Captured here, unreconciled
To capture; and completely gives
Its pettish humours licence, barely
Requiring that it lives.

Ichabod, Ichabod,

The glory is departed!

VI.

Travels Waring East away ?
Who, of knowledge, by hearsay,
Reports a man upstarted
Somewhere as a God,

Hordes grown European-hearted,
Millions of the wild made tame
On a sudden at his fame ?

In Vishnu-land what Avatar ?
Or who, in Moscow, toward the Czar,
With the demurest of footfalls
Over the Kremlin's pavement, bright
With serpentine and syenite,
Steps, with five other Generals,
That simultaneously take snuff,
For each to have pretext enough
To kerchiefwise unfurl his sash
Which, softness' self, is yet the stuff
To hold fast where a steel chain snaps,
And leave the grand white neck no gash?
Waring, in Moscow, to those rough
Cold northern natures borne, perhaps,
Like the lambwhite maiden dear
From the circle of mute kings,

Unable to repress the tear,

Each as his sceptre down he flings,

To Dian's fane at Taurica,

Where now a captive priestess, she alway

Mingles her tender grave Hellenic speech

With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach,
As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands
Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands
Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry
Amid their barbarous twitter!

In Russia? Never! Spain were fitter!
Ay, most likely 'tis in Spain

That we and Waring meet again—

Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid

All fire and shine-abrupt as when there's slid Its stiff gold blazing pall

F F

From some black coffin-lid.

Or, best of all,

I love to think

The leaving us was just a feint ;
Back here to London did he slink;
And now works on without a wink
Of sleep, and we are on the brink
Of something great in fresco-paint
Some garret's ceiling, walls and floor,
Up and down and o'er and o'er
He splashes, as none splashed before
Since great Caldara Polidore:
Or Music means this land of ours
Some favour yet, to pity won
By Purcell from his Rosy Bowers,-
"Give me my so long promised son,
"Let Waring end what I begun!
Then down he creeps and out he steals
Only when the night conceals
His face-in Kent 'tis cherry-time,
Or, hops are picking; or, at prime
Of March, he wanders as, too happy,
Years ago when he was young,

Some mild eve when woods grew sappy,
And the early moths had sprung
To life from many a trembling sheath
Woven the warm boughs beneath;
While small birds said to themselves
What should soon be actual song,
And young gnats, by tens and twelves,
Made as if they were the throng

That crowd around and carry aloft

The sound they have nursed, so sweet and pure,

Out of a myriad noises soft,

Into a tone that can endure

Amid the noise of a July noon,

When all God's creatures crave their boon,

All at once and all in tune,

And get it, happy as Waring then,

Having first within his ken

What a man might do with men,

And far too glad, in the even-glow,

To mix with your world he meant to take

Into his hand he told you, so—

And out of it his world to make,

To contract and to expand
As he shut or oped his hand.
Oh, Waring, what's to really be?

A clear stage and a crowd to see!
Some Garrick-say-out shall not he
The heart of Hamlet's mystery pluck'
Or, where most unclean beasts are rife,
Some Junius-am I right ?—shall tuck
His sleeve, and out with flaying-knife!
Some Chatterton shall have the luck
Of calling Rowley into life!

Some one shall somehow run a muck
With this old world, for want of strife
Sound asleep: contrive, contrive
To rouse us, Waring! Who's alive ?
Our men scarce seem in earnest now:
Distinguished names !—but 'tis, somehow,
As if they played at being names

Still more distinguished, like the games
Of children. Turn our sport to earnest
With a visage of the sternest!
Bring the real times back, confessed
Still better than our very best!

When, looking over the vessel's side, "One of our company espied

"A sudden speck to larboard.
66 And, as a sea-duck flies and swims
"At once, so came the light craft up,
"With its sole lateen sail that trims
"And turns (the water round its rims
Dancing, as round a sinking cup)

66

"And by us like a fish it curled,
"And drew itself up close beside,
"Its great sail on the instant furled,

"And o'er its planks, a shrill voice cried,

2

666

They 'll never let you up the bay! "We natives should know best.'

"I turned, and 'just those fellows' way,' “Our captain said, 'The 'long-shore thieves "Are laughing at us in their sleeves.'

III.

"In truth, the boy leaned laughing back; "And one, half-hidden by his side "Under the furled sail, soon I spied, "With great grass hat, and kerchief black, "Who looked up, with his kingly throat, "Said somewhat, while the other shook "His hair back from his eyes to look "Their longest at us; then the boat, "I know not how, turned sharply round, 'Laying her whole side on the sea

66

"As a leaping fish does; from the lee
"Into the weather, cut somehow
"Her sparkling path beneath our bow;
"And so went off, as with a bound,
66 Into the rose and golden half
"Of the sky, to overtake the sun,
"And reach the shore, like the sea-calf
"Its singing cave; yet I caught one
"Glance ere away the heat quite passed,
"And neither time nor toil could mar
"Those features: so I saw the last
"Of Waring!"-You? Oh, never star
Was lost here, but it rose afar!

Look East, where whole new thousands are!
In Vishnu-land what Avatar ?

RUDEL TO THE LADY OF TRIPOLI,

I.

I KNOW a Mount, the gracious Sun perceives
First when he visits, last, too, when he leaves
The world; and, vainly favoured, it repays
The day-long glory of his steadfast gaze
By no change of its large calm front of snow.
And underneath the Mount, a Flower I know,
He cannot have perceived, that changes ever
At his approach; and, in the lost endeavour
To live his life, has parted, one by one,
With all a flower's true graces, for the grace
Of being but a foolish mimic sun,
With ray-like florets round a disk-like face.
Men nobly call by many a name the Mount,
As over many a land of theirs its large
Calm front of snow like a triumphal targe
Is reared, and still with old names, fresh ones vie,
Each to its proper praise and own account:
Men call the Flower, the Sunflower, sportively.

II.

Oh, Angel of the East, one, one gold look
Across the waters to this twilight nook,
-The far sad waters, Angel, to this nook!

III.

Dear Pilgrim, art thou for the East indeed?
Go! Saying ever as thou dost proceed,
That I, French Rudel, choose for my device
A sunflower outspread like a sacrifice
Before its idol. See! These inexpert
And hurried fingers could not fail to hurt
The woven picture; 'tis a woman's skill
Indeed; but nothing baffled me, so, ill
Or well, the work is finished. Say, men feed
On songs I sing, and therefore bask the bees
On my flower's breast as on a platform broad:
But, as the flower's concern is not for these
But solely for the sun, so men applaud
In vain this Rudel, he not looking here

But to the East-the East! Go, say this, Pilgrim dear!