Betrayal

I think just how my shape will rise
When I shall be forgiven,
Till hair and eyes and timid head
Are out of sight, in heaven.

I think just how my lips will weigh
With shapeless, quivering prayer
That you, so late, consider me,
The sparrow of your care.

I mind me that of anguish sent,
Some drifts were moved away
Before my simple bosom broke, --
And why not this, if they?

And so, until delirious borne
I con that thing, -- "forgiven," --
Till with long fright and longer trust
I drop my heart, unshriven!

Fair in a morn (O fairest morn!),
    Was never morn so fair,
There shone a sun, though not the sun
    That shineth in the air.
For the earth, and from the earth,
    (Was never such a creature!)
Did come this face (was never face
    That carried such a feature).
Upon a hill (O blessèd hill!
    Was never hill so blessèd),
There stood a man (was never man
    For woman so distressed):
This man beheld a heavenly view,
    Which did such virtue give
As clears the blind, and helps the lame,
    And makes the dead man live.
This man had hap (O happy man!
    More happy none than he);
For he had hap to see the hap
    That none had hap to see.
This silly swain (and silly swains
    Are men of meanest grace):
Had yet the grace (O grac...

The fountain of my life, which flowed so free,
    The plenteous waves, which brimming gushed along,
    Bright, deep, and swift, with a perpetual song,
Doubtless have long since seemed dried up to thee:
How should they not? from the shrunk, narrow bed,
    Where once that glory flowed, have ebbed away
    Light, life, and motion, and along its way
The dull stream slowly creeps a shallow thread, -
Yet, at the hidden source, if hands unblest
    Disturb the wells whence that sad stream takes birth,
    The swollen waters once again gush forth,
Dark, bitter floods, rolling in wild unrest.

Love, love me now, because I place
Thee here among my righteous race:
The bastard slips may droop and die
Wanting both root and earth; but thy
Immortal self shall boldly trust
To live for ever with my Just.

I

Beyond the years the answer lies,
Beyond where brood the grieving skies
And Night drops tears.
Where Faith rod-chastened smiles to rise
And doff its fears,
And carping Sorrow pines and dies--
Beyond the years.


II

Beyond the years the prayer for rest
Shall beat no more within the breast;
The darkness clears,
And Morn perched on the mountain's crest
Her form uprears--
The day that is to come is best,
Beyond the years.


III

Beyond the years the soul shall find
That endless peace for which it pined,
For light appears,
And to the eyes that still were blind
With blood and tears,
Their sight shall come all unconfined
Beyond the years.

I.

'Twas in that memorable year
France threaten'd to put off in
Flat-bottom'd boats, intending each
To be a British coffin,
To make sad widows of our wives,
And every babe an orphan: -


II.

When coats were made of scarlet cloaks,
And heads were dredg'd with flour,
I listed in the Lawyer's Corps,
Against the battle hour;
A perfect Volunteer - for why?
I brought my "will and pow'r."


III.

One dreary day - a day of dread,
Like Cato's, over-cast -
About the hour of six, (the morn
And I were breaking fast,)
There came a loud and sudden sound,
That struck me all aghast!


IV.

A dismal sort of morning roll,
That was not to be eaten;
Although it was no skin of mine,
Bu...

To M. De Barillon.[1]

Can diplomatic dignity
To simple fables condescend?
Can I your famed benignity
Invoke, my muse an ear to lend?
If once she dares a high intent,
Will you esteem her impudent?
Your cares are weightier, indeed,
Than listening to the sage debates
Of rabbit or of weasel states:
So, as it pleases, burn or read;
But save us from the woful harms
Of Europe roused in hostile arms.
That from a thousand other places
Our enemies should show their faces,
May well be granted with a smile,
But not that England's Isle
Our friendly kings should set
Their fatal blades to whet.
Comes not the time for Louis to repose?
What Hercules, against these hydra foes,
Would not grow weary? Must new heads oppose
His ever-wa...

I know not why I yearn for thee again,
To sail once more upon thy fickle flood;
I'll hear thy waves wash under my death-bed,
Thy salt is lodged forever in my blood.

Yet I have seen thee lash the vessel's sides
In fury, with thy many tailed whip;
And I have seen thee, too, like Galilee,
When Jesus walked in peace to Simon's ship

And I have seen thy gentle breeze as soft
As summer's, when it makes the cornfields run;
And I have seen thy rude and lusty gale
Make ships show half their bellies to the sun.

Thou knowest the way to tame the wildest life,
Thou knowest the way to bend the great and proud:
I think of that Armada whose puffed sails,
Greedy and large, came swallowing every cloud.

But I have seen the sea-boy, young and drowned,
...

Spirit, bright spirit! from thy narrow cell
    Answer me! answer me! oh, let me hear
    Thy voice, and know that thou indeed art near!
That from the bonds in which thou'rt forced to dwell
    Thou hast not broken free, thou art not fled,
    Thou hast not pined away, thou art not dead.
Speak to me through thy prison bars; my life
With all things round, is one eternal strife,
'Mid whose wild din I pause to hear thy voice;
    Speak to me, look on me, thou born of light!
That I may know thou'rt with me, and rejoice.
Shall not this weary warfare pass away?
Shall there not come a better, brighter day?
    Shall not thy chain and mine be broken quite,
        And thou to heaven spring,
        With thine immortal wing,
        And I, still following,
       ...

    Yesterday I thought to roam
    Idly through the fields of home,
    And I came at morning's end
    To our brook's familiar bend.
    There I raised my eyes, and there,
    Shining through an ampler air,
    Folded in by hills of blue
    Such as Wessex never knew,
    Changed as in a waking dream
    Flowed the well-remembered stream.

    Now a line of wattled pale
    Fenced the downland from the vale,
    Now the sedge was set with reeds
    Fitter for Arcadian meads,
    And where I was wont to find
    Only things of timid kind,
    Now the Genius of the pool
    Mocked me from his corner cool.
    Eyes he had with malice quick,
    Tufted hair and ears a-prick,
    And, above a tiny chin,
    Lips with laughter wide a-...

When the grey geese heard the Fool's tread
Too near to where they lay,
They lifted neither voice nor head,
But took themselves away.
No water broke, no pinion whirred,
There went no warning call.
The steely, sheltering rushes stirred
A little, that was all.
Only the osiers understood,
And the drowned meadows spied
What else than wreckage of a flood
Stole outward on that tide.
But the far beaches saw their ranks
Gather and greet and grow
By myriads on the naked banks
Watching their sign to go;
Till, with a roar of wings that churned
The shivering shoals to foam,
Flight after flight took air and turned
To find a safer home;
And, far below their steadfast wedge,
They heard (and hastened on)
Men thresh and clamour through the sedge

We kissed at the barrier; and passing through
She left me, and moment by moment got
Smaller and smaller, until to my view
She was but a spot;

A wee white spot of muslin fluff
That down the diminishing platform bore
Through hustling crowds of gentle and rough
To the carriage door.

Under the lamplight's fitful glowers,
Behind dark groups from far and near,
Whose interests were apart from ours,
She would disappear,

Then show again, till I ceased to see
That flexible form, that nebulous white;
And she who was more than my life to me
Had vanished quite . . .

We have penned new plans since that fair fond day,
And in season she will appear again -
Perhaps in the same soft white array -
But never as then!

- "And why, y...

In search of prey once raised his pinions
An eaglet;
A huntsman's arrow came, and reft
His right wing of all motive power.
Headlong he fell into a myrtle grove,
For three long days on anguish fed,
In torment writhed
Throughout three long, three weary nights;
And then was cured,
Thanks to all-healing Nature's
Soft, omnipresent balm.
He crept away from out the copse,
And stretch'd his wing alas!
Lost is all power of flight
He scarce can lift himself
From off the ground
To catch some mean, unworthy prey,
And rests, deep-sorrowing,
On the low rock beside the stream.
Up to the oak he looks,
Looks up to heaven,
While in his noble eye there gleams a tear.
Then, rustling through the myrtle boughs, behold,
There comes a wanton pair of...

All things are shadows of thee, Lord;
    The sun himself is but thy shade;
My spirit is the shadow of thy word,
    A thing that thou hast said.

Diamonds are shadows of the sun,
    They gleam as after him they hark:
My soul some arrows of thy light hath won.
    And feebly fights the dark!

All knowledges are broken shades,
    In gulfs of dark a scattered horde:
Together rush the parted glory-grades--
    Then, lo, thy garment, Lord!

My soul, the shadow, still is light
    Because the shadow falls from thee;
I turn, dull candle, to the centre bright,
    And home flit shadowy.

Shine, Lord; shine me thy shadow still;
    The brighter I, the more thy shade!
My motion be thy lovely moveless will!
    My darkness, light del...

So die, thou child of stormy dawn,
Thou winter flower, forlorn of nurse;
Chilled early by the bigot's curse,
The pedant's frown, the worldling's yawn.

Fair death, to fall in teeming June,
When every seed which drops to earth
Takes root, and wins a second birth
From steaming shower and gleaming moon.

Fall warm, fall fast, thou mellow rain;
Thou rain of God, make fat the land;
That roots which parch in burning sand
May bud to flower and fruit again.

To grace, perchance, a fairer morn
In mightier lands beyond the sea,
While honour falls to such as we
From hearts of heroes yet unborn,

Who in the light of fuller day,
Of purer science, holier laws,
Bless us, faint heralds of their cause,
Dim beacons of their glorious way.
...

It’s forty in the shade to-day, the spouting eaves declare;
The boulders nose above the drift, the southern slopes are bare;
Hub-deep in slush Apollo’s car swings north along the Zod,
iac. Good luck, the Spring is back, and Pan is on the road!

His house is Gee & Tellus’ Sons,, so goes his jest with men,
He sold us Zeus knows what last year; he’ll take us in again.
Disguised behind the livery-team, fur-coated, rubber-shod,
Yet Apis from the bull-pen lows, he knows his brother God!

Now down the lines of tasseled pines the yearning whispers wake,
Pithys of old thy love behold! Come in for Hermes’s sake!
How long since that so-Boston boot with reeling Maenads ran!
Numen adest! Let be the rest. Pipe and we pay, O Pan.

(What though his phlox and hollyhocks ere hal...

The oleander on the wall
Grows crimson in the dawning light,
Though the grey shadows of the night
Lie yet on Florence like a pall.

The dew is bright upon the hill,
And bright the blossoms overhead,
But ah! the grasshoppers have fled,
The little Attic song is still.

Only the leaves are gently stirred
By the soft breathing of the gale,
And in the almond-scented vale
The lonely nightingale is heard.

The day will make thee silent soon,
O nightingale sing on for love!
While yet upon the shadowy grove
Splinter the arrows of the moon.

Before across the silent lawn
In sea-green vest the morning steals,
And to love's frightened eyes reveals
The long white fingers of the dawn

Fast climbing up the eastern sky
To gras...

Strange, is it not? She was making her garden,
    Planting the old-fashioned flowers that day
Bleeding-hearts tender and bachelors-buttons
    Spreading the seeds in the old-fashioned way.

Just in the old fashioned way, too, our quarrel
    Grew until, angrily, she set me free
Planting, indeed, bleeding hearts for the two of us,
    Ordaining bachelor’s buttons for me.

Envoi

Strange, was it not? But seeds planted in anger
    Sour in the earth and, ere long, a decay
Withered the bleeding hearts, blighted the buttons,
    And, we were wed, in the old-fashioned way.