Betrayal

Were you but lying cold and dead,
And lights were paling out of the West,
You would come hither, and bend your head,
And I would lay my head on your breast;
And you would murmur tender words,
Forgiving me, because you were dead:
Nor would you rise and hasten away,
Though you have the will of the wild birds,
But know your hair was bound and wound
About the stars and moon and sun:
O would beloved that you lay
Under the dock-leaves in the ground,
While lights were paling one by one.

Up and away through the drifting rain!
Let us ride to the Little Tower again,

Up and away from the council board!
Do on the hauberk, gird on the sword.

The king is blind with gnashing his teeth,
Change gilded scabbard to leather sheath:

Though our arms are wet with the slanting rain,
This is joy to ride to my love again:

I laugh in his face when he bids me yield;
Who knows one field from the other field,

For the grey rain driveth all astray?
Which way through the floods, good carle, I pray

The left side yet! the left side yet!
Till your hand strikes on the bridge parapet.

Yea so: the causeway holdeth good
Under the water? Hard as wood,

Right away to the uplands; speed, good knight!
Seven hours yet before the...

I
Is it Midsummer here in the heavens that illumine October on earth?
Can the year, when his heart is fulfilled with desire of the days of his mirth,
Redeem them, recall, or remember?
For a memory recalling the rapture of earth, and redeeming the sky,
Shines down from the heights to the depths: will the watchword of dawn be July
When to-morrow acclaims November?
The stern salutation of sorrow to death or repentance to shame
Was all that the season was wont to accord her of grace or acclaim;
No lightnings of love and of laughter.
But here, in the laugh of the loud west wind from around and above,
In the flash of the waters beneath him, what sound or what light but of love
Rings round him or leaps forth after?

II
Wind beloved of earth and sky and sea beyond all wind...

Beware how you deride
The exiles from life's sunny side:
To you is little known
How soon their case may be your own.
On this, sage Aesop gives a tale or two,
As in my verses I propose to do.
A field in common share
A partridge and a hare,
And live in peaceful state,
Till, woeful to relate!
The hunters' mingled cry
Compels the hare to fly.
He hurries to his fort,
And spoils almost the sport
By faulting every hound
That yelps upon the ground.
At last his reeking heat
Betrays his snug retreat.
Old Tray, with philosophic nose,
Snuffs carefully, and grows
So certain, that he cries,
'The hare is here; bow wow!'
And veteran Ranger now, -
The dog that never lies, -
'The hare is gone,' replies.
Alas! poor, wretched hare,

I'll gaze no more on her bewitching face,
Since ruin harbours there in every place;
For my enchanted soul alike she drowns
With calms and tempests of her smiles and frowns.
I’ll love no more those cruel eyes of hers,
Which, pleased or anger’d, still are murderers:
For if she dart, like lightning, through the air
Her beams of wrath, she kills me with despair:
If she behold me with a pleasing eye,
I surfeit with excess of joy, and die.

Blame not my tears, love: to you has been given
    The brightest, best gift, God to mortals allows;
The sunlight of hope on your heart shines from Heaven,
    And shines from your heart, on this life and its woes.

Blame not my tears, love: on you her best treasure
    Kind nature has lavish'd, oh, long be it yours!
For how barren soe'er be the path you now measure,
    The future still woos you with hands full of flowers.

Oh, ne'er be that gift, love, withdrawn from thy keeping!
    The jewel of life, its strong spirit, its wings;
If thou ever must weep, may it shine through thy weeping,
    As the sun his warm rays through a spring shower flings.

But blame not my tears, love: to me 'twas denied;
    And when fate to my lips gave this life's mingled cup,

Sweet Hope, so oft my childhood's friend,
I will believe thee still,
For thou canst joy with sorrow blend,
Where grief alone would kill.

When disappointments wrung my heart,
Ill brook'd in tender years,
Thou, like a sun, perform'dst thy part,
And dried my infant tears.

When late I wore the bloom of health,
And love had bound me fast,
My buoyant heart would sigh by stealth
For fear it might not last.

My sickness came, my bloom decay'd,
But Philip still was by;
And thou, sweet Hope, so kindly said,
"He'll weep if thou should'st die."

Thou told'st me too, that genial Spring
Would bring me health again;
I feel its power, but cannot sing
Its glories yet for pain.

But thou canst still my heart inspire,
And Heave...

Lais, when old and all her beauty gone,
Lais, the erstwhile courted pleasure queen,
Walked homeless through Corinth.
    One mocked her mien -
One tossed her coins; she took them and passed on.
Down by the harbour sloped a terraced lawn,
    Where fountains played; she paused to view the scene.
    A marble palace stood in bowers of green
'Twas here of old she revelled till the dawn.

Through yonder portico her lovers came -
    Hero and statesman, athlete, merchant, sage;
    They flung the whole world's treasures at her feet
To buy her favour and exalt her shame.

* * *

She spat upon her dole of coins in rage
    And faded like a phantom down the street.

("O Charles, je te sens près de moi.")

[July, 1871.]


I feel thy presence, Charles. Sweet martyr! down
    In earth, where men decay,
I search, and see from cracks which rend thy tomb,
    Burst out pale morning's ray.

Close linked are bier and cradle: here the dead,
    To charm us, live again:
Kneeling, I mourn, when on my threshold sounds
    Two little children's strain.

George, Jeanne, sing on! George, Jeanne, unconscious play!
    Your father's form recall,
Now darkened by his sombre shade, now gilt
    By beams that wandering fall.

Oh, knowledge! what thy use? did we not know
    Death holds no more the dead;
But Heaven, where, hand in hand, angel and star
    Smile at the grave we dread?

A Heave...

Hence, loathed Melancholy,
Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born
In Stygian cave forlorn
’Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy!
Find out some uncouth cell,
Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night-raven sings;
There, under Ebon shades and low-browed rocks,
As ragged as thy locks,
In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come, thou Goddess fair and free,
In heav’n yclep’d Euphrosyne,
And by men heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth,
With two sister Graces more,
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore:
Or whether (as some Sager sing)
The frolic Wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr, with Aurora playing,
As he met her once a-Maying,
There, on Beds of Violets blew,
And fresh-blown roses washed in de...

Look how our foul days do exceed our fair;
And as our bad, more than our good works are,
E'en so those lines, pen'd by my wanton wit,
Treble the number of these good I've writ.
Things precious are least numerous: men are prone
To do ten bad for one good action.

Let those who are in favour with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars
Unlook’d for joy in that I honour most.
Great princes’ favourites their fair leaves spread
But as the marigold at the sun’s eye,
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glory die.
The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foil’d,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toil’d:
Then happy I, that love and am belov’d,
Where I may not remove nor be remov’d.

The waterfall is calling me
    With its merry gleesome flow,
And the green boughs are beckoning me,
    To where the wild flowers grow:

I may not go, I may not go,
To where the sunny waters flow,
To where the wild wood flowers blow;
        I must stay here
        In prison drear,
Oh, heavy life, wear on, wear on,
Would God that thou wert done!

The busy mill-wheel round and round
Goes turning, with its reckless sound,
And o'er the dam the wafers flow
Into the foaming stream below,
And deep and dark away they glide,
To meet the broad, bright river's tide;
And all the way
They murmuring say:
"Oh, child! why art thou far away?
Come back into the sun, and stray
Upon our mossy side!"

I may not go, I may not go,

Who was stealing the Baron’s wine,
Golden sherry and port so old,
Precious, I wot, as drops of gold?
Lone to-night he came to dine,

Flung himself in his oaken chair,
Kicked the hound that whined for bread;
“God! the thief shall swing!” he said,
Thrust his hand through his ruffled hair.

Bolt and bar and double chain
Held secure the cellar door;
And the watchman placed before,
Kept a faithful watch in vain.

Every day the story came,
“Master, come!    I hear it drip!”
The wine is wet on the robber’s lip,
Who the robber, none could name.

All the folk in County Clare
Found a task for every day
By the Baron’s gate to stray,
Came to gossip, stayed to stare.

Nothing here to satisfy
Souls for tragedy awake;
Ju...

Valle che d' lamenti miei se' piena.

ON HIS RETURN TO VAUCLUSE AFTER LAURA'S DEATH.


    Valley, which long hast echoed with my cries;
Stream, which my flowing tears have often fed;
Beasts, fluttering birds, and ye who in the bed
Of Cabrieres' wave display your speckled dyes;
Air, hush'd to rest and soften'd by my sighs;
Dear path, whose mazes lone and sad I tread;
Hill of delight--though now delight is fled--
To rove whose haunts Love still my foot decoys;
Well I retain your old unchanging face!
Myself how changed! in whom, for joy's light throng,
Infinite woes their constant mansion find!
Here bloom'd my bliss: and I your tracks retrace,
To mark whence upward to her heaven she sprung,
Leaving her beauteous spoil, her robe of flesh behind!<...

A dark plume fetch me from yon blasted yew,
Perched on whose top the Danish Raven croaks;
Aloft, the imperial Bird of Rome invokes
Departed ages, shedding where he flew
Loose fragments of wild wailing, that bestrew
The clouds and thrill the chambers of the rocks;
And into silence hush the timorous flocks,
That, calmly couching while the nightly dew
Moistened each fleece, beneath the twinkling stars
Slept amid that lone Camp on Hardknot's height,
Whose Guardians bent the knee to Jove and Mars:
Or, near that mystic Round of Druid frame
Tardily sinking by its proper weight
Deep into patient Earth, from whose smooth breast it came!

Se lamentar augelli, o Verdi fronde.

SHE IS EVER PRESENT TO HIM.


    If the lorn bird complain, or rustling sweep
Soft summer airs o'er foliage waving slow,
Or the hoarse brook come murmuring down the steep,
Where on the enamell'd bank I sit below
With thoughts of love that bid my numbers flow;
'Tis then I see her, though in earth she sleep!
Her, form'd in heaven! I see, and hear, and know!
Responsive sighing, weeping as I weep:
"Alas," she pitying says, "ere yet the hour,
Why hurry life away with swifter flight?
Why from thy eyes this flood of sorrow pour?
No longer mourn my fate! through death my days
Become eternal! to eternal light
These eyes, which seem'd in darkness closed, I raise!"

DACRE.


    Where the gr...

For ever, since my childish looks
Could rest on Nature's pictured books;
For ever, since my childish tongue
Could name the themes our bards have sung;
So long, the sweetness of their singing
Hath been to me a rapture bringing!
Yet ask me not the reason why
I have delight in minstrelsy.

I know that much whereof I sing,
Is shapen but for vanishing;
I know that summer's flower and leaf
And shine and shade are very brief,
And that the heart they brighten, may,
Before them all, be sheathed in clay!
I do not know the reason why
I have delight in minstrelsy.

A few there are, whose smile and praise
My minstrel hope, would kindly raise:
But, of those few, Death may impress
The lips of some with silentness;
While some may friendship's fai...