Betrayal

De night creep down erlong de lan',
De shadders rise an' shake,
De frog is sta'tin' up his ban',
De cricket is awake;
My wo'k is mos' nigh done, Celes',
To-night I won't be late,
I 's hu'yin' thoo my level bes',
Wait fu' me by de gate.

De mockin'-bird 'll sen' his glee
A-thrillin' thoo and thoo,
I know dat ol' magnolia-tree
Is smellin' des' fu' you;
De jessamine erside de road
Is bloomin' rich an' white,
My hea't 's a-th'obbin' 'cause it knowed
You 'd wait fu' me to-night.

Hit 's lonesome, ain't it, stan'in' thaih
Wid no one nigh to talk?
But ain't dey whispahs in de aih
Erlong de gyahden walk?
Don't somep'n kin' o' call my name,
An' say "he love you bes'"?
Hit 's true, I wants to say de same,
So wait fu' me, Cele...

Giovane donna sott' un verde lauro.

THOUGH DESPAIRING OF PITY, HE VOWS TO LOVE HER UNTO DEATH.


    A youthful lady 'neath a laurel green
Was seated, fairer, colder than the snow
On which no sun has shone for many years:
Her sweet speech, her bright face, and flowing hair
So pleased, she yet is present to my eyes,
And aye must be, whatever fate prevail.

These my fond thoughts of her shall fade and fail
When foliage ceases on the laurel green;
Nor calm can be my heart, nor check'd these eyes
Until the fire shall freeze, or burns the snow:
Easier upon my head to count each hair
Than, ere that day shall dawn, the parting years.

But, since time flies, and roll the rapid years,
And death may, in the midst, of life, assail,
With f...

The dream of those days when first I sung thee is o'er,
Thy triumph hath stained the charm thy sorrows then wore;
And even of the light which Hope once shed o'er thy chains,
Alas, not a gleam to grace thy freedom remains.

Say, is it that slavery sunk so deep in thy heart,
That still the dark brand is there, though chainless thou art;
And Freedom's sweet fruit, for which thy spirit long burned,
Now, reaching at last thy lip, to ashes hath turned?

Up Liberty's steep by Truth and Eloquence led,
With eyes on her temple fixt, how proud was thy tread!
Ah, better thou ne'er hadst lived that summit to gain
Or died in the porch than thus dishonor the fane.

That I were Keats! And with a golden pen
Could for all time preserve these golden days
In rich and glowing verse, for poorer men,
Who felt their wonder, but could only gaze
With silent joy upon sweet Autumn's face,
And not record in any wise its grace!
Alas! But I am even dumb as they -
I cannot bid the fleeting hours stay,
Nor chain one moment on a page's space.

That I were Grieg! Then, with a haunting air
Of murmurs soft, and swelling, grand refrains
Would I express my love of Autumn fair
With all its wealth of harvest, and warm rains:
And with fantastic melodies inspire
A memory of each mad sunset's fire
In which the day goes slowly to its death
As through the fragrant woods dim Evening's breath
Doth soothe to sleep the drowsy songbirds' choir.

"O Life, O Beyond,
Thou art strange, thou art sweet!"
--Mrs. Browning.


Dread phantom, with pale finger on thy lips,
    Who dost unclose the awful doors for each,
        That ope but once, and are unclosed no more,
            Turn the key gently in the mystic ward,
            And silently unloose the silver cord;
        Lay thy chill seal of silence upon speech,
    And mutely beckon through the soundless door
To endless night, and silence and eclipse.

Even now the soul unfettered may explore
    On its swift wing beyond the gates of morn,
        (Unravelled all the weary round of years)
            And stand, unfenced of time and crowding space,
            With love's fond instinct in that primal place,
        The distant north...

Sweet mother, in a minute’s span
Death parts thee and my love of thee;
Sweet love, that yet art living man,
Come back, true love, to comfort me.
Back, ah, come back! ah wellaway!
But my love comes not any day.

As roses, when the warm West blows,
Break to full flower and sweeten spring,
My soul would break to a glorious rose
In such wise at his whispering.
In vain I listen; wellaway!
My love says nothing any day.

You that will weep for pity of love
On the low place where I am lain,
I pray you, having wept enough,
Tell him for whom I bore such pain
That he was yet, ah! wellaway!
My true love to my dying day.

O times most bad,
Without the scope
Of hope
Of better to be had!

Where shall I go,
Or whither run
To shun
This public overthrow?

No places are,
This I am sure,
Secure
In this our wasting war.

Some storms we've past,
Yet we must all
Down fall,
And perish at the last.

Sing the song of wave-worn Coogee, Coogee in the distance white,
With its jags and points disrupted, gaps and fractures fringed with light;
Haunt of gledes, and restless plovers of the melancholy wail
Ever lending deeper pathos to the melancholy gale.
There, my brothers, down the fissures, chasms deep and wan and wild,
Grows the sea-bloom, one that blushes like a shrinking, fair, blind child;
And amongst the oozing forelands many a glad, green rock-vine runs,
Getting ease on earthy ledges, sheltered from December suns.

Often, when a gusty morning, rising cold and grey and strange,
Lifts its face from watery spaces, vistas full with cloudy change,
Bearing up a gloomy burden which anon begins to wane,
Fading in the sudden shadow of a dark, determined rain,
Do I seek an easter...

Though I get home how late, how late!
So I get home, 't will compensate.
Better will be the ecstasy
That they have done expecting me,
When, night descending, dumb and dark,
They hear my unexpected knock.
Transporting must the moment be,
Brewed from decades of agony!

To think just how the fire will burn,
Just how long-cheated eyes will turn
To wonder what myself will say,
And what itself will say to me,
Beguiles the centuries of way!

When Israel, of the Lord beloved,
Out from the land of bondage came,
Her father's God before her moved,
An awful Guide, in smoke and flame.
By day, along the astonished lands
The cloudy pillar glided slow;
By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands
Returned the fiery column's glow.

There rose the choral hymn of praise,
And trump and timbrel answer'd keen,
And Zion's daughters pour'd their lays,
With priest's and warrior's voice between.
No portents now our foes amaze,
Forsaken Israel wanders lone:
Our fathers would not know Thy ways,
And Thou hast left them to their own.

But present still, though now unseen,
When brightly shines the prosperous day,
Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen,
To temper the deceitful ray.
And O, when gathers on ...

Ask not why hearts turn Magazines of passions,
And why that grief is clad in sev'ral fashions;
Why She on progress goes, and doth not borrow
The smallest respite from th'extreams of sorrow,
Her misery is got to such an height,
As makes the earth groan to support its weight,
Such storms of woe, so strongly have beset her,
She hath no place for worse, nor hope for better;
Her comfort is, if any for her be,
That none can shew more cause of grief then she.
Ask not why some in mournfull black are clad;
The Sun is set, there needs must be a shade.
Ask not why every face a sadness shrowdes;
The setting Sun ore-cast us hath with Clouds.
Ask not why the great glory of the Skye
That gilds the stars with heavenly Alchamy,
Which all the world doth lighten with his rayes,<...

When I watch the living meet,
And the moving pageant file
Warm and breathing through the street
Where I lodge a little while,

If the heats of hate and lust
In the house of flesh are strong,
Let me mind the house of dust
Where my sojourn shall be long.

In the nation that is not
Nothing stands that stood before;
There revenges are forgot,
And the hater hates no more;

Lovers lying two and two
Ask not whom they sleep beside,
And the bridegroom all night through
Never turns him to the bride.

Fire, and behind the breathless flight of fire
Thunder that quickens fear and quells desire,
Make bright and loud the terror of the night
Wherein the soul sees only wrath for light.
Wrath winged by love and sheathed by grief in steel
Sets on the front of crime death's withering seal.
The heaving horror of the storms of sin
Brings forth in fear the lightning hid therein,
And flashes back to darkness: truth, found pure
And perfect, asks not heaven if shame endure.
What life and death were his whose raging song
Bore heaven such witness of the wild world's wrong,
What hand was this that grasped such thunder, none
Knows: night and storm seclude him from the sun.
By daytime none discerns the fire of Mars:
Deep darkness bares to sight the sterner stars,
The lights wh...

O pupils of Gaza...
Teach us...
A little of what you have
For we have forgotten...
Teach us...
To be men
For we have men...
dough they become...
Teach us...
How the rocks become
in the children's hands,
precious diamond...
How it becomes
The child's bicycle, a mine
And the silk ribbon...
An ambush...
How the feeding bottle nipple...
If detained not
Turns into a knife....
O pupils of Gaza
Care not...
about our broadcasts...
And hear us not...
Strike...
Strike...
With all your powers
And firmly in your hands take matters
And ask us not...
We the people of arithmetic...
And of addition...
And of subtraction...
Your wars do carry on
And abstain from us...
We're the deserters
...

    I asked Aunt Persis yester-eve, as twilight fell,
    If she had things of value hidden safe away -
    Treasures that were her very own? And did she love
    To bring them forth, and feast her eyes upon their worth,
    And finger them with all a miser's greed of touch?

    She smiled that slow, warm smile of hers, and drew me down
    Beside her in the inglenook. The rain beat hard
    Against the panes, without the world was doubly gray
    With twilight and with cloud. The room was full of shade
    Till Persis stirred the slumbering grate fire wide awake,
    And made it send its flickering shafts of light into
    Each corner dim - gay shafts that chased the shadows forth
    And took their place, then stole away and let
    The shadow back, and then gave cha...