Betrayal

Oh! Come to me, darling! My Sweet!
Here where the sunlight reposes;
Pink petals lie thick at my feet,
Here in my garden of rose's.

Oh! come to my bower! My Queen!
Sweet with the breath of the flow'rs;
Shaded with curtains of green; -
Here let us dream through the hours.

The sky is unfleck'd overhead, -
Trees languish in Sol's fervid ray, -
The earth to the heavens is wed,
And robin is piping his lay.

Lost is their sweetness upon me;
Vainly their beauties displaying; -
Cheerless I wander, and lonely, -
Hoping and longing and praying.

Oh! come to me, Queenliest flower!
Reign in my garden of roses;
Humbly we bow to thy power,
Loving the sway thou imposes.

Hark! 'Tis her tinkling footfall!
Robin desist from th...

This might have been a place for sleep,
But, as from that small hollow there
Hosts of bright thistledown begin
Their dazzling journey through the air,
An idle man can only stare.

They grip their withered edge of stalk
In brief excitement for the wind;
They hold a breathless final talk,
And when their filmy cables part
One almost hears a little cry.

Some cling together while they wait,
And droop and gaze and hesitate,
But others leap along the sky,
Or circle round and calmly choose
The gust they know they ought to use;

While some in loving pairs will glide,
Or watch the others as they pass,
Or rest on flowers in the grass,
Or circle through the shining day
Like silvery butterflies at play.

Some catch themselves to eve...

Farewell, farewell! Before our prow
Leaps in white foam the noisy channel,
A tourist's cap is on my brow,
My legs are cased in tourists' flannel:

Around me gasp the invalids -
(The quantity to-night is fearful) -
I take a brace or so of weeds,
And feel (as yet) extremely cheerful.

The night wears on:- my thirst I quench
With one imperial pint of porter;
Then drop upon a casual bench -
(The bench is short, but I am shorter) -

Place 'neath my head the harve-sac
Which I have stowed my little all in,
And sleep, though moist about the back,
Serenely in an old tarpaulin.

* * *

Bed at Ostend at 5 A.M.
Breakfast at 6, and train 6.30.
Tickets to Konigswinter (mem.
The seats objectionably dirty).

And onward th...

    Thou whom chance may hither lead,
    Be thou clad in russet weed,
    Be thou deck'd in silken stole,
    Grave these counsels on thy soul.

    Life is but a day at most,
    Sprung from night, in darkness lost;
    Hope not sunshine ev'ry hour.
    Fear not clouds will always lour.
    As Youth and Love with sprightly dance
    Beneath thy morning star advance,
    Pleasure with her siren air
    May delude the thoughtless pair:
    Let Prudence bless enjoyment's cup,
    Then raptur'd sip, and sip it up.

    As thy day grows warm and high,
    Life's meridian flaming nigh,
    Dost thou spurn the humble vale?
    Life's proud summits would'st thou scale?
    Check thy climbing step, elate,
    Evils lurk in felon wait:
  ...

    I

    I find my mind as it were a deep water.

    Sometimes I play with a thought and hammer and bend it,
    Till tired and displeased with that I toss it away,
    Or absently let it slip to the yawning water:
    And down it sinks, forgotten for many a day.

    But a time comes when tide or tempest washes it
    High on the beach, and I find that shape of mine,
    Or I haul it out from the depths on some casual rope,
    Or, passing over that spot in quiet shine,

    I see, where my boat's shadow makes deep the water,
    A patch of colour, far down, from the bottom apart,
    A wavering sign like the gleam from an ancient anchor,
    Brown fixing and fleeting flakes; and I feel my heart

    Wake to a strange excitement; so that I s...

The rain had fallen, the Poet arose,
    He passed through the doorway into the street,
A strong wind lifted his hat from his head,
    And he uttered some words that were far from sweet.
And then he started to follow the chase,
    And put on a spurt that was wild and fleet,
It made the people pause in a crowd,
    And lay odds as to which would beat.

The street cad scoffed as he hunted the hat,
    The errand-boy shouted hooray!
The scavenger stood with his broom in his hand,
    And smiled in a very rude way;
And the clergyman thought, 'I have heard many words,
    But never, until to-day,
Did I hear any words that were quite so bad
    As I heard that young man say.'

Till death have broken
Sweet life’s love-token,
Till all be spoken
That shall be said,
What dost thou praying,
O soul, and playing
With song and saying,
Things flown and fled?
For this we know not
That fresh springs flow not
And fresh griefs grow not
When men are dead;
When strange years cover
Lover and lover,
And joys are over
And tears are shed.

If one day’s sorrow
Mar the day’s morrow
If man’s life borrow
And man’s death pay
If souls once taken,
If lives once shaken,
Arise, awaken,
By night, by day
Why with strong crying
And years of sighing,
Living and dying,
Fast ye and pray?
For all your weeping,
Waking and sleeping,
Death comes to reaping
And takes away.

Though t...

I love and love not: Lord, it breaks my heart
    To love and not to love.
Thou veiled within Thy glory, gone apart
    Into Thy shrine, which is above,
Dost Thou not love me, Lord, or care
    For this mine ill? -
I love thee here or there,
    I will accept thy broken heart, lie still.

Lord, it was well with me in time gone by
    That cometh not again,
When I was fresh and cheerful, who but I?
    I fresh, I cheerful: worn with pain
Now, out of sight and out of heart;
    O Lord, how long? -
I watch thee as thou art,
    I will accept thy fainting heart, be strong.

'Lie still,' 'be strong,' to-day; but, Lord, to-morrow,
    What of to-morrow, Lord?
Shall there be rest from toil, be truce from sorrow,
    Be living gr...

The flowers of the field
Have a sweet smell;
Meadowsweet, tansy, thyme,
And faint-heart pimpernel;
But sweeter even than these,
The silver of the may
Wreathed is with incense for
The Judgment Day.

An apple, a child, dust,
When falls the evening rain,
Wild briar's spicèd leaves,
Breathe memories again;
With further memory fraught,
The silver of the may
Wreathed is with incense for
The Judgment Day.

Eyes of all loveliness -
Shadow of strange delight,
Even as a flower fades
Must thou from sight;
But oh, o'er thy grave's mound,
Till come the Judgment Day,
Wreathed shall with incense be
Thy sharp-thorned may.

Say, did you not hear a voice of death!
    And did you not mark the paly form
Which rode on the silvery mist of the heath,
    And sung a ghostly dirge in the storm?

Was it the wailing bird of the gloom,
    That shrieks on the house of woe all night?
Or a shivering fiend that flew to a tomb,
    To howl and to feed till the glance of light?

'Twas not the death-bird's cry from the wood,
    Nor shivering fiend that hung on the blast;
'Twas the shade of Helderic--man of blood--
    It screams for the guilt of days that are past.

See, how the red, red lightning strays,
    And scares the gliding ghosts of the heath!
Now on the leafless yew it plays,
    Where hangs the shield of this son of death.

That shield is blushing with murd...

Blue flower waving in the wind,
    Say whose blue eyes
Lift up your swaying fragile stem
    To the blue skies.

Is she a queen that lies asleep
    In a green hill,
With all her silver ornaments
    Around her still?

Or is she but a simple girl,
    Whose boy was drowned,
In some cold sea, some stormy morn,
    On some blue sound?

She's milking in the rain and dark,
As did her mother in the past.
The wretched shed of poles and bark,
Rent by the wind, is leaking fast.
She sees the “home-roof” black and low,
Where, balefully, the hut-fire gleams,
And, like her mother, long ago,
She has her dreams; she has her dreams.
The daybreak haunts the dreary scene,
The brooding ridge, the blue-grey bush,
The “yard” where all her years have been,
Is ankle-deep in dung and slush;
She shivers as the hour drags on,
Her threadbare dress of sackcloth seems,
But, like her mother, years agone,
She has her dreams; she has her dreams.

The sullen “breakfast” where they cut
The blackened “junk.” The lowering face,
As though a crime were in the hut,
As though a curse was on the place;
T...

I rose while yet the cattle, heat-opprest,
Crowded together under rustling trees
Brushed by the current of the water-breeze;
And for 'their' sakes, and love of all that rest,
On Duddon's margin, in the sheltering nest;
For all the startled scaly tribes that slink
Into his coverts, and each fearless link
Of dancing insects forged upon his breast;
For these, and hopes and recollections worn
Close to the vital seat of human clay;
Glad meetings, tender partings, that upstay
The drooping mind of absence, by vows sworn
In his pure presence near the trysting thorn
I thanked the Leader of my onward way.

Night or light is it now, wherein
Sleeps, shut out from the wild world's din,
Wakes, alive with a life more clear,
One who found not on earth his kin?
Sleep were sweet for awhile, were dear
Surely to souls that were heartless here,
Souls that faltered and flagged and fell,
Soft of spirit and faint of cheer.
A living soul that had strength to quell
Hope the spectre and fear the spell,
Clear-eyed, content with a scorn sublime
And a faith superb, can it fare not well?
Life, the shadow of wide-winged time,
Cast from the wings that change as they climb,
Life may vanish in death, and seem
Less than the promise of last year's prime.
But not for us is the past a dream
Wherefrom, as light from a clouded stream,
Faith fades and shivers and ebbs away,
Fain...

            TO E.M. II.

Dear friend, you love the poet's song,
    And here is one for your regard.
    You know the "melancholy bard,"
Whose grief is wise as well as strong;

Already something understand
    For whom he mourns and what he sings,
    And how he wakes with golden strings
The echoes of "the silent land;"

How, restless, faint, and worn with grief,
    Yet loving all and hoping all,
    He gazes where the shadows fall,
And finds in darkness some relief;

And how he sends his cries across,
    His cries for him that comes no more,
    Till one might think that silent shore
Full of the burden of his loss;

And how there comes sublimer cheer--
    Not darkness solacing sad eyes,
    Not the wild joy of mournf...

Are the leaves falling round about
    The churchyard on the hill?
Is the glow of autumn going out?
    Is that the winter chill?
And yet through winter's noise, no doubt
    The graves are very still!

Are the woods empty, voiceless, bare?
    On sodden leaves do you tread?
Is nothing left of all those fair?
    Is the whole summer fled?
Well, so from this unwholesome air
    Have gone away these dead!

The seasons pierce me; like a leaf
    I feel the autumn blow,
And tremble between nature's grief
    And the silent death below.
O Summer, thou art very brief!
    Where do these exiles go?

Gilesgate, Durham.

We speak of the world that passes away, -
The world of men who lived years ago,
And could not feel that their hearts' quick glow
Would fade to such ashen lore to-day.

We hear of death that is not our woe,
And see the shadow of funerals creeping
Over the sweet fresh roads by the reaping;
But do we weep till our loved ones go?

When one is lost who is greater than we,
And loved us so well that death should reprieve
Of all hearts this one to us; when we must leave
His grave, - the past will break like the sea!

'Tis but a box, of modest deal;
Directed to no matter where:
Yet down my cheek the teardrops steal -
Yes, I am blubbering like a seal;
For on it is this mute appeal,
"With care."

I am a stern cold man, and range
Apart: but those vague words "With care"
Wake yearnings in me sweet as strange:
Drawn from my moral Moated Grange,
I feel I rather like the change
Of air.

Hast thou ne'er seen rough pointsmen spy
Some simple English phrase - "With care"
Or "This side uppermost" - and cry
Like children? No? No more have I.
Yet deem not him whose eyes are dry
A bear.

But ah! what treasure hides beneath
That lid so much the worse for wear?
A ring perhaps - a rosy wreath -
A photograph by Vernon Heath -
Some matron's temporar...