Betrayal

Now this is the song of a prison, a song of a gaol or jug,
A ballad of quod or of chokey, the ultimate home of the mug.
The yard where the Foolish are drafted; Hell’s school where the harmless are taught;
For the big beast never is captured and the great thief never is caught.

A song of the trollop’s victim, and the dealer in doubtful eggs,
And a song of the man who was ruined by the lie with a thousand legs.
A song of suspected persons and rouge-and-vagabond pals,
And of persons beyond suspicion, the habitual criminals.

’Tis a song of the weary warders, whom prisoners call “the screws”,
A class of men who I fancy would cleave to the “Evening News.”
They look after their treasures sadly. By the screw of their keys they are known,
And they screw them many times daily before...

I

There are beggars in Iran and Araby,
SAID was hungrier than all;
Hafiz said he was a fly
That came to every festival.
He came a pilgrim to the Mosque
On trail of camel and caravan,
Knew every temple and kiosk
Out from Mecca to Ispahan;
Northward he went to the snowy hills,
At court he sat in the grave Divan.
His music was the south-wind's sigh,
His lamp, the maiden's downcast eye,
And ever the spell of beauty came
And turned the drowsy world to flame.
By lake and stream and gleaming hall
And modest copse and the forest tall,
Where'er he went, the magic guide
Kept its place by the poet's side.
Said melted the days like cups of pearl,
Served high and low, the lord and the churl,
Loved harebells nodding on a rock,
A cabin hun...

‘Draw three cards, and I will tell your future . . .
Draw three cards, and lay them down,
Rest your palms upon them, stare at the crystal,
And think of time . . . My father was a clown,
My mother was a gypsy out of Egypt;
And she was gotten with child in a strange way;
And I was born in a cold eclipse of the moon,
With the future in my eyes as clear as day.’

I sit before the gold-embroidered curtain
And think her face is like a wrinkled desert.
The crystal burns in lamplight beneath my eyes.
A dragon slowly coils on the scaly curtain.
Upon a scarlet cloth a white skull lies.

‘Your hand is on the hand that holds three lilies.
You will live long, love many times.
I see a dark girl here who once betrayed you.
I see a shadow of secret crimes.

    Admiring Nature in her wildest grace,
    These northern scenes with weary feet I trace;
    O'er many a winding dale and painful steep,
    Th' abodes of covey'd grouse and timid sheep,
    My savage journey, curious I pursue,
    'Till fam'd Breadalbane opens to my view.
    The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides,
    The woods, wild scatter'd, clothe their ample sides;
    Th' outstretching lake, embosom'd 'mong the hills,
    The eye with wonder and amazement fills;
    The Tay, meand'ring sweet in infant pride,
    The palace, rising on its verdant side;
    The lawns, wood-fring'd in Nature's native taste;
    The hillocks, dropt in Nature's careless haste;
    The arches, striding o'er the new-born stream;
    The village, glittering in the noont...

What am I, and what is he
Who can cull and tear a heart,
As one might a rose for sport
In its royalty?

What am I, that he has made
All this love a bitter foam,
Blown about a life of loam
That must break and fade?

He who of my heart could make
Hollow crystal where his face
Like a passion had its place
Holy and then break!

Shatter with insensate jeers! -
But these weary eyes are dry,
Tearless clear, and if I die
They shall know no tears.

Yet my heart weeps; - let it weep!
Let it weep in sullen pain,
And this anguish in my brain
Cry itself to sleep.

Ah! the afternoon is warm,
And yon fields are glad and fair;
Many happy creatures there
Thro' the woodland swarm.

All the summer land is stil...

Hear me, O beeches! You
That have with ageless anguish slowly risen
From earth's still secret prison
Into the ampler prison of aery blue.
Your voice I hear, flowing the valleys through
After the wind that tramples from the west.
After the wind your boughs in new unrest
Shake, and your voice--one voice uniting voices
A thousand or a thousand thousand--flows
Like the wind's moody; glad when he rejoices
In swift-succeeding and diminishing blows,
And drooping when declines death's ardour in his breast;
Then over him exhausted weaving the soft fan-like noises
Of gentlest creaking stems and soothing leaves
Until he rest,
And silent too your easied bosom heaves.

That high and noble wind is rootless nor
From stable earth sucks nurture, but roams on
Chi...

As if a phantom caress'd me,
I thought I was not alone, walking here by the shore;
But the one I thought was with me, as now I walk by the shore--the one I loved, that caress'd me,
As I lean and look through the glimmering light--that one has utterly disappear'd,
And those appear that are hateful to me, and mock me.

Suggested by a scene in the play of the hunchback.


Inscribed to James Sheridan Knowles.




"Love me!--No.--He never loved me!"
Else he'd sooner die than stain
One so fond as he has proved me
With the hollow world's disdain.
False one, go--my doom is spoken,
And the spell that bound me broken.

Wed him!--Never.--He has lost me!--
Tears!--Well, let them flow!--His bride?
No.--The struggle life may cost me!
But he'll find that I have pride!
Love is not an idle flower,
Blooms and dies the self-same hour.

Title, land, and broad dominion,
With himself to me he gave;
Stooped to earth his spirit's pinion,
And became my willing slave!
Knelt and prayed until he won me--
Looks he coldly upon me?

Ingrat...

By Sylvia if thy charming self be meant;
If friendship be thy virgin vows' extent,
O! let me in Aminta's praises join,
Hers my esteem shall be, my passion thine.
When for thy head the garland I prepare,
A second wreath shall bind Aminta's hair;
And when my choicest songs thy worth proclaim,
Alternate verse shall bless Aminta's name;
My heart shall own the justice of her cause,
And Love himself submit to Friendship's laws.

But if beneath thy numbers' soft disguise
Some favour'd swain, some true Alexis, lies;
If Amaryllis breathes thy secret pains,
And thy fond heart beats measure to thy strains,
May'st thou, howe'er I grieve, for ever find
The flame propitious and the lover kind;
May Venus long exert her happy power,
And make thy beauty like thy vers...

Where the waters of the Mohawk
Through a quiet valley glide,
From the brown church to her dwelling
She that morning passed a bride.
In the mild light of October
Beautiful the forest stood,
As the temple on Mount Zion
When God filled its solitude.

Very quietly the red leaves,
On the languid zephyr's breath,
Fluttered to the mossy hillocks
Where their sisters slept in death:
And the white mist of the Autumn
Hung o'er mountain-top and dale,
Soft and filmy, as the foldings
Of the passing bridal veil.

From the field of Saratoga
At the last night's eventide,
Rode the groom, - a gallant soldier
Flushed with victory and pride,
Seeking, as a priceless guerdon
From the dark-eyed Madeline,
Leave to lead her to the altar
When...

Winter scourges his horses
Through the North,
His hair is bitter snow
On the great wind.
The trees are weeping leaves
Because the nests are dead,
Because the flowers were nests of scent
And the nests had singing petals
And the flowers and nests are dead.

Your voice brings back the songs
Of every nest,
Your eyes bring back the sun
Out of the South,
Violets and roses peep
Where you have laughed the snow away
And kissed the snow away,
And in my heart there is a garden still
For the lost birds.

Song of Daghestan.

Beatrice, immortalized by "altissimo poeta ... cotanto amante;" Laura, celebrated by a great though an inferior bard, - have alike paid the exceptional penalty of exceptional honor, and have come down to us resplendent with charms, but (at least, to my apprehension) scant of attractiveness.

These heroines of world-wide fame were preceded by a bevy of unnamed ladies "donne innominate" sung by a school of less conspicuous poets; and in that land and that period which gave simultaneous birth to Catholics, to Albigenses, and to Troubadours, one can imagine many a lady as sharing her lover's poetic aptitude, while the barrier between them might be one held sacred by both, yet not such as to render mutual love incompatible with mutual honor.

Had such a lady spoken for herself, the portrait left us might have appeared more ...

But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice. Psalm 5:11.


November is so drear and chill
Whilst making leafless branch and tree,
Whilst sweeping over vale and hill
With all her doleful minstrelsy.
November wails the summer's death
In such a melancholy voice,
She has a withering, blighting breath;
She does not bid the heart rejoice.

Yet why repine, thou stricken one?
Grief is the common fate of all.
This the refrain beneath the sun:
Mortals must die, and leaves must fall.
They'll live again, the leaves and flowers,
When spring returns to bless the earth;
They'll waken 'neath her sunny hours
Through nature's touch to beauteous birth.

Hope in decay and do not moan
That God has taken one we love:
Why should o...

I.

No more to feel the pressure warm
    Of dimpled arms around your neck--
No more to clasp the little form
    That Nature did with beauty deck.


II.

No more to hear the music sweet
    Of merry laugh and prattling talk--
No more to see the busy feet
    Come toddling down the shaded walk.


III.

No more the glint of flaxen hair
    That nestled 'round the lilied brow--
No more the rose's bloom will wear
    The cheek so cold and pallid now.


IV.

No more the light from loving eyes,
    Whose hue was like the violet blown
Where Summer's softest, bluest skies,
    Had lent it coloring from their own.


V.

No more to fondly bend above
    The little one when sl...

My former hopes are fled,
My terror now begins;
I feel, alas! that I am dead
In trespasses and sins.


Ah, whither shall I fly?
I hear the thunder roar;
The law proclaims destruction nigh,
And vengeance at the door.


When I review my ways,
I dread impending doom:
But sure a friendly whisper says,
“Flee from the wrath to come.”


I see, or think I see,
A glimmering from afar;
A beam of day, that shines for me,
To save me from despair.


Forerunner of the sun,[1]
It marks the pilgrim’s way;
I’ll gaze upon it while I run,
And watch the rising day.

Gods, what a black, fierce day! The clouds were iron,
Wrenched to strange, rugged shapes; the red sun winked
Over the rough crest of the hairy wood
In angry scorn; the grey road twisted, kinked,
Like a sick serpent, seeming to environ
The trees with magic. All the wood was still --

Cracked, crannied pines bent like malicious cripples
Before the gusty wind; they seemed to nose,
Nudge, poke each other, cackling with ill mirth --
Enchantment's days were over -- sh! -- Suppose
That crouching log there, where the white light stipples
Should -- break its quiet! WAS THAT CRIMSON -- EARTH?

It smirched the ground like a lewd whisper, "Danger!" --
I hunched my cloak about me -- then, appalled,
Turned ice and fire by turns -- for -- someone stirred
The brown, dry ...

La gola e 'l sonno e l' oziose piume.

TO A FRIEND, ENCOURAGING HIM TO PURSUE POETRY.


    Torn is each virtue from its earthly throne
By sloth, intemperance, and voluptuous ease;
E'en nature deviates from her wonted ways,
Too much the slave of vicious custom grown.
Far hence is every light celestial gone,
That guides mankind through life's perplexing maze;
And those, whom Helicon's sweet waters please,
From mocking crowds receive contempt alone.
Who now would laurel, myrtle-wreaths obtain?
Let want, let shame, Philosophy attend!
Cries the base world, intent on sordid gain.
What though thy favourite path be trod by few;
Let it but urge thee more, dear gentle friend!
Thy great design of glory to pursue.

ANON.


    In...

Behind us lay the homely shore
With youthful memories aureoled;
A sky of dazzling blue before,
We sailed a sea of molten gold.

To our old haven we return;
By smoky hills as grey as mud
We see the sullen sunset burn
Malignant on a lake of blood.

Yes, we return: but memory roams
A foul, bleak age of pain that yields
The smoke and flame of ruined homes,
The muck of cannon-pitted fields.