Betrayal

O' Lyric Love, half angel and half bird,
And all a wonder and a wild desire,
Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun,
Took sanctuary within the holier blue,
And sang a kindred soul out to his face,
Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart
When the first summons from the darkling earth
Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue,
And bared them of the glory to drop down,
To toil for man, to suffer or to die,
This is the same voice: can thy soul know change?
Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help!
Never may I commence my song, my due
To God who best taught song by gift of thee,
Except with bent head and beseeching hand
That still, despite the distance and the dark,
What was, again may be; some interchange
Of grace, some splendor once thy ve...

Look now on that Adventurer who hath paid
His vows to Fortune; who, in cruel slight
Of virtuous hope, of liberty, and right,
Hath followed wheresoe'er a way was made
By the blind Goddess, ruthless, undismayed;
And so hath gained at length a prosperous height,
Round which the elements of worldly might
Beneath his haughty feet, like clouds, are laid.
O joyless power that stands by lawless force!
Curses are 'his' dire portion, scorn, and hate,
Internal darkness and unquiet breath;
And, if old judgments keep their sacred course,
Him from that height shall Heaven precipitate
By violent and ignominious death.

    John.        I’m glad I walk’d.        How fresh the meadows look
Above the river, and, but a month ago,
The whole hill-side was redder than a fox.
Is yon plantation where this byway joins
The turnpike?
    James.    Yes.
    John.        And when does this come by?
    James.    The mail? At one o’clock.
    John.        What is it now?
    James.    A quarter to.
    John.        Whose house is that I see?
No, not the County Member’s with the vane:
Up higher with the yew-tree by it, and half
A score of gables.
    James.    That?        Sir Edward Head’s:
But he’s abroad: the place is to be sold.
    John.        Oh, his. He was not broken.
    James.    No, sir, he,
Vex’d with a morbid devil in his blood
That veil’d the world with jaundic...

Dear Master in our classic town,
You, loved by all the younger gown
There at Balliol,
Lay your Plato for one minute down,

II

And read a Grecian tale re-told,
Which, cast in later Grecian mould,
Quintus Calaber
Somewhat lazily handled of old;

III

And on this white midwinter day—
For have the far-off hymns of May,
All her melodies,
All her harmonies echo’d away?—

IV

To-day, before you turn again
To thoughts that lift the soul of men,
Hear my cataract’s
Downward thunder in hollow and glen,

V

Till, led by dream and vague desire,
The woman, gliding toward the pyre,
Find her warrior
Stark and dark in his funeral fire.

I.

Dead!
And the Muses cried with a stormy cry
‘Send them no more, for evermore.
Let the people die.’


II.

Dead!
‘Is it he then brought so low?’
And a careless people flock’d from the fields
With a purse to pay for the show.


III.

Dead, who had served his time,
Was one of the people’s kings,
Had labour’d in lifting them out of slime,
And showing them, souls have wings!


IV.

Dumb on the winter heath he lay.
His friends had stript him bare,
And roll’d his nakedness everyway
That all the crowd might stare.


V.

A storm-worn signpost not to be read,
And a tree with a moulder’d nest
On its barkless bones, stood stark by the dead;
And behind him, low in t...

I was in Greece. It was the hour of noon,
And the Ægean wind had dropped asleep
Upon Hymettus, and the thymy isles
Of Salamis and Ægina lay hung
Like clouds upon the bright and breathless sea.
I had climbed up th’ Acropolis at morn,
And hours had fled as time will in a dream
Amid its deathless ruins, for the air
Is full of spirits in these mighty fanes,
And they walk with you! As it sultrier grew,
I laid me down within a shadow deep
Of a tall column of the Parthenon,
And in an absent idleness of thought
I scrawled upon the smooth and marble base.
Tell me, O memory, what wrote I there?
The name of a sweet child I knew at Rome!

I was in Asia. ’Twas a peerless night
Upon the plains of Sardis, and the moon,
Touching my eyelids through the wind-stir...

There are sounds of mirth in the night-air ringing,
    And lamps from every casement shown;
While voices blithe within are singing,
    That seem to say "Come," in every tone.
Ah! once how light, in Life's young season,
    My heart had leapt at that sweet lay;
Nor paused to ask of graybeard Reason
    Should I the syren call obey.

And, see--the lamps still livelier glitter,
    The syren lips more fondly sound;
No, seek, ye nymphs, some victim fitter
    To sink in your rosy bondage bound.
Shall a bard, whom not the world in arms
    Could bend to tyranny's rude control,
Thus quail at sight of woman's charms
    And yield to a smile his freeborn soul?

Thus sung the sage, while, slyly stealing,
    The nymphs their fetters around him cast,

Pure element of waters! wheresoe'er
Thou dost forsake thy subterranean haunts,
Green herbs, bright flowers, and berry-bearing plants,
Rise into life and in thy train appear:
And, through the sunny portion of the year,
Swift insects shine, thy hovering pursuivants:
And, if thy bounty fail, the forest pants;
And hart and hind and hunter with his spear,
Languish and droop together. Nor unfelt
In man's perturbed soul thy sway benign;
And, haply, far within the marble belt
Of central earth, where tortured Spirits pine
For grace and goodness lost, thy murmurs melt
Their anguish, and they blend sweet songs with thine.

    Gather the harvest though reaped in death,
        Under the pale, pale moon;
    For the lilies that joyed in the breath of morn
        Shall know not the ardor of noon:
    So, the souls that grow strong, in patriot love,
        Shall be garnered on Death's dark field,
    Ere the noontide rays have touched the vale
        And burnished with gold life's shield.

    Gather the harvest though reaped in death,
        Where the sword has struck for Right,
    And cleft a way for Freedom's path,
        Through the dark and tremulous night:
    For the golden grain on the altar flames
        And lights each pilgrim throng,
    As they meet in joy 'round that altar bright
        Where Justice shall right each wrong.

    For Miss Helen Merr...