Betrayal

    "Only a penny, Sir!"
        A child held to my view
    A bunch of "glory-roses," red
        As blood, and wet with dew.

    (O earnest little face,
        With living light in eye,
    Your roses are too fair for earth,
        And you seem of the sky!)


    "My beauties, Sir!" he said,
        "Only a penny, too!"
    His face shone in their ruddy glow
        A Rafael cherub true.

    "Yestreen their hoods were close
        About their faces tight,
    But ere the sun was up, I saw
        That God had come last night.

    "O Sir, to see them then!
        The bush was all aflame! -
    O yes, they're glory-roses, Sir,
        That is their holy name.


    "Only a penny, Sir!" -
      ...

Thou lovely bud, with many weeds surrounded,
I once again address thee with a song;
To cheer thee up 'gainst Envy's adder-tongue
That deeply oft thy reputation wounded,
And did thy tender blossom mickle wrong.
But, look thou up!--'tis known in nature's law
That serpents seek the honey-hoarding bee,
Rosemary's sweets the loathsome toad will draw,
So beauty curdles envy's look on thee.
Fain would the peacock's tail the bow express
Which paints the clouds so sweet in April's rain,
And just the same, that imp of ugliness
Mimics thy lovely blossom,--but in vain;
And fain would poison what he can't possess.

The storm hath blown thee a lover, sweet,
And laid him kneeling at thy feet.
But, - guerdon rich for favor rare!
The wind hath all thy holy hair
To kiss and to sing through and to flare
Like torch-flames in the passionate air,
About thee, O Miranda.

Eyes in a blaze, eyes in a daze,
Bold with love, cold with amaze,
Chaste-thrilling eyes, fast-filling eyes
With daintiest tears of love's surprise,
Ye draw my soul unto your blue
As warm skies draw the exhaling dew,
Divine eyes of Miranda.

And if I were yon stolid stone,
Thy tender arm doth lean upon,
Thy touch would turn me to a heart,
And I would palpitate and start,
- Content, when thou wert gone, to be
A dumb rock by the lonesome sea
Forever, O Miranda.


Baltimore...

His back is bent and his lips are blue,
Shivering out in the wet:
"Here's a florin, my man, for you,
Go and get drunk and forget!"

Right in the midst of a Christian land,
Rotted with wealth and ease,
Broken and draggled they let him stand
Till his feet on the pavement freeze.

God leaves His poor in His vicars' care,
For He hears the church-bells ring,
His ears are buzzing with constant prayer
And the hymns His people sing.

Can His pity picture the anguish here,
Can He see, through a London fog,
The man who has worked "nigh seventy year"
To die the death of a dog?

No one heeds him, the crowds pass on.
Why does he want to live?
"Take this florin, and get you gone,
Go and get drunk, - and forgive!"

I have no fancy for that ancient cant
That makes us masters of our destinies,
And not our lives, to hold or give them up
As will directs; I cannot, will not think
That men, the subtle worms, who plot and plan
And scheme and calculate with such shrewd wit,
Are such great blund'ring fools as not to know
When they have lived enough.
Men court not death
When there are sweets still left in life to taste.
Nor will a brave man choose to live when he,
Full deeply drunk of life, has reached the dregs,
And knows that now but bitterness remains.
He is the coward who, outfaced in this,
Fears the false goblins of another life.
I honor him who being much harassed
Drinks of sweet courage until drunk of it,--
Then seizing Death, reluctant, by the hand,
Leaps with hi...

I.

When from the tower, like some sweet flower,
The bell drops petals of the hour,
That says the world is homing,
My heart puts off its garb of care
And clothes itself in gold and vair,
And hurries forth to meet her there
Within the purple gloaming.

It's Oh! how slow the hours go,
How dull the moments move!
Till soft and clear the bells I hear,
That say, like music, in my ear,
"Go meet the one you love."

II.
When curved and white, a bugle bright,
The moon blows glamour through the night,
That sets the world a-dreaming,
My heart, where gladness late was guest,
Puts off its joy, as to my breast
At parting her dear form is pressed,
Within the moon's faint gleaming.

It's Oh! how fast the hours passed!
They were...

Then let not winter’s ragged hand deface,
In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill’d:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place
With beauty’s treasure ere it be self-kill’d.
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That’s for thy self to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier, be it ten for one;
Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigur’d thee:
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-will’d, for thou art much too fair
To be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.

    Love, thou gayest fancy-weaver,
    Heart-betrayer, soul-deceiver,
    Come with all thy clinging kisses;
    Bringing all thy beaming blisses;
    It may serve the cynic's parts,
        If he curse and if he scout thee,
    But, O, where were gentle hearts,
        If they had to live without thee!

    Weave the spells of thy beguiling
    'Round and 'round me with thy smiling,
    Till the ashen cheek is beaming,
    And the faded eye is gleaming;
    Millions may endure the fight
        In the battle vain to end thee,
    But when taste they thy delight
        They will serve thee and defend thee.

    Bring thy little winsome graces
    And the sweets of glad embraces,
    Till the pleasures all are dancing
    Into mazy wh...

Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand,
For I am drowning in a stormier sea
Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee:
The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,
My heart is as some famine-murdered land
Whence all good things have perished utterly,
And well I know my soul in Hell must lie
If I this night before God's throne should stand.
'He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,
Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name
From morn to noon on Carmel's smitten height.'
Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,
The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,
The wounded hands, the weary human face.

We will never walk again
As we used to walk at night,
Watching our shadows lengthen
Under the gold street-light
When the snow was new and white.
We will never walk again
Slowly, we two,
In spring when the park is sweet
With midnight and with dew,
And the passers-by are few.
I sit and think of it all,
And the blue June twilight dies,
Down in the clanging square
A street-piano cries
And stars come out in the skies.

She leaned o'er her latticed casement,
    The Flower of Wensleydale;
'Twas St Agnes Eve at midnight,
    Through the mist the stars burnt pale.

In her hand she held twelve sage-leaves,
    Plucked in her garden at noon;
And over them she had whispered thrice
    The spell of a mystic rune.

For many had come a-wooing
    The maid with the sloe-blue eyes;
Fain would she learn of St Agnes
    To whom should fall the prize.

They said she must drop a sage-leaf
    At each stroke of the midnight hour;
Then should the knight of her father's choice
Obey the summons of her voice,
    And appear 'neath her oriel'd bowwer.

To the holy virgin-martyr
    She lifted her hands in prayer;
Then she watched the rooks that perched asleep

Draw closer to my side to-night,
Dear wife, give me thy hand,
My heart is sad with memories
Which thou canst understand,
Its twenty years this very day,
I know thou minds it well,
Since o'er our happy wedded life
The heaviest trouble fell.

We stood beside the little cot,
But not a word we said;
With breaking hearts we learned, alas,
Our little Claude was dead,
He was the last child born to us,
The loveliest, - the best,
I sometimes fear we loved him more
Than any of the rest.

We tried to say "Thy will be done,"
We strove to be resigned;
But all in vain, our loss had left
Too deep a wound behind.
I saw the tears roll down thy cheek,
And shared thy misery,
But could not speak a soothing word,
I could but grieve with...

Tornami al tempo.


Bring back the time when blind desire ran free,
        With bit and rein too loose to curb his flight;
        Give back the buried face, once angel-bright,
        That hides in earth all comely things from me;
Bring back those journeys ta'en so toilsomely,
        So toilsome-slow to one whose hairs are white;
        Those tears and flames that in one breast unite;
        If thou wilt once more take thy fill of me!
Yet Love! Suppose it true that thou dost thrive
        Only on bitter honey-dews of tears.
        Small profit hast thou of a weak old man.
My soul that toward the other shore doth strive,
        Wards off thy darts with shafts of holier fears;
        And fire feeds ill on brands no breath can fan.

THE ARGUMENT.

Almagro's expedition to Chili - his troops suffer great hardships from cold, in crossing the Andes - they reach Chili - the Chilese make a brave resistance - the revolt of the Peruvians in Cuzco - they are led on by Manco-Capac, the successor of Ataliba - his parting with Cora, his wife - the Peruvians regain half their city - Almagro leaves Chili - to avoid the Andes, he crosses a vast desert - his troops can find no water    - the rest divide in two bands - Alphonso leads the second band, which soon reaches a fertile valley - the Spaniards observe the natives are employed in searching the streams for gold - they resolve to attack them.


PERU.

CANTO THE FOURTH.

Now the stern partner of Pizarro's toils,
Almagro, lur'd by hope of g...

    Better than granite, Spoon River,
    Is the memory-picture you keep of me
    Standing before the pioneer men and women
    There at Concord Church on Communion day.
    Speaking in broken voice of the peasant youth
    Of Galilee who went to the city
    And was killed by bankers and lawyers;
    My voice mingling with the June wind
    That blew over wheat fields from Atterbury;
    While the white stones in the burying ground
    Around the Church shimmered in the summer sun.
    And there, though my own memories
    Were too great to bear, were you, O pioneers,
    With bowed heads breathing forth your sorrow
    For the sons killed in battle and the daughters
    And little children who vanished in life's morning,
    Or at the intolerable hour of no...

The rowan tree grows by the tower foot,
(Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea,
    Can the dead feel joy or pain?)
And the owls in the ivy blink and hoot,
And the sea-waves bubble around its root,
Where kelp and tangle and sea-shells be,
When the bat in the dark flies silently.
    (Hark to the wind and the rain.)

The ladye sits in the turret alone,
(Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea,
    The dead--can they complain?)
And her long hair down to her knee has grown,
And her hand is cold as a hand of stone,
And wan as a band of flesh may be,
While the bird in the bower sings merrily.
    (Hark to the wind and the rain.)

Sadly she leans by her casement side
(Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea,
    Can the de...