Book VI, Canto IV: Human Service; Songs of Golden Deeds

" ' Now will I show true nobles of our race ;
Let them those libels on mankind efface !

Charity

" 'To dwell with evil loathed and drear.
High ladies leave their natal sphere.
To dwell where reeketh manifold offence
For delicate, well-nurtured sense,
Dividing holy heritage
Of inward treasure ; there to wage
Deadly feud with the grim host
Of Satan, sharing all with lost
Wanderers in our wilderness,
Sallying to save and bless ;
Yea, very bread of their own mind and heart
They break, celestial manna to impart,
Not hoard for mere "salvation" ; gifts more blest
Than gold ; faith, hope, and sympathy, with rest,
Strength, courage, wisdom, righteousness, and love ;
They bring to earth health, healing from above.
We do not halve, we double what we share ;
It groweth more substantial, and more fair.
More ours, for being theirs (one family
We are of him who is afar, yet nigh) ;
Even as the widow's cruse of oil, or bread
Wherewith the famished multitude One fed.
Now rich and poor join hands ; the air is
Saving for angels, singing " Peace, good will !"
Yea, one may deem it even the happy morn
In Holy Land, when our dear Lord was born ;
And though the snow is on the ground.
Warm human hearts abound.
How dim soever, to be here is well.
Where these are making heaven out of hell ;
Hark ! merry peals of many a Christmas bell !
Ding-dong-bell !
No more the evil ones low muttering talk,
For nigh the hallowed ground no fiend may walk.

Gordon.
'"Gordon, England's Red-cross Knight,
With many a dragon born to fight !
Great Gordon, waving a mere wand,
Rouses warriors who despond !
With genial beam of his grey eye
Summons men to victory ;
Creates an army out of nought,
Unconquerables from hearts distraught :
His character, and equal laws
Enthrone secure the better cause.
" ' And now alone o'er desert sands
He rides to Ethiopian lands,
Where his mere presence is a spell
For yon dark race that loves him well.
Where righteous, simple, tru". and brave,
Long he toiled to free the slav
Tender as a woman, strong
As a man to punish wrong ;
Human lover, trampling self.
Scorning fame, and power, and pelf.

" ' Who, bursting on the boy of blood,
Walled in with his man-murdering brood,
A dark armed threatening multitude,
Slight, travel-marred, almost alone,
But leaning on the mighty One,
Dominated the fell clan
With a power Promethean,
Power of greatest over least,
Of human tamer over beast.

" ' Arrived, he welds to one strong blade
Men disunited and dismayed ;
Burns the rods of tyranny,
Breaks fetters from captivity ;
At his well-loved name they gather,
Hail him Lord, and Saviour, Father,
Proclaiming equal law for all.
He bends to lift the weak who fall ;
That large heart holds the dark young slave.
And our white waifs beyond the wave,"
Whom he, delivering, with love
Follows whereso'er they rove.

" 'At suniise how alert and eager,
Where the dusky swarms beleaguer.
Behold him from the palace roof —
Morn-flushed wave, and waste aloof —
Serene, yet anxious, watching Nile,
Where he winds for many a mile,
Surveying grim besieging host.
His rabble armed, and guarded post,
Waiting till the redcoats come.
To save his people in Khartoum !
Confronting cataracts, sands, rocks,
Thronged foes' indomitable shocks,
How they stem the adverse tide,
All British discipline, pluck, pride.
Panting to be at his side!
While England longs to rend the curtain,
That shrouds her hero's fate uncertain.
Too late ! the man, deserted, fell,
Whom only treachery might quell !
Gordon, England's Red-cross Knight,
With many a dragon born to fight !

The Lifeboat

" ' The manhood of your rugged coast,
Nelson's indomitable host.
Your manhood braves the raging seas.
Deaf to prayers of siren Ease,
Or warm Affection's humid eye,
To rescue shipwrecked souls who cry. . . .

"'Hoar ocean's wrathful night-usurping noise
Warns, like a dread god's doom-denouncing voice ;
They lean athwart the solid wall of blast,
Blinded with flying froth from forth the vast,
That spits contumely from moving mountains
Of toppling water torn to foam- white fountains ;
The maniac surge leaps furious while they launch ;
Falls a dead-weight upon the bark so staunch ;
But may not shake the mighty hearts that use
All strength of stalwart limbs and iron thews
To strain their oars athwart the swirling brine :
Big-booted, and large-chested, they incline
Broad backs together ! grim face and set eyes
Of coxswain fail not, nor strong hand that plies
Swift function of the tiller : how they bound
Up, down, abysmal cliffs of night profound,
That flash fierce scorn of them, engulfed beneath.
Hiss up to Heaven, and threaten with white teeth !
Hark ! through the storm-embroilment a faint sound
Of guns appealing ; piteous rend the sky
Red signals from the wreck's extremity !
" ' Their lifeboat battles with the wave ;
Grace Darling's countrymen will save,
Or perish ' . . . perish ! on the shore
They are thrown lifeless 'mid the roar!
Now mothers, wives, and children weep. . . .
All mothers, wives, and children weep :
All England Ijends above their solemn sleep:
Hear her intone their requiem full, and grand, and deep!

Sea Kings 1

" ' Who are these three, that in a little boat
Have dared upon the Antarctic surge to float.
Journey from Durban round the Cape of
Storm,
Which hero hearts again to-day transform
Into a promontory of Good Hope,
As when grand Gama, and Diaz did grope
Their all unknown dim waterway of old ?
These Scandinavian mariners, more bold,
In a frail bark they hollowed far inshore,
Built from pitch-pine, and to the ocean bore,
In a frail open bark ten months will beard
Atlantic dark and formidable, steered
By their own sea-gnarled hands with dauntless strength.
Till they attain to our green land at length.
From where grim bastioned Table Mountain frowns,
And with the cloud his brooding forehead crowns,
To the caged eagle-emperor's arid isle ;
By flowery Azores they rest awhile ;
By Mauros, Corobeda, tempest -driven.
They arrive in England's welcoming white haven ;
The wonderful heroic voyage passed,
Through all vicissitudes come home at last.
Ah ! courage-consecrated little bark,
Men come to view thee, as wert thou sacred ark.
Or very Argo of the Argonaut !
With tokens of Sea's rough embraces fraught,

Rent canvas, cordage, bruised wood, plainly tell
Of rude storm-buffets ; tangled weed, and shell
On keel and plank now long contented dwell !
By half-amused, half-indolent contempt.
Or admiration for the bold attempt.
Was Ocean held from drowning the three men?
Rather the God they worshipped in his ken
Kept, gave swift vision, accomplished craft, with power
To stem, surmount, and baffle danger's hour.

" O'er beetling cliffs of water, lo ! they bound ;
Engulphed now in a reeling chasm profound.
Obscure, foamed, swirling ; storm-breath on their side
Lays them, and plays with them ; and yet they ride,
Storm-seasoned hearts of oak, on the wild tide I
Endurance, vigilance, strength, iron nerve,
Tense, ne'er relaxed, allowing none to swerve
One hair's breadth from his function, even for stress
Of wet, cold, hunger, thirst, or weariness,
Strain unrelieved on every faculty !
If caught off guard one moment, they shall die!

" ' In peril from the monsters of the deep,
In peril from wild, ruptured surge's leap ;
Fierce blast drags down, ere they may reef the sail,
Wave's weight half fills the hollow pine, bids bale
For very life, yet never great hearts fail.

" ' It blew great guns ; stars blinked, and were blown out,
Or re-illumed ; they saw the raging rout
Of billow smoking skyward ; squall-slung spray
Smote, stung like hail ; then louder than the roar
Of breaker thundering on a rock-bound shore,
A sound more terrible than aught before
Appalled their ear; some supernatural scream
Advanced toward them through the drifting steam :
And they beheld prodigious ocean herds.
Whales spouting geysers, porpoise, dolphin, birds
Rushing in headlong wild pursuit of shoals,
Menacing wreck, so hurling to their goals !
Buffeted bows " drove piles " in the hard sea ;
Storm, waving vast vans, howled tumultuously.

" ' Dies from the cloud-range conflagration red,
And from long roller, taking hues of lead,
Sombre, oil-lustrous, fading dun and dead.
Cloud-mountains massed on pale horizons lower ;
Grim monsters follow, hungry to devour.
One all unknown and horrible remains
Beside them, while blood-chilling twilight wanes,
Huge, livid-backed, dim welters, and to mock
Their own mast, two long spectral rods that rock
Protrude in polished outgrowth from the spine :
Sinister, that lurks near them on the Vjrine !
While on their masthead sits a weird wild glare,
Like Death's pale lanthorn : ha ! what doth it there ?
And what is that, which writhes upon the bare
Pole, like what writhed upon the lance's head
Of Durer's knight, on his faint war-horse led
Into the forest gloom by Hell and Death ?
What means the Portent ? doth it breathe life's breath? . . .

" ' Immured in deep night the world seems to be,
Save when flashed flame lets out the boiling

" ' But in long languor of clear ocean calm.
When the loose tiller held in listless palm
Made easeful noises with the lapping wave.
Dear home-thought stole upon the heart so brave ;
While loved familiar constellations rise,
When they draw nearer native Northern skies ;
High planets hold communion with them,
Pure worlds arising from heaved Ocean's rim ;
Luminous lives, how still and soft they move
In the grey wave, akin to stars above !
While elfin phosphorescence from the prow
Slopes in two murmuring widened folds below.
Or in blue day the momentary gem,
Lovelier than a fairy diadem,
Twinkles innumerable on the rolling
Blue billow ; yellow birds for their consoling,
Pale yellow, flying o'er the lisping foam,
Alight upon the ocean -cradled boom ;
The gentle giant Olsen fondly feeds ;
Till they, relying on his kindly deeds,
Perch on his shoulder, lilting blithe and gay,
Who sorrows when he finds them flown away.

" ' Often before a merry breeze they flew,
A wake of simmering silver in the blue ;
Many a nautilus with filmy sail.
And fishes panoplied in rainbow mail,
And flying fish with blithe young hearts they hail.
Or ample-pinioned, gleaming albatross,
Swooping and circling, dipped in soft seamoss.
Then sunward soared, on calm, unwearied wing.
With plaintive white mew, air-meandering.

" ' Alone upon the inward-murmuring sea.
Alone with God in the Immensity !
With worship, pious, temperate men, they call
Weekly together on the God of all.

" ' Kingcraft, and overlordship of the seas
From Olsen, Nilsen, Bernhard, such as these.
And their Norse kindred, Nelson, Franklin,
Drake,
For men of other blood 'tis hard to take.
They prove the race of heroes not extinct,
By whom our common -seeming years are linked
To those that loom more fair in the dim past
When Gama loosed his canvas to the blast,
And Raleigh in strange waters anchor cast.

" ' Not ease, but hardship, suffering, privation
Root, toughen, hearts of oak, and mould a nation.
Bear witness Holland, Athens, Albion !
Columbia, Teuton, Italy, made one !
By toil, and strife, and agony 'twas done.

The Isle of Lepers

" 'An isle of lepers ! perishing in pain.
Exiled from happy hale men ; Health is fain
To banish from her loathed Contamination.
Yet a priest-hero of the gallant nation,
France, saintly even as their priest of Ars,
Or him who shineth, an immortal star
In the grand page of Hugo, her grand bard,
Named Myriel, shrinking nerve will disregard
For love of God, and of our human kind.
Deep pity made insensible and blind
To natural aversion, mortal danger.
Following One born in the lowly manger,
He shuts himself from all he held most dear,
A minister from dreadful year to year
To men deserted, loathed, weighed down with grief;
Abandoning all that he may bring relief.
Unscathed himself for years, the foul disease
Hath eye malign upon him, and will seize ;
Hath claimed the high redeeming victim now.
Through whom your poor world will more god-like grow !

"Weak Things of the World"

" ' A Christian convert, a boy- African,
Knowing the bloody lord of his great clan
Sought him to visit with a lingering death,
Because he had embraced Christ, humbly saith
To a revered white teacher, urging flight,
He may not bend his soul to feel it right ;
For since he hath been commissioned by the king
Ingathered tribute of the tribes to bring
Home to the sovereign — coin of cowrie shells —
Whatever cruel personal peril dwells
Among those evil courts, how dare he thrust
From him the fatal honour of his trust ?
And so he braves the tyrant ; ah ! young black,
Spurned as inferior, thou hast e'en put back
Poor human nature on the pedestal,
Whence pale dishonour dragged it to base fall!
The lowest, whom men trample like the clod,
Is of the royal family of God.
The humblest woman sits enthroned above
The wise and proud by dignity of love.
Who liveth well alone hath found the key
To every dim mind-baffling mystery.

World- Progress

" ' Enwombed in your imperial race
Fair organising virtue trace,
To one great arbitrating nation
Moulding you by federation
Of kindred peoples for defence,
And high world-vitalising influence ;
While in the purple pomp of war
Dawn lovely hues unknown before,
Iris-hues of mercy mild,
An arc o'er livid flashes wild,
Born 'mid ashen mists that loom
'Thwart thunder-mountains in the gloom.
Patience, Fortitude, Compassion,
Woven i' the awful storm of passion
On wrath-rent cloud, are only born
Of rays that marry rains forlorn
Of Heaven, who weds the Earth you scorn.
Beyond high service war may render,
Himself hath lineaments more tender,
Whose very terrors wear a smile.
Now Mercy doth his frown from him beguile.
Sweet Sister in the hospital,
Who vermeils with ethereal
Hues the cloud of wound, or fever !
Her angel ministration never
Faileth ; hurt weans of our city
Lie patient in her gentle pity.
Yea, Dora, Florence, all your sisterhood
Render illustrious our flesh and blood ;
Ye twain appear ensphered aloft, afar,
In sorrow's Night, a luminous twin-star !
Spring, summer, autumn, winter drear,
Are needed to fulfil the year.

Mother's Love

"'She had tended, done her best to cure him ; now
The little child of white and anguished brow
With her good-will is nursed in hospital.
Clad in worn withered weeds, she brought her all.
And left the cherished burden ; she will start
Out of her brief and broken sleep ; her heart
Still seems to hear him call to her, and moan ;
She flies to help, forgetting he is gone.
Now since herself no more may slave for him,
Dull daylight, rainy, chilly evening dim.
Behold her undernrath the window near
The little cot, where she hath left her dear.
She stays there till the allotted day for friends
Arrive, the hour that makes for all amends.
Every misty morning sees her come
From the mean alley, now no more a home.
Nurse, looking often from the ward, descries
The wraith-like face with upward-seeking eyes,
Haunting the wall ; they wonder how he does.
The ailing child ; but when at last she goes
Within the ward at the permitted hour,
She dare not ask for news about her flower,
Before she reach him, lest the word be spoken,
Which, falling on her heart, would leave it broken.
" ' Love blooms more large in yonder world of bliss ;
But Love was nourished on the tears of this.

Jubilee, and the Good Emperor

'"Behold an empress-queen, who nobly reigns,
And an ideal womanhood sustains
Upon a throne, who wisely rules by laws.
From long deliberation, clause by clause.
Grown fair, and growing, fed with patriot blood
Of Tyndale, Hampden, Sidney, and the good
Martyred, unnamed illustrious multitude.
Her fifty years of dedicated toil
To all self-pleasing tyrants are a foil.
Who only nurse their poor prerogative,
Whether the starving people die, or live.
Her large, full heart goes forth to all that mourn,
Itself, alas ! wrung, lacerate, and torn.
Our monarch hath a grander coronet
Than any mighty predecessor yet.
With many a subject people's jewel set.
First, orient India, fount of morning's beam.
Realm of the Avatar, and wondrous dream !
Australia, young with earth's glad primal power,
Who weaves weird visions in her lonely bower.
Arms for defence her well-knit, stalwart sons,
And launches navies, iron -mouthed with guns,
To assure the Mother-mistress of the seas
Dominion more unchallenged over these !
In you, blithe land of long lake, frost, and fur.
Vast volumed waters of St. Lawrence pour
Their foaming thunders with an ocean roar !
All ye sent children armed for many a mile,
To help us nobly by Egyptian Nile.
Court gentle Peace! and yet be well prepared !
Without our England, ill the world had fared !
Arm ships and soldiers ! ill may they be spared !
Distrust world-citizens, who fain would loose
Thine argent armour, deemed of no more use !

" ' And thou, dark Afric's tempest-beaten
Cape,
Around whom Gama dared his course to shape.
Sublime sea-comrade of Columbus bold.
By perilous water-ways unknown of old,
Thou, in the crown a diamond-beaming star,
Art sending sons to jubilee from far !

"'The pageant of her triumph proudly shone
With warriors, led erst by Wellington,
And that Black-armoured Prince ; red, sable, grey ;
Plumed horsemen, helmed, with steel and colour gay.
Swart Indian, jewelled in dim gold array ;
Elect Colonial, powerful of frame.
With nation-founding faces, known to fame ;
From every quarter of the world her guard !
Whose people throng the chariot way ; they ward
Her throne from danger ; love is great reward.
Bending with royal grace and beaming eye,
Moves the good Queen, whose name is
Victory.
The stately triumph of her glory moves
With loud acclaim, upborne by all the loves
Of all the people ; kings and princes ride,
Her escort with no ill-beseeming pride ;
Her chariot rolls, surrounded by her sons.
Of whom the nobler, grander port he owns,
Who wedded England'sdaughter; who will be
Magnanimous Emperor in Germany :
He, though great empire his mild rule embrace.
Hath character more lofty than his place.

" 'Here towering with eagle-crested casque,
Face, form, proclaim one born for his high task.
He, a more gentle, just. God-fearing Saul,
Hath waged grim conquering battle with the
Gaul ;
Will wage a deadlier with the dire Disease
That lays him low ; yet, scorning his own ease,
Conquereth here too ; patient, cheerful, bravci
While borne in strong midmanhood to the grave.
Bends calm, composed eyes on the public good.
Who in his long death helps the multitude,
Country, and well -beloved ; who will not swerve ;
For if Death numbs the right hand, left will serve ;
But when one symptom 'apathy''' they named,
Then all divined that Death at length hath claimed.
If to the lover his dear world grew dim !
A Light and Hope of Europe quenched in him !
Alas ! for her, to whom he gave white heather,
In Caledonia, in blue lover's weather !
He lies in state, he lies in his long rest ;
And she hath laid the sere wreath on his breast.
Laurel, wherewith she crowned her Paladin,
In war proved, as in peace, a king of men.

" ' Our queen moves royally to Westminster.
Fortune hath dealt in gracious mood with her,
Yet one irreparable bereavement laid
A scathing hand upon her heart ! Snows weighed
Heavily, fallen from care-laden years !
Changed, since that early hour of April tears,
When young-winged Morning in the minster shone.
Illumed with Heaven, her, wearing earthly crown ;
Changed, since her marrying the wise prince she lost.
Before chill autumn, and the winter frost ! . . .

"'But the broad highway laughs with various hue.
That seems to pour from forth aerial blue :
Roof, balcony, door, window, all the street
Teem with a happy people, fain to greet
Her, whom the loyal, glad, tumultuous sound
Doth welcome, Love's loud answering rebound
From her Love-loyal reign, re-echoing round ! . . .
Yet if this monarch were not good and just,
To Heaven the pageantry were only dust.