Who wrote it, honouring your sweet faith in him, May trust himself; and spite of praise and scorn, As one who feels the immeasurable world, Attain the wise indifference of the wise; And after Autumn past-if left to pass His autumn into seeming-leafless days- Draw toward the long frost and longest night, Wearing his wisdom lightly, like the fruit Which in our winter woodland looks a flower.*
O MIGHTY-MOUTH'D inventor of harmonies, O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity, God-gifted organ-voice of England, Milton, a name to resound for ages; Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armouries, Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean Rings to the roar of an angel onset— Me rather all that bowery loneliness, The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring, And bloom profuse and cedar arches
Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean, Where some refulgent sunset of India Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle, And crimson-hued the stately palmwoods Whisper in odorous heights of even.
O YOU chorus of indolent reviewers, Irresponsible, indolent reviewers, Look, I come to the test, a tiny poem All composed in a metre of Catullus, All in quantity, careful of my motion, Like the skater on ice that hardly bears him, Lest I fall unawares before the people, Waking laughter in indolent reviewers.
The fruit of the Spindle-tree (Euonymus Europæus).
Should I flounder awhile without a tumble Thro' this metrification of Catullus,
They should speak to me not without a welcome, All that chorus of indolent reviewers.
Hard, hard, hard is it, only not to tumble, So fantastical is the dainty metre.
Wherefore slight me not wholly, nor believe me Too presumptuous, indolent reviewers. O blatant Magazines, regard me rather- Since I blush to belaud myself a moment- As some exquisite rose, a piece of inmost Horticultural art, or half coquette-like Maiden, not to be greeted unbenignly.
SPECIMEN OF A TRANSLATION OF THE ILIAD IN BLANK VERSE
So Hector said, and sea-like roar'd his host; Then loosed their sweating horses from the yoke, And each beside his chariot bound his own; And oxen from the city, and goodly sheep In haste they drove, and honey-hearted wine And bread from out the houses brought, and heap'd Their firewood, and the winds from off the plain Roll'd the rich vapour far into the heaven. And these all night upon the bridge * of war Sat glorying; many a fire before them blazed: As when in heaven the stars about the moon Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid, And every height comes out, and jutting peak And valley, and the immeasurable heavens Break open to their highest, and all the stars Shine, and the Shepherd gladdens in his heart: So many a fire between the ships and stream Of Xanthus blazed before the towers of Troy, A thousand on the plain; and close by each Sat fifty in the blaze of burning fire; And champing golden grain, the horses stood Hard by their chariots, waiting for the dawn.†
* Or, ridge.
Or more literally
And eating hoary grain and pulse the steeds Stood by their cars, waiting the throned morn.
LONG lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm; And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands; Beyond, red roofs about a narrow wharf
In cluster; then a moulder'd church; and higher A long street climbs to one tall-tower'd mill; And high in heaven behind it a gray down With Danish barrows; and a hazelwood, By autumn nutters haunted, flourishes Green in a cuplike hollow of the down.
Here on this beach a hundred years ago, Three children of three houses, Annie Lee, The prettiest little damsel in the port, And Philip Ray the miller's only son, And Enoch Arden, a rough sailor's lad Made orphan by a winter shipwreck, play'd Among the waste and lumber of the shore, Hard coils of cordage, swarthy fishing-nets, Anchors of rusty fluke, and boats updrawn; And built their castles of dissolving sand To watch them overflow'd, or following up And flying the white breaker, daily left The little footprint daily wash'd away.
A narrow cave ran in beneath the cliff: In this the children play'd at keeping house. Enoch was host one day, Philip the next, While Annie still was mistress; but at times Enoch would hold possession for a week: "This is my house and this my little wife.” "Mine too" said Philip "turn and turn about:" When, if they quarrell'd, Enoch stronger-made Was master: then would Philip, his blue eyes All flooded with the helpless wrath of tears, Shriek out "I hate you, Enoch," and at this The little wife would weep for company, And pray them not to quarrel for her sake, And say she would be little wife to both.
But when the dawn of rosy childhood past, And the new warmth of life's ascending sun Was felt by either, either fixt his heart On that one girl; and Enoch spoke his love, But Philip loved in silence; and the girl
Seem'd kinder unto Philip than to him; But she loved Enoch; tho' she knew it not, And would if ask'd deny it. Enoch set A purpose evermore before his eyes, To hoard all savings to the uttermost, To purchase his own boat, and make a home For Annie: and so prosper'd that at last A luckier or a bolder fisherman,
A carefuller in peril, did not breathe For leagues along that breaker-beaten coast Than Enoch. Likewise had he served a year On board a merchantman, and made himself Full sailor; and he thrice had pluck'd a life From the dread sweep of the down-streaming seas: And all men look'd upon him favourably: And ere he touch'd his one-and-twentieth May He purchased his own boat, and made a home For Annie, neat and nestlike, halfway up
The narrow street that clamber'd toward the mill.
Then, on a golden autumn eventide, The younger people making holiday,
With bag and sack and basket, great and small, Went nutting to the hazels. Philip stay'd (His father lying sick and needing him) An hour behind; but as he climb'd the hill, Just where the prone edge of the wood began To feather toward the hollow, saw the pair, Enoch and Annie, sitting hand-in-hand, His large gray eyes and weather-beaten face All-kindled by a still and sacred fire, That burn'd as on an altar. Philip look'd, And in their eyes and faces read his doom; Then, as their faces drew together, groan'd, And slipt aside, and like a wounded life Crept down into the hollows of the wood; There, while the rest were loud in merrymaking, Had his dark hour unseen, and rose and past Bearing a lifelong hunger in his heart.
So these were wed, and merrily rang the bells, And merrily ran the years, seven happy years, Seven happy years of health and competence, And mutual love and honourable toil;
With children; first a daughter. In him woke, With his first babe's first cry, the noble wish To save all earnings to the uttermost, And give his child a better bringing-up
Than his had been, or hers; a wish renew'd, When two years after came a boy to be The rosy idol of her solitudes,
While Enoch was abroad on wrathful seas, Or often journeying landward; for in truth Enoch's white horse, and Enoch's ocean-spoil In ocean-smelling osier, and his face, Rough-redden'd with a thousand winter gales, Not only to the market-cross were known, But in the leafy lanes behind the down Far as the portal-warding lion-whelp, And peacock-yewtree of the lonely Hall, Whose Friday fare was Enoch's ministering.
Then came a change, as all things human change. Ten miles to northward of the narrow port Open'd a larger haven: thither used Enoch at times to go by land or sea;
And once when there, and clambering on a mast In harbour, by mischance he slipt and fell: A limb was broken when they lifted him; And while he lay recovering there, his wife Bore him another son, a sickly one: Another hand crept too across his trade Taking her bread and theirs: and on him fell, Altho' a grave and staid God-fearing man, Yet lying thus inactive, doubt and gloom. He seem'd, as in a nightmare of the night, To see his children leading evermore Low miserable lives of hand-to-mouth, And her, he loved, a beggar: then he pray'd "Save them from this, whatever comes to me." And while he pray'd, the master of that ship Enoch had served in, hearing his mischance, Came, for he knew the man and valued him, Reporting of his vessel China-bound,
And wanting yet a boatswain. Would he go? There yet were many weeks before she sail'd, Sail'd from this port. Would Enoch have the place? And Enoch all at once assented to it, Rejoicing at that answer to his prayer.
So now that shadow of mischance appear'd No graver than as when some little cloud Cuts off the fiery highway of the sun, And isles a light in the offing: yet the wife→ When he was gone-the children-what to do? Then Enoch lay long-pondering on his plans;
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