Betrayal

The golden bells of fairyland, that ring
Perpetual chime for childhood's flower-sweet spring,
Sang soft memorial music in his ear
Whose answering music shines about us here.
Soft laughter as of light that stirs the sea
With darkling sense of dawn ere dawn may be,
Kind sorrow, pity touched with gentler scorn,
Keen wit whose shafts were sunshafts of the morn,
Love winged with fancy, fancy thrilled with love,
An eagle's aim and ardour in a dove,
A man's delight and passion in a child,
Inform it as when first they wept and smiled.
Life, soiled and rent and ringed about with pain
Whose touch lent action less of spur than chain,
Left half the happiness his birth designed,
And half the power, unquenched in heart and mind.
Comrade and comforter, sublime in shame,

He who a tender long-lov'd Wife survives,
    Sees himself sunder'd from the only mind
    Whose hopes, and fears, and interests, were combin'd,
    And blended with his own. - No more she lives!
No more, alas! her death-numb'd ear receives
    His thoughts, that trace the Past, or anxious wind
    The Future's darkling maze! - His wish refin'd,
    The wish to please, exists no more, that gives
The will its energy, the nerves their tone! -
    He feels the texture of his quiet torn,
    And stopt the settled course that Action drew;
Life stands suspended - motionless - till thrown
    By outward causes, into channels new; -
    But, in the dread suspense, how sinks the Soul forlorn!

The sky is like an envelope,
    One of those blue official things;
And, sealing it, to mock our hope,
    The moon, a silver wafer, clings.
What shall we find when death gives leave
To read - our sentence or reprieve?

I'm holding it down on God's scrap-pile, up on the fag-end of earth;
O'er me a menace of mountains, a river that grits at my feet;
Face to face with my soul-self, weighing my life at its worth;
Wondering what I was made for, here in my last retreat.

Last! Ah, yes, it's the finish. Have ever you heard a man cry?
(Sobs that rake him and rend him, right from the base of the chest.)
That's how I've cried, oh, so often; and now that my tears are dry,
I sit in the desolate quiet and wait for the infinite Rest.

Rest! Well, it's restful a...

Vessels of heavenly medicine! may the breeze
Auspicious waft your dark green forms to shore;
Safe may ye stem the wide surrounding roar
Of the wild whirlwinds and the raging seas;
And oh! if Liberty e'er deigned to stoop
From yonder lowly throne her crownless brow,
Sure she will breathe around your emerald group
The fairest breezes of her West that blow.
Yes! she will waft ye to some freeborn soul
Whose eye-beam, kindling as it meets your freight,
Her heaven-born flame in suffering Earth will light,
Until its radiance gleams from pole to pole,
And tyrant-hearts with powerless envy burst
To see their night of ignorance dispersed.

The long finger of blackness is holding its head for us.
Dingy bue is its shade,
comatose in movement, hazarding a slow swiftness,
it inches toward us.

Relief comes fitfully.
The dragon alone, an upstart
crowned with drunken spending,
has horse colours as ribbons with his eyes.
It cradles a breast of trembling bone.

Misercorde, Misercorde.
I dreamt I saw skeletal slackness
dangling;
the poverty of touch is a casket
with love in rumbling sockets.
Craziness is the passion of the engulfed,
dribbling pleasantly.

Presentations extended beyond and into themselves.
Slackness schemes with invalid awareness
in a brothel of hope.

L' arbor gentil che forte amai molt' anni.

IMPRECATION AGAINST THE LAUREL.


    The graceful tree I loved so long and well,
Ere its fair boughs in scorn my flame declined,
Beneath its shade encouraged my poor mind
To bud and bloom, and 'mid its sorrow swell.
But now, my heart secure from such a spell,
Alas, from friendly it has grown unkind!
My thoughts entirely to one end confined,
Their painful sufferings how I still may tell.
What should he say, the sighing slave of love,
To whom my later rhymes gave hope of bliss,
Who for that laurel has lost all--but this?
May poet never pluck thee more, nor Jove
Exempt; but may the sun still hold in hate
On each green leaf till blight and blackness wait.

MACGREGOR.

The wave is breaking on the shore,
The echo fading from the chime;
Again the shadow moveth o'er
The dial-plate of time!
O seer-seen Angel! waiting now
With weary feet on sea and shore,
Impatient for the last dread vow
That time shall be no more!
Once more across thy sleepless eye
The semblance of a smile has passed:
The year departing leaves more nigh
Time's fearfullest and last.
Oh, in that dying year hath been
The sum of all since time began;
The birth and death, the joy and pain,
Of Nature and of Man.
Spring, with her change of sun and shower,
And streams released from Winter's chain,
And bursting bud, and opening flower,
And greenly growing grain;
And Summer's shade, and sunshine warm,
And rainbows o'er her hill-tops bowed,
An...

He lets me listen, when he moves me,
Words are not like other words
He takes me, from under my arms
He plants me, in a distant cloud
And the black rain in my eyes
Falls in torrents, torrents
He carries me with him, he carries me
To an evening of perfumed balconies


And I am like a child in his hands
Like a feather carried by the wind
He carries for me seven moons in his hands
and a bundle of songs
He gives me sun, he gives me summer
and flocks of swallows
He tells me that I am his treasure
And that I am equal to thousands of stars
And that I am treasure, and that I am
more beautiful than he has seen of paintings
He tells me things that make me dizzy
that make me forget the dance and the steps


Words...which overturn my...

The scriptures affirm (as I heard in my youth,
For indeed I ne'er read them, to speak for once truth)
That death is the wages of sin, but the just
Shall die not, although they be laid in the dust.
They say so; so be it, I care not a straw,
Although I be dead both in gospel and law;
In verse I shall live, and be read in each climate;
What more can be said of prime sergeant or primate?
While Carter and Prendergast both may be rotten,
And damn'd to the bargain, and yet be forgotten.

We were ten maidens in the green corn,
Small red leaves in the mill-water:
Fairer maidens never were born,
Apples of gold for the king’s daughter.

We were ten maidens by a well-head,
Small white birds in the mill-water:
Sweeter maidens never were wed,
Rings of red for the king’s daughter.

The first to spin, the second to sing,
Seeds of wheat in the mill-water;
The third may was a goodly thing,
White bread and brown for the king’s daughter.

The fourth to sew and the fifth to play,
Fair green weed in the mill-water;
The sixth may was a goodly may,
White wine and red for the king’s daughter.

The seventh to woo, the eighth to wed,
Fair thin reeds in the mill-water;
The ninth had gold work on her head,
Honey in the comb for th...

There! Little girl; don't cry!
They have broken your doll, I know;
And your tea-set blue,
And your play-house too,
Are things of the long ago;
But childish troubles will soon pass by.
There! Little girl; don't cry!

There! Little girl; don't cry!
They have broken your slate, I know;
And the glad, wild ways
Of your school-girl days
Are things of the long ago;
But life and love will soon come by.
There! Little girl; don't cry!

There! Little girl; don't cry!
They have broken your heart, I know;
And the rainbow gleams
Of your youthful dreams
Are things of the long ago;
But heaven holds all for which you sigh.
There! Little girl; don't cry!

Know you, winds that blow your course
Down the verdant valleys,
That somewhere you must, perforce,
Kiss the brow of Alice?
When her gentle face you find,
Kiss it softly, naughty wind.

Roses waving fair and sweet
Thro' the garden alleys,
Grow into a glory meet
For the eye of Alice;
Let the wind your offering bear
Of sweet perfume, faint and rare.

Lily holding crystal dew
In your pure white chalice,
Nature kind hath fashioned you
Like the soul of Alice;
It of purest white is wrought,
Filled with gems of crystal thought.

A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by,
One after one; the sound of rain, and bees
Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas,
Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky;
I have thought of all by turns, and yet do lie
Sleepless! and soon the small birds' melodies
Must hear, first uttered from my orchard trees;
And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry.
Even thus last night, and two nights more, I lay,
And could not win thee, Sleep! by any stealth:
So do not let me wear to-night away:
Without Thee what is all the morning's wealth?
Come, blessed barrier between day and day,
Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!

One grief on me is laid
Each day of every year,
Wherein no soul can aid,
Whereof no soul can hear:
Whereto no end is seen
Except to grieve again,
Ah, Mary Magdalene,
Where is there greater pain?

To dream on dear disgrace
Each hour of every day,
To bring no honest face
To aught I do or say:
To lie from morn till e'en,
To know my lies are vain,
Ah, Mary Magdalene,
Where can be greater pain?

To watch my steadfast fear
Attend mine every way
Each day of every year,
Each hour of every day:
To burn, and chill between,
To quake and rage again,
Ah, Mary Magdalene,
Where shall be greater pain:

One grave to me was given,
To guard till Judgment Day,
But God looked down from Heaven
And rolled the Ston...

The Ryme nor marres, nor makes,
Nor addeth it, nor takes,
    From that which we propose;
Things imaginarie
Doe so strangely varie,
    That quickly we them lose.

And what 's quickly begot,
As soone againe is not,
    This doe I truely know:
Yea, and what 's borne with paine,
That Sense doth long'st retaine,
    Gone with a greater Flow.

Yet this Critick so sterne,
But whom, none must discerne,
    Nor perfectly haue seeing,
Strangely layes about him,
As nothing without him
    Were worthy of being.

That I my selfe betray
To that most publique way,
    Where the Worlds old Bawd,
Custome, that doth humor,
And by idle rumor,
    Her Dotages applaud.

That whilst he still prefers
Those that be wh...

    We paused to say good-by,
    As we thought for a little while,
    Alone in the car, in the corner
    Around the turn of the aisle.

    A quiver came in your voice,
    Your eyes were sorrowful too;
    'Twas over - I strode to the doorway,
    Then turned to wave an adieu.

    But you had not come from the corner,
    And though I had gone so far,
    I retraced, and faced you coming
    Into the aisle of the car.

    You stopped as one who was caught
    In an evil mood by surprise. -
    I want to forget, I am trying
    To forget the look in your eyes.

    Your face was blank and cold,
    Like Lot's wife turned to salt.
    I suddenly trapped and discovered
    Your soul in a hidden fault.

    Your e...

        One idle day --
A mile or so of sunlit waves off shore --
        In a breezeless bay,
        We listless lay --
Our boat a "dream of rest" on the still sea --
        And -- we were four.

        The wind had died
That all day long sang songs unto the deep;
        It was eventide,
        And far and wide
Sweet silence crept thro' the rifts of sound
        With spells of sleep.

        Our gray sail cast
The only cloud that flecked the foamless sea;
        And weary at last
        Beside the mast
One fell to slumber with a dreamy face,
        And -- we were three.

        No ebb! no flow!
No sound! no stir in the wide, wondrous calm;
        In the sunset's glow
        The shore shelved low
And sn...

1

It's good and beautiful to be a soldier for a year.
You live longer that way.    And one is certainly pleased
With each scrap of time that one snatches from death.
This poor brain, shredded by longing for the city,
Bloody from books, bodies, evenings,
Inconsolably sad and filled with every sin,
Three quarters destroyed already - can only,
Standing at attention and marching on parade,
Swinging arms and legs,
Rust gently in a corner of the skull.
Oh, the stink in a marching column.
Oh, speed-marching across a lovely land in the spring.


2

I must come one hour before the others,
Because I have shot badly.
I certainly won't be promoted.
And I must do extra drills as punishment,
Because, while the others, in accordance with orders...