Frederic William Henry Myers - Fragments of Prose and Poetry

FRAGMENTS OF

PROSE & POETRY

BY

FREDERIC W. H. MYERS

EDITED BY HIS WIFE

EVELEEN MYERS

WITHPORTRAITS

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.

39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK AND BOMBAY

1904

All rights reserved

T his volume contains some fragments of prose and poetry written by my husband during a period of many ye ars, and on divers subjects; as such it cannot but appe ar to a certain degree heteroge neous and disconnected. And yet the singleness of purpose and steadfastness of endeavour which are shown throughout will, I think, give it a sufficient unity in the eyes of those who have sympathised with the author's aspirations or shared his hopes.

My husband did not wish the autobiographical chapters at the beginning of this volume to appear until three or four years after his death. A few passages have been omitted from them on account of their references to people still living, but on the other hand, the chapters have been supplemented by various letters, w hich bring out their true signi ficance and illustrate the progress of the author's earnest thought, from the early years of childhood down to the very last moments of his life upon this earth.

There remain many beautiful letters of my husband's both to myself and to friends. These letters I have collected, and some day they may possibly be printed, but they are of too personal a nature for present publication.

I would take this opportunity of thanking all those who have communicated to me letters of my husband's, and of saying how deeply grateful I should be to any one who, possessing further correspondence, would be willing to entrust it to my care to make such use of it as might hereafter seem good.

Of the po ems which follow, a few have ap peared already in a small volume, which was published in 1870, and has for a long time been out of print ; some have been collected from the Saturday Review and the Nineteenth Century with the kind permission of the Editors, but the greater number have not yet been given to the public. The obituary notices have hitherto been scattered among the numbers of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research; for permission to reprint them I wish to express my gratitude to the Council of the Society.

I am also greatly indebted to Messrs. Macmillan for allowing me to include some of the early poems.

EVELEEN MYERS.

FRAGMENTS OF INNER LIFE

TO TENNYSON

RETROSPECT

VENICE

IN DREAMS THE HEART IS WAKING

O GOD, NO PROPER PLACE I SEE

THRO' WHAT NEW WORLD, THIS HAPPY HOUR

DVM MEMOR IPSE MEI

ODE TO NATURE

LOVE AND DEATH

TO LADY MOUNT TEMPLE

ON A WINDOW IN DONNINGTON CHURCH

IAMQVE VALE

SLEEP

FEROR INGENTI CIRCUMDATA NOCTE

FROM ALFRED DE MUSSET

OH, WHEN THRO' ALL THE CROWD SHE CAME

O WAVING VEIL OF SHADE AND SUN

MADEIRA

"FAERY LANDS FORLORN"

SILVIA

TO ALICE'S PICTURE

SOUL, THAT IN SOME HIGH WORLD HAST MADE

GARDEN OF THE HESPERIDES

WHEN IN LATE TWILIGHT SLOWLY THOU HAST STRAYED

SHE WEARS HER BODY LIKE A VEIL

AND ALL IS OVER; AND AGAIN I STAND

IN THE WOLSEY CHAPEL, WINDSOR

O ROCK AND TORRENT, LAKE AND HILL

WIND, MOON, AND TIDES

SOLOMON

AND THOU TOO KNEW'ST HER, FRIEND! THY LOT HATH BEEN

A CHILD OF THE AGE

WHAT HEART WITH WAITING BROKEN

SUNRISE

OH STARS IN HEAVEN THAT FADE AND FLAME

I WAILED AS ONE WHO SCARCE CAN BE FORGIVEN

BRIGHTON

HAROLD AT TWO YEARS OLD

ASHRIDGE

NOT EVEN IN DEATH THOU DIEST; SO STRONG TO SAVE

LET EACH ALONE WITH TIMELY THOUGHT

LOVE, THEY SAID, IS FAINT AND DYING .

FREDERIC TEMPLE

IMMORTALITY

PALLIDA MORTE FUTURA

FROM BRUTE TO MAN

A COSMIC HISTORY

A COSMIC OUTLOOK

TO THE QUEEN

CENTENARY POEM

STANZAS ON MR. WATTS COLLECTED WORKS

THE SAINT ....

I KNEW A MAN IN EARLY DAYS

OH FAIR AND FLEET WITH EAGER FEET.

O BEAR ITS BEAR ITS LONELY HEART

IN THAT STILL HOME, WHILE TYNE WENT MURMURING BY

NAY, WOULD'ST THOU KNOW HER? LET THINE HID HEART DECLAR

THE GENESIS OF A MISSIONARY

ECHOS Du TEMPS PASSE

A WHITE WITCH

IN HENRY VII.'s CHAPEL, WESTMINSTER ABBEY

F. W. H. MYERS

EDMUND GURNEY

HENRY SIDGWICK

F. W. H. MYERS AND SON

PARENTAGE AND EDUCATION

I B elieve that we live after earthly death; and that some of those who read these posthumous confidences may be among my companions in an unseen world. It is for this reason that I now address them. I wish to attract their attention and sympathy; I wish to lead men and women of like interests but of higher nature than my own to regard me as a friend whose companionship they will seek when they too have made their journey to the unknown home. I am tempted, of course, to try to make myself appear worthy of love and respect. But I am kept in check by another belief. I hold that all things thought and felt, as well as all things done, are somehow photographed imperishably upon the Universe, and that my whole past will probably lie open to those with whom I have to do. Repugnant though this thought is to me, I am bound to face it. I realise that a too great discrepancy between my account of myself and the actual facts would, when detected, provoke disgust and contempt. This unusual check, I say, I strongly feel; but my readers must estimate for themselves how far even such a check can he relied upon to counteract man's tendency to paint himself in too bright a hue.

In one minor point, at least, I can be sincere, at the cost of exciting the distaste of severer critics. I can tell my story in my own style; I can give my impressions as they veritably come to me, without translating them into the language of a scientific memoir. The reader need not suppose that I expect his admiration. But if he on his part be psychologically minded, he will prefer that idiosyncrasy should not be concealed. If he is to be interested at all, it must be in the spectacle of a man of sensuous and emotional temperament, urged and driven by his own personal passion into undertaking a scientific enterprise, which aims at the common weal of men. This fusion of a minor poet and an amateur savant may not sound promising; but new crises make new needs; and what has been accomplished did in fact demand,among many nobler qualities contributed by better men,that importunate and overmastering impulse which none can more fiercely feel than I.

For it has been my lot to be concerned in a work important and more successful than anything in my own capacity or character could have led me to expect. I have been one of the central group concerned in a great endeavour; the endeavour to pierce, by scientific methods, the world-old, never-penetrated veil. The movement which took overt shape in 1882, with the formation of the Society for Psychical Research, was aided indeed by help from other quarters, but in its essential character was the conception of a few minds, and was piloted through its early dangers by a small group of intimate friends. With this endeavour to learn the actual truth as to the destiny of man I have from the very first been identified and, so to say, incorporate. Edmund Gurney worked at the task with more conscientious energy; the Sidgwicks with more unselfish wisdom; but no one more unreservedly than myself has staked his all upon that distant and growing hope.