Triumphant some, and some wild with despair.

Leaving the chamber so haunted by voices,
Fearful, I hastened to where the great staircase
Rears its proud height in a double ascension
Till it is hid in the deepening shadows.
Stiffly upstanding on each chief baluster,
Absently gaze the historical griffins,
Plunged in their silent and deep meditation.
Many a Caulx have they seen pass before them,
Long generations in motley procession,
Halting and feeble, the sick and the aged:
Sanguine and joyous, the young and the hopeful:
Manhood triumphant, crestfallen or thoughtless:
Urbane and discreet, my lady's confessor:
Stealthily creeping, the villainous traitor:
Quick and impatient, the fortunate lover:
Children unconscious of aught but their playthings:
Nobles in ermine, and simpering ladies:
Then, the one end of all human emotions,
Slow-pacing figures who bear on their shoulders,
Silenced for ever, some lord of the staircase.

The steward, from the all-pervading gloom,
Flung wide the shutters of the drawing-room,
Showing a terrace graced with urn and faun
And steps that led to a neglected lawn,
Whilst rounded hill and valley far were seen
Lit by the summer's radiating sheen.
The room's magnificence, its noble size
And faded splendour filled me with surprise.
A costly pierglass in its tarnished frame,
Which once reflected gallant squire and dame,
Now with fidelity displayed the clear
And gleaming lustres of the chandelier,
Pendent, with ten score sconces silver chased,
From the high ceiling which a master graced
With courtly scenes wherein could be descried
Ancestral figures in their pomp and pride.
The sunlight played on gilded girandole,
On silver candlestick and stiff console,
All of that period when here befell
The scene on which the steward loves to dwell,
Showing the floor's dark stain of sombre red
And how it came about that blood was shed.
I marked the punchbowls, full of leaves and dust,
A slim sword, silver-hiked, flecked with rust:
A daintily escutcheoned chiffonier,
Inlaid with shell and finished with veneer:
Timepieces silent, set in ormolu:
The damask screens of faded red and blue.
And, to enhance the chamber's stately air,
Great Chippendale had made each slender chair.
The stream of life, arrested, seemed to wait
A magic word to set it flowing straight.

Heated by wine and ombre-play,
Two hundred years ago or more,
Three gamblers, on a morning gray,
Quarrelled about a questioned score.

Two blades were soon engaged. A tierce,
Ill parried, stretched a swordsman low,
Who lunged with failing point but fierce,
And dying, dropped before his foe.

And when the growing light of morn
Lit the Venetian mirror's face,
He died, 'twixt pain and passion torn,
And left a curse upon the place.

And from that day the records show
A slowly creeping, sure decline
That, just a hundred years ago,
Ended the once illustrious line.

Sometimes upon the dusky hour
That comes before the sun's first rays,
When things occult display their power,
A strange light on the chamber plays

That is not of the earth or sky,
While hurrying footsteps come and go
And then into the silence die
With whispered mutterings hoarse and low.

A sliding panel, by the wainscot hid,
Showed, in the unmarked thickness of the walls,
A narrow passage and a secret stair
That brought us to the level of the moat.
Long dry and choked with bracken and with brier,
It made a rugged pathway to a court
Where stands the ruin of an ancient tower,
Fenced in with walls pierced by an entrance low.
"Here," said my guide, "when James the first was king,
"A daughter of the house, through three long years,
"Was by her father close a prisoner kept
"Because she would not wed the man he chose.
"Stern and unyielding, as became her race,
"She set her will against her father's strength.
"Through all the time she saw no living face:
"No sound of human voice, except her own,
"Fell on her ear. She nothing saw but clouds
"That swept athwart the cold and pitiless sky,
"And blinking stars at night that rose and set
"Across the little window in the roof:
"Then she went mad and on the stony walls
"One day beat out her life in frenzied rage,
"And refuge found beyond her father's power."

Time passed, and it was late
When once again I stood
Outside the ancient gate,
Where the stone griffins ramped,
Cold as relentless fate
Changeless as destiny.

And I said: "'Tis in vain,
Guardians impassible,
That ye your watch maintain
Over the ghosts of Caulx,
While the years wax and wane
Century by century.

"For behold! I have been
Among them and have heard
Their voices, I have seen
With swift-discerning eyes
Over their wide demesne
Of human history."

The Science Master

"We build," he said, "on elemental things!"
And paused to glance around the silent class.
"On facts well ascertained which insight brings,
"And which in due development must pass
"From the first phase, remote, removed,
"To the Effect. Thus, link by link, we trace
"The lengthening chain of Verity, full proved
"By Knowledge, Reason, Logic, each in place."
It seemed conclusive to us students then.
The man's prestige had weight. Authority
Made him for us above all other men;
He was the head of our academy.
His calm assumption and incisive way,
Admitting no alternative nor doubt,
As he intoned his long familiar lay,
Made his pronouncements clear as if cut out
Of crystal, cold with mathematic test,
Through which he viewed complacently the span
And limit of all scientific quest,
Quite heedless of the growing range of man.
His narrow field so finished and complete,
His standards and his logic's hampering line
Look small where now the long perspectives meet,
Converging in a new horizon's shine.
All this was years ago. What would he say,
I wonder, if he could revisit us
And, with the knowledge of the present day,
See space and pain reduced to minimus,
Electric currents hand in hand with steam,
Men borne in ships across the trackless air,
The widening story of the earth's old scheme
Told in its strata, and, with arduous care,
The age of man thrust back unfathomed years,
New elements, a new chronology
And growing lore that year by year appears
To show how distant is finality?
It sets my fancy roving and I try
In idle hours to think what may befall.
Naught seems impossible, no thought too high,
No dream too mad, to realise it all.
What, for example, is the human mind?
Whence comes it, great or small, at some man's birth?
A fool's or sage's, base or all refined!
What holds it till his body turns to earth?
And whither goes it with the failing breath?
And is the Aura's essence to remain
Ever elusive at the hour of death,
To perish or another home attain?
Or, with close knowledge of man's growing germ,
Shall we not train it and direct its course,
As now we cultivate the floral sperm,
And simple weeds to complex beauty force?
Life is a thing of phases manifold,
By shades diminishing from high to low,
Man, protoplasm, beast, all we are told,
To perish in an equal overthrow.
Our view of life at best is