Betrayal

Yesterday I held your hand,
Reverently I pressed it,
And its gentle yieldingness
From my soul I blessed it.

But to-day I sit alone,
Sad and sore repining;
Must our gold forever know
Flames for the refining?

Yesterday I walked with you,
Could a day be sweeter?
Life was all a lyric song
Set to tricksy meter.

Ah, to-day is like a dirge,--
Place my arms around you,
Let me feel the same dear joy
As when first I found you.

Let me once retrace my steps,
From these roads unpleasant,
Let my heart and mind and soul
All ignore the present.

Yesterday the iron seared
And to-day means sorrow.
Pause, my soul, arise, arise,
Look where gleams the morrow.

In former times, such as had store of coyne,
In warres at home, or when for conquests bound,
For feare that some their treasures should purloyne,
Gaue it to keepe to spirites within the ground;
And to attend it, them so strongly tide,
Till they return'd, home when they neuer came,
Such as by art to get the same haue tride,
From the strong spirits by no means get the same,
Neerer you come, that further flies away,
Striuing to holde it strongly in the deepe:
Euen as this spirit, so she alone doth play,
With those rich Beauties heauen giues her to keepe:
    Pitty so left, to coldenes of her blood,
    Not to auaile her, nor do others good.

Warm and still is the summer night,
    As here by the river's brink I wander;
White overhead are the stars, and white
    The glimmering lamps on the hillside yonder.

Silent are all the sounds of day;
    Nothing I hear but the chirp of crickets,
And the cry of the herons winging their way
    O'er the poet's house in the Elmwood thickets.

Call to him, herons, as slowly you pass
    To your roosts in the haunts of the exiled thrushes,
Sing him the song of the green morass;
    And the tides that water the reeds and rushes.

Sing him the mystical Song of the Hern,
    And the secret that baffles our utmost seeking;
For only a sound of lament we discern,
    And cannot interpret the words you are speaking.

Sing of the air, and the wild de...

'Twas a death-bed summons, and forth I went
By the way of the Western Wall, so drear
On that winter night, and sought a gate -
The home, by Fate,
Of one I had long held dear.

And there, as I paused by her tenement,
And the trees shed on me their rime and hoar,
I thought of the man who had left her lone -
Him who made her his own
When I loved her, long before.

The rooms within had the piteous shine
That home-things wear when there's aught amiss;
From the stairway floated the rise and fall
Of an infant's call,
Whose birth had brought her to this.

Her life was the price she would pay for that whine -
For a child by the man she did not love.
"But let that rest for ever," I said,
And bent my tread
To the chamber up above.

(To R. F. B.)


We are the Choice of the Will: God, when He gave the word
That called us into line, set in our hand a sword;

Set us a sword to wield none else could lift and draw,
And bade us forth to the sound of the trumpet of the Law.

East and west and north, wherever the battle grew,
As men to a feast we fared, the work of the Will to do.

Bent upon vast beginnings, bidding anarchy cease,
(Had we hacked it to the Pit, we had left it a place of peace!)

Marching, building, sailing, pillar of cloud or fire,
Sons of the Will, we fought the fight of the Will, our sire.

Road was never so rough that we left its purpose dark;
Stark was ever the sea, but our ships were yet more stark;

We tracked the winds of the world to the steps of t...

Now, while thy rounded cheek is fresh and fair,
    While beauty lingers, laughing, in thine eyes,
Ere thy young heart shall meet the stranger, "Care,"
    Or thy blithe soul become the home of sighs,
Were it not kindness should I give thee rest
By plunging this sharp dagger in thy breast?
Dying so young, with all thy wealth of youth,
What part of life wouldst thou not claim, in sooth?
        Only the woe,
        Sweetheart, that sad souls know.

Now, in this sacred hour of supreme trust,
    Of pure delight and palpitating joy,
Ere change can come, as come it surely must,
    With jarring doubts and discords, to destroy
Our far too perfect peace, I pray thee, Sweet,
Were it not best for both of us, and meet,
If I should bring swift death to seal our bl...

Sweetest of all childlike dreams
In the simple Indian lore
Still to me the legend seems
Of the shapes who flit before.

Flitting, passing, seen and gone,
Never reached nor found at rest,
Baffling search, but beckoning on
To the Sunset of the Blest.

From the clefts of mountain rocks,
Through the dark of lowland firs,
Flash the eyes and flow the locks
Of the mystic Vanishers!

And the fisher in his skiff,
And the hunter on the moss,
Hear their call from cape and cliff,
See their hands the birch-leaves toss.

Wistful, longing, through the green
Twilight of the clustered pines,
In their faces rarely seen
Beauty more than mortal shines.

Fringed with gold their mantles flow
On the slopes of westering knolls;
I...

    You are my sky; beneath your circling kindness
    My meadows all take in the light and grow;
        Laugh with the joy you've given,
        The joy you've given,
    And open in a thousand buds, and blow.

    But when you are sombre, sad, averse, forgetful,
    Heavily veiled by clouds that brood with rain,
        Dumbly I lie all shadowed,
        I lie all shadowed,
    And dumbly wait for you to shine again.

’Tis said that when
The hands of men
Tamed this primeval wood,
And hoary trees with groans of woe,
Like warriors by an unknown foe,
Were in their strength subdued,
The virgin Earth
Gave instant birth
To springs that ne’er did flow
That in the sun
Did rivulets run,
And all around rare flowers did blow
The wild rose pale
Perfumed the gale
And the queenly lily adown the dale
(Whom the sun and the dew
And the winds did woo),
With the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.

So when in tears
The love of years
Is wasted like the snow,
And the fine fibrils of its life
By the rude wrong of instant strife
Are broken at a blow
Within the heart
Do springs upstart
Of which it doth now know,
And strange, sweet dreams,...

Lonely and silent and calm it lies
'Neath rosy dawn or midnight skies;
So densely peopled, yet so still,
The murmuring voice of mountain rill,
The plaint the wind 'mid branches wakes,
Alone the solemn silence breaks.

Whatever changes the seasons bring, -
The birds, the buds of joyous spring,
The glories that come with the falling year
The snows and storms of winter drear, -
Are all unmarked in this lone spot,
Its shrouded inmates feel them not.

Thoughts full of import, earnest and deep,
Must the feeling heart in their spirit steep,
Here, where Death's footprints meet the sight:
The long chill rows of tombstones white,
The graves so thickly, widely spread,
Within this city of the Dead.

Say, who could tell what aching sighs,
What...

Oh! the sun rose on the lea, and the bird sang merrilie,
And the steed stood ready harness’d in the hall,
And he left his lady’s bower, and he sought the eastern tower,
And he lifted cloak and weapon from the wall.

“We were wed but yester-noon, must we separate so soon?
Must you travel unassoiled and, aye, unshriven,
With the blood stain on your hand, and the red streak on your brand,
And your guilt all unconfessed and unforgiven?”

“Tho’ it were but yester-even we were wedded, still unshriven,
Across the moor this morning I must ride;
I must gallop fast and straight, for my errand will not wait;
Fear naught, I shall return at eventide.”

“If I fear, it is for thee, thy weal is dear to me,
Yon moor with retribution seemeth rife;
As we’ve sown so must we ...

The poplars are fell’d, farewell to the shade,
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade;
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.


Twelve years had elapsed since I last took a view
Of my favourite field, and the bank where they grew;
And now in the grass behold they are laid,
And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade.


The blackbird has fled to another retreat,
Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat,
And the scene where his melody charm’d me before
Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more.


My fugitive years are all hasting away,
And I must ere long lie as lowly as they,
With a turf on my breast, and a stone at my head,
Ere another such grove shall ar...

"O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy atones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones. And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children." Isaiah, liv. 11-13.


As the sand of the desert is smitten
    By hoof-beats that strike out a light,
A flash by which dumb things are litten,
    The children of night;
So Thou who of old did'st create us,
    Among the high gods the Most High,
Strike us with Thy brightness, and let us
    Behold Thee, and die.

Grown old in blind anguish and travail,
    Thy world thou mad'st sinless and free
Gropes on, with no power to u...

High above his happy head
Little leaves of Spring were spread;
And adown the dewy lawn
Soft as moss the young green grass
Wooed his footsteps, and the dawn
Paused to watch him pass.
Even so he seemed in truth
Dancing between Love and Youth;
And his song as gay a thing
Still before him seemed to go
Light as any bird awing,
Blithe as jonquils in the Spring,
And we laughed and said, "Pierrot,
'Tis Pierrot."

"Oh," he sang, "Her hands are far
Sweeter than white roses are;
When I hold them to my lips,
Ere I dare a finer bliss,
Petal-like her finger-tips
Tremble 'neath my kiss.
And the mocking of her eyes
Lures me like blue butterflies
Falling--lifting--of their grace,
And her mouth--her mouth is wine."
And we laughed as ...

When shall we meet again?
One more year passed;
One more of grief and pain; -
Maybe the last.
Are the years sending us
Farther apart?
Or love still blending us
Heart into heart?
Do love's fond memories
Brighten the way,
Or faith's fell enemies
Darken thy day?
Oh! could the word unkind
Be recalled now,
Or in the years behind
Buried lie low,
How would my heart rejoice
As round it fell,
Sweet cadence of thy voice,
Still loved so well.
Sometimes when sad it seems
Whisperings say:
"Cherish thy baseless dreams,
Yet whilst thou may,
Try not to pierce the veil,
Lest thou should'st see,
Only a dark'ning vale
Stretching for thee."
But Hope's mist-shrouded sun
Once more breaks out,
Chasing the shadows ...

It was a day of sombre heat:
The still, dense air was void of sound
And life; no wing of bird did beat
A little breeze through it, the ground
Was like live ashes to the feet.
From the black hills that loomed around
The valley many a sudden spire
Of flame shot up, and writhed, and curled,
And sank again for heaviness:
And heavy seemed to men that day
The burden of the weary world.
For evermore the sky did press
Closer upon the earth that lay
Fainting beneath, as one in dire
Dreams of the night, upon whose breast
Sits a black phantom of unrest
That holds him down. The earth and sky
Appeared unto the troubled eye
A roof of smoke, a floor of fire.

There was no water in the land.
Deep in the night of each ravine
Men, vainly searching ...

I.

We must not fail, we must not fail,
However fraud or force assail;
By honour, pride, and policy,
By Heaven itself!--we must be free.


II.

Time had already thinned our chain,
Time would have dulled our sense of pain;
By service long, and suppliance vile,
We might have won our owner's smile.


III.

We spurned the thought, our prison burst,
And dared the despot to the worst;
Renewed the strife of centuries,
And flung our banner to the breeze.


IV.

We called the ends of earth to view
The gallant deeds we swore to do;
They knew us wronged, they knew us brave,
And all we asked they freely gave.


V.

We took the starving peasant's mite
To aid in winning back his r...

An awful vision floats before my sight,
Black as the storm and fearful as the night:
Thy fall, oh Babylon!--the awful doom
Pronounced by Heaven to hurl thee to the tomb,
Peals in prophetic thunder in mine ear--
The voice of God foretelling ruin near!

    Hark! what strange murmurs from the hills arise,
Like rushing torrents from the bursting skies!
Loud as the billows of the restless tide,
In strange confusion flowing far and wide,
Ring the deep tones of horror and dismay,
The shriek--the shout--the battle's stern array--
The gathering cry of nations from afar--
The tramp of steeds--the tumult of the war--
Burst on mine ear, and o'er thy fated towers
Hovers despair, and fierce destruction lowers;
Within the fire--without the vengeful sword;
Who lead...