It may be added that in
the lyric snatches imbedded in his plays, he sometimes strikes a rare
note, one that sends the reader ck to Elizabethan days.
the lyric snatches imbedded in his plays, he sometimes strikes a rare
note, one that sends the reader ck to Elizabethan days.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v25 - Tas to Tur
The inference is that
poets write merely for that popular recognition which is called
fame; and having attained a certain degree, fear to lose it by
later productions which may not prove so acceptable. A writer
influenced by such a consideration never deserved the name of
poet. It is an unworthy estimate of his character which thus
explains the honest and honorable silence of Fitz-Greene Halleck.
The quality of genius is not to be measured by its productive
activity. The brain which gave us 'Alnwick Castle,' 'Marco
Bozzaris,' 'Burns,' and 'Red Jacket,' was not exhausted; it was
certainly capable of other and equally admirable achievements:
but the fortunate visits of the Muse are not to be compelled by
the poet's will; and Halleck endured her absence without com-
plaint, as he had enjoyed her favors without ostentation. The
very fact that he wrote so little, proclaims the sincerity of his
genius, and harmonizes with the entire character of his life. It
was enough for him that he first let loose the Theban eagle in
our songless American air. He was glad and satisfied to know
that his lyrics have entered into and become a part of the
national life; that
"Sweet tears dim the eyes unshed,
And wild vows falter on the tongue,"
when his lines, keen and flexible as fire, burn in the ears of the
young who shall hereafter sing, and fight, and labor, and love, for
"God and their native land! "
It is not necessary that we should attempt to determine his
relative place among American poets. It is sufficient that he
has his assured place, and that his name is a permanent part of
our literary history. It is sufficient that he deserves every honor
which we
can render to his memory, not only as one of the
very first representatives of American song, but from his intrinsic
quality as a poet. Let us rather be thankful for every star
set in our heaven, than seek to ascertain how they differ from
one another in glory. If any critic would diminish the loving
enthusiasm of those whose lives have been brightened by the
## p. 14526 (#88) ###########################################
14526
BAYARD TAYLOR
poet's personal sunshine, let him remember that the sternest criti-
cism will set the lyrics of Halleck higher than their author's un-
ambitious estimate. They will in time fix their own just place
in our poetic annals. Halleck is still too near our orbit for the
computation of an exact parallax; but we may safely leave his
measure of fame to the decision of impartial Time. A poem
which bears within itself its own right to existence, will not die.
Its rhythm is freshly fed from the eternal pulses of beauty,
whence flows the sweetest life of the human race. Age cannot
quench its original fire, or repetition make dull its immortal
music. It forever haunts that purer atmosphere which overlies
the dust and smoke of our petty cares and our material interests
- often indeed calling to us like a distant clarion, to keep awake
the senses of intellectual delight which would else perish from
our lives. The poetic literature of a land is the finer and purer
ether above its material growth and the vicissitudes of its his-
tory. Where it was vacant and barren for us, except perchance
a feeble lark-note here and there, Dana, Halleck, and Bryant rose
together on steadier wings, and gave voices to the solitude: Dana
with a broad, grave undertone, like that of the sea; Bryant with
a sound as of the wind in summer woods, and the fall of waters
in mountain dells; and Halleck with strains blown from a sil-
ver trumpet, breathing manly fire and courage. Many voices
have followed them; the ether rings with new melodies, and yet
others come to lure all the aspirations of our hearts, and echo
all the yearnings of our separated destiny: but we shall not for-
get the forerunners who rose in advance of their welcome, and
created their own audience by their songs.
Thus it is that in dedicating a monument to Fitz-Greene Hal-
leck to-day, we symbolize the intellectual growth of the American.
people. They have at last taken that departure which repre-
sents the higher development of a nation,- the capacity to value
the genius which cannot work with material instruments; which
is unmoved by Atlantic Cables, Pacific Railroads, and any show
of marvelous statistical tables; which grandly dispenses with the
popular measures of success; which simply expresses itself, with-
out consciously working for the delight of others; yet which, once
recognized, stands thenceforth as a part of the glory of the whole
people. It is a token that we have relaxed the rough work of
two and a half centuries, and are beginning to enjoy that rest
and leisure out of which the grace and beauty of civilization
## p. 14527 (#89) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14527
grow. The pillars of our political fabric have been slowly and
massively raised, like the drums of Doric columns; but they still
need the crowning capitals and the sculptured entablature. Law,
and Right, and Physical Development build well, but they are
cold, mathematical architects: the Poet and the Artist make
beautiful the temple. Our natural tendency, as a people, is to
worship positive material achievement in whatever form it is dis-
played; even the poet must be a partisan before the government
will recognize his existence. So much of our intellectual energy
has been led into the new paths which our national growth
has opened, so exacting are the demands upon working brains,
that taste and refinement of mind, and warm appreciation of the
creative spirit of beauty, are only beginning to bloom here and
there among us, like tender exotic flowers. "The light that never
was on sea or land" shines all around us, but few are the eyes
whose vision it clarifies. Yet the faculty is here, and the earnest
need. The delight in art, of which poetry is the highest mani-
festation, has ceased to be the privilege of a fortunate few, and
will soon become, let us hope, the common heritage of the peo-
ple. If any true song has heretofore been sung to unheeding
ears, let us behold, in this dedication, the sign that our reproach
is taken away,- that henceforth every new melody of the land
shall spread in still expanding vibrations, until all shall learn to
listen!
The life of the poet who sleeps here represents the long
period of transition between the appearance of American poetry
and the creation of an appreciative and sympathetic audience for
it. We must honor him all the more that in the beginning he
was content with the few who heard him; that the agitations of
national life through which he passed could not ruffle the clear
flow of his song; and that, with a serene equanimity of temper
which is the rarest American virtue, he saw, during his whole
life, wealth and personal distinction constantly passing into less.
deserving hands, without temptation and without envy. All pop-
ular superstitions concerning the misanthropy or the irritable
temper of genius were disproved in him: I have never known a
man so independent of the moods and passions of his generation.
We cannot regret that he should have been chosen to assist in
the hard pioneer work of our literature, because he seemed to be
so unconscious of its privations. Yet he and his co-mates have
walked a rough, and for the most part a lonely track, leaving a
## p. 14528 (#90) ###########################################
14528
BAYARD TAYLOR
smoother way broken for their followers. They have blazed their
trails through the wilderness, and carved their sounding names on
the silent mountain peaks; teaching the scenery of our homes a
language, and giving it a rarer and tenderer charm than even
the atmosphere of great historic deeds. Fitz-Greene Halleck has
set his seal upon the gray rock of Connecticut, on the heights
of Weehawken, on the fair valley of Wyoming, and the Field of
the Grounded Arms. He has done his manly share in forcing
this half-subdued nature in which we live, to accept a human
harmony, and cover its soulless beauty with the mantle of his
verse.
However our field of poetic literature may bloom, whatever
products of riper culture may rise to overshadow its present
growths, the memory of Halleck is perennially rooted at its
entrance. Recognizing the purity of his genius, the nobility of
his character, we gratefully and affectionately dedicate to him
this monument. There is no cypress in the wreath which we
lay upon his grave. We do not meet to chant a dirge over un-
fulfilled promises or an insufficient destiny. We have no willful
defiance of the world to excuse, no sensitive protest to justify.
Our hymn of consecration is cheerful, though solemn. Look-
ing forward from this hallowed ground, we can only behold a
future for our poetry, sunnier than its past. We see the love of
beauty born from the servitude to use; the recognition of an
immortal ideal element gradually evolved from the strength of
natures which have conquered material forces; the growth of all
fine and gracious attributes of imagination and fancy, to warm
and sweeten and expand the stately coldness of intellect. We
dream of days when the highest and deepest utterances of rhyth-
mical thought shall be met with grateful welcome, not with dull
amazement or mean suspicion. We wait for voices which shall
no more say to the poet, "Stay here, at the level of our delight
in you! " but which shall say to him, "Higher, still higher!
though we may not reach you, yet in following we shall rise! "
And as our last prophetic hope, we look for that fortunate age
when the circle of sympathy, now so limited, shall be coextensive
with the nation, and when, even as the poet loves his land, his
land shall love her poet!
-
## p. 14529 (#91) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14529
[The following poems of Bayard Taylor are all copyrighted, and are repub-
lished here by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers. ]
CHARMIAN
DAUGHTER of the sun,
O
Who gave the keys of passion unto thee?
Who taught the powerful sorcery
Wherein my soul, too willing to be won,
Still feebly struggles to be free.
But more than half undone?
Within the mirror of thine eyes,
Full of the sleep of warm Egyptian skies,-
The sleep of lightning, bound in airy spell,
And deadlier, because invisible,-
I see the reflex of a feeling
Which was not till I looked on thee;
A power, involved in mystery,
That shrinks, affrighted, from its own revealing.
Thou sitt'st in stately indolence,
Too calm to feel a breath of passion start
The listless fibres of thy sense,
The fiery slumber of thy heart.
Thine eyes are wells of darkness, by the veil
Of languid lids half-sealed; the pale
And bloodless olive of thy face,
And the full, silent lips that wear
A ripe serenity of grace,
Are dark beneath the shadow of thy hair.
Not from the brow of templed Athor beams
Such tropic warmth along the path of dreams;
Not from the lips of hornèd Isis flows
Such sweetness of repose!
For thou art Passion's self, a goddess too,
And aught but worship never knew;
And thus thy glances, calm and sure,
Look for accustomed homage, and betray
No effort to assert thy sway:
Thou deem'st my fealty secure.
XXV-909
O Sorceress! those looks unseal
The undisturbèd mysteries that press
Too deep in nature for the heart to feel
Their terror and their loveliness.
## p. 14530 (#92) ###########################################
14530
BAYARD TAYLOR
Thine eyes are torches that illume
On secret shrines their unforeboded fires,
And fill the vaults of silence and of gloom
With the unresisting life of new desires.
I follow where their arrowy ray
Pierces the veil I would not tear away,
And with a dread, delicious awe behold
Another gate of life unfold,
Like the rapt neophyte who sees
Some march of grand Osirian mysteries.
The startled chambers I explore,
And every entrance open lies,
Forced by the magic thrill that runs before
Thy slowly lifted eyes.
I tremble to the centre of my being
Thus to confess the spirit's poise o'erthrown,
And all its guiding virtues blown
Like leaves before the whirlwind's fury fleeing.
But see! one memory rises in my soul,
And beaming steadily and clear,
Scatters the lurid thunder-clouds that roll
Through Passion's sultry atmosphere.
An alchemy more potent borrow
For thy dark eyes, enticing Sorceress!
For on the casket of a sacred Sorrow
Their shafts fall powerless.
Nay, frown not, Athor, from thy mystic shrine:
Strong Goddess of Desire, I will not be
One of the myriad slaves thou callest thine,
To cast my manhood's crown of royalty
Before thy dangerous beauty: I am free!
ARIEL IN THE CLOVEN PINE
N°
ow the frosty stars are gone:
I have watched them one by one,
Fading on the shores of Dawn.
Round and full the glorious sun
Walks with level step the spray,
Through his vestibule of Day,
While the wolves that late did howl
Slink to dens and coverts foul,
Guarded by the demon owl,
## p. 14531 (#93) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14531
Who, last night, with mocking croon,
Wheeled athwart the chilly moon,
And with eyes that blankly glared
On my direful torment stared.
The lark is flickering in the light;
Still the nightingale doth sing:-
All the isle, alive with spring,
Lies, a jewel of delight,
On the blue sea's heaving breast:
Not a breath from out the west,
But some balmy smell doth bring
From the sprouting myrtle buds,
Or from meadowy vales that lie
Like a green inverted sky,
Which the yellow cowslip stars,
And the bloomy almond woods,
Cloud-like, cross with roseate bars.
All is life that I can spy,
To the farthest sea and sky,
And my own the only pain
Within this ring of Tyrrhene main.
In the gnarled and cloven pine
Where that hell-born hag did chain me,
All this orb of cloudless shine,
All this youth in Nature's veins
Tingling with the season's wine,
With a sharper torment pain me.
Pansies in soft April rains
Fill their stalks with honeyed sap
Drawn from Earth's prolific lap;
But the sluggish blood she brings
To the tough pine's hundred rings,
Closer locks their cruel hold,
Closer draws the scaly bark
Round the crevice, damp and cold,
Where my useless wings I fold,-
Sealing me in iron dark.
By this coarse and alien state
Is my dainty ess
essence wronged;
Finer senses that belonged
To my freedom, chafe at Fate,
Till the happier elves I hate,
## p. 14532 (#94) ###########################################
14532
BAYARD TAYLOR
Who in moonlight dances turn
Underneath the palmy fern,
Or in light and twinkling bands.
Follow on with linkèd hands
To the ocean's yellow sands.
Primrose-eyes each morning ope
In their cool deep beds of grass;
Violets make the airs that pass
Telltales of their fragrant slope.
I can see them where they spring,
Never brushed by fairy wing.
All those corners I can spy
In the island's solitude,
Where the dew is never dry,
Nor the miser bees intrude.
Cups of rarest hue are there,
Full of perfumed wine undrained,—
Mushroom banquets, ne'er profaned,
Canopied by maiden-hair.
Pearls I see upon the sands,
Never touched by other hands;
And the rainbow bubbles shine
On the ridged and frothy brine,
Tenantless of voyager
Till they burst in vacant air.
Oh, the songs that sung might be,
And the mazy dances woven,
Had that witch ne'er crossed the sea
And the pine been never cloven!
Many years my direst pain
Has made the wave-rocked isle complain.
Winds that from the Cyclades
Came to blow in wanton riot
Round its shore's enchanted quiet,
Bore my wailings on the seas;
Sorrowing birds in Autumn went
Through the world with my lament.
Still the bitter fate is mine,
All delight unshared to see,
Smarting in the cloven pine,
While I wait the tardy axe
Which perchance shall set me free
From the damned witch Sycorax.
## p. 14533 (#95) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14533
BEDOUIN SONG
FRO
ROM the Desert I come to thee
On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left behind
In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,
And the midnight hears my cry:
I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!
Look from thy window and see
My passion and my pain;
I lie on the sands below,
And I faint in thy disdain.
Let the night-winds touch thy brow
With the heat of my burning sigh,
And melt thee to hear the vow
Of a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!
My steps are nightly driven
By the fever in my breast,
To hear from thy lattice breathed
The word that shall give me rest.
Open the door of thy heart,
And open thy chamber door,
And my kisses shall teach thy lips
The love that shall fade no more
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!
## p. 14534 (#96) ###########################################
14534
BAYARD TAYLOR
HYLAS
TORM-WEARIED Argo slept upon the water.
No cloud was seen; on blue and craggy Ida
The hot noon lay, and on the plain's enamel;
Cool, in his bed, alone, the swift Scamander.
STO
་ Why should I haste? " said young and rosy Hylas:
"The seas were rough, and long the way from Colchis.
Beneath the snow-white awning slumbers Jason,
Pillowed upon his tame Thessalian panther;
The shields are piled, the listless oars suspended
On the black thwarts, and all the hairy bondsmen
Doze on the benches. They may wait for water,
Till I have bathed in mountain-born Scamander. "
So said, unfilleting his purple chlamys,
And putting down his urn, he stood a moment,
Breathing the faint, warm odor of the blossoms
That spangled thick the lovely Dardan meadows.
Then stooping lightly, loosened he his buskins,
And felt with shrinking feet the crispy verdure;-
Naked save one light robe that from his shoulder
Hung to his knee, the youthful flush revealing
Of warm white limbs, half-nerved with coming manhood.
Yet fair and smooth with tenderness of beauty.
Now to the river's sandy marge advancing,
He dropped the robe, and raised his head exulting
In the clear sunshine, that with beam embracing
Held him against Apollo's glowing bosom.
For sacred to Latona's son is Beauty,
Sacred is Youth, the joy of youthful feeling.
A joy indeed, a living joy, was Hylas;
Whence Jove-begotten Hêraclês, the mighty,
To men though terrible, to him was gentle,-
Smoothing his rugged nature into laughter
When the boy stole his club, or from his shoulders
Dragged the huge paws of the Nemean lion.
The thick brown locks, tossed backward from his forehead.
Fell soft about his temples; manhood's blossom
Not yet had sprouted on his chin, but freshly
Curved the fair cheek, and full the red lips, parting,
Like a loose bow, that just has launched its arrow.
His large blue eyes, with joy dilate and beamy,
Were clear as the unshadowed Grecian heaven;
Dewy and sleek his dimpled shoulders rounded
## p. 14535 (#97) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14535
To the white arms and whiter breast between them.
Downward, the supple lines had less of softness:
His back was like a god's; his loins were molded
As if some pulse of power began to waken;
The springy fullness of his thighs, outswerving,
Sloped to his knee, and lightly dropping downward,
Drew the curved lines that breathe, in rest, of motion.
He saw his glorious limbs reversely mirrored
In the still wave, and stretched his foot to press it
On the smooth sole that answered at the surface:
Alas! the shape dissolved in glimmering fragments.
Then, timidly at first, he dipped; and catching
Quick breath, with tingling shudder, as the waters
Swirled round his thighs; and deeper, slowly deeper,
Till on his breast the River's cheek was pillowed;
And deeper still, till every shoreward ripple
Talked in his ear, and like a cygnet's bosom
His white round shoulder shed the dripping crystal.
There, as he floated with a rapturous motion,
The lucid coolness folding close around him,
The lily-cradling ripples murmured, "Hylas! "
He shook from off his ears the hyacinthine
Curls that had lain unwet upon the water,
And still the ripples murmured, "Hylas! Hylas! "
He thought: "The voices are but ear-born music.
Pan dwells not here, and Echo still is calling
From some high cliff that tops a Thracian valley ·
So long mine ears, on tumbling Hellespontus,
Have heard the sea waves hammer Argo's forehead,
That I misdeem the fluting of this current
For some lost nymph-" Again the murmur, "Hylas! "
And with the sound a cold smooth arm around him
Slid like a wave, and down the clear green darkness
Glimmered on either side a shining bosom, —
Glimmered, uprising slow; and ever closer
Wound the cold arms, till, climbing to his shoulders,
Their cheeks lay nestled, while the purple tangles
Their loose hair made, in silken mesh enwound him.
Their eyes of clear pale emerald then uplifting,
They kissed his neck with lips of humid coral,
And once again there came a murmur, "Hylas!
Oh, come with us! Oh, follow where we wander
Deep down beneath the green, translucent ceiling,-
Where on the sandy bed of old Scamander
## p. 14536 (#98) ###########################################
14536
BAYARD TAYLOR
With cool white buds we braid our purple tresses,
Lulled by the bubbling waves around us stealing!
Thou fair Greek boy, oh, come with us! Oh, follow
Where thou no more shalt hear Propontis riot,
But by our arms be lapped in endless quiet,
Within the glimmering caves of Ocean hollow!
We have no love; alone, of all the Immortals,
We have no love. Oh, love us, we who press thee
With faithful arms, though cold,-whose lips caress thee,-
Who hold thy beauty prisoned! Love us, Hylas! ”
The boy grew chill to feel their twining pressure
Lock round his limbs, and bear him vainly striving,
Down from the noonday brightness. "Leave me, Naiads!
Leave me! " he cried: "the day to me dearer
Than all your caves deep-sphered in Ocean's quiet.
I am but mortal, seek but mortal pleasure;
I would not change this flexile, warm existence,
Though swept by storms, and shocked by Jove's dread thunder,
To be a king beneath the dark-green waters. "
Still moaned the human lips, between their kisses,
"We have no love. Oh, love us, we who love thee! "
And came in answer, thus, the words of Hylas: —
My love is mortal. For the Argive maidens
I keep the kisses which your lips would ravish.
Unlock your cold white arms; take from my shoulder
The tangled swell of your bewildering tresses.
Let me return: the wind comes down from Ida,
And soon the galley, stirring from her slumber,
Will fret to ride where Pelion's twilight shadow
Falls o'er the towers of Jason's sea-girt city.
I am not yours: I cannot braid the lilies
In your wet hair, nor on your argent bosoms
Close my drowsed eyes to hear your rippling voices.
Hateful to me your sweet, cold, crystal being,—
Your world of watery quiet. Help, Apollo!
For I am thine: thy fire, thy beam, thy music,
Dance in my heart and flood my sense with rapture!
The joy, the warmth and passion now awaken,
Promised by thee, but erewhile calmly sleeping.
Oh, leave me, Naiads! loose your chill embraces,
Or I shall die, for mortal maidens pining. "
But still with unrelenting arms they bound him,
And still, accordant, flowed their watery voices:-
"We have thee now,- - we hold thy beauty prisoned;
Oh, come with us beneath the emerald waters!
## p. 14537 (#99) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14537
We have no love: we have thee, rosy Hylas.
Oh, love us, who shall nevermore release thee;
Love us, whose milky arms will be thy cradle
Far down on the untroubled sands of ocean,
Where now we bear thee, clasped in our embraces. "
And slowly, slowly sank the amorous Naiads:
The boy's blue eyes, upturned, looked through the water,
Pleading for help; but Heaven's immortal Archer
Was swathed in cloud. The ripples hid his forehead,
And last, the thick bright curls a moment floated,
So warm and silky that the stream upbore them,
Closing reluctant, as he sank forever.
The sunset died behind the crags of Imbros.
Argo was tugging at her chain; for freshly
Flew the swift breeze, and leaped the restless billows.
The voice of Jason roused the dozing sailors,
And up the mast was heaved the snowy canvas.
But mighty Hêraclês, the Jove-begotten,
Unmindful stood beside the cool Scamander,
Leaning upon his club. A purple chlamys
Tossed o'er an urn was all that lay before him:
And when he called, expectant, "Hylas! Hylas! "
The empty echoes made him answer, "Hylas! "
THE SONG OF THE CAMP
IVE us a song! " the soldiers cried,
The outer trenches guarding,
When the heated guns of the camps allied
Grew weary of bombarding.
་
"G"
The dark Redan, in silent scoff,
Lay, grim and threatening, under;
And the tawny mound of the Malakoff
No longer belched its thunder.
There was a pause. A guardsman said,
"We storm the forts to-morrow:
Sing while we may,- another day
Will bring enough of sorrow. "
They lay along the battery's side,
Below the smoking cannon:
Brave hearts, from Severn and from Clyde
And from the banks of Shannon.
## p. 14538 (#100) ##########################################
14538
BAYARD TAYLOR
They sang of love, and not of fame;
Forgot was Britain's glory:
Each heart recalled a different name,
But all sang 'Annie Laurie. '
Voice after voice caught up the song,
Until its tender passion
Rose like an anthem, rich and strong,—
Their battle-eve confession.
Dear girl, her name he dared not speak;
But as the song grew louder,
Something upon the soldier's cheek
Washed off the stains of powder.
Beyond the darkening ocean burned
The bloody sunset's embers,
While the Crimean valleys learned
How English love remembers.
And once again a fire of hell
Rained on the Russian quarters,
With scream of shot, and burst of shell,
And bellowing of the mortars!
And Irish Nora's eyes are dim
For a singer, dumb and gory;
And English Mary mourns for him
Who sang of Annie Laurie.
Sleep, soldiers! still in honored rest
Your truth and valor wearing:
The bravest are the tenderest,—
The loving are the daring.
## p. 14539 (#101) ##########################################
14539
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
(1800-1886)
HE modern English drama of literary significance is too scant
to make it easy to overlook so sterling a performance as
Sir Henry Taylor's Philip Van Artevelde. ' Taylor was a
poet by deliberation and culture rather than by creative neces-
sity. But he devoted himself with a calm singleness of purpose to
literature for a long term of years; and his work was always self-
respecting, careful, and artistically acceptable. He did his share in
lending dignity to letters. His career was fortunate in allowing him
to exercise his poetic talent in quiet ease; and the solid quality and
considerable extent of his literary endeavor are to show for it. Of
course his vogue is not now what it once was. Professor Saintsbury
has pointed out that whereas he was much quoted between 1835 and
1865, he has been little quoted by the generation coming between
1865 and 1895. But this is only the common fate of all but the
greatest. Philip Van Artevelde,' Taylor's masterpiece, will remain
one of the most notable achievements in the English historical drama
of the first half of the nineteenth century.
It may be added that in
the lyric snatches imbedded in his plays, he sometimes strikes a rare
note, one that sends the reader ck to Elizabethan days. These
perfect songs are few in number, but sufficient to stamp their maker
as a true poet in his degree.
Henry Taylor was born at Bishop Middleham, Durham, England,
on October 18th, 1800. He came of a family of small land-owners.
He entered the navy as a lad, and was a midshipman for some
months. But this life he did not take to; and after four years in
the storekeeper's department, he found his true place in entering
the Colonial Office. He went in as a young man of twenty-four; he
remained well-nigh a half-century, became an important figure, and
acquired property. Taylor exercised much influence in his relation
to government: a fact indicated by the offer of Under-Secretaryship of
State in 1847, which he declined, and by his being knighted in 1869.
His employment left him the leisure necessary to carry on his liter-
ary work tranquilly, as an avocation. Dramatic writing constitutes
the bulk and the best of his efforts. He began when twenty-seven
with the play 'Isaac Comnenus' (1827), which was not well received.
But seven years later, Philip Van Artevelde' won great success;
TOK
## p. 14540 (#102) ##########################################
14540
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
deservedly, since it is by far his finest production. Other dramas are
the historical 'Edwin the Fair' (1842), the romantic comedy 'The
Virgin Widow' (1850), and St. Clement's Eve' (1862).
His essays
on political and literary topics are gathered in the three volumes
'The Statesman' (1836), 'Notes from Life' (1847), and Notes from
Books' (1849). His non-dramatic verse appears in The Eve of the
Conquest, and Other Poems' (1847), and in 'A Sicilian Summer, and
Minor Poems' (1868), of which the title-piece is the already noted
'The Virgin Widow' under another name.
'Philip Van Artevelde' is a historical drama in two parts, or
two five-act plays. Its length alone would preclude its production
in a theatre; but in all respects it is a closet drama, to be read rather
than enacted upon the stage. It makes use of the fourteenth-century
Flemish struggle, in which Van Artevelde was a protagonist; the first
play carrying the leader to his height of power, the second conduct-
ing him to his downfall and death. Taylor has a feeling for char-
acter; he gets the spirit of the age, and writes vigorous blank verse,
rising at times to an incisive strength and nobility of diction which
suggests the Elizabethans. The sympathetic handling of Philip Van
Artevelde' has been explained by the fact that certain incidents in
the Fleming's career-those having to do with his love-tally with
Taylor's own subjective experiences. 'Philip Van Artevelde' is
weakest on the purely dramatic side: as a study and description
of character in an interesting historical setting, it is admirable,—a
drama that can always be read with pleasure. The lyrics it contains
show the author at his happiest in this kind.
The works of Sir Henry Taylor were published in five volumes in
1868. His very entertaining biography appeared in 1885, the Corre-
spondence following in 1888. He died on March 28th, 1886, at Bourne-
mouth, where he spent his final days in the sun of general esteem
and regard. He had attained to the good old age of nearly eighty-
six.
SONG
OWN lay in a nook my lady's brach,
And said, "My feet are sore,-
I cannot follow with the pack
A-hunting of the boar.
Do
"And though the horn sounds never so clear
With the hounds in loud uproar,
Yet I must stop and lie down here,
Because my feet are sore. "
## p. 14541 (#103) ##########################################
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
14541
The huntsman when he heard the same,
What answer did he give? —
"The dog that's lame is much to blame,
He is not fit to live. "
ARETINA'S SONG
From A Sicilian Summer›
I'M
'M A bird that's free
Of the land and sea;
I wander whither I will;
But oft on the wing
I falter and sing,
O fluttering heart, be still,
Be still,
O fluttering heart, be still!
I'm wild as the wind,
But soft and kind,
And wander whither I may;
The eyebright sighs,
And says with its eyes,
Thou wandering wind, oh stay,
Oh stay,
Thou wandering wind, oh stay!
TO H. C.
(IN REPLY)
T MAY be folly, - they are free
Who think it so, to laugh or blame,-
But single sympathies to me
Are more than fame.
The glen and not the mountain-top
I love; and though its date be brief,
I snatch the rose you send, and drop
The laurel leaf.
## p. 14542 (#104) ##########################################
14542
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
Clara-
THE FAMINE
From Philip Van Artevelde
Α'
RTEVELDE -Now render me account of what befell
Where thou hast been to-day.
Clara-
I paid a visit first to Ukenheim,
The man who whilome saved our father's life
When certain Clementists and ribald folk
Assailed him at Malines. He came last night,
And said he knew not if we owed him aught;
But if we did, a peck of oatmeal now
Would pay the debt and save more lives than one.
I went. It seemed a wealthy man's abode:
The costly drapery and good house-gear
Had, in an ordinary time, made known
That with the occupant the world went well.
By a low couch, curtained with cloth of frieze,
Sat Ukenheim, a famine-stricken man,
-
Not much is that.
With either bony fist upon his knees
And his long back upright. His eyes were fixed
And moved not, though some gentle words I spake:
Until a little urchin of a child
That called him father, crept to where he sat
And plucked him by the sleeve, and with its small
And skinny finger pointed; then he rose
And with a low obeisance, and a smile
That looked like watery moonlight on his face,
So pale and weak a smile, he bade me welcome.
I told him that a lading of wheat-flour
Was on its way; whereat, to my surprise,
His countenance fell, and he had almost wept.
Artevelde-Poor soul! and wherefore?
That I saw too soon.
He plucked aside the curtain of the couch,
And there two children's bodies lay composed.
They seemed like twins of some ten years of age,
And they had died so nearly both at once
He scarce could say which first; and being dead,
He put them, for some fanciful affection,
Each with its arm about the other's neck,
So that a fairer sight I had not seen
Than those two children with their little faces
So thin and wan, so calm and sad and sweet.
## p. 14543 (#105) ##########################################
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
14543
Artevelde-
Clara-
I looked upon them long, and for a while
I wished myself their sister, and to lie
With them in death as with each other they;
I thought that there was nothing in the world
I could have loved so much; and then I wept:
And when he saw I wept, his own tears fell,
And he was sorely shaken and convulsed
Through weakness of his frame and his great grief.
Much pity was it he so long deferred
To come to us for aid.
-
It was indeed;
But whatsoe'er had been his former pride,
He seemed a humble and heart-broken man.
He thanked me much for what I said was sent,
But I knew well his thanks were for my tears.
He looked again upon the children's couch,
And said, low down, they wanted nothing now.
So, to turn off his eyes and change his mood,
I drew the small survivor of the three
Before him, and he snatched it up, and soon
Seemed lost and quite forgetful; and with that
I stole away.
VENGEANCE ON THE TRAITORS
From Philip Van Artevelde
A
RTEVELDE I thank you, sirs; I knew it could not be
But men like you must listen to the truth.
Sirs, ye have heard these knights discourse to you
Of your ill fortunes, numbering in their glee
The worthy leaders ye have lately lost.
True, they were worthy men, most gallant chiefs,
And ill would it become us to make light
Of the great loss we suffer by their fall:
They died like heroes: for no recreant step
Had e'er dishonored them,- no stain of fear,
No base despair, no cowardly recoil;
They had the hearts of freemen to the last,
And the free blood that bounded in their veins
Was shed for freedom with a liberal joy.
But had they guessed, or could they but have dreamed,
The great examples which they died to show
Should fall so flat, should shine so fruitless here,
## p. 14544 (#106) ##########################################
14544
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
That men should say, "For liberty these died,
Wherefore let us be slaves," had they thought this,
Oh then with what an agony of shame,
Their blushing faces buried in the dust,
Had their great spirits parted hence for heaven!
What! shall we teach our chroniclers henceforth
To write that in five bodies were contained
The sole brave hearts of Ghent! which five defunct,
The heartless town by brainless counsel led
Delivered up her keys, stript off her robes,
And so with all humility besought
Her haughty lord to scourge her lightly! No,
It shall not be - no, verily! for now,
Thus looking on you as ye gather round,
Mine eyes can single out full many a man
Who lacks but opportunity to shine
As great and glorious as the chiefs that fell.
But lo, the earl is mercifully moved!
And surely if we, rather than revenge
-
The slaughter of our bravest, cry them shame,
And fall upon our knees, and say we've sinned,
Then will the earl take pity on his thralls
And pardon us our letch for liberty!
What pardon it shall be, if we know not,
Yet Ypres, Courtray, Grammont, Bruges, they know;
For never can those towns forget the day
When by the hangman's hands five hundred men,
ΤΙ bravest of each guild, were done to death
In those base butcheries that he called pardons.
And did it seal their pardons, all this blood?
Had they the earl's good love from that time forth?
O sirs! look round you lest ye be deceived:
Forgiveness may be written with the pen,
But think not that the parchment-and-mouth pardon
Will e'er eject old hatreds from the heart.
There's that betwixt you been, men ne'er forget
Till they forget themselves, till all's forgot;
Till the deep sleep falls on them in that bed
From which no morrow's mischief knocks them up.
There's that betwixt you been, which you yourselves,
Should ye forget, would then not be yourselves;
For must it not be thought some base men's souls
Have ta'en the seats of yours and turned you out,
If in the coldness of a craven heart
Ye should forgive this bloody-minded man
## p. 14545 (#107) ##########################################
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
14545
For all his black and murderous monstrous crimes?
Think of your mariners,-three hundred men,-
After long absence in the Indian seas,
Upon their peaceful homeward voyage bound,
And now, all dangers conquered as they thought,
Warping the vessels up their native stream,
Their wives and children waiting them at home
In joy, with festal preparations made,-
Think of these mariners, their eyes torn out,
Their hands chopped off, turned staggering into Ghent
To meet the blasted eyesight of their friends!
And was not this the earl? 'Twas none but he!
No Hauterive of them all had dared to do it
Save at the express instance of the earl.
And now what asks he? Pardon me, sir knights,
[To Grutt and Bette.
I had forgotten, looking back and back
From felony to felony foregoing,
This present civil message which ye bring:
Three hundred citizens to be surrendered
Up to that mercy which I tell you of,-
That mercy which your mariners proved,-which steeped
Courtray and Ypres, Grammont, Bruges, in blood!
Three hundred citizens a secret list:
No man knows who; not one can say he's safe;
Not one of you so humble but that still
The malice of some secret enemy
Van den Bosch-
-
-
May whisper him to death; - and hark-look to it!
Have some of you seemed braver than their peers,
Their courage is their surest condemnation;
They are marked men- and not a man stands here
But may be so. -Your pardon, sirs, again!
[To Grutt and Bette.
XXV-910
You are the pickers and the choosers here,
And doubtless you're all safe, ye think-ha! ha!
But we have picked and chosen, too, sir knights.
What was the law for, I made yesterday?
What is it you that would deliver up
Three hundred citizens to certain death?
Ho! Van den Bosch! have at these traitors: there!
[Stabs Grutt, who falls.
Die, treasonable dog! is that enough?
Down, felon, and plot treacheries in hell.
[Stabs Bette.
## p. 14546 (#108) ##########################################
14546
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
ARTEVELDE REFUSES TO DISMISS ELENA
From Philip Van Artevelde'
Scene: Van Artevelde's Tent in the Flemish Camp before Oudenarde.
Present, Elena and Cecile.
Cecile -
Cecile
Q
Elena
Fie on such truth!
Rather than that my heart spoke truth in dumps.
I'd have it what it is,- a merry liar.
Elena - Yes, you are right: I would that I were merry!
Not for my own particular, God knows:
But for his cheer,- he needs to be enlivened;
And for myself in him, because I know
That often he must think me dull and dry,-
I am so heavy-hearted, and at times
ELENA (singing)
UоTH tongue of neither maid nor wife
To heart of neither wife nor maid,
"Lead we not here a jolly life
Betwixt the shine and shade? "
Quoth heart of neither maid nor wife
To tongue of neither wife nor maid,
"Thou wag'st; but I am worn with strife,
And feel like flowers that fade. "
There was truth in that, Cecile.
Outright incapable of speech. Oh me!
I was not made to please.
Yourself, my lady.
'Tis true, to please yourself you were not made,
Being truly by yourself most hard to please:
But speak for none beside; for you were made,
Come gleam or gloom, all others to enchant,
Wherein you never fail.
Yes, but I do:
How can I please him when I cannot speak?
When he is absent I am full of thought,
And fruitful in expression inwardly:
And fresh and free and cordial is the flow
Of my ideal and unheard discourse,
Calling him in my heart endearing names,
Familiarly fearless. But alas!
No sooner is he present than my thoughts
Are breathless and bewitched; and stunted so
In force and freedom, that I ask myself
## p. 14547 (#109) ##########################################
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
14547
Cecile -
Elena
-
Whether I think at all, or feel, or live,
So senseless am I!
Heed not that, my lady:
Men heed it not; I never heard of one
That quarreled with his lady for not talking.
I have had lovers more than I can count,
And some so quarrelsome a slap in the face
Would make them hang themselves, if you'd believe them:
But for my slackness in the matter of speech
They ne'er reproached me; no, the testiest of them
Ne'er fished a quarrel out of that.
Thy swains
Might bear their provocations in that kind,
Yet not of silence prove themselves enamored.
But mark you this, Cecile: your grave and wise
And melancholy men, if they have souls,
As commonly they have, susceptible
Of all impressions, lavish most their love
Upon the blithe and sportive, and on such
As yield their want and chase their sad excess
With jocund salutations, nimble talk,
And buoyant bearing. Would that I were merry.
Mirth have I valued not before; but now,
What would I give to be the laughing fount
Of gay imagination's ever bright
And sparkling fantasies! Oh, all I have
(Which is not nothing, though I prize it not),—
My understanding soul, my brooding sense,
My passionate fancy; and the gift of gifts
Dearest to woman, which deflowering Time,
Slow ravisher, from clenched'st fingers wrings,
My corporal beauty,- would I barter now
For such an antic and exulting spirit
As lives in lively women. -Who comes hither?
Cecile 'Tis the old friar: he they sent abroad;
That ancient man so yellow! Od's my life!
He's yellower than he went. Note but his look:
His rind's the color of a moldy walnut.
Troth! his complexion is no wholesomer
Than a sick frog's.
Elena-
Cecile It makes me ill to look at him.
Elena-
Cecile-It makes me very ill.
Be silent: he will hear.
Hush! hush!
## p. 14548 (#110) ##########################################
14548
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
Father John-
Elena-
-
Father John-
Elena-
Father John-
Elena-
Cecile-
Elena -
I seek the Regent.
Cecile [aside to Elena]-
He comes anon.
Artevelde-
Enter Father John of Heda
Your pardon, lady:
Please you, sit awhile:
Father John-
And likewise yours. -[Aside. ] Yea, this is as I heard:
A wily woman hither sent from France.
Alas, alas, how frail the state of man!
How weak the strongest! This is such a fall
As Samson suffered.
What gibbering is this?
This tent is his?
May we not deem
Your swift return auspicious? Sure it denotes
A prosperous mission?
Artevelde [as he enters]-
What I see and hear
Of sinful courses, and of nets and snares
Encompassing the feet of them that once
Were steadfast deemed, speaks only to my heart
Of coming judgments.
Father John-
It is.
How the friar croaks!
Of naughty friars and of-
Father John—
Peace, Cecile !
Go to your chamber: you forget yourself.
Father, your words afflict me.
――――――
What I see and hear
Who is it says
That Father John is come? Ah! here he is.
Give me your hand, good father! For your news,
Philosophy befriend me that I show
Enter Artevelde
[Exit Cecile.
No strange impatience; for your every word
Must touch me in the quick.
To you alone
Would I address myself.
Nay, heed not her:
She is my privy councilor.
My Lord,
Such councilors I abjure. My function speaks,
## p. 14549 (#111) ##########################################
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
14549
Elena
Father John-
-
Artevelde
Elena
That whilst a foreign leman
To me say what thou wilt.
Father John-
And through me speaks the Master whom I serve;
After strange women them that went astray
God never prospered in the olden time,
Nor will he bless them now. An angry eye
That sleeps not, follows thee till from thy camp
Thou shalt have put away the evil thing.
This in her presence will I say -
Elena-
―――
Nay, spare her:
Thus then it is:
This foreign tie is not to Heaven alone
Displeasing, but to those on whose firm faith
Rests under Heaven your all; 'tis good you know
It is offensive to your army; — nay,
And justly, for they deem themselves betrayed,
When circumvented thus by foreign wiles
They see their chief.
-
Father John-
Oh! let me quit the camp.
Misfortune follows wheresoe'er I come;
My destiny on whomsoe'er I love
O God!
Alights: it shall not, Artevelde, on thee;
For I will leave thee to thy better star
And pray for thee aloof.
Thou shalt do well
For him and for thyself: the camp is now
A post of danger.
Artevelde! O God!
In such an hour as this in danger's hour-
How can I quit thee?
Father John-
-
Dost thou ask? I say,
As thou wouldst make his danger less or more,
Depart or stay. The universal camp,
Nay more, the towns of Flanders, are agape
With tales of sorceries, witcheries, and spells,
That blind their chief and yield him up a prey
To treasons foul. How much is true or false
--
I know not and I say not; but this truth
I sorrowfully declare,- that ill repute
And sin and shame grow up with every hour
That sees you linked together in these bonds
Of spurious love.
## p. 14550 (#112) ##########################################
14550
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
Elena
Artevelde
Father, enough is said.
Clerk's eyes nor soldier's will I more molest
By tarrying here. Seek other food to feed
Your pious scorn and pertinent suspicions.
Alien from grace and sinful though I be,
Yet is there room to wrong me.
I will go,
Lest this injustice done to me work harm
Unto my lord the Regent.
Hold, I say;
Give me a voice in this. You, Father John,
I blame not, nor myself will justify;
But call my weakness what you will, the time
Is past for reparation. Now to cast off
The partner of my sin were further sin;
'Twere with her first to sin, and next against her.
And for the army, if their trust in me
Be sliding, let it go: I know my course;
And be it armies, cities, people, priests,
That quarrel with my love, wise men or fools,
Friends, foes, or factions, they may swear their oaths,
And make their murmur,- rave, and fret, and fear,
Suspect, admonish,- they but waste their rage,
Their wits, their words, their counsel: here I stand
Upon the deep foundations of my faith
To this fair outcast plighted; and the storm
That princes from their palaces shakes out,
Though it should turn and head me, should not strain
The seeming silken texture of this tie. —
To business next: Nay, leave us not, beloved,-
I will not have thee go as one suspect;
Stay and hear all. Father, forgive my heat,
And do not deem me stubborn.
poets write merely for that popular recognition which is called
fame; and having attained a certain degree, fear to lose it by
later productions which may not prove so acceptable. A writer
influenced by such a consideration never deserved the name of
poet. It is an unworthy estimate of his character which thus
explains the honest and honorable silence of Fitz-Greene Halleck.
The quality of genius is not to be measured by its productive
activity. The brain which gave us 'Alnwick Castle,' 'Marco
Bozzaris,' 'Burns,' and 'Red Jacket,' was not exhausted; it was
certainly capable of other and equally admirable achievements:
but the fortunate visits of the Muse are not to be compelled by
the poet's will; and Halleck endured her absence without com-
plaint, as he had enjoyed her favors without ostentation. The
very fact that he wrote so little, proclaims the sincerity of his
genius, and harmonizes with the entire character of his life. It
was enough for him that he first let loose the Theban eagle in
our songless American air. He was glad and satisfied to know
that his lyrics have entered into and become a part of the
national life; that
"Sweet tears dim the eyes unshed,
And wild vows falter on the tongue,"
when his lines, keen and flexible as fire, burn in the ears of the
young who shall hereafter sing, and fight, and labor, and love, for
"God and their native land! "
It is not necessary that we should attempt to determine his
relative place among American poets. It is sufficient that he
has his assured place, and that his name is a permanent part of
our literary history. It is sufficient that he deserves every honor
which we
can render to his memory, not only as one of the
very first representatives of American song, but from his intrinsic
quality as a poet. Let us rather be thankful for every star
set in our heaven, than seek to ascertain how they differ from
one another in glory. If any critic would diminish the loving
enthusiasm of those whose lives have been brightened by the
## p. 14526 (#88) ###########################################
14526
BAYARD TAYLOR
poet's personal sunshine, let him remember that the sternest criti-
cism will set the lyrics of Halleck higher than their author's un-
ambitious estimate. They will in time fix their own just place
in our poetic annals. Halleck is still too near our orbit for the
computation of an exact parallax; but we may safely leave his
measure of fame to the decision of impartial Time. A poem
which bears within itself its own right to existence, will not die.
Its rhythm is freshly fed from the eternal pulses of beauty,
whence flows the sweetest life of the human race. Age cannot
quench its original fire, or repetition make dull its immortal
music. It forever haunts that purer atmosphere which overlies
the dust and smoke of our petty cares and our material interests
- often indeed calling to us like a distant clarion, to keep awake
the senses of intellectual delight which would else perish from
our lives. The poetic literature of a land is the finer and purer
ether above its material growth and the vicissitudes of its his-
tory. Where it was vacant and barren for us, except perchance
a feeble lark-note here and there, Dana, Halleck, and Bryant rose
together on steadier wings, and gave voices to the solitude: Dana
with a broad, grave undertone, like that of the sea; Bryant with
a sound as of the wind in summer woods, and the fall of waters
in mountain dells; and Halleck with strains blown from a sil-
ver trumpet, breathing manly fire and courage. Many voices
have followed them; the ether rings with new melodies, and yet
others come to lure all the aspirations of our hearts, and echo
all the yearnings of our separated destiny: but we shall not for-
get the forerunners who rose in advance of their welcome, and
created their own audience by their songs.
Thus it is that in dedicating a monument to Fitz-Greene Hal-
leck to-day, we symbolize the intellectual growth of the American.
people. They have at last taken that departure which repre-
sents the higher development of a nation,- the capacity to value
the genius which cannot work with material instruments; which
is unmoved by Atlantic Cables, Pacific Railroads, and any show
of marvelous statistical tables; which grandly dispenses with the
popular measures of success; which simply expresses itself, with-
out consciously working for the delight of others; yet which, once
recognized, stands thenceforth as a part of the glory of the whole
people. It is a token that we have relaxed the rough work of
two and a half centuries, and are beginning to enjoy that rest
and leisure out of which the grace and beauty of civilization
## p. 14527 (#89) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14527
grow. The pillars of our political fabric have been slowly and
massively raised, like the drums of Doric columns; but they still
need the crowning capitals and the sculptured entablature. Law,
and Right, and Physical Development build well, but they are
cold, mathematical architects: the Poet and the Artist make
beautiful the temple. Our natural tendency, as a people, is to
worship positive material achievement in whatever form it is dis-
played; even the poet must be a partisan before the government
will recognize his existence. So much of our intellectual energy
has been led into the new paths which our national growth
has opened, so exacting are the demands upon working brains,
that taste and refinement of mind, and warm appreciation of the
creative spirit of beauty, are only beginning to bloom here and
there among us, like tender exotic flowers. "The light that never
was on sea or land" shines all around us, but few are the eyes
whose vision it clarifies. Yet the faculty is here, and the earnest
need. The delight in art, of which poetry is the highest mani-
festation, has ceased to be the privilege of a fortunate few, and
will soon become, let us hope, the common heritage of the peo-
ple. If any true song has heretofore been sung to unheeding
ears, let us behold, in this dedication, the sign that our reproach
is taken away,- that henceforth every new melody of the land
shall spread in still expanding vibrations, until all shall learn to
listen!
The life of the poet who sleeps here represents the long
period of transition between the appearance of American poetry
and the creation of an appreciative and sympathetic audience for
it. We must honor him all the more that in the beginning he
was content with the few who heard him; that the agitations of
national life through which he passed could not ruffle the clear
flow of his song; and that, with a serene equanimity of temper
which is the rarest American virtue, he saw, during his whole
life, wealth and personal distinction constantly passing into less.
deserving hands, without temptation and without envy. All pop-
ular superstitions concerning the misanthropy or the irritable
temper of genius were disproved in him: I have never known a
man so independent of the moods and passions of his generation.
We cannot regret that he should have been chosen to assist in
the hard pioneer work of our literature, because he seemed to be
so unconscious of its privations. Yet he and his co-mates have
walked a rough, and for the most part a lonely track, leaving a
## p. 14528 (#90) ###########################################
14528
BAYARD TAYLOR
smoother way broken for their followers. They have blazed their
trails through the wilderness, and carved their sounding names on
the silent mountain peaks; teaching the scenery of our homes a
language, and giving it a rarer and tenderer charm than even
the atmosphere of great historic deeds. Fitz-Greene Halleck has
set his seal upon the gray rock of Connecticut, on the heights
of Weehawken, on the fair valley of Wyoming, and the Field of
the Grounded Arms. He has done his manly share in forcing
this half-subdued nature in which we live, to accept a human
harmony, and cover its soulless beauty with the mantle of his
verse.
However our field of poetic literature may bloom, whatever
products of riper culture may rise to overshadow its present
growths, the memory of Halleck is perennially rooted at its
entrance. Recognizing the purity of his genius, the nobility of
his character, we gratefully and affectionately dedicate to him
this monument. There is no cypress in the wreath which we
lay upon his grave. We do not meet to chant a dirge over un-
fulfilled promises or an insufficient destiny. We have no willful
defiance of the world to excuse, no sensitive protest to justify.
Our hymn of consecration is cheerful, though solemn. Look-
ing forward from this hallowed ground, we can only behold a
future for our poetry, sunnier than its past. We see the love of
beauty born from the servitude to use; the recognition of an
immortal ideal element gradually evolved from the strength of
natures which have conquered material forces; the growth of all
fine and gracious attributes of imagination and fancy, to warm
and sweeten and expand the stately coldness of intellect. We
dream of days when the highest and deepest utterances of rhyth-
mical thought shall be met with grateful welcome, not with dull
amazement or mean suspicion. We wait for voices which shall
no more say to the poet, "Stay here, at the level of our delight
in you! " but which shall say to him, "Higher, still higher!
though we may not reach you, yet in following we shall rise! "
And as our last prophetic hope, we look for that fortunate age
when the circle of sympathy, now so limited, shall be coextensive
with the nation, and when, even as the poet loves his land, his
land shall love her poet!
-
## p. 14529 (#91) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14529
[The following poems of Bayard Taylor are all copyrighted, and are repub-
lished here by permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers. ]
CHARMIAN
DAUGHTER of the sun,
O
Who gave the keys of passion unto thee?
Who taught the powerful sorcery
Wherein my soul, too willing to be won,
Still feebly struggles to be free.
But more than half undone?
Within the mirror of thine eyes,
Full of the sleep of warm Egyptian skies,-
The sleep of lightning, bound in airy spell,
And deadlier, because invisible,-
I see the reflex of a feeling
Which was not till I looked on thee;
A power, involved in mystery,
That shrinks, affrighted, from its own revealing.
Thou sitt'st in stately indolence,
Too calm to feel a breath of passion start
The listless fibres of thy sense,
The fiery slumber of thy heart.
Thine eyes are wells of darkness, by the veil
Of languid lids half-sealed; the pale
And bloodless olive of thy face,
And the full, silent lips that wear
A ripe serenity of grace,
Are dark beneath the shadow of thy hair.
Not from the brow of templed Athor beams
Such tropic warmth along the path of dreams;
Not from the lips of hornèd Isis flows
Such sweetness of repose!
For thou art Passion's self, a goddess too,
And aught but worship never knew;
And thus thy glances, calm and sure,
Look for accustomed homage, and betray
No effort to assert thy sway:
Thou deem'st my fealty secure.
XXV-909
O Sorceress! those looks unseal
The undisturbèd mysteries that press
Too deep in nature for the heart to feel
Their terror and their loveliness.
## p. 14530 (#92) ###########################################
14530
BAYARD TAYLOR
Thine eyes are torches that illume
On secret shrines their unforeboded fires,
And fill the vaults of silence and of gloom
With the unresisting life of new desires.
I follow where their arrowy ray
Pierces the veil I would not tear away,
And with a dread, delicious awe behold
Another gate of life unfold,
Like the rapt neophyte who sees
Some march of grand Osirian mysteries.
The startled chambers I explore,
And every entrance open lies,
Forced by the magic thrill that runs before
Thy slowly lifted eyes.
I tremble to the centre of my being
Thus to confess the spirit's poise o'erthrown,
And all its guiding virtues blown
Like leaves before the whirlwind's fury fleeing.
But see! one memory rises in my soul,
And beaming steadily and clear,
Scatters the lurid thunder-clouds that roll
Through Passion's sultry atmosphere.
An alchemy more potent borrow
For thy dark eyes, enticing Sorceress!
For on the casket of a sacred Sorrow
Their shafts fall powerless.
Nay, frown not, Athor, from thy mystic shrine:
Strong Goddess of Desire, I will not be
One of the myriad slaves thou callest thine,
To cast my manhood's crown of royalty
Before thy dangerous beauty: I am free!
ARIEL IN THE CLOVEN PINE
N°
ow the frosty stars are gone:
I have watched them one by one,
Fading on the shores of Dawn.
Round and full the glorious sun
Walks with level step the spray,
Through his vestibule of Day,
While the wolves that late did howl
Slink to dens and coverts foul,
Guarded by the demon owl,
## p. 14531 (#93) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14531
Who, last night, with mocking croon,
Wheeled athwart the chilly moon,
And with eyes that blankly glared
On my direful torment stared.
The lark is flickering in the light;
Still the nightingale doth sing:-
All the isle, alive with spring,
Lies, a jewel of delight,
On the blue sea's heaving breast:
Not a breath from out the west,
But some balmy smell doth bring
From the sprouting myrtle buds,
Or from meadowy vales that lie
Like a green inverted sky,
Which the yellow cowslip stars,
And the bloomy almond woods,
Cloud-like, cross with roseate bars.
All is life that I can spy,
To the farthest sea and sky,
And my own the only pain
Within this ring of Tyrrhene main.
In the gnarled and cloven pine
Where that hell-born hag did chain me,
All this orb of cloudless shine,
All this youth in Nature's veins
Tingling with the season's wine,
With a sharper torment pain me.
Pansies in soft April rains
Fill their stalks with honeyed sap
Drawn from Earth's prolific lap;
But the sluggish blood she brings
To the tough pine's hundred rings,
Closer locks their cruel hold,
Closer draws the scaly bark
Round the crevice, damp and cold,
Where my useless wings I fold,-
Sealing me in iron dark.
By this coarse and alien state
Is my dainty ess
essence wronged;
Finer senses that belonged
To my freedom, chafe at Fate,
Till the happier elves I hate,
## p. 14532 (#94) ###########################################
14532
BAYARD TAYLOR
Who in moonlight dances turn
Underneath the palmy fern,
Or in light and twinkling bands.
Follow on with linkèd hands
To the ocean's yellow sands.
Primrose-eyes each morning ope
In their cool deep beds of grass;
Violets make the airs that pass
Telltales of their fragrant slope.
I can see them where they spring,
Never brushed by fairy wing.
All those corners I can spy
In the island's solitude,
Where the dew is never dry,
Nor the miser bees intrude.
Cups of rarest hue are there,
Full of perfumed wine undrained,—
Mushroom banquets, ne'er profaned,
Canopied by maiden-hair.
Pearls I see upon the sands,
Never touched by other hands;
And the rainbow bubbles shine
On the ridged and frothy brine,
Tenantless of voyager
Till they burst in vacant air.
Oh, the songs that sung might be,
And the mazy dances woven,
Had that witch ne'er crossed the sea
And the pine been never cloven!
Many years my direst pain
Has made the wave-rocked isle complain.
Winds that from the Cyclades
Came to blow in wanton riot
Round its shore's enchanted quiet,
Bore my wailings on the seas;
Sorrowing birds in Autumn went
Through the world with my lament.
Still the bitter fate is mine,
All delight unshared to see,
Smarting in the cloven pine,
While I wait the tardy axe
Which perchance shall set me free
From the damned witch Sycorax.
## p. 14533 (#95) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14533
BEDOUIN SONG
FRO
ROM the Desert I come to thee
On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left behind
In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,
And the midnight hears my cry:
I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!
Look from thy window and see
My passion and my pain;
I lie on the sands below,
And I faint in thy disdain.
Let the night-winds touch thy brow
With the heat of my burning sigh,
And melt thee to hear the vow
Of a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!
My steps are nightly driven
By the fever in my breast,
To hear from thy lattice breathed
The word that shall give me rest.
Open the door of thy heart,
And open thy chamber door,
And my kisses shall teach thy lips
The love that shall fade no more
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!
## p. 14534 (#96) ###########################################
14534
BAYARD TAYLOR
HYLAS
TORM-WEARIED Argo slept upon the water.
No cloud was seen; on blue and craggy Ida
The hot noon lay, and on the plain's enamel;
Cool, in his bed, alone, the swift Scamander.
STO
་ Why should I haste? " said young and rosy Hylas:
"The seas were rough, and long the way from Colchis.
Beneath the snow-white awning slumbers Jason,
Pillowed upon his tame Thessalian panther;
The shields are piled, the listless oars suspended
On the black thwarts, and all the hairy bondsmen
Doze on the benches. They may wait for water,
Till I have bathed in mountain-born Scamander. "
So said, unfilleting his purple chlamys,
And putting down his urn, he stood a moment,
Breathing the faint, warm odor of the blossoms
That spangled thick the lovely Dardan meadows.
Then stooping lightly, loosened he his buskins,
And felt with shrinking feet the crispy verdure;-
Naked save one light robe that from his shoulder
Hung to his knee, the youthful flush revealing
Of warm white limbs, half-nerved with coming manhood.
Yet fair and smooth with tenderness of beauty.
Now to the river's sandy marge advancing,
He dropped the robe, and raised his head exulting
In the clear sunshine, that with beam embracing
Held him against Apollo's glowing bosom.
For sacred to Latona's son is Beauty,
Sacred is Youth, the joy of youthful feeling.
A joy indeed, a living joy, was Hylas;
Whence Jove-begotten Hêraclês, the mighty,
To men though terrible, to him was gentle,-
Smoothing his rugged nature into laughter
When the boy stole his club, or from his shoulders
Dragged the huge paws of the Nemean lion.
The thick brown locks, tossed backward from his forehead.
Fell soft about his temples; manhood's blossom
Not yet had sprouted on his chin, but freshly
Curved the fair cheek, and full the red lips, parting,
Like a loose bow, that just has launched its arrow.
His large blue eyes, with joy dilate and beamy,
Were clear as the unshadowed Grecian heaven;
Dewy and sleek his dimpled shoulders rounded
## p. 14535 (#97) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14535
To the white arms and whiter breast between them.
Downward, the supple lines had less of softness:
His back was like a god's; his loins were molded
As if some pulse of power began to waken;
The springy fullness of his thighs, outswerving,
Sloped to his knee, and lightly dropping downward,
Drew the curved lines that breathe, in rest, of motion.
He saw his glorious limbs reversely mirrored
In the still wave, and stretched his foot to press it
On the smooth sole that answered at the surface:
Alas! the shape dissolved in glimmering fragments.
Then, timidly at first, he dipped; and catching
Quick breath, with tingling shudder, as the waters
Swirled round his thighs; and deeper, slowly deeper,
Till on his breast the River's cheek was pillowed;
And deeper still, till every shoreward ripple
Talked in his ear, and like a cygnet's bosom
His white round shoulder shed the dripping crystal.
There, as he floated with a rapturous motion,
The lucid coolness folding close around him,
The lily-cradling ripples murmured, "Hylas! "
He shook from off his ears the hyacinthine
Curls that had lain unwet upon the water,
And still the ripples murmured, "Hylas! Hylas! "
He thought: "The voices are but ear-born music.
Pan dwells not here, and Echo still is calling
From some high cliff that tops a Thracian valley ·
So long mine ears, on tumbling Hellespontus,
Have heard the sea waves hammer Argo's forehead,
That I misdeem the fluting of this current
For some lost nymph-" Again the murmur, "Hylas! "
And with the sound a cold smooth arm around him
Slid like a wave, and down the clear green darkness
Glimmered on either side a shining bosom, —
Glimmered, uprising slow; and ever closer
Wound the cold arms, till, climbing to his shoulders,
Their cheeks lay nestled, while the purple tangles
Their loose hair made, in silken mesh enwound him.
Their eyes of clear pale emerald then uplifting,
They kissed his neck with lips of humid coral,
And once again there came a murmur, "Hylas!
Oh, come with us! Oh, follow where we wander
Deep down beneath the green, translucent ceiling,-
Where on the sandy bed of old Scamander
## p. 14536 (#98) ###########################################
14536
BAYARD TAYLOR
With cool white buds we braid our purple tresses,
Lulled by the bubbling waves around us stealing!
Thou fair Greek boy, oh, come with us! Oh, follow
Where thou no more shalt hear Propontis riot,
But by our arms be lapped in endless quiet,
Within the glimmering caves of Ocean hollow!
We have no love; alone, of all the Immortals,
We have no love. Oh, love us, we who press thee
With faithful arms, though cold,-whose lips caress thee,-
Who hold thy beauty prisoned! Love us, Hylas! ”
The boy grew chill to feel their twining pressure
Lock round his limbs, and bear him vainly striving,
Down from the noonday brightness. "Leave me, Naiads!
Leave me! " he cried: "the day to me dearer
Than all your caves deep-sphered in Ocean's quiet.
I am but mortal, seek but mortal pleasure;
I would not change this flexile, warm existence,
Though swept by storms, and shocked by Jove's dread thunder,
To be a king beneath the dark-green waters. "
Still moaned the human lips, between their kisses,
"We have no love. Oh, love us, we who love thee! "
And came in answer, thus, the words of Hylas: —
My love is mortal. For the Argive maidens
I keep the kisses which your lips would ravish.
Unlock your cold white arms; take from my shoulder
The tangled swell of your bewildering tresses.
Let me return: the wind comes down from Ida,
And soon the galley, stirring from her slumber,
Will fret to ride where Pelion's twilight shadow
Falls o'er the towers of Jason's sea-girt city.
I am not yours: I cannot braid the lilies
In your wet hair, nor on your argent bosoms
Close my drowsed eyes to hear your rippling voices.
Hateful to me your sweet, cold, crystal being,—
Your world of watery quiet. Help, Apollo!
For I am thine: thy fire, thy beam, thy music,
Dance in my heart and flood my sense with rapture!
The joy, the warmth and passion now awaken,
Promised by thee, but erewhile calmly sleeping.
Oh, leave me, Naiads! loose your chill embraces,
Or I shall die, for mortal maidens pining. "
But still with unrelenting arms they bound him,
And still, accordant, flowed their watery voices:-
"We have thee now,- - we hold thy beauty prisoned;
Oh, come with us beneath the emerald waters!
## p. 14537 (#99) ###########################################
BAYARD TAYLOR
14537
We have no love: we have thee, rosy Hylas.
Oh, love us, who shall nevermore release thee;
Love us, whose milky arms will be thy cradle
Far down on the untroubled sands of ocean,
Where now we bear thee, clasped in our embraces. "
And slowly, slowly sank the amorous Naiads:
The boy's blue eyes, upturned, looked through the water,
Pleading for help; but Heaven's immortal Archer
Was swathed in cloud. The ripples hid his forehead,
And last, the thick bright curls a moment floated,
So warm and silky that the stream upbore them,
Closing reluctant, as he sank forever.
The sunset died behind the crags of Imbros.
Argo was tugging at her chain; for freshly
Flew the swift breeze, and leaped the restless billows.
The voice of Jason roused the dozing sailors,
And up the mast was heaved the snowy canvas.
But mighty Hêraclês, the Jove-begotten,
Unmindful stood beside the cool Scamander,
Leaning upon his club. A purple chlamys
Tossed o'er an urn was all that lay before him:
And when he called, expectant, "Hylas! Hylas! "
The empty echoes made him answer, "Hylas! "
THE SONG OF THE CAMP
IVE us a song! " the soldiers cried,
The outer trenches guarding,
When the heated guns of the camps allied
Grew weary of bombarding.
་
"G"
The dark Redan, in silent scoff,
Lay, grim and threatening, under;
And the tawny mound of the Malakoff
No longer belched its thunder.
There was a pause. A guardsman said,
"We storm the forts to-morrow:
Sing while we may,- another day
Will bring enough of sorrow. "
They lay along the battery's side,
Below the smoking cannon:
Brave hearts, from Severn and from Clyde
And from the banks of Shannon.
## p. 14538 (#100) ##########################################
14538
BAYARD TAYLOR
They sang of love, and not of fame;
Forgot was Britain's glory:
Each heart recalled a different name,
But all sang 'Annie Laurie. '
Voice after voice caught up the song,
Until its tender passion
Rose like an anthem, rich and strong,—
Their battle-eve confession.
Dear girl, her name he dared not speak;
But as the song grew louder,
Something upon the soldier's cheek
Washed off the stains of powder.
Beyond the darkening ocean burned
The bloody sunset's embers,
While the Crimean valleys learned
How English love remembers.
And once again a fire of hell
Rained on the Russian quarters,
With scream of shot, and burst of shell,
And bellowing of the mortars!
And Irish Nora's eyes are dim
For a singer, dumb and gory;
And English Mary mourns for him
Who sang of Annie Laurie.
Sleep, soldiers! still in honored rest
Your truth and valor wearing:
The bravest are the tenderest,—
The loving are the daring.
## p. 14539 (#101) ##########################################
14539
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
(1800-1886)
HE modern English drama of literary significance is too scant
to make it easy to overlook so sterling a performance as
Sir Henry Taylor's Philip Van Artevelde. ' Taylor was a
poet by deliberation and culture rather than by creative neces-
sity. But he devoted himself with a calm singleness of purpose to
literature for a long term of years; and his work was always self-
respecting, careful, and artistically acceptable. He did his share in
lending dignity to letters. His career was fortunate in allowing him
to exercise his poetic talent in quiet ease; and the solid quality and
considerable extent of his literary endeavor are to show for it. Of
course his vogue is not now what it once was. Professor Saintsbury
has pointed out that whereas he was much quoted between 1835 and
1865, he has been little quoted by the generation coming between
1865 and 1895. But this is only the common fate of all but the
greatest. Philip Van Artevelde,' Taylor's masterpiece, will remain
one of the most notable achievements in the English historical drama
of the first half of the nineteenth century.
It may be added that in
the lyric snatches imbedded in his plays, he sometimes strikes a rare
note, one that sends the reader ck to Elizabethan days. These
perfect songs are few in number, but sufficient to stamp their maker
as a true poet in his degree.
Henry Taylor was born at Bishop Middleham, Durham, England,
on October 18th, 1800. He came of a family of small land-owners.
He entered the navy as a lad, and was a midshipman for some
months. But this life he did not take to; and after four years in
the storekeeper's department, he found his true place in entering
the Colonial Office. He went in as a young man of twenty-four; he
remained well-nigh a half-century, became an important figure, and
acquired property. Taylor exercised much influence in his relation
to government: a fact indicated by the offer of Under-Secretaryship of
State in 1847, which he declined, and by his being knighted in 1869.
His employment left him the leisure necessary to carry on his liter-
ary work tranquilly, as an avocation. Dramatic writing constitutes
the bulk and the best of his efforts. He began when twenty-seven
with the play 'Isaac Comnenus' (1827), which was not well received.
But seven years later, Philip Van Artevelde' won great success;
TOK
## p. 14540 (#102) ##########################################
14540
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
deservedly, since it is by far his finest production. Other dramas are
the historical 'Edwin the Fair' (1842), the romantic comedy 'The
Virgin Widow' (1850), and St. Clement's Eve' (1862).
His essays
on political and literary topics are gathered in the three volumes
'The Statesman' (1836), 'Notes from Life' (1847), and Notes from
Books' (1849). His non-dramatic verse appears in The Eve of the
Conquest, and Other Poems' (1847), and in 'A Sicilian Summer, and
Minor Poems' (1868), of which the title-piece is the already noted
'The Virgin Widow' under another name.
'Philip Van Artevelde' is a historical drama in two parts, or
two five-act plays. Its length alone would preclude its production
in a theatre; but in all respects it is a closet drama, to be read rather
than enacted upon the stage. It makes use of the fourteenth-century
Flemish struggle, in which Van Artevelde was a protagonist; the first
play carrying the leader to his height of power, the second conduct-
ing him to his downfall and death. Taylor has a feeling for char-
acter; he gets the spirit of the age, and writes vigorous blank verse,
rising at times to an incisive strength and nobility of diction which
suggests the Elizabethans. The sympathetic handling of Philip Van
Artevelde' has been explained by the fact that certain incidents in
the Fleming's career-those having to do with his love-tally with
Taylor's own subjective experiences. 'Philip Van Artevelde' is
weakest on the purely dramatic side: as a study and description
of character in an interesting historical setting, it is admirable,—a
drama that can always be read with pleasure. The lyrics it contains
show the author at his happiest in this kind.
The works of Sir Henry Taylor were published in five volumes in
1868. His very entertaining biography appeared in 1885, the Corre-
spondence following in 1888. He died on March 28th, 1886, at Bourne-
mouth, where he spent his final days in the sun of general esteem
and regard. He had attained to the good old age of nearly eighty-
six.
SONG
OWN lay in a nook my lady's brach,
And said, "My feet are sore,-
I cannot follow with the pack
A-hunting of the boar.
Do
"And though the horn sounds never so clear
With the hounds in loud uproar,
Yet I must stop and lie down here,
Because my feet are sore. "
## p. 14541 (#103) ##########################################
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
14541
The huntsman when he heard the same,
What answer did he give? —
"The dog that's lame is much to blame,
He is not fit to live. "
ARETINA'S SONG
From A Sicilian Summer›
I'M
'M A bird that's free
Of the land and sea;
I wander whither I will;
But oft on the wing
I falter and sing,
O fluttering heart, be still,
Be still,
O fluttering heart, be still!
I'm wild as the wind,
But soft and kind,
And wander whither I may;
The eyebright sighs,
And says with its eyes,
Thou wandering wind, oh stay,
Oh stay,
Thou wandering wind, oh stay!
TO H. C.
(IN REPLY)
T MAY be folly, - they are free
Who think it so, to laugh or blame,-
But single sympathies to me
Are more than fame.
The glen and not the mountain-top
I love; and though its date be brief,
I snatch the rose you send, and drop
The laurel leaf.
## p. 14542 (#104) ##########################################
14542
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
Clara-
THE FAMINE
From Philip Van Artevelde
Α'
RTEVELDE -Now render me account of what befell
Where thou hast been to-day.
Clara-
I paid a visit first to Ukenheim,
The man who whilome saved our father's life
When certain Clementists and ribald folk
Assailed him at Malines. He came last night,
And said he knew not if we owed him aught;
But if we did, a peck of oatmeal now
Would pay the debt and save more lives than one.
I went. It seemed a wealthy man's abode:
The costly drapery and good house-gear
Had, in an ordinary time, made known
That with the occupant the world went well.
By a low couch, curtained with cloth of frieze,
Sat Ukenheim, a famine-stricken man,
-
Not much is that.
With either bony fist upon his knees
And his long back upright. His eyes were fixed
And moved not, though some gentle words I spake:
Until a little urchin of a child
That called him father, crept to where he sat
And plucked him by the sleeve, and with its small
And skinny finger pointed; then he rose
And with a low obeisance, and a smile
That looked like watery moonlight on his face,
So pale and weak a smile, he bade me welcome.
I told him that a lading of wheat-flour
Was on its way; whereat, to my surprise,
His countenance fell, and he had almost wept.
Artevelde-Poor soul! and wherefore?
That I saw too soon.
He plucked aside the curtain of the couch,
And there two children's bodies lay composed.
They seemed like twins of some ten years of age,
And they had died so nearly both at once
He scarce could say which first; and being dead,
He put them, for some fanciful affection,
Each with its arm about the other's neck,
So that a fairer sight I had not seen
Than those two children with their little faces
So thin and wan, so calm and sad and sweet.
## p. 14543 (#105) ##########################################
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
14543
Artevelde-
Clara-
I looked upon them long, and for a while
I wished myself their sister, and to lie
With them in death as with each other they;
I thought that there was nothing in the world
I could have loved so much; and then I wept:
And when he saw I wept, his own tears fell,
And he was sorely shaken and convulsed
Through weakness of his frame and his great grief.
Much pity was it he so long deferred
To come to us for aid.
-
It was indeed;
But whatsoe'er had been his former pride,
He seemed a humble and heart-broken man.
He thanked me much for what I said was sent,
But I knew well his thanks were for my tears.
He looked again upon the children's couch,
And said, low down, they wanted nothing now.
So, to turn off his eyes and change his mood,
I drew the small survivor of the three
Before him, and he snatched it up, and soon
Seemed lost and quite forgetful; and with that
I stole away.
VENGEANCE ON THE TRAITORS
From Philip Van Artevelde
A
RTEVELDE I thank you, sirs; I knew it could not be
But men like you must listen to the truth.
Sirs, ye have heard these knights discourse to you
Of your ill fortunes, numbering in their glee
The worthy leaders ye have lately lost.
True, they were worthy men, most gallant chiefs,
And ill would it become us to make light
Of the great loss we suffer by their fall:
They died like heroes: for no recreant step
Had e'er dishonored them,- no stain of fear,
No base despair, no cowardly recoil;
They had the hearts of freemen to the last,
And the free blood that bounded in their veins
Was shed for freedom with a liberal joy.
But had they guessed, or could they but have dreamed,
The great examples which they died to show
Should fall so flat, should shine so fruitless here,
## p. 14544 (#106) ##########################################
14544
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
That men should say, "For liberty these died,
Wherefore let us be slaves," had they thought this,
Oh then with what an agony of shame,
Their blushing faces buried in the dust,
Had their great spirits parted hence for heaven!
What! shall we teach our chroniclers henceforth
To write that in five bodies were contained
The sole brave hearts of Ghent! which five defunct,
The heartless town by brainless counsel led
Delivered up her keys, stript off her robes,
And so with all humility besought
Her haughty lord to scourge her lightly! No,
It shall not be - no, verily! for now,
Thus looking on you as ye gather round,
Mine eyes can single out full many a man
Who lacks but opportunity to shine
As great and glorious as the chiefs that fell.
But lo, the earl is mercifully moved!
And surely if we, rather than revenge
-
The slaughter of our bravest, cry them shame,
And fall upon our knees, and say we've sinned,
Then will the earl take pity on his thralls
And pardon us our letch for liberty!
What pardon it shall be, if we know not,
Yet Ypres, Courtray, Grammont, Bruges, they know;
For never can those towns forget the day
When by the hangman's hands five hundred men,
ΤΙ bravest of each guild, were done to death
In those base butcheries that he called pardons.
And did it seal their pardons, all this blood?
Had they the earl's good love from that time forth?
O sirs! look round you lest ye be deceived:
Forgiveness may be written with the pen,
But think not that the parchment-and-mouth pardon
Will e'er eject old hatreds from the heart.
There's that betwixt you been, men ne'er forget
Till they forget themselves, till all's forgot;
Till the deep sleep falls on them in that bed
From which no morrow's mischief knocks them up.
There's that betwixt you been, which you yourselves,
Should ye forget, would then not be yourselves;
For must it not be thought some base men's souls
Have ta'en the seats of yours and turned you out,
If in the coldness of a craven heart
Ye should forgive this bloody-minded man
## p. 14545 (#107) ##########################################
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
14545
For all his black and murderous monstrous crimes?
Think of your mariners,-three hundred men,-
After long absence in the Indian seas,
Upon their peaceful homeward voyage bound,
And now, all dangers conquered as they thought,
Warping the vessels up their native stream,
Their wives and children waiting them at home
In joy, with festal preparations made,-
Think of these mariners, their eyes torn out,
Their hands chopped off, turned staggering into Ghent
To meet the blasted eyesight of their friends!
And was not this the earl? 'Twas none but he!
No Hauterive of them all had dared to do it
Save at the express instance of the earl.
And now what asks he? Pardon me, sir knights,
[To Grutt and Bette.
I had forgotten, looking back and back
From felony to felony foregoing,
This present civil message which ye bring:
Three hundred citizens to be surrendered
Up to that mercy which I tell you of,-
That mercy which your mariners proved,-which steeped
Courtray and Ypres, Grammont, Bruges, in blood!
Three hundred citizens a secret list:
No man knows who; not one can say he's safe;
Not one of you so humble but that still
The malice of some secret enemy
Van den Bosch-
-
-
May whisper him to death; - and hark-look to it!
Have some of you seemed braver than their peers,
Their courage is their surest condemnation;
They are marked men- and not a man stands here
But may be so. -Your pardon, sirs, again!
[To Grutt and Bette.
XXV-910
You are the pickers and the choosers here,
And doubtless you're all safe, ye think-ha! ha!
But we have picked and chosen, too, sir knights.
What was the law for, I made yesterday?
What is it you that would deliver up
Three hundred citizens to certain death?
Ho! Van den Bosch! have at these traitors: there!
[Stabs Grutt, who falls.
Die, treasonable dog! is that enough?
Down, felon, and plot treacheries in hell.
[Stabs Bette.
## p. 14546 (#108) ##########################################
14546
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
ARTEVELDE REFUSES TO DISMISS ELENA
From Philip Van Artevelde'
Scene: Van Artevelde's Tent in the Flemish Camp before Oudenarde.
Present, Elena and Cecile.
Cecile -
Cecile
Q
Elena
Fie on such truth!
Rather than that my heart spoke truth in dumps.
I'd have it what it is,- a merry liar.
Elena - Yes, you are right: I would that I were merry!
Not for my own particular, God knows:
But for his cheer,- he needs to be enlivened;
And for myself in him, because I know
That often he must think me dull and dry,-
I am so heavy-hearted, and at times
ELENA (singing)
UоTH tongue of neither maid nor wife
To heart of neither wife nor maid,
"Lead we not here a jolly life
Betwixt the shine and shade? "
Quoth heart of neither maid nor wife
To tongue of neither wife nor maid,
"Thou wag'st; but I am worn with strife,
And feel like flowers that fade. "
There was truth in that, Cecile.
Outright incapable of speech. Oh me!
I was not made to please.
Yourself, my lady.
'Tis true, to please yourself you were not made,
Being truly by yourself most hard to please:
But speak for none beside; for you were made,
Come gleam or gloom, all others to enchant,
Wherein you never fail.
Yes, but I do:
How can I please him when I cannot speak?
When he is absent I am full of thought,
And fruitful in expression inwardly:
And fresh and free and cordial is the flow
Of my ideal and unheard discourse,
Calling him in my heart endearing names,
Familiarly fearless. But alas!
No sooner is he present than my thoughts
Are breathless and bewitched; and stunted so
In force and freedom, that I ask myself
## p. 14547 (#109) ##########################################
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
14547
Cecile -
Elena
-
Whether I think at all, or feel, or live,
So senseless am I!
Heed not that, my lady:
Men heed it not; I never heard of one
That quarreled with his lady for not talking.
I have had lovers more than I can count,
And some so quarrelsome a slap in the face
Would make them hang themselves, if you'd believe them:
But for my slackness in the matter of speech
They ne'er reproached me; no, the testiest of them
Ne'er fished a quarrel out of that.
Thy swains
Might bear their provocations in that kind,
Yet not of silence prove themselves enamored.
But mark you this, Cecile: your grave and wise
And melancholy men, if they have souls,
As commonly they have, susceptible
Of all impressions, lavish most their love
Upon the blithe and sportive, and on such
As yield their want and chase their sad excess
With jocund salutations, nimble talk,
And buoyant bearing. Would that I were merry.
Mirth have I valued not before; but now,
What would I give to be the laughing fount
Of gay imagination's ever bright
And sparkling fantasies! Oh, all I have
(Which is not nothing, though I prize it not),—
My understanding soul, my brooding sense,
My passionate fancy; and the gift of gifts
Dearest to woman, which deflowering Time,
Slow ravisher, from clenched'st fingers wrings,
My corporal beauty,- would I barter now
For such an antic and exulting spirit
As lives in lively women. -Who comes hither?
Cecile 'Tis the old friar: he they sent abroad;
That ancient man so yellow! Od's my life!
He's yellower than he went. Note but his look:
His rind's the color of a moldy walnut.
Troth! his complexion is no wholesomer
Than a sick frog's.
Elena-
Cecile It makes me ill to look at him.
Elena-
Cecile-It makes me very ill.
Be silent: he will hear.
Hush! hush!
## p. 14548 (#110) ##########################################
14548
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
Father John-
Elena-
-
Father John-
Elena-
Father John-
Elena-
Cecile-
Elena -
I seek the Regent.
Cecile [aside to Elena]-
He comes anon.
Artevelde-
Enter Father John of Heda
Your pardon, lady:
Please you, sit awhile:
Father John-
And likewise yours. -[Aside. ] Yea, this is as I heard:
A wily woman hither sent from France.
Alas, alas, how frail the state of man!
How weak the strongest! This is such a fall
As Samson suffered.
What gibbering is this?
This tent is his?
May we not deem
Your swift return auspicious? Sure it denotes
A prosperous mission?
Artevelde [as he enters]-
What I see and hear
Of sinful courses, and of nets and snares
Encompassing the feet of them that once
Were steadfast deemed, speaks only to my heart
Of coming judgments.
Father John-
It is.
How the friar croaks!
Of naughty friars and of-
Father John—
Peace, Cecile !
Go to your chamber: you forget yourself.
Father, your words afflict me.
――――――
What I see and hear
Who is it says
That Father John is come? Ah! here he is.
Give me your hand, good father! For your news,
Philosophy befriend me that I show
Enter Artevelde
[Exit Cecile.
No strange impatience; for your every word
Must touch me in the quick.
To you alone
Would I address myself.
Nay, heed not her:
She is my privy councilor.
My Lord,
Such councilors I abjure. My function speaks,
## p. 14549 (#111) ##########################################
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
14549
Elena
Father John-
-
Artevelde
Elena
That whilst a foreign leman
To me say what thou wilt.
Father John-
And through me speaks the Master whom I serve;
After strange women them that went astray
God never prospered in the olden time,
Nor will he bless them now. An angry eye
That sleeps not, follows thee till from thy camp
Thou shalt have put away the evil thing.
This in her presence will I say -
Elena-
―――
Nay, spare her:
Thus then it is:
This foreign tie is not to Heaven alone
Displeasing, but to those on whose firm faith
Rests under Heaven your all; 'tis good you know
It is offensive to your army; — nay,
And justly, for they deem themselves betrayed,
When circumvented thus by foreign wiles
They see their chief.
-
Father John-
Oh! let me quit the camp.
Misfortune follows wheresoe'er I come;
My destiny on whomsoe'er I love
O God!
Alights: it shall not, Artevelde, on thee;
For I will leave thee to thy better star
And pray for thee aloof.
Thou shalt do well
For him and for thyself: the camp is now
A post of danger.
Artevelde! O God!
In such an hour as this in danger's hour-
How can I quit thee?
Father John-
-
Dost thou ask? I say,
As thou wouldst make his danger less or more,
Depart or stay. The universal camp,
Nay more, the towns of Flanders, are agape
With tales of sorceries, witcheries, and spells,
That blind their chief and yield him up a prey
To treasons foul. How much is true or false
--
I know not and I say not; but this truth
I sorrowfully declare,- that ill repute
And sin and shame grow up with every hour
That sees you linked together in these bonds
Of spurious love.
## p. 14550 (#112) ##########################################
14550
SIR HENRY TAYLOR
Elena
Artevelde
Father, enough is said.
Clerk's eyes nor soldier's will I more molest
By tarrying here. Seek other food to feed
Your pious scorn and pertinent suspicions.
Alien from grace and sinful though I be,
Yet is there room to wrong me.
I will go,
Lest this injustice done to me work harm
Unto my lord the Regent.
Hold, I say;
Give me a voice in this. You, Father John,
I blame not, nor myself will justify;
But call my weakness what you will, the time
Is past for reparation. Now to cast off
The partner of my sin were further sin;
'Twere with her first to sin, and next against her.
And for the army, if their trust in me
Be sliding, let it go: I know my course;
And be it armies, cities, people, priests,
That quarrel with my love, wise men or fools,
Friends, foes, or factions, they may swear their oaths,
And make their murmur,- rave, and fret, and fear,
Suspect, admonish,- they but waste their rage,
Their wits, their words, their counsel: here I stand
Upon the deep foundations of my faith
To this fair outcast plighted; and the storm
That princes from their palaces shakes out,
Though it should turn and head me, should not strain
The seeming silken texture of this tie. —
To business next: Nay, leave us not, beloved,-
I will not have thee go as one suspect;
Stay and hear all. Father, forgive my heat,
And do not deem me stubborn.
