all his light and might above?That earth has cast thee out of faith and love;?Thy part is but the hollow dream of hell.
II
The light of life has faded from thy cause,?High priest of heaven and hell and purgatory:?Thy lips are loud with strains of oldworld story,?But the red prey was rent out of thy paws?Long since: and they that dying brake down thy laws?Have with the fires of death-enkindled glory?Put out the flame that faltered on thy hoary?High altars, waning with the world's applause.?This Italy was Dante's: Bruno died?Here: Campanella, too sublime for pride,?Endured thy God's worst here, and hence went home.?And what art thou, that time's full tide should shrink?For thy sake downward? What art thou, to think?Thy God shall give thee back for birthright Rome?
January 1882.
THE CHANNEL TUNNEL
Not for less love, all glorious France, to thee,?"Sweet enemy" called in days long since at end,?Now found and hailed of England sweeter friend,?Bright sister of our freedom now, being free;?Not for less love or faith in friendship we?Whose love burnt ever toward thee reprehend?The vile vain greed whose pursy dreams portend?Between our shores suppression of the sea.?Not by dull toil of blind mechanic art?Shall these be linked for no man's force to part?Nor length of years and changes to divide,?But union only of trust and loving heart?And perfect faith