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individual. He is neither singer nor prophet; but he is a poet in virtue of the depth and sincerity with which he felt certain great emotions, and the absolute veracity with which he expressed them. 'His mind seems habitually to have been swayed by large, slow, deep-sea currents,' says one of the best of his critics1—currents partly general in their operation on his time, partly special to himself; and his utterances when so swayed are intensely real. But he never was driven by them into a want of sympathy with other natures; and it was this extraordinary union of sincerity and sympathy, of depth and breadth, that so endeared him to his friends, and that make it difficult even now for the critic of his poetry not to be moved by the 'personal estimate.' We find in his poems all sorts of drawbacks; we find a prevailing indecision that injures their moral effect in most cases; we find fragmentariness, inequality, looseness of construction, occasional difficulty of rhythm. Yet what of this? one is tempted to ask. In the presence of that sincerity, that delight in all that is best in the physical and moral world, that humour at once bold and delicate, that moral ardour, often baffled, never extinguished, we feel that the deductions of criticism are unwelcome: we are more than content to take Thyrsis as we find him, though

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the music of his rustic flute

Kept not for long its happy country tone;

Lost it too soon, and learnt a stormy note

Of men contention-tost, of men who groan,

Which tasked his pipe too sore, and tired his throat.'

1 Westminster Review. October 1869

EDITOR.

QUA CURSUM VENTUS.

As ships, becalmed at eve, that lay
With canvas drooping, side by side,
Two towers of sail at dawn of day

Are scarce long leagues apart descried;
When fell the night, upsprung the breeze,
And all the darkling hours they plied,
Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas
By each was cleaving, side by side:
E'en so-but why the tale reveal

Of those, whom year by year unchanged,
Brief absence joined anew to feel,

Astounded, soul from soul estranged?
At dead of night their sails were filled,
And onward each rejoicing steered-
Ah, neither blame, for neither willed,

Or wist, what first with dawn appeared!
To veer, how vain! On, onward strain,
Brave barks! In light, in darkness too,
Through winds and tides one compass guides-
To that, and your own selves, be true.
But O blithe breeze! and O great seas,
Though ne'er, that earliest parting past,
On your wide plain they join again,
Together lead them home at last.
One port, methought, alike they sought,
One purpose hold where'er they fare,-
O bounding breeze, O-rushing seas!
At last, at last, unite them there!

QUI LABORAT, ORAT.

O only Source of all our light and life,

Whom as our truth, our strength, we see and feel, But whom the hours of mortal moral strife

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Mine inmost soul, before Thee inly brought,
Thy presence owns ineffable, divine;
Chastised each rebel self-encentered thought,
My will adoreth Thine.

With eye down-dropt, if then this earthly mind
Speechless remain, or speechless e'en depart ;
Nor seek to see for what of earthly kind
Can see Thee as Thou art?-

If well-assured 'tis but profanely bold

In thought's abstractest forms to seem to see,
It dare not dare the dread communion hold
In ways unworthy Thee,

O not unowned, thou shalt unnamed forgive,
In worldly walks the prayerless heart prepare ;
And if in work its life it seem to live,

Shalt make that work be prayer.

Nor times shall lack, when while the work it plies,
Unsummoned powers the blinding film shall part,
And scarce by happy tears made dim, the eyes
In recognition start.

But, as thou willest, give or e'en forbear
The beatific supersensual sight,

So, with Thy blessing blest, that humbler prayer
Approach Thee morn and night.

THE HIDDEN LOVE.

O let me love my love unto myself alone,

And know my knowledge to the world unknown;
No witness to my vision call,

Beholding, unbeheld of all;

And worship Thee, with Thee withdrawn apart,
Whoe'er, Whate'er Thou art,

Within the closest veil of mine most inmost heart.

What is it then to me

If others are inquisitive to see?

Why should I quit my place to go and ask

If other men are working at their task?

Leave my own buried roots to go

And see that brother plants shall grow;

And turn away from Thee, O Thou most Holy Light, To look if other orbs their orbits keep aright,

Around their proper sun,

Deserting Thee, and being undone.

O let me love my love unto myself alone,

And know my knowledge to the world unknown;
And worship Thee, O hid One, O much sought,

As but man can or ought,

Within the abstracted'st shrine of my least breathed-on thought.

Better it were, thou sayest, to consent;

Feast while we may, and live ere life be spent ;

Close up clear eyes, and call the unstable sure,
The unlovely lovely, and the filthy pure;

In self-belyings, self-deceivings roll,

And lose in Action, Passion, Talk, the soul.

Nay, better far to mark off thus much air,

And call it Heaven: place bliss and glory there:
Fix perfect homes in the unsubstantial sky,

And say, what is not, will be by-and-by.

'WITH WHOM IS NO VARIABLENESS, NEITHER SHADOW OF TURNING.'

It fortifies my soul to know

That, though I perish, Truth is so:
That, howsoe'er I stray and range,
Whate'er I do, Thou dost not change.

I steadier step when I recall

That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall.

'PERCHÈ PENSA? PENSANDO S'INVECCHIA.'

To spend uncounted years of pain,
Again, again, and yet again,

In working out in heart and brain

The problem of our being here;
To gather facts from far and near,
Upon the mind to hold them clear,
And, knowing more may yet appear,
Unto one's latest breath to fear
The premature result to draw-
Is this the object, end and law,

And purpose of our being here?

THE SHADOW1.

I dreamed a dream: I dreamt that I espied,
Upon a stone that was not rolled aside,

A Shadow sit upon a grave—a Shade,

As thin, as unsubstantial, as of old

Came, the Greek poet told,

To lick the life-blood in the trench Ulysses made-
As pale, as thin, and said:

'I am the Resurrection of the Dead.

The night is past, the morning is at hand,

And I must in my proper semblance stand,

Appear brief space and vanish,-listen, this is true,

I am that Jesus whom they slew.'

And shadows dim, I dreamed, the dead apostles came, And bent their heads for sorrow and for shame

Sorrow for their great loss, and shame

For what they did in that vain name.

And in long ranges far behind there seemed

Pale vapoury angel forms; or was it cloud? that kept Strange watch; the women also stood beside and wept. 1 The MS. of this poem is incomplete.

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