III.

Misery, beyond all men’s most miserable,
  Absolute, whole, defiant of defence,
  Inevitable, inexplacable, intense,
More vast than heaven is high, more deep than hell,
Past cure or charm of solace or of spell,
  Possesses and pervades the spirit and sense
  Whereto the expanse of the earth pays tribute; whence
Breeds evil only, and broods on fumes that swell
Rank from the blood of brother and mother and wife. 
  ‘Misery of miseries, all is misery,’ saith
The heavy fair-faced hateful head, at strife
  With its own lusts that burn with feverous breath
Lips which the loathsome bitterness of life
  Leaves fearful of the bitterness of death.

THE RESURRECTION OF ALCILIA.

(Gratefully inscribed to Dr. A.B.  Grosart.)

Sweet song-flower of the Mayspring of our song,
  Be welcome to us, with loving thanks and praise
  To his good hand who travelling on strange ways
Found thee forlorn and fragrant, lain along
Beneath dead leaves that many a winter’s wrong
  Had rained and heaped through nigh three centuries’ maze
  Above thy Maybloom, hiding from our gaze
The life that in thy leaves lay sweet and strong. 
For thine have life, while many above thine head
Piled by the wind lie blossomless and dead. 
  So now disburdened of such load above
That lay as death’s own dust upon thee shed
  By days too deaf to hear thee like a dove
  Murmuring, we hear thee, bird and flower of love.

THE FOURTEENTH OF JULY.

(On the refusal by the French Senate of the plenary amnesty demanded by Victor Hugo, in his speech of July 3rd, for the surviving exiles of the Commune.)

Thou shouldst have risen as never dawn yet rose,
  Day of the sunrise of the soul of France,
  Dawn of the whole world’s morning, when the trance
Of all the world had end, and all its woes
Respite, prophetic of their perfect close. 
  Light of all tribes of men, all names and clans,
  Dawn of the whole world’s morning and of man’s
Flower of the heart of morning’s mystic rose,
Dawn of the very dawn of very day,
  When the sun brighter breaks night’s ruinous prison,
  Thou shouldst have risen as yet no dawn has risen,
Evoked of him whose word puts night away,
  Our father, at the music of whose word
  Exile had ended, and the world had heard.

July 5, 1880.

LAUNCH OF THE LIVADIA

Mala soluta navis exit alite. 
                         HOR.

Rigged with curses dark. 
                         MILTON.

THE LAUNCH OF THE LIVADIA.

I.