Betrayal

I.

    Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon,
        How can ye bloom sae fair;
    How can ye chant, ye little birds,
        And I sae fu' o' care!

II.

    Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird,
        That sings upon the bough;
    Thou minds me o' the happy days
        When my fause love was true.

III.

    Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird,
        That sings beside thy mate;
    For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
        And wist na o' my fate.

IV.

    Aft hae I rov'd by bonnie Doon,
        To see the woodbine twine,
    And ilka bird sang o' its love;
        And sae did I o' mine.

V.

    Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
        Frae aff its thorny tree:
    An...

You say you're glad I write - oh, say not so!
    My fount of song, dear friend, 's a bitter well;
And when the numbers freely from it flow,
    'Tis that my heart, and eyes, o'erflow as well.

Castalia, fam'd of yore, - the spring divine,
    Apollo's smile upon its current wears:
Moore and Anacreon, found its waves were wine,
    To me, it flows a sullen stream of tears.

One, where the pale sea foamed at the yellow sand,
With wave upon slowly shattering wave,
Turned to the city of towers as evening fell;
And slowly walked by the darkening road toward it;
And saw how the towers darkened against the sky;
And across the distance heard the toll of a bell.

Along the darkening road he hurried alone,
With his eyes cast down,
And thought how the streets were hoarse with a tide of people,
With clamor of voices, and numberless faces . . .
And it seemed to him, of a sudden, that he would drown
Here in the quiet of evening air,
These empty and voiceless places . . .
And he hurried towards the city, to enter there.

Along the darkening road, between tall trees
That made a sinister whisper, loudly he walked.
Behind him, sea-gulls...

Let us be drunk, and for a while forget,
Forget, and, ceasing even from regret,
Live without reason and despite of rhyme,
As in a dream preposterous and sublime,
Where place and hour and means for once are met.

Where is the use of effort?    Love and debt
And disappointment have us in a net.
Let us break out, and taste the morning prime . . .
Let us be drunk.

In vain our little hour we strut and fret,
And mouth our wretched parts as for a bet:
We cannot please the tragicaster Time.
To gain the crystal sphere, the silver dime,
Where Sympathy sits dimpling on us yet,
Let us be drunk!



***



When you are old, and I am passed away -
Passed, and your face, your golden face, is gray -
I think, whate'er the end, ...

The pledge of Friendship! it is still divine,
Though watery floods have quenched its burning wine;
Whatever vase the sacred drops may hold,
The gourd, the shell, the cup of beaten gold,
Around its brim the hand of Nature throws
A garland sweeter than the banquet's rose.
Bright are the blushes of the vine-wreathed bowl,
Warm with the sunshine of Anacreon's soul,
But dearer memories gild the tasteless wave
That fainting Sidney perished as he gave.
'T is the heart's current lends the cup its glow,
Whate'er the fountain whence the draught may flow, -
The diamond dew-drops sparkling through the sand,
Scooped by the Arab in his sunburnt hand,
Or the dark streamlet oozing from the snow,
Where creep and crouch the shuddering Esquimaux;
Ay, in the stream that, ere agai...

I am a shell. From me you shall not hear
The splendid tramplings of insistent drums,
The orbed gold of the viol's voice that comes,
Heavy with radiance, languorous and clear.
Yet, if you hold me close against the ear,
A dim, far whisper rises clamorously,
The thunderous beat and passion of the sea,
The slow surge of the tides that drown the mere.

Others with subtle hands may pluck the strings,
Making even Love in music audible,
And earth one glory. I am but a shell
That moves, not of itself, and moving sings;
Leaving a fragrance, faint as wine new-shed,
A tremulous murmur from great days long dead.

"I have no master," said the Blind Boy,
"My mother, 'Dame Venus' they do call;
Cowled in this hood she sent me begging
For whate'er in pity may befall.

"Hard was her visage, me adjuring, -
'Have no fond mercy on the kind!
Here be sharp arrows, bunched in quiver,
Draw close ere striking - thou art blind.'

"So stand I here, my woes entreating,
In this dark alley, lest the Moon
Point with her sparkling my barbed armoury
Shine on my silver-lacèd shoon.

"Oh, sir, unkind this Dame to me-ward;
Of the salt billow was her birth ...
In your sweet charity draw nearer
The saddest rogue on Earth!"

None ever knew his name,
Honoured, or one of shame,
Highborn or lowly;
Only upon that tree
Two letters, J and C,
Carved by him, mark where he
Lay dying slowly.

Why came he to the West?
Had then the parent nest
Grown so distasteful?
What cause had he to shun
Life, ere ’twas well begun?
Was he that youngest son,
Of substance wasteful?

Were Fate and he at War?
Was it a pennance, or
Renunciation?
Is it a glad release?
Has he at length found peace,
Now Death hath bid him cease
Peregrination?

Hands white, without a blot,
Told us that he was not
One of “the vulgar.”
What can those cyphers be?
Two only, J and C.
Carved in his agony
Deep in the mulga.

Was there no woman’s face
Whos...

Alone! alone! How drear it is
    Always to be alone!
In such a depth of wilderness,
    The only thinking one!
The waters in their path rejoice,
    The trees together sleep -
But I have not one silver voice
    Upon my ear to creep!

The sun upon the silent hills
    His mesh of beauty weaves,
There's music in the laughing rills
    And in the whispering leaves.
The red deer like the breezes fly
    To meet the bounding roe,
But I have not a human sigh
    To cheer me as I go.

I've hated men - I hate them now -
    But, since they are not here,
I thirst for the familiar brow -
    Thirst for the stealing tear.
And I should love to see the one,
    And feel the other creep,
And then again I'd be alone
    Amid the...

I thought you a fire
On Heron-Plantation Hill,
Dealing out mischief the most dire
To the chattels of men of hire
There in their vill.

But by and by
You turned a yellow-green,
Like a large glow-worm in the sky;
And then I could descry
Your mood and mien.

How well I know
Your furtive feminine shape!
As if reluctantly you show
You nude of cloud, and but by favour throw
Aside its drape . . .

How many a year
Have you kept pace with me,
Wan Woman of the waste up there,
Behind a hedge, or the bare
Bough of a tree!

No novelty are you,
O Lady of all my time,
Veering unbid into my view
Whether I near Death's mew,
Or Life's top cyme!

1

When the pine tosses its cones
To the song of its waterfall tones,
Who speeds to the woodland walks?
To birds and trees who talks?
Caesar of his leafy Rome,
There the poet is at home.
He goes to the river-side,--
Not hook nor line hath he;
He stands in the meadows wide,--
Nor gun nor scythe to see.
Sure some god his eye enchants:
What he knows nobody wants.
In the wood he travels glad,
Without better fortune had,
Melancholy without bad.
Knowledge this man prizes best
Seems fantastic to the rest:
Pondering shadows, colors, clouds,
Grass-buds and caterpillar-shrouds,
Boughs on which the wild bees settle,
Tints that spot the violet's petal,
Why Nature loves the number five,
And why the star-form she repeats:
Lover o...

If you could sit with me beside the sea to-day,
And whisper with me sweetest dreamings o'er and o'er;
I think I should not find the clouds so dim and gray,
And not so loud the waves complaining at the shore.

If you could sit with me upon the shore to-day,
And hold my hand in yours as in the days of old,
I think I should not mind the chill baptismal spray,
Nor find my hand and heart and all the world so cold.

If you could walk with me upon the strand to-day,
And tell me that my longing love had won your own,
I think all my sad thoughts would then be put away,
And I could give back laughter for the Ocean's moan!

Follow to the deep wood's weeds,
Follow to the wild-briar dingle,
Where we seek to intermingle,
And the violet tells her tale
To the odour-scented gale,
For they two have enough to do
Of such work as I and you.

At a lonely cross where bye-roads met
I sat upon a gate;
I saw the sun decline and set,
And still was fain to wait.

A trotting boy passed up the way
And roused me from my thought;
I called to him, and showed where lay
A spot I shyly sought.

"A summer-house fair stands hidden where
You see the moonlight thrown;
Go, tell me if within it there
A lady sits alone."

He half demurred, but took the track,
And silence held the scene;
I saw his figure rambling back;
I asked him if he had been.

"I went just where you said, but found
No summer-house was there:
Beyond the slope 'tis all bare ground;
Nothing stands anywhere.

"A man asked what my brains were worth;
The house, he said, grew rotten,
And was pulled dow...

A wanderer is man from his birth.
He was born in a ship
On the breast of the river of Time;
Brimming with wonder and joy
He spreads out his arms to the light,
Rivets his gaze on the banks of the stream.

As what he sees is, so have his thoughts been.
Whether he wakes,
Where the snowy mountainous pass,
Echoing the screams of the eagles,
Hems in its gorges the bed
Of the new-born clear-flowing stream;
Whether he first sees light
Where the river in gleaming rings
Sluggishly winds through the plain;
Whether in sound of the swallowing sea
As is the world on the banks,
So is the mind of the man.

Vainly does each, as he glides,
Fable and dream
Of the lands which the river of Time
Had left ere he woke on its breast,
Or shall re...

You are a tulip seen today,
But (Dearest) of so short a stay;
That where you grew, scarce man can say.

You are a lovely July-flower,
Yet one rude wind, or ruffling shower,
Will force you hence, (and in an hour.)

You are a sparkling Rose i'th'bud,
Yet lost, ere that chaste flesh and blood
Can show where you or grew, or stood.

You are a full-spread fair-set Vine,
And can with Tendrils love entwine,
Yet dried, ere you distill your Wine.

You are like Balm enclosed (well)
In Amber, or some Crystal shell,
Yet lost, ere you transfuse your smell.

You are a dainty Violet,
Yet withered, ere you can be set
Within the Virgin's Coronet.

You are the Queen all flowers among,
But die you must (fair Maid) ere long,
As He,...

Falling upon the frozen world last
I heard the slow beat of the Winter rain -
Poor foolish drops, down-dripping all in vain;
The ice-bound Earth but mocked their puny might,
Far better had the fixedness of white
And uncomplaining snows - which make no sign,
But coldly smile, when pitying moonbeams shine -
Concealed its sorrow from all human sight.
Long, long ago, in blurred and burdened years,
I learned the uselessness of uttered woe.
Though sinewy Fate deals her most skilful blow,
    I do not waste the gall now of my tears,
    But feed my pride upon its bitter, while
I look straight in the world's bold eyes, and smile.

Which I wish to remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar,
Which the same I would rise to explain.

Ah Sin was his name;
And I shall not deny,
In regard to the same,
What that name might imply;
But his smile it was pensive and childlike,
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.

It was August the third,
And quite soft was the skies;
Which it might be inferred
That Ah Sin was likewise;
Yet he played it that day upon William
And me in a way I despise.

Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a hand:
It was Euchre. The same
He did not understand;
But he smiled as he sat by the table,
With the smile that was childlike and bland.