Betrayal

The star which comes at close of day to shine
More heavenly bright than when it leads the morn,
Is friendship's emblem, whether the forlorn
She visiteth, or, shedding light benign
Through shades that solemnize Life's calm decline,
Doth make the happy happier. This have we
Learnt, Isabel, from thy society,
Which now we too unwillingly resign
Though for brief absence. But farewell! the page
Glimmers before my sight through thankful tears,
Such as start forth, not seldom, to approve
Our truth, when we, old yet unchilled by age,
Call thee, though known but for a few fleet years,
The heart-affianced sister of our love!

    Over the downs in sunlight clear
    Forth we went in the spring of the year:
    Plunder of April's gold we sought,
    Little of April's anger thought.

    Caught in a copse without defence
    Low we crouched to the rain-squall dense:
    Sure, if misery man can vex,
    There it beat on our bended necks.

    Yet when again we wander on
    Suddenly all that gloom is gone:
    Under and over through the wood,
    Life is astir, and life is good.

    Violets purple, violets white,
    Delicate windflowers dancing light,
    Primrose, mercury, moscatel,
    Shimmer in diamonds round the dell.

    Squirrel is climbing swift and lithe,
    Chiff-chaff whetting his airy scythe,
    Woodpecker whirrs his rattling rap,
  ...

In the year that's come and gone, love, his flying feather
Stooping slowly, gave us heart, and bade us walk together.
In the year that's coming on, though many a troth be broken,
We at least will not forget aught that love hath spoken.

In the year that's come and gone, dear, we wove a tether
All of gracious words and thoughts, binding two together.
In the year that's coming on with its wealth of roses
We shall weave it stronger, yet, ere the circle closes.

In the year that's come and gone, in the golden weather,
Sweet, my sweet, we swore to keep the watch of life together.
In the year that's coming on, rich in joy and sorrow,
We shall light our lamp, and wait life's mysterious morrow.

1877

With moon-white hearts that held a gleam
I gathered wild-flowers in a dream,
And shaped a woman, whose sweet blood
Was odour of the wildwood bud.

From dew, the starlight arrowed through,
I wrought a woman's eyes of blue;
The lids that on her eyeballs lay,
Were rose-pale petals of the May.

Out of a rosebud's veins I drew
The flagrant crimson beating through
The languid lips of her, whose kiss
Was as a poppy's drowsiness.

Out of the moonlight and the air
I wrought the glory of her hair,
That o'er her eyes' blue heaven lay
Like some gold cloud o'er dawn of day.

I took the music of the breeze
And water, whispering in the trees,
And shaped the soul that breathed below
A woman's blossom breasts of snow.

A shadow's sh...

Or, from that Sea of Time,
Spray, blown by the wind - a double winrow-drift of weeds and shells;
(O little shells, so curious-convolute! so limpid-cold and voiceless!
Yet will you not, to the tympans of temples held,
Murmurs and echoes still bring up - Eternity's music, faint and far,
Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica's rim - strains for the Soul of the Prairies,
Whisper'd reverberations - chords for the ear of the West, joyously sounding
Your tidings old, yet ever new and untranslatable;)
Infinitessimals out of my life, and many a life,
(For not my life and years alone I give - all, all I give;) 10
These thoughts and Songs - waifs from the deep - here, cast high and dry,
Wash'd on America's shores.


Currents of starting a Continent new,
Overtures sent to the sol...

When you were there, and you, and you,
Happiness crowned the night; I too,
Laughing and looking, one of all,
I watched the quivering lamplight fall
On plate and flowers and pouring tea
And cup and cloth; and they and we
Flung all the dancing moments by
With jest and glitter. Lip and eye
Flashed on the glory, shone and cried,
Improvident, unmemoried;
And fitfully and like a flame
The light of laughter went and came.
Proud in their careless transience moved
The changing faces that I loved.

Till suddenly, and otherwhence,
I looked upon your innocence.
For lifted clear and still and strange
From the dark woven flow of change
Under a vast and starless sky
I saw the immortal moment lie.
One instant I, an instant, knew
As God knows all....

The northern woods are delicately sweet,
The lake is folded softly by the shore,
But I am restless for the subway’s roar,
The thunder and the hurrying of feet.
I try to sleep, but still my eyelids beat
Against the image of the tower that bore
Me high aloft, as if thru heaven’s door
I watched the world from God’s unshaken seat.
I would go back and breathe with quickened sense
The tunnel’s strong hot breath of powdered steel;
But at the ferries I should leave the tense
Dark air behind, and I should mount and be
One among many who are thrilled to feel
The first keen sea-breath from the open sea.

Dear little Alice lay dying; -
I see her as if 'twas to-day,
And we stood round her snowy bed, crying,
And watching her life ebb away.

'Twas a beautiful day in the spring,
The sun shone out warmly and clear;
And the wee birds, their love songs to sing
Came and perched on the trees that grew near.

In the distance, the glistening sea,
Could be heard in a deep solemn tone,
As if murmuring in sad sympathy,
For our griefs and our hopes that had flown.

The windows, wide open, allowed
The soft wind to fan her white cheek,
As with uncovered heads, mutely bowed,
We stood watching, not daring to speak.

We were only her playmates, - no tie
Of relationship drew us that way,
We'd been told that dear Alice must die,
And she'd begg'd sh...

Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts,
Thick breaks the red flame;
All Etna heaves fiercely
Her forest-clothed frame.
Not here, O Apollo!
Are haunts meet for thee.
But, where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea,
Where the moon-silver'd inlets
Send far their light voice
Up the still vale of Thisbe,
O speed, and rejoice!
On the sward at the cliff-top
Lie strewn the white flocks,
On the cliff-side the pigeons
Roost deep in the rocks.
In the moonlight the shepherds,
Soft lull'd by the rills,
Lie wrapped in their blankets
Asleep on the hills.
What forms are these coming
So white through the gloom?
What garments out-glistening
The gold-flower'd broom?
What sweet-breathing presence
Out-perfumes the thyme?
What v...

O thou, by Nature taught
To breathe her genuine thought
In numbers warmly pure, and sweetly strong;
Who first on mountains wild,
In Fancy, loveliest child,
Thy babe, or Pleasure's, nurs'd the pow'rs of song!

Thou, who with hermit heart,
Disdain'st the wealth of art,
And gauds, and pageant weeds, and trailing pall,
But com'st a decent maid,
In Attic robe array'd,
O chaste, unboastful nymph, to thee I call!

By all the honey'd store
On Hybla's thymy shore;
By all her blooms, and mingled murmurs dear;
By her whose lovelorn woe
In ev'ning musings slow
Sooth'd sweetly sad Electra's poet's ear:

By old Cephisus deep,
Who spread his wavy sweep
In warbled wand'rings round thy green retreat;
On whose enamell'd side,
When ho...

'Tis eventide; the noisy brook is hushed
Or murmurs only as a tired child,
Worn out with play; the tangled weeds lie still
Within the marshy hollow.    Quaint and dark
The willows bend above the brooklet's tide,
Reflecting shadowy images therein.
The dark-browed trees, with faces to the sky,
Shut out the light that fades in crimson lines
Along the western sky.    And yonder shade
Of purple marks the cloud, the storm-god rides
In moods of angry fire.

            The woods are filled
With wild-wood blossoms drinking in the dew.
Their scented breath is sweeter than the maid's
Who stands at eve and drinks in love and hope
From every budding flower.

                All day the sun
With fiery breath has held his hot, long reign;
The leaves have...

Thou shouldst be purchased, Wisdom, for much gold
If all they say of thee is truly told:
That thou canst root out from the mind the host
Of longings and canst change a man almost
Into an angel whom no grief can sap,
Who is not prone to fear nor evil hap.
Thou seest all things human as they are -
Trifles. Thou bearest in thy breast a star
Fixed and tranquil, and dost contemplate
Death unafraid, still calm, inviolate.
Of riches, one thing thou dost hold the measure:
Proportion to man's needs - not gold nor treasure;
Thy searching eyes have power to behold
The beggar housed beneath the roof of gold,
Nor dost thou grudge the poor man fame as blest
If he but hearken him to thy behest.
Oh, hapless, hapless man am I, who sought
If I might gain thy thresholds by ...

Lov'st thou not, Alice, with the early tide
To see the hardy Fisher hoist his mast,
And stretch his sail towards the ocean wide, -
Like God's own beadsman going forth to cast
His net into the deep, which doth provide
Enormous bounties, hidden in its vast
Bosom like Charity's, for all who seek
And take its gracious boon thankful and meek?

The sea is bright with morning, - but the dark
Seems still to linger on his broad black sail,
For it is early hoisted, like a mark
For the low sun to shoot at with his pale
And level beams: All round the shadowy bark
The green wave glimmers, and the gentle gale
Swells in her canvas, till the waters show
The keel's new speed, and whiten at the bow.

Then look abaft - (for thou canst understand
That phrase) - and...

On grass, on gravel, in the sun,
Or now beneath the shade,
They went, in pleasant Kensington,
A prentice and a maid.

That Sunday morning’s April glow,
How should it not impart
A stir about the veins that flow
To feed the youthful heart.

Ah! years may come, and years may bring
The truth that is not bliss,
But will they bring another thing
That can compare with this?

I read it in that arm she lays
So soft on his; her mien,
Her step, her very gown betrays
(What in her eyes were seen)
That not in vain the young buds round,
The cawing birds above,
The air, the incense of the ground,
Are whispering, breathing love.

Ah I years may come, &c.

To inclination, young and blind,
So perfect, as they lent,
...

The day is dead; and in the west
The slender crescent of the moon--
Diana's crystal-kindled crest--
Sinks hillward in a silvery swoon.
What is the murmur in the dell?
The stealthy whisper and the drip?--
A Dryad with her leaf-light trip?
Or Naiad o'er her fountain well?--
Who, with white fingers for her comb,
Sleeks her blue hair, and from its curls
Showers slim minnows and pale pearls,
And hollow music of the foam.
What is it in the vistaed ways
That leans and springs, and stoops and sways?--
The naked limbs of one who flees?
An Oread who hesitates
Before the Satyr form that waits,
Crouching to leap, that there she sees?
Or under boughs, reclining cool,
A Hamadryad, like a pool
Of moonlight, palely beautiful?
Or Limnad, with her lilie...

Daughter to that good Earl, once President
Of Englands Counsel, and her Treasury,
Who liv'd in both, unstain'd with gold or fee,
And left them both, more in himself content,
Till the sad breaking of that Parlament
Broke him, as that dishonest victory
At Chaeronea, fatal to liberty
Kil'd with report that Old man eloquent,
Though later born, then to have known the dayes
Wherin your Father flourisht, yet by you
Madam, me thinks I see him living yet;
So well your words his noble vertues praise,
That all both judge you to relate them true,
And to possess them, Honour'd Margaret.

The death of men is not the death
Of rights that urged them to the fray;
    For men may yield
    On battle-field
A noble life with stainless shield,
    And swords may rust
    Above their dust,
    But still, and still
    The touch and thrill
Of freedom's vivifying breath
    Will nerve a heart and rouse a will
    In some hour, in the days to be,
To win back triumphs from defeat;
And those who blame us then will greet
    Right's glorious eternity.

For right lives in a thousand things;
    Its cradle is its martyr's grave,
Wherein it rests awhile until
    The life that heroisms gave
Will rise again, at God's own will,
    And right the wrong,
    Which long and long
Did reign above the true and just;
And thro' the...

Within a town where parity
According to old form we see,
That is to say, where Catholic
And Protestant no quarrels pick,
And where, as in his father's day,
Each worships God in his own way,
We Luth'ran children used to dwell,
By songs and sermons taught as well.
The Catholic clingclang in truth
Sounded more pleasing to our youth,
For all that we encounter'd there,
To us seem'd varied, joyous, fair.
As children, monkeys, and mankind
To ape each other are inclin'd,
We soon, the time to while away,
A game at priests resolved to play.
Their aprons all our sisters lent
For copes, which gave us great content;
And handkerchiefs, embroider'd o'er,
Instead of stoles we also wore;
Gold paper, whereon beasts were traced,
The bishop's brow as mitr...