Betrayal

You were forever finding some new play.
So when I saw you down on hands and knees
I the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay,
Trying, I thought, to set it up on end,
I went to show you how to make it stay,
If that was your idea, against the breeze,
And, if you asked me, even help pretend
To make it root again and grow afresh.
But 'twas no make-believe with you today,
Nor was the grass itself your real concern,
Though I found your hand full of wilted fern,
Steel-bright June-grass, and blackening heads of clovers.
'Twas a nest full of young birds on the ground
The cutter-bar had just gone champing over
(Miraculously without tasking flesh)
And left defenseless to the heat and light.
You wanted to restore them to their right
Of something interposed between their...

        Nay, move not! Sit just as you are,
        Under the carved wings of the chair.
        The hearth-glow sifting through your hair
        Turns every dim pearl to a star
        Dawn-drowned in floods of brightening air.

        I have been thinking of that night
        When all the wide hall burst to blaze
        With spears caught up, thrust fifty ways
        To find my throat, while I lay white
        And sick with joy, to think the days

        I dragged out in your hateful North--
        A slave, constrained at banquet's need
        To fill the black bull's horns with mead
        For drunken sea-thieves--were henceforth
        Cast from me as a poison weed,

        While Death thrust roses in my hands!
        But you, w...

Ah, from out this valley hollow,
By cold fogs always oppressed,
Could I but the outpath follow--
Ah, how were my spirit blest!
Hills I see there, glad dominions,
Ever young, and green for aye!
Had I wings, oh, had I pinions,
To the hills were I away!

Harmonies I hear there ringing,
Tones of sweetest heavenly rest;
And the gentle winds are bringing
Balmy odours to my breast!
Golden fruits peep out there, glowing
Through the leaves to Zephyr's play;
And the flowers that there are blowing
Will become no winter's prey!

Oh, what happy things are meeting
There, in endless sunshine free!
And the airs on those hills greeting,
How reviving must they be!
But me checks yon raving river
That betwixt doth chafe and roll;
And its da...

In silence and in solitude we went,
One first, the other following his steps,
As minor friars journeying on their road.

The present fray had turn'd my thoughts to muse
Upon old Aesop's fable, where he told
What fate unto the mouse and frog befell.
For language hath not sounds more like in sense,
Than are these chances, if the origin
And end of each be heedfully compar'd.
And as one thought bursts from another forth,
So afterward from that another sprang,
Which added doubly to my former fear.
For thus I reason'd: "These through us have been
So foil'd, with loss and mock'ry so complete,
As needs must sting them sore. If anger then
Be to their evil will conjoin'd, more fell
They shall pursue us, than the savage hound
Snatches the leveret, panting 'twix...

How many bards gild the lapses of time!
A few of them have ever been the food
Of my delighted fancy, I could brood
Over their beauties, earthly, or sublime:
And often, when I sit me down to rhyme,
These will in throngs before my mind intrude:
But no confusion, no disturbance rude
Do they occasion; 'tis a pleasing chime.
So the unnumbered sounds that evening store;
The songs of birds the whispering of the leaves
The voice of waters the great bell that heaves
With solemn sound, and thousand others more,
That distance of recognizance bereaves,
Makes pleasing music, and not wild uproar.

(The Priests within the Temple)
She was wrinkled and huge and hideous? She was our Mother.
She was lustful and lewd? but a God; we had none other.
In the day She was hidden and dumb, but at nightfall moaned in the shade;
We shuddered and gave Her Her will in the darkness; we were afraid.

(The People without)
She sent us pain,
And we bowed before Her;
She smiled again
And bade us adore Her.
She solaced our woe
And soothed our sighing;
And what shall we do
Now God is dying?

(The Priests within)
She was hungry and ate our children; how should we stay Her?
She took our young men and our maidens; ours to obey Her.
We were loathed and mocked and reviled of all nations; that was our pride.
She fed us, protected us, loved us, and killed us; now S...

The rising moon has hid the stars;
Her level rays, like golden bars,
    Lie on the landscape green,
    With shadows brown between.

And silver white the river gleams,
As if Diana, in her dreams,
    Had dropt her silver bow
    Upon the meadows low.

On such a tranquil night as this,
She woke Endymion with a kiss,
    When, sleeping in the grove,
    He dreamed not of her love.

Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought;
    Nor voice, nor sound betrays
    Its deep, impassioned gaze.

It comes,--the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity,--
    In silence and alone
    To seek the elected one.

It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep
Are Life's oblivion, the soul's sle...

A forward rush by the lamp in the gloom,
And we clasped, and almost kissed;
But she was not the woman whom
I had promised to meet in the thawing brume
On that harbour-bridge; nor was I he of her tryst.

So loosening from me swift she said:
"O why, why feign to be
The one I had meant! to whom I have sped
To fly with, being so sorrily wed!"
- 'Twas thus and thus that she upbraided me.

My assignation had struck upon
Some others' like it, I found.
And her lover rose on the night anon;
And then her husband entered on
The lamplit, snowflaked, sloppiness around.

"Take her and welcome, man!" he cried:
"I wash my hands of her.
I'll find me twice as good a bride!"
All this to me, whom he had eyed,
Plainly, as his wife's planned deliverer....

Mary, ah me! gentle Mary,
    Can it be you're lying there,
Pale and still, and cold as marble,
    You that was so young and fair.

Seemeth it as yestereven,
    When the golden autumn smiled,
On our meeting, gentle Mary,
    You were then a very child.

Busy fingers, flitting footsteps,
    Never resting all day long;
Shy and bashful, and the sweet voice
    Ever breaking into song

Always gentle, kind and thoughtful,
    Blameless and so free from art,
'Twas no wonder one so lovely
    Found a place within my heart.

You, while life was in its spring time,
    Made the Scripture Mary's choice;
Jesus saw you, loved you, called you,
    And you listened to His voice.

Ever patient and rejoicing,
    Shielded t...

Our journey was not slacken'd by our talk,
Nor yet our talk by journeying. Still we spake,
And urg'd our travel stoutly, like a ship
When the wind sits astern. The shadowy forms,

That seem'd things dead and dead again, drew in
At their deep-delved orbs rare wonder of me,
Perceiving I had life; and I my words
Continued, and thus spake; "He journeys up
Perhaps more tardily then else he would,
For others' sake. But tell me, if thou know'st,
Where is Piccarda? Tell me, if I see
Any of mark, among this multitude,
Who eye me thus."--"My sister (she for whom,
'Twixt beautiful and good I cannot say
Which name was fitter ) wears e'en now her crown,
And triumphs in Olympus." Saying this,
He added: "Since spare diet hath so worn
Our semblance out, 't is lawful...

The long grief left her old--and then
Came love and made her young again
As though some newer, gentler Spring
Should start dead roses blossoming;
Old roses that have lain full long
In some forgotten book of song,
Brought from their darkness to be one
With lilting winds and rain and sun;
And as they too might bring away
From that dim volume where they lay
Some lyric hint, some song's perfume
To add its beauty to their bloom,
So love awakes her heart that lies
Shrouded in fragrant memories,
And bids it bloom again and wake
Sweeter for that old sorrow's sake.

I said that I would see
Her once, to curse her fair, deceitful grace,
To curse her for my life-long agony;
But when I saw her face,
I said, "Sweet Christ, forgive both her and me."

High swelled the chanted hymn,
Low on the marble swept the velvet pall,
I bent above, and my eyes grew dim,
My sad heart saw it all -
She loved me, loved me though she wedded him.

And then shot through my soul
A thrill of fierce delight, to think that he
Must yield her form, his all, to Death's control,
The while her love for me
Would live, when sun and stars had ceased to roll.

But no, on the white brow,
Graved in its marble, was deep calm impressed,
Saying that peace had come to her through woe;
Saying, she had found rest
At last, and I, I must not...

There are some qualities, some incorporate things,
That have a double life, which thus is made
A type of that twin entity which springs
From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.
There is a two-fold Silence, sea and shore,
Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,
Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces,
Some human memories and tearful lore,
Render him terrorless: his name's "No More."
He is the corporate Silence: dread him not!
No power hath he of evil in himself;
But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)
Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,
That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod
No foot of man,) commend thyself to God!

Beloved, thou art like a tune that idle fingers
    Play on a window-pane.
The time is there, the form of music lingers;
    But O thou sweetest strain,
Where is thy soul?    Thou liest i' the wind and rain.

Even as to him who plays that idle air,
    It seems a melody,
For his own soul is full of it, so, my Fair,
    Dead, thou dost live in me,
And all this lonely soul is full of thee.

Thou song of songs!--not music as before
    Unto the outward ear;
My spirit sings thee inly evermore,
    Thy falls with tear on tear.
I fail for thee, thou art too sweet, too dear.

Thou silent song, thou ever voiceless rhyme,
    Is there no pulse to move thee,
At windy dawn, with a wild heart beating time,
    And falling tears above thee,
O ...

A dark lean face, a narrow, slanting eye,
Whose deeps of blackness one pale taper's beam
Haunts with a fitting madness of desire;
A heart whose cinder at the breath of passion
Glows to a momentary core of heat
Almost beyond indifference to endure:
So parched Iago frets his life away.
His scorn works ever in a brain whose wit
This world hath fools too many and gross to seek.
Ever to live incredibly alone,
Masked, shivering, deadly, with a simple Moor
Of idiot gravity, and one pale flower
Whose chill would quench in everlasting peace
His soul's unmeasured flame - O paradox!
Might he but learn the trick! - to wear her heart
One fragile hour of heedless innocence,
And then, farewell, and the incessant grave.
"O fool! O villain!" - 'tis the shuttlecock
Wi...

The sun was hot on the tamarind trees,
Their shadows shrivelled and shrank.
No coolness came on the off-shore breeze
That rattled the scrub on the bank.
She stretched her appealing arms to me,
Uplifting the Flagon of Love to me,
Till - great indeed was my unslaked thirst -
I paused, I stooped, and I drank!

I went with my foe to the edge of the crater, -
But no one to return, we knew, -
The lava's heat had never been greater
Than the ire between us two.
He flung back his head and he mocked at me,
He spat unspeakable words at me,
Our eyes met, and our knives met,
I saw red, and I slew!

Such were my deeds when my youth was hot,
And force was new to my hand,
With many more that I tell thee not,
Well known in my native land.
These sh...

"'He cometh not,' she said."

Mariana


It will not be to-day and yet
I think and dream it will; and let
The slow uncertainty devise
So many sweet excuses, met
With the old doubt in hope's disguise.

The panes were sweated with the dawn;
Yet through their dimness, shriveled drawn,
The aigret of one princess-feather,
One monk's-hood tuft with oilets wan,
I glimpsed, dead in the slaying weather.

This morning, when my window's chintz
I drew, how gray the day was! Since
I saw him, yea, all days are gray!
I gazed out on my dripping quince,
Defruited, gnarled; then turned away

To weep, but did not weep: but felt
A colder anguish than did melt
About the tearful-visaged year!
Then flung the lattice wide, and smelt

    In the dark of wedlock
        nightly sky,
    the wither of hope
        and estranged replies,
    cause a white face to flicker
        with transparent eye,
    calumny of purpose
        to slowly die.