Betrayal

O happy spot! how much the sight of thee
Wakes the endearments of my infancy:
The very trees, through which the wild-winds sigh,
Seem whispering now some joys of youth gone by;
And each spot round, so sacred to my sight,
Hints at some former moment of delight.
Each object there still warmly seems to claim
Tender remembrance of some childish game;
Still on the slabs, before yon door that lie,
The top seems spinning in fond memory's eye;
And fancy's echo still yon field resounds
With noise of blind-man's buff, and fox-and-hounds.
Ah, as left rotting 'neath its mossy crown
The pile stands sacred o'er some past renown,
So thou, dear spot, though doubtless but to me,
Art sacred from the joys possess'd in thee,
That rose, and shone, and set--a sun's sojourn;
As...

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.

No new delights to our desire
    The singers of the past can yield.
    I lift mine eyes to hill and field,
And see in them your yet dumb lyre,
    Poets unborn and unrevealed.

Singers to come, what thoughts will start
    To song? what words of yours be sent
    Through man's soul, and with earth be blent?
These worlds of nature and the heart
    Await you like an instrument.

Who knows what musical flocks of words
    Upon these pine-tree tops will light,
    And crown these towers in circling flight
And cross these seas like summer birds,
    And give a voice to the day and night?

Something of you already is ours;
    Some mystic part of you belongs
    To us whose dreams your future throngs,
Who look on hills, and trees, and flo...

Tune - "Seventh of November."


I.

    The day returns, my bosom burns,
        The blissful day we twa did meet,
    Tho' winter wild in tempest toil'd,
        Ne'er summer-sun was half sae sweet.
    Than a' the pride that loads the tide,
        And crosses o'er the sultry line;
    Than kingly robes, than crowns and globes,
        Heaven gave me more, it made thee mine!

II.

    While day and night can bring delight,
        Or nature aught of pleasure give,
    While joys above my mind can move,
        For thee, and thee alone I live.
    When that grim foe of life below,
        Comes in between to make us part,
    The iron hand that breaks our band,
        It breaks my bliss, it breaks my heart.

As one, a poet of a fairy's train,
    Might sit beside a violet's stem and view
    Its opening petals, watch the wondrous blue
Thrill through their fibers, and their secret gain
Of how the earth and sky and wind and rain
    Had given them life and form and scent and hue,--
    So I have gazed into the eyes of you,
Those rare blue eyes, and have not looked in vain;
For they have told me all that I would know,
    Even as the violets their secret tell
Unto the wistful spirits of the grove--
    Ay, more than this, for, in their tender glow,
I've learned their secret, found their winsome spell,
    The sweet and simple message of their love.

A lily in a twilight place?
A moonflow'r in the lonely night? -
Strange beauty of a woman's face
    Of wildflow'r-white!

The rain that hangs a star's green ray
Slim on a leaf-point's restlessness,
Is not so glimmering green and gray
    As was her dress.

I drew her dark hair from her eyes,
And in their deeps beheld a while
Such shadowy moonlight as the skies
    Of Hell may smile.

She held her mouth up redly wan,
And burning cold, - I bent and kissed
Such rosy snow as some wild dawn
    Makes of a mist.

God shall not take from me that hour,
When round my neck her white arms clung!
When 'neath my lips, like some fierce flower,
    Her white throat swung!

Or words she murmured while she leaned!
Witch-words,...

If rightly tuneful bards decide,
If it be fix'd in love's decrees,
That beauty ought not to be tried
But by its native power to please,
Then tell me, youths and lovers, tell,
What fair can Amoret excell?
7Behold that bright unsullied smile,
And wisdom speaking in her mien:
Yet (she so artless all the while,
So little studious to be seen)
We nought but instant gladness know,
Nor think to whom the gift we owe.
But neither music, nor the powers
Of youth and mirth and frolick cheer,
Add half that sunshine to the hours,
Or make life's prospect half so clear,
As memory brings it to the eye
From scenes where Amoret was by.
Yet not a satirist could there
Or fault or indiscretion find;
Nor any prouder sage declare
One virtue, pictur'd in his mi...

More than a hundred years ago, in a great battle fought near Delhi, an Indian Prince rode fifty miles after the day was lost with a beggar-girl, who had loved him and followed him in all his camps, on his saddle-bow. He lost the girl when almost within sight of safety.
A Maratta trooper tells the story:,


The wreath of banquet overnight lay withered on the neck,
Our hands and scarfs were saffron-dyed for signal of despair,
When we went forth to Paniput to battle with the Mlech,,
Ere we came back from Paniput and left a kingdom there.

Thrice thirty thousand men were we to force the Jumna fords,
The hawk-winged horse of Damajee, mailed squadrons of the Bhao,
Stark levies of the southern hills, the Deccan's sharpest swords,
And he the harlot's traitor son the goatherd Mulhar Rao!<...

While I wrought out these fitful Danaan rhymes,
My heart would brim with dreams about the times
When we bent down above the fading coals
And talked of the dark folk who live in souls
Of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees;
And of the wayward twilight companies
Who sigh with mingled sorrow and content,
Because their blossoming dreams have never bent
Under the fruit of evil and of good:
And of the embattled flaming multitude
Who rise, wing above wing, flame above flame,
And, like a storm, cry the Ineffable Name,
And with the clashing of their sword-blades make
A rapturous music, till the morning break
And the white hush end all but the loud beat
Of their long wings, the flash of their white feet.

Whose is the voice that will not let me rest?
        I hear it speak.
Where is the shore will gratify my quest,
        Show what I seek?
Not yours, weak Muse, to mimic that far voice,
        With halting tongue;
No peace, sweet land, to bid my heart rejoice
        Your groves among.

Whose is the loveliness I know is by,
        Yet cannot place?
Is it perfection of the sea or sky,
        Or human face?
Not yours, my pencil, to delineate
        The splendid smile!
Blind in the sun, we struggle on with Fate
        That glows the while.

Whose are the feet that pass me, echoing
        On unknown ways?
Whose are the lips that only part to sing
        Through all my days?
Not yours, fond youth, to fill mine eager eyes
  ...

    Of all the swains that meet at eve
    Upon the green to play,
    The shepherd is the lad for me,
    And I'll ne'er say him nay.
    Though father glowers beneath his hat,
    And mother talks of bed,
    I'll take my cloak up, late or soon,
    To meet my shepherd lad.

    Aunt Kitty loved a soldier lad,
    Who left her love for war;
    A sailor loved my sister Sue,
    Whose jacket smelt of tar;
    But my love's sweet as land new ploughed;
    He is my heart's delight,
    And he ne'er leaves his love so far
    But he can come at night.

    So father he may glower and frown,
    And mother scold about it;
    The shepherd has my heart to keep,
    And can I live without it?
    I'm sure he will not part with it,

The stone-grey roses by the desert's rim
Are soft-edged shadows on the moonlit sand,
Grey are the broken walls of Khangavar,
That haunt of nightingales, whose voices are
Fountains that bubble in the dream-soft Moon.

Shall the Gazelles with moonbeam pale bright feet
Entering the vanished gardens sniff the air -
Some scent may linger of that ancient time,
Musician's song, or poet's passionate rhyme,
The Princess dead, still wandering love-sick there.

A Princess pale and cold as mountain snow,
In cool, dark chambers sheltered from the sun,
With long dark lashes and small delicate hands:
All Persia sighed to kiss her small red mouth
Until they buried her in shifting sand.

And the Gazelles shall flit by in the Moon
And never shake the frail Tree's...

The wind makes moan, the water runneth chill;
I hear the nymphs go crying through the brake;
And roaming mournfully from hill to hill
The maenads all are silent for his sake!

He loved thy pipe, O wreathed and piping Pan!
So play'st thou sadly, lone within thine hollow;
He was thy blood, if ever mortal man,
Therefore thou weepest - even thou, Apollo!

But O, the grieving of the Little Things,
Above the pipe and lyre, throughout the woods!
The beating of a thousand airy wings,
The cry of all the fragile multitudes!

The moth flits desolate, the tree-toad calls,
Telling the sorrow of the elf and fay;
The cricket, little harper of the walls,
Puts up his harp - hath quite forgot to play!

And risen on these winter paths anew,
The wilding b...

When the dumb Hour, clothed in black,
Brings the Dreams about my bed,
Call me not so often back,
Silent Voices of the dead,
Toward the lowland ways behind me,
And the sunlight that is gone!
Call me rather, silent voices,
Forward to the starry track
Glimmering up the heights beyond me
On, and always on!

'While I sit at the door
Sick to gaze within
Mine eye weepeth sore
For sorrow and sin:
As a tree my sin stands
To darken all lands;
Death is the fruit it bore.

'How have Eden bowers grown
Without Adam to bend them!
How have Eden flowers blown
Squandering their sweet breath
Without me to tend them!
The Tree of Life was ours,
Tree twelvefold-fruited,
Most lofty tree that flowers,
Most deeply rooted:
I chose the tree of death.

'Hadst thou but said me nay,
Adam, my brother,
I might have pined away;
I, but none other:
God might have let thee stay
Safe in our garden,
By putting me away
Beyond all pardon.

'I, Eve, sad mother
Of all who must live,
I, not another
Plucked bitterest fruit to gi...

I'll lay me down on the green sward,
Mid yellowcups and speedwell blue,
And pay the world no more regard,
But be to Nature leal and true.
Who break the peace of hapless man
But they who Truth and Nature wrong?
I'll hear no more of evil's plan,
But live with Nature and her song.

Where Nature's lights and shades are green,
Where Nature's place is strewn with flowers.
Where strife and care are never seen,
There I'll retire to happy hours,
And stretch my body on the green,
And sleep among the flowers in bloom,
By eyes of malice seldom seen,
And dream upon the days to come.

I'll lay me by the forest green,
I'll lay me on the pleasant grass;
My life shall pass away unseen;
I'll be no more the man I was.
The tawny bee upon the flower,<...

Who does not love the village bells,
Their cheerful peal, and solemn toll!
One of the rustic wedding tells,
And one bespeaks a parting soul.

The lark in sunshine sings his song,
And, dressed in garments white and gay,
The village lasses trip along,
For this is Susan's wedding-day.

Ah! gather flowers of sweetest hue,
Young violets from the bank's green side,
And on poor Mary's coffin strew,
For in the bloom of life she died.

So passes life! the smile, the tear,
Succeed, as in our path we stray,
Thy kingdom come, for we are here
As guests who tarry but a day.

I.

Time of crisp and tawny leaves,
And of tarnished harvest sheaves,
And of dusty grasses - weeds -
Thistles, with their tufted seeds
Voyaging the Autumn breeze
Like as fairy argosies:
Time of quicker flash of wings,
And of clearer twitterings
In the grove, or deeper shade
Of the tangled everglade, -
Where the spotted water-snake
Coils him in the sunniest brake;
And the bittern, as in fright,
Darts, in sudden, slanting flight,
Southward, while the startled crane
Films his eyes in dreams again.

II

Down along the dwindled creek
We go loitering. We speak
Only with old questionings
Of the dear remembered things
Of the days of long ago,
When the stream seemed thus and so
In our boyish eyes: - The bank
G...