THE FUGITIVE IDEAL

As some most pure and noble face,
  Seen in the thronged and hurrying street,
Sheds o’er the world a sudden grace,
    A flying odour sweet,
Then, passing, leaves the cheated sense
Baulked with a phantom excellence;

So, on our soul the visions rise
  Of that fair life we never led: 
They flash a splendour past our eyes,
    We start, and they are fled: 
They pass, and leave us with blank gaze,
Resigned to our ignoble days.

“THE FORESTERS”

(Lines written on the appearance of Lord Tennyson’s drama.)

Clear as of old the great voice rings to-day,
While Sherwood’s oak-leaves twine with Aldworth’s bay: 
The voice of him the master and the sire
Of one whole age and legion of the lyre,
Who sang his morning-song when Coleridge still
Uttered dark oracles from Highgate Hill,
And with new-launched argosies of rhyme
Gilds and makes brave this sombreing tide of time. 
Far be the hour when lesser brows shall wear
The laurel glorious from that wintry hair—­
When he, the sovereign of our lyric day,
In Charon’s shallop must be rowed away,
And hear, scarce heeding, ’mid the plash of oar,
The ave atque vale from the shore!

To him nor tender nor heroic muse
Did her divine confederacy refuse: 
To all its moods the lyre of life he strung,
And notes of death fell deathless from his tongue. 
Himself the Merlin of his magic strain,
He bade old glories break in gloom again;
And so exempted from oblivious doom,
Through him these days shall fadeless break in bloom.

SONG

Lightly we met in the morn,
  Lightly we parted at eve. 
There was never a thought of the thorn
  The rose of a day might leave.

Fate’s finger we did not perceive,
  So lightly we met in the morn! 
So lightly we parted at eve
  We knew not that Love was born.

I rose on the morrow forlorn,
  To pine and remember and grieve. 
Too lightly we met in the morn! 
  Too lightly we parted at eve!

COLUMBUS

(12TH OCTOBER 1492)

From his adventurous prime
He dreamed the dream sublime: 
  Over his wandering youth
    It hung, a beckoning star. 
At last the vision fled,
And left him in its stead
  The scarce sublimer truth,
    The world he found afar.

The scattered isles that stand
Warding the mightier land
  Yielded their maidenhood
    To his imperious prow. 
The mainland within call
Lay vast and virginal: 
  In its blue porch he stood: 
    No more did fate allow.

No more! but ah, how much,
To be the first to touch
  The veriest azure hem
    Of that majestic robe! 
Lord of the lordly sea,
Earth’s mightiest sailor he: 
  Great Captain among them,
    The captors of the globe.