Betrayal

You shadow and flame,
You interchange,
You death in the game!

Now I gather you up,
Now I put you back
Like a poppy in its cup.

And so, you are a maid
Again, my darling, but new,
Unafraid.

My love, my blossom, a child
Almost! The flower in the bud
Again, undefiled.

And yet, a woman, knowing
All, good, evil, both
In one blossom blowing.

In life's first years as on a mother's breast,
When Nature nurs'd me in her flowery pride,
I cull'd her bounty, such as seemed best,
And made my garlands by some hedge-row side:
With pleasing eagerness the mind reclaims
From black oblivion's shroud such artless scenes,
And cons the calendar of childish names
With simple joy, when manhood intervenes.

From the sweet time that spring's young thrills are born,
And golden catkins deck the sallow tree,
Till summer's blue-caps blossom mid the corn,
And autumn's ragwort yellows o'er the lea,
I roam'd the fields about, a happy child,
And bound my posies up with rushy ties,
And laugh'd and mutter'd o'er my visions wild,
Bred in the brain of pleasure's ecstacies.

Crimp-frilled daisy, bright bronze buttercup,<...

LONELINESS
(Her Word)

One ought not to have to care
So much as you and I
Care when the birds come round the house
To seem to say good-bye;
Or care so much when they come back
With whatever it is they sing;
The truth being we are as much
Too glad for the one thing
As we are too sad for the other here
With birds that fill their breasts
But with each other and themselves
And their built or driven nests.

HOUSE FEAR

Always I tell you this they learned
Always at night when they returned
To the lonely house from far away
To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray,
They learned to rattle the lock and key
To give whatever might chance to be
Warning and time to be off in flight:
And preferring the out- to the in-door night,

Twilight, a blossom grey in shadowy valleys dwells:
Under the radiant dark the deep blue-tinted bells
In quietness reïmage heaven within their blooms,
Sapphire and gold and mystery. What strange perfumes,
Out of what deeps arising, all the flower-bells fling,
Unknowing the enchanted odorous song they sing!
Oh, never was an eve so living yet: the wood
Stirs not but breathes enraptured quietide.
Here in these shades the Ancient knows itself, the Soul,
And out of slumber waking starts unto the goal.
What bright companions nod and go along with it!
Out of the teeming dark what dusky creatures flit,
That through the long leagues of the island night above
Come by me, wandering, whispering, beseeching love;
As in the twilight children gather close and press
Nigh and more ...

    Lo, as a minstrel at the court of Love,
    The nightingale, who knows his mate is nigh,
    Thrills into rapture; and the stars above
    Look down, affrighted, as they would reply.
    There is contagion, and I know not why,
    In all this clamour, all this fierce delight,
    As if the sunset, when the day did swoon,
    Had drawn some wild confession from the moon.
    Have wrongs been done? Have crimes enacted been
    To shame the weird retirement of the night?
    O clamourous bird! O sad; sweet nightingale!
    Withhold thy voice, and blame not Beauty's queen.
    She may be pure, though dumb: and she is pale,
    And wears a radiance on her brow serene.

I hear no footfall beating through the dark,
A lonely gust is loitering at the pane;
There is no sound within these forests stark
Beyond a splash or two of sullen rain;

But you are with us! and our patient land
Is filled with long-expected change at last,
Though we have scarce the heart to lift a hand
Of welcome, after all the yearning past!

Ah! marvel not; the days and nights were long
And cold and dull and dashed with many tears;
And lately there hath been a doleful song,
Of “Mene, Mene,” in our restless ears!

Indeed, we’ve said, “The royal son of Time,
Whose feet will shortly cross our threshold floor,
May lead us to those outer heights sublime
Our Sires have sold their lives to see before!

We’ll follow him! Beyond the waves and wrec...

The way went under cedared gloom
To moonlight, like a cactus bloom,
Before the entrance of her tomb.

I had an hour of night and thin
Sad starlight; and I set my chin
Against the grating and looked in.

A gleam, like moonlight, through a square
Of opening, I knew not where
Shone on her coffin resting there.

And on its oval silver-plate
I read her name and age and date,
And smiled, soft-thinking on my hate.

There was no insect sound to chirr;
No wind to make a little stir.
I stood and looked and thought on her.

The gleam stole downward from her head,
Till at her feet it rested red
On Gothic gold, that sadly said:

"God to her love lent a weak reed
Of strength: and gave no light to lead:
Pray for her soul; for...

Sweet water-moons, blown into lights
Of flying gold on pool and creek,
And many sounds and many sights
Of younger days are back this week.
I cannot say I sought to face
Or greatly cared to cross again
The subtle spirit of the place
Whose life is mixed with Rose Lorraine.

What though her voice rings clearly through
A nightly dream I gladly keep,
No wish have I to start anew
Heart fountains that have ceased to leap.
Here, face to face with different days,
And later things that plead for love,
It would be worse than wrong to raise
A phantom far too fain to move.

But, Rose Lorraine ah! Rose Lorraine,
I’ll whisper now, where no one hears
If you should chance to meet again
The man you kissed in soft, dead years,
Just say for once “He ...

A spirit is out to-night!
His steeds are the winds; oh, list,
How he madly sweeps o'er the clouds,
And scatters the driving mist.

We will let the curtains fall
Between us and the storm;
Wheel the sofa up to the hearth,
Where the fire is glowing warm.

Little student, leave your book,
And come and sit by my side;
If you dote on Tennyson so,
I'll be jealous of him, my bride.

There, now I can call you my own!
Let me push back the curls from your brow,
And look in your dark eyes and see
What my bird is thinking of now.

Is she thinking of some high perch
Of freedom, and lofty flight?
You smile; oh, little wild bird,
You are hopelessly bound to-night!

You are bound with a golden ring,
And your captor, like some g...

The jester walked in the garden:
The garden had fallen still;
He bade his soul rise upward
And stand on her window-sill.

It rose in a straight blue garment,
When owls began to call:
It had grown wise-tongued by thinking
Of a quiet and light footfall;

But the young queen would not listen;
She rose in her pale night gown;
She drew in the heavy casement
And pushed the latches down.

He bade his heart go to her,
When the owls called out no more;
In a red and quivering garment
It sang to her through the door.

It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming,
Of a flutter of flower-like hair;
But she took up her fan from the table
And waved it off on the air.

‘I have cap and bells’ he pondered,
‘I will send them to her and...

Once a poet, long ago,
Wrote a song as void of art
As the songs that children know,
And as pure as a child’s heart.

With a sigh he threw it down,
Saying, “This will never shed
Any glory or renown
On my name when I am dead.

“I will sing a lordly song
Men shall hear, when I am gone,
Through the years sound clear and strong
As a golden clarion.”

So this lordly song he sang
That would gain him deathless fame,
When the death-knell o’er him rang
No man even knew its name.

Ay, and when his way he found
To the place of singing souls,
And beheld their bright heads crowned
With song-woven aureoles,

He stood shame-faced in the throng,
For his brow of wreath was bare,
And, alas! his lordly song
Sere had grow...

When pearl and gold, o'er deeps of musk,
The moon curves, silvering the dusk,
As in a garden, dreaming,
A lily slips its dewy husk
A firefly in its gleaming,
I of my garden am a guest;
My garden, that, in beauty dressed
Of simple shrubs and oldtime flowers,
Chats with me of the perished hours,
When she companioned me in life,
Living remote from care and strife.

It says to me:"How sad and slow
The hours of daylight come and go,
Until the Night walks here again
With moon and starlight in her train,
And she and I with perfumed words
Of winds and waters, dreaming birds,
And flowers and crickets and the moon,
For hour on hour, in soul commune.

And you, and you,
Sit here and listen in the dew
For her, the love, you used to know,<...

No more upon my bosom rest thee,
Too often have my hands caressed thee,
        My lips thou knowest well, too well;
Lean to my heart no more thine ear
My spirit's living truth to hear
        It has no more to tell.

In what dark night, in what strange night,
Burnt to the butt the candle's light
        That lit our room so long?
I do not know, I thought I knew
How love could be both sweet and true:
        I also thought it strong.

Where has the flame departed? Where,
Amid the empty waste of air,
        Is that which dwelt with us?
Was it a fancy? Did we make
Only a show for dead love's sake,
        It being so piteous?

No more against my bosom press thee,
Seek no more that my hands caress thee,
        Leave the sad li...

Hear! hear! hear!
Listen! the word
Of the mocking-bird!
Hear! hear! hear!
I will make all clear;
I will let you know
Where the footfalls go
That through the thicket and over the hill
Allure, allure.
How the bird-voice cleaves
Through the weft of leaves
With a leap and a thrill
Like the flash of a weaver's shuttle, swift and sudden and sure!

And la, he is gone--even while I turn
The wisdom of his runes to learn.
He knows the mystery of the wood,
The secret of the solitude;
But he will not tell, he will not tell,
For all he promises so well.

Pale faces looked up at me, up from the earth, like flowers;
Pale hands reached down to me, out of the air, like stars,
As over the hills, robed on with the twilight, the Hours,
The Day's last Hours, departed, and Dusk put up her bars.

Pale fingers beckoned me on; pale fingers, like starlit mist;
Dim voices called to me, dim as the wind's dim rune,
As up from the night, like a nymph from the amethyst
Of her waters, as silver as foam, rose the round, white breast of the moon.

And I followed the pearly waving and beckon of hands,
The luring glitter and dancing glimmer of feet,
And the sibilant whisper of silence, that summoned to lands
Remoter than legend or faery, where Myth and Tradition meet.

And I came to a place where the shadow of ancient Night
Brooded ...

I.

How many things, that we would remember,
Sweet or sad, or great or small,
Do our minds forget! and how one thing only,
One little thing endures o'er all!
For many things have I forgotten,
But this one thing can never forget
The scent of a primrose, woodland-wet,
Long years ago I found in a far land;
A fragile flower that April set,
Rainy pink, in her forehead's garland.

II.

How many things by the heart are forgotten!
Sad as sweet, or little or great!
And how one thing that could mean nothing
Stays knocking still at the heart's red gate!
For many things has my heart forgotten,
But this one thing can never forget
The face of a girl, a moment met,
Who smiled in my eyes; whom I passed in pity;
A flower-like face, with weepi...

A brother's eye had seen the grief
That Duart's lady bore;
His boat with sail half-raised flies down
The sound by green Lismore.
Ahaladah, Ahaladah!
Why speeds your boat so fast?
No scene of joy shall light your track
Adown the spray-strewn blast.

The very trees upon the isle
Rock to and fro, and wail;
The very birds cry sad and shrill,
Storm driven, where you sail;
O when for yon dim mainland shore
You launched your keel to start
You knew not of the load 'twill bear,
The heavier load your heart.

See what is that, which yonder gleams,
Where skarts alone make home;
Is that but one oft-breaking sea,
Some frequent fount of foam?
The morn is dark and indistinct,
Is all through drift and cloud;
Around the rock white waters ...

I

Within her gilded cage confined,
I saw a dazzling Belle,
A Parrot of that famous kind
Whose name is Non-Pareil.

Like beads of glossy jet her eyes;
And, smoothed by Nature's skill,
With pearl or gleaming agate vies
Her finely-curved bill.

Her plumy mantle's living hues
In mass opposed to mass,
Outshine the splendour that imbues
The robes of pictured glass.

And, sooth to say, an apter Mate
Did never tempt the choice
Of feathered Thing most delicate
In figure and in voice.

But, exiled from Australian bowers,
And singleness her lot,
She trills her song with tutored powers,
Or mocks each casual note.

No more of pity for regrets
With which she may have striven!
Now but in wantonness she frets,<...