Betrayal

I, who was always counted, they say,
Rather a bad stick any way,
Splintered all over with dodges and tricks,
Known as "the worst of the Deacon's six;"
I, the truant, saucy and bold,
The one black sheep in my father's fold,
"Once on a time," as the stories say,
Went over the hill on a winter's day -
Over the hill to the poor-house.

Tom could save what twenty could earn;
But givin' was somethin' he ne'er would learn;
Isaac could half o' the Scriptur's speak -
Committed a hundred verses a week;
Never forgot, an' never slipped;
But "Honor thy father and mother" he skipped;
So over the hill to the poor-house.

As for Susan, her heart was kind
An' good - what there was of it, mind;
Nothin' too big, an' nothin' too nice,
Nothin' she w...

Perhaps some needful service of the State
Drew TITUS from the depth of studious bowers,
And doomed him to contend in faithless courts,
Where gold determines between right and wrong.
Yet did at length his loyalty of heart,
And his pure native genius, lead him back
To wait upon the bright and gracious Muses,
Whom he had early loved. And not in vain
Such course he held! Bologna's learned schools
Were gladdened by the Sage's voice, and hung
With fondness on those sweet Nestorian strains.
There pleasure crowned his days; and all his thoughts
A roseate fragrance breathed. O human life,
That never art secure from dolorous change!
Behold a high injunction suddenly
To Arno's side hath brought him, and he charmed
A Tuscan audience: but full soon was called
To the p...

Lines addressed to the daughter of Richard Dalton Williams.



Child of the heart of a child of sweetest song!
The poet's blood flows through thy fresh pure veins;
Dost ever hear faint echoes float along
Thy days and dreams of thy dead father's strains?
        Dost ever hear,
    In mournful times,
        With inner ear,
The strange sweet cadences of thy father's rhymes?

Child of a child of art, which Heaven doth give
To few, to very few as unto him!
His songs are wandering o'er the world, but live
In his child's heart, in some place lone and dim;
    And nights and days
        With vestal's eyes
        And soundless sighs
Thou keepest watch above thy father's lays.

Child of a dreamer of dreams all unfulfilled --
(And t...

Found in the garden--dead in his beauty.
Ah! that a linnet should die in the spring!
Bury him, comrades, in pitiful duty,
Muffle the dinner-bell, solemnly ring.

Bury him kindly--up in the corner;
Bird, beast, and gold-fish are sepulchred there;
Bid the black kitten march as chief mourner,
Waving her tail like a plume in the air.

Bury him nobly--next to the donkey;
Fetch the old banner, and wave it about:
Bury him deeply--think of the monkey,
Shallow his grave, and the dogs got him out.

Bury him softly--white wool around him,
Kiss his poor feathers,--the first kiss and last;
Tell his poor widow kind friends have found him:
Plant his poor grave with whatever grows fast.

Farewell, sweet singer! dead in thy beauty,
Silent through summe...

Passion? not hers! who held me with pure eyes:
One hand among the deep curls of her brow,
I drank the girlhood of her gaze with sighs:
She never sighed, nor gave me kiss or vow.
So have I seen a clear October pool,
Cold, liquid topaz, set within the sere
Gold of the woodland, tremorless and cool,
Reflecting all the heartbreak of the year.
Sweetheart? not she! whose voice was music-sweet;
Whose face loaned language to melodious prayer.
Sweetheart I called her. When did she repeat
Sweet to one hope, or heart to one despair!
So have I seen a wildflower's fragrant head
Sung to and sung to by a longing bird;
And at the last, albeit the bird lay dead,
No blossom wilted, for it had not heard.

With farmer Allan at the farm abode
William and Dora. William was his son,
And she his niece. He often look’d at them,
And often thought, ‘I’ll make them man and wife.’
Now Dora felt her uncle’s will in all,
And yearn’d toward William; but the youth, because
He had been always with her in the house,
Thought not of Dora.
Then there came a day
When Allan call’d his son, and said, ‘My son
I married late, but I would wish to see
My grandchild on my knees before I die
And I have set my heart upon a match.
Now therefore look to Dora; she is well
To look to; thrifty too beyond her age.
She is my brother’s daughter: he and I
Had once hard words, and parted, and he died
In foreign lands; but for his sake I bred
His daughter Dora: take her for your wife;
...

Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,
Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!
I feel a nameless sadness o’er me roll.
Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,
We know, we know that we can smile!    
But there’s a something in this breast,
To which thy light words bring no rest,
And thy gay smiles no anodyne;
Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,
And turn those limpid eyes on mine,    
And let me read there, love! thy inmost soul.

Alas! is even love too weak
To unlock the heart, and let it speak?
Are even lovers powerless to reveal
To one another what indeed they feel?        
I knew the mass of men conceal’d
Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal’d
They would by other men be met
With blank indifference, or with blame reprov’d;
I knew they ...

2. Sam. I. 19.

Alas slain is the Head of Israel,
Illustrious Saul whose beauty did excell,
Upon thy places mountainous and high,
How did the Mighty fall, and falling dye?
In Gath let not this things be spoken on,
Nor published in streets of Askalon,
Lest daughters of the Philistines rejoice,
Lest the uncircumcis'd lift up their voice.
O Gilbo Mounts, let never pearled dew,
Nor fruitful showres your barren tops bestrew,
Nor fields of offrings ever on you grow,
Nor any pleasant thing e're may you show;
For there the Mighty Ones did soon decay,
The shield of Saul was vilely cast away.
There had his dignity so sore a foyle,
As if his head ne're felt the sacred oyl.
Sometimes from crimson blood of gastly slain,
The bow of Jonathan ne're turn'd in va...

Exquisite mosses, so lovely and green,
Covering the rocks with emerald sheen;
Hiding the scars which convulsions have made;
Blessing the mound where our angel was laid;
Forming a carpet on which we may tread;
Clothing with beauty the rotten and dead;
Sheathing from storm-blasts the young forest tree--
Beautiful mosses, examples for me.

Trod under foot by all kinds of men;
Gracing the mountain or hid in the fen;
Never adorning the brow of the fair;
Seldom deemed worthy some corner to share
In the bouquets that are cast in the way
Princely feet tread on reception's proud day;
The glory of roses do not attain;
Beautiful mosses, ye grow not in vain.

Answer the end by your Maker designed.
Humble your bloom, but your mission is kind.
Those will...

And Simon Peter stood and warmed himself. John 18:25.


Peter, it was not outward cold
But inward chill thy bosom froze,
Made thee deny with falsehood bold
Thy Lord and Master to his foes.
When we find cheer at Satan's fires
The world is there to work us harm,
To deaden all our pure desires
With its deceitful lure and charm.

Peter, the voice of chanticleer
Fulfilled what Christ had prophesied;
And oh, that pitying look sincere
From him whom thou hadst just denied!
Thy burst of penitential grief!
Heaven those tears did surely send.
Tears give the burdened heart relief;
Dry anguish may its tendrils rend.

Sin soon will crucify our Lord,
Thy sin, and all the world's beside.
He gave himself, the Living Word,
Our shel...

June, 1865

Armies he's seen--the herds of war,
But never such swarms of men
As now in the Nineveh of the North--
How mad the Rebellion then!

And yet but dimly he divines
The depth of that deceit,
And superstitution of vast pride
Humbled to such defeat.

Seductive shone the Chiefs in arms--
His steel the nearest magnet drew;
Wreathed with its kind, the Gulf-weed drives--
'Tis Nature's wrong they rue.

His face is hidden in his beard,
But his heart peers out at eye--
And such a heart! like a mountain-pool
Where no man passes by.

He thinks of Hill--a brave soul gone;
And Ashby dead in pale disdain;
And Stuart with the Rupert-plume,
Whose blue eye never shall laugh again.

He hears the drum; he sees our boy...

The daylight is dying
Away in the west,
The wild birds are flying
In silence to rest;
In leafage and frondage
Where shadows are deep,
They pass to its bondage,
The kingdom of sleep.

And watched in their sleeping
By stars in the height,
They rest in your keeping,
O wonderful night.
When night doth her glories
Of starshine unfold,
'Tis then that the stories
Of bush-land are told.

Unnumbered I hold them
In memories bright,
But who could unfold them,
Or read them aright?
Beyond all denials
The stars in their glories,
The breeze in the myalls,
Are part of these stories.

The waving of grasses,
The song of the river
That sings as it passes
For ever and ever,
The hobble-chains' rattle,
...

The sunset on Judah's high places grew pale,
And purple tints shadowed the gorge and the vale,
While Venus in beauty, with dilating eye,
Out-riding the star-host, looked down from the sky
On the city that struggled with foemen below, -
Jerusalem, peerless in grandeur and woe!
O'er the fast crumbling walls thronged the cohorts of Rome,
Their batteries thundered on palace and dome,
And the children of Israel in voiceless despair
At the foot of the Temple had breathed a last prayer;
For their armies were spent in the unequal strife,
And Famine was maddening the pulses of life,
The pestilence lurked in the zephyr's soft breath,
And the gall-drops were poured from the drawn sword of Death.

The Night with starred garments moved noiseless on high,
When they felt a h...

And is it true indeed, and must you go,
Set out alone across that moorland track,
No love avail, though we have loved you so,
No voice have any power to call you back?
And losing hands stretch after you in vain,
And all our eyes grow empty for your lack,
Nor hands, nor eyes, know aught of you again.

Dear friend, I shed no tear while yet you stayed,
Nor vexed your soul with unavailing word,
But you are gone, and now can all be said,
And tear and sigh too surely fall unheard.
So long I kept for you an undimmed eye,
Surely for grief this hour may well be spared,
Though could you know I still must keep it dry.

For what can tears avail you? the spring rain
That softly pelts the lattice, as with flowers,
Will of its tears a daisied counterpane
Weave...

'Twas but a dream! and oh! what are they all,
    All the fond visions Hope's bright finger traces,
    All the fond visions Time's dark wing effaces,
But very dreams! but morning buds, that fall
    Withered and blighted, long before the night:
    Strewing the paths they should have made more bright,
With mournful wreaths, whose light hath past away,
    That can return to life and beauty never,
And yet, of whom it was but yesterday,
    We deemed they'd bloom as fresh and fair for ever.
Oh then, when hopes, that to thy heart are dearest,
    Over the future shed their sunniest beam,
When round thy path their bright wings hover nearest,
    Trust not too fondly! - for 'tis but a dream!

Keep for the Young the impassioned smile
Shed from thy countenance, as I see thee stand
High on that chalky cliff of Britain's Isle,
A slender volume grasping in thy hand
(Perchance the pages that relate
The various turns of Crusoe's fate)
Ah, spare the exulting smile,
And drop thy pointing finger bright
As the first flash of beacon light;
But neither veil thy head in shadows dim,
Nor turn thy face away
From One who, in the evening of his day,
To thee would offer no presumptuous hymn!

I

Bold Spirit! who art free to rove
Among the starry courts of Jove,
And oft in splendour dost appear
Embodied to poetic eyes,
While traversing this nether sphere,
Where Mortals call thee Enterprise.
Daughter of Hope! her favourite Child,
Whom...

There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
    And, with his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
    And the flowers that grow between.

"Shall I have naught that is fair?" saith he;
    "Have naught but the bearded grain?
Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,
    I will give them all back again."

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,
    He kissed their drooping leaves;
It was for the Lord of Paradise
    He bound them in his sheaves.

"My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,"
    The Reaper said, and smiled;
"Dear tokens of the earth are they,
    Where he was once a child.

"They shall all bloom in fields of light,
    Transplanted by my care,
And saints, upon their garments white,
    The...

White roses, like a mist
Upon a terraced height,
And 'mid the roses, opal, moonbeam-kissed,
A fountain falling white.

And as the full moon flows,
Orbed fire, into a cloud,
There is a fragrant sound as if a rose
Had sighed its soul aloud.

There is a whisper pale,
As if a rose awoke,
And, having heard in sleep the nightingale,
Still dreaming of it spoke.

Now, as from some vast shell
A giant pearl rolls white,
From the dividing cloud, that winds compel,
The moon sweeps, big and bright.

Moon-mists and pale perfumes,
Wind-wafted through the dusk:
There is a sound as if unfolding blooms
Voiced their sweet thoughts in musk.

A spirit is abroad
Of music and of sleep:
The moon and mists have made for it a road<...