Betrayal

    Italian bold, why wilt thou never cease
    The fathers from their tombs to summon forth?
    Why bring them, with this dead age to converse,
    That stifled is by enemies and by sloth?
    And why dost thou, voice of our ancestors,
    That hast so long been mute,
    Resound so loud and frequent in our ears?
    Why all these grand discoveries?
    As in a flash the fruitful pages come,
    What hath this wretched age deserved,
    That dusty cloisters have for it reserved
    These hidden treasures of the wise and brave?
    Illustrious man, with what strange power
    Does Fate thy ardent zeal befriend?
    Or does Fate vainly with man's will contend?

    Without the lofty counsel of the gods,
    It surely could not be, that now,
    When ...

'There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only Poets know'; 'twas rightly said;
Whom could the Muses else allure to tread
Their smoothest paths, to wear their lightest chains?
When happiest Fancy has inspired the strains,
How oft the malice of one luckless word
Pursues the Enthusiast to the social board,
Haunts him belated on the silent plains!
Yet he repines not, if his thought stand clear,
At last, of hindrance and obscurity,
Fresh as the star that crowns the brow of morn;
Bright, speckless, as a softly-moulded tear
The moment it has left the virgin's eye,
Or rain-drop lingering on the pointed thorn.

(ORSON GROUT),

One of the victims of the Southern Prisons.


Sit by me comrade, thou and I have stood
    Shoulder to shoulder on the battle-field,
And bore us there like men of British blood,
    But comrade this is death, and I must yield.

You have been leal, my friend, and true and tried
    In battle, in captivity of me;
Since we went up to worship side by side
    O'er the green hills I never more shall see.

From this dread prison pen, thou shalt go forth;
    But I, I know it, never more shall rise,
Nor see my home in the cool pleasant North,
    Nor see again my wife's dark mournful eyes.

Nor see my children, every shining head
    And merry eye, for what know they of grief;
'Twill still their play to know that I...

Night and vast caverns of rock and of iron;
Voices like water, and voices like wind;
Horror and tempests of hail that environ
Shapes and the shadows of two who have sinned.

Wan on the whirlwind, in loathing uplifting
Faces that loved once, forever they go,
TRISTAM and ISOLT, the lovers, go drifting,
The sullen laughter of Hell below.

Gayly a knight set forth against the foe,
For a fair face had shone on him in dreams;
A voice had stirred the silence of his sleep,
"Go win the battle, and I will be thine."

So, for the love of those appealing eyes,
Led by low accents of fair Gloria's voice,
He wound the bugle down his castle's steep,
And gayly rode to battle in the morn.

And none were braver in the tented field,
Like lightning heralding the doomful bolt;
The enemy beheld his snowy plume,
And death-lights flashed along his glancing spear.

But in the lonesome watches of the night,
An angel came and warned him with clear voice,
Against high God his rash right arm was raised,
Was rashly raised against the true, the right.

He strove to drown the angel voice with song
A...

I.
O sweet pale Margaret,
O rare pale Margaret,
What lit your eyes with tearful power,
Like moonlight on a falling shower?
Who lent you, love, your mortal dower
Of pensive thought and aspect pale,
Your melancholy sweet and frail
As perfume of the cuckoo-flower?
From the westward-winding flood,
From the evening-lighted wood,
From all things outward you have won
A tearful grace, as tho’ you stood
Between the rainbow and the sun.
The very smile before you speak,
That dimples your transparent cheek,
Encircles all the heart, and feedeth
The senses with a still delight
Of dainty sorrow without sound,
Like the tender amber round,
Which the moon about her spreadeth,
Moving thro’ a fleecy night.

II.
You love, remaining peacefull...

I shut my eyes to rest 'em, just a bit ago it seems,
An' back among the Cotswolds I were wanderin' in me dreams.
I saw the old grey homestead, with the rickyard set around,
An' catched the lowin' of the herd, a pleasant, homelike sound.
Then on I went a-singin', through the pastures where the sheep
Was lyin' underneath the elms, a-tryin' for to sleep.

An' where the stream was tricklin' by, half stifled by the grass,
Heaped over thick with buttercups, I saw the corncrake pass.
For 'twas Summer, Summer, SUMMER! An' the blue forget-me-nots
Wiped out this dusty city and the smoky chimbley pots.
I clean forgot My Lady's gown, the dazzlin' sights I've seen;
I was back among the Cotswolds, where me heart has always been.

Then through the sixteen-acre on I went, a stiffish cl...

Return, they cry, ere yet your day
Set, and the sky grow stern:
Return, strayed souls, while yet ye may
Return.
But heavens beyond us yearn;
Yea, heights of heaven above the sway
Of stars that eyes discern.
The soul whose wings from shoreward stray
Makes toward her viewless bourne
Though trustless faith and unfaith say,
Return.

But a bold pheasantry, their country's pride
When once destroyed can never be supplied.
        GOLDSMITH.


Bill Blossom was a nice young man,
And drove the Bury coach;
But bad companions were his bane,
And egg'd him on to poach.

They taught him how to net the birds,
And how to noose the hare;
And with a wiry terrier,
He often set a snare.

Each "shiny night" the moon was bright,
To park, preserve, and wood
He went, and kept the game alive,
By killing all he could.

Land-owners, who had rabbits, swore
That he had this demerit -
Give him an inch of warren, he
Would take a yard of ferret.

At partridges he was not nice;
And many, large and small,
Without Hall's powder, without lead,
Were sent to Leade...

Securely, after days
Unnumbered, I behold
Kings mourn that promised praise
Their cheating bards foretold.

Of earth constricting Wars,
Of Princes passed in chains,
Of deeds out-shining stars,
No word or voice remains.

Yet furthest times receive,
And to fresh praise restore,
Mere breath of flutes at eve,
Mere seaweed on the shore.

A smoke of sacrifice;
A chosen myrtle-wreath;
An harlot's altered eyes;
A rage 'gainst love or death;

Glazed snow beneath the moon,
The surge of storm-bowed trees,
The Caesars perished soon,
And Rome Herself: But these

Endure while Empires fall
And Gods for Gods make room....
Which greater God than all
Imposed the amazing doom?

You bear a flower in your hand,
You softly take it through the air,
Lest it should be too roughly fanned,
And break and fall, for all your care.

Love is like that, the lightest breath
Shakes all its blossoms o'er the land,
And its mysterious cousin, Death,
Waits but to snatch it from your hand.

O some day, should your hand forget,
Your guardian eyes stray otherwhere,
Your cheeks shall all in vain be wet,
Vain all your penance and your prayer.

God gave you once this creature fair,
You two mysteriously met;
By Time's strange stream
There stood this Dream,
This lovely Immortality
Given your mortal eyes to see,
That might have been your darling yet;
But in the place
Of her strange face
Sorrow will stand forever more,

They lay the slender body down
    With all its wealth of wetted hair,
Only a daughter of the town,
    But very young and slight and fair.

The eyes, whose light one cannot see,
    Are sombre doubtless, like the tresses,
The mouth's soft curvings seem to be
    A roseate series of caresses.

And where the skin has all but dried
    (The air is sultry in the room)
Upon her breast and either side,
    It shows a soft and amber bloom.

By women here, who knew her life,
    A leper husband, I am told,
Took all this loveliness to wife
    When it was barely ten years old.

And when the child in shocked dismay
    Fled from the hated husband's care
He caught and tied her, so they say,
    Down to his bedside by her hair.

    Antæus, as the ancient poets sing,
        Though in his contest with the God of Power
            Doomed to be conquered, stayed the fatal hour,
    And the onlookers set to wondering.
    For overborne, to Earth he'd closely cling,
        Until he rose again, a mighty tower.
        Thus could the Earth with strength her lover dower,
    And very near to victory could bring.
        So when I feel thy tender hand in mine,
            I, too, dear love, against the world could stand,
                Courage divine comes with thy lightest touch.
        Afar from thee Antæus-like I pine,
            But strength returns now as I clasp thy hand.
                Ah! that so slight a thing should mean so much.

Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shone,
Fared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence only the sun was gone:
Soft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade man welcome: a dim sweet hour
Gleamed and whispered in wind and sea, and heaven was fair as a field in flower,
Stars fulfilled the desire of the darkling world as with music: the star-bright air
Made the face of the sea, if aught may make the face of the sea, more fair.
Whence came change? Was the sweet night weary of rest? What anguish awoke in the dark?
Sudden, sublime, the strong storm spake: we heard the thunders as hounds that bark.
Lovelier if aught may be lovelier than stars, we saw the lightnings exalt the sky,
Living and lustrous and rapturous as love that is born but to quicken and lighten a...

    Oh, be not led away.
Lured by the colour of the sun-rich day.
    The gay romances of song
Unto the spirit-life doth not belong.
    Though far-between the hours
In which the Master of Angelic Powers
    Lightens the dusk within
The Holy of Holies;    be it thine to win
    Rare vistas of white light,
Half-parted lips, through which the Infinite
    Murmurs her ancient story;
Hearkening to whom the wandering planets hoary
    Waken primeval fires,
With deeper rapture in celestial choirs
    Breathe, and with fleeter motion
Wheel in their orbits through the surgeless ocean.
    So, hearken thou like these,
Intent on her, mounting by slow degrees,
    Until thy song's elation
Echoes her multitudinous meditation.

--November 15, 1893

[A room in a private house.    A maiden sitting before a fire meditating.]

MAIDEN

Now have I fully fixed upon my part.
Good-bye to dreams; for me a life of art!
Beloved art!    Oh, realm serene and fair,
Above the mean and sordid world of care,
Above earth's small ambitions and desires!
Art! art! the very word my soul inspires!
From foolish memories it sets me free.
Not what has been, but that which is to be
Absorbs me now.    Adieu to vain regret!
The bow is tensely drawn - the target set.
[A knock at the door.]

MAID (aside)

The night is dark and chill; the hour is late.
(Aloud)
Who knocks upon my door?

A Voice Outside

'Tis I, your fate!

MAID

Thou dost deceive, not me, but thine own self.

My lady is robed for the ball to-night,
    All in a shimmer and silken sheen.
She glides down the stairs like a thing of light,
    The ballroom's beautiful queen.

Priceless gems on her bosom glow -
    Half hid by laces a queen might wear.
Robed is she, as befits, you know,
    The wife of a millionaire.

Gliding along at her liege lord's side,
    Out-shining all in that company,
Into the mind of the old man's bride
    There creeps a curious simile.

She thinks how once in the Long Ago,
    A beautiful captive, all aflame
With jewels that weighed her down like woe,
    Close in the wake of her captor came.

All day long in that mocking plight,
    She followed him in a dumb despair;
And the people thought her a goodly sight,<...

I.SPRING ON THE HILLS

Ah, shall I follow, on the hills,
The Spring, as wild wings follow?
Where wild-plum trees make wan the hills,
Crabapple trees the hollow,
Haunts of the bee and swallow?

In redbud brakes and flowery
Acclivities of berry;
In dogwood dingles, showery
With white, where wrens make merry?
Or drifts of swarming cherry?

In valleys of wild strawberries,
And of the clumped May-apple;
Or cloudlike trees of haw-berries,
With which the south winds grapple,
That brook and byway dapple?

With eyes of far forgetfulness, -
Like some wild wood-thing's daughter,
Whose feet are beelike fretfulness, -
To see her run like water
Through boughs that slipped or caught her.

O Spring, to seek, yet find you not!<...