SONNETS [150]
[151]
AT SHELLEY’S GRAVE
WRITTEN IN THE PROTESTANT CEMETERY,
ROME, APRIL 11, 1872 TREAD softly! Here the heart of Shelley lies: His grave a garden ’neath the cypress wood, Stirred with the tongues his spirit understood, And spake in deathless song that vivifies Men’s souls made heavy with the sad world’s cries, Still where the darkness hides the dragon brood Of evil, and while yet innocent blood Is shed, and truth and falsehood change their dyes. Thy voice is heard above the silent tomb, And shall be heard until the end of days, While Freedom lives, and whatsoever things Are good and lovely—still thy spirit sings, And by thy grave to-day fresh violets bloom, But on thy head imperishable bays.
THE VOICE OF SPRING
A DAY IN EARLY SPRING THOU art the bride of Light, most glorious morn! Issuing to meet thy lord—thy crystal gate Flung wide by flame-winged hours—where he doth wait Till from thy face the Æthereal veil be torn: Clothed in white splendour and thy train upborne By silken handed airs in fluttering state, With piping minstrels, joyful in thy fate, And still, before thee heard, Spring’s herald horn. Thy silver feet have touched the sparkling grass, Where flowers are stars of light from heaven’s blue dome Dropt in the noiseless night to pave thy floor: So, like a splendid vision, thou dost pass Between the pillars of the sun’s bright home, Drawn in Time’s pageant to return no more.
A NIGHT IN MAY FROM eve’s lit casement turns reluctant day, A lingering lover—dreaming of delights Unseen, unknown, with summer scents and sights Scarce whispered through the modest green of May— Who yet beneath the dusk would kiss and play, With mingled softness of mysterious lights, With hidden sweets the silent hour requites, Ere from the west he sinks to night away. But on the still grey eve what glory breaks! A glowing sphere between the trembling trees, As though the wondering world returning sees A silvern sun a softer day that makes, Ere this departs and his last song doth cease With his last breath that night’s enchantment takes.
ILLUSIONS I STOOPED to drink of Life’s enchanted stream, From fair green meads and flowery marge of youth, Athirst for love, for fame, and sight of truth, And, dreaming as I drank, all life did seem Fair as the pageant of a lover’s dream, That hides the grim and sordid world uncouth; Till Time and change came by that know not ruth, And grief was left to watch Hope’s flickering beam. So from the bitter world I turned again, To work, to sleep; but as in sleep I lay, Truth touched me, and Hope said to me, “Arise!” Whom, waking, I beheld as visions vain As dream-beguiled one looks with clouded eyes Upon the breaking morn, nor knows it is the day.
ON THE SUPPRESSION OF FREE SPEECH AT CHICAGO WITH stifled voice who crieth from the West, Where sinks the ensanguined sun of Freedom, erst That spread her stainless wings, and sheltering nurst, From out all lands, the hunted and opprest? America! shrink not from thy new guest; For liberty was thine for best and worst: How should her seed upon thy land be curst Till her false friends as traitors stand confest? Doth Freedom dwell where ruthless Kings of gain, Like stealthy vampires, still on Labour feed, Still free—to toil or starve on plenty’s plain? Then what of Labour’s hope—the will to be Equal, fraternal, knowing want nor greed, Shrined in a peoples’ heart when states are free? June, 1886.
FREEDOM IN AMERICA WHERE is thy home, O Freedom? Have they set Thine image up upon a rock to greet All comers, shaking from their wandering feet The dust of old world bondage, to forget The tyrannies of fraud and force, nor fret, Where men are equal, slavish chain unmeet, Nor bitter bread of discontent to eat, Here, where all races of the earth are met? America, beneath thy banded flag Of old it was thy boast that men were free To think, to speak, to meet, to come and go. What meaneth then the gibbet and the gag Held up to Labour’s sons who would not see Fair Freedom but a mask—a hollow show? Oct. 7, 1887.
TO THE PRISONERS OF LIBERTY JOHN BURNS AND R. B. CUNNINGHAM GRAHAM, WHO SUFFERED FOR A BRAVE ATTEMPT TO MAINTAIN THE RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH AND PUBLIC MEETING IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE. WHAT robe of honour doth the prison hide, What glory lines its stony cell and bare, That, erst its tenants, forth in triumph fare? Bondsmen for Freedom, and the right denied By fraud and force, in legal mask that bide, Alike on Irish ground, or London’s square, With violent hands on those, henceforth to bear The crest of battle on the people’s side. What! must ye learn the lesson still so late That they who suffer for the common good Stone walls confine not, and no chain doth hold, Blind Tyranny? Whom these, like men, withstood: Whose tenfold force flings back the iron gate, Whose names upon the reddening morn are scrolled. February 22, 1888.
REMINISCENT THROUGH seas of light above the opal blue Across the Adriatic sped our ship, Her long wake trailing towards the ocean’s lip, Far from the isles of Greece; in our fond view A vision bright that all our thoughts embue; Which from the Book of Days may never slip But in the golden haze of memory dip, And its fresh youth continually renew. It was my fortune late to tread upon The marble stairs of Athens’ sacred steep, To see its columned gate in moonlight sleep Beneath the shadow of the Parthenon, Fair still in ruin, though well Time might weep For Pallas fallen and her glory gone.
OF HELLAS DEAD MID wrecks of Hellas dead in marble state, Whose relics whiten still Ægean’s shore, Gold treasuries of kings, Art’s precious ore, Cast up by Time’s slow waves to us so late: It reached me then these things to meditate— How fell such pillared state, how lost its lore? What palsy touched the hand, what ate the core Of ancient life—why Hellas met such fate? And so methought of nations now that sail Upon the wings of commerce and of gold, With new-found force electric, iron and steam, To yoke fierce Nature’s neck; shall these avail To save us, or our toil-wrung wealth redeem, If Freedom fair, and justice loose their hold?
TO THE HAMMERSMITH CHOIR SWEET voices broke my sleep on Christmas morn; Clear through the moonlit air their anthem rung, Of human hope and fellowship that sung, A mass for souls not dead but yet new born, A herald blast on Freedom’s silver horn, At dayspring on the brooding darkness flung, With tidings of new joy in tuneful tongue, The marching song of workers travel-worn. As one in dreams I heard, and wondering rose; E’en as the shepherds’ marvelling of old To hear the angels quiring, and my blood Quickened to catch at last their stirring close, And so my heart took hope and courage good In thought of days to be in time untold. Xmas, 1888.
RENASCENCE ART, once an outcast in a wintry land, Far from the sun-built house where she was born, Did wander desolate and laughed to scorn By eyeless men who counted gold like sand: Nor any soul her speech would understand— A friendless stranger in the city lorn, Toil-grimed and blackened with the smoke upborne Of human sacrifice of brain and hand. Then Art, aweary, laid her down and slept Beneath an ancient gate, and dreaming, smiled, For Hope, like spring, came full of tidings good; And Labour, huge and free, and Brotherhood Led her between them like a little child In time new born, to glad new life that leapt.
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[165] colophon CHISWICK PRESS:—C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. |
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