Betrayal

Ye injur'd fields, ye once were gay,
When nature's hand display'd
Long waving rows of willows grey,
And clumps of hawthorn shade;
But now, alas! your hawthorn bowers
All desolate we see,
The spoilers' axe their shade devours,
And cuts down every tree.

Not trees alone have own'd their force,
Whole woods beneath them bow'd;
They turn'd the winding rivulet's course,
And all thy pastures plough'd;
To shrub or tree throughout thy fields
They no compassion show;
The uplifted axe no mercy yields,
But strikes a fatal blow.

Whene'er I muse along the plain,
And mark where once they grew,
Remembrance wakes her busy train
And brings past scenes to view:
The well-known brook, the favourite tree,
In fancy's eye appear,
And next, tha...

For certain minutes at the least
That crafty demon and that loud beast
That plague me day and night
Ran out of my sight;
Though I had long perned in the gyre,
Between my hatred and desire.
I saw my freedom won
And all laugh in the sun.
The glittering eyes in a death's head
Of old Luke Wadding's portrait said
Welcome, and the Ormondes all
Nodded upon the wall,
And even Strafford smiled as though
It made him happier to know
I understood his plan.
Now that the loud beast ran
There was no portrait in the Gallery
But beckoned to sweet company,
For all men's thoughts grew clear
Being dear as mine are dear.
But soon a tear-drop started up,
For aimless joy had made me stop
Beside the little lake
To watch a white gull take
A bit ...

ACT I.

Clara winds a skein, and sings with Brackenburg.

THE drum gives the signal!

Loud rings the shrill fife!
My love leads his troops on

Full arm'd for the strife,
While his hand grasps his lance
As they proudly advance.

My bosom pants wildly!
My blood hotly flows!
Oh had I a doublet,
A helmet, and hose!

Through the gate with bold footstep

I after him hied,
Each province, each country

Explored by his side.
The coward foe trembled
Then rattled our shot:
What bliss e'er resembled

A soldier's glad lot!

ACT III.

CLARA sings.


Gladness

And sadness
And pensiveness blending

Yearning

And burning
In torment ne'er ending...

A sudden conflict rises from the swell
Of a proud slavery met by tenets strained
In Liberty's behalf. Fears, true or feigned,
Spread through all ranks; and lo! the Sentinel
Who loudest rang his pulpit 'larum bell,
Stands at the Bar, absolved by female eyes
Mingling their glances with grave flatteries
Lavished on 'Him', that England may rebel
Against her ancient virtue. high and low,
Watchwords of Party, on all tongues are rife;
As if a Church, though sprung from heaven, must owe
To opposites and fierce extremes her life,
Not to the golden mean, and quiet flow
Of truths that soften hatred, temper strife.

    Quieter than any twilight
    Shed over earth's last deserts,
    Quiet and vast and shadowless
    Is that unfounded keep,
    Higher than the roof of the night's high chamber
    Deep as the shaft of sleep.

    And solitude will not cry there,
    Melancholy will not brood there,
    Hatred, with its sharp corroding pain,
    And fear will not come there at all:
    Never will a tear or a heart-ache enter
    Over that enchanted wall.

        But, O, if you find that castle,
        Draw back your foot from the gateway,
        Let not its peace invite you,
        Let not its offerings tempt you.
    For faded and decayed like a garment,
    Love to a dust will have fallen,
    And song and laughter will have gone with sorrow,

There's a regret
So grinding, so immitigably sad,
Remorse thereby feels tolerant, even glad. . . .
Do you not know it yet?

For deeds undone
Rankle, and snarl, and hunger for their due
Till there seems naught so despicable as you
In all the grin o' the sun.

Like an old shoe
The sea spurns and the land abhors, you lie
About the beach of Time, till by-and-by
Death, that derides you too,

Death, as he goes
His ragman's round, espies you, where you stray,
With half-an-eye, and kicks you out of his way;
And then--and then, who knows

But the kind Grave
Turns on you, and you feel the convict Worm,
In that black bridewell working out his term,
Hanker and grope and crave?

'Poor fool that might,
That might, yet would ...

Who will believe my verse in time to come,
If it were fill’d with your most high deserts?
Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say ‘This poet lies;
Such heavenly touches ne’er touch’d earthly faces.’
So should my papers, yellow’d with their age,
Be scorn’d, like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be term’d a poet’s rage
And stretched metre of an antique song:
But were some child of yours alive that time,
You should live twice, in it, and in my rhyme.

Must I, who walk alone,
Come on it still,
This Puck of plants
The wise would do away with,
The sunshine slants
To play with,
Our wee, gold-dusty flower, the yellow clover,
Which once in Parting for a time
That then seemed long,
Ere time for you was over,
We sealed our own?
Do you remember yet,
O Soul beyond the stars,
Beyond the uttermost dim bars
Of space,
Dear Soul, who found earth sweet,
Remember by love's grace,
In dreamy hushes of the heavenly song,
How suddenly we halted in our climb,
Lingering, reluctant, up that farthest hill,
Stooped for the blossoms closest to our feet,
And gave them as a token
Each to Each,
In lieu of speech,
In lieu of words too grievous to be spoken,
Those little, gypsy, wondering bloss...

My soul, lost in the music's mist,
Roamed, rapt, 'neath skies of amethyst.
The cheerless streets grew summer meads,
The Son of Phoebus spurred his steeds,
And, wand'ring down the mazy tune,
December lost its way in June,
While from a verdant vale I heard
The piping of a love-lorn bird.

A something in the tender strain
Revived an old, long-conquered pain,
And as in depths of many seas,
My heart was drowned in memories.
The tears came welling to my eyes,
Nor could I ask it otherwise;
For, oh! a sweetness seems to last
Amid the dregs of sorrows past.

It stirred a chord that here of late
I 'd grown to think could not vibrate.
It brought me back the trust of youth,
The world again was joy and truth.
And Avice, blooming like a bride,<...

Who swerves from innocence, who makes divorce
Of that serene companion, a good name,
Recovers not his loss; but walks with shame,
With doubt, with fear, and haply with remorse:
And oft-times he who, yielding to the force
Of chance-temptation, ere his journey end,
From chosen comrade turns, or faithful friend
In vain shall rue the broken intercourse.
Not so with such as loosely wear the chain
That binds them, pleasant River! to thy side:
Through the rough copse wheel thou with hasty stride;
I choose to saunter o'er the grassy plain,
Sure, when the separation has been tried,
That we, who part in love, shall meet again.

Hush, hush! my thoughts are resting on a changeless world of bliss;
Oh! come not with the voice of mirth to lure them back to this.
'Tis true, we've much of sadness in our weary sojourn here,
That fades, and leaves no deeper trace than childhood's reckless tear;
But there are woes which scathe the heart till all its bloom is o'er,
A deadly blight we feel but once, that once for evermore.

Oh, then, 'tis sweet on fancy's wing to cleave that bright domain!
The loved and the redeemed are there, why lure me back again?
The cadences of gladness to your hearts may yet be dear;
They have no melody for mine, all, all is desert here.
The sunshine still is bright to you, the moonlight and the flowers;
To me they tell a harrowing tale of dear departed hours.

I would not cu...

Gooid bye, lass, aw dunnot blame,
Tho' mi loss is hard to bide!
For it wod ha' been a shame,
Had tha ivver been the bride
Of a workin chap like me;
One 'ats nowt but love to gie.

Hard hoof'd neives like thease o' mine.
Surely ne'er wor made to press
Hands so lily-white as thine;
Nor should arms like thease caress
One so slender, fair, an' pure,
'Twor unlikely, lass, aw'm sure.

But thease tears aw cannot stay, -
Drops o' sorrow fallin fast,
Hopes once held aw've put away
As a dream, an think its past;
But mi poor heart loves thi still,
An' wol life is mine it will.

When aw'm seated, lone and sad,
Wi mi scanty, hard won meal,
One thowt still shall mak me glad,
Thankful that alone aw feel
What it is to tew an' striv...

All things can tempt me from this craft of verse:
One time it was a woman’s face, or worse,
The seeming needs of my fool-driven land;
Now nothing but comes readier to the hand
Than this accustomed toil. When I was young,
I had not given a penny for a song
Did not the poet sing it with such airs
That one believed he had a sword upstairs;
Yet would be now, could I but have my wish,
Colder and dumber and deafer than a fish.

In the dark, lonely night,
When sleep and silence keep their watch o'er men;
False love! in thy despite,
I will be with thee then.
When in the world of dreams thy spirit strays,
Seeking, in vain, the peace it finds not here,
Thou shalt be led back to thine early days
Of life and love, and I will meet thee there.
I'll come to thee, with the bright, sunny brow,
That was Hope's throne before I met with thee;
And then I'll show thee how 'tis furrowed now
By the untimely age of misery.
I'll speak to thee, in the fond, joyous tone,
That wooed thee still with love's impassioned spell;
And then I'll teach thee how I've learnt to moan,
Since last upon thine ear its accents fell.
I'll come to thee in all youth's brightest power,
As on the day thy faith to mine was ...

I hid my love when young till I
Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly;
I hid my love to my despite
Till I could not bear to look at light:
I dare not gaze upon her face
But left her memory in each place;
Where eer I saw a wild flower lie
I kissed and bade my love good bye.

I met her in the greenest dells
Where dewdrops pearl the wood blue bells
The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye,
The bee kissed and went singing by,
A sunbeam found a passage there,
A gold chain round her neck so fair;
As secret as the wild bee's song
She lay there all the summer long.

I hid my love in field and town
Till een the breeze would knock me down,
The bees seemed singing ballads oer,
The fly's bass turned a lion's roar;
And even silence found a tong...

I said I will go back again where we
Were glad together. But my dear, my dear,
Where are the roses we were wont to see
The songs we used to hear?

I said the hearth-flame that once burned for us
I will renew with all the cheer of old,
Yet here within the circle luminous
Our very hearts are cold.

That was a barren garden that we found,
This was an empty house we came to meet,
We, who for all our longing, hear no sound
Of Love's returning feet.

    The first rose on my rose-tree
        Budded, bloomed, and shattered,
    During sad days when to me
            Nothing mattered.

    Grief of grief has drained me clean;
        Still it seems a pity
    No one saw,--it must have been
            Very pretty.

I sought a theme and sought for it in vain,
I sought it daily for six weeks or so.
Maybe at last, being but a broken man,
I must be satisfied with my heart, although
Winter and summer till old age began
My circus animals were all on show,
Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot,
Lion and woman and the Lord knows what.
II
What can I but enumerate old themes?
First that sea-rider Oisin led by the nose
Through three enchanted islands, allegorical dreams,
Vain gaiety, vain battle, vain repose,
Themes of the embittered heart, or so it seems,
That might adorn old songs or courtly shows;
But what cared I that set him on to ride,
I, starved for the bosom of his faery bride?

And then a counter-truth filled out its play,
i(The Countess Cathleen) was t...