Robert Fuller Murray

Years grow and gather--each a gem
    Lustrous with laughter and with tears,
    And cunning Time a crown of years
Contrives for her who weareth them.

No chance can snatch this diadem,
    It trembles not with hopes or fears,
    It shines before the rose appears,
And when the leaves forsake her stem.

Time sets his jewels one by one.
    Then wherefore mourn the wreaths that lie
            In attic chambers of the past?
They withered ere the day was done.
    This coronal will never die,
            Nor shall you lose it at the last.

The Red King's gone a-hunting, in the woods his father made
For the tall red deer to wander through the thicket and the glade,
The King and Walter Tyrrel, Prince Henry and the rest
Are all gone out upon the sport the Red King loves the best.

Last night, when they were feasting in the royal banquet-hall,
De Breteuil told a dream he had, that evil would befall
If the King should go to-morrow to the hunting of the deer,
And while he spoke, the fiery face grew well-nigh pale to hear.

He drank until the fire came back, and all his heart was brave,
Then bade them keep such woman's tales to tell an English slave,
For he would hunt to-morrow, though a thousand dreams foretold
All the sorrow and the mischief De Breteuil's brain could hold.

So the Red King's gone a-huntin...

It seems a hundred years or more
    Since I, with note-book, ink and pen,
In cap and gown, first trod the floor
    Which I have often trod since then;
Yet well do I remember when,
    With fifty other fond fanatics,
I sought delights beyond my ken,
    The deep delights of Mathematics.

I knew that two and two made four,
    I felt that five times two were ten,
But, as for all profounder lore,
    The robin redbreast or the wren,
The sparrow, whether cock or hen,
    Knew quite as much about Quadratics,
Was less confused by x and n,
    The deep delights of Mathematics.

The Asses' Bridge I passed not o'er,
    I floundered in the noisome fen
Which lies behind it and before;
    I wandered in the gloomy glen
Where ...

This is the time when larks are singing loud
    And higher still ascending and more high,
This is the time when many a fleecy cloud
    Runs lamb-like on the pastures of the sky,
This is the time when most I love to lie
    Stretched on the links, now listening to the sea,
Now looking at the train that dawdles by;
    But James is going in for his degree.

James is my brother.    He has twice been ploughed,
    Yet he intends to have another shy,
Hoping to pass (as he says) in a crowd.
    Sanguine is James, but not so sanguine I.
If you demand my reason, I reply:
    Because he reads no Greek without a key
And spells Thucydides c-i-d-y;
    Yet James is going in for his degree.

No doubt, if the authorities allowed
    The taking in of Bohns, ...

There's a fiddler in the street,
    And the children all are dancing:
Two dozen lightsome feet
    Springing and prancing.

Pleasure he gives to you,
    Dance then, and spare not!
For the poor fiddler's due,
    Know not and care not.

While you are prancing,
    Let the fiddler play.
When you're tired of dancing
    He may go away.

Last night for the first time, O Heart's Delight,
    I held your hand a moment in my own,
    The dearest moment which my soul has known,
Since I beheld and loved you at first sight.

I left you, and I wandered in the night,
    Under the rain, beside the ocean's moan.
    All was black dark, but in the north alone
There was a glimmer of the Northern Light.

My heart was singing like a happy bird,
    Glad of the present, and from forethought free,
Save for one note amid its music heard:
    God grant, whatever end of this may be,
That when the tale is told, the final word
    May be of peace and benison to thee.

I know the garden-close of sin,
    The cloying fruits, the noxious flowers,
    I long have roamed the walks and bowers,
Desiring what no man shall win:

A secret place to shelter in,
    When soon or late the angry powers
    Come down to seek the wretch who cowers,
Expecting judgment to begin.

The pleasure long has passed away
    From flowers and fruit, each hour I dread
            My doom will find me where I lie.
I dare not go, I dare not stay.
    Without the walks, my hope is dead,
            Within them, I myself must die.

I drove a golf-ball into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I lent five shillings to some men,
They spent it all, I know not when,
For who is quick enough to know
The time in which a crown may go?

Long, long afterward, in a whin
I found the golf-ball, black as sin;
But the five shillings are missing still!
They haven't turned up, and I doubt if they will.

Life is a house where many chambers be,
    And all the doors will yield to him who tries,
    Save one, whereof men say, behind it lies
The haunting secret.    He who keeps the key,

Keeps it securely, smiles perchance to see
    The eager hands stretched out to clutch the prize,
    Or looks with pity in the yearning eyes,
And is half moved to let the secret free.

And truly some at every hour pass through,
    Pass through, and tread upon that solemn floor,
            Yet come not back to tell what they have found.
We will not importune, as others do,
    With tears and cries, the keeper of the door,
            But wait till our appointed hour comes round.

When we have laid aside our last endeavour,
    And said farewell to one or two that weep,
And issued from the house of life for ever,
    To find a lodging in the house of sleep--

With eyes fast shut, in sunless chambers lying,
    With folded arms unmoved upon the breast,
Beyond the noise of sorrow and of crying,
    Beyond the dread of dreaming, shall we rest?

Or shall there come at last desire of waking,
    To walk again on hillsides that we know,
When sunrise through the cold white mist is breaking,
    Or in the stillness of the after-glow?

Shall there be yearning for the sound of voices,
    The sight of faces, and the touch of hands,
The will that works, the spirit that rejoices,
    The heart that feels, the mind that understands?
<...

The life of earth, how full of pain,
    Which greets us on our day of birth,
Nor leaves us while we yet retain
            The life of earth.

There is a shadow on our mirth,
    Our sun is blotted out with rain,
And all our joys are little worth.

Yet oh, when life begins to wane,
    And we must sail the doubtful firth,
How wild the longing to regain
            The life of earth!

It was a phantom of delight
When first it gleamed upon my sight,
A scholarly distinction, sent
To be a student's ornament.
The hood was rich beyond compare,
The gown was a unique affair.
By this, by that my mind was drawn
Then, in my academic dawn;
A dancing shape, an image gay
Before me then was my M.A.

I saw it upon nearer view,
A glory, yet a bother too!
For I perceived that I should be
Involved in much Philosophy
(A branch in which I could but meet
Works that were neither light nor sweet);
In Mathematics, not too good
For human nature's daily food;
And Classics, rendered in the styles
Of Kelly, Bohn, and Dr. Giles.

And now I own, with some small spleen,
A most confounded ass I've been;
The glory seems an empty brea...

The sun is banished,
The daylight vanished,
No rosy traces
    Are left behind.
Here in the meadow
I watch the shadow
Of forms and faces
    Upon your blind.

Through swift transitions,
In new positions,
My eyes still follow
    One shape most fair.
My heart delaying
Awhile, is playing
With pleasures hollow,
    Which mock despair.

I feel so lonely,
I long once only
To pass an hour
    With you, O sweet!
To touch your fingers,
Where fragrance lingers
From some rare flower,
    And kiss your feet.

But not this even
To me is given.
Of all sad mortals
    Most sad am I,
Never to meet you,
Never to greet you,
Nor pass your portals
    Before I die.

All men scorn ...

The rain had fallen, the Poet arose,
    He passed through the doorway into the street,
A strong wind lifted his hat from his head,
    And he uttered some words that were far from sweet.
And then he started to follow the chase,
    And put on a spurt that was wild and fleet,
It made the people pause in a crowd,
    And lay odds as to which would beat.

The street cad scoffed as he hunted the hat,
    The errand-boy shouted hooray!
The scavenger stood with his broom in his hand,
    And smiled in a very rude way;
And the clergyman thought, 'I have heard many words,
    But never, until to-day,
Did I hear any words that were quite so bad
    As I heard that young man say.'

Hurrah for the Science Club!
    Join it, ye fourth year men;
Join it, thou smooth-cheeked scrub,
    Whose years scarce number ten

Join it, divines most grave;
    Science, as all men know,
As a friend the Church may save,
    But may damage her as a foe.

(And in any case it is well,
    If attacking insidious doubt,
Or devoting H--- to H---,
    To know what you're talking about.)

Hurrah for the lang-nebbit word!
    Hurrah for the erudite phrase,
That in Dura Den shall be heard,
    That shall echo on Kinkell Braes!

Hurrah for the spoils of the links
    (The golf-ball as well as the daisy)!
Hurrah for explosions and stinks
    To set half the landladies crazy!

Hurrah for the fragments of boulders,
    ...

I have been lonely all my days on earth,
    Living a life within my secret soul,
With mine own springs of sorrow and of mirth,
            Beyond the world's control.

Though sometimes with vain longing I have sought
    To walk the paths where other mortals tread,
To wear the clothes for other mortals wrought,
            And eat the selfsame bread--

Yet have I ever found, when thus I strove
    To mould my life upon the common plan,
That I was furthest from all truth and love,
            And least a living man.

Truth frowned upon my poor hypocrisy,
    Life left my soul, and dwelt but in my sense;
No man could love me, for all men could see
            The hollow vain pretence.

Their clothes sat on me with outlandish air,
    Up...

I love to see the swallows come
    At my window twittering,
Bringing from their southern home
    News of the approaching spring.
'Last year's nest,' they softly say,
    'Last year's love again shall see;
Only faithful lovers may
    Tell you of the coming glee.'

When the first fell touch of frost
    Strips the wood of faded leaves,
Calling all their winged host,
    The swallows meet above the eaves
'Come away, away,' they cry,
    'Winter's snow is hastening;
True hearts winter comes not nigh,
    They are ever in the spring.'

If by some unhappy fate,
    Victim of a cruel mind,
One is parted from her mate
    And within a cage confined,
Swiftly will the swallow die,
    Pining for her lover's bower,
And her lover...

Weak soul, by sense still led astray,
    Why wilt thou parley with the foe?
    He seeks to work thine overthrow,
And thou, poor fool! dost point the way.

Hast thou forgotten many a day,
    When thou exulting forth didst go,
    And ere the noon wert lying low,
A broken and defenceless prey?

If thou wouldst live, avoid his face;
    Dwell in the wilderness apart,
            And gather force for vanquishing,
Ere thou returnest to his place.
    Then arm, and with undaunted heart
            Give battle, till he own thee king.