Betrayal

The greater and the lesser ills:
    He waved his grey hand wearily
    Back to the anger of the sea,
Then forward to the blue of hills.

Out from the shattered barquenteen
    The black frieze-coated sailors bore
    Their dying despot to the shore
And wove a crazy palanquin.

They found a valley where the rain
    Had worn the fern-wood to a paste
    And tiny streams came down in haste
To eastward of the mountain chain.

And here was handiwork of Cretes,
    And olives grew beside a stone,
    And one slim phallos stood alone
Blasphemed at by the paroquets.

Hard by a wall of basalt bars
    The night came like a settling bird,
    And here he wept and slept and stirred
Faintly beneath the turning stars.

...

    Nor wilt thou rest forever, weary heart.
    The last illusion is destroyed,
    That I eternal thought. Destroyed!
    I feel all hope and all desire depart,
    For life and its deceitful joys.
    Forever rest! Enough! Thy throbbings cease!
    Naught can requite thy miseries;
    Nor is earth worthy of thy sighs.
    Life is a bitter, weary load,
    The world a slough. And now, repose!
    Despair no more, but find in Death
    The only boon Fate on our race bestows!
    Still, Nature, art thou doomed to fall,
    The victim scorned of that blind, brutal power
    That rules and ruins all.

Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain
Somewhere in ear-shot for the story’s end,
Old Dublin merchant ‘free of ten and four’
Or trading out of Galway into Spain;
And country scholar, Robert Emmet’s friend,
A hundred-year-old memory to the poor;
Traders or soldiers who have left me blood
That has not passed through any huxter’s loin,
Pardon, and you that did not weigh the cost,
Old Butlers when you took to horse and stood
Beside the brackish waters of the Boyne
Till your bad master blenched and all was lost;
You merchant skipper that leaped overboard
After a ragged hat in Biscay Bay,
You most of all, silent and fierce old man
Because you were the spectacle that stirred
My fancy, and set my boyish lips to say
‘Only the wastful virtues earn the sun’;
...

        They locked him in a prison cell,
                Murky and mean.
        She kissed him there a wife's farewell
                The bars between.
        And when she turned to go, the crowd,
        Thinking to see her shamed and bowed,
        Saw her pass out as calm and proud
                As any queen.

        She passed a kinsman on the street,
                To whose sad eyes
        She made reply with smile as sweet
                As April skies.
        To one who loved her once and knew
        The sorrow of her life, she threw
        A gay word, ere his tale was due
                Of sympathies.

        She met a playmate, whose red rose
                Had never a thorn,
        Whom fortune guided when she cho...

Surprised by joy, impatient as the Wind
I turned to share the transport, Oh! with whom
But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind,
But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss! That thought's return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

Beside a stricken field I stood;
On the torn turf, on grass and wood,
Hung heavily the dew of blood.

Still in their fresh mounds lay the slain,
But all the air was quick with pain
And gusty sighs and tearful rain.

Two angels, each with drooping head
And folded wings and noiseless tread,
Watched by that valley of the dead.

The one, with forehead saintly bland
And lips of blessing, not command,
Leaned, weeping, on her olive wand.

The other’s brows were scarred and knit,
His restless eyes were watch-fires lit,
His hands for battle-gauntlets fit.

“How long!” I knew the voice of Peace,
“Is there no respite? no release?
When shall the hopeless quarrel cease?

“O Lord, how long!! One human soul
Is more than any parchm...

    Greet the days -
        greet the moon,
            gather the stars.. .
    Man is not at one with himself -
    collars the infidel ways of his
    race under pressure domes of widening silence.

    I scan the horizon barely cognizant
    of the metallic bits that pierce
    the night's crown - no
    jewelled orb stabs this queen's spectre.
    I am running and lost. . . ever slow
    to breech this reasoning.

    Honeysuckle mist with armfuls
    of orange lilies with scent stronger
    than the carriage needed in their gathering.

    Place the constellations upon their heads,
    the colour so transcends.
    And then there are the bludgeoned
    stars fallen into the eyes of
    my farmhouse scene.
    The sphin...

"Nought loves another as itself,
Nor venerates another so,
Nor is it possible to thought
A greater than itself to know.

"And, father, how can I love you
Or any of my brothers more?
I love you like the little bird
That picks up crumbs around the door."

The Priest sat by and heard the child;
In trembling zeal he seized his hair,
He led him by his little coat,
And all admired the priestly care.

And standing on the altar high,
"Lo, what a fiend is here!" said he:
"One who sets reason up for judge
Of our most holy mystery."

The weeping child could not be heard,
The weeping parents wept in vain:
They stripped him to his little shirt,
And bound him in an iron chain,

And burned him in a holy place
Where many had b...

To-night retir'd the queen of heaven
With young Endymion stays:
And now to Hesper is it given
Awhile to rule the vacant sky,
Till she shall to her lamp supply
A stream of brighter rays.

O Hesper, while the starry throng
With awe thy path surrounds,
Oh listen to my suppliant song,
If haply now the vocal sphere
Can suffer thy delighted ear
To stoop to mortal sounds.
So may the bridegroom's genial strain
Thee still invoke to shine:
So may the bride's unmarried train
To Hymen chaunt their flattering vow,
Still that his lucky torch may glow
With lustre pure as thine.
Far other vows must I prefer
To thy indulgent power.
Alass, but now I paid my tear
On fair Olympia's virgin tomb:
And lo, from thence, in quest I roam
Of Philom...

Strong are thine arms, O love, & strong
Thine heart to live, and love, and long;
But thou art wed to grief and wrong:
Live, then, and long, though hope be dead!
Live on, & labour thro' the years!
Make pictures through the mist of tears,
Of unforgotten happy fears,
That crossed the time ere hope was dead.
Draw near the place where once we stood
Amid delight's swift-rushing flood,
And we and all the world seemed good
Nor needed hope now cold and dead.
Dream in the dawn I come to thee
Weeping for things that may not be!
Dream that thou layest lips on me!
Wake, wake to clasp hope's body dead!
Count o'er and o'er, and one by one
The minutes of the happy sun
That while agone on kissed lips shone,
Count on, rest not, for hope is dead.
Weep...

Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep, for here
There is such matter for all feeling.
- Childe Harold.


I
Unwelcome shroud of the forgotten dead,
Oblivion’s dreary fountain, where art thou:
Why speed’st thou not thy deathlike wave to shed
O’er humbled pride, and self-reproaching woe:
Or time’s stern hand, why blots it not away
The saddening tale that tells of sorrow and decay?

II
There are, whose glory passeth not away—
Even in the grave their fragrance cannot fade:
Others there are as deathless full as they,
Who for themselves a monument have made
By their own cringes—a lesson to all eyes—
Of wonder to the fool—of warning to the wise.

III
Yes, there are stories registered on high,
Yes, there are stains time’s fingers...

Mournful groans, as when a tempest lowers,
Echo from the dreary house of woe;
Death-notes rise from yonder minster's towers!
Bearing out a youth, they slowly go;
Yes! a youth unripe yet for the bier,
Gathered in the spring-time of his days,
Thrilling yet with pulses strong and clear,
With the flame that in his bright eye plays
Yes, a son the idol of his mother,
(Oh, her mournful sigh shows that too well!)
Yes! my bosom-friend, alas my brother!
Up! each man the sad procession swell!

Do ye boast, ye pines, so gray and old,
Storms to brave, with thunderbolts to sport?
And, ye hills, that ye the heavens uphold?
And, ye heavens, that ye the suns support!
Boasts the graybeard, who on haughty deeds
As on billows, seeks perfection's height?
Boasts the ...

Hark! the owlet flaps his wings
In the pathless dell beneath;
Hark! 'tis the night-raven sings
Tidings of approaching death.

One dark, dark night--it was long ago,
    The air was heavy and still and warm--
It fell to me and a man I know,
    To see two girls to their father's farm.

There was little seeing, that I recall:
    We seemed to grope in a cave profound.
They might have come by a painful fall,
    Had we not helped them over the ground.

The girls were sisters.    Both were fair,
    But mine was the fairer (so I say).
The dark soon severed us, pair from pair,
    And not long after we lost our way.

We wandered over the country-side,
    And we frightened most of the sheep about,
And I do not think that we greatly tried,
    Having lost our way, to find it out.

The night being fine, it was not worth while.
    We strayed through furrow and corn ...

Dull to myself, and almost dead to these
My many fresh and fragrant mistresses;
Lost to all music now, since everything
Puts on the semblance here of sorrowing.
Sick is the land to th' heart, and doth endure
More dangerous faintings by her desp'rate cure.
But if that golden age would come again
And Charles here rule, as he before did reign;
If smooth and unperplex'd the seasons were
As when the sweet Maria lived here;
I should delight to have my curls half drown'd
In Tyrian dews, and head with roses crown'd.
And once more yet (ere I am laid out dead)
Knock at a star with my exalted head.

When Baby strayed, it seemed to me,
Sun, moon and stars waned suddenly.

At once, with frenzied haste, my feet
Ran up and down the busy street.

If ever in my life I prayed,
It was the evening Baby strayed.

And yet my great concern was this
(Not dread of losing Baby's kiss,

And Baby's soft small hand in mine,
And Baby's comradeship divine),

'Twas BABY'S terror, BABY'S fears!
Whose hand but mine could dry her tears?

I without Baby? In my need
I were a piteous soul indeed.

But piteous far, beyond all other,
A little child without a mother.

And God, in mercy, graciously
Gave my lost darling back to me.

O high and lofty One!
THOU couldst have lived to all eternity
Apart from ME!
In majest...

Although crowds gathered once if she but showed her face,
And even old men’s eyes grew dim, this hand alone,
Like some last courtier at a gypsy camping place,
Babbling of fallen majesty, records what’s gone.

The lineaments, a heart that laughter has made sweet,
These, these remain, but I record what’s gone. A crowd
Will gather, and not know it walks the very street
Whereon a thing once walked that seemed a burning cloud.

This Spot, at once unfolding sight so fair
Of sea and land, with yon grey towers that still
Rise up as if to lord it over air
Might soothe in human breasts the sense of ill,
Or charm it out of memory; yea, might fill
The heart with joy and gratitude to God
For all his bounties upon man bestowed:
Why bears it then the name of "Weeping Hill"?
Thousands, as toward yon old Lancastrian Towers,
A prison's crown, along this way they past
For lingering durance or quick death with shame,
From this bare eminence thereon have cast
Their first look blinded as tears fell in showers
Shed on their chains; and hence that doleful name.