Betrayal

Standing here alone,
Let me pause awhile,
Drinking in the light
Ere, with plunge of white limbs prone,
I raise the sparkling flight
Of foam-flakes volatile.

Now, in natural guise,
I woo the deathless breeze,
Through me rushing fleet
The joy of life, in swift surprise:
I grow with growing wheat,
And burgeon with the trees.

Lo! I fetter Time,
So he cannot run;
And in Eden again -
Flash of memory sublime! -
Dwell naked, without stain,
Beneath the dazed sun.

All yields brotherhood;
Each least thing that lives,
Wrought of primal spores,
Deepens this wild sense of good
That, on these shaggy shores,
Return to nature gives.

Oh, that some solitude
Were ours, in woodlands deep,
Where, with lucent ...

They stream across the fading western sky
A sable cloud, far o'er the lonely leas;
Now parting into scattered companies,
Now closing up the broken ranks, still high
And higher yet they mount, while, carelessly,
Trail slow behind, athwart the moving trees
A lingering few, 'round whom the evening breeze
Plays with sad whispered murmurs as they fly.

A lonely figure, ghostly in the dim
And darkening twilight, lingers in the shade
Of bending willows: "Surely God has laid
His curse on me," he moans, "my strength of limb
And old heart-courage fail me, and I flee
Bowed with fell terror at this augury."

Aloft on the brow of a mountain,
And hard by a clear running fountain,
In neat little cot,
Content with her lot,
Retired, there lives a sweet maiden.

Her father is dead, and her brother,
And now she alone with her mother
Will spin on her wheel,
And sew, knit, and reel,
And cheerfully work for their living.

To gossip she never will roam,
She loves, and she stays at, her home,
Unless when a neighbour
In sickness does labour,
Then, kindly, she pays her a visit.

With Bible she stands by her bed,
And when some blest passage is read,
In prayer and in praises
Her sweet voice she raises
To Him who for sinners once died.

Well versed in her Bible is she,
Her language is artless and free,
Imparting pure joy,
That...

    The playful way thy wanton hair
        Was tossing in the wind;
    Thy girlish, vain vexation
        Is treasured in my mind.

    Held in my heart each sacred spot,
        O'er which we roamed at will:
    The rose that bloomed upon thy breast
        Blooms in my memory still.

    Still do I see thy sunny smile,
        In sportive dimples traced,
    Like truant beams of morning light
        By flitting fairies chased.

    Thy merry, maiden laughter still
        Is ringing in my ear,
    As silver streams in sylvan shades
        Make music sweet to hear.

’Tis better to be vile than vile esteem’d,
When not to be receives reproach of being;
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deem’d
Not by our feeling, but by others’ seeing:
For why should others’ false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own:
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;
Unless this general evil they maintain,
All men are bad and in their badness reign.

And the just man trailed God's shining agent,
over a black mountain, in his giant track,
while a restless voice kept harrying his woman:
"It's not too late, you can still look back

at the red towers of your native Sodom,
the square where once you sang, the spinning-shed,
at the empty windows set in the tall house
where sons and daughters blessed your marriage-bed."

A single glance: a sudden dart of pain
stitching her eyes before she made a sound . . .
Her body flaked into transparent salt,
and her swift legs rooted to the ground.

Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem
too insignificant for our concern?
Yet in my heart I never will deny her,
who suffered death because she chose to turn.

Wearies my love of my letters?
Does she my silence command?
Sunders she Love's rosy fetters
As though they were woven of sand?
Tires she too of each token
Indited with many a sigh?
Are all her promises broken?
And must I love on till I die?

Thinks my dear love that I blame her
With what was a burden to part?
Ah, no!--with affection I'll name her
While lingers a pulse in my heart.
Although she has clouded with sadness,
And blighted the bloom of my years,
I lover still, even to madness,
And bless her through showers of tears.

My pen I have laid down in sorrow,
The songs of my lute I forego:
From neither assistance I'll borrow
To utter my heart-seated wo!
But peace to her bosom, wherever
Her thoughts or her footsteps may stray...

        Do you remember one immortal
        Lost moment out of time and space,
        What time we thought, who passed the portal
        Of that divine disastrous place
        Where Life was slain and Truth was slandered
        On that one holier hill than Rome,
        How far abroad our bodies wandered
        That evening when our souls came home?

        The mystic city many-gated,
        With monstrous columns, was your own:
        Herodian stones fell down and waited
        Two thousand years to be your throne.
        In the grey rocks the burning blossom
        Glowed terrible as the sacred blood:
        It was no stranger to your bosom
        Than bluebells of an English wood.

        Do you remember a road that follows
   ...

This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fáawn-fróth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Somewhere is music from the linnets' bills,
And thro' the sunny flowers the bee-wings drone,
And white bells of convolvulus on hills
Of quiet May make silent ringing, blown
Hither and thither by the wind of showers,
And somewhere all the wandering birds have flown;
And the brown breath of Autumn chills the flowers.

But where are all the loves of long ago?
O little twilight ship blown up the tide,
Where are the faces laughing in the glow
Of morning years, the lost ones scattered wide.
Give me your hand, O brother, let us go
Crying about the dark for those who died.

A poet’s cat, sedate and grave
As poet well could wish to have,
Was much addicted to inquire
For nooks to which she might retire,
And where, secure as mouse in chink,
She might repose, or sit and think.
I know not where she caught the trick—
Nature perhaps herself had cast her
In such a mould philosophique,
Or else she learn’d it of her master.
Sometimes ascending, debonnair,
An apple-tree, or lofty pear,
Lodged with convenience in the fork,
She watch’d the gardener at his work;
Sometimes her ease and solace sought
In an old empty watering pot:
There, wanting nothing save a fan,
To seem some nymph in her sedan
Apparell’d in exactest sort,
And ready to be borne to court.
But love of change, it seems, has place
Not only in our wiser race...

Approach in silence. 'tis no vulgar tale
Which I, the Dryad of this hoary oak,
Pronounce to mortal ears. The second age
Now hasteneth to its period, since I rose
On this fair lawn. The groves of yonder vale
Are, all, my offspring: and each Nymph, who guards
The copses and the furrow'd fields beyond,
Obeys me. Many changes have I seen
In human things, and many awful deeds
Of justice, when the ruling hand of Jove
Against the tyrants of the land, against
The unhallow'd sons of luxury and guile,
Was arm'd for retribution. Thus at length
Expert in laws divine, I know the paths
Of wisdom, and erroneous folly's end
Have oft presag'd: and now well-pleas'd I wait
Each evening till a noble youth, who loves
My shade, awhile releas'd from public cares,
Yon peace...

With dazzled eyes, whilst wond'ring I remain'd,
Forth of the beamy flame which dazzled me,
Issued a breath, that in attention mute
Detain'd me; and these words it spake: "'T were well,
That, long as till thy vision, on my form
O'erspent, regain its virtue, with discourse
Thou compensate the brief delay. Say then,
Beginning, to what point thy soul aspires:

"And meanwhile rest assur'd, that sight in thee
Is but o'erpowered a space, not wholly quench'd:
Since thy fair guide and lovely, in her look
Hath potency, the like to that which dwelt
In Ananias' hand." I answering thus:
"Be to mine eyes the remedy or late
Or early, at her pleasure; for they were
The gates, at which she enter'd, and did light
Her never dying fire. My wishes here
Are centered; in t...

Before my sight appear'd, with open wings,
The beauteous image, in fruition sweet
Gladdening the thronged spirits. Each did seem
A little ruby, whereon so intense
The sun-beam glow'd that to mine eyes it came
In clear refraction. And that, which next
Befalls me to portray, voice hath not utter'd,
Nor hath ink written, nor in fantasy
Was e'er conceiv'd. For I beheld and heard
The beak discourse; and, what intention form'd
Of many, singly as of one express,
Beginning: "For that I was just and piteous,
l am exalted to this height of glory,
The which no wish exceeds: and there on earth
Have I my memory left, e'en by the bad
Commended, while they leave its course untrod."

Thus is one heat from many embers felt,
As in that image many were the loves,
...

O, gather me the rose, the rose,
While yet in flower we find it,
For summer smiles, but summer goes,
And winter waits behind it!

For with the dream foregone, foregone,
The deed forborne for ever,
The worm, regret, will canker on,
And Time will turn him never.

So well it were to love, my love,
And cheat of any laughter
The fate beneath us and above,
The dark before and after.

The myrtle and the rose, the rose,
The sunshine and the swallow,
The dream that comes, the wish that goes,
The memories that follow!

1874

Oh, the truant boy to the woods has gone,
And you ne'er, alas, can find him,
He's strapp'd his empty school bag on,
For his books are left behind him.

He's gone to shake the beechnuts down
From a height - 'twould make you shiver,
And stain his hands a gipsy brown,
With the walnuts by the river.

"Away from school!" said this youth so free,
"Tho' all the world should praise thee,
I'd rather climb this walnut tree,
Because it's such a daisy."
The truant fell, but the stunning shock
Could not bring his proud soul under;
"I'll try again, and here I go
To get those nuts, by thunder!"

So he tightly strapp'd his bag so neat,
This soul of spunk and bravery,
And said, "If I in this get beat,
I will go back to slavery."
But he climb'...

Air and sky are swathed in gold
    Fold on fold,
Light glows through the trees like wine.
Earth, sun-quickened, swoons for bliss
    'Neath his kiss,
Breathless in a trance divine.


Nature pauses from her task,
    Just to bask
In these lull'd transfigured hours.
The green leaf nor stays nor goes,
    But it grows
Royaler than mid-June's flowers.


Such impassioned silence fills
    All the hills
Burning with unflickering fire -
Such a blood-red splendor stains
    The leaves' veins,
Life seems one fulfilled desire.


While earth, sea, and heavens shine,
    Heart of mine,
Say, what art thou waiting for?
Shall the cup ne'er reach the lip,
    But still slip
Till the life-long thirst give o'er?<...

Love thou thy land, with love far-brought
From out the storied past, and used
Within the present, but transfused
Thro’ future time by power of thought;

True love turn’d round on fixed poles,
Love, that endures not sordid ends,
For English natures, freemen, friends,
Thy brothers and immortal souls.

But pamper not a hasty time,
Nor feed with crude imaginings
The herd, wild hearts and feeble wings
That every sophister can lime.

Deliver not the tasks of might
To weakness, neither hide the ray
From those, not blind, who wait for day,
Tho’ sitting girt with doubtful light.

Make knowledge circle with the winds;
But let her herald, Reverence, fly
Before her to whatever sky
Bear seed of men and growth of minds.

Watch wh...