Betrayal

Methought I saw him but I knew him not;
He was so changed from what he used to be,
There was no redness on his woe-worn cheek,
No sunny smile upon his ashy lips,
His hollow wandering eyes looked wild and fierce,
And grief was printed on his marble brow,
And O I thought he clasped his wasted hands,
And raised his haggard eyes to Heaven, and prayed
That he might die, I had no power to speak,
I thought I was allowed to see him thus;
And yet I might not speak one single word;
I might not even tell him that I lived
And that it might be possible if search were made,
To find out where I was and set me free,
O how I longed to clasp him to my heart,
Or but to hold his trembling hand in mine,
And speak one word of comfort to his mind,
I struggled wildly but it was ...

A thousand summers ere the time of Christ
From out his ancient city came a Seer
Whom one that loved, and honour’d him, and yet
Was no disciple, richly garb’d, but worn
From wasteful living, follow’d—in his hand
A scroll of verse—till that old man before
A cavern whence an affluent fountain pour’d
From darkness into daylight, turn’d and spoke.

This wealth of waters might but seem to draw
From yon dark cave, but, son, the source is higher,
Yon summit half-a-league in air—and higher,
The cloud that hides it—higher still, the heavens
Whereby the cloud was moulded, and whereout
The cloud descended. Force is from the heights.
I am wearied of our city, son, and go
To spend my one last year among the hills.
What hast thou there? Some deathsong for the Ghouls

1.

Adieu, thou Hill! [1] where early joy
Spread roses o'er my brow;
Where Science seeks each loitering boy
With knowledge to endow.
Adieu, my youthful friends or foes,
Partners of former bliss or woes;
No more through Ida's paths we stray;
Soon must I share the gloomy cell,
Whose ever-slumbering inmates dwell
Unconscious of the day.

2.

Adieu, ye hoary Regal Fanes,
Ye spires of Granta's vale,
Where Learning robed in sable reigns.
And Melancholy pale.
Ye comrades of the jovial hour,
Ye tenants of the classic bower,
On Cama's verdant margin plac'd,
Adieu! while memory still is mine,
For offerings on Oblivion's shrine,
These scenes must be effac'd.


3

Adieu, ye mountains of the clime<...

Yet once again, but once, before we sever,
    Fill we one brimming cup, - it is the last!
And let those lips, now parting, and for ever,
    Breathe o'er this pledge, "the memory of the past!"

Joy's fleeting sun is set; and no to-morrow
    Smiles on the gloomy path we tread so fast,
Yet, in the bitter cup, o'erfilled with sorrow,
    Lives one sweet drop, - the memory of the past.

But one more look from those dear eyes, now shining
    Through their warm tears, their loveliest and their last;
But one more strain of hands, in friendship twining,
    Now farewell all, save memory of the past.

Go, little flutt'rer! seek thy feather'd loves,
And leave a wretched mourner to his woe;
Seek out the bow'rs of bliss, seek happier groves,
Nor here unheeded let thy music flow.

Yet think me not ungrateful for thy song,
If meant to cheer me in my lone retreat;
Ah! not to thee, my little friend! belong
The pow'rs to soothe the pangs of adverse fate.

Fly, then! the window of the wretched, fly!
And be thy harmless life for ever blest;
I only can reward thee with a sigh,
And wish that joys may crown thy peaceful nest.

I.

A woman, fair to look upon,
Where waters whiten with the moon;
While down the glimmer of the lawn
The white moths swoon.

A mouth of music; eyes of love;
And hands of blended snow and scent,
That touch the pearl-pale shadow of
An instrument.

And low and sweet that song of sleep
After the song of love is hushed;
While all the longing, here, to weep,
Is held and crushed.

Then leafy silence, that is musk
With breath of the magnolia-tree,
While dwindles, moon-white, through the dusk
Her drapery.

Let me remember how a heart,
Romantic, wrote upon that night!
My soul still helps me read each part
Of it aright.

And like a dead leaf shut between
A book's dull chapters, stained and dark,
That page,...

    "Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are
    That bide the pelting of the pitiless storm!
    How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
    Your looped and widow'd raggedness defend you
    From seasons such as these?"

Shakspeare.


    When biting Boreas, fell and doure,
    Sharp shivers thro' the leafless bow'r;
    When Phoebus gies a short-liv'd glow'r
        Far south the lift,
    Dim-darkening through the flaky show'r,
        Or whirling drift:

    Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,
    Poor labour sweet in sleep was locked,
    While burns, wi' snawy wreeths up-choked,
        Wild-eddying swirl.
    Or through the mining outlet bocked,
        Down headlong hurl.

    Listening, the doors an' win...

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals--
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting--
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,--
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol...

I skimmed the strings; I sang quite low;
I hoped she would not come or know
That the house next door was the one now dittied,
Not hers, as when I had played unpitied;
- Next door, where dwelt a heart fresh stirred,
My new Love, of good will to me,
Unlike my old Love chill to me,
Who had not cared for my notes when heard:
Yet that old Love came
To the other's name
As hers were the claim;
Yea, the old Love came

My viol sank mute, my tongue stood still,
I tried to sing on, but vain my will:
I prayed she would guess of the later, and leave me;
She stayed, as though, were she slain by the smart,
She would bear love's burn for a newer heart.
The tense-drawn moment wrought to bereave me
Of voice, and I turned in a dumb despair
At her finding I'd ...

1.

When I hear you express an affection so warm,
Ne'er think, my belov'd, that I do not believe,
For your lip, would the soul of suspicion disarm,
And your eye beams a ray, which can never deceive.

2.

Yet still, this fond bosom regrets whilst adoring,
That love like the leaf, must fall into the sear,
That age will come on, when remembrance deploring,
Contemplates the scenes of her youth, with a tear.

3.

That the time must arrive, when no longer retaining
Their auburn, these locks must wave thin to the breeze.
When a few silver hairs of those tresses remaining,
Prove nature a prey to decay, and disease.

4.

'Tis this, my belov'd, which spreads gloom o'er my features
Tho' I ne'er shall presume to arraign the decree;<...

People that I meet and pass
In the city's broken roar,
Faces that I lose so soon
And have never found before,

Do you know how much you tell
In the meeting of our eyes,
How ashamed I am, and sad
To have pierced your poor disguise?

Secrets rushing without sound
Crying from your hiding places
Let me go, I cannot bear
The sorrow of the passing faces.

People in the restless street,
Can it be, oh can it be
In the meeting of our eyes
That you know as much of me?

Cuckoo, are you calling me,
Or is it a voice of wizardry?
In these woodlands I am lost,
From glade to glade of flowers tost.
Seven times I held my way,
And seven times the voice did say,
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! No man could
Issue from this underwood,
Half of green and half of brown,
Unless he laid his senses down.
Only let him chance to see
The snows of the anemone
Heaped above its greenery;
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! No man could
Issue from the master wood.

Magic paths there are that cross;
Some beset with jewelled moss
And boughs all bare; where others run,
Bluebells bathe in mist and sun
Past a clearing filled with clumps
Of primrose round the nutwood stumps;
All as gay as gay can be,
And bordered with dog-mercury,
The wizard flower, t...

Seek not, my Lesbia, the sequester'd dale,
    Or bear thou to its shades a tranquil heart;
    Since rankles most in solitude the smart
    Of injur'd charms and talents, when they fail
To meet their due regard; - nor e'en prevail
    Where most they wish to please: - Yet, since thy part
    Is large in Life's chief blessings, why desert
    Sullen the world? - Alas! how many wail
Dire loss of the best comforts Heaven can grant!
    While they the bitter tear in secret pour,
    Smote by the death of Friends, Disease, or Want,
Slight wrongs if thy self-valuing soul deplore,
    Thou but resemblest, in thy lonely haunt,
    Narcissus pining on the watry shore.

I said, "My youth is gone
Like a fire beaten out by the rain,
That will never sway and sing
Or play with the wind again."

I said, "It is no great sorrow
That quenched my youth in me,
But only little sorrows
Beating ceaselessly."

I thought my youth was gone,
But you returned,
Like a flame at the call of the wind
It leaped and burned;

Threw off its ashen cloak,
And gowned anew
Gave itself like a bride
Once more to you.

I wish I was by that dim Lake,[1]
Where sinful souls their farewell take
Of this vain world, and half-way lie
In death's cold shadow, ere they die.
There, there, far from thee,
Deceitful world, my home should be;
Where, come what might of gloom and pain,
False hope should ne'er deceive again.

The lifeless sky, the mournful sound
Of unseen waters falling round;
The dry leaves, quivering o'er my head,
Like man, unquiet even when dead!
These, ay, these shall wean
My soul from life's deluding scene,
And turn each thought, o'ercharged with gloom,
Like willows, downward towards the tomb.

As they, who to their couch at night
Would win repose, first quench the light,
So must the hopes, that keep this breast
Awake, be quenched, ere...

Verses of Hippolyta to her Husband.


They tell me thou'rt the favored guest
    Of every fair and brilliant throng;
No wit like thine to wake the jest,
    No voice like thine to breathe the song.
And none could guess, so gay thou art,
That thou and I are far apart.
Alas, alas! how different flows,
    With thee and me the time away!
Not that I wish thee sad, heaven knows--
    Still if thou canst, be light and gay;
I only know that without thee
The sun himself is dark for me.

Do I put on the jewels rare
Thou'st always loved to see me wear?
Do I perfume the locks that thou
So oft hast braided o'er my brow,
Thus deckt thro' festive crowds to run,
    And all the assembled world to see,--
All but the one, the absent one,

All through the night time, and all through the day time,
    Dreading the morning and dreading the night,
Nearer and nearer we drift to the May time
    Season of beauty and season of blight,
Leaves on the linden, and sun on the meadow,
    Green in the garden, and bloom everywhere,
Gloom in my heart, and a terrible shadow,
    Walks by me, sits by me, stands by my chair.

Oh, but the birds by the brooklet are cheery,
    Oh, but the woods show such delicate greens,
Strange how you droop and how soon you are weary -
    Too well I know what that weariness means.
But how could I know in the crisp winter weather
    (Though sometimes I noticed a catch in your breath),
Riding and singing and dancing together,
    How could I know you were racing with death?

STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION


I am tired of the day with its profitless labours,
And tired of the night with its lack of repose,
I am sick of myself, my surroundings, and neighbours,
Especially Aryan Brothers and crows;
O land of illusory hope for the needy,
O centre of soldiering, thirst, and shikar,
When a broken-down exile begins to get seedy,
What a beast of a country you are!

There are many, I know, that have honestly drawn a
Most moving description of pleasures to win
By the exquisite carnage of such of your fauna
As Nature provides with a 'head' or a 'skin';
I know that a pig is magnificent sticking;
But good as you are in the matter of sports,
When a person's alive, so to put it, and kicking,
You're a brute when a man's out of sorts.