The Poems of William Watson | Page 9

the bondage of white
amorous arms. And then a third voice, long unheeded--held Claustral
and cold, and dissonant and tame-- Found me at last with ears to hear.
It sang Of lowly sorrows and familiar joys, Of simple manhood, artless
womanhood, And childhood fragrant as the limpid morn; And from the
homely matter nigh at hand Ascending and dilating, it disclosed Spaces
and avenues, calm heights and breadths Of vision, whence I saw each
blade of grass With roots that groped about eternity, And in each drop
of dew upon each blade The mirror of the inseparable All. The first
voice, then the second, in their turns Had sung me captive. This voice
sang me free. Therefore, above all vocal sons of men, Since him whose
sightless eyes saw hell and heaven, To Wordsworth be my homage,
thanks, and love. Yet dear is Keats, a lucid presence, great With
somewhat of a glorious soullessness. And dear, and great with an
excess of soul, Shelley, the hectic flamelike rose of verse, All colour,
and all odour, and all bloom, Steeped in the noonlight, glutted with the
sun, But somewhat lacking root in homely earth, Lacking such human
moisture as bedews His not less starward stem of song, who, rapt Not
less in glowing vision, yet retained His clasp of the prehensible,
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,