Betrayal

The twentieth year is well-nigh past
Since first our sky was overcast,
Ah, would that this might be the last!
My Mary!

Thy spirits have a fainter flow,
I see thee daily weaker grow--
'Twas my distress that brought thee low,
My Mary!

Thy needles, once a shining store,
For my sake restless heretofore,
Now rust disused, and shine no more,
My Mary!

For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil
The same kind office for me still,
Thy sight now seconds not thy will,
My Mary!

But well thou playedst the housewife's part,
And all thy threads with magic art
Have wound themselves about this heart,
My Mary!

Thy indistinct expressions seem
Like language uttered in a dream;
Yet me they charm, whate'er the theme,
My Mar...

    The leaves lie hidden as spades about their home.
    Brief movement of a kitten, then silence
    till the car's engine drones.
    Close by, a pioneer cemetery sits near a secondary wood.

    Queer is the effect of sun on a tinted roof;
    bluebells with poppies,
    cowslip and tiny brook
    back of
    fields redden and
    given to wheat.

    A house is a machine
    processing the water of living
    a replenished cistern,
    birds paying a call, a minor animal
    brushing past
    an ivy-railed fence.

The mad wind is the warden,
And the smiling dahlias nod
To the dahlias across the garden,
And the wastes of the golden rod.

They never pray for pardon,
Nor ask his way nor forego,
Nor close their hearts nor harden
Nor stay his hand, nor bestow

Their hearts filched out of their bosoms,
Nor plan for dahlias to be.
For the wind blows over the garden
And sets the dahlias free.

They drift to the song of the warden,
Heedless they give him heed.
And he walks and blows through the garden
Blossom and leaf and seed.

Old phantoms haunt it of the long ago;
Old ghosts of old-time lovers and of dreams:
Within the quiet sunlight there, meseems,
I see them walking where those lilies blow.
The hardy phlox sways to some garment's flow;
The salvia there with sudden scarlet streams,
Caught from some ribbon of some throat that gleams,
Petunia-fair, in flounce and furbelow.
I seem to hear their whispers in each wind
That wanders mid the flowers. There they stand!
Among the shadows of that apple-tree!
They are not dead, whom still it keeps in mind,
This garden, planted by some lovely hand
That keeps it fragrant with its memory.

They are waking, they are waking,
    In the east, and in the west;
They are throwing wide their windows to the sun;
And they see the dawn is breaking,
    And they quiver with unrest,
For they know their work is waiting to be done.

They are waking in the city,
    They are waking on the farm;
They are waking in the boudoir, and the mill;
And their hearts are full of pity
    As they sound the loud alarm,
For the sleepers, who in darkness, slumber, still.

In the guarded harem prison,
    Where they smother under veils,
And all echoes of the world are walled away;
Though the sun has not yet risen,
    Yet the ancient darkness pales,
And the sleepers, in their slumber, dream of day.

And their dream shall grow in splendour
    Til...

My soul lives in my body's house,
And you have both the house and her,
But sometimes she is less your own
Than a wild, gay adventurer;
A restless and an eager wraith,
How can I tell what she will do,
Oh, I am sure of my body's faith,
But what if my soul broke faith with you?

The sun is couched, the sea-fowl gone to rest,
And the wild storm hath somewhere found a nest;
Air slumbers—wave with wave no longer strives,
Only a heaving of the deep survives,
A tell-tale motion! soon will it be laid,
And by the tide alone the water swayed.
Stealthy withdrawings, interminglings mild
Of light with shade in beauty reconciled,
Such is the prospect far as sight can range,
The soothing recompence, the welcome change.
Where, now, the ships that drove before the blast,
Threatened by angry breakers as they passed;
And by a train of flying clouds bemocked;
Or, in the hollow surge, at anchor rocked
As on a bed of death? Some lodge in peace,
Saved by His care who bade the tempest cease;
And some, too heedless of past danger, court
Fresh gales to ...

In the dim chamber whence but yesterday
    Passed my beloved, filled with awe I stand;
    And haunting Loves fluttering on every hand
Whisper her praises who is far away.
A thousand delicate fancies glance and play
    On every object which her robes have fanned,
    And tenderest thoughts and hopes bloom and expand
In the sweet memory of her beauty's ray.
Ah! could that glass but hold the faintest trace
    Of all the loveliness once mirrored there,
    The clustering glory of the shadowy hair
That framed so well the dear young angel face!
    But no, it shows my own face, full of care,
And my heart is her beauty's dwelling place.

    It was a land of plenty and of wealth;
    There God's indulgent hand made for a race
    Supremely blest a paradise on earth.
    A land of virtue, truth, and charity,
    Where nature's choicest treasures man enjoyed
    With little toil, where youth respected age,
    Where each his neighbour's wife his sister deemed,
    Where side by side the tiger and the lamb
    The water drank, and sported oft in mirth.
    A land where each man deemed him highly blest
    When he relieved the miseries of the poor,
    When to his roof the wearied traveller came
    To share his proffered bounty with good cheer.
    Such was the far-famed land of Panchala.

    Here reigned a king who walked in virtue's path,
    Who ruled his country only for his God.
    Hi...

I heare some say, this man is not in loue,
Who, can he loue? a likely thing they say:
Reade but his verse, and it will easily proue;
O iudge not rashly (gentle Sir) I pray,
Because I loosely tryfle in this sort,
As one that faine his sorrowes would beguile:
You now suppose me, all this time in sport,
And please your selfe with this conceit the while.
You shallow censures; sometime see you not
In greatest perills some men pleasant be,
Where fame by death is onely to be got,
They resolute, so stands the case with me;
    Where other men, in depth of passion cry,
    I laugh at fortune, as in iest to die.

To nothing fitter can I thee compare,
Then to the sonne of some rich penyfather,
Who hauing now brought on his end with care,
Leaues to his son all he had heap'd together;
This newe rich nouice, lauish of his chest,
To one man giues, and on another spends,
Then here he ryots, yet amongst the rest,
Haps to lend some to one true honest friend.
Thy gifts thou in obscuritie doost wast,
False friends thy kindnes, borne but to deceiue thee,
Thy loue, that is on the unworthy plac'd,
Time hath thy beauty, which with age will leaue thee;
    Onely that little which to me was lent,
    I giue thee back, when all the rest is spent.

I

When the thorn on the down
Quivers naked and cold,
And the mid-aged and old
Pace the path there to town,
In these words dry and drear
It seems to them sighing:
"O winter is trying
To sojourners here!"

II

When it stands fully tressed
On a hot summer day,
And the ewes there astray
Find its shade a sweet rest,
By the breath of the breeze
It inquires of each farer:
"Who would not be sharer
Of shadow with these?"

III

But by day or by night,
And in winter or summer,
Should I be the comer
Along that lone height,
In its voicing to me
Only one speech is spoken:
"Here once was nigh broken
A heart, and by thee."

1.

Dear BECHER, you tell me to mix with mankind;
I cannot deny such a precept is wise;
But retirement accords with the tone of my mind:
I will not descend to a world I despise.


2.

Did the Senate or Camp my exertions require,
Ambition might prompt me, at once, to go forth;
When Infancy's years of probation expire,
Perchance, I may strive to distinguish my birth.


3.

The fire, in the cavern of Etna, conceal'd,
Still mantles unseen in its secret recess;
At length, in a volume terrific, reveal'd,
No torrent can quench it, no bounds can repress.


4.

Oh! thus, the desire, in my bosom, for fame
Bids me live, but to hope for Posterity's praise.
Could I soar with the Phoenix on pinions of flame,
W...

The land is white, an' far awa'
    Abune ae bush an' tree
Nae fit is movin' i' the snaw
    On the hills I canna see;
For the sun may shine an' the darkness fa',
    But aye it's nicht to me.

I hear the whaup on windy days
    Cry up amang the peat
Whaur, on the road that speels the braes,
    I've heard my ain sheep's feet,
An' the bonnie lambs wi' their canny ways
    An' the silly yowes that bleat.

But noo wi' them I mauna' be,
    An' by the fire I bide,
To sit and listen patiently
    For a fit on the great hillside,
A fit that'll come to the door for me
    Doon through the pasture wide,

Maybe I'll hear the baa'in' flocks
    Ae nicht when time seems lang,
An' ken there's a step on the scattered rocks
    The f...

A mountainous and mystic brute
No rein can curb, no arrow shoot,
Upon whose domed deformed back
I sweep the planets scorching track.

Old is the elf, and wise, men say,
His hair grows green as ours grows grey;
He mocks the stars with myriad hands.
High as that swinging forest stands.

But though in pigmy wanderings dull
I scour the deserts of his skull,
I never find the face, eyes, teeth.
Lowering or laughing underneath.

I met my foe in an empty dell,
His face in the sun was naked hell.
I thought, 'One silent, bloody blow.
No priest would curse, no crowd would know.'

Then cowered: a daisy, half concealed,
Watched for the fame of that poor field;
And in that flower and suddenly
Earth opened its one eye on me.

If some day this body of mine were burned
(It found no favour alas! with you)
And the ashes scattered abroad, unurned,
Would Love die also, would Thought die too?
    But who can answer, or who can trust,
    No dreams would harry the windblown dust?

Were I laid away in the furrows deep
Secure from jackal and passing plough,
Would your eyes not follow me still through sleep
Torment me then as they torture now?
    Would you ever have loved me, Golden Eyes,
    Had I done aught better or otherwise?

Was I overspeechful, or did you yearn
When I sat silent, for songs or speech?
Ah, Beloved, I had been so apt to learn,
So apt, had you only cared to teach.
    But time for silence and song is done,
    You wanted nothing, my Golden Sun!

W...

The King has called for priest and cup,
The King has taken spur and blade
To dub True Thomas a belted knight,
And all for the sake o' the songs he made.

They have sought him high, they have sought him low,
They have sought him over down and lea;
They have found him by the milk-white thorn
That guards the gates o' Faerie.

'Twas bent beneath and blue above,
Their eyes were held that they might not see
The kine that grazed beneath the knowes,
Oh, they were the Queens o' Faerie!

"Now cease your song," the King he said,
"Oh, cease your song and get you dight
To vow your vow and watch your arms,
For I will dub you a belted knight.

"For I will give you a horse o' pride,
Wi' blazon and spur and page and squire;
Wi' keep and tail and s...

O many-toned rain!
O myriad sweet voices of the rain!
How welcome is its delicate overture
At evening, when the moist and glowing west
Seals all things with cool promise of night's rest.

At first it would allure
The earth to kinder mood,
With dainty flattering
Of soft, sweet pattering:
Faintly now you hear the tramp
Of the fine drops, falling damp
On the dry, sun-seasoned ground
And the thirsty leaves, resound.
But anon, imbued
With a sudden, bounding access
Of passion, it relaxes
All timider persuasion.
And, with nor pretext nor occasion,
Its wooing redoubles;
And pounds the ground, and bubbles
In sputtering spray,
Flinging itself in a fury
Of flashing white away;
Till the dusty road,
Dank-perfumed, is o'erflowed;...