• The Past is over and fled;
• Named new, we name it the old;
• Thereof some tale hath been told,
• But no word comes from the dead;
• Whether at all they be,
• Or whether as bond or free,
• Or whether they too were we,
• 20Or by what spell they have sped.
• Still we say as we go,—
• “Strange to think by the way,
• Whatever there is to know,
• That shall we know one day.”

• What of the heart of hate
• That beats in thy breast, O Time?—
• Red strife from the furthest prime,
• And anguish of fierce debate;
page: 306  
• War that shatters her slain,
• 30 And peace that grinds them as grain,
• And eyes fixed ever in vain
• On the pitiless eyes of Fate.
• Still we say as we go,—
• “Strange to think by the way,
• Whatever there is to know,
• That shall we know one day.”

• What of the heart of love
• That bleeds in thy breast, O Man?—
• Thy kisses snatched 'neath the ban
• 40Of fangs that mock them above;
• Thy bells prolonged unto knells,
• Thy hope that a breath dispels,
• Thy bitter forlorn farewells
• And the empty echoes thereof?
page: 307  
• Still we say as we go,—
• “Strange to think by the way,
• Whatever there is to know,
• That shall we know one day.”

• The sky leans dumb on the sea,
• 50 Aweary with all its wings;
• And oh! the song the sea sings
• Is dark everlastingly.
• Our past is clean forgot,
• Our present is and is not,
• Our future's a sealed seedplot,
• And what betwixt them are we?—
• We who say as we go,—
• “Strange to think by the way,
• Whatever there is to know,
• 60 That shall we know one day.”

       

• Turn not the prophet's page, O Son! He knew
• All that thou hast to suffer, and hath writ.
• Not yet thine hour of knowledge. Infinite
• The sorrows that thy manhood's lot must rue
• And dire acquaintance of thy grief. That clue
• The spirits of thy mournful ministerings
• Seek through yon scroll in silence. For these
• things
• The angels have desired to look into.

• Still before Eden waves the fiery sword,—
• 10 Her Tree of Life unransomed: whose sad Tree
• Of Knowledge yet to growth of Calvary
• Must yield its Tempter,—Hell the earliest dead
• Of Earth resign,—and yet, O Son and Lord,
• The Seed o' the woman bruise the serpent's
• head.

   

• What masque of what old wind-withered New-Year
• Honours this Lady? ¹ Flora, wanton-eyed
• For birth, and with all flowrets prankt and pied:
• Aurora, Zephyrus, with mutual cheer
• Of clasp and kiss: the Graces circling near,
• 'Neath bower-linked arch of white arms glorified:
• And with those feathered feet which hovering
• glide
• O'er Spring's brief bloom, Hermes the harbinger.

• Birth-bare, not death-bare yet, the young stems
• stand,
• 10 This Lady's temple-columns: o'er her head
• Love wings his shaft. What mystery here is read
• Of homage or of hope? But how command
• Dead Springs to answer? And how question here
• These mummers of that wind-withered New-
• Year?

       

• With Shakspeare's manhood at a boy's wild
• heart,—
• Through Hamlet's doubt to Shakspeare near
• allied,
• And kin to Milton through his Satan's pride,—
• At Death's sole door he stooped, and craved a dart;
• And to the dear new bower of England's art,—
• Even to that shrine Time else had deified,
• The unuttered heart that soared against his
• side,—
• Drove the fell point, and smote life's seals apart.

• Thy nested home-loves, noble Chatterton;
• 10 The angel-trodden stair thy soul could trace
• Up Redcliffe's spire; and in the world's armed
• space
• Thy gallant sword-play:—these to many an one
• Are sweet for ever; as thy grave unknown
• And love-dream of thine unrecorded face.

   

• This is the place. Even here the dauntless soul,
• The unflinching hand, wrought on; till in that
• nook,
• As on that very bed, his life partook
• New birth, and passed. Yon river's dusky shoal,
• Whereto the close-built coiling lanes unroll,
• Faced his work-window, whence his eyes would
• stare,
• Thought-wandering, unto nought that met them
• there,
• But to the unfettered irreversible goal.

• This cupboard, Holy of Holies, held the cloud
• 10 Of his soul writ and limned; this other one,
• His true wife's charge, full oft to their abode
• Yielded for daily bread the martyr's stone,
• Ere yet their food might be that Bread alone,
• The words now home-speech of the mouth of God.

   

• His Soul fared forth (as from the deep home-grove
• The father-songster plies the hour-long quest,)
• To feed his soul-brood hungering in the nest;
• But his warm Heart, the mother-bird, above
• Their callow fledgling progeny still hove
• With tented roof of wings and fostering breast
• Till the Soul fed the soul-brood. Richly blest
• From Heaven their growth, whose food was Human
• Love.

• Yet ah! Like desert pools that show the stars
• 10 Once in long leagues,—even such the scarce-
• snatched hours
• Which deepening pain left to his lordliest
• powers:—
• Heaven lost through spider-trammelled prison-bars.
• Six years, from sixty saved! Yet kindling skies
• Own them, a beacon to our centuries.

   

• The weltering London ways where children weep
• And girls whom none call maidens laugh,—
• strange road
• Miring his outward steps, who inly trode
• The bright Castalian brink and Latmos' steep:—
• Even such his life's cross-paths; till deathly deep
• He toiled through sands of Lethe; and long pain,
• Weary with labour spurned and love found vain,
• In dead Rome's sheltering shadow wrapped his
• sleep.

• O pang-dowered Poet, whose reverberant lips
• 10And heart-strung lyre awoke the Moon's eclipse,—
• Thou whom the daisies glory in growing o'er,—
• Their fragrance clings around thy name, not writ
• But rumour'd in water, while the fame of it
• Along Time's flood goes echoing evermore.

   

• 'Twixt those twin worlds,—the world of Sleep,
• which gave
• No dream to warn,—the tidal world of Death,
• Which the earth's sea, as the earth, replenisheth,—
• Shelley, Song's orient sun, to breast the wave,
• Rose from this couch that morn. Ah! did he brave
• Only the sea?—or did man's deed of hell
• Engulph his bark 'mid mists impenetrable? . . . .
• No eye discerned, nor any power might save.

• When that mist cleared, O Shelley! what dread veil
• 10 Was rent from thee, to whom far-darkling Truth
• Reigned sovereign guide through thy brief age-
• less youth?
• Was the Truth thy Truth, Shelley?—Hush! All-
• Hail,
• Past doubt, thou gav'st it; and in Truth's bright
• sphere
• Art first of praisers, being most praisèd here.

   

• The head and hands of murdered Cicero,
• Above his seat high in the Forum hung,
• Drew jeers and burning tears. When on the rung
• Of a swift-mounted ladder, all aglow,
• Fluvia, Mark Antony's shameless wife, with show
• Of foot firm-poised and gleaming arm upflung,
• Bade her sharp needle pierce that god-like tongue
• Whose speech fed Rome even as the Tiber's flow.

• And thou, Cleopatra's Needle, that hadst thrid
• 10Great skirts of Time ere she and Antony hid
• Dead hope!—hast thou too reached, surviving
• death,
• A city of sweet speech scorned,—on whose chill stone
• Keats withered, Coleridge pined, and Chatterton,
• Breadless, with poison froze the God-fired breath?

   

• In grappled ships around The Victory,
• Three boys did England's Duty with stout cheer,
• While one dread truth was kept from every ear,
• More dire than deafening fire that churned the sea:
• For in the flag-ship's weltering cockpit, he
• Who was the Battle's Heart without a peer,
• He who had seen all fearful sights save Fear,
• Was passing from all life save Victory.

• And round the old memorial board to-day,
• 10 Three greybeards—each a warworn British Tar—
• View through the mist of years that hour afar:
• Who soon shall greet, 'mid memories of fierce fray,
• The impassioned soul which on its radiant way
• Soared through the fiery cloud of Trafalgar.

   

• From him did forty million serfs, endow'd
• Each with six feet of death-due soil, receive
• Rich freeborn lifelong land, whereon to sheave
• Their country's harvest. These to-day aloud
• Demand of Heaven a Father's blood,—sore bow'd
• With tears and thrilled with wrath; who, while
• they grieve,
• On every guilty head would fain achieve
• All torment by his edicts disallow'd.

• He stayed the knout's red-ravening fangs; and first
• 10 Of Russian traitors, his own murderers go
• White to the tomb. While he,—laid foully low
• With limbs red-rent, with festering brain which erst
• Willed kingly freedom,—'gainst the deed accurst
• To God bears witness of his people's woe.