dark
Over your bitter cark,
Staring, as Rispah stared, astonied seven days,
Upon the corpses of so many sons,
Who loved her once,
Dead in the dim and lion-haunted ways,
Who could have dreamt
That times should come like these! 
Prophets, indeed, taught lies when we were young,
And people loved to have it so;
For they teach well who teach their scholars’ tongue! 
But that the foolish both should gaze,
With feeble, fascinated face,
Upon the wan crest of the coming woe,
The billow of earthquake underneath the seas,
And sit at ease,
Or stand agape,
Without so much as stepping back to ’scape,
Mumbling, ’Perchance we perish if we stay: 
‘Tis certain wear of shoes to stir away!’
Who could have dreamt
That times should come like these! 
Remnant of Honour, tongue-tied with contempt,
Consider; you are strong yet, if you please. 
A hundred just men up, and arm’d but with a frown,
May hoot a hundred thousand false loons down,
Or drive them any way like geese. 
But to sit silent now is to suborn
The common villainy you scorn. 
In the dark hour
When phrases are in power,
And nought’s to choose between
The thing which is not and which is not seen,
One fool, with lusty lungs,
Does what a hundred wise, who hate and hold their tongues,
Shall ne’er undo. 
In such an hour,
When eager hands are fetter’d and too few,
And hearts alone have leave to bleed,
Speak; for a good word then is a good deed.

XVI.  A FAREWELL.

With all my will, but much against my heart,
We two now part. 
My Very Dear,
Our solace is, the sad road lies so clear. 
It needs no art,
With faint, averted feet
And many a tear,
In our opposed paths to persevere. 
Go thou to East, I West. 
We will not say
There’s any hope, it is so far away. 
But, O, my Best,
When the one darling of our widowhead,
The nursling Grief,
Is dead,
And no dews blur our eyes
To see the peach-bloom come in evening skies,
Perchance we may,
Where now this night is day,
And even through faith of still averted feet,
Making full circle of our banishment,
Amazed meet;
The bitter journey to the bourne so sweet
Seasoning the termless feast of our content
With tears of recognition never dry.

XVII. 1880-85.

Stand by,
Ye Wise, by whom Heav’n rules! 
Your kingly hands suit not the hangman’s tools. 
When God has doom’d a glorious Past to die,
Are there no knaves and fools? 
For ages yet to come your kind shall count for nought. 
Smoke of the strife of other Powers
Than ours,
And tongues inscrutable with fury fraught
’Wilder the sky,
Till the far good which none can guess be wrought. 
Stand by! 
Since tears are vain, here let us rest and laugh,