Betrayal

The wind told the little leaves to hurry,
And chased them down the way,
While the mother tree laughed loud in glee,
For she thought her babes at play,
The cruel wind and the rain laughed loudly,
We'll bury them deep, they said,
And the old tree grieves, and the little leaves
Lie low, all chilled and dead.

'Dymchurch Flit', Puck of Pook's Hill.


Bees! Bees! Hark to your bees!
"Hide from your neigbours as much as you please,
But all that has happened, to us you must tell,
Or else we will give you no honey to sell!"

A maiden in her glory,
Upon her wedding-day,
Must tell her Bees the story,
Or else they'll fly away.
Fly away, die away,
Dwindle down and leave you!
But if you don't deceive your Bees,
Your Bees will not deceive you.

Marriage, birth or buryin',
News across the seas,
All you're sad or merry in,
You must tell the Bees.
Tell 'em coming in an' out,
Where the Fanners fan,
'Cause the Bees are just about
As curious as a man!

Don't you wait where the trees are,
When the lightnings play,
Nor don't ...

IN my boyhood's days so drear

I was kept confined;
There I sat for many a year,

All alone I pined,
As within the womb.

Yet thou drov'st away my gloom,

Golden phantasy!
I became a hero true,

Like the Prince Pipi,
And the world roam'd through,

Many a crystal palace built,

Crush'd them with like art,
And the Dragon's life-blood spilt

With my glitt'ring dart.
Yes! I was a man!

Next I formed the knightly plan

Princess Fish to free;
She was much too complaisant,

Kindly welcomed me,
And I was gallant.

Heav'nly bread her kisses proved,

Glowing as the wine;
Almost unto death I loved.

Sun-s appeared to shine
In her dazzling charms.

Who h...

Sometimes it seems my blood spurts out in gobs
As if it were a fountain's pulsing sobs;
I clearly hear it mutter as it goes,
Yet cannot find the wound from which it flows.

Then through the city, coursing in the lists,
It travels, forming islands in its midst,
Seeing that every creature will be fed
And staining nature its flamboyant red.

Oh, I have asked of wine the magic way
To drug my terrors, even for a day;
Wine clears the eye, makes hearing more distinct!

I've sought forgetfulness in love, but failed,
Since love for me is just a bed of nails
Made to provide these women bloody drink!

This little vault, this narrow room,
Of Love and Beauty is the tomb;
The dawning beam, that 'gan to clear
Our clouded sky, lies darken'd here,
For ever set to us: by Death
Sent to enflame the World Beneath.
'Twas but a bud, yet did contain
More sweetness than shall spring again;
A budding Star, that might have grown
Into a Sun when it had blown.
This hopeful Beauty did create
New life in Love's declining state;
But now his empire ends, and we
From fire and wounding darts are free;
His brand, his bow, let no man fear:
The flames, the arrows, all lie here.

- Proverbs xxiv. 11, 12.

1.

I have done I know not what, - what have I done?
My brother's blood, my brother's soul, doth cry:
And I find no defence, find no reply,
No courage more to run this race I run
Not knowing what I have done, have left undone;
Ah me, these awful unknown hours that fly
Fruitless it may be, fleeting fruitless by
Rank with death-savor underneath the sun.
For what avails it that I did not know
The deed I did? what profits me the plea
That had I known I had not wronged him so?
Lord Jesus Christ, my God, him pity Thou;
Lord, if it may be, pity also me:
In judgment pity, and in death, and now.


2.

Thou Who hast borne all burdens, bear our load,
Bear Thou our load whatever load it be;
Our guilt, our s...

We sat at twilight nigh the sea,
    The fog hung gray and weird.
Through the thick film uncannily
    The broken moon appeared.


We heard the billows crack and plunge,
    We saw nor waves nor ships.
Earth sucked the vapors like a sponge,
    The salt spray wet our lips.


Closer the woof of white mist drew,
    Before, behind, beside.
How could that phantom moon break through,
    Above that shrouded tide?


The roaring waters filled the ear,
    A white blank foiled the sight.
Close-gathering shadows near, more near,
    Brought the blind, awful night.


O friends who passed unseen, unknown!
    O dashing, troubled sea!
Still stand we on a rock alone,
Walled round by mystery.

I've heard, there was in ancient days
    A Lyre of most melodious spell;
'Twas heaven to hear its fairy lays,
    If half be true that legends tell.

'Twas played on by the gentlest sighs,
    And to their breath it breathed again
In such entrancing melodies
    As ear had never drunk till then!

Not harmony's serenest touch
    So stilly could the notes prolong;
They were not heavenly song so much
    As they were dreams of heavenly song!

If sad the heart, whose murmuring air
    Along the chords in languor stole,
The numbers it awakened there
    Were eloquence from pity's soul.

Or if the sigh, serene and light,
    Was but the breath of fancied woes,
The string, that felt its airy flight,
    Soon whispered it to kind r...

Fair little scout, that when the iron year
Changes, and the first fleecy clouds deploy,
Comest with such a sudden burst of joy,
Lifting on winter's doomed and broken rear
That song of silvery triumph blithe and clear;
Not yet quite conscious of the happy glow,
We hungered for some surer touch, and lo!
One morning we awake, and thou art here.
And thousands of frail-stemmed hepaticas,
With their crisp leaves and pure and perfect hues,
Light sleepers, ready for the golden news,
Spring at thy note beside the forest ways -
Next to thy song, the first to deck the hour -
The classic lyrist and the classic flower.

I.

    Cease, Augusta! cease thy mourning,
        Happy days appear,
    Godlike Albion is returning,
        Loyal hearts to cheer!
    Every grace his youth adorning,
    Glorious as the star of morning,
        Or the planet of the year.

II.

    Albion, by the nymph attended,
    Was to Neptune recommended,
        Peace and plenty spread the sails:
    Venus, in her shell before him,
    From the sands in safety bore him,
        And supplied Etesian gales.
    Archon on the shore commanding,
    Lowly met him at his landing,
        Crowds of people swarm'd around;
    Welcome, rang like peals of thunder,
    Welcome, rent the skies asunder,
        Welcome, heaven and earth resound.

III.

    In...

On your midnight pallet lying
Listen, and undo the door:
Lads that waste the light in sighing
In the dark should sigh no more;
Night should ease a lover's sorrow;
Therefore, since I go to-morrow;
Pity me before.

In the land to which I travel,
The far dwelling, let me say-
Once, if here the couch is gravel,
In a kinder bed I lay,
And the breast the darnel smothers
Rested once upon another's
When it was not clay.

'We' have not passed into a doleful City,
We who were led to-day down a grim dell,
By some too boldly named "the Jaws of Hell:"
Where be the wretched ones, the sights for pity?
These crowded streets resound no plaintive ditty:
As from the hive where bees in summer dwell,
Sorrow seems here excluded; and that knell,
It neither damps the gay, nor checks the witty.
Alas! too busy Rival of old Tyre,
Whose merchants Princes were, whose decks were thrones;
Soon may the punctual sea in vain respire
To serve thy need, in union with that Clyde
Whose nursling current brawls o'er mossy stones,
The poor, the lonely, herdsman's joy and pride.

Oft let me wander hand in hand with Thought,
In woodland paths, and lone sequester'd shades,
What time the sunny banks and mossy glades,
With dewy wreaths of early violets wrought,
Into the air their fragrant incense fling,
To greet the triumph of the youthful Spring.
Lo, where she comes! 'scaped from the icy lair
Of hoary Winter; wanton, free, and fair!
Now smile the heavens again upon the earth,
Bright hill, and bosky dell, resound with mirth,
And voices, full of laughter and wild glee,
Shout through the air pregnant with harmony;
And wake poor sobbing Echo, who replies
With sleepy voice, that softly, slowly dies.

Since hired for life, thy servile Muse must sing
Successive conquests and a glorious King;
Must of a man immortal vainly boast,
And bring him laurels whatsoe'er they cost,
What turn wilt thou employ, what colours lay,
On the event of that superior day,
In which one English subject's prosperous hand
(So Jove did will, so Anna did command)
Broke the proud column of thy master's praise,
Which sixty winters had conspired to raise?
From the lost field a hundred standards brought
Must be the work of Chance, and Fortune's fault.
Bavaria's stars must be accused, which shone,
That fatal day the mighty work was done,
With rays oblique upon the Gallic sun.
Some demon envying France misled the sight,
And Mars mistook, though Louis order'd right.
When thy young Muse i...

When Advent dawns with lessening days,
While earth awaits the angels' hymn;
When bare as branching coral sways
In whistling winds each leafless limb;
When spring is but a spendthrift's dream,
And summer's wealth a wasted dower,
Nor dews nor sunshine may redeem, -
Then autumn coins his Golden Flower.

Soft was the violet's vernal hue,
Fresh was the rose's morning red,
Full-orbed the stately dahlia grew, -
All gone! their short-lived splendors shed.
The shadows, lengthening, stretch at noon;
The fields are stripped, the groves are dumb;
The frost-flowers greet the icy moon, -
Then blooms the bright chrysanthemum.

The stiffening turf is white with snow,
Yet still its radiant disks are seen
Where soon the hallowed morn will show
The wreat...

Recalling R. T.


Who would have thought
That, not having missed her
Talks, tears, laughter
In absence, or sought
To recall for so long
Her gamut of song;
Or ever to waft her
Signal of aught
That she, fancy-fanned,
Would well understand,
I should have kissed her
Picture when scanned
Yawning years after!

Yet, seeing her poor
Dim-outlined form
Chancewise at night-time,
Some old allure
Came on me, warm,
Fresh, pleadful, pure,
As in that bright time
At a far season
Of love and unreason,
And took me by storm
Here in this blight-time!

And thus it arose
That, yawning years after
Our early flows
Of wit and laughter,
And framing of rhymes
At idle times,
At sight of her pain...

I

Beneath the vine-clad eaves,
Whose shadows fall before
Thy lowly cottage door,
Under the lilac's tremulous leaves,
Within thy snowy clasped hand
The purple flowers it bore.
Last eve in dreams, I saw thee stand,
Like queenly nymph from Fairy-land,
Enchantress of the flowery wand,
Most beauteous Isadore!


II

And when I bade the dream
Upon thy spirit flee,
Thy violet eyes to me
Upturned, did overflowing seem
With the deep, untold delight
Of Love's serenity;
Thy classic brow, like lilies white
And pale as the Imperial Night
Upon her throne, with stars bedight,
Enthralled my soul to thee!


III

Ah! ever I behold
Thy dreamy, passionate eyes,
Blue as the languid skies
Hung with...

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.