Betrayal

O Love! divinest dream of youth,
Thy day of ecstacy is o'er,
My bosom, touch'd by time and truth,
Thrills at thy dear deceits no more.

Nor thou, Ambition! e'er again,
With splendour dazzling to betray,
And aspirations fierce and vain,
Shall tempt my steps--away! away!

Alas! by stern Experience cleft,
When life's romance is turn'd to sport;
If man hath consolation left
On this side death--'tis good old port.

And thou, Advice! who glum and chill,
Do'st the third bottle still gainsay;
Smile, and partake it, if you will,
But if you wont--away! away!

Here's to temptation!
Give us strength and grace
Against her witching smile,
To set our face!

I had not seen my son's dear face
(He chose the cloister by God's grace)
    Since it had come to full flower-time.
    I hardly guessed at its perfect prime,
That folded flower of his dear face.

Mine eyes were veiled by mists of tears
When on a day in many years
    One of his Order came.    I thrilled,
    Facing, I thought, that face fulfilled.
I doubted, for my mists of tears.

His blessing be with me for ever!
My hope and doubt were hard to sever.
    --That altered face, those holy weeds.
    I filled his wallet and kissed his beads,
And lost his echoing feet for ever.

If to my son my alms were given
I know not, and I wait for Heaven.
    He did not plead for child of mine,
    But for another Child divine,
And unto Him it...

We are desert leagues apart;
Time is misty ages now
Since the warmth of heart to heart
Chased the shadows from my brow.

Oh, I am so old, meseems
I am next of kin to Time,
The historian of her dreams
From the long forgotten prime.

You have come a path of flowers.
What a way was mine to roam!
Many a fallen empire's towers,
Many a ruined heart my home.

No, there is no comfort, none;
All the dewy tender breath
Idly falls when life is done
On the starless brow of death.

Though the dream of love may tire,
In the ages long agone
There were ruby hearts of fire--
Ah, the daughters of the dawn!

Though I am so feeble now,
I remember when our pride
Could not to the Mighty bow;
We would sweep His stars aside....

        I plucked a fair flower that grew
In the shadow of summer's green trees -
                A rose petalled flower,
                Of all in the bower,
        Best beloved of the bee and the breeze
I plucked it, and kissed it, and called it my own -
        This beautiful, beautiful flower
That alone in the cool, tender shadow had grown,
        Fairest and first in the bower

        Then a murmur I heard at my feet -
        A pensive and sorrowful sound,
                And I stooped me to hear,
                While tear after tear
        Rained down from my eyes to the ground,
                As I, listening, heard
                This sorrowful word,
        So breathing of anguish profound: -

        "I have gathered the fairest...

    The Protecting Tree
        Of the men of the land of Fál!
    What aileth thee,
        And why is it that all
    About thee grieves?

    Alas, O Tree of the Leaves!
        Here is thy rhyme:
    Thy bloom is lightened;
    And if thy fruit be withered
    Thy root hath not tightened
        At the same time.

    Not since the Gael was sold
    At Aughrim.    Not since to cold,
    Dull death went Owen Roe;
    Not since the drowning of Clann Adam in the days of Noe
        Brought men to hush,
    Has such a tale of woe come to us
        In such a rush.

    The true flower of the blood of the place is fallen:
    The true clean-wheat of the Gael is reaped.

    Destruction be upon Death,
        For he h...

I had remarked--how sharply one observes
When life is disappearing round the curves
Of yet another corner, out of sight!--
I had remarked when it was "good luck" and "good night"
And "a good journey to you," on her face
Certain enigmas penned in the hieroglyphs
Of that half frown and queer fixed smile and trace
Of clouded thought in those brown eyes,
Always so happily clear of hows and ifs--
My poor bleared mind!--and haunting whys.

There I stood, holding her farewell hand,
(Pressing my life and soul and all
The world to one good-bye, till, small
And smaller pressed, why there I'd stand
Dead when they vanished with the sight of her).
And I saw that she had grown aware,
Queer puzzled face! of other things
Beyond the present and her own young speed,

I see the ghost of a perished day;
I know his face, and the feel of his dawn:
'Twas he who took me far away
To a spot strange and gray:
Look at me, Day, and then pass on,
But come again: yes, come anon!

Enters another into view;
His features are not cold or white,
But rosy as a vein seen through:
Too soon he smiles adieu.
Adieu, O ghost-day of delight;
But come and grace my dying sight.

Enters the day that brought the kiss:
He brought it in his foggy hand
To where the mumbling river is,
And the high clematis;
It lent new colour to the land,
And all the boy within me manned.

Ah, this one. Yes, I know his name,
He is the day that wrought a shine
Even on a precinct common and tame,
As 'twere of purposed aim.
He show...

    We're travelling down a carnival road, are met at intersections by
    varying faces: poets as eyes in collapsed black holes, even the
    universe as extension of the stellar poet. Then, they are transformed,
    become worm-pickers, masons, longshoremen who subsidize their
    poetry with the real task at hand: making waste, laying trestles
    instead of women to prove a point.

    This is necessary. I'm defending it, find it both believable and
    interesting. Meanwhile, troubadours and wandering minstrels eke
    out a living on storybook memories, join Marco Polo if he ever
    lived. Seek out the Great Khan in a box of cookies or within a
    magnum of champagne depending on circumstances.

    The Grand    Lunar is watching. Her pallor commands true poets to

Fair Ellayne she walk'd by Welland river,
    Across the lily lee:
O, gentle Sir Robert, ye are not kind
    To stay so long at sea.

Over the marshland none can see
    Your scarlet pennon fair;
O, leave the Easterlings alone,
    Because of my golden hair.

The day when over Stamford bridge
    That dear pennon I see
Go up toward the goodly street,
    'Twill be a fair day for me.

O, let the bonny pennon bide
    At Stamford, the good town,
And let the Easterlings go free,
    And their ships go up and down.

For every day that passes by
    I wax both pale and green,
From gold to gold of my girdle
    There is an inch between.

I sew'd it up with scarlet silk
    Last night upon my knee,
And my heart g...

Who and what gave to me the wish to woo thee
Still, lip to lip, to cling for aye unto thee?
Who made thy glances to my soul the link
Who bade me burn thy very breath to drink
    My life in thine to sink?
As from the conqueror's unresisted glaive,
Flies, without strife subdued, the ready slave
So, when to life's unguarded fort, I see
Thy gaze draw near and near triumphantly
    Yields not my soul to thee?
Why from its lord doth thus my soul depart?
Is it because its native home thou art?
Or were they brothers in the days of yore,
Twin-bound both souls, and in the link they bore
    Sigh to be bound once more?
Were once our beings blent and intertwining,
And therefore still my heart for thine is pining?
Knew we the light of some extinguished sun
The j...

Youth's gay springtime scarcely knowing
Went I forth the world to roam
And the dance of youth, the glowing,
Left I in my father's home,
Of my birthright, glad-believing,
Of my world-gear took I none,
Careless as an infant, cleaving
To my pilgrim staff alone.
For I placed my mighty hope in
Dim and holy words of faith,
"Wander forth the way is open,
Ever on the upward path
Till thou gain the golden portal,
Till its gates unclose to thee.
There the earthly and the mortal,
Deathless and divine shall be!"
Night on morning stole, on stealeth,
Never, never stand I still,
And the future yet concealeth,
What I seek, and what I will!
Mount on mount arose before me,
Torrents hemmed me every side,
But I built a bridge that bore me
O'er t...

Caught Susanner whistlin'; well,
It's most nigh too good to tell.
'Twould 'a' b'en too good to see
Ef it had n't b'en fur me,
Comin' up so soft an' sly
That she didn' hear me nigh.
I was pokin' 'round that day,
An' ez I come down the way,
First her whistle strikes my ears,--
Then her gingham dress appears;
So with soft step up I slips.
Oh, them dewy, rosy lips!
Ripe ez cherries, red an' round,
Puckered up to make the sound.
She was lookin' in the spring,
Whistlin' to beat anything,--
"Kitty Dale" er "In the Sweet."
I was jest so mortal beat
That I can't quite ricoleck
What the toon was, but I 'speck
'T was some hymn er other, fur
Hymny things is jest like her.
Well she went on fur awhile
With her face all in a smile,
An'...

Thou sail'st with others in this Argus here;
Nor wreck or bulging thou hast cause to fear;
But trust to this, my noble passenger;
Who swims with virtue, he shall still be sure
(Ulysses-like) all tempests to endure,
And 'midst a thousand gulfs to be secure.

Whence comest thou? shady lane, and why and how?
Thou, where with idle heart, ten years ago,
I wandered, and with childhood’s paces slow
So long unthought of, and remembered now!
Again in vision clear thy pathwayed side
I tread, and view thy orchard plots again
With yellow fruitage hung,—and glimmering grain
Standing or shocked through the thick hedge espied.
This hot still noon of August brings the sight;
This quelling silence as of eve or night,
Wherein Earth (feeling as a mother may
After her travail’s latest bitterest throes)
Looks up, so seemeth it, one half repose,
One half in effort, straining, suffering still.

And because you love me
think you you do not hate me?
Ha, since you love me to ecstasy
it follows you hate me to ecstasy.

Because when you hear me
go down the road outside the house
you must come to the window to watch me go,
do you think it is pure worship?

Because, when I sit in the room,
here, in my own house,
and you want to enlarge yourself with this friend of mine,
such a friend as he is,
yet you cannot get beyond your awareness of me
you are held back by my being in the same world with you,
do you think it is bliss alone?
sheer harmony?

No doubt if I were dead, you must
reach into death after me,
but would not your hate reach even more madly than your love?
your impassioned, unfinished hate?

Since you have a p...

Solea lontana in sonno consolarme.

SHE ANNOUNCES TO HIM, IN A VISION, THAT HE WILL NEVER SEE HER MORE.


    To soothe me distant far, in days gone by,
With dreams of one whose glance all heaven combined,
Was mine; now fears and sorrow haunt my mind,
Nor can I from that grief, those terrors fly:
For oft in sleep I mark within her eye
Deep pity with o'erwhelming sadness join'd;
And oft I seem to hear on every wind
Accents, which from my breast chase peace and joy.
"That last dark eve," she cries, "remember'st thou,
When to those doting eyes I bade farewell,
Forced by the time's relentless tyranny?
I had not then the power, nor heart to tell,
What thou shalt find, alas! too surely true--
Hope not again on earth thy Laura's face to see."

        Go tell Amynta, gentle swain,
        I would not die, nor dare complain:
        Thy tuneful voice with numbers join,
        Thy words will more prevail than mine.
        To souls oppress'd and dumb with grief,
        The gods ordain this kind relief;
        That music should in sounds convey,
        What dying lovers dare not say.

        A sigh or tear perhaps she'll give,
        But love on pity cannot live.
        Tell her that hearts for hearts were made,
        And love with love is only paid.
        Tell her my pains so fast increase,
        That soon they will be past redress;
        But ah! the wretch that speechless lies,
        Attends but death to close his eyes.