Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

William Johnson Cory (1823–1892)

Extracts from Ionica: A Study of Boyhood

SO young, and yet so worn with pain!

No sign of youth upon that stooping head,

Save weak half-curls, like beechen boughs that spread

With up-turned edge to catch the hurrying rain;

Such little lint-white locks, as wound

About a mother’s finger long ago,

When he was blither, not more dear, for woe

Was then far off, and other sons stood round.

And she has wept since then with him

Watching together, where the ocean gave

To her child’s counted breathings wave for wave,

Whilst the heart fluttered, and the eye grew dim.

And when the sun and day-breeze fell,

She kept with him the vigil of despair;

Knit hands for comfort, blended sounds of prayer,

Saw him at dawn face death, and take farewell;

Saw him grow holier through his grief,

The early grief that lined his withering brow,

As one by one her stars were quenched. And now

He that so mourned can play, though life is brief;

Not gay, but gracious; plain of speech,

And freely kindling under beauty’s ray,

He dares to speak of what he loves: to-day

He talked of art, and led me on to teach,

And glanced, as poets glance, at pages

Full of bright Florence and warm Umbrian skies;

Not slighting modern greatness, for the wise

Can sort the treasures of the circling ages;

Not echoing the sickly praise,

Which boys repeat, who hear a father’s guest

Prate of the London show-rooms; what is best

He firmly lights upon, as birds on sprays;

All honest, and all delicate:

No room for flattery, no smiles that ask

For tender pleasantries, no looks that mask

The genial impulses of love and hate.

Oh bards that call to bank and glen,

Ye bid me go to nature to be healed!

And lo! a purer fount is here revealed:

My lady-nature dwells in heart of men.