CCXII.

JOHN FORD.

HEW hard the marble from the mountain's heart
Where hardest night holds fast in iron gloom
Gems brighter than an April dawn in bloom,
That his Memnonian likeness thence may start
Revealed, whose hand with high funereal art

Carved night, and chiselled shadow: be the tomb That speaks him famous graven with signs of doom Intrenched inevitably in lines athwart,

As on some thunder-blasted Titan's brow

His record of rebellion. Not the day

Shall strike forth music from so stern a chord, Touching this marble: darkness, none knows how, And stars impenetrable of midnight, may.

So looms the likeness of thy soul, John Ford.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

CCXIII.

JOHN WEBSTER.

THUNDER: the flesh quails, and the soul bows down.
Night: east, west, south, and northward, very night.
Star upon struggling star strives into sight,
Star after shuddering star the deep storms drown.
The very throne of night, her very crown,

A man lays hand on, and usurps her right.
Song from the highest of heaven's imperious height
Shoots, as a fire to smite some towering town,
Rage, anguish, harrowing fear, heart-crazing crime,
Make monstrous all the murderous face of Time
Shown in the spheral orbit of a glass
Revolving. Earth cries out from all her graves.
Frail, on frail rafts, across wide-wallowing waves,
Shapes here and there of child and mother pass.

CCXIV.

ON THE RUSSIAN PERSECUTION OF THE JEW S.

(Written June, 1882.)

O SON of man, by lying tongues adored,

By slaughterous hands of slaves with feet red-shod

In carnage deep as ever Christian trod Profaned with prayer and sacrifice abhorred And incense from the trembling tyrant's horde,

Brute worshippers of wielders of the rod,

Most murderous even of all that call thee God, Most treacherous even that ever called thee Lord;Face loved of little children long ago,

Head hated of the priests and rulers then,

If thou see this, or hear these hounds of thine

Run ravening as the Gadarean swine,

Say, was not this thy Passion to foreknow

In death's worst hour the works of Christian men ?

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

CCXV.

HOPE AND FEAR.

BENEATH the shadow of dawn's aerial cope,
With eyes enkindled as the sun's own sphere,

Hope from the front of youth in godlike cheer
Looks Godward, past the shades where blind men grope
Round the dark door that prayers nor dreams can ope,
And makes for joy the very darkness dear

That gives her wide wings play; nor dreams that fear
At noon may rise and pierce the heart of hope.
Then, when the soul leaves off to dream and yearn,

May truth first purge her eyesight to discern

What once being known leaves time no power to appal;

Till youth at last, ere yet youth be not, learn

The kind wise word that falls from years that fall—

"

Hope thou not much, and fear thou not at all.”

CCXVI.

TO THE GENIUS OF ETERNAL

SLUMBER.

SLEEP, thou art named eternal! Is there then
No chance of waking in thy noiseless realm?
Come there no fretful dreams to overwhelm
The feverish spirits of o'erlaboured men?

Shall conscience sleep where thou art; and shall pain
Lie folded with tired arms around her head;

And memory be stretched upon a bed

Of ease, whence she shall never rise again?

O Sleep, thou art eternal! Say, shall Love

Breathe like an infant slumbering at thy breast?

Shall hope there cease to throb; and shall the smart Of things impossible at length find rest?

Thou answerest not. The poppy-heads above

Thy calm brows sleep. How cold, how still thou art!