'If Paradise-door prove locked?' smiled you. I thought, as I nodded, smiling too, 'Did one, that 's away, arrive-nor late Nor soon should unlock Hell's gate !'" It ceased to lighten and thunder. Then laughed "Confess you believed us, Dear!" "I saw through the joke!" the man replied. They re-seated themselves beside. 1883. NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE NEVER the time and the place And the loved one all together! This path-how soft to pace! This May-what magic weather! Where is the loved one's face? In a dream that loved one's face meets mine, But the house is narrow, the place is bleak Where, outside, rain and wind combine With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak, With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek, With a malice that marks each word, each sign! O enemy sly and serpentine, Uncoil thee from the waking man! Yet doubt if the Future hold I can? Or narrow if needs the house must be, Outside are the storms and strangers: we Oh, close, safe, warm, sleep I and she, I and she. 1883. SONGS FROM FERISHTAH'S FANCIES ROUND us the wild creatures, overhead the trees, Underfoot the moss-tracks,-life and love with these! I to wear a fawn-skin, thou to dress in flowers: All the long lone summer-day, that greenwood life of ours! Rich-pavilioned, rather,―still the world without, Inside-gold-roofed silk-walled silence round about! Queen it thou on purple,-I, at watch and ward, Couched beneath the columns, gaze, thy slave, love's guard! So, for us no world? Let throngs press thee to me! Up and down amid men, heart by heart fare we! Welcome squalid vesture, harsh voice, hateful face! God is soul, souls I and thou: with souls should souls have place. Love-making,-how simple a matter! No depths to explore, No heights in a life to ascend! No disheartening Before, No affrighting Hereafter,-love now will be love evermore. So I felt "To keep silence were folly." -all language above, I made love. Ask not one least word of praise! Words declare your eyes are bright? What then meant that summer day's Silence spent in one long gaze? Was my silence wrong or right? Words of praise were all to seek! "Why from the world," Ferishtah smiled, "should thanks Go to this work of mine? If worthy praise, Praised let it be and welcome: as verse ranks, So rate my verse: if good therein outweighs Aught faulty judged, judge justly! Justice says: Be just to fact, or blaming or approving : But-generous? No, nor loving! "Loving! what claim to love has work of mine? Concede my life were emptied of its gains To furnish forth and fill work's strict confine, Who works so for the world's sakehe complains With cause when hate, not love, rewards his pains. I looked beyond the world for truth and beauty: Sought, found, and did my duty." 1884. WHY I AM A LIBERAL "WHY?" Because all I haply can and do, All that I am now, all I hope to be,Whence comes it save from fortune setting free Body and soul the purpose to pursue, God traced for both? If fetters not a few, Of prejudice, convention, fall from me, These shall I bid men-each in his degree Also God-guided-bear, and gayly, too? But little do or can the best of us: His fellow shall continue bound? Not I, Who live, love, labor freely, nor discuss A brother's right to freedom. That is "Why." 1885. "What do you read about?" The siege of Troy." "What is a siege, and what is Troy? Whereat He piled up chairs and tables for a town, Set me a top for Priam, called our cat --Helen, enticed away from home (he said) By wicked Paris, who couched somewhere close Under the footstool, being cowardly, But whom-since she was worth the pains, poor pussTowzer and Tray,-our dogs, the Atreidai,-sought By taking Troy to get possession of -Always when great Achilles ceased to sulk, (My pony in the stable)-forth would prance And put to flight Hector-our page-boy's self. This taught me who was who and what was what: So far I rightly understood the case At five years old; a huge delight it proved And still proves-thanks to that instructor sage My Father, who knew better than turn straight Learning's full flare on weak-eyed igno rance, Or, worse yet, leave weak eyes to grow sand-blind, Content with darkness and vacuity. It happened, two or three years afterward, That-I and playmates playing at Troy's Siege My Father came upon our make-believe. How would you like to read yourself the tale Properly told, of which I gave you first Merely such notion as a boy could bear? Pope, now, would give you the precise account Of what, some day, by dint of scholarship. You'll hear who knows? - from Homer's very mouth. Learn Greek by all means, read the Blind Old Man, Sweetest of Singers -tuphlos which means 'blind,' Hedistos which means 'sweetest'. Time enough! Try, anyhow, to master him some day; Until when, take what serves for substitute, Read Pope, by all means!" So I ran through Pope, Enjoyed the tale-what history so true? Also attacked my Primer, duly drudged, Grew fitter thus for what was promised next The very thing itself, the actual words, When I could turn-say, Buttmann to account. Time passed, I ripened somewhat one fine day, Quite ready for the Iliad, nothing less? There's Heine, where the big books block the shelf: Don't skip a word, thumb well the Lexicon !" I thumbed well and skipped nowise till I learned Who was who, what was what, from Homer's tongue, And there an end of learning. Had you asked The all-accomplished scholar, twelve years old, "Who was it wrote the Iliad?"-what a laugh! "Why, Homer, all the world knows of his life Doubtless some facts exist: it's everywhere: We have not settled, though, his place of birth: He begged, for certain, and was blind beside: Seven cities claimed him-Scio, with best right, Thinks Byron. What he wrote? Those Hymns we have. Then there's the Battle of the Frogs and Mice,' And only by such slow and sure degrees Permitting me to sift the grain from chaff, Get truth and falsehood known and named as such. Why did he ever let me dream at all, Not bid me taste the story in its strength? Suppose my childhood was scarce qualified To rightly understand mythology, Silence at least was in his power to keep: I might have-somehow-correspondingly Well, who knows by what method, gained my gains, Been taught, by forthrights not meanderings, My aim should be to loathe, like Peleus son, A lie as Hell's Gate, love my wedded wife, Like Hector, and so on with all the rest. Could not I have excogitated this Without believing such men really were? That is--he might have put into my hand The "Ethics"? In translation, if you please, Exact, no pretty lying that improves. |