The Poems of William Watson | Page 9

retained The warm touch of the world that lies to hand, Not in vague dreams of man forgetting men, Nor in vast morrows losing the to-day; Who trusted nature, trusted fate, nor found An Ogre, sovereign on the throne of things; Who felt the incumbence of the unknown, yet bore Without resentment the Divine reserve; Who suffered not his spirit to dash itself Against the crags and wavelike break in spray, But 'midst the infinite tranquillities Moved tranquil, and henceforth, by Rotha stream And Rydal's mountain-mirror, and where flows Yarrow thrice sung or Duddon to the sea, And wheresoe'er man's heart is thrilled by tones Struck from man's lyric heartstrings, shall survive.

FELICITY
A squalid, hideous town, where streams run black With vomit of a hundred roaring mills,-- Hither occasion calls me; and ev'n here, All in the sable reek that wantonly Defames the sunlight and deflowers the morn, One may at least surmise the sky still blue. Ev'n here, the myriad slaves of the machine Deem life a boon; and here, in days far sped, I overheard a kind-eyed girl relate To her companions, how a favouring chance By some few shillings weekly had increased The earnings of her household, and she said: "So now we are happy, having all we wished,"-- Felicity indeed! though more it lay In wanting little than in winning all.
Felicity indeed! Across the years To me her tones come back, rebuking; me, Spreader of toils to snare the wandering Joy No guile may capture and no force surprise-- Only by them that never wooed her, won.
O curst with wide desires and spacious dreams, Too cunningly do ye accumulate Appliances and means of happiness, E'er to be happy! Lavish hosts, ye make Elaborate preparation to receive A shy and simple guest, who, warned of all The ceremony and circumstance wherewith Ye mean to entertain her, will not come.

VER TENEBROSUM
SONNETS OF MARCH AND APRIL 1885
I
THE SOUDANESE
They wrong'd not us, nor sought 'gainst us to wage The bitter battle. On their God they cried For succour, deeming justice to abide In heaven, if banish'd from earth's vicinage. And when they rose with a gall'd lion's rage, We, on the captor's, keeper's, tamer's side, We, with the alien tyranny allied, We bade them back to their Egyptian cage. Scarce knew they who we were! A wind of blight From the mysterious far north-west we came. Our greatness now their veriest babes have learn'd, Where, in wild desert homes, by day, by night, Thousands that weep their warriors unreturn'd, O England, O my country, curse thy name!
II
HASHEEN
"Of British arms, another victory!" Triumphant words, through all the land's length sped. Triumphant words, but, being interpreted, Words of ill sound, woful as words can be. Another carnage by the drear Red Sea-- Another efflux of a sea more red! Another bruising of the hapless head Of a wrong'd people yearning to be free. Another blot on her great name, who stands Confounded, left intolerably alone With the dilating spectre of her own Dark sin, uprisen from yonder spectral sands: Penitent more than to herself is known; England, appall'd by her own crimson hands.
III
THE ENGLISH DEAD
Give honour to our heroes fall'n, how ill Soe'er the cause that bade them forth to die. Honour to him, the untimely struck, whom high In place, more high in hope, 'twas fate's harsh will With tedious pain unsplendidly to kill. Honour to him, doom'd splendidly to die, Child of the city whose foster-child am I, Who, hotly leading up the ensanguin'd hill His charging thousand, fell without a word-- Fell, but shall fall not from our memory. Also for them let honour's voice be heard Who nameless sleep, while dull time covereth With no illustrious shade of laurel tree, But with the poppy alone, their deeds and death.
IV
GORDON
Idle although our homage be and vain, Who loudly through the door of silence press And vie in zeal to crown death's nakedness, Not therefore shall melodious lips refrain Thy praises, gentlest warrior without stain, Denied the happy garland of success, Foil'd by dark fate, but glorious none the less, Greatest of losers, on the lone peak slain Of Alp-like virtue. Not to-day, and not To-morrow, shall thy spirit's splendour be Oblivion's victim; but when God shall find All human grandeur among men forgot, Then only shall the world, grown old and blind, Cease, in her dotage, to remember Thee.
V
GORDON _(concluded)_
Arab, Egyptian, English--by the sword Cloven, or pierced with spears, or bullet-mown-- In equal fate they sleep: their dust is grown A portion of the fiery sands abhorred. And thou, what hast thou, hero, for reward, Thou, England's glory and her shame? O'erthrown Thou liest, unburied, or with grave unknown As his to whom on Nebo's height the Lord Showed all the land of Gilead, unto Dan; Judah sea-fringed; Manasseh and