Betrayal

A pretty task, Miss S -    - , to ask
A Benedictine pen,
That cannot quite at freedom write
Like those of other men.

No lover's plaint my muse must paint
To fill this page's span,
But be correct and recollect
I'm not a single man.

Pray only think, for pen and ink
How hard to get along,
That may not turn on words that burn
Or Love, the life of song!

Nine Muses, if I chooses, I
May woo all in a clan,
But one Miss S -    -    I daren't address -
I'm not a single man.

Scribblers unwed, with little head
May eke it out with heart,
And in their lays it often plays
A rare first-fiddle part.

They make a kiss to rhyme with bliss,
But if I so began,
I have my fears about my ears -
I'm not a single ma...

When winter comes and takes away the rose,
And all the singing of sweet birds is done,
The warm and honeyed world lost deep in snows,
Still, independent of the summer sun,
In vain, with sullen roar,
December shakes my door,
And sleet upon the pane
Threatens my peace in vain,
While, seated by the fire upon my knee,
My love abides with me.

For he who, wise in time, his harvest yields
Reaped into barns, sweet-smelling and secure,
Smiles as the rain beats sternly on his fields,
For wealth is his no winter can make poor;
Safe all his waving gold
Shut in against the cold,
Treasure of summer grass -
So sit I with my lass,
My harvest sheaves of all her garnered charms
Safe in my happy arms.

Still fragrant in the garden of her breast,

"If I sit in the dust
    For lauding good wine,
Ha, ha! it is just:
    So sits the vine!"

Abu Midjan sang as he sat in chains,
For the blood of the grape ran the juice of his veins.
The Prophet had said, "O Faithful, drink not!"
Abu Midjan drank till his heart was hot;
Yea, he sang a song in praise of wine,
He called it good names--a joy divine,
The giver of might, the opener of eyes,
Love's handmaid, the water of Paradise!
Therefore Saad his chief spake words of blame,
And set him in irons--a fettered flame;
But he sings of the wine as he sits in his chains,
For the blood of the grape runs the juice of his veins:

"I will not think
    That the Prophet said
Ye shall not drink
    Of the flowing red!"

"'Tis a drenc...

    In the lust of my strength
    I cursed God, but he paid no attention to me:
    I might as well have cursed the stars.
    In my last sickness I was in agony, but I was resolute
    And I cursed God for my suffering;
    Still He paid no attention to me;
    He left me alone, as He had always done.
    I might as well have cursed the Presbyterian steeple.
    Then, as I grew weaker, a terror came over me:
    Perhaps I had alienated God by cursing him.
    One day Lydia Humphrey brought me a bouquet
    And it occurred to me to try to make friends with God,
    So I tried to make friends with Him;
    But I might as well have tried to make friends with the bouquet.
    Now I was very close to the secret,
    For I really could make friends with the bouquet

A bard, grown desirous of saving his pelf,
Built a house he was sure would hold none but himself.
This enraged god Apollo, who Mercury sent,
And bid him go ask what his votary meant?
"Some foe to my empire has been his adviser:
'Tis of dreadful portent when a poet turns miser!
Tell him, Hermes, from me, tell that subject of mine,
I have sworn by the Styx, to defeat his design;
For wherever he lives, the Muses shall reign;
And the Muses, he knows, have a numerous train."

She sits on the recreation ground
    Under an oak whose yellow buds dot the pale blue sky.
The young grass twinkles in the wind, and the sound
    Of the wind in the knotted buds in a canopy.

So sitting under the knotted canopy
    Of the wind, she is lifted and carried away as in a balloon
Across the insensible void, till she stoops to see
    The sandy desert beneath her, the dreary platoon.

She knows the waste all dry beneath her, in one place
    Stirring with earth-coloured life, ever turning and stirring.
But never the motion has a human face
    Nor sound, save intermittent machinery whirring.

And so again, on the recreation ground
    She alights a stranger, wondering, unused to the scene;
Suffering at sight of the children playing around,

Come, pensive Autumn, with thy clouds, and storms,
And falling leaves, and pastures lost to flowers;
A luscious charm hangs on thy faded forms,
More sweet than Summer in her loveliest hours,
Who, in her blooming uniform of green,
Delights with samely and continued joy:
But give me, Autumn, where thy hand hath been,
For there is wildness that can never cloy, -
The russet hue of fields left bare, and all
The tints of leaves and blossoms ere they fall.
In thy dull days of clouds a pleasure comes,
Wild music softens in thy hollow winds;
And in thy fading woods a beauty blooms,
That's more than dear to melancholy minds.

Hail, Virgin Queen! o'er many an envious bar
Triumphant, snatched from many a treacherous wile!
All hail, sage Lady, whom a grateful Isle
Hath blest, respiring from that dismal war
Stilled by thy voice! But quickly from afar
Defiance breathes with more malignant aim;
And alien storms with home-bred ferments claim
Portentous fellowship. Her silver car,
By sleepless prudence ruled, glides slowly on;
Unhurt by violence, from menaced taint
Emerging pure, and seemingly more bright:
Ah! wherefore yields it to a foul constraint
Black as the clouds its beams dispersed, while shone,
By men and angels blest, the glorious light?

The Text is taken from Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802), vol. i. pp. 72-79, omitting the tedious Part I. Another of many versions may be found in Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. xiii. pp. 275-6, about the year 1794; fourteen stanzas, corresponding to most of Scott's two parts.


The Story of the ballad is given in the two above-mentioned books from tradition as follows. Fair Helen, of the clan of Irving or Bell, favoured Adam Fleming (Fleeming) with her love; another suitor, whose name is said to have been Bell, was the choice of the lady's family and friends. The latter lover becoming jealous, concealed himself in the bushes of the banks of the Kirtle, which flows by the kirkyard of Kirconnell, where the true lovers were accustomed to walk. Being discovered lurking th...

    If brains be gables & minds, say, the shutters
    in a derelict New England Mansion
    then intuition is in the
    eaves & casements
    the well-springs seeping into turrets & cupolas
    of all other nether spaces.

    These big, wide entrances are ourselves in all their splendor,
    notwithstanding the Winchester Mansions
    or Vanderbilt Estates where our
    very personalities are laid bare
    see antics give rise to attics
    feed in onto themselves
    where the Astor's of our alter-egos
    are resplendent in rich pride of self
    longing to manifest in lavish architecture
    so redolent of wealth
    yet see-sawing in, squabbling
    their thread-bare servant quarters
    where murderous passions
    bare ...

The night is dark, and yet it is not quite:
Those stars are hid that other orbs may shine;
Twin stars, whose rays illuminate the night,
And cheer her gloom, but only deepen mine;
For these fair stars are not what they do seem,
But vanish'd eyes remember'd in a dream.

The night is dark, and yet it brings no rest;
Those eager eyes gaze on and banish sleep;
Though flaming Mars has lower'd his crimson crest,
And weary Venus pales into the deep,
These two with tender shining mock my woe
From out the distant heaven of long ago.

The night is dark, and yet how bright they gleam!
Oh! empty vision of a vanish'd light!
Sweet eyes! must you for ever be a dream
Deep in my heart, and distant from my sight?
For could you shine as once you shone before,
The s...

Silence, and whirling worlds afar
Through all encircling skies.
What floods come o'er the spirit's bar,
What wondrous thoughts arise.

The earth, a mantle falls away,
And, winged, we leave the sod;
Where shines in its eternal sway
The majesty of God.

So the days of my tramping are over,
And the days of my riding are done,
I’m about as content as a rover
Will ever be under the sun;
I write, after reading your letter,
My pipe with old memories rife,
And I feel in a mood that had better
Not meet the true eyes of the wife.

You must never admit a suggestion
That old things are good to recall;
You must never consider the question:
‘Was I happier then, after all?’
You must banish the old hope and sorrow
That make the sad pleasures of life,
You must live for To-day and To-morrow
If you want to be just to the wife.

I have changed since the first day I kissed her.
Which is due, Heaven bless her!, to her;
I’m respected and trusted, I’m ‘Mister,’
Addressed by the children as ‘Sir.’
And ...

Say, art thou angry? words unkind
    Have fallen upon thine ear,
Thy spirit hath been wounded too
    By mocking jest or sneer,
But mind it not - relax at once
    Thine o'ercast and troubled brow -
What will be taunt or jest to thee
    In a few short years from now?

Or, perhaps thou mayst be pining
    Beneath some bitter grief,
From whose pangs in vain thou seekest
    Or respite or relief;
Fret not 'neath Heav'n's chastening rod
    But submissive to it bow;
Thy griefs will all be hushed to rest
    In a few short years from now.

Art toiling for some worldly aim,
    Or for some golden prize,
Devoting to that glitt'ring goal
    Thy thoughts, thy smiles, thy sighs?
Ah! rest thee from the idle chase,
    With no bliss c...

!Full Chorus.
To Him Who bade the Heavens abide, yet cease not from their motion,
To Him Who tames the moonstruck tide twice a day round Ocean,
Let His Names be magnified in all poor folks’ devotion!

Powers and Gifts.
Not for Prophecies or Powers, Visions, Gifts, or Graces,
But the unregardful hours that grind us in our places
With the burden on our backs, the weather in our faces.

Toils.
Not for any Miracle of easy Loaves and Fishes,
But for doing, ’gainst our will, work against our wishes,
Such as finding food to fill daily-emptied dishes.

Glories.
Not for Voices, Harps or Wings or rapt illumination,
But the grosser Self that springs of use and occupation,
Unto which the Spirit clings as her last salvation.

Powers, Glories, Toils, and...

At the chill high tide of the night,
At the turn of the fluctuant hours,
When the waters of time are at height,
In a vision arose on my sight
The kingdoms of earth and the powers.

In a dream without lightening of eyes
I saw them, children of earth,
Nations and races arise,
Each one after his wise,
Signed with the sign of his birth.

Sound was none of their feet,
Light was none of their faces;
In their lips breath was not, or heat,
But a subtle murmur and sweet
As of water in wan waste places.

Pale as from passionate years,
Years unassuaged of desire,
Sang they soft in mine ears,
Crowned with jewels of tears,
Girt with girdles of fire.

A slow song beaten and broken,
As it were from the dust and the dead,
As o...

Above the town a monstrous wheel is turning,
With glowing spokes of red,
Low in the west its fiery axle burning;
And, lost amid the spaces overhead,
A vague white moth, the moon, is fluttering.

Above the town an azure sea is flowing,
'Mid long peninsulas of shining sand,
From opal unto pearl the moon is growing,
Dropped like a shell upon the changing strand.

Within the town the streets grow strange and haunted,
And, dark against the western lakes of green,
The buildings change to temples, and unwonted
Shadows and sounds creep in where day has been.

Within the town, the lamps of sin are flaring,
Poor foolish men that know not what ye are!
Tired traffic still upon his feet is faring -
Two lovers meet and kiss and watch a star.

Often when warring for he wist not what,
An enemy-soldier, passing by one weak,
Has tendered water, wiped the burning cheek,
And cooled the lips so black and clammed and hot;

Then gone his way, and maybe quite forgot
The deed of grace amid the roar and reek;
Yet larger vision than loud arms bespeak
He there has reached, although he has known it not.

For natural mindsight, triumphing in the act
Over the throes of artificial rage,
Has thuswise muffled victory's peal of pride,
Rended to ribands policy's specious page
That deals but with evasion, code, and pact,
And war's apology wholly stultified.

1915.