For there, 'twixt the black walls uprising,
A host may be barred by a score;
And there, save for traitor's surprising,
Will our bands be before.
On, on, with a thunderous clanging,
Through the echoing gorges we go,
Heights a thousand feet over us hanging,
Depths a thousand below.
And here, where the rock wall runs curving,
Our horses, so headlong the pace,
Half over the chasm hang swerving;
Who recks in a race?
What heart fears for death now, or danger,
With his Fatherland's freedom for prize?
What is death to the yoke of the stranger,
On a free neck that lies?
But darker the cliffs now are closing
Above to a cavernous glen,
Dark as death, hidden deep from day's rosing,
A horror of men.
Above us, on black wings are wheeling,
New startled, the raven and kite;
On our heads, from the damp crevice stealing,
Fall dews of the night.
Beneath, from the valleys mist-clouded,
A skeleton fir, here and there,
Rises dark as death's finger, enshrouded
In folds of despair.
But in us is no heart of a maiden,
To flutter at omens of ill;
With a purpose too stern are we laden;
Let tremble who will!
The dews from our heads we shake, scorning;
And the horror of death from our souls,
Like the mists at the rising of morning,
Impalpable rolls.
For there see a cleft in the ridges,
That rise like a wall in our way,
Which a cloud, red with sunrising, bridges,
The portal of day.
There, there is the pass; there the foemen
Not yet bar the way; and behold,
There right in the cleft, for good omen,
The great sun, all gold!
That is thoroughly spirited, and there are one or two other poems which are more than spirited, which have a real grandeur of tone in them. But for the most part, Mr. Bourdillon's promise consists in the clear and beautiful terseness with which he can catch the essence of a transient shade of thought or feeling, and chisel it out in words which savor of a common origin with the purest sentiment.
From Macmillan's Magazine.
AN HOUR ON THE CLIFF
I.
"Who can strive always? easier to lie down
And let the bitter waves wash o'er me quite."
So spoke my heart this eve; a brave face shown
Before the world is well enough; a light
Laugh, and an answer prompt to hide, well too —
But with the laugh and jest my sorrow grew,
II.
It grew till forth it drove me to the heights
Far from the town, above the waters wide.
No day of sunshine this; no sudden lights
Striking the gray and scarcely heaving tide;
No sound, but where the slow waves touch the land,
And, breaking, leave a foam-fleck on the sand.
III.
All seems in harmony — sea, land, and sky —
With the sad peace of one, who, yielding all,
No longer fights or strives; I too would try
To be at peace, shake off this painful thrall,
Cut out this pricking sorrow' from my heart,
Lay bare and probe my long-concealed smart.
IV.
Not with the future lies my grief, I said;
(Was it a foolish fancy?) for in spring,
When all the air is warm, and overhead
High in the scented pines the finches sing,
And I can hear the children's voices call
Their happy mothers, and the sea through all.
V.
Then I can dream, as happy as a child,
And days to come are bright with hope serene,
No vision seems too lofty or too wild,
I am a saint, a poet, or a queen!
But (oh, my love, forgive me!) from the past,
O’er my life's sunshine, is this shadow cast.
VI.
It is the past I cannot, dare not meet.
Sealed up it is; thrust out of sight, below
The surface of my days; yet, bitterswreet,
The mingled past can rise and sting me through.
Will it be ne'er forgotten? never sleep?
Although I laugh, and jest, and will not weep?
VII.
So I come out upon this cliff to-day
To dare remember! Thinking that maybe
If once I face my dread, nor turn away
Although pain wring my heart, yet I may see
The spectre of those past two happy years
Turn to a minist'ring angel thro' my tears.
VIII.
I lie upon this dead and stunted heath
Close to the cliff's edge, that my eye may sweep
From distant coastlines to the sand beneath,
Where in his boat a fisher boy's asleep —
And gazing wide-eyed at the sea, at last,
Dare with a trembling courage face the past.
