{London Poems 1866-70}

‘TIGER BAY:

A STORMY NIGHT’S DREAM.

I.

THE TIGRESS.

A DREAM I had in the dead of night:
     Darkness—the Jungle—a black Man sleeping—
     Head on his arm, with the moon-dew creeping
Over his face in a silvern light:
The Moon was driving, the Wind was crying;
     Two great lights gleam’d, round, horrid, and red,
     Two great eyes, steadfast beside the bed
Where the man was lying.
               Hark! hark!
          What wild things cry in the dark?
          Only the Wind as it raves,
          Only the Beasts in their caves,
          Where the Jungle waves.

The man slept on, and his face was bright,
     Tender and strange, for the man was dreaming—
     Coldly the light on his limbs was gleaming,
On his jet-black limbs and their folds of white;—
Leprous-spotted, and gaunt, and hated,
     With teeth protruding and hideous head,
     Her two eyes burning so still, so red,
The Tigress waited.
               Hark! hark!
          The wild things cry in the dark;
          The Wind whistles and raves,
          The Beasts groan in their caves,
          And the Jungle waves.

From cloud to cloud the cold Moon crept,
     The silver light kept coming and going—
     The Jungle under was bleakly blowing.
The Tigress watch’d, and the black Man slept.
The Wind was wailing, the Moon was gleaming:
     He stirr’d and shiver’d, then raised his head;—
     Like a thunderbolt the Tigress sped,
And the Man fell screaming—
               Hark! hark!
          The wild things cry in the dark;
          The wild Wind whistles and raves,
          The Beasts groan in their caves,
          And the Jungle waves.

 

II.

RATCLIFFE MEG.

Then methought I saw another sight:
     Darkness—a Garret—a rushlight dying—
     On the broken-down bed a Sailor lying,
Sleeping fast, in the feeble light;—
The Wind is wailing, the Rain is weeping,
     She croucheth there in the chamber dim,
     She croucheth there with her eyes on him
As he lieth sleeping—
               Hark! hark!
          Who cries outside in the dark?
          Only the Wind on its way,
          Only the wild gusts astray,
          In Tiger Bay.

Still as a child the Sailor lies:—
     She waits—she watches—is she human?
     Is she a Tigress? is she a Woman?
Look at the gleam of her deep-set eyes!
Bloated and stain’d in every feature,
     With iron jaws, throat knotted and bare,
     Eyes deep sunken, jet black hair,
Crouches the creature.
               Hark! hark!
          Who cries outside in the dark?
          Only the Wind on its way,
          Only the wild gusts astray,
          In Tiger Bay.

Hold her! scream! or the man is dead;
     A knife in her tight-clench’d hand is gleaming;
     She will kill the man as he lieth dreaming!
Her eyes are fixed, her throat swells red.
The Wind is wailing, the Rain is weeping;
     She is crawling closer—O Angels that love him!
     She holds her breath and bends above him,
While he stirreth sleeping.
               Hark! hark!
          Who cries outside in the dark?
          Only the Wind on its way,
          Only the wild gusts astray
          In Tiger Bay.

A silken purse doth the sleeper clutch,
     And the gold peeps through with a fatal glimmer!
     She creepeth near—the light grows dimmer—
Her thick throat swells and she thirsts to touch.
She looks—she pants with a feverish hunger—
     She dashes the black hair out of her eyes—
     She glares at his face . . . he smiles and sighs—
And the face looks younger.
               Hark! hark!
          Who cries outside in the dark?
          Only the Wind on its way,
          Only the wild gusts astray
          In Tiger Bay.

She gazeth on,—he doth not stir—
     Her fierce eyes close, her brute lip quivers;
     She longs to strike, but she shrinks and shivers:
The light on his face appalleth her.
The Wind is wailing, the Rain is weeping:
     Something holds her—her wild eyes roll;
     His Soul shines out, and she fears his Soul,
Tho’ he lieth sleeping.
               Hark! hark!
          Who cries outside in the dark?
          Only the Wind on its way,
          Only the wild gusts astray
          In Tiger Bay.

 

III.

INTERCESSION.

I saw no more, but I woke,—and prayed:
     ‘God! that made the Beast and the Woman!
     God of the Tigress! God of the human!
Look to these things whom Thou hast made!
Fierce and bloody and famine-stricken,
     Knitted with iron vein and thew—
     Strong and bloody, behold the two!—
We see them and sicken.
               Mark! mark!
          These outcasts fierce of the dark;
          Where murmur the Wind and the Rain,
          Where the Jungle darkens the plain,
          And in street and lane.’

God answer’d clear, ‘My will be done!
     Woman-tigress and tigress-woman—
     I made them both, the beast and the human,
But I struck a spark in the brain of the one.
And the spark is a fire, and the fire is a spirit;
     Tho’ ye may slay it, it cannot die—
     Nay, it shall grow as the days go by,
For my Angels are near it—
               Mark! mark!
          Doth it not burn in the dark?
          Spite of the curse and the stain,
          Where the Jungle darkens the plain,
          And in street and lane.’

God said, moreover: ‘The spark shall grow—
     ’Tis blest, it gathers, its flame shall lighten,
     Bless it and nurse it—let it brighten!
’Tis scatter’d abroad, ’tis a Seed I sow.
And the Seed is a Soul, and the Soul is the Human;
     And it lighteth the face with a sign and a flame.
     Not unto beasts have I given the same,
But to man and to woman.
               Mark! mark!
          The light shall scatter the dark:
          Where murmur the Wind and the Rain,
          Where the Jungle darkens the plain,
          And in street and lane.’

. . . So faint, so dim, so sad to seeing,
     Behold it burning! Only a spark!
     So faint as yet, and so dim to mark,
In the tigress-eyes of the human being.
Fan it, feed it, in love and duty,
     Track it, watch it in every place—
     Till it burns the bestial frame and face
To its own dim beauty.
               Mark! mark!
          A spark that grows in the dark;
          A spark that burns in the brain;
          Spite of the Wind and the Rain,
          Spite of the Curse and the Stain;
          Over the Sea and the Plain,
          And in street and lane.

 

 

THE CITY ASLEEP.

STILL as the Sea serene and deep,
     When all the winds are laid,
The City sleeps—so still, its sleep
     Maketh the soul afraid.

Over the living waters, see!
     The Seraphs shining go,—
The Moon is gliding hushfully
     Through stars like flakes of snow.

In pearl-white silver here and there
     The fallen moon-rays stream:
Hark! a dull stir is in the air,
     Like the stir of one in dream.

Through all the thrilling waters creep
     Deep throbs of strange unrest,
Like washings of the windless Deep
     When it is peacefullest.

A little while—God’s breath will go,
     And hush the flood no more;
The dawn will break—the wind will blow,
     The Ocean rise and roar.

Each day with sounds of strife and death
     The waters rise and call;
Each midnight, conquer’d by God’s breath,
     To this dead calm they fall.

Out of His heart the fountains flow,
     The brook, the running river,
He marks them strangely come and go,
     For ever and for ever.

Till darker, deeper, one by one,
     After a weary quest,
They, from the light of moon and sun,
     Flow back, into His breast.

Love, hold my hand! be of good cheer!
     For His would be the cost,
If, out of all the waters here,
     One little drop were lost.

Heaven’s eyes above the waters dumb
     Innumerably yearn;
Out of His heart each drop hath come,
     And thither must return.

 

 

UP IN AN ATTIC.

‘Do you dream yet, on your old rickety sofa,
 in the dear old ghastly bankrupt garret at No.
66’—Gray to Buchanan (see The Life of David
Gray).

 

HALF of a gold-ring bright,
     Broken in days of old,
One yellow curl, whose light
     Gladden’d my gaze of old;
A sprig of thyme thereto,
Pluckt on the mountains blue,
When in the gloaming-dew
     We roamed erratic;
Last, an old Book of Song,—
These have I treasured long,
     Up in an Attic.

Held in one little hand,
     They gleam in vain to me:
Of Love, Fame, Fatherland,
     All that remain to me!
Love, with thy wounded wing,
Up the skies lessening,
Sighing, too sad to sing!
     Fame, dead to pity!
Land,—that denied me bread!
Count me as lost and dead,
     Tomb’d, in the City.

Daily the busy roar,
     Murmur and motion here;
Surging against its shore,
     Sighs a great Ocean here!
But night by night it flows
Slowly to strange repose,
Calm and more calm it grows
     Under the moonshine:
Then, only then, I peer
On each old souvenir
     Shut from the sunshine.

Half of a ring of gold,
     Tarnish’d and yellow now,
Broken in days of old,
     Where is thy fellow now?
Upon the heart of her?
Feeling the sweet blood stir,
Still (though the mind demur)
     Kept as a token?
Ah! doth her heart forget?
Or, with the pain and fret
     Is that, too, broken?

Thin threads of yellow hair,
     Clipt from the brow of her,
Lying so faded there,—
     Why whisper now of her?
Strange lips are press’d unto
The brow o’er which ye grew,
Strange fingers flutter through
     The loose long tresses.
Doth she remember still,
Trembling, and turning chill
     From his caresses?

Sprig from the mountains blue
     Long left behind me now,
Of moonlight, shade, and dew,
     Wherefore remind me now?
Cruel and chill and gray,
Looming afar away,
Dark in the light of day,
     Shall the Heights daunt me?
My footsteps on the hill
Are overgrown,—yet still
     Hill-echoes haunt me!

Book of Byronic Song,
     Put with the dead away,
Wherefore wouldst thou prolong
     Dreams that have fled away?
Thou art an eyeless skull,
Dead, fleshless, cold, and null,
Complexionless, dark, dull,
     And superseded;
Yet, in thy time of pride,
How loudly hast thou lied
     To all who heeded!

Now, Fame, thou hollow Voice,
     Shriek from the heights above!
Let all who will rejoice
     In those wild lights above!
When all are false save you,
Yet were so beauteous too,
O Fame, canst thou be true,
     And shall I follow?
Nay! for the song of Man
Dies in his throat, since Pan
     Hath slain Apollo!

O Fame, thy hill looks tame,
     No vast wings flee from thence,—
Were I to climb, O Fame,
     What could I see from thence?
Only, afar away,
The mountains looming gray,
Crimson’d at close of day,
     Clouds swimming by me;
And in my hand a ring
And ringlet glimmering,—
     And no one nigh me!

Better the busy roar,
     Best the mad motion here!
Surging against its shore,
     Groans a great Ocean here.
O Love,—thou wouldst not wait!
O Land,—thou art desolate!
O Fame,—to others prate
     Of flights ecstatic!
Only, at evenfall,
Touching these tokens small,
I think about you all,
     Up in an Attic!

 

 

TO THE MOON.

THE wind is shrill on the hills, and the plover
     Wheels up and down with a windy scream;
The birch has loosen’d her bright locks over
     The nut-brown pools of the mountain stream;
Yet here I linger in London City,
     Thinking of meadows where I was born—
And over the roofs, like a face of pity,
     Up comes the Moon, with her dripping horn.

O Moon, pale Spirit, with dim eyes drinking
     The sheen of the Sun as he sweepeth by,
I am looking long in those eyes, and thinking
     Of one who hath loved thee longer than I;
I am asking my heart if ye Spirits cherish
     The souls that ye witch with a harvest call?—
If the dream must die when the dreamer perish?—
     If it be idle to dream at all?

The waves of the world roll hither and thither,
     The tumult deepens, the days go by,
The dead men vanish—we know not whither,
     The live men anguish—we know not why;
The cry of the stricken is smother’d never,
     The Shadow passes from street to street;
And—o’er us fadeth, for ever and ever,
     The still white gleam of thy constant feet.

The hard men struggle, the students ponder,
     The world rolls round on its westward way;
The gleam of the beautiful night up yonder
     Is dim on the dreamer’s cheek all day;
The old earth’s voice is a sound of weeping,
     Round her the waters wash wild and vast,
There is no calm, there is little sleeping,—
     Yet nightly, brightly, thou glimmerest past!

Another summer, new dreams departed,
     And yet we are lingering, thou and I;
I on the earth, with my hope proud-hearted,
     Thou, in the void of a violet sky!
Thou art there! I am here! and the reaping and mowing
     Of the harvest year is over and done,
And the hoary snow-drift will soon be blowing
     Under the wheels of the whirling Sun.

While tower and turret lie silver’d under,
     When eyes are closed and lips are dumb,
In the nightly pause of the human wonder,
     From dusky portals I see thee come;
And whoso wakes and beholds thee yonder,
     Is witch’d like me till his days shall cease,—
For in his eyes, wheresoever he wander,
     Flashes the vision of God’s white Peace!

 

 

SPRING SONG IN THE CITY.

WHO remains in London,
     In the streets with me,
Now that Spring is blowing
     Warm winds from the sea;
Now that trees grow green and tall,
     Now the Sun shines mellow,
And with moist primroses all
     English lanes are yellow?

Little barefoot maiden,
     Selling violets blue,
Hast thou ever pictured
     Where the sweetlings grew?—
Oh, the warm wild woodland ways,
     Deep in dewy grasses,
Where the wind-blown shadow strays,
     Scented as it passes!

Pedlar breathing deeply,
     Toiling into town,
With the dusty highway
     Thou art dusky brown,—
Hast thou seen by daisied leas,
     And by rivers flowing,
Lilac ringlets which the breeze
     Loosens lightly blowing?

Out of yonder waggon
     Pleasant hay-scents float,
He who drives it carries
     A daisy in his coat:
Oh, the English meadows, fair
     Far beyond all praises!
Freckled orchids everywhere
     Mid the snow of daisies!

Now in busy silence
     Broods the nightingale,
Choosing his love’s dwelling
     In a dimpled dale;
Round the leafy bower they raise
     Rose-trees wild are springing;
Underneath, thro’ the green haze,
     Bounds the brooklet singing.

And his love is silent
     As a bird can be,
For the red buds only
     Fill the red rose-tree,—
Just as buds and blossoms blow
     He’ll begin his tune,
When all is green and roses glow
     Underneath the Moon!

Nowhere in the valleys
     Will the wind be still,
Everything is waving,
     Wagging at his will:
Blows the milkmaid's kirtle clean,
     With her hand prest on it!
Lightly o’er the hedge so green
     Blows the ploughboy’s bonnet!

Oh, to be a-roaming
     In an English dell!
Every nook is wealthy,
     All the world looks well,
Tinted soft the Heavens glow,
     Over Earth and Ocean,
Brooks flow, breezes blow,
     All is light and motion!

 

 

IN LONDON, MARCH 1866.

TO-DAY the streets are dull and dreary,
     Heavily, slowly the Rain is falling,
I hear around me, and am weary,
     The people murmuring and calling;
The gloomy room is full of faces,
     Firelight shadows are on the floor,
And the deep Wind cometh from country places,
     And the Rain hath a voice I would hear no more.
          Ah! weary days of windy weather!
               And will the Rain cease never, never!
          A summer past we sat together,
               In that lost life that lives for ever!

Ah! sad and slow the Rain is falling,—
     And singing on seems sad without him.
Ah! wearily the Wind is calling!
     Would that mine arms were round about him!
For the world rolls on with air and ocean
     Wetly and windily round and round,
And sleeping he feeleth the sad still motion,
     And dreameth of me, though his sleep be sound!
          Ah! weary days of windy weather!
               And will the Rain cease never, never!
          A summer past we sat together,
               In that lost life that lives for ever!

I sing, because my heart is aching,
     With hollow sounds around me ringing:
Ah! nevermore shall he awaking
     Yearn to the Singer and the Singing!
Yet sleep, my father, calm and breathless,
     And if thou dreamest, dream on in joy!
While over thy grave walks Love the deathless,
     Stir in the darkness, and bless thy boy!
          Ah! weary days of windy weather!
               And will the Rain cease never, never!
          A summer past we sat together,
               In that lost life that lives for ever!

 

 

A LARK'S FLIGHT.

IN the quiet City park,
Between the dawn and the dark,
     Loud and clear,
     That all may hear,
Sings the Lark.

Beyond the low black line
     Of trees the dawn peeps red,—
Clouds blow woolly and fine
     In the ether overhead,
Out of the air is shaken
     A fresh and glistening dew,
And the City begins to awaken
     And tremble thro’ and thro’;
See! (while thro’ street and lane
The people pour again,
And lane and alley and street
Grow hoarse to a sound of feet,)
Here and there
     A human Shape comes, dark
Against the cool white air,
     Flitting across the park—
While over the dew-drench’d green,
     Singing his ‘Hark! Oh, hark!’
Hovering, hovering, dimly seen,
     Rises the Lark.

‘Mystery! Oh, mystery!’
     Clear he lilts to lightening day.
‘Mystery! Oh, mystery!
Up into the air with me,
     Come away, come away!’

Who is she that, wan and white,
Shivering in the chilly light,
Shadeth weary eyes to see
Him who makes the melody?
She is nameless, she is dull,
She has ne’er been beautiful,
She is stain’d in brain and blood,
Gross with mire, and foul with mud,—
Thing of sorrow, what knows she
Of the mighty mystery?

The Lark sings sad and low,—
     ‘The City is dull and mean—
There is woe! there is woe!
     Never a soul is clean;
The City is dark, the wrong is deep;
Too late to moan, too late to weep!
Tired, tired! sleep, sleep!’

Who is he, the stooping one,
Smiling coldly in the sun,
Arms behind him lightly thrown,
Pacing up and down alone?
’Tis the great Philosopher,
Smoothly wrapt in coat of fur,
Soothly pondering, man-wit wise,
At his morning exercise.
He has weigh’d the winds and floods,
He is rich in gather’d goods,
He is crafty, and can prove
God is Brahma, Christ, nor Jove;
He is mighty, and his soul
Flits about from pole to pole,
Chasing signs of God about,
In a pleasant kind of doubt;—
What, to help the mystery,
Sings the Lark to such as he?

The Lark cries:
     ‘Praise to Nature’s plan!
Year on year she plies
Her toil of sun and skies,
     Till the beast flowers up in Man,
Lord of effect and cause,
     Proud as a King can be;
But a Voice in the cloud cries, “Pause!”
     And he pauses, even he,
     On the verge of the Mystery.’

Oh, loud and clear, that all may hear,
     Rising higher, with ‘Hark! Oh, hark!’
Higher, higher, higher, higher,
Quivering as the dull red fire
     Of dawn grows brighter, cries the Lark:
And they who listen there while he
Singeth loud of Mystery,
Interpret him in under-tone
With a meaning of their own,
Measuring his melody
By their own soul’s quality.

Tall and stately, fair and sweet,
Walketh maiden Marguerite,
Musing there on maid and man,
In her mood patrician;
To all she sees her eyes impart
The colour of a maiden heart;
Heart’s chastity is on her face,
She scents the air with nameless grace,
And where she goes with heart astir,
Colour and motion follow her.

          What should the Singer sing
          Unto so sweet a thing,
               But, ‘Oh, my love loves me!
     And the love I love best is guarding the nest,
          While I cheer her merrily,—
     Come up high! come up high! to a cloud in the sky!
          And sing of your love with me!’

Elbows on the grassy green,
Scowling face his palms between,
Yonder gaunt Thief meditates
Treason deep against his mates;
For his great hands itch to hold
Both the pardon and the gold.
Still he listens unaware,
Scowling round with sullen stare,
Gnawing at his under-lip,
Pond’ring friends and fellowship,
Thinking of a friendly thing
Done to him in suffering,
And of happy days and free
Spent in that rough companie:
Till he seeks the bait no more,—
And the Lark is conqueror.

For the Lark says plain,
     ‘Who sells his pal is mean:
Better hang than gain
     Blood-money to save one’s skin—
A whip for the rogue who’d tell,’
     He hears the Singer say,—
‘Better the rope and the cell—
Better the devils of Hell!
     Come away! come away!’

O Lark! O Lark!
     Up, up, for it is light—
The Souls stream out of the dark,
     And the City’s spires gleam bright;
The living world is awake again,
     Each wanders on his way,
The wonderful waters break again
     In the white and perfect Day.
Nay! nay! descend not yet,
     But higher, higher, higher!
Up thro’ the air, and wet
     Thy wings in the solar fire!
There, hovering in ecstacy,
Sing, ‘Mystery! Oh, mystery!’

O Lark! O Lark! hadst thou the might
     Beyond the cloud to wing thy way,
To sing and soar in ceaseless flight,
     It might be well for men this day.
Beyond that cloud there is a zone,
     And in that zone there is a land,
And in that land, upon a throne,
A mighty Spirit sits alone,
     With musing cheek upon His hand.
And all is still and all is sweet
Around the silence of His seat,—
     Beneath, the waves of wonder flow,—
And melted on His shining feet
     The years flash down as falling snow.

O Lark! O Lark!
     Up! for thy wings are strong;
While the Day is breaking,
And the City is waking,
     Sing a song of wrong—
Sing of the weak man’s tears,
     Of the strong man’s agony;
The passion, the hopes, the fears,
The heaped-up pain of the years,
     The human mystery.
O Lark! we might rejoice,
     Could’st reach that distant land,
For we cannot hear His voice,
     And we often miss His hand!
And the lips of each are ice
     To the kiss of sister and brother;
And we see that one man’s vice
     Is the virtue of another.
Yea, each that hears thee sing
     Translates thy song to speech,
And, lo! the rendering
     Is so different with each!
The gentle are oppress’d,
The foul man fareth best;
Wherever we seek, our gain
Is full of a poisonous pain.
In one soft note and long
Gather our sense of wrong;
Rise up, O Lark! from the sod,
     Up, up, with soundless wings,—
Rise up to God! rise up, rise up, to God!
     Tell Him these things!

 

 

DE BERNY.

YOU knew him slightly. We, who knew him well,
Saw something in his soul you could not see:
A strength wherein his very vices throve,
A power that darken’d much the outer man,
Strange, yet angelically innocent.
His views were none of ours; his morals—well,
Not English morals at the best; and yet
We loved him and we miss him;—the old haunts
Seem dull without that foolish full-grown child;
The world goes on without him:—London throngs
With sport and festival; and something less
Than poor De Berny haunts us everywhere—
The buying and the selling, and the strife
Of little natures.

                            What a man was that!—
Just picture him as you perceived him, Noel,
Standing beyond his circle. Spare and tall,
Black-bearded and black-eyed; a sallow face,
With lines of idle humour round the lips;
A nose and eyebrow proudly curved; an eye
Clear as a child’s. But thirty summers old!
Yet wearied out, save only when he warm’d
His graces in the sunshine. What an air
Was his, when, cigarette in mouth, and hands
Thrust in the pockets of his pantaloons,
He took his daily walk down Regent Street,
Stared at the pretty girls, saluted friends,
And, pleased as any lady, stopp’d to study
The fashions in the windows of the shops!
Did he not walk as if he walk’d on thrones,
With smiles of vacant patronage for all?
And who could guess he had not breakfasted,
Had little chance of dining, since his purse
Held just the wherewithal to buy a loaf—
Change from the shilling spent in purchasing
The sweet post-prandial cigar!

                                                   He lived—
Ah! Heaven knew how—for ’twas a mystery!
While the sun shone, he saunter’d in the sun;
But late at night sat scribbling, by the light
Of a wax-candle. Wax? De Berny’s way;
For, mark, this wanderer let his body suffer,
Hunger’d and pinch’d, rather than bate a jot
Of certain very useless luxuries:
Smoked nought but real Havannah, ’tis averr’d,
And sat at night within his dingy lodging,
Wrapt, king-like, in a costly dressing-gown
His mother gave him; slippers on his feet;
His cat, Mignonne, the silken-hair’d Chinese,
Seated upon his shoulder, purring low;
And something royal in his look, despite
His threadbare pantaloons!

                                             A clever man!
A nature sparkling o’er with jeux d’esprit!
Well read in certain light philosophies
Down from Voltaire; and, in his easy way,
A sceptic—one whose heart belied his brain.
Oft, leaning back and puffing his cigar,
Pushing his wan white fingers through his hair—
His cat Mignonne, the velvet-paw’d Chinese,
Rubbing her soft white cheek against his beard,
And purring her approval—he would sit,
Smiling his sad, good-humour’d, weary smile,
And lightly launch his random, reckless shafts
At English thrift, the literary cant,
The flat, unearnest living of the world,
And (last and lightest) at the tender sex,
Their little virtue and their mighty vows.

     This was the man whose face went pale with pain,
When that shrill shriek from Poland fill’d his ear;
This was the man who pinch’d himself to send
A mite to Garibaldi and the Cause;
Who cried, or nearly cried, o’er Lamartine,
And loved the passionate passages of Sand;
Who would have kiss’d the ground beneath the feet
Of any shape called ‘Woman,’ plain or fair;
Gave largess royal to children in the streets;
Treated an unclean beggar seeking alms
To a clean shirt, and sent him off amazed;
And when he heard sweet voice or instrument,
Breath’d passionate breath, like one that drinks with pain
An atmosphere too heavenly rare and sweet.
Pleasure? Ah me! what pleasure garner’d he,
Who fasted oftener than ate; who pawn’d
His coat to serve a neighbour, and was cold;
Whose only little joy was promenading
On sunny summer days in Regent Street?
His talk? Why, how he talk’d, as I have said;
Incubus could not prove his neighbours worse,
Or himself blacker, or the cold world colder;
His jests so oft too broad for decent ears,
His impiousness so insolently strong,
His languid grace so callous unto all
Save the sad sunshine that it flutter’d in.
Yet, Noel, I could swear that Spirits—those
Who see beneath the eyes, and hear the breathing
The Soul makes as it stirs within the breast—
Bent not unlovingly, not angrily,
Above that weary, foolish, full-grown Child!

Weary—of what? Weary, I think, for want
Of something whose existence he denied;
Not sick of life, since he had never felt
The full of living—wearied out, because
The world look’d falsehood, and his turn was truth.

Well, late one morning in the summer time,
They found him lying in his easy-chair,
Wrapt royally in the costly dressing-gown
His mother gave him, slippers on his feet,
And something royal in his look,—cold, dead!
A smell of laudanum sicken’d all the air
Around him; on the table at his side
A copy of De Musset’s Elle et Lui;
And close at hand a crumpled five-pound note,
On which was written in his round clear hand
‘Pour Garibaldi. Vive la Liberté!’

 

 

THE WAKE OF TIM O'HARA.

(SEVEN DIALS.)

          To the Wake of O’Hara
               Came company;
          All St. Patrick’s Alley
               Was there to see,
          With the friends and kinsmen
               Of the family.
On the long deal table lay Tim in white,
And at his pillow the burning light.
Pale as himself, with the tears on her cheek,
The mother received us, too full to speak;
But she heap’d the fire, and on the board
Set the black bottle with never a word,
While the company gather’d, one and all,
Men and women, big and small—
Not one in the Alley but felt a call
          To the Wake of Tim O’Hara.

          At the face of O’Hara,
               All white with sleep,
          Not one of the women
               But took a peep,
          And the wives new-wedded
               Began to weep.
The mothers gather’d round about,
And praised the linen and lying-out,—
For white as snow was his winding-sheet,
And all was peaceful, and clean, and sweet;
And the old wives, praising the blessëd dead,
Were thronging around the old press-bed,
Where O’Hara’s widow, tatter’d and torn,
Held to her bosom the babe new-born,
And stared all round her, with eyes forlorn,
          At the Wake of Tim O’Hara.

          For the heart of O’Hara
               Was good as gold,
          And the life of O’Hara
               Was bright and bold,
          And his smile was precious
               To young and old!
Gay as a guinea, wet or dry,
With a smiling mouth, and a twinkling eye!
Had ever an answer for chaff and fun;
Would fight like a lion, with any one!
Not a neighbour of any trade
But knew some joke that the boy had made;
Not a neighbour, dull or bright,
But minded something—frolic or fight,
And whisper’d it round the fire that night,
          At the Wake of Tim O’Hara!

          ‘To God be glory
               In death and life,
          He’s taken O’Hara
               From trouble and strife!’
          Said one-eyed Biddy,
               The apple-wife.
‘God bless old Ireland!’ said Mistress Hart,
Mother to Mike of the donkey-cart;
‘God bless old Ireland till all be done,
She never made wake for a better son!’
And all join’d chorus, and each one said
Something kind of the boy that was dead;
And the bottle went round from lip to lip,
And the weeping widow, for fellowship,
Took the glass of old Biddy and had a sip,
          At the Wake of Tim O’Hara.

          Then we drank to O’Hara,
               With drams to the brim,
          While the face of O’Hara
               Look’d on so grim
          In the corpse-light shining
               Yellow and dim,
The cup of liquor went round again,
And the talk grew louder at every drain;
Louder the tongues of the women grew!—
The lips of the boys were loosening too!
The widow her weary eyelids closed,
And, soothed by the drop o’ drink, she dozed;
The mother brighten’d and laugh’d to hear
Of O’Hara’s fight with the grenadier,
And the hearts of all took better cheer,
          At the Wake of Tim O’Hara.

          Tho’ the face of O’Hara
               Lookt on so wan,
          In the chimney-corner
               The row began—
          Lame Tony was in it,
               The oyster-man;
For a dirty low thief from the North came near,
And whistled ‘Boyne Water’ in his ear,
And Tony, with never a word of grace,
Flung out his fist in the blackguard’s face;
And the girls and women scream’d out for fright,
And the men that were drunkest began to fight,—
Over the tables and chairs they threw,—
The corpse-light tumbled,—the trouble grew,—
The new-born joined in the hullabaloo,—
          At the Wake of Tim O’Hara.

          ‘Be still! be silent!
               Ye do a sin!
          Shame be his portion
               Who dares begin!’
          ’Twas Father O’Connor
               Just enter’d in!—
All look’d down, and the row was done—
And shamed and sorry was every one;
But the Priest just smiled quite easy and free—
‘Would ye wake the poor boy from his sleep?’ said he;
And he said a prayer, with a shining face,
Till a kind of a brightness filled the place;
The women lit up the dim corpse-light,
The men were quieter at the sight,
And the peace of the Lord fell on all that night
          At the Wake of Tim O’Hara!

 

 

KITTY KEMBLE.

‘All the world’s a stage.’ ¹

DRAW softly back the curtains of the bed—
Aye, here lies Kitty Kemble cold and dead:
Poor Kitty Kemble, if I steal a kiss,
Who deems the deed amiss?

Cold bloodless cheek whereon there lingers faint
The crimson dye of a life’s rouge and paint;
Cold lips that fall, since thy false rows of teeth
No longer prop the toothless gums beneath;
Cold clammy brow that lies there bald and bare
No longer screen’d and shadow’d by false hair;
Poor Kitty Kemble! is it truly thou
On whom I look so very sadly now?
Lightest of ladies, is thy mortal race
Run out indeed, thy luminous laughing face
Turn’d to this mindless mask of marble dead?
And even thy notes of tinkling laughter fled,
Which, when all other charms to please were past,
Stay’d with thee till the last?

GOD bless thee, Kitty Kemble!—and GOD love thee!
Warm be the kindred earth that lies above thee—
Lightest of ladies, never sad or sage,
A glad coquette at sixty years of age,
And even with thy last expiring breath
Flirting thy fan at thy lean Lover, Death!

Tho’ nature made you volatile and witty,
Your parents were most vulgar people, Kitty;
Hard work was daily yours, and trouble maybe
To mind the wretched house and nurse the baby,
While to the third-class Theatre hard by
Your father and your mother both did hie,
Mother as dresser, while with surly mien
Toil’d father as a shifter of the scene;
And thus it happen’d that you early grew
Familiar with the British drama too,
And thro’ the dusty stage-door you would steal
With father’s midday beer or evening meal,
Until that blissful day when to your glee
The keen-eyed ballet-master noticed thee,
And quickly, being a bright and clever girl,
You learnt from him to dance and twist and twirl,
Leaping ere long before the garish lights,
A smiling spangled creature in pink tights.
Aye, Kitty, and the common scandal says
The ballet-master in those early days,
Finding you quick and rapidly advancing,
Taught you love’s dalliance as well as dancing!
But you were very clever; and ere long
Were brightest, smartest of the ballet throng;
No lighter trimmer leg was to be seen
When you were only rising seventeen,
And from the stalls to your sweet guileless eyes
Ogles and nods and smiles began to rise.
Then later, like a wise girl and a pretty,
You chose to bless a close man from the City,
Quiet, respectable, and most demure
With a stiff salary and prospects sure;
And him, my dear, you used for your ambition
Still bent of course to better your position.
For tho’ so light and merry, you were ever
Ambitious, Kitty, quick and bright and clever;
And now you got your educated lover
To hear you read the British drama over,
To criticise your clever imitations
Of the tall leading lady’s declamations,
And to correct your tone, and guide your tongue,
Whenever you pronounced your English wrong;
And tho’ the fellow was in soul a bore,
And had no intellect to help you more,
You got in this Bohemian sort of college
Some gleams of grace and scraps of solid knowledge;
And while your silly sisters took repose
You grew grammatical, as grammar goes.

O Kitty, what a lavish little elf
Thou wast, yet economic of thyself!
So free, so merry, and innocent of guile;
And yet at heart so busy, all the while
You danced and dallied with those sparkling eyes,
In weighty speculations how to rise!
Yes, Kitty, and you rose; ere long you made
The prettiest, wittiest sort of chambermaid
(That saucy female elf of the stage-inn,
Chuck’d by each handsome guest beneath the chin;
A nymph oft carrying a warming-pan,
And sweetheart of the comic waiting-man)
Or haply, on extravaganza nights,
As a slim fairy prince in trunks and tights,
You pertly spake a dozen lines or so,
While just behind you, glaring in a row,
Your sillier sisters of the ballet stood,
With spleen and envy raging in their blood!
Thus, Kitty Kemble, on and up you went,
Merry, yet ill content;
And soon you cast, inflated still with pride,
Your City man aside,
Cut him stone dead to his intense annoy,
And, like a maiden coy,
Dropt, blushing crimson, in the arms scarce vital
Of an old man of title!
A sad dyspeptic dog, the worn and yellow
Wreck of a handsome fellow,
And tho’ the lord of boundless rolls and lands,
Just a mere puppet in your pretty hands.

O Kitty Kemble, how you coaxed and teased him,
Nursed him and pain’d him, petted him and pleased him,
Drove him nigh crazy, made his slow blood start
With the glad beating of your burning heart,
Until he vowed, you managed him so neatly,
To marry you completely;
And with this view transmitted you, poor fool,
To a French boarding-school;
And there you taught, I fear, your power being such,
More than you learnt tho’ what you learnt was much!
O you were still and patient as a mouse,
Much as your spirit hated the strict house,
The teachers grim, the insipid simpering misses,
The walks—so different from the coulisses!

There learning patiently did you abide,
Till one fine morning your protector died,
And once again, alas! as in times past,
On the hard world your gentle lot was cast.
But, Kitty, what a change in you was made
By those few seasons wintering in the shade;
In like a common moth you crept full sly,
But out you came a perfect butterfly!
A pretty little sparkling wench,
Prattling so prettily in French,
Or dashing off, with fingers white,
Gay little scraps of music bright;
Merry and wicked, and not wise,
With babies dancing in her eyes,
Most apt at quoting saw and joke
From Shakespeare and less famous folk,
Making the ignorant listener stare
With charming mots from Molière!

But, Kitty Kemble, ’tis not given to me
To write in full your fair biography.
About this very time from English sight
Your pretty little figure vanished quite;
And dainty rivals came and conquered here,
And the false world forgot you quite, I fear.
I think your next appearance in our view
Was in a blaze of splendour bright and new,
When, after many years of preparation,
Provincial trial, trouble, and vexation,
Out you emerged on the astonish’d City,
The town’s delight, the beaux’, the critics’, Kitty!
The brightest wonder human eye could see
In good old Comedy:
A smile, a voice, a laugh, a look, a form,
To take the world by storm!
A dainty dimpling intellectual treasure
To give old stagers pleasure!
A rippling radiant cheek—a roguish eye—
That made the youngsters sigh!
And thus beneath a tinsel’d pasteboard Star
At once you mounted your triumphant car,
O’er burning hearts your chariot wheels were driven,
Bouquets came rolling down like rain from heaven,
And on we dragged you, Kitty, while you stood
Roguish and great, not innocent and good,
The Queen Elect of all Light Womanhood!

Yes, Kitty Kemble, let the preacher cry
His word of ‘Vanity, O Vanity!’
But those, I think, were happy, happy days.
Indeed, yours was a life that throve with praise,
And brighten’d; passionate and eager; made
To love the lamp-light and to hate the shade;
To play with happiness and drink the beam
Till it suffused your substance gleam by gleam,
Making of elements past your control
The smiling semblance of a living Soul.
In sooth, you were a summer creature, one
Who never really throve save in the sun;
And take away its perfect self-content,
Your very beauty grew indifferent.
Further, you did not crave for love or fame,
Or that still colder shadow—a good name;
You were not even avaricious (tho’
’Twas sweet, of course, to see the guineas grow).
Nay, Kitty, all your care and your delight
Was to gleam past upon the public sight,
To gleam, to smile, to sparkle, and depart
Ere sympathy could reach your little heart;
To let the flaming footlights underneath
Light up your rouge, whiten your spotless teeth,
And to those eyes, so luminous and bright,
Dart beams of glorious artificial light;
To feel your bright and lissom body free
In brightly-hued theatric drapery;
And on your skin, as white as morning milk,
The clinging satin and the slippery silk.
In private life ’twas your delight to be
The beauty of Bohemian revelry;
To the smart little literary man
Whispering wicked jests behind your fan,
And not at all too nice in modesty
As to reject a dinner vis-à-vis
At Kew or Richmond, freely sipping port
With hirsute critics of the heavier sort,
And oft enough on such a holiday
Opening at last your own small purse to pay!
Beneath your beauty, rouged, and ring’d, and pearled,
You were at heart the woman of the world,
Not quite forgetting yet (tho’ well content
Quite to forget) your very low descent;
And having gained your little life’s endeavour,
You could, I know, have deemed it bliss for ever.

For ever, Kitty Kemble? Ah, my child!
     (Surely thou art a child at last?)
When days and nights are glad and wild,
     They whirl the quicklier past!
To Sorrow’s faintest funeral symphony
Time lingers darken’d steps dejectedly
With sad eyes heavenward; but how fleet he flies
When Revel sings and Mirth doth melodize!
Thy merry laughter and thy gay delight
Quicken’d the Greybeard’s footsteps day and night,
And Kitty, suddenly, to thy surprise,
The cruel crowsfeet gather’d ’neath thine eyes.

But paint is bright, and powder pearly white,
And many merry years, in that fierce light
Which beats on thrones and faces like to thine,
Thy ways were witching and thy lot divine.
Thy life was surely glad. The need was fled
Long since of choosing lovers for thy bread
Or thine advancement, and thou now wert free
To pick at will thy male society.
All that is dark. We laymen cannot tell
What amatory happiness befell;
We only know for certain Cupid’s dart
Ne’er struck so deadly deep into thy heart,
As to befool our Kitty into passion
Of the mad vulgar fashion.
We only know thou, Kitty, ever wert
Lightest of ladies, delicate and pert,
Clever and quick, and horribly well read.
And as the happy seasons o’er thee fled
Thy bust swelled out, thy body fresh and fair
Grew plumper, and thou didst assume thine air,
Round, roguish, royal, dazzling, plump, and good,
Of most delicious demi-matronhood.
I think we loved thee even better then
Than ever, Kitty; all the older men,
I know, adored thee! and thou wert supreme,
Yea, grand above all modern guess or dream,
In wanton Widows, those we love to see
In unctuous Shakespearian comedy.
Great wast thou also, Kitty, great and true,
As the bold Beatrice in ‘Much Ado’;
And all the mighty Town went raving mad
To see thy ‘Lady Teazle.’

                                           Wild and glad
Rolled the years onward, and thy little heart
(Tho’ certainly thy stoniest, toughest part)
Was just enough at least to act with. Well!
At forty summers still thy fortune fell
On pleasant places; for a little yet
The fickle British public loved its pet.
True, here and there, thy features, still so pretty,
Were sharpening into shrewish lines, my Kitty;
And nose and chin, though still most soft and sweet,
Seem’d slowly journeying on the way to meet!
A certain shrillness in the voice’s tone,
Which from the very first had been thine own,
But rather pleased the ear than otherwise
When thou hadst fleeter feet and younger eyes,
Grew harsher and more harsh upon the ear.
Never, indeed, in any earlier year
Hadst thou performed so perfectly as now,
And yet the cruel British Critic’s brow
Grew cloudy. Vain were trick of tone or smile
To hide the artful, artificial style,
The superficial tones, the airs capricious,
That in thy younger days had been delicious.
O Kitty, all thy being’s constant pain
To win the heart once more was wholly vain;
Most vain, most piteous! Thy familiar airs
Were met by only vacant shrugs and stares,
Thy tricks, thy jokes, thy jests, thy wanton ways,
Awakened only pity and amaze;
And presently, when thou didst rashly try
A fair young part, as in the days gone by,
Down on thee came the cruel Critic’s bludgeon,
Out spoke at last the oracular Curmudgeon,
Hinting out openly, in accents cold,
That thou wert passée, past thy prime, and old,
The ghost of loveliness and lightness, fit
To play old women,—better still to quit
The Stage for ever. O poor thing! poor thing!
The cruel knife cut deep enough to bring
The sad blood from your very heart at last;
You winced, you smirked, you struggled, and at last
You seem’d to triumph; and the bitter truth
That thou hadst spent thy previous years of youth
Was taken home indeed to thy fair breast,
And there, like to a very viper’s nest,
It bred and flourish’d. Kitty, tho’ thy face
Was merry still in many a public place,
Thy shrill laugh loud, thy manner brazen bold,
Black was thy soul and piteously cold.
Anon into the country thou didst fare,
And spend a brighter, happier season there;
Bearing about with thee from year to year
The shadow of thine earlier triumphs here.
That passed, like all the rest. Ah me! ah me!
Even the provinces deserted thee,
As we had done; so our poor Kitty came
To be the lonely ghost of a great name—
A worn and wanton woman, not yet sage
Nor wearied out, tho’ sixty years of age,
Wrinkled and rouged, and with false teeth of pearl,
And the shrill laughter of a giddy girl;
Haunting, with painted cheek and powder’d brow,
The private boxes, as spectator now;
Both day and night, indeed, invited out
To private picnic and to public rout,
Because thy shrill laugh and thy ready joke
Ever enlivened up the festal folk;
Nor did such people woo thy service less
Because of tales of thy past wickedness
Oh, thou wert very clever, keen, and bright,
Most gay, most scandal-loving, and most light!
Still greatly given to French literature,
And foreign feuilletons not over pure;
Still highly rouging up thy cheek so dead
Into a ghostly gleam of rosy red:
Still ever ready talking with a man,
To tap his naughty knuckles with thy fan
Coquettishly, and meanwhile with thy dim
Yet lustrous eyes to smile and ogle him!
Yet ever with a lurking secret sense
Of thine own beauty’s utter impotence,
With hungry observation all the while
To catch the covert sneer or lurking smile—
A helpless fear, a pang, a sharp distress,
Curdling thy choicest mirth to bitterness.

Sad years, my child, sad years of lonely gloom!
Nor let the hasty Moralist assume
Neglect and age and agony could be
GOD’S ruthless instruments to chasten thee.
Nay, Kitty Kemble, tho’ thy spirit grew
Still bitterer as the seasons flash’d and flew,
Thy bright face ne’er one moment turned away
From the glad gaudy world of every day.
I know religion never moved thy thought,
Comfort in God was neither found nor sought.
Still thou wert happiest, happiest and best
By the old gaslight, rouged and gaily drest.
At each new play thy well-known face was seen,
Merry and quick, yet hiding secret spleen;
At each new brilliant débutante’s success
Thy soul did wince for very bitterness;—
And all the taste of thy departed power
Was gall and wormwood on thy soul each hour;
And never, Kitty, till thy latest breath,
Didst thou remember God, the Soul, and Death.

Yet very quietly, one wintry day,
Death’s pale and unseen footsteps past thy way,
And as Death swiftly sail’d upon the air,
He lightly breathed one breath upon thee there
As a reminder;—after that thy face
Changed very strangely; shrivell’d in its place;
One helpless eyelid fluttered, and thy faint
Dark cheek contracted underneath thy paint:
And after that same day thy speech was ne’er
Quite constant to thy thought, or wholly clear;
And ev’n thy very thought at times would seem
Suddenly to dissolve away in dream!

Yet, Kitty Kemble, to the last we found thee
Constant to the old haunts of life around thee,
Still in the public gaslight thou wert seen,
Tho’ now upon a staff compelled to lean,
Thine eyes still black and quick, thy tones and words
Still gay, thy laugh shrill as a mocking bird’s!
Ah! but I think thy heavenly Sire was near
His daughter’s dwelling-place at last, my dear!
That quiet day I looked upon thee last,
I had called at midday as thy porch I passed,
Found thee ‘from home,’ and past the quiet door
Away was turning, when, from the first floor,
Thy quick voice called me; and upstairs I went,
To find my lady lying indolent,
Pillow’d in state upon her stately bed,
A pretty ribbon’d night-cap on her head,
While on her hollow cheeks’ false hectic bloom
Strange shade fell sadly from the darken’d room.
And there upon thy pillow, partly read,
Feydeau's last fever-piece; around thee spread
Old playbills, pink and yellow, white and green,
Whereon in mighty capitals was seen
Thine own triumphant name. Alas! alas!
Shall I forget till life and memory pass
Thy look of blended pleasure, pride, and pain,
Thy eager laughter, garrulous and vain,
Thy tremulous, feverish voice and fretful glee,
As thou didst prattle, pointing out to me,
With a lean, palsied finger, dead and cold,
Thy mighty triumphs in the days of old?
And suddenly (my child, shall I forget?—
The voice, the tone, the look, all linger yet!)
The feverish emotion grew too much;
And with a passionate, spasmodic clutch,
Thou didst against my shoulder wildly press
Thy cheek, once warm with life and loveliness,
And moaning madly over thy lost years
Hysterically break to bitterest tears!
What comfort could I give? ere, once more gay,
Thou with light hand didst sweep the tears away,
And break, with fretful wish and eager will,
To laughter sadder still;
Prattling, in thy most artificial tone,
Words to make Angels moan!

And here’s the end of all. And on thy bed
Thou liest, Kitty Kemble, lone and dead;
And on thy clammy cheek there lingers faint
The deep dark stain of a life’s rouge and paint;
And, Kitty, all thy sad days and thy glad
Have left thee lying for thy last part clad,
Cold, silent, on the earthly Stage; and while
Thou liest there with dark and dreadful smile,
The feverish footlights of the World flash bright
Into thy face with a last ghastly light;
And while thy friends all sighing rise to go,
The great black Curtain droppeth, slow, slow, slow.

God help us! We spectators turn away;
Part sad, we think, part merry, was the Play.
God help the lonely player now she stands
Behind the darken’d scenes with wondering face,
And gropes her way at last, with clay-cold hands,
Out of the dingy place,
Turning towards Home, poor worn and weary one,
Now the last scene is done.

 

[Notes:
¹ From Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Act II, Scene vii:

Jaques:  All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.

(back)]

______________________________

London Poems continued

_____

London Poems Contents