Studies in Song | Page 2

There is delight in singing, though none hear
Beside the singer: and
there is delight
In praising, though the praiser sit alone
And see the
praised far off him, far above.
LANDOR.
DEDICATION.
TO MRS. LYNN LINTON.
_Daughter in spirit elect and consecrate
By love and reverence of the
Olympian sire
Whom I too loved and worshipped, seeing so great,

And found so gracious toward my long desire
To bid that love in
song before his gate
Sound, and my lute be loyal to his lyre,
To
none save one it now may dedicate
Song's new burnt-offering on a
century's pyre.
And though the gift be light
As ashes in men's sight,
Left by the
flame of no ethereal fire,
Yet, for his worthier sake
Than words are worthless, take
This
wreath of words ere yet their hour expire:
So, haply, from some
heaven above,
He, seeing, may set next yours my sacrifice of love._
May 24, 1880.
SONG FOR THE CENTENARY OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
1.
Five years beyond an hundred years have seen
Their winters, white as
faith's and age's hue,
Melt, smiling through brief tears that broke
between,
And hope's young conquering colours reared anew,
Since,

on the day whose edge for kings made keen
Smote sharper once than
ever storm-wind blew,
A head predestined for the girdling green

That laughs at lightning all the seasons through,
Nor frost or change can sunder
Its crown untouched of thunder
Leaf
from least leaf of all its leaves that grew
Alone for brows too bold
For storm to sear of old,
Elect to shine in
time's eternal view,
Rose on the verge of radiant life
Between the
winds and sunbeams mingling love with strife.
2.
The darkling day that gave its bloodred birth
To Milton's white
republic undefiled
That might endure so few fleet years on earth

Bore in him likewise as divine a child;
But born not less for crowns
of love and mirth,
Of palm and myrtle passionate and mild,
The leaf
that girds about with gentler girth
The brow steel-bound in battle, and
the wild
Soft spray that flowers above
The flower-soft hair of love;
And the white lips of wayworn winter
smiled
And grew serene as spring's
When with stretched clouds like wings

Or wings like drift of snow-clouds massed and piled
The godlike
giant, softening, spread
A shadow of stormy shelter round the
new-born head.
3.
And o'er it brightening bowed the wild-haired hour,
And touched his
tongue with honey and with fire,
And breathed between his lips the
note of power
That makes of all the winds of heaven a lyre
Whose
strings are stretched from topmost peaks that tower
To softest springs
of waters that suspire,
With sounds too dim to shake the lowliest

flower
Breathless with hope and dauntless with desire:
And bright before his face
That Hour became a Grace,
As in the
light of their Athenian quire
When the Hours before the sun
And Graces were made one,
Called
by sweet Love down from the aerial gyre
By one dear name of
natural joy,
To bear on her bright breast from heaven a heaven-born
boy.
4.
Ere light could kiss the little lids in sunder
Or love could lift them for
the sun to smite,
His fiery birth-star as a sign of wonder
Had risen,
perplexing the presageful night
With shadow and glory around her
sphere and under
And portents prophesying by sound and sight;

And half the sound was song and half was thunder,
And half his life
of lightning, half of light:
And in the soft clenched hand
Shone like a burning brand
A
shadowy sword for swordless fields of fight,
Wrought only for such lord
As so may wield the sword
That all
things ill be put to fear and flight
Even at the flash and sweep and
gleam
Of one swift stroke beheld but in a shuddering dream.
5.
Like the sun's rays that blind the night's wild beasts
The sword of
song shines as the swordsman sings;
From the west wind's verge even
to the arduous east's
The splendour of the shadow that it flings

Makes fire and storm in heaven above the feasts
Of men fulfilled with
food of evil things;
Strikes dumb the lying and hungering lips of
priests,
Smites dead the slaying and ravening hands of kings;
Turns dark the lamp's hot light,
And turns the darkness bright
As

with the shadow of dawn's reverberate wings;
And far before its way
Heaven, yearning toward the day,
Shines
with its thunder and round its lightning rings;
And never hand yet
earlier played
With that keen sword whose hilt is cloud, and fire its
blade.
6.
As dropping flakes of honey-heavy dew
More soft than slumber's, fell
the first note's sound
From strings the swift young hand strayed
lightlier through Than leaves through calm air wheeling toward the
ground
Stray down the drifting wind when skies are blue
Nor yet
the wings of latter winds unbound,
Ere winter loosen all the Æolian
crew
With storm unleashed behind them like a hound.
As lightly rose and sank
Beside a green-flowered bank
The clear
first notes his burning boyhood found
To sing her sacred praise
Who rode her city's ways
Clothed with
bright hair and with high purpose crowned;
A song of soft presageful
breath,
Prefiguring all his love and faith