Betrayal

Where are those gates through which so long ago
Orpheus descended to the realms below
To seek his lost one? Little daughter, I
Would find that path and pass that ford whereby
The grim-faced boatman ferries pallid shades
And drives them forth to joyless cypress glades.
But do thou not desert me, lovely lute!
Be thou the furtherance of my mournful suit
Before dread Pluto, till he shall give ear
To our complaints and render up my dear.
To his dim dwelling all men must repair,
And so must she, her father's joy and heir;
But let him grant the fruit now scarce in flower
To fill and ripen till the harvest hour!
Yet if that god doth bear a heart within
So hard that one in grief can nothing win,
What can I but renounce this upper air
And lose my soul, but also los...

Shades though you're leafless, save the bramble-spear
Whose weather-beaten leaves, of purple stain,
In hardy stubbornness cling all the year
To their old thorns, till Spring buds new again;
Shades, still I love you better than the plain,
For here I find the earliest flowers that blow,
While on the bare blea bank do yet remain
Old winter's traces, little heaps of snow.
Beneath your ashen roots, primroses grow
From dead grass tufts and matted moss, once more;
Sweet beds of violets dare again be seen
In their deep purple pride; and, gay display'd,
The crow-flowers, creeping from the naked green,
Add early beauties to your sheltering shade.

Two lovers, here at the corner, by the steeple,
Two lovers blow together like music blowing:
And the crowd dissolves about them like a sea.
Recurring waves of sound break vaguely about them,
They drift from wall to wall, from tree to tree.
‘Well, am I late?’ Upward they look and laugh,
They look at the great clock’s golden hands,
They laugh and talk, not knowing what they say:
Only, their words like music seem to play;
And seeming to walk, they tread strange sarabands.

‘I brought you this . . . ‘ the soft words float like stars
Down the smooth heaven of her memory.
She stands again by a garden wall,
The peach tree is in bloom, pink blossoms fall,
Water sings from an opened tap, the bees
Glisten and murmur among the trees.
Someone calls from the house. Sh...

Ah! why have I indulg'd my dazzled sight
    With scenes in Hope's delusive mirror shown?
    Scenes, that too seldom human Life has known
    In kind accomplishment; - but O! how bright
The rays, that gilded them with varied light
    Alternate! oft swift flashing on the boon
    That might at FAME's immortal shrine be won;
    Then shining soft on tender LOVE's delight. -
Now, with stern hand, FATE draws the sable veil
    O'er the frail glass! - HOPE, as she turns away,
    The darken'd crystal drops. - - Heavy and pale,
Rain-pouring clouds quench all the darts of day;
    Low mourns the wind along the gloomy dale,
    And tolls the Death-bell in the pausing gale.

The joys that touched thee once, be mine!
The sympathies of sky and sea,
The friendships of each rock and pine,
That made thy lonely life, ah me!
In Tempe or in Gargaphie.

Such joy as thou didst feel when first,
On some wild crag, thou stood'st alone
To watch the mountain tempest burst,
With streaming thunder, lightning-sown,
On Latmos or on Pelion.

Thy awe! when, crowned with vastness, Night
And Silence ruled the deep's abyss;
And through dark leaves thou saw'st the white
Breasts of the starry maids who kiss
Pale feet of moony Artemis.

Thy dreams! when, breasting matted weeds
Of Arethusa, thou didst hear
The music of the wind-swept reeds;
And down dim forest-ways drew near
Shy herds of slim Arcadian deer.

Thy wisdom...

Like an old tree uprooted by the wind
And flung down cruelly
With roots bared to the sun and stars
And limp leaves brought to earth
Torn from its house
So do I seem to myself
When you have left me.

Let me not know how sins and sorrows glide
Along the sombre city of our rage,
Or why the sons of men are heavy-eyed.

Let me not know, except from printed page,
The pain of litter love, of baffled pride,
Or sickness shadowing with a long presage.

Let me not know, since happy some have died
Quickly in youth or quietly in age,
How faint, how loud the bravest hearts have cried.

Awake, my Muse! awake each slumb'ring string,
And (mighty subject!) of a Mushroom sing,
Fair to the eye, and pleasant to the taste;
Charm'd by the note, a pigmy group, in haste,
Lay down their grainy loads, as slow they move
Thro' lanes of reed and grass, to them a grove!
As if an Orpheus thou, they gather round,
Erect their tiny ears, and drink the sound.
Gray was the sky, save where the eastern ray
O'er fragrant hills proclaim'd th' approaching day;
Rurilla, loveliest virgin of the plain,
With spirits light, and mind without a stain,
Rose from her simple bed, refresh'd with rest;
Ah, Sleep! with marble finger had'st thou prest
Her lovely eyelids till a later hour,
And by a blissful vision's fairy pow'r
Hadst thou impress'd her mind with forms of love,
T...

A bird flew out at the break of day
From the nest where it had curled,
And ere the eve the bird had set
Fear on the kings of the world.

The first tree it lit upon
Was green with leaves unshed;
The second tree it lit upon
Was red with apples red;

The third tree it lit upon
Was barren and was brown,
Save for a dead man nailed thereon
On a hill above a town.

That right the kings of the earth were gay
And filled the cup and can;
Last night the kings of the earth were chill
For dread of a naked man.

'If he speak two more words,' they said,
'The slave is more than the free;
If he speak three more words,' they said,
'The stars are under the sea.'

Said the King of the East to the King of the West,
I wot his frown ...

She put her wedding-gown away
As tenderly as one might close,
With kissing lips and finger-tips,
The petals of a rose
Still held for the Belovèd's sake--
The loveliest that blows.

She put her wedding-gown away--
The quiet place was all astir
With vague perfume that filled the room,
Cedar and lavender,
Yet sweeter still about it clung
The fragrant thoughts of her.

She put her wedding-gown away--
Yet lingered where its whiteness gleamed
As one above a sleeping Love,
Oh, thus it was she seemed,
Reluctant still to turn and go
And leave him as he dreamed.

        The thought of old, dear things is in thine eyes,
        O, month of memories!
        Musing on days thine heart hath sorrow of,
        Old joy, dead hope, dear love,

        I see thee stand where all thy sisters meet
        To cast down at thy feet
        The garnered largess of the fruitful year,
        And on thy cheek a tear.

        Thy glory flames in every blade and leaf
        To blind the eyes of grief;
        Thy vineyards and thine orchards bend with fruit
        That sorrow may be mute;

        A hectic splendor lights thy days to sleep,
        Ere the gray dusk may creep
        Sober and sad along thy dusty ways,
        Like a lone nun, who prays;

        High and faint-heard thy passing migrant calls;<...

    When gods and men I saw in Cupid's chain
Promiscuous led, a long uncounted train,
By sad example taught, I learn'd at last
Wisdom's best rule--to profit from the past
Some solace in the numbers too I found,
Of those that mourn'd, like me, the common wound
That Phoebus felt, a mortal beauty's slave,
That urged Leander through the wintry wave;
That jealous Juno with Eliza shared,
Whose more than pious hands the flame prepared;
That mix'd her ashes with her murder'd spouse.
A dire completion of her nuptial vows.
(For not the Trojan's love, as poets sing,
In her wan bosom fix'd the secret string.)
And why should I of common ills complain,
Shot by a random shaft, a thoughtless swain?
Unarm'd and unprepared to meet the foe,
My naked bosom seem'd to court th...

The Spring of life is o'er with me,
And love and all gone by;
Like broken bough upon yon tree,
I'm left to fade and die.
Stern ruin seized my home and me,
And desolate's my cot:
Ruins of halls, the blasted tree,
Are emblems of my lot.

I lived and loved, I woo'd and won,
Her love was all to me,
But blight fell o'er that youthful one,
And like a blasted tree
I withered, till I all forgot
But Mary's smile on me;
She never lived where love was not,
And I from bonds was free.

The Spring it clothed the fields with pride,
When first we met together;
And then unknown to all beside
We loved in sunny weather;
We met where oaks grew overhead,
And whitethorns hung with may;
Wild thyme beneath her feet was spread,
And cows in ...

O partial MEMORY! Years, that fled too fast,
    From thee in more than pristine beauty rise,
    Forgotten all the transient tears and sighs
    Somewhat that dimm'd their brightness! Thou hast chas'd
Each hovering mist from the soft Suns, that grac'd
    Our fresh, gay morn of Youth; - the Heart's high prize,
    Friendship, - and all that charm'd us in the eyes
    Of yet unutter'd Love. - So pleasures past,
That in thy crystal prism thus glow sublime,
    Beam on the gloom'd and disappointed Mind
    When Youth and Health, in the chill'd grasp of Time,
Shudder and fade; - and cypress buds we find
    Ordain'd Life's blighted roses to supply,
    While but reflected shine the golden lights of Joy.

    Has the last farewell been spoken?
    Have I ta'en the parting token
        From thy lips so sweet?
    Has their last soft word been spoken
        Till again we meet?

    Why is not thy hand extended?
    Is my maiden queen offended?
        Or does she forget?
    No! my queen is not offended,
        She is kindly yet.

    For her eye is softly beaming,
    And with tenderness is teeming,
        Gentle as the dove's:
    With a holy light is beaming -
        Dare I call it love's?

    But the time is fast advancing;
    From the heaven of its glancing
        I must rend my heart:
    Treacherous Time is fast advancing,
        And I must depart.

    Ah! the pain the parting brings me!
    As a serpe...

Sad trinkets of my little daughter, dresses
        That touched her like caresses,
Why do you draw my mournful eyes? To borrow
        A newer weight of sorrow?
No longer will you clothe her form, to fold her
        Around, and wrap her, hold her.
A hard, unwaking sleep has overpowered
        Her limbs, and now the flowered
Cool muslin and the ribbon snoods are bootless,
        The gilded girdles fruitless.
My little girl, 'twas to a bed far other
        That one day thy poor mother
Had thought to lead thee, and this simple dower
        Suits not the bridal hour;
A tiny shroud and gown of her own sewing
        She gives thee at thy going.
Thy rather brings a clod of earth, a somber
        Pillow for thy last slumber.
And so a single casket, s...

Up there, upon yonder mountain,
Stands a castle old, in the gorse,
Where once, behind doors and portals,
Lurking lay knight and horse.

Burnt are the doors and the portals;
All round it is very still;
Its old walls, tumbled in ruins,
I scramble about at my will.

Close hereby lay a cellar
Full of wine that was old and rare;
But the cheery maid with the pitchers
No more comes down the stair;

No more in the hall, sedately
Sets the beaker before the guest;
No more at the festival stately,
The flagon fills for the priest;

No more to the page so thirsty
Gives a draught in the corridor;
And receives for the hurried favour
The hurried thanks no more.

For every rafter and ceiling
Long ago were to ashes burned,
...

Dermod O’Byrne of Omah town
In his garden strode up and down;
He pulled his beard, and he beat his breast;
And this is his trouble and woe confessed:

“The good-folk came in the night, and they
Have stolen my bonny wean away;
Have put in his place a changeling,
A weashy, weakly, wizen thing!

“From the speckled hen nine eggs I stole,
And lighting a fire of a glowing coal,
I fried the shells, and I spilt the yolk;
But never a word the stranger spoke:

“A bar of metal I heated red
To frighten the fairy from its bed,
To put in the place of this fretting wean
My own bright beautiful boy again.

“But my wife had hidden it in her arms,
And cried ‘For shame!’ on my fairy charms;
She sobs, with the strange child on her breast:
‘I lov...