To yonder shining ground; So shows my soul before the Lamb, So in mine earthly house I am, Dreak up the heavens, O Lord! and far, Thro' all yon starlight keen, Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star, In raiment white and clean. He lifts me to the golden doors; The flashes come and go; All heaven bursts her starry floors, And strews her lights below, And deepens on and up! the gates Roll back, and far within For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits, To make me pure of sin. One sabbath deep and wide SIR GALAIAD. My good blade carves the casques of men, My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure. The shattering trumpet shrilleth high, The hard brands shiver on the steel, The splinter'd spear-shafts crack and fly, The horse and rider reel : They reel, they roll in clanging lists, And when the tide of combat stands, Perfume and flowers fall in showers, That lightly rain from ladies' hands. How sweet are looks that ladies bend On whom their favors fall! For them I battle till the end, To save from shame and thrall: But all my heart is drawn above, My knees are bow'd in crypt and shrine: I never felt the kiss of love, Nor maiden's hand in mine. So keep I fair thro' faith and prayer I hear a voice, but none are there; The stalls are void, the doors are wide, The tapers burning fair. Fair gleams the snowy altar cloth, The silver vessels sparkle clean, The shrill bell rings, the censer swings, And solemn chants resound between. Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres I find a magic bark; I leap on board: no helmsman steers: A gentle sound, and awful light! When on my goodly charger borne The cock crows ere the Christmas The streets are dumb with snow. The tempest crackles on the leads, And, ringing, springs from brand and mail; But o'er the dark a glory spreads, I leave the plain, I climb the height; I yearn to breathe the airs of heaven I muse on you that will not cease, Pure spaces clothed in living beams, Pure lilies of eternal peace, Whose odors haunt my dreams; And, stricken by an angel's hand, This mortal armor that I wear, This weight and size, this heart and eyes, Are touch'd, are turn'd to finest air. The clouds are broken in the sky, And thro' the mountain-walls A rolling organ-harmony Swells up, and shakes and falls. Then move the trees, the copses nod, Wings flutter, voices hover clear: "O just and faithful knight of God! Ride on the prize is near." So pass I hostel, hall, and grange; By bridge and ford, by park and pale, All-arm'd I ride, whate er betide, Until I find the holy Grail. EDWARD GRAY. SWEET Emma Moreland of yonder town Met me walking on yonder way, "And have you lost your heart?" she said, "And are you married yet, Edward Gray?" Sweet Emma Moreland spoke to me : 76 WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE. "Ellen Adair she loved me well, Against her father's and mother's will: To-day I sat for an hour and wept, By Ellen's grave, on the windy hill. "Shy she was, and I thought her cold; Thought her proud, and fled over the sea; Fill'd I was with folly and spite, When Ellen Adair was dying for me. "Cruel, cruel the words I said ! Cruelly came they back to-day: To trouble the heart of Edward "There I put my face in the grass- Speak a little, Ellen Adair!' "Then I took a pencil, and wrote On the mossy stone, as I lay, 'Here lies the body of Ellen Adair ; And here the heart of Edward Gray! "Love may come, and love may go, And fly, like a bird, from tree to tree: But 1 will love no more, no more, Till Ellen Adair come back to me. "Bitterly wept I over the stone: Bitterly weeping I turn'd away: There lies the body of Ellen Adair! And there the heart of Edward Gray!" WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE. MADE AT THE COCK. O PLUMP head waiter at The Cock, How goes the time? "Tis five o'clock. But let it not be such as that You set before chance-comers, But such whose father-grape grew fat On Lusitanian summers. No rain libation to the Muse, But may she still be kind, To make me write my randoin rhymes, Til all be ripe and rotten. I pledge her, and she comes and dips I pledge her silent at the board; Old wishes, ghosts of broken plans, I kiss the lips I once have kiss'd; Or that eternal want of pence, All parties work together. Let there be thistles, there are grapes; If old things, there are new: Ten thousand broken lights and shapes, Let raffs be rife in prose and rhyme, We circle with the seasons. This earth is rich in man and maid; This whole wide earth of light and shade Comes out, a perfect round. And, set in Heaven's third story, Head-waiter, honor'd by the guest My nerves have dealt with stiffer. For since I came to live and learn, Tho' soak'd and saturate, out and out, For I am of a numerous house, WILL WATERPROOF'S LYRICAL MONOLOGUE. Each month, a birth-day coming on, We drink defying trouble, Or sometimes two would meet in one, Whether the vintage, yet unkept, Or, elbow-deep in sawdust, slept, Or stow'd (when classic Canning died) She lit the spark within my throat, And hence this halo lives about The waiter's hands, that reach He looks not like the common breed Crow'd lustier late and early, A something-pottle-bodied boy He stoop'd and clutch'd him, fair and Flew over roof and casement: And follow'd with acclaims, Right down by smoky Paul's they bore, And one became head-waiter. But whither would my fancy go? The violet of a legend blow One shade more plump than com Which I shall have to pay? I sit (my empty glass reversed), I leave an empty flask: So fares it since the years began, Ah, let the rusty theme alone! 'Tis gone a thousand such have slipt Of darken'd forms and faces. Go, therefore, thou! thy betters went From many a tavern-door; Hours, when the Poet's words and Had yet their native glow Had made him talk for show; But, all his vast heart sherris-warm'd, So mix for ever with the past. Like all good things on earth! For should I prize thee, couldst thou last, At half thy real worth? I hold it good, good things should pass: That makes me maudlin-moral. Head-waiter of the chop-house here, I too must part: I hold thee dear Marrow of mirth and laughter; But thou wilt never move from hence, The sphere thy fate allots: Thy latter days increased with pence Go down among the pots : Thou battenest by the greasy gleam In haunts of hungry sinners, Old boxes, larded with the steam Of thirty thousand dinners. We fret, we fume, would shift our skins, Would quarrel with our lot; Live long, ere from thy topmost head Long, ere the hateful crow shall tread But when he calls, and thou shalt cease No carved cross-bones, the types of Shall show thee past to Heaven: But carved cross-pipes, and, underneath, A pint-pot neatly graven. AFTER READING A LIFE AND LETTERS. And you have miss'd the irreverent doom Of those that wear the Poet's crown: Hereafter, neither knave nor clown Shall hold their orgies at your tomb. For now the Poet cannot die Nor leave his music as of old, But round him ere he scarce be cold Begins the scandal and the cry : Proclaim the faults he would not show: Break lock and seal: betray the trust: Keep nothing sacred: 'tis but just The many-headed beast should know." Ah shameless! for he did but sing A song that pleased us from its worth; No public life was his on earth, No blazon'd statesman he, nor king. His worst he kept, his best he gave. My Shakespeare's curse on clown and knave Who will not let his ashes rest! And drops at Glory's temple-gates, For whom the carrion vulture waits To tear his heart before the crowd! TO E. L., ON HIS TRAVELS IN ILLYRIAN Woodlands, echoing falls With such a pencil, such a pen, I grew in gladness till I found My spirits in the golden age. For me the torrent ever pour'd And glisten'd-here and there alone The broad-limb'd Gods at random thrown By fountain-urns :-and Naiads oar'd. By dancing rivulets fed his flocks, To him who sat upon the rocks, And fluted to the morning sea. IT was the time when lilies blow. I trow they did not part in scorn: Nor for my lands so broad and fair, He loves me for my own true worth, And that is well," said Lady Clare. In there came old Alice the nurse, Said, "Who was this that went from thee?" "It was my cousin," said Lady Clare, "To-morrow he weds with me." "O God be thank'd!" said Alice the nurse, "That all comes round so just and fair; Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands, And you are not the Lady Clare." "Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse?" Said Lady Clare, "that ye speak so wild? "As God's above," said Alice the nurse, "I speak the truth: you are my child. "The old Earl's daughter died at my breast; I speak the truth, as I live by bread! I buried her like my own sweet child, And put my child in her stead." "Falsely, falsely have ye done, O mother," she said, "if this be To keep the best man under the sun "Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse, "But keep the secret for your life, And all you have will be Lord Ronald's, When you are man and wife." "If I'm a beggar born," she said, "I will speak out, for I dare not lie. Pull off. pull off, the brooch of gold, And fling the diamond necklace by." "Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse, "But keep the secret all ye can." She said, "Not so: but I will know If there be any faith in man " 66 Nay now, what faith?" said Alice the nurse, "The man will cleave unto his right." "And he shall have it," the lady replied, "Tho' I should die to-night." "Yet give one kiss to your mother dear! Alas, my child, I sinn'd for thee." "O mother, mother, mother," she said, "So strange it seems to me. "Yet here's a kiss for my mother dear, My mother dear, if this be so, And lay your hand upon my head, And bless me, mother, e'er I go." She clad herself in a russet gown, She was no longer Lady Clare : She went by dale, and she went by down, With a single rose in her hair. The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought Leapt up from where she lay, Dropt her head in the maiden's hand, And follow'd her all the way. Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower; "O Lady Clare, you shame your worth! Why come you drest like a village maid, That are the flower of the earth?" "If I come drest like a village maid, I am but as my fortunes are: I am a beggar born," she said, "And not the Lady Clare.' "Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald, "For I am yours in word and in deed. Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald, "Your riddle is hard to read." O and proudly stood she up! Her heart within her did not fail: She look'd into Lord Ronald's eyes, And told him all her nurse's tale. He laugh'd a laugh of merry scorn; He turned and kiss'd her where she stood: "If you you are not the heiress born, And I," said he," the next in blood"If you are not the heiress born, And I," said he, " the lawful heir, We two will wed to-morrow morn, And you shall still be Lady Clare." THE LORD OF BURLEIGH. IN her ear he whispers gayly, "If my heart by signs can tell, And a village maiden she. And they leave her father's roof. "I can make no marriage present: Little can I give my wife. Love will make our cottage pleasant, And I love thee more than life." They by parks and lodges going See the lordly castles stand: Summer woods, about them blowing, Made a murmur in the land. From deep thought himself he rouses Says to her that loves him well, "Let us see these handsome houses Where the wealthy nobles dwell." So she goes by him attended, Hears him lovingly converse, Sees whatever fair and splendid Lay betwixt his home and hers; Parks with oak and chestnut shady, Parks and order'd gardens great, Ancient homes of lord and lady, Built for pleasure and for state, |