Betrayal

Call on the present day and night for nought,
Save what by yesterday was brought.
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THE sea is flowing ever,
The land retains it never.
-
BE stirring, man, while yet the day is clear;
The night when none can work fast Draweth near.
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WHEN the heavy-laden sigh,
Deeming help and hope gone by,
Oft, with healing power is heard,
Comfort-fraught, a kindly word.
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How vast is mine inheritance, how glorious and sublime!
For time mine own possession is, the land I till is time!
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UNWARY saith, ne'er lived a man more true;
The deepest heart, the highest head he knew,
"In ev'ry place and time thou'lt find availing
Uprightness, judgment, kindliness unfailing."
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THOUGH the bards whom the Orient sun bath bless'd
Are greater than we who dw...

Say, lovely youth, that dost my heart command,
Can Phaon's eyes forget his Sappho's hand?
Must then her name the wretched writer prove,
To thy remembrance lost, as to thy love?
Ask not the cause that I new numbers choose,
The lute neglected and the lyric Muse;
Love taught my tears in sadder notes to flow,
And tuned my heart to elegies of woe,
I burn, I burn, as when through ripen'd corn
By driving winds the spreading flames are borne!
Phaon to Ætna's scorching fields retires,
While I consume with more than Ætna's fires!
No more my soul a charm in music finds;
Music has charms alone for peaceful minds.
Soft scenes of solitude no more can please;
Love enters there, and I'm my own disease.
No more the Lesbian dames my passion move,
Once the dear objects of m...

    "Wo worth the chase. Wo worth the day,
    That cost thy life, my gallant grey!" - Scott


The Hunter stooped o'er his dying steed
    With sad dejected mien,
And softly stroked its glossy neck,
    Lustrous as silken sheen;
With iron will and nerve of steel,
    And pale lips tight compressed,
He kept the tears from eyes that long
    Were strange to such a guest.

Thou'rt dying now, my faithful one,
    Alas! 'tis easy known -
Thy neck would arch beneath my touch,
    Thou'dst brighten at my tone;
But turn not thus thy restless eyes
    Upon my saddened brow,
Nor look with such imploring gaze -
    I cannot help thee now.

No more we'll bound o'er dew gemmed sward
    At break of summer morn,
Or follow on, t...

Through the cracks in these battlements loud the winds whistle,
For the hall of my fathers is gone to decay;
And in yon once gay garden the hemlock and thistle
Have choak'd up the rose, which late bloom'd in the way.

Of the barons of old, who once proudly to battle
Led their vassals from Europe to Palestine's plain;
The escutcheon and shield, which with ev'ry blast rattle,
Are the only sad vestiges now that remain.

No more does old Robert, with harp-stringing numbers,
Raise a flame in the breast, for the war laurell'd wreath,
Near Askalon's Towers John of Horiston[1] slumbers,
Unnerv'd is the hand of his minstrel by death.

Paul and Hubert too sleep in the valley of Cressy,
For the safety of Edward and ENGLAND they fell,
My fathers! the tears...

    The silence of traitorous feet!
    The silence of close-pent rage!
    The roar, and the sudden heart-beat!
        And the shot through the true heart going,
    The truest heart of the age!
        And the Nile serenely flowing!

    Carnage and curses and cries!
    He utters never a word;
    Still as a child he lies;
        The wind of the desert is blowing
    Across the dead man of the Lord;
        And the Nile is softly flowing.

    But the song is stilled in heaven
    To welcome one more king:
    For the truth he hath witnessed and striven,
        And let the world go crowing,
    And Mammon's church-bell go ring,
        And the Nile blood-red go flowing!

    Man who hated the sword
    Yet wielded the sword ...

All stupor of surprise hath passed away;
    She sees, with clearer vision than before,
A world far off of light and laughter gay,
    Herself alone and lonely evermore.
Folk come and go, and reach her in no wise,
Mere flitting phantoms to her heavy eyes.


All outward things, that once seemed part of her,
    Fall from her, like the leaves in autumn shed.
She feels as one embalmed in spice and myrrh,
    With the heart eaten out, a long time dead;
Unchanged without, the features and the form;
Within, devoured by the thin red worm.


By her own prowess she must stand or fall,
    This grief is to be conquered day by day.
Who could befriend her? who could make this small,
    Or her strength great? she meets it as she may.
A weary struggle a...

"Thou hast been to the forest, thou sorrowing maiden,
    Where Summer reigns Queen in her fairest array,
Where the green earth with sunshine and fragrance is laden,
    And birds make sweet music throughout the long day.
Each step thou hast taken has been over flowers,
    Of forms full of beauty - of perfumes most rare,
Why comest thou home, then, with footsteps so weary,
    No smiles on thy lip, and no buds in thy hair?"

"Ah! my walk through the wild-wood has been full of sadness,
    My thoughts were with him who there oft used to rove,
That stranger with bright eyes and smiles full of gladness
    Who first taught my young heart the power of love.
He had promised to come to me ere the bright summer
    With roses and sunshine had decked hill and lea.
I, simp...

The moth and beetle wing about
The garden ways of other days;
Above the hills, a fiery shout
Of gold, the day dies slowly out,
Like some wild blast a huntsman blows:
And o'er the hills my Fancy goes,
Following the sunset's golden call
Unto a vine-hung garden wall,
Where she awaits me in the gloom,
Between the lily and the rose,
With arms and lips of warm perfume,
The Dream of Love my Fancy knows.

The glow-worm and the firefly glow
Among the ways of bygone days;
A golden shaft shot from a bow
Of silver, star and moon swing low
Above the hills where twilight lies:
And o'er the hills my Longing flies,
Following the star's far, arrowed gold,
Unto a gate where, as of old,
She waits amid the rose and rue,
With star-bright hair and nigh...

Why openest thou afresh the spring of
my grief, O son of Alpin, inquiring
how Oscur fell? My eyes are blind with
tears; but memory beams on my heart.
How can I relate the mournful death of
the head of the people! Prince of the
warriours, Oscur my son, shall I see thee
no more!

He fell as the moon in a storm; as
the sun from the midst of his course,
when clouds rise from the waste of the
waves, when the blackness of the storm
inwraps the rocks of Ardannider. I, like
an ancient oak on Morven, I moulder
alone in my place. The blast hath lopped
my branches away; and I tremble
at the wings of the north. Prince of
the warriors, Oscur my son! shall I see
thee no more!

DERMID

DERMID and Oscur were one: They
reaped the battle ...

I read that once in Affrica
A princely wight did raine,
Who had to name Cophetua,
As poets they did faine.
From natures lawes he did decline,
For sure he was not of my minde,
He cared not for women-kind
But did them all disdaine.
But marke what hapned on a day;
As he out of his window lay,
He saw a beggar all in gray.
The which did cause his paine.

The blinded boy that shootes so trim
From heaven downe did hie,
He drew a dart and shot at him,
In place where he did lye:
Which soone did pierse him to the quicke,
And when he felt the arrow pricke,
Which in his tender heart did sticke,
He looketh as he would dye.
"What sudden chance is this," quoth he,
"That I to love must subject be,
Which never thereto would agree,
But st...

When Faith and Love which parted from thee never,
Had ripen'd thy just soul to dwell with God,
Meekly thou didst resign this earthy load
Of Death, call'd Life; which us from Life doth sever
Thy Works and Alms and all thy good Endeavour
Staid not behind, nor in the grave were trod;
But as Faith pointed with her golden rod,
Follow'd thee up to joy and bliss for ever.
Love led them on, and Faith who knew them best
Thy hand-maids, clad them o're with purple beams
And azure wings, that up they flew so drest,
And speak the truth of thee on glorious Theams
Before the Judge, who thenceforth bid thee rest
And drink thy fill of pure immortal streams.

My lids with grief were tumid yet,
And still my sullied cheek was wet
With briny dews profusely shed
For venerable Winton dead,[2]
When Fame, whose tales of saddest sound
Alas! are ever truest found,
The news through all our cities spread
Of yet another mitred head
By ruthless Fate to Death consign'd,
Ely, the honour of his kind.
At once, a storm of passion heav'd
My boiling bosom, much I grieved
But more I raged, at ev'ry breath
Devoting Death himself to death.
With less revenge did Naso[3] teem
When hated Ibis was his theme;
With less, Archilochus,[4] denied
The lovely Greek, his promis'd bride.
But lo! while thus I execrate,
Incens'd, the Minister of Fate,
Wondrous accents, soft, yet clear,
Wafted on...

I touched the heart that loved me as a player
    Touches a lyre; content with my poor skill
    No touch save mine knew my beloved (and still
I thought at times: Is there no sweet lost air
Old loves could wake in him, I cannot share?).
    Oh, he alone, alone could so fulfil
    My thoughts in sound to the measure of my will.
He is gone, and silence takes me unaware.

The songs I knew not he resumes, set free
From my constraining love, alas for me!
    His part in our tune goes with him; my part
Is locked in me for ever; I stand as mute
    As one with full strong music in his heart
Whose fingers stray upon a shattered lute.

    Hail Poesie! thou Nymph reserv'd!
    In chase o' thee, what crowds hae swerv'd
    Frae common sense, or sunk enerv'd
        'Mang heaps o' clavers;
    And och! o'er aft thy joes hae starv'd
        Mid a' thy favours!

    Say, Lassie, why thy train amang,
    While loud the trump's heroic clang,
    And sock or buskin skelp alang,
        To death or marriage;
    Scarce ane has tried the shepherd-sang
        But wi' miscarriage?

    In Homer's craft Jock Milton thrives;
    Eschylus' pen Will Shakspeare drives;
    Wee Pope, the knurlin, 'till him rives
        Horatian fame;
    In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives
        Even Sappho's flame.

    But thee, Theocritus, wha matches?
    They're no herd's ballats, Mar...

I sometimes sit beneath a tree
And read my own sweet songs;
Though naught they may to others be,
Each humble line prolongs
A tone that might have passed away
But for that scarce remembered lay.

I keep them like a lock or leaf
That some dear girl has given;
Frail record of an hour, as brief
As sunset clouds in heaven,
But spreading purple twilight still
High over memory's shadowed hill.

They lie upon my pathway bleak,
Those flowers that once ran wild,
As on a father's careworn cheek
The ringlets of his child;
The golden mingling with the gray,
And stealing half its snows away.

What care I though the dust is spread
Around these yellow leaves,
Or o'er them his sarcastic thread
Oblivion's insect weaves
Though weeds a...

Love, banished heaven, in earth was held in scorn,
Wand'ring abroad in need and beggary;
And wanting friends, though of a goddess born,
Yet craved the alms of such as passèd by.
    I, like a man devout and charitable,
Clothèd the naked, lodged this wandering guest;
With sighs and tears still furnishing his table
With what might make the miserable blest.
    But this ungrateful for my good desert,
Enticed my thoughts against me to conspire,
Who gave consent to steal away my heart,
And set my breast, his lodging, on a fire.
    Well, well, my friends, when beggars grow thus bold,
    No marvel then though charity grow cold.

So, thou hast scorned me, my delight and heir;
Thy father's halls, then, were not broad and fair
Enough for thee to dwell here longer, sweet.
True, there was nothing, nothing in them meet
For thy swift-budding reason, that foretold
Virtues the future years would yet unfold.
Thy words, thy archness, every turn and bow -
How sick at heart without them am I now!
Nay, little comfort, never more shall I
Behold thee and thy darling drollery.
What may I do but only follow on
Along the path where earlier thou hast gone.
And at its end do thou, with all thy charms,
Cast round thy father's neck thy tender arms.

1.
Hopes, that swell in youthful breasts,
Live not through the waste of time!
Love's rose a host of thorns invests;
Cold, ungenial is the clime,
Where its honours blow.
Youth says, 'The purple flowers are mine,'
Which die the while they glow.

2.
Dear the boon to Fancy given,
Retracted whilst it's granted:
Sweet the rose which lives in Heaven,
Although on earth 'tis planted,
Where its honours blow,
While by earth's slaves the leaves are riven
Which die the while they glow.

3.
Age cannot Love destroy,
But perfidy can blast the flower,
Even when in most unwary hour
It blooms in Fancy's bower.
Age cannot Love destroy,
But perfidy can rend the shrine
In which its vermeil splendours shine.