Betrayal

Thee, whose refulgent staff and summons clear,
    Minerva's flock longtime was wont t'obey,
Although thyself an herald, famous here,
    The last of heralds, Death, has snatch'd away.
He calls on all alike, nor even deigns
To spare the office that himself sustains.

Thy locks were whiter than the plumes display'd
    By Leda's paramour[2] in ancient time,
But thou wast worthy ne'er to have decay'd,
    Or, Aeson-like,[3] to know a second prime,
Worthy for whom some Goddess should have won
New life, oft kneeling to Apollo's son.[4]

Commission'd to convene with hasty call
    The gowned tribes, how graceful wouldst thou stand!
So stood Cyllenius[5] erst in Priam's hall,
    Wing-footed messenger of Jove's comman...

Qual più diversa e nova.

HE COMPARES HIMSELF TO ALL THAT IS MOST STRANGE IN CREATION.


    Whate'er most wild and new
Was ever found in any foreign land,
If viewed and valued true,
Most likens me 'neath Love's transforming hand.
Whence the bright day breaks through,
Alone and consortless, a bird there flies,
Who voluntary dies,
To live again regenerate and entire:
So ever my desire,
Alone, itself repairs, and on the crest
Of its own lofty thoughts turns to our sun,
There melts and is undone,
And sinking to its first state of unrest,
So burns and dies, yet still its strength resumes,
And, Phoenix-like, afresh in force and beauty blooms.

Where Indian billows sweep,
A wondrous stone there is, before whose strength
Stou...

Life is not sweet. One day it will be sweet
    To shut our eyes and die:
Nor feel the wild flowers blow, nor birds dart by
    With flitting butterfly,
Nor grass grow long above our heads and feet,
Nor hear the happy lark that soars sky high,
Nor sigh that spring is fleet and summer fleet,
    Nor mark the waxing wheat,
Nor know who sits in our accustomed seat.

Life is not good. One day it will be good
    To die, then live again;
To sleep meanwhile: so not to feel the wane
Of shrunk leaves dropping in the wood,
Nor hear the foamy lashing of the main,
Nor mark the blackened bean-fields, nor where stood
    Rich ranks of golden grain
Only dead refuse stubble clothe the plain:
Asleep from risk, asleep from pain.

Who weeps for strangers? Many wept
For George and Sarah Green;
Wept for that pair's unhappy fate,
Whose grave may here be seen.

By night, upon these stormy fells,
Did wife and husband roam;
Six little ones at home had left,
And could not find that home.

For 'any' dwelling-place of man
As vainly did they seek.
He perish'd; and a voice was heard
The widow's lonely shriek.

Not many steps, and she was left
A body without life
A few short steps were the chain that bound
The husband to the wife.

Now do those sternly-featured hills
Look gently on this grave;
And quiet now are the depths of air,
As a sea without a wave.

But deeper lies the heart of peace
In quiet more profound;
The heart of quietness is here<...

I watched the glory of her childhood change,
Half-sorrowful to find the child I knew,
(Loved long ago in lily-time)
Become a maid, mysterious and strange,
With fair, pure eyes--dear eyes, but not the eyes I knew
Of old, in the olden time!

Till on my doubting soul the ancient good
Of her dear childhood in the new disguise
Dawned, and I hastened to adore
The glory of her waking maidenhood,
And found the old tenderness within her deepening eyes,
But kinder than before.

1

Hold up thy head and crush
    Thy heart's despair;
From thy wan temples brush
    The tear-wet hair.


2

Look on me thus as I
    Gaze upon thee;
Nor question how nor why
    Such things can be.


3

Thou thought'st it love! - poor fool!
    That which was lust!
Which made thee, beautiful,
    Vile as the dust!


4

Thy flesh I craved, thy face! -
    Love shrinks at this -
Now on thy lips to place
    One farewell kiss! -


5

Weep not, but die! - 'tis given -
    And so - farewell! -
Die! - that which makes death heaven,
    Makes life a hell.

I.

    O thou dread Power, who reign'st above!
        I know thou wilt me hear,
    When for this scene of peace and love
        I make my prayer sincere.

II.

    The hoary sire, the mortal stroke,
        Long, long, be pleased to spare;
    To bless his filial little flock
        And show what good men are.

III.

    She who her lovely offspring eyes
        With tender hopes and fears,
    O, bless her with a mother's joys,
        But spare a mother's tears!

IV.

    Their hope, their stay, their darling youth,
        In manhood's dawning blush,
    Bless him, thou GOD of love and truth,
        Up to a parent's wish!

V.

    The beauteous, seraph sister-band,
        With...

I
The clearest eyes in all the world they read
With sense more keen and spirit of sight more true
Than burns and thrills in sunrise, when the dew
Flames, and absorbs the glory round it shed,
As they the light of ages quick and dead,
Closed now, forsake us: yet the shaft that slew
Can slay not one of all the works we knew,
Nor death discrown that many-laurelled head.
The works of words whose life seems lightning wrought,
And moulded of unconquerable thought,
And quickened with imperishable flame,
Stand fast and shine and smile, assured that nought
May fade of all their myriad-moulded fame,
Nor England's memory clasp not Browning's name.

December 13, 1889.

II
Death, what hast thou to do with one for whom
Time is not lord, but servant? What ...

With brooding mien and sultry eyes,
Outside the gates of Paradise
Eve sat, and fed the faggot flame
That lit the path whence Adam came.
(Strange are the workings of a woman's mind.)

His giant shade preceded him,
Along the pathway green, and dim;
She heard his swift approaching tread,
But still she sat with drooping head.
(Dark are the jungles of unhappy thought.)

He kissed her mouth, and gazed within
Her troubled eyes; for since their sin,
His love had grown a thousand fold.
But Eve drew back; her face was cold.
(Oh, who can read the cipher of a soul.)

'Now art thou mourning still, sweet wife?'
Spake Adam tenderly, 'the life
Of our lost Eden?    Why, in THEE
All Paradise remains for me.'
(Deep, deep the currents in a strong man...

I once was a guest at a Nobleman's wedding;
Fair was the Bride, but she scarce had been kind,
And now in our mirth, she had tears nigh the shedding
Her former true lover still runs in her mind.

Attired like a minstrel, her former true lover
Takes up his harp, and runs over the strings;
And there among strangers, his grief to discover,
A fair maiden's falsehood he bitterly sings.

'Now here is the token of gold that was broken;
Seven long years it was kept for your sake;
You gave it to me as a true lover's token;
No longer I'll wear it, asleep or awake.'

She sat in her place by the head of the table,
The words of his ditty she mark'd them right well:
To sit any longer this bride was not able,
So down at the bridegroom's feet she fell.

'O ...

I hate the pen, the foolscap fair,
The poet’s corner, and the page,
For Grief and Death are written there,
In every land and every age.
The poets sing and play their parts,
Their daring cheers, their humour shines,
But, ah! my friends! their broken hearts
Have writ in blood between the lines.

They fought to build a Commonwealth,
They write for women and for men,
They give their youth, we give their health
And never prostitute the pen.
Their work in other tongues is read,
And when sad years wear out the pen,
Then they may seek their happy dead
Or go and starve in exile then.

A grudging meed of praise you give,
Or, your excuse, the ready lie,
(O! God, you don’t know how they live!
O! God, you don’t know how they die!)
The poetess,...

I stand above the city's rush and din,
And gaze far down with calm and undimmed eyes,
To where the misty smoke wreath grey and dim
Above the myriad roofs and spires rise;

Still is my heart and vacant is my breath--
This lovely view is breath and life to me,
Why I could charm the icy soul of death
With such a sight as this I stand and see.

I hear no sound of labor's din or stir,
I feel no weight of worldly cares or fears,
Sweet song of birds, of wings the soothing whirr,
These sounds alone assail my listening ears.

Unwhipt of conscience here I stand alone,
The breezes humbly kiss my garment's hem;
I am a king--the whole world is my throne,
The blue grey sky my royal diadem.

Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,
Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold.
Let it be forgotten forever and ever,
Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.

If anyone asks, say it was forgotten
Long and long ago,
As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall
In a long-forgotten snow.

    Veiled in visionary haze,
    Behold, the ethereal autumn days
    Draw near again!
    In broad array,
    With a low, laborious hum
    These ministers of plenty come,
That seem to linger, while they steal away.

    O strange, sweet charm
    Of peaceful pain,
When yonder mountain's bended arm
Seems wafting o'er the harvest-plain
A message to the heart that grieves,
And round us, here, a sad-hued rain
Of leaves that loosen without number
Showering falls in yellow, umber,
Red, or russet, 'thwart the stream!
Now pale Sorrow shall encumber
All too soon these lands, I deem;
    Yet who at heart believes
    The autumn, a false friend,
    Can bring us fatal harm?
Ah, mist-hung avenues in dream
Not more uncertainly extend

Come earth's little children pit-pat from their burrows on the hill;
Hangs within the gloom its weary head the shining daffodil.
In the valley underneath us through the fragrance flit along
Over fields and over hedgerows little quivering drops of song.
All adown the pale blue mantle of the mountains far away
Stream the tresses of the twilight flying in the wake of day.
Night comes; soon alone shall fancy follow sadly in her flight
Where the fiery dust of evening, shaken from the feet of light,
Thrusts its monstrous barriers between the pure, the good, the true,
That our weeping eyes may strain for, but shall never after view.
Only yester eve I watched with heart at rest the nebulæ
Looming far within the shadowy shining of the Milky Way;
Finding in the stillness joy and hope for a...

Not to the object specially designed,
Howe'er momentous in itself it be,
Good to promote or curb depravity,
Is the wise Legislator's view confined.
His Spirit, when most severe, is oft most kind;
As all Authority in earth depends
On Love and Fear, their several powers he blends,
Copying with awe the one Paternal mind.
Uncaught by processes in show humane,
He feels how far the act would derogate
From even the humblest functions of the State;
If she, self-shorn of Majesty, ordain
That never more shall hang upon her breath
The last alternative of Life or Death.

"False," they said, "thy Pale-face lover, from the land of waking morn;
Rise and wed thy Redskin wooer, nobler warrior ne'er was born;
Cease thy watching, cease thy dreaming,
        Show the white thine Indian scorn."

Thus they taunted her, declaring, "He remembers naught of thee:
Likely some white maid he wooeth, far beyond the inland sea."
But she answered ever kindly,
        "He will come again to me,"

Till the dusk of Indian summer crept athwart the western skies;
But a deeper dusk was burning in her dark and dreaming eyes,
As she scanned the rolling prairie,
        Where the foothills fall, and rise.

Till the autumn came and vanished, till the season of the rains,
Till the western world lay fettered in midwinter's crystal chains,
Still she list...

I'll not weep that thou art going to leave me,
There's nothing lovely here;
And doubly will the dark world grieve me,
While thy heart suffers there.

I'll not weep, because the summer's glory
Must always end in gloom;
And, follow out the happiest story
It closes with a tomb!

And I am weary of the anguish
Increasing winters bear;
Weary to watch the spirit languish
Through years of dead despair.

So, if a tear, when thou art dying,
Should haply fall from me,
It is but that my soul is sighing,
To go and rest with thee.