Betrayal

Still Summer lingers on these peaceful shores,
Nor yet she quits her rose-erected bow'r;
Tho' oft in many a dew-drop she explores
Her beauties fading in each passing hour!

Tho' Winter's boist'rous child, November, strays
Amid those scenes that wak'd the poet's lyre,
Shakes his green canopy, and loves to raise,
Of sapless leaves, an altar for his sire.

Soon shall his wild and stormy sway be o'er;
These lovely scenes shall feel his shortest reign;
And thou, sweet Summer! charming as before,
Shall but retire to dress thyself again.

Yet Heaven guides, full provident and kind,
With sweet economy, the source of joy,
From grief extracts some comfort for the mind,
And fresh hopes flatter ere the lost annoy.

See where Connubial Love yon rock asc...

Giunto m' ha Amor fra belle e crude braccia.

HE CANNOT END HER CRUELTY, NOR SHE HIS HOPE.


    Me Love has left in fair cold arms to lie,
Which kill me wrongfully: if I complain,
My martyrdom is doubled, worse my pain:
Better in silence love, and loving die!
For she the frozen Rhine with burning eye
Can melt at will, the hard rock break in twain,
So equal to her beauty her disdain
That others' pleasure wakes her angry sigh.
A breathing moving marble all the rest,
Of very adamant is made her heart,
So hard, to move it baffles all my art.
Despite her lowering brow and haughty breast,
One thing she cannot, my fond heart deter
From tender hopes and passionate sighs for her.

MACGREGOR.

Don told me that he loved me dear
Where down the range Whioola pours;
And when I laughed and would not hear
He flung away to fight the wars.
He flung away, how should he know
My foolish heart was dancin' so?
How should he know that at his word
My soul was trillin' like a bird?

He went out in the cannon smoke.
He did not seek to ask me why.
Again each day my poor heart broke
To see the careless post go by.
I cared not for their Emperors,
For me there was this in the wars;
My brown boy in the shell-clouds dim,
And savage devils killin' him!

They told me on the field he fell,
And far they bore him from the fight,
But he is whole, he will be well
Now in a ward by day and night
A fair, tall nurse with slim, neat hands
By his whi...

1.

No specious splendour of this stone
Endears it to my memory ever;
With lustre only once it shone,
And blushes modest as the giver.


2.

Some, who can sneer at friendship's ties,
Have, for my weakness, oft reprov'd me;
Yet still the simple gift I prize,
For I am sure, the giver lov'd me.


3.

He offer'd it with downcast look,
As fearful that I might refuse it;
I told him, when the gift I took,
My only fear should be, to lose it.


4.

This pledge attentively I view'd,
And sparkling as I held it near,
Methought one drop the stone bedew'd,
And, ever since, I've lov'd a tear.


5.

Still, to adorn his humble youth,
Nor wealth nor birth their treasures yield;
B...

My careful plans all storm-subdued,
In disappointing solitude
    The weary hours began;
And scarce I deemed when time had sped,
Marked only by the passing tread
    Of some pedestrian.

But with the morrow's tranquil dawn,
A fairy scene I looked upon
    That filled me with delight;
Far-reaching from my own abode,
The world in matchless splendor glowed,
    Arrayed in spotless white.

The surface of the hillside slope
Gleamed in my farthest vision's scope
    Like opalescent stone;
Rich jewels hung on every tree,
Whose crystalline transparency
    Golconda's gems outshone.

Beyond the line where wayside posts
Stood up, like fear-inspiring ghosts
    Of awful form and mien,
A mansion tall, my neighbor's pride,
A see...

All the long day the vapours played
    At blindfold in the city streets,
Their elfin fingers caught and stayed
    The sunbeams, as they wound their sheets
Into a filmy barricade
    'Twixt earth and where the sunlight beats.

A vagrant band of mischiefs these,
    With wings of grey and cobweb gown;
They live along the edge of seas,
    And creeping out on foot of down,
They chase and frolic, frisk and tease
    At blind-man's buff with all the town.

And when at eventide the sun
    Breaks with a glory through their grey,
The vapour-fairies, one by one,
Outspread their wings and float away
In clouds of colouring, that run
    Wine-like along the rim of day.

Athwart the beauty and the breast
    Of purpling airs they twirl and ...

Oh, summer has clothed the earth
In a cloak from the loom of the sun!
And a mantle, too, of the skies' soft blue,
And a belt where the rivers run.

And now for the kiss of the wind,
And the touch of the air's soft hands,
With the rest from strife and the heat of life,
With the freedom of lakes and lands.

I envy the farmer's boy
Who sings as he follows the plow;
While the shining green of the young blades lean
To the breezes that cool his brow.

He sings to the dewy morn,
No thought of another's ear;
But the song he sings is a chant for kings
And the whole wide world to hear.

He sings of the joys of life,
Of the pleasures of work and rest,
From an o'erfull heart, without aim or art;
'T is a song of the merriest.

O...

Why come ye here to sigh that I,
Who with crossed wrists so peaceless lie
Before ye, am at rest, at rest!
For that the pistons of my blood
No more in this machinery thud?
And on these eyes, that once were blest
With magnetism of fire, are prest
Thin, damp, pale eyelids for a sheath,
Whereon the bony claw of Death
Hath set his coins of unseen lead,
Stamped with the image of his head?

Why come ye here to weep for one,
Who is forgotten when he's gone
From ye and burthened with this rest
Your God hath given him! unsought
Of any prayers, whiles yet he wrought, -
And with what sacrifices bought!
Low, sweet communion mouth to mouth
Of thoughts that dewed eternal drought
Of Life's bald barrenness, - a jest,
An irony hath grown confessed
...

    Fintray, my stay in worldly strife,
    Friend o' my muse, friend o' my life,
        Are ye as idle's I am?
    Come then, wi' uncouth, kintra fleg,
    O'er Pegasus I'll fling my leg,
        And ye shall see me try him.

    I'll sing the zeal Drumlanrig bears,
    Who left the all-important cares
        Of princes and their darlings;
    And, bent on winning borough towns,
    Came shaking hands wi' wabster lowns,
        And kissing barefit carlins.

    Combustion thro' our boroughs rode,
    Whistling his roaring pack abroad
        Of mad unmuzzled lions;
    As Queensberry buff and blue unfurl'd,
    And Westerha' and Hopeton hurl'd
        To every Whig defiance.

    But cautious Queensberry left the war,
    Th' u...

Enough of thought, philosopher!
Too long hast thou been dreaming
Unlightened, in this chamber drear,
While summer's sun is beaming!
Space-sweeping soul, what sad refrain
Concludes thy musings once again?

"Oh, for the time when I shall sleep
Without identity.
And never care how rain may steep,
Or snow may cover me!
No promised heaven, these wild desires
Could all, or half fulfil;
No threatened hell, with quenchless fires,
Subdue this quenchless will!"

"So said I, and still say the same;
Still, to my death, will say,
Three gods, within this little frame,
Are warring night; and day;
Heaven could not hold them all, and yet
They all are held in me;
And must be mine till I forget
My present entity!
Oh, for the time, when in ...

The sun at noon to higher air,
Unharnessing the silver Pair
That late before his chariot swam,
Rides on the gold wool of the Ram.

So braver notes the storm-cock sings
To start the rusted wheel of things,
And brutes in field and brutes in pen
Leap that the world goes round again.

The boys are up the woods with day
To fetch the daffodils away,
And home at noonday from the hills
They bring no dearth of daffodils.

Afield for palms the girls repair,
And sure enough the palms are there,
And each will find by hedge or pond
Her waving silver-tufted wand.

In farm and field through all the shire
The eye beholds the heart's desire;
Ah, let not only mine be vain,
For lovers should be loved again.

My mother dandled me and sang,
‘How young it is, how young!’
And made a golden cradle
That on a willow swung.

‘He went away,’ my mother sang,
‘When I was brought to bed,’
And all the while her needle pulled
The gold and silver thread.

She pulled the thread and bit the thread
And made a golden gown,
And wept because she had dreamt that I
Was born to wear a crown.

‘When she was got,’ my mother sang,
‘I heard a sea-mew cry,
And saw a flake of the yellow foam
That dropped upon my thigh.’

How therefore could she help but braid
The gold into my hair,
And dream that I should carry
The golden top of care?

Travellers in Mexico have found the form of a serpent invariably pictured over the doorways of the Indian Temples, and on the interior walls, the impression of a red hand.

The superstitions attached to the phenomena of the thunderstorm and Aurora Borealis, alluded to in the poem, are well authenticated.


I saw him in vision,--the last of that race
Who were destined to vanish before the Pale-face,
As the dews of the evening from mountain and dale,
When the thirsty young Morning withdraws her dark veil;
Alone with the Past and the Future's chill breath,
Like a soul that has entered the valley of Death.

He stood where of old from the Fane of the Sun,
While cycles unnumbered their centuries run,
Never quenched, never fading, and mocking at Time,
Blazed the fire sace...

Restless and hot two children lay
    Plagued with uneasy dreams,
Each wandered lonely through false day
    A twilight torn with screams.

True to the bed-time story, Ben
    Pursued his wounded bear,
Ann dreamed of chattering monkey men,
    Of snakes twined in her hair...

Now high aloft above the town
    The thick clouds gather and break,
A flash, a roar, and rain drives down:
    Aghast the young things wake.

Trembling for what their terror was,
    Surprised by instant doom,
With lightning in the looking glass,
    Thunder that rocks the room.

The monkeys' paws patter again,
    Snakes hiss and flash their eyes:
The bear roars out in hideous pain:
    Ann prays:    her brother cries.

They cannot guess, cou...

Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
And dear the last embraces of our wives
And their warm tears; but all hath suffer’d change;
For surely now our household hearths are cold,
Our sons inherit us, our looks are strange,
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
Or else the island princes over-bold
Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Before them of the ten years’ war in Troy,
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
Is there confusion in the little isle?
Let what is broken so remain.
The Gods are hard to reconcile;
‘T is hard to settle order once again.
There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
Long labor unto aged breath,
Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars
And eyes grown dim with gazing on ...

"Qui color ater erat, nunc est contrarius atro."[1]

With singing of ballads, and crying of news,
With whitening of buckles, and blacking of shoes,
Did Hartley set out, both shoeless and shirtless,
And moneyless too, but not very dirtless;
Two pence he had gotten by begging, that's all;
One bought him a brush, and one a black ball;
For clouts at a loss he could not be much,
The clothes on his back as being but such;
Thus vamp'd and accoutred, with clouts, ball, and brush,
He gallantly ventured his fortune to push:
Vespasian[2] thus, being bespatter'd with dirt,
Was omen'd to be Rome's emperor for't.
But as a wise fiddler is noted, you know,
To have a good couple of strings to one bow;
So Hartley[3] judiciously thought it too little,
To live by the sweat o...

I know not where you wait for me in all your maiden sweetness,
Sweet soul in whom my life will find its rest, its full completeness;
But somewhere you await me, Fate will lead us to each other,
As roses know the sunlight, so shall we know one another.

Dear heart, what are you doing in this twilight's purple splendor,
Do you tend your dewy flowers with fingers white and slender,
Heavy, odor-laden branches in blessing bent above you,
Fond lilies kneeling at your feet, winds murmuring they love you?

Mayhap, your heart in maiden peace is like a closed bud sleeping,
Wrapped in pure folds of saintly thought, its tender freshness keeping.
Yet like a dream that comes in sleep, your soul sweet quiet breaking,
Is a thought of me, my darling, that shall come true on waking.

Oft is the medal faithful to its trust
When temples, columns, towers, are laid in dust;
And 'tis a common ordinance of fate
That things obscure and small outlive the great:
Hence, when yon mansion and the flowery trim
Of this fair garden, and its alleys dim,
And all its stately trees, are passed away,
This little Niche, unconscious of decay,
Perchance may still survive. And be it known
That it was scooped within the living stone,
Not by the sluggish and ungrateful pains
Of labourer plodding for his daily gains,
But by an industry that wrought in love;
With help from female hands, that proudly strove
To aid the work, what time these walks and bowers
Were shaped to cheer dark winter's lonely hours.