Betrayal

She said, and for her lost Calanthis sighs,
When the fair Consort of her son replies.
"Since you a servant's ravish'd form bemoan,
And kindly sigh for sorrows not your own;
Let me (if tears and grief permit) relate
A nearer woe, a sister's stranger fate.
No Nymph of all OEchalia could compare
For beauteous form with Dryope the fair,
Her tender mother's only hope and pride,
(Myself the offspring of a second bride)
This Nymph compress'd by him who rules the day,
Whom Delphi and the Delian isle obey,
Andraemon lov'd; and, bless'd in all those charms
That pleas'd a God, succeeded to her arms.
"A lake there was, with shelving banks around,
Whose verdant summit fragrant myrtles crown'd.
These shades, unknowing of the fates, she sought,
And to the Naiads flow'ry...

King Leir once ruled in this land
With princely power and peace,
And had all things with hearts content,
That might his joys increase.
Amongst those things that nature gave,
Three daughters fair had he,
So princely seeming beautiful,
As fairer could not be.

So on a time it pleas'd the king
A question thus to move,
Which of his daughters to his grace
Could shew the dearest love:
"For to my age you bring content,"
Quoth he, "then let me hear,
Which of you three in plighted troth
The kindest will appear."

To whom the eldest thus began:
"Dear father, mind," quoth she,
"Before your face, to do you good,
My blood shall render'd be.
And for your sake my bleeding heart
Shall here be cut in twain,
Ere that I see your reverend a...

When evening's shadowy fingers fold
The flowers of every hue,
Some shy, half-opened bud will hold
Its drop of morning's dew.

Sweeter with every sunlit hour
The trembling sphere has grown,
Till all the fragrance of the flower
Becomes at last its own.

We that have sung perchance may find
Our little meed of praise,
And round our pallid temples bind
The wreath of fading bays.

Ah, Poet, who hast never spent
Thy breath in idle strains,
For thee the dewdrop morning lent
Still in thy heart remains;

Unwasted, in its perfumed cell
It waits the evening gale;
Then to the azure whence it fell
Its lingering sweets exhale.

I.

First I asked the honeybee,
Busy in the balmy bowers;
Saying, "Sweetheart, tell it me:
Have you seen her, honeybee?
She is cousin to the flowers
All the sweetness of the south
In her wild-rose face and mouth."
But the bee passed silently.

II.

Then I asked the forest bird,
Warbling by the woodland waters;
Saying, "Dearest, have you heard?
Have you heard her, forest bird?
She is one of music's daughters
Never song so sweet by half
As the music of her laugh."
But the bird said not a word.

III.

Next I asked the evening sky,
Hanging out its lamps of fire;
Saying, "Loved one, passed she by?
Tell me, tell me, evening sky!
She, the star of my desire
Sister whom the Pleiads lost,
And my soul'...

'Tis easier far a wreath to bind,
Than a good owner fort to find.
-
I kill'd a thousand flies overnight,
Yet was waken'd by one, as soon as twas light.
-
To the mother I give;
For the daughter I live.
-
A breach is every day,

By many a mortal storm'd;
Let them fall in the gaps as they may,

Yet a heap of dead is ne'er form'd.
-
What harm has thy poor mirror done, alas?
Look not so ugly, prythee, in the glass!

Oh, deem not they are blest alone
Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep;
The Power who pities man, has shown
A blessing for the eyes that weep.

The light of smiles shall fill again
The lids that overflow with tears;
And weary hours of woe and pain
Are promises of happier years.

There is a day of sunny rest
For every dark and troubled night;
And grief may bide an evening guest,
But joy shall come with early light.

And thou, who, o'er thy friend's low bier,
Sheddest the bitter drops like rain,
Hope that a brighter, happier sphere
Will give him to thy arms again.

Nor let the good man's trust depart,
Though life its common gifts deny,
Though with a pierced and broken heart,
And spurned of men, he goes to die.

For God h...

    O silly love! O cunning love!
    An old maid to trepan:
    I cannot go about my work
    For loving of a man.
    I cannot bake, I cannot brew,
    And, do the best I can,
    I burn the bread and chill the mash,
    Through loving of a man.

    Shrove Tuesday last I tried, and tried,
    To turn the cakes in pan,
    And dropt the batter on the floor,
    Through thinking of a man.
    My mistress screamed, my master swore,
    Boys cursed me in a troop;
    The cat was all the friends I had,
    Who helped to clean it up.

    Last Christmas eve, from off the spit
    I took the goose to table,
    Or should have done, but teasing Love
    Did make me quite unable;
    And down slipt dish, and goose, and all
    With...

When you shall see me in the toils of Time,
My lauded beauties carried off from me,
My eyes no longer stars as in their prime,
My name forgot of Maiden Fair and Free;

When in your being heart concedes to mind,
And judgment, though you scarce its process know,
Recalls the excellencies I once enshrined,
And you are irked that they have withered so:

Remembering that with me lies not the blame,
That Sportsman Time but rears his brood to kill,
Knowing me in my soul the very same -
One who would die to spare you touch of ill! -
Will you not grant to old affection's claim
The hand of friendship down Life's sunless hill?

1866.

When winds of March by the springtime bidden
    Over the great earth race and shout,
Forth from my breast where it long hath hidden
    My same old sorrow comes creeping out.

I think each winter -its life is ended,
    For it makes no stir while the snows lie deep.
I say to myself, 'Its soul has blended
    Into the past where it lay asleep.'

But as soon as the sun, like some fond lover,
    Smiles and kisses the earth's round cheeks,
This sad, sad sorrow throws off its cover,
    And out of the depths of its anguish, speaks.

In every bud by the wayside springing
    It finds a sword for its half-healed wounds;
In every note that the thrush is singing
    It hears the saddest of minor sounds.

In the cup of gold that the sun is spilling...

There is no rhyme that is half so sweet
As the song of the wind in the rippling wheat;
There is no metre that's half so fine
As the lilt of the brook under rock and vine;
And the loveliest lyric I ever heard
Was the wildwood strain of a forest bird.--
If the wind and the brook and the bird would teach
My heart their beautiful parts of speech.
And the natural art that they say these with,
My soul would sing of beauty and myth
In a rhyme and a metre that none before
Have sung in their love, or dreamed in their lore,
And the world would be richer one poet the more.

Along the waste, a great way off, the pines,
Like tall slim priests of storm, stand up and bar
The low long strip of dolorous red that lines
The under west, where wet winds moan afar.
The cornfields all are brown, and brown the meadows
With the blown leaves' wind-heapèd traceries,
And the brown thistle stems that cast no shadows,
And bear no bloom for bees.

As slowly earthward leaf by red leaf slips,
The sad trees rustle in chill misery,
A soft strange inner sound of pain-crazed lips,
That move and murmur incoherently;
As if all leaves, that yet have breath, were sighing,
With pale hushed throats, for death is at the door,
So many low soft masses for the dying
Sweet leaves that live no more.

Here I will sit upon this naked stone,
Draw my coat ...

I.

One do I see and twelve; but second there
Methinks I know thee, thou beloved one;
Not from thy nobler port, for there are none
More quiet-featured: some there are who bear
Their message on their brows, while others wear
A look of large commission, nor will shun
The fiery trial, so their work is done;
But thou hast parted with thine eyes in prayer--
Unearthly are they both; and so thy lips
Seem like the porches of the spirit land;
For thou hast laid a mighty treasure by
Unlocked by Him in Nature, and thine eye
Burns with a vision and apocalypse
Thy own sweet soul can hardly understand.

II.

A Boanerges too! Upon my heart
It lay a heavy hour: features like thine
Should glow with other message than the shine
Of the earth-burrowi...

Ho! workers of the old time styled
The Gentle Craft of Leather!
Young brothers of the ancient guild,
Stand forth once more together!
Call out again your long array,
In the olden merry manner!
Once more, on gay St. Crispin's day,
Fling out your blazoned banner!
Rap, rap! upon the well-worn stone
How falls the polished hammer!
Rap, rap! the measured sound has grown
A quick and merry clamor.
Now shape the sole! now deftly curl
The glossy vamp around it,
And bless the while the bright-eyed girl
Whose gentle fingers bound it!
For you, along the Spanish main
A hundred keels are ploughing;
For you, the Indian on the plain
His lasso-coil is throwing;
For you, deep glens with hemlock dark
The woodman's fire is lighting;
For you, upon the o...

The yellow sky grows vivid as the sun:
The sea glittering, and the hills dun.

The stones quiver. Twenty pounds of lead
Fold upon fold, the air laps my head.

Both eyes scorch: tongue stiff and bitter:
Flies buzz, but no birds twitter:
Slow bullocks stand with stinging feet,
And naked fishes scarcely stir for heat.

White as smoke,
As jetted steam, dead clouds awoke
And quivered on the Western rim.
Then the singing started: dim
And sibilant as rime-stiff reeds
That whistle as the wind leads.
The South whispered hard and sere,
The North answered, low and clear;
And thunder muffled up like drums
Beat, whence the East wind comes.
The heavy sky that could not weep
Is loosened: rain falls steep:
And thirty singing furies ride

Once more the Church is seized with sudden fear,
And at her call is Wicliffe disinhumed:
Yea, his dry bones to ashes are consumed
And flung into the brook that travels near;
Forthwith, that ancient Voice which Streams can hear
Thus speaks (that Voice which walks upon the wind,
Though seldom heard by busy human kind)
"As thou these ashes, little Brook! wilt bear
"Into the Avon, Avon to the tide
"Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas,
"Into main Ocean they, this deed accurst
"An emblem yields to friends and enemies
"How the bold Teacher's Doctrine, sanctified
"By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed."

Pensive, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All,
Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields gazing;
(As the last gun ceased but the scent of the powder-smoke linger'd;)
As she call'd to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk'd:
Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried I charge you, lose not my sons! lose not an atom;
And you streams, absorb them well, taking their dear blood;
And you local spots, and you airs that swim above lightly,
And all you essences of soil and growth and you, my rivers' depths;
And you, mountain sides and the woods where my dear children's blood, trickling, redden'd;
And you trees, down in your roots, to bequeath to all future trees,
My dead absorb my young men's beautiful bodies absorb and their precious, precious, precious b...

Medical Unit -

Even as I see, and share with you in seeing,
The altar flame of your love's sacrifice;
And even as I bear before the hour the vision,
Your little hands in hospital and prison
Laid upon broken bodies, dying eyes,
So do I suffer for splendor of your being
Which leads you from me, and in separation
Lays on my breast the pain of memory.
Over your hands I bend
In silent adoration,
Dumb for a fear of sorrow without end,
Asking for consolation
Out of the sacrament of our separation,
And for some faithful word acceptable and true,
That I may know and keep the mystery:
That in this separation I go forth with you
And you to the world's end remain with me.

        *        *        *        *        *

How may I justify the ...

    I was enveloped in black clouds of woe,
        Woven o'er my vision by dark-veiled Despair;
        I breathed the poison of the midnight air,
    And 'neath its dank oppression wasted low.
    I staggered wildly in the gloom at first;
        And prayed in anguish that it be removed;
        Then cursed the day I saw thee - saw and loved,
    And ceased to hope the clouds would be dispersed.
    At last that Heavenly Love that rules the night
        Removed thine orbit nearer to the earth,
    And filled my soul with rapturous delight;
        And in the place of that devouring dearth,
    When I can see, though distant still, thy light,
        Blest Happiness from Hope receives her birth.