Betrayal

Beloved, gaze in thine own heart,
The holy tree is growing there;
From joy the holy branches start,
And all the trembling flowers they bear.
The changing colours of its fruit
Have dowered the stars with metry light;
The surety of its hidden root
Has planted quiet in the night;
The shaking of its leafy head
Has given the waves their melody,
And made my lips and music wed,
Murmuring a wizard song for thee.
There the Joves a circle go,
The flaming circle of our days,
Gyring, spiring to and fro
In those great ignorant leafy ways;
Remembering all that shaken hair
And how the winged sandals dart,
Thine eyes grow full of tender care:
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.
Gaze no more in the bitter glass
The demons, with their subtle guile.
L...

What pain, to wake and miss you!
    To wake with a tightened heart,
And mouth reaching forward to kiss you!

This then at last is the dawn, and the bell
    Clanging at the farm! Such bewilderment
Comes with the sight of the room, I cannot tell.

It is raining. Down the half-obscure road
    Four labourers pass with their scythes
Dejectedly; - a huntsman goes by with his load:

A gun, and a bunched-up deer, its four little feet
    Clustered dead. - And this is the dawn
For which I wanted the night to retreat!

What lively lad most pleasured me
Of all that with me lay?
I answer that I gave my soul
And loved in misery,
But had great pleasure with a lad
That I loved bodily.

Flinging from his arms I laughed
To think his passion such
He fancied that I gave a soul
Did but our bodies touch,
And laughed upon his breast to think
Beast gave beast as much.

I gave what other women gave
That stepped out of their clothes.
But when this soul, its body off,
Naked to naked goes,
He it has found shall find therein
What none other knows,

And give his own and take his own
And rule in his own right;
And though it loved in misery
Close and cling so tight,
There’s not a bird of day that dare
Extinguish that delight.

"Oh! Autumn winds, what means this plaintive wailing
    Around the quiet homestead where we dwell?
Whence come ye, say, and what the story mournful
    That your weird voices ever seek to tell -
Whispering or clamoring, beneath the casements,
    Rising in shriek or dying off in moan,
But ever breathing, menace, fear, or anguish
    In every thrilling and unearthly tone?"

"We come from far off and from storm-tossed oceans,
    Where vessels bravely battle with fierce gale, -
Mere playthings of our stormy, restless power,
    We rend them quickly, shuddering mast and sail;
And with their, stalwart, gallant crews we hurl them
    Amid the hungry waves that for them wait,
Nor leave one floating spar nor fragile taffrail
    To tell unto the world their dreary f...

In the far green depths of the forest glade,
Where the hunter's footsteps but rarely strayed,
Was a darksome dell, possessed, 'twas said,
By an evil spirit, dark and dread,
Whose weird voice spoke in the whisperings low
Of that haunted wood, and the torrent's flow.

There an Indian girl sat silent, lone,
From her lips came no plaint or stifled moan,
But the seal of anguish, hopeless and wild,
Was stamped on the brow of the forest child,
And her breast was laden with anxious fears,
And her dark eyes heavy with unshed tears.

Ah! a few months since, when the soft spring gales
With fragrance were filling the forest dales;
When sunshine had chased stern winter's gloom,
And woods had awoke in their new-born bloom,
No step had been lighter on upland...

When I went to look at what had long been hidden,
A jewel laid long ago in a secret place,
I trembled, for I thought to see its dark deep fire,
But only a pinch of dust blew up in my face.

I almost gave my life long ago for a thing
That has gone to dust now, stinging my eyes,
It is strange how often a heart must be broken,
Before the years can make it wise.

Come, my Celia, let us prove,
While we may, how wise is love -
Love grown old and grey with years,
Love whose blood is thinned with tears.

Philosophic lover I,
Broke my heart, its love run dry,
And I warble passion's words
But to hear them sing like birds.

When the lightning struck my side,
Love shrieked and for ever died,
Leaving nought of him behind
But these playthings of the mind.

Now the real play is over
I can only act a lover,
Now the mimic play begins
With its puppet joys and sins.

When the heart no longer feels,
And the blood with caution steals,
Then, ah! then - my heart, forgive! -
Then we dare begin to live.

Dipped in Stygian waves of pain,
We can never feel again;
Time may hurl his...

So all day long the noise of battle roll'd
Among the mountains by the winter sea;
Until King Arthur's table, man by man,
Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their Lord,
King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep,
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,
Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights,
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,
A broken chancel with a broken cross,
That stood on a dark strait of barren land.
On one side lay the ocean, and on one
Lay a great water, and the moon was full.

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
"The sequel of to-day unsolders all
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights
Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep
They sleep--the men I loved. I think that we
Shall never more, at any future time,
Delight our so...

He had met hours of the clock he never guessed    before,
Dumb, dragging, mirthless hours confused with dreams and fear,
Bone-chilling, hungry hours when the gods sleep and snore,
Bequeathing earth and heaven to ghosts, and will not hear,
And will not hear man groan chained to the sodden ground,
Rotting alive; in feather beds they slumbered sound.

When noisome smells of day were sicklied by cold night,
When sentries froze and muttered; when beyond the wire
Blank shadows crawled and tumbled, shaking, tricking the sight,
When impotent hatred of Life stifled desire,
Then soared the sudden rocket, broke in blanching showers.
O lagging watch!    O dawn!    O hope-forsaken hours!

How often with numbed heart, stale lips, venting his rage
He swore he'd be a dolt, a trait...

I could have painted pictures like that youth’s
Ye praise so. How my soul springs up! No bar
Stayed me, ah, thought which saddens while it soothes!
Never did fate forbid me, star by star,
To outburst on your night, with all my gift
Of fires from God: nor would my flesh have shrunk
From seconding my soul, with eyes uplift
And wide to heaven, or, straight like thunder, sunk
To the centre, of an instant; or around
Turned calmly and inquisitive, to scan
The license and the limit, space and bound,
Allowed to Truth made visible in man.
And, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw,
Over the canvas could my hand have flung,
Each face obedient to its passion’s law,
Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue:
Whether Hope rose at once in all the blood,
A tip-to...

The Future, and its gifts, alone we prize,
    Few joys the Present brings, and those alloy'd;
    Th' expected fulness leaves an aching void;
    But HOPE stands by, and lifts her sunny eyes
That gild the days to come. - She still relies
    The Phantom HAPPINESS not thus shall glide
    Always from life. - Alas! - yet ill betide
    Austere Experience, when she coldly tries
In distant roses to discern the thorn!
    Ah! is it wise to anticipate our pain?
    Arriv'd, it then is soon enough to mourn.
Nor call the dear Consoler false and vain,
    When yet again, shining through april-tears,
    Those fair enlight'ning eyes beam on advancing Years.

A quaint old gabled cottage sleeps between the raving hills.
To right and left are livid strife, but on the deep, wide sills
The purple pot-flowers swell and glow, and o'er the walls and eaves
Prinked creeper steals caressing hands, the poplar drips its leaves.
Within the garden hot and sweet
Fair form and woven color meet,
While down the clear, cool stones, 'tween banks with branch and blossom gay,
A little, bridged, blind rivulet goes touching out its way.

Peace lingers hidden from the knife, the tearing blinding shell,
Where falls the spattered sunlight on a lichen-covered well.
No voice is here, no fall of feet, no smoke lifts cool and grey,
But on the granite stoop a cat blinks vaguely at the day.
From hill to hill across the vale
Storms man's terrific iron gale;<...

CONCORD, 1838


I reached the middle of the mount
Up which the incarnate soul must climb,
And paused for them, and looked around,
With me who walked through space and time.

Five rosy boys with morning light
Had leaped from one fair mother's arms,
Fronted the sun with hope as bright,
And greeted God with childhood's psalms.

Knows he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?

In the long sunny afternoon
The plain was full of ghosts;
I wandered up, I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.

The winding Concord gleamed below,
Pouring as wide a flood
As when my brothers, long ago,
Came with me to the wood.

But they are gone,--the holy ...

On the early and lamented death of George and Maggie Rosseaux, brother and sister, who died within one week of each other in the autumn of 1875. Young, beautiful and beloved, they were indeed lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided.


Pace slowly, black horses, step stately and solemn--
One by one--two by two--stretches out the long column;
Pass on with your burden, the sound of our tears
    Will not reach the deaf ears.

Beneath the black shadow of funeral arches,
Stepping slow to the rhythm of funeral marches;
Pass on down the street where their steps were so gay,
    And so light, yesterday.

Where it seems if we turn we shall clasp them and hold them,
Our hands shall embrace--and our eyes shall behold them,--
So near are th...

Look not in my eyes, for fear
They mirror true the sight I see,
And there you find your face too clear
And love it and be lost like me.
One the long nights through must lie
Spent in star-defeated sighs,
But why should you as well as I
Perish? gaze not in my eyes.

A Grecian lad, as I hear tell,
One that many loved in vain,
Looked into a forest well
And never looked away again.
There, when the turf in springtime flowers,
With downward eye and gazes sad,
Stands amid the glancing showers
A jonquil, not a Grecian lad.

I will let loose against you the fleet-footed vines,
I will call in the Jungle to stamp out your lines!
The roofs shall fade before it,
The house-beams shallfall;
And the Karela, the bitter Karela,
Shall cover it all!

In the gates of these your councils my people shall sing.
In the doors of these your garners the Bat-folk shall cling;
And the snake shall be your watchman,
By a hearthstone unswept;
For the Karela, the bitter Karela,
Shall fruit where ye slept!

Ye shall not see my strikers; ye shall hear them and guess.
By night, before the moon-rise, I will send for my cess,
And the wolf shall be your herdsman
By a landmark removed;
For the Karela, the bitter Karela,
Shall seed where ye loved!

I will reap your fields before you at th...

    A man weeps at your ankles,
    climbs the stairs to peek-a-boo
    panties, with finger clasps,
    a Rapunzel lowering your hair,
    the long-matted braids
    a skilful weaver turns to gold.

    An ivy forest in
    a castle impregnated with doors,
    the prince overhears the code
    "let down your hair" and,
    with perilous grasp,
    mounts the stirrup wall,
    foot to clasp,
    searching cloud grey &
    storm blasts for billowy mists
    green within this empress queen.

    Walking plasticine ledge
    in the shower with a mermaid
    soaping her perfumed treasure trove,
    at an intersection within that woman,
    her tulip trees explode -
    faeryland syrupy,
    tasting of apricot and sugar c...

raise me more love... raise me
my prettiest fits of madness
O’ dagger’s journey... in my flesh
and knife’s plunge...
sink me further my lady...
the sea calls me
add to me more death ...
perhaps as death slays me... I’m revived
your body is my map...
the world's map no longer concerns me...
I am the oldest capital of sadness...
and my wound a Pharaonic engraving
my pain.... extends like an oil patch
from Beirut... to China...
my pain... a caravan...dispatched
by the Caliphs of "A’Chaam"... to China...
in the seventh century of the "Birth"...
and lost in a dragon’s mouth...
bird of my heart... "naysani"
O’ sand of the sea, and forests of olives
O’ taste of snow, and taste of fire...
my heathen flavor, and insight
I feel scared of th...