The Sisters Tragedy | Page 6

staircase winding round and down,?And ending in a narrow gallery hung?With Gobelin tapestries--Andromeda?Rescued by Perseus, and the sleek Diana?With her nymphs bathing; at the farther end?A door that gave upon a starlit grove?Of citron and clipt palm-trees; then a path?As bleached as moonlight, with the shadow of leaves?Stamped black upon it; next a vine-clad length?Of solid masonry; and last of all?A Gothic archway packed with night, and then--?A sudden gleaming dagger through his heart.
TENNYSON
I
Shakespeare and Milton--what third blazoned name
Shall lips of after-ages link to these??His who, beside the wild encircling seas,?Was England's voice, her voice with one acclaim,?For threescore years; whose word of praise was fame,
Whose scorn gave pause to man's iniquities.
II
What strain was his in that Crimean war?
A bugle-call in battle; a low breath,?Plaintive and sweet, above the fields of death!?So year by year the music rolled afar,?From Euxine wastes to flowery Kandahar,
Bearing the laurel or the cypress wreath.
III
Others shall have their little space of time,
Their proper niche and bust, then fade away?Into the darkness, poets of a day;?But thou, O builder of enduring rhyme,?Thou shalt not pass! Thy fame in every clime
On earth shall live where Saxon speech has sway.
IV
Waft me this verse across the winter sea,
Through light and dark, through mist and blinding sleet, O winter winds, and lay it at his feet;?Though the poor gift betray my poverty,?At his feet lay it: it may chance that he
Will find no gift, where reverence is, unmeet.
THE SHIPMAN'S TALE
Listen, my masters! I speak naught but truth.?From dawn to dawn they drifted on and on,?Not knowing whither nor to what dark end.?Now the North froze them, now the hot South scorched.?Some called to God, and found great comfort so;?Some gnashed their teeth with curses, and some laughed?An empty laughter, seeing they yet lived,?So sweet was breath between their foolish lips.?Day after day the same relentless sun,?Night after night the same unpitying stars.?At intervals fierce lightnings tore the clouds,?Showing vast hollow spaces, and the sleet?Hissed, and the torrents of the sky were loosed.?From time to time a hand relaxed its grip,?And some pale wretch slid down into the dark?With stifled moan, and transient horror seized?The rest who waited, knowing what must be.?At every turn strange shapes reached up and clutched?The whirling wreck, held on awhile, and then?Slipt back into that blackness whence they came.?Ah, hapless folk, to be so tost and torn,?So racked by hunger, fever, fire, and wave,?And swept at last into the nameless void--?Frail girls, strong men, and mothers with their babes!
And was none saved?
My masters, not a soul!
O shipman, woful, woful is thy tale!?Our hearts are heavy and our eyes are dimmed.?What ship is this that suffered such ill fate?
What ship, my masters? Know ye not?--The World!
"I VEX ME NOT WITH BROODING ON THE YEARS"
I vex me not with brooding on the years
That were ere I drew breath: why should I then?Distrust the darkness that may fall again?When life is done? Perchance in other spheres--?Dead planets--I once tasted mortal tears,
And walked as now among a throng of men,?Pondering things that lay beyond my ken,?Questioning death, and solacing my fears.?Ofttimes indeed strange sense have I of this,
Vague memories that hold me with a spell,?Touches of unseen lips upon my brow,?Breathing some incommunicable bliss!
In years foregone, O Soul, was all not well??Still lovelier life awaits thee. Fear not thou!
MONODY ON THE DEATH OF WENDELL PHILLIPS
I
One by one they go?Into the unknown dark--?Star-lit brows of the brave,?Voices that drew men's souls.?Rich is the land, O Death!?Can give you dead like our dead!--?Such as he from whose hand?The magic web of romance?Slipt, and the art was lost!?Such as he who erewhile--?The last of the Titan brood--?With his thunder the Senate shook;?Or he who, beside the Charles,?Untoucht of envy or hate,?Tranced the world with his song;?Or that other, that gray-eyed seer?Who in pastoral Concord ways?With Plato and Hafiz walked.
II
Not of these was the man?Whose wraith, through the mists of night,?Through the shuddering wintry stars,?Has passed to eternal morn.?Fit were the moan of the sea?And the clashing of cloud on cloud?For the passing of that soul!
Ever he faced the storm!?No weaver of rare romance,?No patient framer of laws,?No maker of wondrous rhyme,?No bookman wrapt in his dream.?His was the voice that rang?In the fight like a bugle-call,?And yet could be tender and low?As when, on a night in June,?The hushed wind sobs in the pines.?His was the eye that flashed?With a sabre's azure gleam,?Pointing to heights unwon!
III
Not for him were these days?Of clerkly and sluggish calm--?To the petrel the swooping gale!?Austere he seemed, but the hearts?Of all men beat in his breast;?No fetter but galled his wrist,?No wrong that was not his own.?What if those eloquent lips?Curled with the old-time scorn??What if in needless hours?His quick hand closed on the hilt??'Twas the smoke from the well-won fields?That clouded the veteran's eyes.?A fighter this to