Betrayal

Son of the old Moon-mountains African!
Chief of the Pyramid and Crocodile!
We call thee fruitful, and that very while
A desert fills our seeing's inward span:
Nurse of swart nations since the world began,
Art thou so fruitful? or dost thou beguile
Such men to honour thee, who, worn with toil,
Rest for a space 'twixt Cairo and Decan?
O may dark fancies err! They surely do;
'Tis ignorance that makes a barren waste
Of all beyond itself. Thou dost bedew
Green rushes like our rivers, and dost taste
The pleasant sunrise. Green isles hast thou too,
And to the sea as happily dost haste.

Do I sleep? do I dream?
Do I wonder and doubt?
Are things what they seem?
Or is visions about?
Is our civilization a failure?
Or is the Caucasian played out?

Which expressions are strong;
Yet would feebly imply
Some account of a wrong
Not to call it a lie
As was worked off on William, my pardner,
And the same being W. Nye.

He came down to the Ford
On the very same day
Of that lottery drawed
By those sharps at the Bay;
And he says to me, “Truthful, how goes it?”
I replied, “It is far, far from gay;

“For the camp has gone wild
On this lottery game,
And has even beguiled
‘Injin Dick’ by the same.”
Then said Nye to me, “Injins is pizen:
But what is his number, eh, James?”

I replied, “7, 2,
9, 8, ...

O Power to whom this earthly clime
Is but an atom in the whole,
O Poet-heart of Space and Time,
O Maker and Immortal Soul,
Within whose glowing rings are bound,
Out of whose sleepless heart had birth
The cloudy blue, the starry round,
And this small miracle of earth:

Who liv'st in every living thing,
And all things are thy script and chart,
Who rid'st upon the eagle's wing,
And yearnest in the human heart;
O Riddle with a single clue,
Love, deathless, protean, secure,
The ever old, the ever new,
O Energy, serene and pure.

Thou, who art also part of me,
Whose glory I have sometime seen,
O Vision of the Ought-to-be,
O Memory of the Might-have-been,
I have had glimpses of thy way,
And moved with winds and walked with stars,

If when the sun at noon displays
His brighter rays,
Thou but appear,
He then, all pale with shame and fear,
Quencheth his light,
Hides his dark brow, flies from thy sight,
And grows more dim,
Compared to thee, than stars to him.
If thou but show thy face again,
When darkness doth at midnight reign,
The darkness flies, and light is hurl'd
Round about the silent world:
So as alike thou driv'st away
Both light and darkness, night and day.

    "Tell me, where do ghosts in love
    Find their bridal veils?"

    "If you and I were ghosts in love
    We'd climb the cliffs of Mystery,
    Above the sea of Wails.
    I'd trim your gray and streaming hair
    With veils of Fantasy
    From the tree of Memory.
    'Tis there the ghosts that fall in love
    Find their bridal veils."

Hark! hark! hark!
The lark sings high in the dark.
The were wolves mutter, the night hawks moan,
The raven croaks from the Raven-stone;
What care I for his boding groan,
Riding the moorland to come to mine own?
Hark! hark! hark!
The lark sings high in the dark.

Hark! hark! hark!
The lark sings high in the dark.
Long have I wander'd by land and by sea,
Long have I ridden by moorland and lea;
Yonder she sits with my babe on her knee,
Sits at the window and watches for me!
Hark! hark! hark!
The lark sings high in the dark.

Written for music, 1857.

Love in fantastic triumph sat,
Whilst bleeding hearts around him flow'd,
For whom fresh pains he did create,
And strange tyrannic power he shew'd;
From thy bright eyes he took his fire,
Which round about in sport he hurl'd;
But 'twas from mine he took desire
Enough to undo the amorous world.

From me he took his sighs and tears,
From thee his pride and cruelty;
From me his languishments and fears,
And every killing dart from thee;
Thus thou and I the God have arm'd,
And set him up a Deity;
But my poor heart alone is harm'd,
Whilst thine the victor is, and free.

Where art thou, beloved To-morrow?
When young and old, and strong and weak,
Rich and poor, through joy and sorrow,
Thy sweet smiles we ever seek, -
In thy place - ah! well-a-day!
We find the thing we fled - To-day.

    Let us forget.    What matters it that we
        Once reigned o'er happy realms of long-ago,
        And talked of love, and let our voices low,
    And ruled for some brief sessions royally?
    What if we sung, or laughed, or wept maybe?
        It has availed not anything, and so
        Let it go by that we may better know
    How poor a thing is lost to you and me.
        But yesterday I kissed your lips, and yet
    Did thrill you not enough to shake the dew
        From your drenched lids - and missed, with no regret,
    Your kiss shot back, with sharp breaths failing you;
        And so, to-day, while our worn eyes are wet
        With all this waste of tears, let us forget!

It nobbut luks like tother day,
Sin Jane an me first met;
Yet fifty years have rolled away,
But still aw dooant forget.
Th' Sundy schooil wor ovver,
An th' rain wor teemin daan
An shoo had nowt to cover
Her Sundy hat an gaan.
Aw had an umberella,
Quite big enuff for two,
Soa aw made bold to tell her,
Shoo'd be sewer to get weet throo,
Unless shoo'd share it wi' me.
Shoo blushed an sed, "Nay, Ben,
If they should see me wi' thi,
What wod yo're fowk say then?"
"Ne'er heed," says aw, "Tha need'nt care
What other fowk may say;
Ther's room for me an some to spare,
Soa let's start on us way."
Shoo tuk mi arm wi' modest grace,
We booath felt rayther shy;
But then aw'm sewer 'twor noa disgrace,
To keep her new clooas dry.
Aw trie...

A clergyman in Berkshire dwelt,
The REVEREND BERNARD POWLES,
And in his church there weekly knelt
At least a hundred souls.

There little ELLEN you might see,
The modest rustic belle;
In maidenly simplicity,
She loved her BERNARD well.

Though ELLEN wore a plain silk gown
Untrimmed with lace or fur,
Yet not a husband in the town
But wished his wife like her.

Though sterner memories might fade,
You never could forget
The child-form of that baby-maid,
The Village Violet!

A simple frightened loveliness,
Whose sacred spirit-part
Shrank timidly from worldly stress,
And nestled in your heart.

POWLES woo'd with every well-worn plan
And all the usual wiles
With which a well-schooled gentleman
A simple hear...

Oh! never will I leave my love,
My captive soul would sigh to stray,
Tho' seraph-songs its truth to prove,
Call it from earth to heaven to away.

For heaven has deign'd on earth to send
As rich a gift as it can give;
Alas! that mortal bliss must end,
For mortal man must cease to live.

Yet transient would my sorrows be
Should Delia first her breath resign;
Sweet Maid! my soul would follow thee,
For never can it part from thine.

Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!
Not to-day is to justify me, and answer what I am for;
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known,
Arouse! Arouse - for you must justify me - you must answer.

I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,
I but advance a moment, only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.

I am a man who, sauntering along, without fully stopping, turns a casual look upon you, and then averts his face,
Leaving it to you to prove and define it,
Expecting the main things from you.

Time's finger on the dial of my life
Points to high noon! and yet the half-spent day
Leaves less than half remaining, for the dark,
Bleak shadows of the grave engulf the end.
To those who burn the candle to the stick,
The sputtering socket yields but little light.
Long life is sadder than an early death.
We cannot count on ravelled threads of age
Whereof to weave a fabric.    We must use
The warp and woof the ready present yields
And toil while daylight lasts.    When I bethink
How brief the past, the future, still more brief
Calls on to action, action!    Not for me
Is time for retrospection or for dreams,
Not time for self-laudation or remorse.
Have I done nobly?    Then I must not let
Dead yesterday unborn to-morrow shame.
Have I done wrong?    Well, l...

Hope comes again, to this heart long a stranger,
    Once more she sings me her flattering strain;
But hush, gentle syren--for, ah, there's less danger
    In still suffering on, than in hoping again.

Long, long, in sorrow, too deep for repining,
    Gloomy, but tranquil, this bosom hath lain:
And joy coming now, like a sudden light shining
    O'er eyelids long darkened, would bring me but pain.

Fly then, ye visions, that Hope would shed o'er me;
    Lost to the future, my sole chance of rest
Now lies not in dreaming of bliss that's before me.
    But, ah--in forgetting how once I was blest.

The days grow shorter, the nights grow longer;
The headstones thicken along the way;
And life grows sadder, but love grows stronger,
For those who walk with us day by day.

The tear comes quicker, the laugh comes slower;
The courage is lesser to do and dare;
And the tide of joy in the heart falls lower,
And seldom covers the reefs of care.

But all true things in the world seem truer;
And the better things of earth seem best;
And friends are dearer, as friends are fewer,
And love is all, as our sun dips west.

Then let us clasp hands as we walk together,
And let us speak softly in love's sweet tone;
For no man knows on the morrow whether
We two pass on - or but one alone.

The first rain reminds me
Of the rising summer dust.
The rain doesn't remember the rain of yesteryear.
A year is a trained beast with no memories.
Soon you will again wear your harnesses,
Beautiful and embroidered, to hold
Sheer stockings: you
Mare and harnesser in one body.

The white panic of soft flesh
In the panic of a sudden vision
Of ancient saints.

The miracle of our land's speech so known
And long received, none marvel when 'tis shown!

We have such wealth as Rome at her most pride
Had not or (having) scattered not so wide;
Nor with such arrant prodigality,
Beneath her any pagan's foot let lie...
Lo! Diamond that cost some half their days
To find and t'other half to bring to blaze:
Rubies of every heat, wherethrough we scan
The fiercer and more fiery heart of man:
Emerald that with the uplifted billow vies,
And Sapphires evening remembered skies:
Pearl perfect, as immortal tears must show,
Bred, in deep waters, of a piercing woe;
And tender Turkis, so with charms y-writ,
Of woven gold, Time dares not bite on it.
Thereafter, in all manners worked and set,
Jade, coral, amber, crystal ivories, je...