Betrayal

Late at e'en, drinking the wine,
And ere they paid the lawing,
They set a combat them between,
To fight it in the dawing.

"What though ye be my sister's lord,
We'll cross our swords to-morrow."
"What though my wife your sister be,
I'll meet ye then on Yarrow."

"O stay at hame, my ain gude lord!
O stay, my ain dear marrow!
My cruel brither will you betray
On the dowie banks o' Yarrow."

"O fare ye weel, my lady dear!
And put aside your sorrow;
For if I gae, I'll sune return
Frae the bonny banks o' Yarrow."

She kiss'd his cheek, she kaim'd his hair,
As oft she'd done before, O;
She belted him wi' his gude brand,
And he's awa' to Yarrow.

When he gaed up the Tennies bank,
As he gaed mony a morrow,
Nine arm...

Along that gloomy river's brim,
Where Charon plies the ceaseless oar,
Two mighty Shadows, dusk and dim,
Stood lingering on the dismal shore.
Hoarse came the rugged Boatman's call,
While echoing caves enforced the cry
And as they severed life's last thrall,
Each Spirit spoke one parting sigh.
"Farewell to earth! I leave a name,
Written in fire, on field and flood

Wide as the wind, the voice of fame,
Hath borne my fearful tale of blood.
And though across this leaden wave,
Returnless now my spirit haste,
Napoleon's name shall know no grave,
His mighty deeds be ne'er erased.
The rocky Alp, where once was set
My courser's hoof, shall keep the seal,
And ne'er the echo there forget
The clangor of my glorious steel.
Marengo's hill-sides flow ...

He sang of life, serenely sweet,
With, now and then, a deeper note.
From some high peak, nigh yet remote,
He voiced the world's absorbing beat.

He sang of love when earth was young,
And Love, itself, was in his lays.
But ah, the world, it turned to praise
A jingle in a broken tongue.

Come take our boy, and we will go
Before our cabin door;
The winds shall bring us, as they blow,
The murmurs of the shore;
And we will kiss his young blue eyes,
And I will sing him, as he lies,
Songs that were made of yore:
I'll sing, in his delighted ear,
The island lays thou lov'st to hear.

And thou, while stammering I repeat,
Thy country's tongue shalt teach;
'Tis not so soft, but far more sweet
Than my own native speech:
For thou no other tongue didst know,
When, scarcely twenty moons ago,
Upon Tahete's beach,
Thou cam'st to woo me to be thine,
With many a speaking look and sign.

I knew thy meaning, thou didst praise
My eyes, my locks of jet;
Ah! well for me they won thy gaze,
But thine were fairer yet!
I'm glad to...

What of the faith and fire within us
    Men who march away
    Ere the barn-cocks say
    Night is growing gray,
To hazards whence no tears can win us;
What of the faith and fire within us
    Men who march away?

Is it a purblind prank, O think you,
    Friend with the musing eye,
    Who watch us stepping by
    With doubt and dolorous sigh?
Can much pondering so hoodwink you!
Is it a purblind prank, O think you,
    Friend with the musing eye?

Nay. We well see what we are doing,
    Though some may not see -
    Dalliers as they be -
    England's need are we;
Her distress would leave us rueing:
Nay. We well see what we are doing,
    Though some may not see!

In our heart of hearts believing
    Victory crowns...

In myrtle wreaths my votive sword I'll cover,
    Like them of old whose one immortal blow
Struck off the galling fetters that hung over
    Their own bright land, and laid her tyrant low.
Yes, loved Harmodius, thou'rt undying;
    Still midst the brave and free,
In isles, o'er ocean lying,
    Thy home shall ever be.

In myrtle leaves my sword shall hide its lightning,
    Like his, the youth, whose ever-glorious blade
Leapt forth like flame, the midnight banquet brightening;'
    And in the dust a despot victim laid.
Blest youths; how bright in Freedom's story
    Your wedded names shall be;
A tyrant's death your glory,
    Your meed, a nation free!

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)

    He coveted her portrait.
    He toiled as she grew gay.
    She loved to see him labor
    In that devoted way.

    And in the end it pleased her,
    But bowed him more with care.
    Her rose-smile showed so plainly,
    Her soul-smile was not there.

    That night he groped without a lamp
    To find a cloak, a book,
    And on the vexing portrait
    By moonrise chanced to look.

    The color-scheme was out of key,
    The maiden rose-smile faint,
    But through the blessed darkness
    She gleamed, his friendly saint.

    The comrade, white, immortal,
    His bride, and more than bride -
    The citizen, the sage of mind,
    For whom he lived...

I stood On Sarum's treeless plain,
The waste that careless Nature owns;
Lone tenants of her bleak domain,
Loomed huge and gray the Druid stones.

Upheaved in many a billowy mound
The sea-like, naked turf arose,
Where wandering flocks went nibbling round
The mingled graves of friends and foes.

The Briton, Roman, Saxon, Dane,
This windy desert roamed in turn;
Unmoved these mighty blocks remain
Whose story none that lives may learn.

Erect, half buried, slant or prone,
These awful listeners, blind and dumb,
Hear the strange tongues of tribes unknown,
As wave on wave they go and come.

"Who are you, giants, whence and why?"
I stand and ask in blank amaze;
My soul accepts their mute reply
"A mystery, as are you that gaze.

The sun sets out the autumn crocuses
    And fills them up a pouring measure
    Of death-producing wine, till treasure
Runs waste down their chalices.

All, all Persephone's pale cups of mould
    Are on the board, are over-filled;
    The portion to the gods is spilled;
Now, mortals all, take hold!

The time is now, the wine-cup full and full
    Of lambent heaven, a pledging-cup;
    Let now all mortal men take up
The drink, and a long, strong pull.

Out of the hell-queen's cup, the heaven's pale wine -
    Drink then, invisible heroes, drink.
    Lips to the vessels, never shrink,
Throats to the heavens incline.

And take within the wine the god's great oath
    By heaven and earth and hellish stream
    To break this sick and...

There was merry-making
When the first dart fell
As a heralding, -
Till grinned the fully bared thing,
And froze like a spell -
Like a spell.

Innocent was she,
Innocent was I,
Too simple we!
Before us we did not see,
Nearing, aught wry -
Aught wry!

I can tell it not now,
It was long ago;
And such things cow;
But that is why and how
Two lives were so -
Were so.

Yes, the years matured,
And the blows were three
That time ensured
On her, which she dumbly endured;
And one on me -
One on me.

    Art thou more fair
    For all the beauty gathered up in thee,
    As gold and gems within some lightless sea?
    For light of flowers, and bloom of tinted air,
    Art thou more fair?

    Art thou more strong
    For powers that turn to thee as unto sleep?
    For world and star that find thy ways more deep
    Than light may tread, too wearisome for song
    Art thou more strong?

    Nay! thou art bare
    For power and beauty on thine impotence
    Bestowed by fruitful Time's magnificence;
    For fruit of all things strong, and bloom of fair,
    Thou still art bare.

ONCE more permit me, nuns, and this the last;
I can't resist, whatever may have passed,
But must relate, what often I've been told;
Your tales of convent pranks are seldom cold;
They have a grace that no where else we find,
And, somehow, better seem to please designed.
Another then we'll have, which three will make: -
Three did I say?-'tis four, or I mistake;
Let's count them well:-The GARD'NER first, we'll name;
Then comes the ABBESS, whose declining frame
Required a youth, her malady to cure
A story thought, perhaps, not over pure;
And, as to SISTER JANE, who'd got a brat,
I cannot fancy we should alter that.
These are the whole, and four's a number round;
You'll probably remark, 'tis strange I've found
Such pleasure in detailing convent scenes: -
'Tis ...

He, born of my girlhood, is dead, while my life is yet young in my heart
Ere the breasts where his baby lips fed have forgotten their softness, we part.
We part. He was mine, he was here, though he travelled by land and by sea,
My son who could trample on fear, my babe who was moulded in me.
As I sat in the darkness, it seemed I could still feel his touch on my head;
He came in the night as I dreamed, and he knelt at the side of my bed;
He murmured the words I had taught when his lips were the lips of a child,
Ere the strength of his arm had been bought and the love that upheld him defiled;
Then my faltering spirit grew bold, and my heart had forgotten its drouth,
And I crooned little songs as of old, till I woke at his kiss on my mouth.
Now waking and sleeping are pain. Nevermore will he ...

I touch but the things which are near;
    The heavens are too high for my reach:
        In shadow and symbol and creed,
        I discern not the soul from the deed,
    Nor the thought hidden under, from speech;
And the thing which I know not I fear.

I dare not despair nor despond,
    Though I grope in the dark for the dawn:
        Birth and laughter, and bubbles of breath,
        And tears, and the blank void of death,
    Round each its penumbra is drawn,--
I touch them,--I see not beyond.

What voice speaking solemn and slow,
    Before the beginning for me,
        From the mouth of the primal First Cause,
        Shall teach me the thing that I was,
    Shall point out the thing I shall be,
And show me the path that I go?

...

In sad procession borne away
    To sound of funeral knell,
Affection's tribute thus we pay,
And in earth's shelt'ring bosom lay
The friend to whom but yesterday
    We gave the sad farewell.

But scarce the melancholy sound
    Has died upon the ear,
Before the mournful dirge is drowned
By wedding-anthems' glad rebound,
That stir the solemn air around
    With merry peals and clear.

Within our home doth gladness tread
    So closely upon grief
That, in the tears of sorrow shed
O'er our beloved, lamented dead,
We see reflected joy instead
    That gives a blest relief.

A father and a daughter gone
    Beyond our fireside -
For one we loved and leaned upon
The skillful archer Death had drawn
His bow; and one in lif...

I am too proud of loving thee, too proud
Of the sweet months and years that now have end,
    To feign a heart indifferent to this loss,
Too thankful-happy that the gods allowed
    Our orbits cross,
Beloved and lovely friend;
And though I wend
Lonely henceforth along a road grown gray,
I shall not be all lonely on the way,
Companioned with the attar of thy rose,
Though in my garden it no longer blows.

Thou canst not give elsewhere thy gifts to me,
Or only seem to give;
Yea, not so fugitive
The glory that hath hallowed me and thee,
Not thou or I alone that marvel wrought
Immortal is the paradise of thought,
Nor ours to destroy,
Born of our hearts together, where bright streams
Ran through the woods for joy,
That heaven of our dreams.<...

I saw thee once--once only--years ago:
I must not say how many--but not many.
It was a July midnight; and from out
A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
With quietude, and sultriness and slumber,
Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousand
Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe--
Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
That gave out, in return for the love-light,
Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death--
Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted
By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.

Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
I saw thee h...

Out of the gulf into the glory,
    Father, my soul cries out to be lifted.
Dark is the woof of my dismal story,
    Thorough thy sun-warp stormily drifted!--
Out of the gulf into the glory,
Lift me, and save my story.

I have done many things merely shameful;
    I am a man ashamed, my father!
My life is ashamed and broken and blameful--
    The broken and blameful, oh, cleanse and gather!
Heartily shame me, Lord, of the shameful!
To my judge I flee with my blameful.

Saviour, at peace in thy perfect purity,
    Think what it is, not to be pure!
Strong in thy love's essential security,
    Think upon those who are never secure.
Full fill my soul with the light of thy purity:
Fold me in love's security.

O Father, O Brother, my heart i...