Betrayal

A picture memory brings to me
I look across the years and see
Myself beside my mother’s knee.

I feel her gentle hand restrain
My selfish moods, and know again
A child’s blind sense of wrong and pain.

But wiser now, a man gray grown,
My childhood’s needs are better known,
My mother’s chastening love I own.

Gray grown, but in our Father’s sight
A child still groping for the light
To read His works and ways aright.

I wait, in His good time to see
That as my mother dealt with me
So with His children dealeth He.

I bow myself beneath His hand
That pain itself was wisely planned
I feel, and partly understand.

The joy that comes in sorrow’s guise,
The sweet pains of self-sacrifice,
I would not have them otherwise...

Today I have been happy. All the day
I held the memory of you, and wove
Its laughter with the dancing light o' the spray,
And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love,
And sent you following the white waves of sea,
And crowned your head with fancies, nothing worth,
Stray buds from that old dust of misery,
Being glad with a new foolish quiet mirth.

So lightly I played with those dark memories,
Just as a child, beneath the summer skies,
Plays hour by hour with a strange shining stone,
For which (he knows not) towns were fire of old,
And love has been betrayed, and murder done,
And great kings turned to a little bitter mould.

Strew on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew!
In quiet she reposes;
Ah, would that I did too!

Her mirth the world required;
She bathed it in smiles of glee.
But her heart was tired, tired,
And now they let her be.

Her life was turning, turning,
In mazes of heat and sound.
But for peace her soul was yearning,
And now peace laps her round.

Her cabin'd, ample spirit,
It flutter'd and fail'd for breath.
To-night it doth inherit
The vasty hall of death.

A Dialogue: Addressed to a young Lady.


Friendship:

In vain thy lawless Fires contend with mine,
Tho' Crouds unnumber'd fall before thy Shrine;
Let Youths, who ne'er aspir'd to noble Fame,
And the soft Virgin, kindle at thy Flame,
Thee, Son of Indolence and Vice, I scorn,
By Reason nourish'd, and of Virtue born.

Love:

Vain is that boasted Reason 'gainst my Dart,
I pierce the Sage's, as the vulgar Heart,
All Ages, Sexes, the soft Torment share,
The hoary Patriot, and the blooming Fair.
To narrow Limits is thy Sway confin'd,
To some few Breasts, I triumph o'er Mankind.

Friendship:

From grov'ling Sources, ever springs thy Pow'r,
Still varying Fancy, and frail Beauty's Flow'r:
Then with its Cause the short liv'd A...

        White with daisies and red with sorrel
            And empty, empty under the sky!--
        Life is a quest and love a quarrel--
            Here is a place for me to lie.

        Daisies spring from damned seeds,
            And this red fire that here I see
        Is a worthless crop of crimson weeds,
            Cursed by farmers thriftily.

        But here, unhated for an hour,
            The sorrel runs in ragged flame,
        The daisy stands, a bastard flower,
            Like flowers that bear an honest name.

        And here a while, where no wind brings
            The baying of a pack athirst,
        May sleep the sleep of blessed things,
            The blood too bright, the brow accurst.

I done got 'uligion, honey, an' I 's happy ez a king;
Evahthing I see erbout me 's jes' lak sunshine in de spring;
An' it seems lak I do' want to do anothah blessid thing
But jes' run an' tell de neighbours, an' to shout an' pray an' sing.

I done shuk my fis' at Satan, an' I 's gin de worl' my back;
I do' want no hendrin' causes now a-both'rin' in my track;
Fu' I 's on my way to glory, an' I feels too sho' to miss.
Wy, dey ain't no use in sinnin' when 'uligion 's sweet ez dis.

Talk erbout a man backslidin' w'en he 's on de gospel way;
No, suh, I done beat de debbil, an' Temptation 's los' de day.
Gwine to keep my eyes right straight up, gwine to shet my eahs, an' see
Whut ole projick Mistah Satan 's gwine to try to wuk on me.

Listen, whut dat soun' I hyeah dah? ...

Letter II. Sorrow.


I.

    Yes, I was mad. I know it. I was mad.
    For there is madness in the looks of love;
    And he who frights a tender, brooding dove
    Is not more base than I, and not so sad;
    For I had kill'd the hope that made me glad,
    And curs'd, in thought, the sunlight from above.


II.

    He was a fool, indeed, who lately tried
    To touch the moon, far-shining in the trees,
    He clomb the branches with his hands and knees.
    And craned his neck to kiss what he espied.
    But down he fell, unseemly in his prid...

Let down the bars, O Death!
The tired flocks come in
Whose bleating ceases to repeat,
Whose wandering is done.

Thine is the stillest night,
Thine the securest fold;
Too near thou art for seeking thee,
Too tender to be told.

My wind is turned to bitter north,
That was so soft a south before;
My sky, that shone so sunny bright,
With foggy gloom is clouded o’er
My gay green leaves are yellow-black,
Upon the dank autumnal floor;
For love, departed once, comes back
No more again, no more.
A roofless ruin lies my home,
For winds to blow and rains to pour;
One frosty night befell, and lo,
I find my summer days are o’er:
The heart bereaved, of why and how
Unknowing, knows that yet before
It had what e’en to Memory now
Returns no more, no more.

Oh! I did love her dearly,
And gave her toys and rings,
And I thought she meant sincerely,
When she took my pretty things.
But her heart has grown as icy
As a fountain in the fall,
And her love, that was so spicy,
It did not last at all.

I gave her once a locket,
It was filled with my own hair,
And she put it in her pocket
With very special care.
But a jeweller has got it, -
He offered it to me, -
And another that is not it
Around her neck I see.

For my cooings and my billings
I do not now complain,
But my dollars and my shillings
Will never come again;
They were earned with toil and sorrow,
But I never told her that,
And now I have to borrow,
And want another hat.

Think, think, thou cruel Emma,
Wh...

Though many suns have risen and set
Since thou, blithe May, wert born,
And Bards, who hailed thee, may forget
Thy gift, thy beauty scorn;
There are who to a birthday strain
Confine not harp and voice,
But evermore throughout thy reign
Are grateful and rejoice!

Delicious odor! music sweet,
Too sweet to pass away!
Oh for a deathless song to meet
The soul's desire, a lay
That, when a thousand year are told,
Should praise thee, genial Power!
Through summer heat, autumnal cold,
And winter's dreariest hour.

Earth, sea, thy presence feel, nor less,
If yon ethereal blue
With its soft smile the truth express,
The heavens have felt it too.
The inmost heart of man if glad
Partakes a livelier cheer;
And eye that cannot but be sad<...

1869-1891

Auvergne, Auvergne, O wild and woful land,
O glorious land and gracious, white as gleam
The stairs of heaven, black as a flameless brand,
Strange even as life, and stranger than a dream,
Could earth remember man, whose eyes made bright
The splendour of her beauty, lit by day
Or soothed and softened and redeemed by night,
Wouldst thou not know what light has passed away?
Wouldst thou not know whom England, whom the world,
Mourns? For the world whose wildest ways he trod,
And smiled their dangers down that coiled and curled
Against him, knows him now less man than god.
Our demigod of daring, keenest-eyed
To read and deepest read in earth's dim things,
A spirit now whose body of death has died
And left it mightier yet in eyes and wings,

Here, by this brook, we parted; I to the East
And he for Italy—too late—too late:
One whom the strong sons of the world despise;
For lucky rhymes to him were scrip and share,
And mellow metres more than cent for cent;
Nor could he understand how money breeds,
Thought it a dead thing; yet himself could make
The thing that is not as the thing that is.
O had he lived! In our schoolbooks we say,
Of those that held their heads above the crowd,
They flourish’d then or then; but life in him
Could scarce be said to flourish, only touch’d
On such a time as goes before the leaf,
When all the wood stands in a mist of green,
And nothing perfect: yet the brook he loved,
For which, in branding summers of Bengal,
Or ev’n the sweet half-English Neilgherry air
I panted, s...

A thick mist-sheet lies over the broken wheat.
I walk up to my neck in mist, holding my mouth up.
Across there, a discoloured moon burns itself out.

I hold the night in horror;
I dare not turn round.

To-night I have left her alone.
They would have it I have left her for ever.

Oh my God, how it aches
Where she is cut off from me!

Perhaps she will go back to England.
Perhaps she will go back,
Perhaps we are parted for ever.

If I go on walking through the whole breadth of Germany
I come to the North Sea, or the Baltic.

Over there is Russia - Austria, Switzerland, France, in a circle!
I here in the undermist on the Bavarian road.

It aches in me.
What is England or France, far off,
But a name she might take?
...

'Tis not my voice now speaks; but a bird
In darkling forest hollows a sweet throat -
Pleads on till distant echo too hath heard
And doubles every note:
So love that shrouded dwells in mystery
Would cry and waken thee.

Thou Solitary, stir in thy still sleep;
All the night waits thee, yet thou still dream'st on.
Furtive the shadows that about thee creep,
And cheat the shining footsteps of the moon:
Unseal thine eyes, it is my heart that sings,
And beats in vain its wings.

Lost in heaven's vague, the stars burn softly through
The world's dark latticings, we prisoned stray
Within its lovely labyrinth, and know
Mute seraphs guard the way
Even from silence unto speech, from love
To that self's self it still is dreaming of.

I’ve a kiss from a warmer lover
Than maiden earth can be:
She blew it up to the skies above her,
And now it has come to me;
From the far-away it has come today
With a breath of the old salt sea.

She lay and laughed on a lazy billow,
Far away on the deep,
Who had gathered the froth for my lady’s pillow
Gathered a sparkling heap;
And the ocean’s cry was the lullaby
That cradled my love to sleep.

Far away on the blue Pacific
There doth my lady roam,
That is oft-times gay, but as oft terrific:
Her jewels are beads of foam:
In a coral cave, where a blue-green wave
Keeps guard, is my lady’s home.

She claps her hands, and her henchman hurries
West of the sunset sheen:
’Tis he who comes when a mist-wrack scurries,
Skirting th...

All I have lost that could be rapt from me;
And fare it well: yet, Herrick, if so be
Thy dearest Saviour renders thee but one
Smile, that one smile's full restitution.

A month or twain to live on honeycomb
Is pleasant; but one tires of scented time,
Cold sweet recurrence of accepted rhyme,
And that strong purple under juice and foam
Where the wine’s heart has burst;
Nor feel the latter kisses like the first.

Once yet, this poor one time; I will not pray
Even to change the bitterness of it,
The bitter taste ensuing on the sweet,
To make your tears fall where your soft hair lay
All blurred and heavy in some perfumed wise
Over my face and eyes.

And yet who knows what end the scythèd wheat
Makes of its foolish poppies’ mouths of red?
These were not sown, these are not harvested,
They grow a month and are cast under feet
And none has care thereof,
As none has care of a divided love.

I know each shadow ...