Humanitad

    • It is full winter now: the trees are bare,
    • Save where the cattle huddle from the cold
    • Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear
    • The Autumn’s gaudy livery whose gold
    • Her jealous brother pilfers, but is true
    • To the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as
    • though it blew
    • From Saturn’s cave; a few thin wisps of hay
    • Lie on the sharp black hedges, where the wain
    • Dragged the sweet pillage of a summer’s day
    • From the low meadows up the narrow lane;
    • Upon the half-thawed snow the bleating sheep
    • Press close against the hurdles, and the shivering
    • housedogs creep
    • From the shut stable to the frozen stream
    • And back again disconsolate, and miss
    • The bawling shepherds and the noisy team;
    • And overhead in circling listlessness
    • The cawing rooks whirl round the frosted stack,
    • Or crowd the dripping boughs; and in the fen the
    • ice-pools crack
    • Where the gaunt bittern stalks among the reeds
    • And flaps his wings, and stretches back his neck,
    • And hoots to see the moon; across the meads
    • Limps the poor frightened hare, a little speck;
    • And a stray seamew with its fretful cry
    • Flits like a sudden drift of snow against the dull
    • gray sky.
    • Full winter: and a lusty goodman brings
    • His load of faggots from the chilly byre,
    • And stamps his feet upon the hearth, and flings
    • The sappy billets on the waning fire,
    • And laughs to see the sudden lightning scare
    • His children at their play; and yet,- the Spring
    • is in the air,
    • Already the slim crocus stirs the snow,
    • And soon yon blanched fields will bloom again
    • With nodding cowslips for some lad to mow,
    • For with the first warm kisses of the rain
    • The winter’s icy, sorrow breaks to tears,
    • And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes
    • the rabbit peers
    • From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie,
    • And treads one snowdrop under foot and runs
    • Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds fly
    • Across our path at evening, and the suns
    • Stay longer with us; ah! how good to see
    • Grass-girdled Spring in all her joy of laughing
    • greenery
    • Dance through the hedges till the early rose,
    • (That sweet repentance of the thorny briar!)
    • Burst from its sheathed emerald and disclose
    • The little quivering disk of golden fire
    • Which the bees know so well, for with it come
    • Pale boy’s love, sops-in-wine, and daffodillies
    • all in bloom.
    • Then up and down the field the sower goes,
    • While close behind the laughing younker scares,
    • With shrilly whoop the black and thievish crows.
    • And then the chestnut-tree its glory wears,
    • And on the grass the creamy blossom falls
    • In odorous excess, and faint half-whispered madrigals
    • Steal from the bluebells’ nodding carillons
    • Each breezy morn, and then white jessamine,
    • That star of its own heaven, snap-dragons
    • With lolling crimson tongues, and eglantine
    • In dusty velvets clad usurp the bed
    • And woodland empery, and when the lingering rose
    • hath shed
    • Red leaf by leaf its folded panoply,
    • And pansies closed their purple-lidded eyes,
    • Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy
    • Unload their gaudy scentless merchandise
    • And violets getting overbold withdraw
    • From their shy nooks, and scarlet berries dot
    • the leafless haw.
    • O happy field! and O thrice happy tree!
    • Soon will your queen in daisy-flowered smock,
    • And crown of flower-de-luce trip down the lea,
    • Soon will the lazy shepherds drive their flock
    • Back to the pasture by the pool, and soon
    • Through the green leaves will float the hum of
    • murmuring bees at noon.
    • Soon will the glade be bright with bellamour,
    • The flower which wantons love, and those sweet nuns
    • Vale-lilies in their snowy vestiture
    • Will tell their bearded pearls, and carnations
    • With mitred dusky leaves will scent the wind,
    • And straggling traveller’s joy each hedge with yellow
    • stars will bind.
    • Dear Bride of Nature and most bounteous Spring!
    • That can’st give increase to the sweet-breath’d kine,
    • And to the kid its little horns, and bring
    • The soft and silky blossoms to the vine,
    • Where is that old nepenthe which of yore
    • Man got from poppy root and glossy-berried mandragore!
    • There was a time when any common bird
    • Could make me sing in unison, a time
    • When all the strings of boyish life were stirred
    • To quick response or more melodious rhyme
    • By every forest idyll;- do I change?
    • Or rather doth some evil thing through thy fair
    • pleasaunce range?
    • Nay, nay, thou art the same: ’tis I who seek
    • To vex with sighs thy simple solitude,
    • And because fruitless tears bedew my cheek
    • Would have thee weep with me in brotherhood;
    • Fool! shall each wronged and restless spirit dare
    • To taint such wine with the salt poison of his
    • own despair!
    • Thou art the same: ’tis I whose wretched soul
    • Takes discontent to be its paramour,
    • And gives its kingdom to the rude control
    • Of what should be its servitor,- for sure
    • Wisdom is somewhere, though the stormy sea
    • Contain it not, and the huge deep answer
    • “’Tis not in me.”
    • To burn with one clear flame, to stand erect
    • In natural honor, not to bend the knee
    • In profitless prostrations whose effect
    • Is by, itself condemned, what alchemy
    • Can teach me this? what herb Medea brewed
    • Will bring the unexultant peace of essence
    • not subdued?
    • The minor chord which ends the harmony,
    • And for its answering brother waits in vain,
    • Sobbing for incompleted melody
    • Dies a swan’s death; but I the heir of pain
    • A silent Memnon with blank lidless eyes
    • Wait for the light and music of those suns which
    • never rise.
    • The quanched-out torch, the lonely cypress-gloom,
    • The little dust stored in the narrow urn,
    • The gentle XAIPE of the Attic tomb,-
    • Were not these better far than to return
    • To my old fitful restless malady,
    • Or spend my days within the voiceless cave of misery?
    • Nay! for perchance that poppy-crowned God
    • Is like the watcher by a sick man’s bed
    • Who talks of sleep but gives it not; his rod
    • Hath lost its virtue, and, when all is said,
    • Death is too rude, too obvious a key
    • To solve one single secret in a life’s philosophy.
    • And love! that noble madness, whose august
    • And inextinguishable might can slay
    • The soul with honeyed drugs,- alas! I must
    • From such sweet ruin play the runaway,
    • Although too constant memory never can
    • Forget the arched splendor of those brows Olympian
    • Which for a little season made my youth
    • So soft a swoon of exquisite indolence
    • That all the chiding of more prudent Truth
    • Seemed the thin voice of jealousy,- O Hence
    • Thou huntress deadlier than Artemis!
    • Go seek some other quarry! for of thy too perilous
    • bliss
    • My lips have drunk enough,- no more, no more,-
    • Though Love himself should turn his gilded prow
    • Back to the troubled waters of this shore
    • Where I am wrecked and stranded, even now
    • The chariot wheels of passion sweep too near,
    • Hence! Hence! I pass unto a life more barren,
    • more austere.
    • More barren- ay, those arms will never lean
    • Down through the trellised vines and draw my soul
    • In sweet reluctance through the tangled green;
    • Some other head must wear that aureole,
    • For I am Hers who loves not any man
    • Whose white and stainless bosom bears the sign
    • Gorgonian.
    • Let Venus go and chuck her dainty page,
    • And kiss his mouth, and toss his curly hair,
    • With net and spear and hunting equipage
    • Let young Adonis to his tryst repair,
    • But me her fond and subtle-fashioned spell
    • Delights no more, though I could win her
    • dearest citadel.
    • Ay, though I were that laughing shepherd boy
    • Who from Mount Ida saw the little cloud
    • Pass over Tenedos and lofty Troy
    • And knew the coming of the Queen, and bowed
    • In wonder at her feet, not for the sake
    • Of a new Helen would I bid her hand the apple take.
    • Then rise supreme Athena argent-limbed!
    • And, if my lips be musicless, inspire
    • At least my life: was not thy glory hymned
    • By one who gave to thee his sword and lyre
    • Like Aeschylus at well-fought Marathon,
    • And died to show that Milton’s England still
    • could bear a son!
    • And yet I cannot tread the portico
    • And live without desire, fear and pain,
    • Or nurture that wise calm which long ago
    • The grave Athenian master taught to men,
    • Self-poised, self-centered, and self-comforted,
    • To watch the world’s vain phantasies go by with
    • unbowed head.
    • Alas! that serene brow, those eloquent lips,
    • Those eyes that mirrored all eternity,
    • Rest in their own Colonos, an eclipse
    • Hath come on Wisdom, and Mnemosyne
    • Is childless; in the night which she had made
    • For lofty secure flight Athena’s owl itself
    • hath strayed.
    • Nor much with Science do I care to climb,
    • Although by strange and subtle witchery
    • She draw the moon from heaven: the Muse of Time
    • Unrolls her gorgeous-colored tapestry
    • To no less eager eyes; often indeed
    • In the great epic of Polymnia’s scroll I love
    • to read
    • How Asia sent her myriad hosts to war
    • Against a little town, and panoplied
    • In gilded mail with jewelled scimetar,
    • White-shielded, purple-crested, rode the Mede
    • Between the waving poplars and the sea
    • Which men call Artemisium, till he saw Thermopylae
    • Its steep ravine spanned by a narrow wall,
    • And on the nearer side a little brood
    • Of careless lions holding festival!
    • And stood amazed at such hardihood,
    • And pitched his tent upon the reedy shore,
    • And stayed two days to wonder, and then crept
    • at midnight o’er
    • Some unfrequented height, and coming down
    • The autumn forests treacherously slew
    • What Sparta held most dear and was the crown
    • Of far Eurotas, and passed on, nor knew
    • How God had staked an evil net for him
    • In the small bay of Salamis,- and yet,
    • the page grows dim.
    • Its cadenced Greek delights me not, I feel
    • With such a goodly time too out of tune
    • To love it much: for like the Dial’s wheel
    • That from its blinded darkness strikes the noon
    • Yet never sees the sun, so do my eyes
    • Restlessly follow that which from my cheated
    • vision flies.
    • O for one grand unselfish simple life
    • To teach us what is Wisdom! speak ye hills
    • Of lone Helvellyn, for this note of strife
    • Shunned your untroubled crags and crystal rills,
    • Where is that Spirit which living blamelessly
    • Yet dared to kiss the smitten mouth of his own century!
    • Speak ye Ridalian laurels! where is He
    • Whose gentle head ye sheltered, that pure soul
    • Whose gracious days of uncrowned majesty
    • Through lowliest conduct touched the lofty goal
    • Where Love and Duty mingle! Him at least
    • The most high Laws were glad of, he had sat at
    • Wisdom’s feast,
    • But we are Learning’s changelings, known by rote
    • The clarion watchword of each Grecian school
    • And follow none, the flawless sword which smote
    • The pagan Hydra is an effete tool
    • Which we ourselves have blunted, what man now
    • Shall scale the august ancient heights and to
    • old Reverence bow?
    • One such indeed I saw, but, Ichabod!
    • Gone is that last dear son of Italy,
    • Who being man died for the sake of God,
    • And whose unrisen bones sleep peacefully.
    • O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower,
    • Thou marble lily of the lily town! let not the lower
    • Of the rude tempest vex his slumber, or
    • The Arno with its tawny troubled gold
    • O’erleap its marge, no mightier conqueror
    • Clomb the high Capitol in the days of old
    • When Rome was indeed Rome, for Liberty
    • Walked like a Bride beside him, at which
    • sight pale Mystery
    • Fled shrieking to her furthest somberest cell
    • With an old man who grabbled rusty keys,
    • Fled shuddering for that immemorial knell
    • With which oblivion buries dynasties
    • Swept like a wounded eagle on the blast,
    • As to the holy heart of Rome the great triumvir passed.
    • He knew the holiest heart and heights of Rome,
    • He drave the base wolf from the lion’s lair,
    • And now lies dead by that empyreal dome
    • Which overtops Valdarno hung in air
    • By Brunelleschi- O Melpomene
    • Breathe through thy melancholy pipe thy
    • sweetest threnody!
    • Breathe through the tragic stops such melodies
    • That Joy’s self may grow jealous, and the Nine
    • Forget a-while their discreet emperies,
    • Mourning for him who on Rome’s lordliest shrine
    • Lit for men’s lives the light of Marathon,
    • And bare to sun-forgotten fields the fire of the sun!
    • O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower,
    • Let some young Florentine each eventide
    • Bring coronals of that enchanted flower
    • Which the dim woods of Vallombrosa hide,
    • And deck the marble tomb wherein he lies
    • Whose soul is as some mighty orb unseen of
    • mortal eyes.
    • Some mighty orb whose cycled wanderings,
    • Being tempest-driven to the furthest rim
    • Where Chaos meets Creation and the wings
    • Of the eternal chanting Cherubim
    • Are pavilioned on Nothing, passed away
    • Into a moonless void- and yet, though he is
    • dust and clay,
    • He is not dead, the immemorial Fates
    • Forbid it, and the closing shears refrain,
    • Lift up your heads ye everlasting gates!
    • Ye argent clarions sound a loftier strain!
    • For the vile thing he hated lurks within
    • Its sombre house, alone with God and memories of sin.
    • Still what avails it that she sought her cave
    • That murderous mother of red harlotries?
    • At Munich on the marble architrave
    • The Grecian boys die smiling, but the seas
    • Which wash Aegina fret in loneliness
    • Not mirroring their beauty, so our lives grow
    • colourless
    • For lack of our ideals, if one star
    • Flame torch-like in the heavens the unjust
    • Swift daylight kills it, and no trump of war
    • Can wake to passionate voice the silent dust
    • Which was Mazzini once! rich Niobe
    • For all her stony sorrows hath her sons, but Italy!
    • What Easter Day shall make her children rise,
    • Who were not Gods yet suffered, what sure feet
    • Shall find their graveclothes folded? what clear eyes
    • Shall see them bodily? O it were meet
    • To roll the stone from off the sepulchre
    • And kiss the bleeding roses of their wounds,
    • in love of Her
    • Our Italy! our mother visible!
    • Most blessed among nations and most sad,
    • For whose dear sake the young Calabrian fell
    • That day at Aspromonte and was glad
    • That in an age when God was bought and sold
    • One man could die for Liberty! but we, burnt
    • out and cold,
    • See Honour smitten on the cheek and gyves
    • Bind the sweet feet of Mercy: Poverty
    • Creeps through our sunless lanes and with sharp knives
    • Cuts the warm throats of children stealthily,
    • And no word said:- O we are wretched men
    • Unworthy of our great inheritance! where is the pen
    • Of austere Milton? where the mighty sword
    • Which slew its master righteously? the years
    • Have lost their ancient leader, and no word
    • Breaks from the voiceless tripod on our ears;
    • While as a ruined mother in some spasm
    • Bears a base child and loathes it, so our best
    • enthusiasm
    • Genders unlawful children, Anarchy
    • Freedom’s own Judas, the vile prodigal
    • License who steals the gold of Liberty
    • And yet nothing, Ignorance the real
    • One Fratricide since Cain, Envy the asp
    • That stings itself to anguish, Avarice whose
    • palsied grasp
    • Is in its extent stiffened, moneyed Greed
    • For whose dull appetite men waste away
    • Amid the whirr of wheels and are the seed
    • Of things which slay their sower, these each day
    • Sees rife in England, and the gentle feet
    • Of Beauty tread no more the stones of each unlovely
    • street.
    • What even Cromwell spared is desecrated
    • By weed and worm, left to the stormy play
    • Of wind and beating snow, or renovated
    • By more destructful hands: Time’s worst decay
    • Will wreathe its ruins with some loveliness,
    • But these new Vandals can but make a rainproof
    • barrenness.
    • Where is that Art which bade the Angels sing
    • Through Lincoln’s lofty choir, till the air
    • Seems from such marble harmonies to ring
    • With sweeter song than common lips can dare
    • To draw from actual reed? ah! where is now
    • The cunning hand which made the flowering
    • hawthorn branches bow
    • For Southwell’s arch, and carved the House of One
    • Who loved the lilies of the field with all
    • Our dearest English flowers? the same sun
    • Rises for us: the season’s natural
    • Weave the same tapestry of green and gray:
    • The unchanged hills are with us: but that
    • Spirit hath passed away.
    • And yet perchance it may be better so,
    • For Tyranny is an incestuous Queen,
    • Murder her brother is her bedfellow,
    • And the Plague chambers with her: in obscene
    • And bloody paths her treacherous feet are set;
    • Better the empty desert and a soul inviolate!
    • For gentle brotherhood, the harmony
    • Of living in the healthful air, the swift
    • Clean beauty of strong limbs when men are free
    • And women chaste, these are the things which lift
    • Our souls up more than even Agnolo’s
    • Gaunt blinded Sibyl poring o’er the scroll of human woes,
    • Or Titian’s little maiden on the stair
    • White as her own sweet lily and as tall,
    • Or Mona Lisa smiling through her hair,-
    • Ah! somehow life is bigger after all
    • Than any painted angel could we see
    • The God that is within us! The old Greek serenity
    • Which curbs the passion of that level line
    • Of marble youths, who with untroubled eyes
    • And chastened limbs ride round Athena’s shrine
    • And mirror her divine economies,
    • And balanced symmetry of what in man
    • Would else wage ceaseless warfare,- this at least
    • within the span
    • Between our mother’s kisses and the grave
    • Might so inform our lives, that we could win
    • Such mighty empires that from her cave
    • Temptation would grow hoarse, and pallid Sin
    • Would walk ashamed of his adulteries,
    • And Passion creep from out the House of Lust
    • with startled eyes.
    • To make the Body and the Spirit one
    • With all right things, till no thing live in vain
    • From morn to noon, but in sweet unison
    • With every pulse of flesh and throb of pain
    • The Soul in flawless essence high enthroned,
    • Against all outer vain attack invincibly bastioned,
    • Mark with serene impartiality
    • The strife of things, and yet be comforted,
    • Knowing that by the chain causality
    • All separate existences are wed
    • Into one supreme whole, whose utterance
    • Is joy, or holier praise! ah! surely this
    • were governance
    • Of life in most august omnipresence,
    • Through which the rational intellect would find
    • In passion its expression, and mere sense
    • Ignoble else, lend fire to the mind,
    • And being joined with it in harmony
    • More mystical than that which binds the stars planetary
    • Strike from their several tones one octave chord
    • Whose cadence being measureless would fly
    • Through all the circling spheres, then to its Lord
    • Return refreshed with its new empery
    • And more exultant power,- this indeed
    • Could we but reach it were to find the last,
    • the perfect creed.
    • Ah! it was easy when the world was young
    • To keep one’s life free and inviolate,
    • From our sad lips another song is rung,
    • By our own hands our heads are desecrate,
    • Wanderers in drear exile and dispossessed
    • Of what should be our own, we can but feed
    • on wild unrest.
    • Somehow the grace, the bloom of things has flown,
    • And of all men we are most wretched who
    • Must live each other’s lives and not our own
    • For very pity’s sake and then undo
    • All that we live for- it was otherwise
    • When soul and body seemed to blend in mystic
    • symphonies.
    • But we have left those gentle haunts to pass
    • With weary feet to the new Calvary,
    • Where we behold, as one who in a glass
    • Sees his own face, self-slain Humanity,
    • And in the dumb reproach of that sad gaze
    • Learn what an awful phantom the red hand of
    • man can raise.
    • O smitten mouth! O forehead crowned with thorn!
    • O chalice of all common miseries!
    • Thou for our sakes that loved thee not hast borne
    • An agony of endless centuries,
    • And we were vain and ignorant nor knew
    • That when we stabbed thy heart it was our own real
    • hearts we slew.
    • Being ourselves the sowers and the seeds,
    • The night that covers and the lights that fade,
    • The spear that pierces and the side that bleeds,
    • The lips betraying and the life betrayed;
    • The deep hath calm: the moon hath rest: but we
    • Lords of the natural world are yet our own dread enemy.
    • Is this the end of all that primal force
    • Which, in its changes being still the same,
    • From eyeless Chaos cleft its upward course,
    • Through ravenous seas and whirling rocks and flame,
    • Till the suns met in heaven and began
    • Their cycles, and the morning stars sang, and the
    • Word was Man!
    • Nay, nay, we are but crucified, and though
    • The bloody sweat falls from our brows like rain,
    • Loosen the nails- we shall come down I know,
    • Stanch the red wounds- we shall be whole again,
    • No need have we of hyssop-laden rod,
    • That which is purely human that is Godlike that is God.