Betrayal

We thought we ranked above the chance of ill.
Others might fall, not we, for we were wise,
Merchants in freedom. So, of our free-will
We let our servants drug our strength with lies.
The pleasure and the poison had its way
On us as on the meanest, till we learned
That he who lies will steal, who steals will slay.
Neither God's judgment nor man's heart was turned.

Yet there remains His Mercy to be sought
Through wrath and peril till we cleanse the wrong
By that last right which our forefathers claimed
When their Law failed them and its stewards were bought.
This is our cause. God help us, and make strong
Our will to meet Him later, unashamed!

He is not desolate whose ship is sailing
Over the mystery of an unknown sea,
For some great love with faithfulness unfailing
Will light the stars to bear him company.

Out in the silence of the mountain passes,
The heart makes peace and liberty its own -
The wind that blows across the scented grasses
Bringing the balm of sleep - comes not alone.

Beneath the vast illimitable spaces
Where God has set His jewels in array,
A man may pitch his tent in desert places
Yet know that heaven is not so far away.

But in the city - in the lighted city -
Where gilded spires point toward the sky,
And fluttering rags and hunger ask for pity,
Grey Loneliness in cloth-of-gold, goes by.

Oh, for a home of rest!
Time lags alone so slow, so wearily;
Couldst thou but smile on me, I should be blest.
Alas, alas! that never more may be.
Oh, for the sky-lark's wing to soar to thee!

This earth I would forsake
For starry realms whose sky's forever fair;
There, tears are shed not, hearts will cease to ache,
And sorrow's plaintive voice shall never break
The heavenly stillness that is reigning there.

Life's every charm has fled,
The world is all a wilderness to me;
"For thou art numbered with the silent dead."
Oh, how my heart o'er this dark thought has bled!
How I have longed for wings to follow thee!

In visions of the night
With angel smile thou beckon'st me away,
Pointing to worlds where hope is free from blight;
And...

Go, happy Rose, and interwove
With other flowers, bind my Love.
Tell her, too, she must not be
Longer flowing, longer free,
That so oft has fetter'd me.

Say, if she's fretful, I have bands
Of pearl and gold, to bind her hands;
Tell her, if she struggle still,
I have myrtle rods at will,
For to tame, though not to kill.

Take thou my blessing thus, and go
And tell her this, but do not so!
Lest a handsome anger fly
Like a lightning from her eye,
And burn thee up, as well as I!

Fate gave the word, the arrow sped,  
        And pierc'd my darling's heart;  
    And with him all the joys are fled  
        Life can to me impart.  
    By cruel hands the sapling drops,  
        In dust dishonour'd laid:  
    So fell the pride of all my hopes,  
        My age's future shade.

    The mother-linnet in the brake  
        Bewails her ravish'd young;  
    So I, for my lost darling's sake,  
        Lament the live day long.  
    Death, oft I've fear'd thy fatal blow,  
        Now, fond I bare my breast,  
    O, do thou kindly lay me low  
        With him I love, at rest!

All day upon the garden bright
The sun shines strong,
But in my heart there is no light,
Or any song.

Voices of merry life go by,
Adown the street;
But I am weary of the cry
And drift of feet.

With all dear things that ought to please
The hours are blessed,
And yet my soul is ill at ease,
And cannot rest.

Strange spirit, leave me not too long,
Nor stint to give,
For if my soul have no sweet song,
It cannot live.

About the time of Michael's feast
And all his angels,
There comes a word to man and beast
By dark evangels.

Then hearing what the wild things say
To one another,
Those creatures first born of our gray
Mysterious Mother,

The greatness of the world's unrest
Steals through our pulses;
Our own life takes a meaning guessed
From the torn dulse's.

The draft and set of deep sea-tides
Swirling and flowing,
Bears every filmy flake that rides,
Grandly unknowing.

The sunlight listens; thin and fine
The crickets whistle;
And floating midges fill the shine
Like a seeding thistle.

The hawkbit flies his golden flag
From rocky pasture,
Bidding his legions never lag
Through morning's vasture.

Soon we sh...

You will be mine; those lightly dancing feet,
    Falling as softly on the careless street
As the wind-loosened petals of a flower,
    Will bring you here, at the Appointed Hour.

And all the Temple's little links and laws
    Will not for long protect your loveliness.
I have a stronger force to aid my cause,
    Nature's great Law, to love and to possess!

Throughout those sleepless watches, when I lay
    Wakeful, desiring what I might not see,
I knew (it helped those hours, from dusk to day),
    In this one thing, Fate would be kind to me.

You will consent, through all my veins like wine
    This prescience flows; your lips meet mine above,
Your clear soft eyes look upward into mine
    Dim in a silent ecstasy of love.

The clustered ...

    Poems are holy things. Eternal Truth,
    Borrowing the robes of song and lovely grown,
    In them her glory unto man proclaims
    And fills his longing soul. They softly speak
    Of Nature's beauty and the secrets old
    Concealed behind the shadows of the hills,
    And love on angel fingers borne to men,
    Naming them over in so sweet a voice
    That music leads their footsteps in the ways
    Where God has walked; and with a lofty Harp,
    As wondrous as the gentle harps of heaven,
    Uplifts, ennobles, soothes and leads the race
    Unto its last great ultimate of power,
    To words of tenderness and goodly deeds.

I.
Enough! we're tired, my heart and I.
We sit beside the headstone thus,
And wish that name were carved for us.
The moss reprints more tenderly
The hard types of the mason's knife,
As heaven's sweet life renews earth's life
With which we're tired, my heart and I.

II.
You see we're tired, my heart and I.
We dealt with books, we trusted men,
And in our own blood drenched the pen,
As if such colours could not fly.
We walked too straight for fortune's end,
We loved too true to keep a friend;
At last we're tired, my heart and I.

III.
How tired we feel, my heart and I!
We seem of no use in the world;
Our fancies hang grey and uncurled
About men's eyes indifferently;
Our voice which thrilled you so, will let
You sleep; our t...

When night and silence deep
Hold all the world in sleep,
As tho' Death claimed the Hour,
By some strange witchery
Appears her form to me,
As tho' Magic were her dow'r.

Her beauty heaven's light!
Her bosom snowy white!
But pale her cheek appears.
Her shoulders firm and fair;
A mass of gold her hair.
Her eyes--the home of tears.

She looks at me nor speaks.
Her arms are raised; she seeks
Her fettered hands to show.
On both white wrists a chain!--
She cries and pleads in pain:
"Unbind me!--Let me go!"

I burn with bitter ire,
I leap in wild desire
The cruel bonds to break;
But God! around the chain
Is coiled and coiled again
A long and loathsome snake.

I shout, I cry, I chide;
My voice goes far an...

    When the fields are rolled into naked gold,
        And a ripple of fire and pearl is blent
    With the emerald surges of wood and wold
        Like a flower-foam bursting violent;
    When the dingles and deeps of the woodlands old
        Are glad with a sibilant life new sent,
    Too rare to be told are the manifold
        Sweet fancies that quicken redolent
    In the heart that no longer is cold.

    How it knows of the wings of the hawk that swings
        From the drippled dew scintillant seen;
    Why the red-bird hides where it sings and sings
        In melodious quiverings of green;
    How the wind to the red-bud and dogwood brings
        Big pearls of worth and corals of sheen,
    Whiles he lisps to the strings of a lute that rings
...

There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood--
Touch of manner, hint of mood;
And my heart is like a rhyme,
With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time.

The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry
Of bugles going by.
And my lonely spirit thrills
To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills.

There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir;
We must rise and follow her,
When from every hill of flame
She calls and calls each vagabond by name.

As one who, walking in the twilight gloom,
    Hears round about him voices as it darkens,
And seeing not the forms from which they come,
    Pauses from time to time, and turns and hearkens;

So walking here in twilight, O my friends!
    I hear your voices, softened by the distance,
And pause, and turn to listen, as each sends
    His words of friendship, comfort, and assistance.

If any thought of mine, or sung or told,
    Has ever given delight or consolation,
Ye have repaid me back a thousand-fold,
    By every friendly sign and salutation.

Thanks for the sympathies that ye have shown!
    Thanks for each kindly word, each silent token,
That teaches me, when seeming most alone,
    Friends are around us, though no word be spoken.

Ki...

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

        Good-bye - yes, I am going.
    Sudden? Well, you are right;
        But a startling truth came home to me
    With sudden force last night.
        What is it? Shall I tell you?
    Nay, that is why I go.
        I am running away from the battlefield
    Turning my back on the foe.

        Riddles? You think me cruel!
    Have you not been most kind?
        Why, when you question me like that,
    What answer can I find?
        You fear you failed to amuse me,
    Your husband's friend and guest,
        Whom he bade you entertain and please -
    Well, you have done your best.
        Then why am I going?
    A friend of mine abroad,
        Whose theories I have been acting upon,
    Has proven himself a fraud.
        Y...

ACT I. Sc. I

Enter Teryth from riding, Winefred following.

T. What is it, Gwen, my girl? why do you hover and haunt me?

W. You came by Caerwys, sir?

T.    I came by Caerwys.

W.    There
Some messenger there might have met you from my uncle.

T. Your uncle met the messenger - met me; and this the message:
Lord Beuno comes to-night.

W.    To-night, sir!

T.    Soon, now: therefore
Have all things ready in his room.

W.    There needs but little doing.

T. Let what there needs be done. Stay! with him one com- panion,
His deacon, Dirvan Warm: twice over must the welcome be,
But both will share one cell. This was good news, Gwenvrewi.

W. Ah yes!

T. Why, get thee gone then; tell thy moth...

LINES WRITTEN BY THE AUTHOR'S BROTHER, EDWARD BLISS EMERSON, WHILST SAILING OUT OF BOSTON HARBOR, BOUND FOR THE ISLAND OF PORTO RICO, IN 1832

Farewell, ye lofty spires
That cheered the holy light!
Farewell, domestic fires
That broke the gloom of night!
Too soon those spires are lost,
Too fast we leave the bay,
Too soon by ocean tost
From hearth and home away,
Far away, far away.

Farewell the busy town,
The wealthy and the wise,
Kind smile and honest frown
From bright, familiar eyes.
All these are fading now;
Our brig hastes on her way,
Her unremembering prow
Is leaping o'er the sea,
Far away, far away.

Farewell, my mother fond,
Too kind, too good to me;
Nor pearl nor diamond
Would pay my debt to thee.
But ev...