Betrayal

Long ago I wished to leave
"The house where I was born;"
Long ago I used to grieve,
My home seemed so forlorn.
In other years, its silent rooms
Were filled with haunting fears;
Now, their very memory comes
O'ercharged with tender tears.

Life and marriage I have known.
Things once deemed so bright;
Now, how utterly is flown
Every ray of light!
'Mid the unknown sea, of life
I no blest isle have found;
At last, through all its wild wave's strife,
My bark is homeward bound.

Farewell, dark and rolling deep!
Farewell, foreign shore!
Open, in unclouded sweep,
Thou glorious realm before!
Yet, though I had safely pass'd
That weary, vexed main,
One loved voice, through surge and blast
Could call me back again.

Th...

        After the fierce midsummer all ablaze
    Has burned itself to ashes, and expires
    In the intensity of its own fires,
        There come the mellow, mild, St. Martin days,
        Crowned with the calm of peace, but sad with haze.
    So after Love has led us, till he tires
    Of his own throes and torments and desires,
        Comes large-eyed friendship: with a restful gaze
        He beckons us to follow, and across
    Cool, verdant vales we wander free from care.
    Is it a touch of frost lies in the air?
        Why are we haunted with a sense of loss?
    We do not wish the pain back, or the heat;
    And yet, and yet, these days are incomplete.

The soaring lark is blest as proud
When at heaven's gate she sings;
The roving bee proclaims aloud
Her flight by vocal wings;
While Ye, in lasting durance pent,
Your silent lives employ
For something more than dull content,
Though haply less than joy.

Yet might your glassy prison seem
A place where joy is known,
Where golden flash and silver gleam
Have meanings of their own;
While, high and low, and all about,
Your motions, glittering Elves!
Ye weave, no danger from without,
And peace among yourselves.

Type of a sunny human breast
Is your transparent cell;
Where Fear is but a transient guest,
No sullen Humours dwell;
Where, sensitive of every ray
That smites this tiny sea,
Your scaly panoplies repay
The loan with ...

Where roses flaunt beneath some pleasant cave,
    Too charming Pyrrha, what enamour'd Boy,
Whose shining locks the breathing odors lave,
    Woos thee, exulting in a transient joy?
For whom the simple band dost thou prepare,
That lightly fastens back thy golden hair?

Alas! how soon shall this devoted Youth
    Love's tyrant sway, and thy chang'd eyes deplore,
Indignant curse thy violated truth,
    And count each broken promise o'er and o'er,
Who hopes to meet, unconscious of thy wiles,
Looks ever vacant, ever facile smiles!

He, inexperienc'd Mariner! shall gaze
    In wild amazement on the stormy deep,
Recall the flattery of those sunny days,
    That lull'd each ruder wind to calmest sleep.
'T was then, with jocund hope, he spread the sail,

The Jung-Frau And The Fall Of The Rhine Near Schaffhausen,



The Virgin Mountain, wearing like a Queen
A brilliant crown of everlasting snow,
Sheds ruin from her sides; and men below
Wonder that aught of aspect so serene
Can link with desolation. Smooth and green,
And seeming, at a little distance, slow,
The waters of the Rhine; but on they go
Fretting and whitening, keener and more keen;
Till madness seizes on the whole wide Flood,
Turned to a fearful Thing whose nostrils breathe
Blasts of tempestuous smoke, wherewith he tries
To hide himself, but only magnifies;
And doth in more conspicuous torment writhe,
Deafening the region in his ireful mood.

Is then the final page before me spread,
Nor further outlet left to mind or heart?
Presumptuous Book! too forward to be read,
How can I give thee licence to depart?
One tribute more: unbidden feelings start
Forth from their coverts; slighted objects rise;
My spirit is the scene of such wild art
As on Parnassus rules, when lightning flies,
Visibly leading on the thunder's harmonies.

All that I saw returns upon my view,
All that I heard comes back upon my ear,
All that I felt this moment doth renew;
And where the foot with no unmanly fear
Recoiled--and wings alone could travel--there
I move at ease; and meet contending themes
That press upon me, crossing the career
Of recollections vivid as the dreams
Of midnight, cities, plains, forests, and mighty s...

    To a lustful thirst she came at first
    And gave him her maiden's pride;
    And the first man scattered the flower of her love,
    Then turned to his chosen bride.

    She waned with grief as a fading star,
    And waxed as a shining flame;
    And the second man had her woman's love,
    But the second was playing the game.

    With passion she stirred the man who was third;
    Woe's me! what delicate skill
    She plied to the heart that knew her art
    And fled from her wanton will.

    Now calm and demure, oh fair, oh pure,
    Oh subtle, patient and wise,
    She trod the weary round of life,
    With a sorrow deep in her eyes.

    Now a hero who knew how false, how true
    Was the speech that fell from her lips,

The strong sob of the chafing stream
That seaward fights its way
Down crags of glitter, dells of gleam,
Is in the hills to-day.

But far and faint, a grey-winged form
Hangs where the wild lights wane
The phantom of a bygone storm,
A ghost of wind and rain.

The soft white feet of afternoon
Are on the shining meads,
The breeze is as a pleasant tune
Amongst the happy reeds.

The fierce, disastrous, flying fire,
That made the great caves ring,
And scarred the slope, and broke the spire,
Is a forgotten thing.

The air is full of mellow sounds,
The wet hill-heads are bright,
And down the fall of fragrant grounds,
The deep ways flame with light.

A rose-red space of stream I see,
Past banks of tender fern;
A rad...

I love you as I love the night's high vault
O silent one, 0 sorrow's lachrymal,
And love you more because you flee from me,
And temptress of my nights, ironically
You seem to hoard the space, to take to you
What separates my arms from heaven's blue.

I climb to the assault, attack the source,
A choir of wormlets pressing towards a corpse,
And cherish your unbending cruelty,
This iciness so beautiful to me.

You ask me what--since we must part--
You shall bring home to me;
Bring back a pure and faithful heart,
As true as mine to thee.
I ask not wealth nor fame,
I only ask for thee,
Thyself--and that dear self the same--
My love, bring back to me!

You talk of gems from foreign lands,
Of treasure, spoil, and prize.
Ah, love! I shall not search your hands,
But look into your eyes.
I ask not wealth nor fame,
I only ask for thee,
Thyself--and that dear self the same--
My love, bring back to me!

You speak of glory and renown,
With me to share your pride,
Unbroken faith is all the crown
I ask for as your bride.
I ask not wealth nor fame,
I only ask for thee,
Thyself--and that dear self the same--
My love, bring back to me!

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips th...

The death knell is ringing
The raven is singing
The earth worm is creeping
The mourners are weeping
Ding dong, bell -

Maytime is to the meadows coming in,
And cowslip peeps have gotten eer so big,
And water blobs and all their golden kin
Crowd round the shallows by the striding brig.
Daisies and buttercups and ladysmocks
Are all abouten shining here and there,
Nodding about their gold and yellow locks
Like morts of folken flocking at a fair.
The sheep and cows are crowding for a share
And snatch the blossoms in such eager haste
That basket-bearing children running there
Do think within their hearts they'll get them all
And hoot and drive them from their graceless waste
As though there wa'n't a cowslip peep to spare.
--For they want some for tea and some for wine
And some to maken up a cuckaball
To throw across the garland's silken line
That reaches oer the street from wa...

I left you in the morning,
And in the morning glow,
You walked a way beside me
To make me sad to go.
Do you know me in the gloaming,
Gaunt and dusty gray with roaming?
Are you dumb because you know me not,
Or dumb because you know?

All for me And not a question
For the faded flowers gay
That could take me from beside you
For the ages of a day?
They are yours, and be the measure
Of their worth for you to treasure,
The measure of the little while
That I've been long away.

He knows the sweet vexation in the strife
Of Love with Time, this bard who fain would stray
To fairer place beyond the storms of life,
With astral faces near him day by day.
In deep-mossed dells the mellow waters flow
Which best he loves; for there the echoes, rife
With rich suggestions of his long ago,
Astarte, pass with thee! And, far away,
Dear southern seasons haunt the dreamy eye:
Spring, flower-zoned, and Summer, warbling low
In tasselled corn, alternate come and go,
While gypsy Autumn, splashed from heel to thigh
With vine-blood, treads the leaves; and, halting nigh,
Wild Winter bends across a beard of snow.

Dozens of damp little curls;
One little short upper lip;
Two rows of teeth like diminutive pearls;
Eyes clear and grey as the creek where it swirls
Over the ledges that's Tip!
With a skip!
A perfectly hopeless young nip!

Smudge on the tip of his nose;
Mischievous glance of a Puck;
Heart just as big as the rents in his clothes;
Lungs like a locust and cheeks like a rose;
Total it! there you have Tuck!
And bad luck
To the man who would question his pluck!

School is all over at last,
School with its pothooks and strokes:
Homeward they toddle, but who could go fast?
So many wonderful things to be passed
Froggie, for instance, who croaks
'Neath the oaks
By the creek where the watercress soaks.

Sandpipers dance on the bars;...

    Little girl, little girl, where have you been?
    Gathering roses to give to the queen.
    Little girl, little girl, what gave she you?
    She gave me a diamond as big as my shoe.

Not the slow Hearse, where nod the sable plumes,
    The Parian Statue, bending o'er the Urn,
    The dark robe floating, the dejection worn
    On the dropt eye, and lip no smile illumes;
Not all this pomp of sorrow, that presumes
    It pays Affection's debt, is due concern
    To the FOR EVER ABSENT, tho' it mourn
    Fashion's allotted time. If Time consumes,
While Life is ours, the precious vestal-flame
    Memory shou'd hourly feed; - if, thro' each day,
    She with whate'er we see, hear, think, or say,
Blend not the image of the vanish'd Frame,
    O! can the alien Heart expect to prove,
    In worlds of light and life, a reunited love!