The Sisters' Tragedy [2]
now! One cannot bring Imagination to accept the thing. Lies, all of it! some dreamer's wild romance-- High-hearted, witty, laughter-loving France! In whose brain was it that the legend grew Of Maenads shrieking in this avenue, Of watch-fires burning, Famine standing guard, Of long-speared Uhlans in that palace-yard! What ruder sound this soft air ever smote Than a bird's twitter or a bugle's note? What darker crimson ever splashed these walks Than that of rose-leaves dropping from the stalks? And yet--what means that charred and broken wall, That sculptured marble, splintered, like to fall, Looming among the trees there? . . . And you say This happened, as it were, but yesterday? And here the Commune stretched a barricade, And there the final desperate stand was made? Such things have been? How all things change and fade! How little lasts in this brave world below! Love dies; hate cools; the Caesars come and go; Gaunt Hunter fattens, and the weak grow strong. Even Republics are not here for long!
Ah, who can tell what hour may bring the doom, The lighted torch, the tocsin's heavy boom!
IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
"The Southern Transept, hardly known by any other name but Poet's Corner."
DEAN STANLEY.
TREAD softly here; the sacredest of tombs Are those that hold your Poets. Kings and queens Are facile accidents of Time and Chance. Chance sets them on the heights, they climb not there! But he who from the darkling mass of men Is on the wing of heavenly thought upborne To finer ether, and becomes a voice For all the voiceless, God anointed him: His name shall be a star, his grave a shrine.
Tread softly here, in silent reverence tread. Beneath those marble cenotaphs and urns Lies richer dust than ever nature hid Packed in the mountain's adamantine heart, Or slyly wrapt in unsuspected sand-- The dross men toil for, and oft stain the soul. How vain and all ignoble seems that greed To him who stands in this dim claustral air With these most sacred ashes at his feet! This dust was Chaucer, Spenser, Dryden this-- The spark that once illumed it lingers still. O ever-hallowed spot of English earth! If the unleashed and happy spirit of man Have option to revisit our dull globe, What august Shades at midnight here convene In the miraculous sessions of the moon, When the great pulse of London faintly throbs, And one by one the stars in heaven pale!
ALEC YEATON'S SON
GLOUCESTER, AUGUST, 1720
The wind it wailed, the wind it moaned, And the white caps flecked the sea; "An' I would to God," the skipper groaned, "I had not my boy with me!"
Snug in the stern-sheets, little John Laughed as the scud swept by; But the skipper's sunburnt cheek grew wan As he watched the wicked sky.
"Would he were at his mother's side!" And the skipper's eyes were dim. "Good Lord in heaven, if ill betide, What would become of him!
"For me--my muscles are as steel, For me let hap what may; I might make shift upon the keel Until the break o' day.
"But he, he is so weak and small, So young, scarce learned to stand-- O pitying Father of us all, I trust him in Thy hand!
"For Thou, who markest from on high A sparrow's fall--each one!-- Surely, O Lord, thou'lt have an eye On Alec Yeaton's son!"
Then, helm hard-port; right straight he sailed Towards the headland light: The wind it moaned, the wind it wailed, And black, black fell the night.
Then burst a storm to make one quail Though housed from winds and waves-- They who could tell about that gale Must rise from watery graves!
Sudden it came, as sudden went; Ere half the night was sped, The winds were hushed, the waves were spent, And the stars shone overhead.
Now, as the morning mist grew thin, The folk on Gloucester shore Saw a little figure floating in Secure, on a broken oar!
Up rose the cry, "A wreck! a wreck! Pull, mates, and waste no breath!"-- They knew it, though 'twas but a speck Upon the edge of death!
Long did they marvel in the town At God his strange decree, That let
Ah, who can tell what hour may bring the doom, The lighted torch, the tocsin's heavy boom!
IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY
"The Southern Transept, hardly known by any other name but Poet's Corner."
DEAN STANLEY.
TREAD softly here; the sacredest of tombs Are those that hold your Poets. Kings and queens Are facile accidents of Time and Chance. Chance sets them on the heights, they climb not there! But he who from the darkling mass of men Is on the wing of heavenly thought upborne To finer ether, and becomes a voice For all the voiceless, God anointed him: His name shall be a star, his grave a shrine.
Tread softly here, in silent reverence tread. Beneath those marble cenotaphs and urns Lies richer dust than ever nature hid Packed in the mountain's adamantine heart, Or slyly wrapt in unsuspected sand-- The dross men toil for, and oft stain the soul. How vain and all ignoble seems that greed To him who stands in this dim claustral air With these most sacred ashes at his feet! This dust was Chaucer, Spenser, Dryden this-- The spark that once illumed it lingers still. O ever-hallowed spot of English earth! If the unleashed and happy spirit of man Have option to revisit our dull globe, What august Shades at midnight here convene In the miraculous sessions of the moon, When the great pulse of London faintly throbs, And one by one the stars in heaven pale!
ALEC YEATON'S SON
GLOUCESTER, AUGUST, 1720
The wind it wailed, the wind it moaned, And the white caps flecked the sea; "An' I would to God," the skipper groaned, "I had not my boy with me!"
Snug in the stern-sheets, little John Laughed as the scud swept by; But the skipper's sunburnt cheek grew wan As he watched the wicked sky.
"Would he were at his mother's side!" And the skipper's eyes were dim. "Good Lord in heaven, if ill betide, What would become of him!
"For me--my muscles are as steel, For me let hap what may; I might make shift upon the keel Until the break o' day.
"But he, he is so weak and small, So young, scarce learned to stand-- O pitying Father of us all, I trust him in Thy hand!
"For Thou, who markest from on high A sparrow's fall--each one!-- Surely, O Lord, thou'lt have an eye On Alec Yeaton's son!"
Then, helm hard-port; right straight he sailed Towards the headland light: The wind it moaned, the wind it wailed, And black, black fell the night.
Then burst a storm to make one quail Though housed from winds and waves-- They who could tell about that gale Must rise from watery graves!
Sudden it came, as sudden went; Ere half the night was sped, The winds were hushed, the waves were spent, And the stars shone overhead.
Now, as the morning mist grew thin, The folk on Gloucester shore Saw a little figure floating in Secure, on a broken oar!
Up rose the cry, "A wreck! a wreck! Pull, mates, and waste no breath!"-- They knew it, though 'twas but a speck Upon the edge of death!
Long did they marvel in the town At God his strange decree, That let