Betrayal

Which is the weakest thing of all
Mine heart can ponder?
The sun, a little cloud can pall
With darkness yonder?
The cloud, a little wind can move
Where'er it listeth?
The wind, a little leaf above,
Though sere, resisteth?

What time that yellow leaf was green,
My days were gladder;
But now, whatever Spring may mean,
I must grow sadder.
Ah me! a leaf with sighs can wring
My lips asunder
Then is mine heart the weakest thing
Itself can ponder.

Yet, Heart, when sun and cloud are pined
And drop together,
And at a blast, which is not wind,
The forests wither,
Thou, from the darkening deathly curse
To glory breakest,
The Strongest of the universe
Guarding the weakest!

Just a shell, to which the seaweed glittering yet with greenness clings,
Like the song that once I loved so, softly of the old time sings
Softly of the old time speaketh bringing ever back to me
Sights of far-off lordly forelands glimpses of the sounding sea!
Now the cliffs are all before me now, indeed, do I behold
Shining growths on wild wet hillheads, quiet pools of green and gold.
And, across the gleaming beaches, lo! the mighty flow and fall
Of the great ingathering waters thundering under Wamberal!

Back there are the pondering mountains; there the dim, dumb ranges loom
Ghostly shapes in dead grey vapour half-seen peaks august with gloom.
There the voice of troubled torrents, hidden in unfathomed deeps,
Known to moss and faint green sunlight, wanders down the oozy steeps.

The sky is clear,
The sun is bright;
The cows are red,
The sheep are white;
Trees in the meadows
Make happy shadows.

Birds in the hedge
Are perched and sing;
Swallows and larks
Are on the wing:
Two merry cuckoos
Are making echoes.

Bird and the beast
Have the dew yet;
My road shines dry,
Theirs bright and wet:
Death gives no warning,
On this May morning.

I see no Christ
Nailed on a tree,
Dying for sin;
No sin I see:
No thoughts for sadness,
All thoughts for gladness.

With anxious eyes and dry, expectant lips,
Within the sculptured stoa by the sea,
All day she waited while, like ghostly ships,
Long clouds rolled over Paphos: the wild bee
Hung in the sultry poppy, half asleep,
Beside the shepherd and his drowsy sheep.

White-robed she waited day by day; alone
With the white temple's shrined concupiscence,
The Paphian goddess on her obscene throne,
Binding all chastity to violence,
All innocence to lust that feels no shame -
Venus Mylitta born of filth and flame.

So must they haunt her marble portico,
The devotees of Paphos, passion-pale
As moonlight streaming through the stormy snow;
Dark eyes desirous of the stranger sail,
The gods shall bring across the Cyprian Sea,
With him elected to their mastery.
<...

[1]

Thrysis - who for his Annette dear
Made music with his flute and voice,
Which might have roused the dead to hear,
And in their silent graves rejoice -
Sang once the livelong day,
In the flowery month of May,
Up and down a meadow brook,
While Annette fish'd with line and hook.
But ne'er a fish would bite;
So the shepherdess's bait
Drew not a fish to its fate,
From morning dawn till night.
The shepherd, who, by his charming songs,
Had drawn savage beasts to him in throngs,
And done with them as he pleased to,
Thought that he could serve the fish so.
'O citizens,' he sang, 'of this water,
Leave your Naiad in her grot profound;
Come and see the blue sky's lovely daughter,
Who a thousand times more will charm you;
Fear ...

It was deadly cold in Danbury town
    One terrible night in mid November,
    A night that the Danbury folk remember
For the sleety wind that hammered them down,
That chilled their faces and chapped their skin,
    And froze their fingers and bit their feet,
And made them ice to the heart within,
    And spattered and scattered
    And shattered and battered
Their shivering bodies about the street;
And the fact is most of them didn't roam
In the face of the storm, but stayed at home;
While here and there a policeman, stamping
To keep himself warm or sedately tramping
Hither and thither, paced his beat;
Or peered where out of the blizzard's welter
Some wretched being had crept to shelter,
And now, drenched through by the sleet, a muddled
Blur of a ma...

She might, so noble from head
To great shapely knees,
The long flowing line,
Have walked to the altar
Through the holy images
At Pallas Athene’s side,
Or been fit spoil for a centaur
Drunk with the unmixed wine.

O strong, upwelling prayers of faith,
From inmost founts of life ye start,
The spirit's pulse, the vital breath
Of soul and heart!

From pastoral toil, from traffic's din,
Alone, in crowds, at home, abroad,
Unheard of man, ye enter in
The ear of God.

Ye brook no forced and measured tasks,
Nor weary rote, nor formal chains;
The simple heart, that freely asks
In love, obtains.

For man the living temple is
The mercy-seat and cherubim,
And all the holy mysteries,
He bears with him.

And most avails the prayer of love,
Which, wordless, shapes itself in needs,
And wearies Heaven for naught above
Our common needs.

Which brings to God's all-perfect will
That trust of His undoubting child
Whereby all seeming goo...

I saw the wild honey-bee kissing a rose
    A wee one, that grows
Down low on the bush, where her sisters above
    Cannot see all that's done
    As the moments roll on.
Nor hear all the whispers and murmurs of love.

They flaunt out their beautiful leaves in the sun,
    And they flirt, every one,
With the wild bees who pass, and the gay butterflies.
    And that wee thing in pink -
    Why, they never once think
That she's won a lover right under their eyes.

It reminded me, Kate, of a time - you know when!
    You were so petite then,
Your dresses were short, and your feet were so small.
    Your sisters, Maud-Belle
    And Madeline - well,
They BOTH set their caps for me, after that ball.

How the blue eyes and black eyes smiled u...

        Only a few more years!
        Weary years!
        Only a few more tears!
        Bitter tears!
And then -- and then -- like other men,
I cease to wander, cease to weep,
Dim shadows o'er my way shall creep;
And out of the day and into the night,
Into the dark and out of the bright
I go, and Death shall veil my face,
The feet of the years shall fast efface
My very name, and every trace
I leave on earth; for the stern years tread --
Tread out the names of the gone and dead!
And then, ah! then, like other men,
I close my eyes and go to sleep,
Only a few, one hour, shall weep:
Ah! me, the grave is dark and deep!

        Alas!    Alas!
        How soon we pass!
        And ah! we go
        So far away;
When go we must,<...

How fond the rustic's ear at leisure dwells
On the soft soundings of his village bells,
As on a Sunday morning at his ease
He takes his rambles, just as fancies please,
Down narrow balks that intersect the fields,
Hid in profusion that its produce yields:
Long twining peas, in faintly misted greens;
And wing'd-leaf multitudes of crowding beans;
And flighty oatlands of a lighter hue;
And speary barley bowing down with dew;
And browning wheat-ear, on its taper stalk,
With gentle breezes bending o'er the balk,
Greeting the parting hand that brushes near
With patting welcomes of a plenteous year.
Or narrow lanes, where cool and gloomy-sweet
Hedges above-head in an arbour meet,
Meandering down, and resting for awhile
Upon a moss-clad molehill or a stile;
...

For Soldiers lost in Ocean Transports

When, after storms that woodlands rue,
To valleys comes atoning dawn,
The robins blithe their orchard-sports renew;
And meadow-larks, no more withdrawn
Caroling fly in the languid blue;
The while, from many a hid recess,
Alert to partake the blessedness,
The pouring mites their airy dance pursue.
So, after ocean's ghastly gales,
When laughing light of hoyden morning breaks,
    Every finny hider wakes--
From vaults profound swims up with
glittering scales;
Through the delightsome sea he sails,
With shoals of shining tiny things
Frolic on every wave that flings
Against the prow its showery spray;
All creatures joying in the morn,
Save them forever from joyance torn,
Whose bark was lost where...

    "So he took up his bow,
    And he feathered his arrow,
    And said, 'I will shoot
    This little cock-sparrow.'"

**    *    *

    "'Tis good to make all duty sweet,
    To be alert and kind;
    'Tis good, like Littie Mabel,
    To have a willing mind."

**    *    *    *

    "Benny had a little dog,
    His fleece was white as snow,
    And everywhere that Benny went,
    The dog was sure to go.


    He went into the School one day,
    which was against the rule;
    It made the children laugh and play
    To see a dog --"

**    *    *    *

The birds are singing merrily, and here
A squirrel claims the lordship of the woods,
And scolds me for intruding.    At my feet
The tireless ants all silently proclaim
The dignity of labour.    In my ear
The bee hums drowsily; from sweet to sweet
Careering, like a lover weak in aim.
I hear faint music in the solitudes;
A dreamlike melody that whispers peace
Imbues the calmy forest, and sweet rills
Of pensive feeling murmur through my brain,
Like ripplings of pure water down the hills
That slumber in the moonlight.    Cease, oh, cease!
Some day my weary heart will coin these into pain.

Thou splendid child of southern skies!
    Thy brilliant plumes and graceful form
Are not so precious in mine eyes
    As those gray heralds of the morn,
Which in my own beloved land
    Welcome the azure car of spring,
When budding flowers and leaves expand
    On hawthorn boughs, and sweetly sing.

But thou art suited to the clime,
    The golden clime, that gave thee birth;
Where beauty reigns o'er scenes sublime,
    And fadeless verdure decks the earth;
Where nature faints beneath the blaze
    Of her own gorgeous crown of light,
And exiled eyes, with aching gaze,
    Sigh for the softer shades of night,

That memory to their dreams may bring
    Past scenes, to cheer their sleeping eye,
The dark green woods where linnets sing,
  ...

I found him in the guard-room at the Base.
From the blind darkness I had heard his crying
And blundered in. With puzzled, patient face
A sergeant watched him; it was no good trying
To stop it; for he howled and beat his chest.
And, all because his brother had gone West,
Raved at the bleeding war; his rampant grief
Moaned, shouted, sobbed, and choked, while he was kneeling
Half-naked on the floor. In my belief
Such men have lost all patriotic feeling.

A pot of milk upon her cushion'd crown,
Good Peggy hasten'd to the market town;
Short clad and light, with speed she went,
Not fearing any accident;
Indeed, to be the nimbler tripper,
Her dress that day,
The truth to say,
Was simple petticoat and slipper.
And, thus bedight,
Good Peggy, light, -
Her gains already counted, -
Laid out the cash
At single dash,
Which to a hundred eggs amounted.
Three nests she made,
Which, by the aid
Of diligence and care were hatch'd.
'To raise the chicks,
I'll easy fix,'
Said she, 'beside our cottage thatch'd.
The fox must get
More cunning yet,
Or leave enough to buy a pig.
With little care
And any fare,
He'll grow quite fat and big;
And then the price
Will be so nice,
F...

Look down, ye Alleghenies, into the Conemaugh vale,
And see the rising waters, and hear the bitter wail;
The swollen streams now empty their contents in the lake,
The waters rise to kiss the skies and walls of granite shake.

Oh, hear that awful booming; the dam has given way!
An avalanche of water God's hand alone can stay!
Oh, leap, ye hills, before it and keep this torrent back,
Or devastated towns and homes will mark its onward track!

Look down, ye Alleghenies, upon this vale of woe;
Ten thousand corpses at your base their soulless faces show;
Some hid beneath the debris, some covered o'er with slime,
Their spirits fled to meet their God, beyond the shores of time.
The aged sire and lassie; the careworn mother, too,
With her strong son, whom she had hoped woul...