Violin Songs

Summer is come again. The sun is bright,
And the soft wind is breathing. Airy joy
Is sparkling in thine eyes, and in their light
My soul is shining. Come; our day's employ
Shall be to revel in unlikely things,
In gayest hopes, fondest imaginings,
And make-believes of bliss. Come, we will talk
Of waning moons, low winds, and a dim sea;
Till this fair summer, deepening as we walk,
Has grown a paradise for you and me.

But ah, those leaves!—it was not summer's mouth
Breathed such a gold upon them. And look there—
That beech how red! See, through its boughs, half-bare,
How low the sun lies in the mid-day south!—
The sweetness is but one pined memory flown
Back from our summer, wandering alone!
See, see the dead leaves falling! Hear thy heart,
Which, with the year's pulse beating swift or slow,
Takes in the changing world its changing part,
Return a sigh, an echo sad and low,
To the faint, scarcely audible sound
With which the leaf goes whispering to the ground!
O love, sad winter lieth at the door—
Behind sad winter, age—we know no more.

Come round me, dear hearts. All of us will hold
Each of us compassed: we are growing old;
And if we be not as a ring enchanted,
Hearts around heart, with love to keep it gay,
The young, who claim the joy that haunted
Our visions once, will push us far away
Into the desolate regions, dim and gray,
Where the sea moans, and hath no other cry,
The clouds hang low, and have no tears,
Old dreams lie mouldering in a pit of years,
And hopes and songs all careless pass us by.
But if all each do keep,
The rising tide of youth will sweep
Around us with its laughter-joyous waves,
As ocean fair some palmy island laves,
To loneliness heaved slow from out the deep;
And our youth hover round us like the breath
Of one that sleeps, and sleepeth not to death.

Thus ringed eternally, to parted graves,
The sundered doors into one palace home,
Stumbling through age's thickets, we will go,
Faltering but faithful—willing to lie low,
Willing to part, not willing to deny
The lovely past, where all the futures lie.

Oh! if thou be, who of the live art lord,
Not of the dead—Lo, by that self-same word,
Thou art not lord of age, but lord of youth—
Because there is no age, in sooth,
Beyond its passing shows!
A mist o'er life's dimmed lantern grows;
Thou break'st the glass, out streams the light
That knows not youth nor age,
That fears no darkness nor the rage
Of windy tempests—burning still more bright
Than when glad youth was all about,
And summer winds were out!

  When in the bosom of the eldest night
This body lies, cold as a sculptured rest;
When through its shaded windows comes no light,
And its pale hands are folded on its breast—

    How shall I fare, who had to wander out,
And of the unknown land the frontier cross,
Peering vague-eyed, uncertain, all about,
Unclothed, mayhap unwelcomed, bathed in loss?

    Shall I depart slow-floating like a mist,
Over the city murmuring beneath;
Over the trees and fields, where'er I list,
Seeking the mountain and the lonely heath?

    Or will a darkness, o'er material shows
Descending, hide them from the spirit's sight;
As from the sun a blotting radiance flows
Athwart the stars all glorious through the night;

    And the still spirit hang entranced, alone,
Like one in an exalted opium-dream—
Soft-flowing time, insisting space, o'erblown,
With form and colour, tone and touch and gleam,

    Thought only waking—thought that may not own
The lapse of ages, or the change of spot;
Its doubt all cast on what it counted known,
Its faith all fixed on what appeareth not?

    Or, worn with weariness, shall we sleep until,
Our life restored by long and dreamless rest,
Of God's oblivion we have drunk our fill,
And wake his little ones, peaceful and blest?

    I nothing know, and nothing need to know.
God is; I shall be ever in his sight!
Give thou me strength to labour well, and so
Do my day's work ere fall my coming night.

I am weary, and very lonely,
    And can but think—think.
If there were some water only
    That a spirit might drink—drink,
      And arise,
      With light in the eyes
And a crown of hope on the brow,
    To walk abroad in the strength of gladness,
    Not sit in the house, benumbed with sadness—
      As now!

But, Lord, thy child will be sad—
    As sad as it pleases thee;
Will sit, not seeking to be glad,
    Till thou bid sadness flee,
      And, drawing near,
      With thy good cheer
    Awake thy life in me.

If I were a monk, and thou wert a nun,
        Pacing it wearily, wearily,
Twixt chapel and cell till day were done—
        Wearily, wearily—
How would it fare with these hearts of ours
That need the sunshine, and smiles, and flowers?

To prayer, to prayer, at the matins' call,
        Morning foul or fair!—
Such prayer as from weary lips might fall—
        Words, but hardly prayer—
The chapel's roof, like the law in stone,
Caging the lark that up had flown!

Thou, in the glory of cloudless noon,
        The God-revealing,
Turning thy face from the boundless boon—
        Painfully kneeling;
Or, in brown-shadowy solitude,
Bending thy head o'er the legend rude!

I, in a bare and lonely nook,
        Gloomily, gloomily,
Poring over some musty book,
        Thoughtfully, thoughtfully;
Or painting pictures of things of old
On parchment-margin in purple and gold!

Perchance in slow procession to meet,
        Wearily, wearily,
In antique, narrow, high-gabled street,
        Wearily, wearily;
Thine eyes dark-lifted to mine, and then
Heavily sinking to earth again!

Sunshine and air! bird-music and spring!
        Merrily, merrily!—
Back to its cell each weary thing,
        Wearily, wearily!
Our poor hearts, withered and dry and old,
Most at home in the cloister cold!

Thou slow rising at vespers' call,
        Wearily, wearily;
I looking up on the darkening wall,
        Wearily, wearily;
The chime so sweet to the boat at sea,
Listless and dead to thee and me!

At length for sleep a weary assay,
        On the lone couch wearily!
Rising at midnight again to pray,
        Wearily, wearily!
And if through the dark dear eyes looked in,
Sending them far as a thought of sin!

And at last, thy tired soul passing away,
        Dreamily, dreamily—
Its worn tent fluttering in slow decay,
        Sleepily, sleepily—
Over thee held the crucified Best,
But no warm cheek to thy cold cheek pressed!

And then my passing from cell to clay,
        Dreamily, dreamily!
My gray head lying on ashes gray,
        Sleepily, sleepily!
But no woman-angel hovering above,
Ready to clasp me in deathless love!

Now, now, ah, now! thy hand in mine,
        Peacefully, peacefully;
My arm round thee, and my lips on thine,
        Lovingly, lovingly—
Oh! is not a better thing to us given
Than wearily going alone to heaven?

Night, with her power to silence day,
    Filled up my lonely room,
Quenching all sounds but one that lay
    Beyond her passing doom,
Where in his shed a workman gay
    Went on despite the gloom.

I listened, and I knew the sound,
    And the trade that he was plying;
For backwards, forwards, bound on bound,
    A shuttle was flying, flying—
Weaving ever—till, all unwound,
    The weft go out a sighing.

As hidden in thy chamber lowest
    As in the sky the lark,
Thou, mystic thing, on working goest
    Without the poorest spark,
And yet light's garment round me throwest,
    Who else, as thou, were dark.

With body ever clothing me,
    Thou mak'st me child of light;
I look, and, Lo, the earth and sea,
    The sky's rejoicing height,
A woven glory, globed by thee,
    Unknowing of thy might!

And when thy darkling labours fail,
    And thy shuttle moveless lies,
My world will drop, like untied veil
    From before a lady's eyes;
Or, all night read, a finished tale
    That in the morning dies.

Yet not in vain dost thou unroll
    The stars, the world, the seas—
A mighty, wonder-painted scroll
    Of Patmos mysteries,
Thou mediator 'twixt my soul
    And higher things than these!

Thy holy ephod bound on me,
    I pass into a seer;
For still in things thou mak'st me see,
    The unseen grows more clear;
Still their indwelling Deity
    Speaks plainer in mine ear.

Divinely taught the craftsman is
    Who waketh wonderings;
Whose web, the nursing chrysalis
    Round Psyche's folded wings,
To them transfers the loveliness
    Of its inwoven things.

Yet joy when thou shalt cease to beat!—
    For a greater heart beats on,
Whose better texture follows fleet
    On thy last thread outrun,
With a seamless-woven garment, meet
    To clothe a death-born son.

Of old, with goodwill from the skies—
  God's message to them given—
The angels came, a glad surprise,
  And went again to heaven.

But now the angels are grown rare,
  Needed no more as then;
Far lowlier messengers can bear
  God's goodwill unto men.

Each year, the snowdrops' pallid dawn
  Breaks from the earth below;
Light spreads, till, from the dark updrawn,
  The noontide roses glow.

The snowdrops first—the dawning gray;
  Then out the roses burn!
They speak their word, grow dim—away
  To holy dust return.

Of oracles were little dearth,
  Should heaven continue dumb;
From lowliest corners of the earth
  God's messages will come.

In thy face his we see, O Lord,
  And are no longer blind;
Need not so much his rarer word,
  In flowers even read his mind.

Old fables are not all a lie
  That tell of wondrous birth,
Of Titan children, father Sky,
  And mighty mother Earth.

Yea, now are walking on the ground
  Sons of the mingled brood;
Yea, now upon the earth are found
  Such daughters of the Good.

Earth-born, my sister, thou art still
  A daughter of the sky;
Oh, climb for ever up the hill
  Of thy divinity!

To thee thy mother Earth is sweet,
  Her face to thee is fair;
But thou, a goddess incomplete,
  Must climb the starry stair.

Wouldst thou the holy hill ascend,
  Wouldst see the Father's face?
To all his other children bend,
  And take the lowest place.

Be like a cottage on a moor,
  A covert from the wind,
With burning fire and open door,
  And welcome free and kind.

Thus humbly doing on the earth
  The things the earthly scorn,
Thou shalt declare the lofty birth
  Of all the lowly born.

Be then thy sacred womanhood
  A sign upon thee set,
A second baptism—understood—
  For what thou must be yet.

For, cause and end of all thy strife,
  And unrest as thou art,
Still stings thee to a higher life
  The Father at thy heart.

Sad-hearted, be at peace: the snowdrop lies
  Buried in sepulchre of ghastly snow;
But spring is floating up the southern skies,
  And darkling the pale snowdrop waits below.

Let me persuade: in dull December's day
  We scarce believe there is a month of June;
But up the stairs of April and of May
  The hot sun climbeth to the summer's noon.

Yet hear me: I love God, and half I rest.
  O better! God loves thee, so all rest thou.
He is our summer, our dim-visioned Best;—
  And in his heart thy prayer is resting now.

Content Primroses,
With hearts at rest in your thick leaves' soft care,
Peeping as from his mother's lap the child
Who courts shy shelter from his own open air!—
Hanging Harebell,
Whose blue heaven to no wanderer ever closes,
Though thou still lookest earthward from thy domed cell!—
Fluttering-wild
Anemone, so well
Named of the Wind, to whom thou, fettered-free,
Yieldest thee, helpless—wilfully,
With Take me or leave me,    Sweet Wind, I am thine own Anemone!—
Thirsty Arum, ever dreaming
Of lakes in wildernesses gleaming!—
Fire-winged Pimpernel,
Communing with some hidden well,
And secrets with the sun-god holding,
At fixed hour folding and unfolding!—
How is it with you, children all,
When human children on you fall,
Gather you in eager haste,
Spoil your plenty with their waste—
Fill and fill their dropping hands?
Feel you hurtfully disgraced
By their injurious demands?
Do you know them from afar,
Shuddering at their merry hum,
Growing faint as near they come?
Blind and deaf they think you are—
Is it only ye are dumb?
You alive at least, I think,
Trembling almost on the brink
Of our lonely consciousness:
If it be so,
Take this comfort for your woe,
For the breaking of your rest,
For the tearing in your breast,
For the blotting of the sun,
For the death too soon begun,
For all else beyond redress—
Or what seemeth so to be—
That the children's wonder-springs
Bubble high at sight of you,
Lovely, lowly, common things:
In you more than you they see!
Take this too—that, walking out,
Looking fearlessly about,
Ye rebuke our manhood's doubt,
And our childhood's faith renew;
So that we, with old age nigh,
Seeing you alive and well
Out of winter's crucible,
Hearing you, from graveyard crept,
Tell us that ye only slept—
Think we die not, though we die.

Thus ye die not, though ye die—
Only yield your being up,
Like a nectar-holding cup:
Deaf, ye give to them that hear,
With a greatness lovely-dear;
Blind, ye give to them that see—
Poor, but bounteous royally.
Lowly servants to the higher,
Burning upwards in the fire
Of Nature's endless sacrifice,
In great Life's ascent ye rise,
Leave the lowly earth behind,
Pass into the human mind,
Pass with it up into God,
Whence ye came though through the clod—
Pass, and find yourselves at home
Where but life can go and come;
Where all life is in its nest,
At loving one with holy Best;—
Who knows?—with shadowy, dawning sense
Of a past, age-long somnolence!

    Days of old,
Ye are not dead, though gone from me;
      Ye are not cold,
But like the summer-birds fled o'er some sea.

The sun brings back the swallows fast
      O'er the sea;
When he cometh at the last,
The days of old come back to me.

"Murmuring, 'twixt a murmur and moan,
Many a tune in a single tone,
For every ear with a secret true—
The sea-shell wants to whisper to you."

"Yes—I hear it—far and faint,
Like thin-drawn prayer of drowsy saint;
Like the muffled sounds of a summer rain;
Like the wash of dreams in a weary brain."

"By smiling lip and fixed eye,
You are hearing a song within the sigh:
The murmurer has many a lovely phrase—
Tell me, darling, the words it says."

"I hear a wind on a boatless main
Sigh like the last of a vanishing pain;
On the dreaming waters dreams the moon—
But I hear no words in the doubtful tune."

"If it tell thee not that I love thee well,
'Tis a senseless, wrinkled, ill-curved shell:
If it be not of love, why sigh or sing?
'Tis a common, mechanical, stupid thing!"

"It murmurs, it whispers, with prophet voice
Of a peace that comes, of a sealed choice;
It says not a word of your love to me,
But it tells me I love you eternally."

Autumn clouds are flying, flying
  O'er the waste of blue;
Summer flowers are dying, dying,
  Late so lovely new.
Labouring wains are slowly rolling
  Home with winter grain;
Holy bells are slowly tolling
  Over buried men.

Goldener light sets noon a sleeping
  Like an afternoon;
Colder airs come stealing, creeping
  From the misty moon;
And the leaves, of old age dying,
  Earthy hues put on;
Out on every lone wind sighing
  That their day is gone.

Autumn's sun is sinking, sinking
  Down to winter low;
And our hearts are thinking, thinking
  Of the sleet and snow;
For our sun is slowly sliding
  Down the hill of might;
And no moon is softly gliding
  Up the slope of night.

See the bare fields' pillaged prizes
  Heaped in golden glooms!
See, the earth's outworn sunrises
  Dream in cloudy tombs!
Darkling flowers but wait the blowing
  Of a quickening wind;
And the man, through Death's door going,
  Leaves old Death behind.

Mourn not, then, clear tones that alter;
  Let the gold turn gray;
Feet, though feeble, still may falter
  Toward the better day!
Brother, let not weak faith linger
  O'er a withered thing;
Mark how Autumn's prophet finger
  Burns to hues of Spring.

They were parted then at last?
  Was it duty, or force, or fate?
Or did a worldly blast
  Blow-to the meeting-gate?

An old, short story is this!
  A glance, a trembling, a sigh,
A gaze in the eyes, a kiss—
  Why will it not go by!