Betrayal

This world has suns, but they are overcast;
This world has sweets, but they're of ling'ring bloom;
Life still expects, and empty falls at last;
Warm Hope on tiptoe drops into the tomb.
Life's journey's rough--Hope seeks a smoother way,
And dwells on fancies which to-morrow see,--
To-morrow comes, true copy of to-day,
And empty shadow of what is to be;
Yet cheated Hope on future still depends,
And ends but only when our being ends.
I long have hoped, and still shall hope the best
Till heedless weeds are scrambling over me,
And hopes and ashes both together rest
At journey's end, with them that cease to be.

Her heart knew naught of sorrow,
    Nor the vaguest taint of sin -
'Twas an ever-blooming blossom
    Of the purity within:
And her hands knew only touches
    Of the mother's gentle care,
And the kisses and caresses
    Through the interludes of prayer.

Her baby-feet had journeyed
    Such a little distance here,
They could have found no briers
    In the path to interfere;
The little cross she carried
    Could not weary her, we know,
For it lay as lightly on her
    As a shadow on the snow.

And yet the way before us -
    O how empty now and drear! -
How ev'n the dews of roses
    Seem as dripping tears for her!
And the song-birds all seem crying,
    As the winds cry and the rain,
All sobbingly, - "We want - we wa...

These are the letters which Endymion wrote
To one he loved in secret, and apart.
And now the brawlers of the auction mart
Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note,
Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quote
The merchant's price.    I think they love not art
Who break the crystal of a poet's heart
That small and sickly eyes may glare and gloat.

Is it not said that many years ago,
In a far Eastern town, some soldiers ran
With torches through the midnight, and began
To wrangle for mean raiment, and to throw
Dice for the garments of a wretched man,
Not knowing the God's wonder, or His woe?

Hope, art thou true, or doest thou flatter me?
Doth Stella now beginne with piteous eye
The ruines of her conquest to espie?
Will she take time before all wracked be?
Her eyes-speech is translated thus by thee,
But failst thou not in phrases so heau'nly hye?
Looke on againe, the faire text better prie;
What blushing notes dost thou in Margent see?
What sighes stolne out, or kild before full-borne?
Hast thou found such and such-like arguments,
Or art thou else to comfort me forsworne?
Well, how-so thou interpret the contents,
I am resolu'd thy errour to maintaine,
Rather then by more truth to get more paine.

"Though I take the wings of the morning."

Sweet are His ways who rules above,
    He gives from wrath a sheltering place;
    But covert none is found from grace,
Man shall not hide himself from love.

What though I take to me the wide
    Wings of the morning and forth fly,
    Faster He goes, whoso care on high
Shepherds the stars and doth them guide.

What though the tents foregone, I roam
    Till day wax dim lamenting me;
    He wills that I shall sleep to see
The great gold stairs to His sweet home.

What though the press I pass before,
    And climb the branch, He lifts his face;
    I am not secret from His grace
Lost in the leafy sycamore.

What though denied with murmuring deep
    I shame my Lord, - it shal...

What of the days when we two dreamed together?
    Days marvellously fair,
As lightsome as a skyward floating feather
    Sailing on summer air -
Summer, summer, that came drifting through
Fate's hand to me, to you.

What of the days, my dear? I sometimes wonder
    If you too wish this sky
Could be the blue we sailed so softly under,
    In that sun-kissed July;
Sailed in the warm and yellow afternoon,
With hearts in touch and tune.

Have you no longing to re-live the dreaming,
    Adrift in my canoe?
To watch my paddle blade all wet and gleaming
    Cleaving the waters through?
To lie wind-blown and wave-caressed, until
Your restless pulse grows still?

Do you not long to listen to the purling
    Of foam athwart the keel?
...

For my part, I never care
For those lips that tongue-tied are:
Tell-tales I would have them be
Of my mistress and of me.
Let them prattle how that I
Sometimes freeze and sometimes fry:
Let them tell how she doth move
Fore or backward in her love:
Let them speak by gentle tones,
One and th' other's passions:
How we watch, and seldom sleep;
How by willows we do weep;
How by stealth we meet, and then
Kiss, and sigh, so part again.
This the lips we will permit
For to tell, not publish it.

    Have you seen walking through the village
    A Man with downcast eyes and haggard face?
    That is my husband who, by secret cruelty
    Never to be told, robbed me of my youth and my beauty;
    Till at last, wrinkled and with yellow teeth,
    And with broken pride and shameful humility,
    I sank into the grave.
    But what think you gnaws at my husband's heart?
    The face of what I was, the face of what he made me!
    These are driving him to the place where I lie.
    In death, therefore, I am avenged.

Just when the gentle hand of spring
Came fringing the trees with bud and leaf,
And when the blades the warm suns bring
Were given glad promise of golden sheaf;
Just when the birds began to sing
Joy hymns after their winter's grief,
I wandered weary to a place;
Tired of toil, I sought for rest,
Where Nature wore her mildest grace --
I went where I was more than guest.
Strange, tall trees rose as if they fain
Would wear as crowns the clouds of skies;
The sad winds swept with low refrain
Through branches breathing softest sighs;
And o'er the field and down the lane
Sweet flowers, the dreams of Paradise,
Bloomed up into this world of pain,
Where all that's fairest soonest dies;
And 'neath the trees a little stream
Went winding slowly round and round...

I asked the heaven of stars
What I should give my love,
It answered me with silence,
Silence above.

I asked the darkened sea
Down where the fishers go,
It answered me with silence,
Silence below.

Oh, I could give him weeping,
Or I could give him song,
But how can I give silence,
My whole life long?

I
Queen born of the sea, that hast borne her
The mightiest of seamen on earth,
Bright England, whose glories adorn her
And bid her rejoice in thy birth
As others made mothers
Rejoice in births sublime,
She names thee, she claims thee,
The lordliest child of time.

II
All hers is the praise of thy story,
All thine is the love of her choice
The light of her waves is thy glory,
The sound of thy soul is her voice.
They fear it who hear it
And love not truth nor thee:
They sicken, heart-stricken,
Who see and would not see.

III
The lords of thy fate, and thy keepers
Whose charge is the strength of thy ships,
If now they be dreamers and sleepers,
Or sluggards with lies at their lips,
Thy haters and traitors,
False fr...

When moonlike ore the hazure seas
    In soft effulgence swells,
When silver jews and balmy breaze
    Bend down the Lily's bells;
When calm and deap, the rosy sleap
    Has lapt your soal in dreems,
R Hangeline! R lady mine!
    Dost thou remember Jeames?

I mark thee in the Marble all,
    Where England's loveliest shine -
I say the fairest of them hall
    Is Lady Hangeline.
My soul, in desolate eclipse,
    With recollection teems -
And then I hask, with weeping lips,
    Dost thou remember Jeames?

Away! I may not tell thee hall
    This soughring heart endures -
There is a lonely sperrit-call
    That Sorrow never cures;
There is a little, little Star,
    That still above me beams;
It is the Star of Hope - but ar!...

"Father!" a youthful hero said, bending his lofty brow
"On the world wide I must go forth - then bless me, bless me, now!
And, ere I shall return oh say, what goal must I have won -
What is the aim, the prize, that most thou wishest for thy son?"

Proudly the father gazed upon his bearing brave and high,
The dauntless spirit flashing forth from his dark brilliant eye:
"My son, thou art the eldest hope of a proud honored name,
Then, let thy guiding star through life - thy chief pursuit - be fame!"

"'Tis well! thou'st chosen, father, well - it is a glorious part!"
And the youth's glance told the wish chimed well with that brave ardent heart.
"Now, brother, thou'lt have none to share thy sports till I return, -
Say, what shall be the glitt'ring prize that I afar must earn?"

Rome! what a scroll of History thine has been;
In the first days thy sword republican
Ruled the whole world for many an age's span:
Then of the peoples wert thou royal Queen,
Till in thy streets the bearded Goth was seen;
And now upon thy walls the breezes fan
(Ah, city crowned by God, discrowned by man!)
The hated flag of red and white and green.
When was thy glory! when in search for power
Thine eagles flew to greet the double sun,
And the wild nations shuddered at thy rod?
Nay, but thy glory tarried for this hour,
When pilgrims kneel before the Holy One,
The prisoned shepherd of the Church of God.

MONTRE MARIO.

Secretary of the Boston young men's anti-slavery society.


Gone before us, O our brother,
To the spirit-land!
Vainly look we for another
In thy place to stand.
Who shall offer youth and beauty
On the wasting shrine
Of a stern and lofty duty,
With a faith like thine?

Oh, thy gentle smile of greeting
Who again shall see?
Who amidst the solemn meeting
Gaze again on thee?
Who when peril gathers o'er us,
Wear so calm a brow?
Who, with evil men before us,
So serene as thou?

Early hath the spoiler found thee,
Brother of our love!
Autumn's faded earth around thee,
And its storms above!
Evermore that turf lie lightly,
And, with future showers,
O'er thy slumbers fresh and brightly
Blow the summer flow...

In fifty years, when peace outshines
Remembrance of the battle lines,
Adventurous lads will sigh and cast
Proud looks upon the plundered past.
On summer morn or winter's night,
Their hearts will kindle for the fight,
Reading a snatch of soldier-song,
Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong;
And through the angry marching rhymes
Of blind regret and haggard mirth,
They'll envy us the dazzling times
When sacrifice absolved our earth.

Some ancient man with silver locks
Will lift his weary face to say:
"War was a fiend who stopped our clocks
Although we met him grim and gay."
And then he'll speak of Haig's last drive,
Marvelling that any came alive
Out of the shambles that men built
And smashed, to cleanse the world of guilt.
But the boys, wi...

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Oh, I am sick of love reciprocated,
    Of hopes fulfilled, ambitions gratified.
Life holds no thing to be anticipated,
    And I am sad from being satisfied.

The eager joy felt climbing up the mountain
    Has left me now the highest point is gained.
The crystal spray that fell from Fame's fair fountain
    Was sweeter than the waters were when drained.

The gilded apple which the world calls pleasure,
    And which I purchased with my youth and strength,
Pleased me a moment. But the empty treasure
    Lost all its lustre, and grew dim at length.

And love, all glowing with a golden glory,
    Delighted me a season with its tale.
It pleased the longest, but at last the story
    So oft repeated, to my heart grew stale.

I lived for self, ...