Jean Ingelow

(WRITTEN FOR A FRIEND'S BIRTHDAY.)

"The days of our life are threescore years and ten."


A birthday: - and a day that rose
    With much of hope, with meaning rife -
A thoughtful day from dawn to close:
    The middle day of human life.

In sloping fields on narrow plains,
    The sheep were feeding on their knees
As we went through the winding lanes,
    Strewed with red buds of alder-trees.

So warm the day - its influence lent
    To flagging thought a stronger wing;
So utterly was winter spent,
    So sudden was the birth of spring.

Wild crocus flowers in copse and hedge -
    In sunlight, clustering thick below,
Sighed for the firwood's shaded ledge,
    Where sparkled yet a line of snow.

And crowded...

We reached the place by night,
And heard the waves breaking:
They came to meet us with candles alight
To show the path we were taking.
A myrtle, trained on the gate, was white
With tufted flowers down shaking.

With head beneath her wing,
A little wren was sleeping -
So near, I had found it an easy thing
To steal her for my keeping
From the myrtle-bough that with easy swing
Across the path was sweeping.

Down rocky steps rough-hewed,
Where cup-mosses flowered,
And under the trees, all twisted and rude,
Wherewith the dell was dowered,
They led us, where deep in its solitude
Lay the cottage, leaf-embowered.

The thatch was all bespread
With climbing passion-flowers;
They were wet, and glistened with raindrops, shed
That da...

"Master," quoth the auld hound
    "Where will ye go?"
"Over moss, over muir,
    To court my new jo."
"Master, though the night be merk,
    I'se follow through the snow.

"Court her, master, court her,
    So shall ye do weel;
But and ben she'll guide the house,
    I'se get milk and meal.
Ye'se get lilting while she sits
    With her rock and reel."

"For, oh! she has a sweet tongue,
    And een that look down,
A gold girdle for her waist,
    And a purple gown.
She has a good word forbye
    Fra a' folk in the town."

I took a year out of my life and story -
A dead year, and said, "I will hew thee a tomb!
'All the kings of the nations lie in glory;'
Cased in cedar, and shut in a sacred gloom;
Swathed in linen, and precious unguents old;
Painted with cinnabar, and rich with gold.

"Silent they rest, in solemn salvatory,
Sealed from the moth and the owl and the flitter-mouse -
    Each with his name on his brow.
'All the kings of the nations lie in glory,
Every one in his own house:'
    Then why not thou?

"Year," I said, "thou shalt not lack
Bribes to bar thy coming back;
Doth old Egypt wear her best
In the chambers of her rest?
Doth she take to her last bed
Beaten gold, and glorious red?
Envy not! for thou wilt wear
In the dark a shroud as fair;

"Whither away, thou little eyeless rover?
    (Kind Roger's true)
Whither away across yon bents and clover,
    Wet, wet with dew?"
        "Roger here, Roger there -
    Roger - O, he sighed,
        Yet let me glean among the wheat,
    Nor sit kind Roger's bride."

"What wilt thou do when all the gleaning's ended,
    What wilt thou do?
The cold will come, and fog and frost-work blended
    (Kind Roger's true)."
    "Sleet and rain, cloud and storm,
    When they cease to frown
    I'll bind me primrose bunches sweet,
    And cry them up the town."

"What if at last thy careless heart awaking
    This day thou rue?"
"I'll cry my flowers, and think for all its breaking,
    Kind Roger's true;
        Roger here, Roger there,

(Song of the uncommunicated Ideal.)

I.

I opened the eyes of my soul.
    And behold,
A white river-lily: a lily awake, and aware, -
For she set her face upward, - aware how in scarlet and gold
A long wrinkled cloud, left behind of the wandering air,
    Lay over with fold upon fold,
    With fold upon fold.

And the blushing sweet shame of the cloud made her also ashamed,
The white river-lily, that suddenly knew she was fair;
And over the far-away mountains that no man hath named,
    And that no foot hath trod,
Flung down out of heavenly places, there fell, as it were,
A rose-bloom, a token of love, that should make them endure,
Withdrawn in snow silence forever, who keep themselves pure,
    And look up to God.
Then I said, "In r...

"There was darkness."

A Morn of guilt, an hour of doom -
    Shocks and tremblings dread;
All the city sunk in gloom -
    Thick darkness overhead.
An awful Sufferer straight and stark;
    Mocking voices fell;
Tremblings - tremblings in the dark,
    In heaven, and earth, and hell.

Groping, stumbling up the way,
    They pass, whom Christ forgave;
They know not what they do - they say,
    "Himself He cannot save.
On His head behold the crown
    That alien hands did weave;
Let Him come down, let Him come down,
    And we will believe!"

Fearsome dreams, a rending veil,
    Cloven rocks down hurl'd;
God's love itself doth seem to fail
    The Saviour of the world.
Dying thieves do curse and wail,
    Eithe...

(F.M.L.)


Living child or pictured cherub,
Ne'er o'ermatched its baby grace;
And the mother, moving nearer,
Looked it calmly in the face;
Then with slight and quiet gesture,
And with lips that scarcely smiled,
Said - "A Portrait of my daughter
When she was a child."

Easy thought was hers to fathom,
Nothing hard her glance to read,
For it seemed to say, "No praises
For this little child I need:
If you see, I see far better,
And I will not feign to care
For a stranger's prompt assurance
That the face is fair."

Softly clasped and half extended,
She her dimpled hands doth lay:
So they doubtless placed them, saying -
"Little one, you must not play."
And while yet his work was growing,
This the painter's hand hath...

        When I do sit apart
        And commune with my heart,
She brings me forth the treasures once my own;
        Shows me a happy place
        Where leaf-buds swelled apace,
And wasting rims of snow in sunlight shone.

        Rock, in a mossy glade,
        The larch-trees lend thee shade,
That just begin to feather with their leaves;
        From out thy crevice deep
        White tufts of snowdrops peep,
And melted rime drips softly from thine eaves.

        Ah, rock, I know, I know
        That yet thy snowdrops grow,
And yet doth sunshine fleck them through the tree,
        Whose sheltering branches hide
        The cottage at its side,
That nevermore will shade or shelter me.

        I know the stockdoves' note
    ...

Old Albion sat on a crag of late.
And sang out - "Ahoy! ahoy!
Long, life to the captain, good luck to the mate.
And this to my sailor boy!
    Come over, come home,
    Through the salt sea foam,
    My sailor, my sailor boy.

"Here's a crown to be given away, I ween,
A crown for my sailor's head,
And all for the worth of a widowed queen,
And the love of the noble dead;
    And the fear and fame
    Of the island's name
Where my boy was born and bred.

"Content thee, content thee, let it alone,
Thou marked for a choice so rare;
Though treaties be treaties, never a throne
Was proffered for cause as fair.
    Yet come to me home,
    Through the salt sea foam,
    For the Greek must ask elsewhere.

"'Tis a pity, my sailor,...

Can I make white enough my thought for thee,
    Or wash my words in light? Thou hast no mate
To sit aloft in the silence silently
    And twin those matchless heights undesecrate.
Reverend as Lear, when, lorn of shelter, he
    Stood, with his old white head, surprised at fate;
Alone as Galileo, when, set free,
    Before the stars he mused disconsolate.

Ay, and remote, as the dead lords of song,
    Great masters who have made us what we are,
For thou and they have taught us how to long
    And feel a sacred want of the fair and far:
Reign, and keep life in this our deep desire -
Our only greatness is that we aspire.

I.

Laura, my Laura! 'Yes, mother!' 'I want you, Laura; come down.'
'What is it, mother - what, dearest? O your loved face how it pales!
You tremble, alas and alas - you heard bad news from the town?'
'Only one short half hour to tell it. My poor courage fails -


II.

Laura.' 'Where's Ronald? - O anything else but Ronald!' 'No, no,
Not Ronald, if all beside, my Laura, disaster and tears;
But you, it is yours to send them away, for you they will go,
One short half hour, and must it decide, it must for the years.


III.

Laura, you think of your father sometimes?' 'Sometimes!' 'Ah, but how?'
'I think - that we need not think, sweet mother - the time is not yet,
He is as the wraith of a wraith, and a far off shadow now -
- But if you hav...

Come up the broad river, the Thames, my Dane,
My Dane with the beautiful eyes!
Thousands and thousands await thee full fain,
And talk of the wind and the skies.
Fear not from folk and from country to part,
O, I swear it is wisely done:
For (I said) I will bear me by thee, sweetheart,
As becometh my father's son.

Great London was shouting as I went down.
"She is worthy," I said, "of this;
What shall I give who have promised a crown?
O, first I will give her a kiss."
So I kissed her and brought her, my Dane, my Dane,
Through the waving wonderful crowd:
Thousands and thousands, they shouted amain,
Like mighty thunders and loud.

And they said, "He is young, the lad we love,
The heir of the Isles is young:
How we deem of his mother, and one go...

Came the dread Archer up yonder lawn -
    Night is the time for the old to die -
But woe for an arrow that smote the fawn,
    When the hind that was sick unscathed went by.

Father lay moaning, "Her fault was sore
    (Night is the time when the old must die),
Yet, ah to bless her, my child, once more,
    For heart is failing: the end is nigh."

"Daughter, my daughter, my girl," I cried
    (Night is the time for the old to die),
"Woe for the wish if till morn ye bide" -
    Dark was the welkin and wild the sky.

Heavily plunged from the roof the snow -
    (Night is the time when the old will die),
She answered, "My mother, 'tis well, I go."
    Sparkled the north star, the wrack flew high.

First at his head, and last at his feet
...

My fair lady's a dear, dear lady -
    I walked by her side to woo.
In a garden alley, so sweet and shady,
    She answered, "I love not you,
    John, John Brady,"
    Quoth my dear lady,
"Pray now, pray now, go your way now,
    Do, John, do!"

Yet my fair lady's my own, own lady,
    For I passed another day;
While making her moan, she sat all alone,
    And thus, and thus did she say:
    "John, John Brady,"
    Quoth my dear lady,
"Do now, do now, once more woo now.
    Pray, John, pray!"

And can this be my own world?
    'Tis all gold and snow,
Save where scarlet waves are hurled
    Down yon gulf below.
'Tis thy world, 'tis my world,
    City, mead, and shore,
For he that hath his own world
    Hath many worlds more.

(THE PARSON'S BROTHER, SISTER, AND TWO CHILDREN)


Preface.

What wonder man should fail to stay
A nursling wafted from above,
The growth celestial come astray,
That tender growth whose name is Love!

It is as if high winds in heaven
Had shaken the celestial trees,
And to this earth below had given
Some feathered seeds from one of these.

O perfect love that 'dureth long!
Dear growth, that shaded by the palms.
And breathed on by the angel's song,
Blooms on in heaven's eternal calms!

How great the task to guard thee here,
Where wind is rough and frost is keen,
And all the ground with doubt and fear
Is checkered, birth and death between!

Space is against thee - it can part;
Time is against thee - it can ...

Haply some Rajah first in the ages gone
    Amid his languid ladies fingered thee,
    While a black nightingale, sun-swart as he,
Sang his one wife, love's passionate oraison;
Haply thou may'st have pleased Old Prester John
    Among his pastures, when full royally
    He sat in tent, grave shepherds at his knee,
While lamps of balsam winked and glimmered on.
What doest thou here? Thy masters are all dead;
    My heart is full of ruth and yearning pain
At sight of thee; O king that hast a crown
    Outlasting theirs, and tell'st of greatness fled
Through cloud-hung nights of unabated rain
And murmurs of the dark majestic town.