MEMORABILIA.

I.

And did he stop and speak to you
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems and new!

II.

But you were living before that,
And also you are living after;
And the memory I started at

My starting moves your laughter!

III.

I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
And a certain use in the world, no doubt,
Yet a hand's-breadth of it shines alone
'Mid the blank miles round about:

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II.

Only the Doric little Morgue!

The dead-house where you show your drowned: Petrarch's Vaucluse makes proud the Sorgue,

Your Morgue has made the Seine renowned. One pays one's debt in such a case;

I plucked up heart and entered, — stalked, Keeping a tolerable face

Compared with some whose cheeks were chalked : Let them! No Briton 's to be balked!

III.

First came the silent gazers; next,

A screen of glass, we 're thankful for; Last, the sight's self, the sermon's text, The three men who did most abhor Their life in Paris yesterday,

So killed themselves: and now, enthroned Each on his copper couch, they lay

Fronting me, waiting to be owned.

I thought, and think, their sin 's atoned.

IV.

Poor men, God made, and all for that!
The reverence struck me; o'er each head
Religiously was hung its hat,

Each coat dripped by the owner's bed,
Sacred from touch: each had his berth,
His bounds, his proper place of rest,

Who last night tenanted on earth

Some arch, where twelve such slept abreast, — Unless the plain asphalt seemed best.

V.

How did it happen, my poor boy?

ΙΟ

20

30

You wanted to be Buonaparte

And have the Tuileries for toy,

And could not, so it broke your heart?

40

You, old one by his side, I judge,

Were, red as blood, a socialist,

A leveller! Does the Empire grudge

You've gained what no Republic missed? Be quiet, and unclench your fist!

What fancy was it, turned your brain?
Oh, women were the prize for you!
Money gets women, cards and dice

Get money, and ill-luck gets just
The copper couch and one clear nice
Cool squirt of water o'er your bust,
The right thing to extinguish lust!

VII.

It's wiser being good than bad;
It's safer being meek than fierce:
It's fitter being sane than mad.

My own hope is, a sun will pierce
The thickest cloud earth ever stretched;
That, after Last, returns the First,
Tho' a wide compass round be fetched;
That what began best, can't end worst,
Nor what God blessed once, prove accurst.

PROSPICE.

FEAR

EAR death? — to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,

When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,

The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;

Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,

Yet the strong man must go:

For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,

Tho' a battle 's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,

The reward of it all.

I was ever a fighter, so—

The best and the last!

one fight more,

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,

And bade me creep past.

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers

The heroes of old,

Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears

Of pain, darkness and cold.

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10

20

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute 's at end,

And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,

Shall dwindle, shall blend,

Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,

O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!

“CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME.”

Y

(See Edgar's song in "LEAR.")'

I.

My first thought was, he lied in every word,

That hoary cripple, with malicious eye

Askance to watch the working of his lie
On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford
Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored
Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

II.

What else should he be set for, with his staff?
What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare
All travelers who might find him posted there,
And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh
Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph
For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,

III.

If at his counsel I should turn aside

Into that ominous tract which, all agree,
Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly

I did turn as he pointed: neither pride

Nor hope rekindling at the end descried,

So much as gladness that some end might be.

IV.

For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,
What with my search drawn out thro' years, my hope
Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope

With that obstreperous joy success would bring, -
I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring

My heart made, finding failure in its scope.

ΙΟ

20

V.

As when a sick man very near to death
Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end
The tears and takes the farewell of each friend,
And hears one bid the other go, draw breath
Freelier outside, (" since all is o'er," he saith,
"And the blow fallen no grieving can amend; ")

VI.

While some discuss if near the other graves
Be room enough for this, and when a day
Suits best for carrying the corpse away,
With care about the banners, scarves and staves:
And still the man hears all, and only craves
He may not shame such tender love and stay.

VII.

to wit,

Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest,
Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ
So many times among "The Band".
The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed
Their steps that just to fail as they, seemed best,
And all the doubt was now

VIII

should I be fit?

So, quiet as despair, I turned from him,
That hateful cripple, out of his highway
Into the path he pointed. All the day
Had been a dreary one at best, and dim
Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim
Red leer to see the plain catch its estray.

IX.

For mark! no sooner was I fairly found

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40

Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,

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Than, pausing to throw backward a last view

O'er the safe road, 't was gone; gray plain all round:

Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.

I might go on; naught else remained to do.

X.

So, on I went. I think I never saw

Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve: