Betrayal

M.
I own, 'tis not my bread and butter,
But prithee, Tim, why all this clutter?
Why ever in these raging fits,
Damning to hell the Jacobites?
When if you search the kingdom round,
There's hardly twenty to be found;
No, not among the priests and friars -    -
    T. 'Twixt you and me, G - d d - n the liars!
    M. The Tories are gone every man over
To our illustrious house of Hanover;
From all their conduct this is plain;
And then -    -
    T. G - d d - n the liars again!
Did not an earl but lately vote,
To bring in (I could cut his throat)
Our whole accounts of public debts?
    M. Lord, how this frothy coxcomb frets! [Aside.
    T. Did not an able statesman bishop
This dangerous horrid motion di...

Tell me no more of constancy,
The frivolous pretense
Of old age, narrow jealousy,
Disease, and want of sense.

Let duller fools on whom kind chance
Some easy heart has thrown,
Despairing higher to advance,
Be kind to one alone.

Old men and weak, whose idle flame,
Their own defects discovers,
Since changing can but spread their shame,
Ought to be constant lovers,

But we, whose hearts do justly swell
With no vainglorious pride,
Who know how we in love excel,
Long to be often tried.

Then bring my bath and strew my bed,
As each kind night returns:
I'll change a mistress till I'm dead,
And fate change me for worms.

When you come to London Town,
(Grieving-grieving!)
Bring your flowers and lay them down
At the place of grieving.

When you come to London Town,
(Grieving-grieving!)
Bow your head and mourn your own,
With the others grieving.

For those minutes, let it wake
(Grieving-grieving!)
All the empty-heart and ache
That is not cured by grieving.

For those minutes, tell no lie:
(Grieving-grieving!)
"Grave, this is thy victory;
And the sting of death is grieving."

Where's our help, from earth or heaven,
(Grieving-grieving!)
To comfort us for what we've given,
And only gained the grieving.

Heaven's too far and earth too near,
(Grieving-grieving!)
But our neighbour's standing here,
Grieving as we're grieving.

What though upon a wintry sea our life bark sails,
What though we tremble 'neath its cruel gales,
    Its icy blast;
We see a happy port lie far before,
We see its shining waves, its sunny shore,
Where we shall wander, and forget the troubled past,
    At last.

No storms approach that quiet shore, no night
Falls on its silver streams, and valleys bright,
    And gardens vast;
Within that pleasant land of perfect peace
Our toil-worn feet shall stay, our wanderings cease;
There shall we, resting, all forget the past,
    At last.

The sorrows we have hid in silent weariness,
As birds above a wounded, bleeding breast,
    Their bright plumes cast;
The griefs like mourners in a dark array,
That haunt our footsteps here, will flee away,
An...

They walk here with us, hand-in-hand;
We gossip, knee-by-knee;
They tell us all that they have planned -
Of all their joys to be, -
And, laughing, leave us: And, to-day,
All desolate we cry
Across wide waves of voiceless graves -
Good-by! Good-by! Good-by!

Fair is her cottage in its place,
Where yon broad water sweetly, slowly glides.
It sees itself from thatch to base
Dream in the sliding tides.

And fairer she, but ah, how soon to die!
Her quiet dream of life this hour may cease.
Her peaceful being slowly passes by
    To some more perfect peace.

If Laura lady of the flower-soft face
Should light upon these verses, she may take
The tenderest line, and through its pulses trace
What man can suffer for a woman’s sake.
For in the nights that burn, the days that break,
A thin pale figure stands in Passion’s place,
And peace comes not, nor yet the perished grace
Of youth, to keep old faiths and fires awake.
Ah! marvellous maid. Life sobs, and sighing saith,
“She left me, fleeting like a fluttered dove;
But I would have a moment of her breath,
So I might taste the sweetest sense thereof,
And catch from blossoming, honeyed lips of love
Some faint, some fair, some dim, delicious death.”

Where art thou gone, light-ankled Youth?
With wing at either shoulder,
And smile that never left thy mouth
Until the Hours grew colder:

Then somewhat seem’d to whisper near
That thou and I must part;
I doubted it; I felt no fear,
No weight upon the heart.

If aught befell it, Love was by
And roll’d it off again;
So, if there ever was a sigh,
’T was not a sigh of pain.

I may not call thee back; but thou
Returnest when the hand
Of gentle Sleep waves o’er my brow
His poppy-crested wand;

Then smiling eyes bend over mine,
Then lips once press’d invite;
But sleep hath given a silent sign,
And both, alas! take flight.

I.

Now, now's the time, so oft by truth
Promis'd should come to crown your youth.
Then, fair ones, do not wrong
Your joys by staying long;
Or let love's fire go out,
By lingering thus in doubt;
But learn that time once lost
Is ne'er redeem'd by cost.
Then away; come, Hymen, guide
To the bed the bashful bride.


II.

Is it, sweet maid, your fault these holy
Bridal rites go on so slowly?
Dear, is it this you dread
The loss of maidenhead?
Believe me, you will most
Esteem it when 'tis lost;
Then it no longer keep,
Lest issue lie asleep.
Then, away; come, Hymen, guide
To the bed the bashful bride.


III.

These precious, pearly, purling tears
But spring from ceremonious fears.
And 'tis...

I

The curtains now are drawn,
And the spindrift strikes the glass,
Blown up the jagged pass
By the surly salt sou'-west,
And the sneering glare is gone
Behind the yonder crest,
While she sings to me:
"O the dream that thou art my Love, be it thine,
And the dream that I am thy Love, be it mine,
And death may come, but loving is divine."

II

I stand here in the rain,
With its smite upon her stone,
And the grasses that have grown
Over women, children, men,
And their texts that "Life is vain";
But I hear the notes as when
Once she sang to me:
"O the dream that thou art my Love, be it thine,
And the dream that I am thy Love, be it mine,
And death may come, but loving is divine."

Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers,
Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take!
How many memories of what radiant hours
At sight of thee and thine at once awake!
How many scenes of what departed bliss!
How many thoughts of what entombed hopes!
How many visions of a maiden that is
No more, no more upon thy verdant slopes!
No more! alas, that magical sad sound
Transforming all! Thy charms shall please no more,
Thy memory no more! Accursed ground
Henceforth I hold thy flower-enameled shore,
O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!
"Isola d'oro! Fior di Levante!"

'T was three an' thirty year ago,
When I was ruther young, you know,
I had my last an' only fight
About a gal one summer night.
'T was me an' Zekel Johnson; Zeke
'N' me 'd be'n spattin' 'bout a week,
Each of us tryin' his best to show
That he was Liza Jones's beau.
We could n't neither prove the thing,
Fur she was fur too sharp to fling
One over fur the other one
An' by so doin' stop the fun
That we chaps did n't have the sense
To see she got at our expense,
But that's the way a feller does,
Fur boys is fools an' allus was.
An' when they's females in the game
I reckon men's about the same.
Well, Zeke an' me went on that way
An' fussed an' quarrelled day by day;
While Liza, mindin' not the fuss,
Jest kep' a-goin' with both of us,
T...

How many buds in this warm light
    Have burst out laughing into leaves!
And shall a day like this be gone
    Before I seek the wood that holds
The richest music known?

Too many times have nightingales
    Wasted their passion on my sleep,
And brought repentance soon:
    But this one night I'll seek the woods,
The nightingale, and moon.

"Nah, Matty! what meeans all this fuss?
Tha'rt as back'ard as back'ard can be;
Ther must be some reason, becoss
It used to be diff'rent wi' thee.

Aw've nooaticed, 'at allus befoor
If aw kussed thi, tha smiled an lukt fain;
Ther's summat nooan reight, lass, aw'm sewer,
Tha seems i' soa gloomy a vein.

If tha's met wi' a hansomer chap,
Aw'm sewer aw'll net stand i' thi way;
But tha mud get a war, lass, bi th' swap, -
If tha'rt anxious aw'll nivver say nay.

But tha knows 'at for monny a wick
Aw've been savin mi brass to get wed;
An aw'd meant thee gooin wi' me to pick
Aght some chairs an a table an bed.

Aw offer'd mi hand an mi heart;
An tha seemed to be fain to ha booath;
But if its thi wish we should part,
To beg on thi, na...

He lay, and those who watched him were amazed
To see unheralded beneath the lids
Twin tears, new-gathered at the price of pain,
Start and at once run crookedly athwart
Cheeks channelled long by pain, never by tears.
So desolate too the sigh next uttered
They had wept also, but his great lips moved,
And bending down one heard, 'A sprig of lime;
Bring me a sprig of lime.' Whereat she stole
With dumb signs forth to pluck the thing he craved.

So lay he till a lime-twig had been snapped
From some still branch that swept the outer grass
Far from the silver pillar of the bole
Which mounting past the house's crusted roof
Split into massy limbs, crossed boughs, a maze
Of close-compacted intercontorted staffs
Bowered in foliage wherethrough the sun
Shot sudde...

The cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing,
The small birds twitter,
The lake doth glitter
The green field sleeps in the sun;
The oldest and youngest
Are at work with the strongest;
The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising;
There are forty feeding like one!

Like an army defeated
The snow hath retreated,
And now doth fare ill
On the top of the bare hill;
The plowboy is whooping- anon-anon:
There's joy in the mountains;
There's life in the fountains;
Small clouds are sailing,
Blue sky prevailing;
The rain is over and gone!

Like one who meets a staggering blow,
The stout old ship doth reel,
And waters vast go seething past
But will it last, this fearful blast,
On straining shroud and groaning mast,
O sailor at the wheel?

His face is smitten with the wind,
His cheeks are chilled with rain;
And you were right, his hair is white,
But eyes are calm and heart is light
He does not fear the strife to-night,
He knows the roaring main.

Ho, Sailor! Will to-morrow bring
The hours of pleasant rest?
An answer low “I do not know,
The thunders grow and far winds blow,
But storms may come and storms may go
Our God, He judgeth best!”

Now you are right, brave mariner,
But we are not like you;
We, used to shore, our fates deplore,
And fear the more when wa...

[Footnote: Sickness may be often an incentive to poetical composition; I found it so; and I esteem the following lines only because they remind me of past feelings which I would not willingly forget.]


Health! I seek thee; - dost thou love
The mountain top or quiet vale,
Or deign o'er humbler hills to rove
On showery June's dark south-west gale?
If so, I'll meet all blasts that blow,
With silent step, but not forlorn;
Though, goddess, at thy shrine I bow,
And woo thee each returning morn.

I seek thee where, with all his might,
The joyous bird his rapture tells,
Amidst the half-excluded light,
That gilds the fox-glove's pendant bells;
Where, cheerly up this bold hill's side
The deep'ning groves triumphant climb;
In groves Delight and Peace abide,