Betrayal

        (Suggested by the "Clarimonde" OF Théophile Gautier.)

        Adieu, Romauld! But thou canst not forget me.
    Although no more I haunt thy dreams at night,
        Thy hungering heart forever must regret me,
    And starve for those lost moments of delight.

        Naught shall avail thy priestly rites and duties,
    Nor fears of Hell, nor hopes of Heaven beyond:
        Before the Cross shall rise my fair form's beauties - -
    The lips, the limbs, the eyes of Clarimonde.

        Like gall the wine sipped from the sacred chalice
    Shall taste to one who knew my red mouth's bliss,
        When Youth and Beauty dwelt in Love's own palace,
    And life flowed on in one eternal kiss.

        Through what strange ways I come, dear heart, to ...

When May is painting with her colours gay
The landscape sketched by April her sweet twin...

Here grandeur triumphs at its topmost pitch
In gardens, groves, and all that life beguiles;
Here want, too, meets a blessing from the rich,
And hospitality for ever smiles:
Soldier or sailor, from his many toils,
Here finds no cause to rail at pomp and pride;
He shows his scars, and talks of battle's broils,
And wails his poverty, and is supplied.
No dogs bark near, the fainting wretch to chide,
That bows to misery his aged head,
And tells how better luck did once betide,
And how he came to beg his crust of bread:
Here he but sighs his sorrows and is fed--
Mansion of wealth, by goodness dignified!

    The bank broke and I lost my savings.
    I was sick of the tiresome game in Spoon River
    And I made up my mind to run away
    And leave my place in life and my family;
    But just as the midnight train pulled in,
    Quick off the steps jumped Cully Green
    And Martin Vise, and began to fight
    To settle their ancient rivalry,
    Striking each other with fists that sounded
    Like the blows of knotted clubs.
    Now it seemed to me that Cully was winning,
    When his bloody face broke into a grin
    Of sickly cowardice, leaning on Martin
    And whining out "We're good friends, Mart,
    You know that I'm your friend."
    But a terrible punch from Martin knocked him
    Around and around and into a heap.
    And then they arrested me as...

There seemed a smell of autumn in the air
At the bleak end of night; he shivered there
In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay,
Legs wrapped in sand-bags, - lumps of chalk and clay
Spattering his face. Dry-mouthed, he thought, "To-day
We start the damned attack; and, Lord knows why,
Zero's at nine; how bloody if I'm done in
Under the freedom of that morning sky!"
And then he coughed and dozed, cursing the din.

Was it the ghost of autumn in that smell
Of underground, or God's blank heart grown kind,
That sent a happy dream to him in hell? -
Where men are crushed like clods, and crawl to find
Some crater for their wretchedness; who lie
In outcast immolation, doomed to die
Far from clean things or any hope of cheer,
Cowed anger in their eyes, till darkness br...

I.

Mæcenas, from Etrurian Princes sprung,
    For whom my golden lyre I strung,
Friend, Patron, Guardian of its rising song,
    O mark the Youth, that towers along,
    With triumph in his air;
    Proud of Olympic dust, that soils
    His burning cheek and tangled hair!
Mark how he spreads the palm, that crown'd his toils!
    Each look the throbbing hope reveals
    That his fleet steeds and kindling wheels,
Swept round the skilfully-avoided goal,
Shall with illustrious Chiefs his echo'd name enrol.


II.

    Who the civic crown obtains,
    Or bears into his granaries large
The plenteous tribute of the Libyan Plains;
Or he, who watches still a rural charge,
    O'er his own fields directs the plough,
    Sees his own fr...

Oh, that my soul its gods could see
As years ago they seemed to me
When first I painted them;
Invested with the circumstance
Of old conventional romance:
Exploded theorem!

The bard who could, all men above,
Inflame my soul with songs of love,
And, with his verse, inspire
The craven soul who feared to die
With all the glow of chivalry
And old heroic fire;

I found him in a beerhouse tap
Awaking from a gin-born nap,
With pipe and sloven dress;
Amusing chums, who fooled his bent,
With muddy, maudlin sentiment,
And tipsy foolishness!

The novelist, whose painting pen
To legions of fictitious men
A real existence lends,
Brain-people whom we rarely fail,
Whene'er we hear their names, to hail
As old and welcome frien...

"What traveller soever wander here
In quest of peace and what is best of pleasure,
Let not his hope be overcast and drear
Because I, Death, am here to fix the measure
Of life, even in blameless Arcady.
Bay, laurel, myrtle, ivy never sere,
And fields flower-decorated all the year,
And streams that carry secrets to the sea,
And hills that hold back something evermore
Though wild their speech with clouds in thunder-roar, -
Yea, every sylvan sight and peaceful tone
Are thine to give thy days their purer zest.
Let not the legend grieve thee on this stone.
I Death am here. What then? My name is Rest."

The wonder of the world is o'er:
The magic from the sea is gone:
There is no unimagined shore,
No islet yet to venture on.
The Sacred Hazels' blooms are shed,
The Nuts of Knowledge harvested.

Oh, what is worth this lore of age
If time shall never bring us back
Our battle with the gods to wage
Reeling along the starry track.
The battle rapture here goes by
In warring upon things that die.

Let be the tale of him whose love
Was sighed between white Deirdre's breasts,
It will not lift the heart above
The sodden clay on which it rests.
Love once had power the gods to bring
All rapt on its wild wandering.

We shiver in the falling dew,
And seek a shelter from the storm:
When man these elder brothers knew
He found the mother ...

When the British warrior queen,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought, with an indignant mien,
Counsel of her country’s gods,


Sage beneath the spreading oak
Sat the Druid, hoary chief;
Every burning word he spoke
Full of rage, and full of grief.


Princess! if our aged eyes
Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,
‘Tis because resentment ties
All the terrors of our tongues.


Rome shall perish—write that word
In the blood that she has spilt;
Perish, hopeless and abhorr’d,
Deep in ruin as in guilt.


Rome, for empire far renown’d,
Tramples on a thousand states;
Soon her pride shall kiss the ground—
Hark! the Gaul is at her gates!


Other Romans shall arise,
Heedless of a soldier’s name;
Sou...

How profitless the relics that we cull,
Troubling the last holds of ambitious Rome,
Unless they chasten fancies that presume
Too high, or idle agitations lull!
Of the world's flatteries if the brain be full,
To have no seat for thought were better doom,
Like this old helmet, or the eyeless skull
Of him who gloried in its nodding plume.
Heaven out of view, our wishes what are they?
Our fond regrets tenacious in their grasp?
The Sage's theory? the Poet's lay?
Mere Fibulae without a robe to clasp;
Obsolete lamps, whose light no time recalls;
Urns without ashes, tearless lacrymals!

Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,
Have put on black and loving mourners be,
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.
And truly not the morning sun of heaven
Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,
Nor that full star that ushers in the even,
Doth half that glory to the sober west,
As those two mourning eyes become thy face:
O! let it then as well beseem thy heart
To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,
And suit thy pity like in every part.
Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
And all they foul that thy complexion lack.

There is a wind where the rose was;
Cold rain where sweet grass was;
And clouds like sheep
Stream o'er the steep
Grey skies where the lark was.

Nought gold where your hair was;
Nought warm where your hand was;
But phantom, forlorn,
Beneath the thorn,
Your ghost where your face was.

Sad winds where your voice was;
Tears, tears where my heart was;
And ever with me,
Child, ever with me,
Silence where hope was.

A sterner errand to the silken troop
Has quenched the uneasy blush that warmed my cheek;
I am commissioned in my day of joy
To leave my woods and streams and the sweet sloth
Of prayer and song that were my dear delight,
To leave the rudeness of my woodland life,
Sweet twilight walks and midnight solitude
And kind acquaintance with the morning stars
And the glad hey-day of my household hours,
The innocent mirth which sweetens daily bread,
Railing in love to those who rail again,
By mind's industry sharpening the love of life--
Books, Muses, Study, fireside, friends and love,
I loved ye with true love, so fare ye well!

I was a boy; boyhood slid gayly by
And the impatient years that trod on it
Taught me new lessons in the lore of life.
I've learned the...

I saw in dream the spirits unbegot,
Veiled, floating phantoms, lost in twilight space;
For one the hour had struck, he paused; the place
Rang with an awful Voice:
            "Soul, choose thy lot!
Two paths are offered; that, in velvet-flower,
Slopes easily to every earthly prize.
Follow the multitude and bind thine eyes,
Thou and thy sons' sons shall have peace with power.
This narrow track skirts the abysmal verge,
Here shalt thou stumble, totter, weep and bleed,
All men shall hate and hound thee and thy seed,
Thy portion be the wound, the stripe, the scourge.
But in thy hand I place my lamp for light,
Thy blood shall be the witness of my Law,
Choose now for all the ages!"
            Then I saw
The unveiled spirit, grown divinely bright,
Choose t...

What mischief cleaves to unsubdued regret,
How fancy sickens by vague hopes beset;
How baffled projects on the spirit prey,
And fruitless wishes eat the heart away,
The Sailor knows; he best, whose lot is cast
On the relentless sea that holds him fast
On chance dependent, and the fickle star
Of power, through long and melancholy war.
O sad it is, in sight of foreign shores,
Daily to think on old familiar doors,
Hearths loved in childhood, and ancestral floors;
Or, tossed about along a waste of foam,
To ruminate on that delightful home
Which with the dear Betrothed 'was' to come;
Or came and was and is, yet meets the eye
Never but in the world of memory;
Or in a dream recalled, whose smoothest range
Is crossed by knowledge, or by dread, of change,
And...

Bethink, poor heart, what bitter kind of jest
Mad Destiny this tender stripling played;
For a warm breast of maiden to his breast,
She laid a slab of marble on his head.



They say, through patience, chalk
Becomes a ruby stone;
Ah, yes! but by the true heart's blood
The chalk is crimson grown.

Over the hills and the valleys of dreaming
Slowly I take my way.
Life is the night with its dream-visions teeming,
Death is the waking at day.

Down thro' the dales and the bowers of loving,
Singing, I roam afar.
Daytime or night-time, I constantly roving,--
Dearest one, thou art my star.