The day when he, Pride's lord and Man's,
Showed all the kingdoms at a glance
To Him before whose countenance
The years recede, the years advance,
And said, Fall down and worship me :-
'Mid all the pomp beneath that look,
Then stirred there, haply, some rebuke,
Where to the wind the Salt Pools shook,
And in those tracts, of life forsook,
That knew thee not, O Nineveh !
Delicate harlot! On thy throne
Thou with a world beneath thee prone
In state for ages sat'st alone;
And needs were years and lustres flown
Ere strength of man could vanquish thee: Whom even thy victor foes must bring,
Still royal, among maids that sing
As with doves' voices, taboring
Upon their breasts, unto the King,
A kingly conquest, Nineveh !
Here woke my thought. The wind's slow sway
Had waxed; and like the human play
Of scorn that smiling spreads away,
The sunshine shivered off the day:
The callous wind, it seemed to me,
Swept up the shadow from the ground:
And pale as whom the Fates astound,
The god forlorn stood winged and crown'd:
Within I knew the cry lay bound
Of the dumb soul of Nineveh.
And as I turned, my sense half shut
Still saw the crowds of kerb and rut
Go past as marshalled to the strut
Of ranks in gypsum quaintly cut.
It seemed in one same pageantry
They followed forms which had been erst
To pass, till on my sight should burst
That future of the best or worst
When some may question which was first,
Of London or of Nineveh.
For as that Bull-god once did stand
And watched the burial-clouds of sand,
Till these at last without a hand
Rose o'er his eyes, another land,
And blinded him with destiny
So may he stand again; till now,
In ships of unknown sail and prow,
Some tribe of the Australian plough
Bear him afar,-a relic now
Of London, not of Nineveh!
Or it may chance indeed that when
Man's age is hoary among men,-
His centuries threescore and ten,—
His furthest childhood shall seem then
More clear than later times may be:
Who, finding in this desert place
This form, shall hold us for some race
That walked not in Christ's lowly ways,
But bowed its pride and vowed its praise
Unto the God of Nineveh.
The smile rose first,-anon drew nigh
The thought.. Those heavy wings spread high, So sure of flight, which do not fly;
That set gaze never on the sky;
Those scriptured flanks it cannot see;
Its crown, a brow-contracting load;
Its planted feet which trust the sod:
(So grew the image as I trod :)
Ò Nineveh, was this thy God,-
Thine also, mighty Nineveh ?
SISTER, first shake we off the dust we have
Upon our feet, lest it defile the stones
Inscriptured, covering their sacred bones.
Who lie i' the aisles which keep the names they gave,
Their trust abiding round them in the grave;
Whom painters paint for visible orisons,
And to whom sculptors pray in stone and bronze; Their voices echo still like a spent wave.
Without here, the church-bells are but a tune,
And on the carven church-door this hot noon
Lays all its heavy sunshine here without:
But having entered in, we shall find there
Silence, and sudden dimness, and deep prayer,
And faces of crowned angels all about.
SHE knew it not :-most perfect pain
To learn this too she knew not.
For me, calm hers, as from the first.
'Twas but another bubble burst
Upon the curdling draught of life,—
My silent patience mine again.
As who, of forms that crowd unknown
Within a distant mirror's shade,
Deems such an one himself, and makes
Some sign; but when the image shakes
No whit, he finds his thought betray'd,
And must seek elsewhere for his own.
A YOUNG FIR-WOOD.
THESE little firs to-day are things
To clasp into a giant's cap,
Or fans to suit his lady's lap.
From many winters many springs
Shall cherish them in strength and sap
Till they be marked upon the map,
A wood for the wind's wanderings.
All seed is in the sower's hands:
And what at first was trained to spread Its shelter for some single head,— Yea, even such fellowship of wands,— May hide the sunset, and the shade Of its great multitude be laid Upon the earth and elder sands.
O COOL unto the sense of pain
That last night's sleep could not destroy;
O warm unto the sense of joy,
That dreams its life within the brain.
What though I lean o'er thee to scan
The written music cramped and stiff;— 'Tis dark to me, as hieroglyph
On those weird bulks Egyptian.
But as from those, dumb now and strange, A glory wanders on the earth,
Even so thy tones can call a birth
From these, to shake my soul with change.
O swift, as in melodious haste
Float o'er the keys thy fingers small;
O soft, as is the rise and fall
Which stirs that shade within thy breast.
"O HAVE you seen the Stratton flood
That's great with rain to-day?
It runs beneath your wall, Lord Sands,
Full of the new-mown hay.
"I led your hounds to Hutton bank
To bathe at early morn:
They got their bath by Borrowbrake
Above the standing corn."
Out from the castle-stair Lord Sands
Looked up the western lea;
The rook was grieving on her nest,
The flood was round her tree.
Over the castle-wall Lord Sands
Looked down the eastern hill :
The stakes swam free among the boats,
The flood was rising still.
"What's yonder far below that lies
So white against the slope?"
"O it's a sail o' your bonny barks
The waters have washed up."
"But I have never a sail so white, And the water's not yet there." "O it's the swans o' your bonny lake The rising flood doth scare."
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