Betrayal

Underneath a tree at noontide
Abu Midjan sits distressed,
Fetters on his wrists and ancles,
And his chin upon his breast;

For the Emir's guard had taken,
As they passed from line to line,
Reeling in the camp at midnight,
Abu Midjan drunk with wine.

Now he sits and rolls uneasy,
Very fretful, for he hears,
Near at hand, the shout of battle,
And the din of driving spears.

Both his heels in wrath are digging
Trenches in the grassy soil,
And his fingers clutch and loosen,
Dreaming of the Persian spoil.

To the garden, over-weary
Of the sound of hoof and sword,
Came the Emir's gentle lady,
Anxious for her fighting lord.

Very sadly, Abu Midjan,
Hanging down his head for shame,
Spake in words of soft appealin...

Come guard this night the Christmas-Pie,
That the thief, though ne'er so sly,
With his flesh-hooks, don't come nigh
To catch it

From him, who all alone sits there,
Having his eyes still in his ear,
And a deal of nightly fear
To watch it.

From centre to the circle, and so back
From circle to the centre, water moves
In the round chalice, even as the blow
Impels it, inwardly, or from without.
Such was the image glanc'd into my mind,
As the great spirit of Aquinum ceas'd;
And Beatrice after him her words
Resum'd alternate: "Need there is (tho' yet
He tells it to you not in words, nor e'en
In thought) that he should fathom to its depth
Another mystery. Tell him, if the light,
Wherewith your substance blooms, shall stay with you
Eternally, as now: and, if it doth,
How, when ye shall regain your visible forms,
The sight may without harm endure the change,
That also tell." As those, who in a ring
Tread the light measure, in their fitful mirth
Raise loud the voice, and spring with gladder bound;

Here is a tale for gossips and chaste people:
There lived a woman once, a straight-laced lady,
Whose only love was slander. Nothing shady
Escaped her vulture eye. Like some prim steeple
Her course of life pointed to Heaven ever;
And woe unto the sinner, girl or woman,
Whom love undid. She was their fiercest foeman.
No circumstance excused. Misfortune, never....
As she had lived she died. The mourners gathered:
Parson and preacher, this one and another,
And many gossips of most proper carriage.
Her will was read. And then... a child was fathered.
Fat Lechery had his day.... She'd been a mother.
A man was heir.... There'd never been a marriage.

Lasso, ch' i' ardo, ed altri non mel crede!

POSTERITY WILL ACCORD TO HIM THE PITY WHICH LAURA REFUSES.


    Alas, with ardour past belief I glow!
None doubt this truth, except one only fair,
Who all excels, for whom alone I care;
She plainly sees, yet disbelieves my woe.
O rich in charms, but poor in faith! canst thou
Look in these eyes, nor read my whole heart there?
Were I not fated by my baleful star,
For me from pity's fount might favour flow.
My flame, of which thou tak'st so little heed,
And thy high praises pour'd through all my song,
O'er many a breast may future influence spread:
These, my sweet fair, so warns prophetic thought,
Closed thy bright eye, and mute thy poet's tongue,
E'en after death shall still with sparks be fraught.

        Vane, quid affectas faciem mihi ponere, pictor?
        Aëris et lingua sum filia;
        Et, si vis similem pingere, pinge sonum. AUSONIUS.

Once more, Enchantress of the soul,
Once more we hail thy soft controul.
--Yet whither, whither did'st thou fly?
To what bright region of the sky?
Say, in what distant star to dwell?
(Of other worlds thou seemst to tell)
Or trembling, fluttering here below,
Resolv'd and unresolv'd to go,
In secret didst thou still impart
Thy raptures to the Pure in heart?
    Perhaps to many a desert shore,
Thee, in his rage, the Tempest bore;
Thy broken murmurs swept along,
Mid Echoes yet untun'd by song;
Arrested in the realms of Frost,
Or in the wilds of Ether lost.
    Far happier thou! 'twas thine to soa...

They are but servants, say the words of scorning,
    As though they meant to say, we're finer clay,
Yet, all the universe holds solemn warning,
    Against this pride in creatures of a day

In fashion's last new folly, flaunting slowly,
    With white plumes tossing on the Sabbath air
They pass with scornful words a sister lowly.
    Do scornful lips know anything of prayer?

Alas! poor human nature's inconsistence,
    Up to God's house we go, that we be fed;
And there, as beggars begging for assistance,
    Say "Give us, Lord, this day our daily bread."

Without a price, the priceless blessings buying
    Which are laid up for us, with Christ in God;
To Him we come as little children crying,
    That He may guide us by His staff and rod,

'Tis the moon of the sere, falling leaves.
From the heads of the maples the west-wind
Plucks the red-and-gold plumage and grieves
on the meads for the rose and the lily;
Their brown leaves the moaning oaks strew,
and the breezes that roam on the prairies,
Low-whistling and wanton pursue
the down of the silk-weed and thistle.
All sere are the prairies and brown
in the glimmer and haze of the Autumn;
From the far northern marshes flock down,
by thousands, the geese and the mallards.
From the meadows and wide-prairied plains,
for their long southward journey preparing.
In croaking flocks gather the cranes,
and choose with loud clamor their leaders.
The breath of the evening is cold,
and lurid along the horizon
The flames of the prairies are rolled,

Cool shades and dews are round my way,
And silence of the early day;
Mid the dark rocks that watch his bed,
Glitters the mighty Hudson spread,
Unrippled, save by drops that fall
From shrubs that fringe his mountain wall;
And o'er the clear still water swells
The music of the Sabbath bells.

All, save this little nook of land
Circled with trees, on which I stand;
All, save that line of hills which lie
Suspended in the mimic sky,
Seems a blue void, above, below,
Through which the white clouds come and go,
And from the green world's farthest steep
I gaze into the airy deep.

Loveliest of lovely things are they,
On earth, that soonest pass away.
The rose that lives its little hour
Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.
Even love, lon...

On Her Recent Publication--Practical Piety.


June 1811.

Epistle

Hail! hallow'd sister! of a saintly band!
Whose hearts in homage to their God expand!
Who, by the kind Urania taught to sing.
See palms celestial in their culture spring;
And, while devotion wafts them to the skies,
Teach weaker mortals on their wings to rise!
Hannah! whom truth, with a parental smile,
Ranks with her favorites of our letter'd isle;
Thou in wide fields, by tribes of learning fill'd,
By folly vainly view'd, by wisdom till'd;
Where grain and weed arise in mingled birth,
To nourish, or oppress, the race of earth;
Well hast thou ply'd thy task of virtuous toil,
And reap'd distinction's tributary spoil:
Long has thy country, with a fond acclaim,
J...

Amid this dance of objects sadness steals
O'er the defrauded heart while sweeping by,
As in a fit of Thespian jollity,
Beneath her vine-leaf crown the green Earth reels:
Backward, in rapid evanescence, wheels
The venerable pageantry of Time,
Each beetling rampart, and each tower sublime,
And what the Dell unwillingly reveals
Of lurking cloistral arch, through trees espied
Near the bright River's edge. Yet why repine?
To muse, to creep, to halt at will, to gaze
Such sweet wayfaring of life's spring the pride,
Her summer's faithful joy, 'that' still is mine,
And in fit measure cheers autumnal days.

Sitting on the bridge
Past the barracks, town and ridge,
At once the spirit seized us
To sing a song that pleased us -
As "The Fifth" were much in rumour;
It was "Whilst I'm in the humour,
Take me, Paddy, will you now?"
And a lancer soon drew nigh,
And his Royal Irish eye
Said, "Willing, faith, am I,
O, to take you anyhow, dears,
To take you anyhow."

But, lo! - dad walking by,
Cried, "What, you lightheels! Fie!
Is this the way you roam
And mock the sunset gleam?"
And he marched us straightway home,
Though we said, "We are only, daddy,
Singing, 'Will you take me, Paddy?'"
- Well, we never saw from then
If we sang there anywhen,
The soldier dear again,
Except at night in dream-time,
Except at night in dream.

Pe...

See in the babe two loveliest flowers united yet in truth,
While in the bud they seem the same the virgin and the youth!
But loosened is the gentle bond, no longer side by side
From holy shame the fiery strength will soon itself divide.
Permit the youth to sport, and still the wild desire to chase,
For, but when sated, weary strength returns to seek the grace.
Yet in the bud, the double flowers the future strife begin,
How precious all yet naught can still the longing heart within.
In ripening charms the virgin bloom to woman shape hath grown,
But round the ripening charms the pride hath clasped its guardian zone;
Shy, as before the hunter's horn the doe all trembling moves,
She flies from man as from a foe, and hates before she loves!

From lowering brows this struggling wo...

    Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
        Eat I must, and sleep I will,--and would that night were here!
    But ah!--to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
        Would that it were day again!--with twilight near!

    Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;
        This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
    But all the things that I begin I leave before I'm through,--
        There's little use in anything as far as I can see.

    Love has gone and left me,--and the neighbors knock and borrow,
        And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse,--
    And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
        There's this little street and this little house.

Out from the harbour of youth's bay
    There leads the path of pleasure;
With eager steps we walk that way
    To brim joy's largest measure.
But when with morn's departing beam
    Goes youth's last precious minute,
We sigh "'Twas but a fevered dream -
    There's nothing in it."

Then on our vision dawns afar
    The goal of glory, gleaming
Like some great radiant solar star,
    And sets us longing, dreaming.
Forgetting all things left behind,
    We strain each nerve to win it,
But when 'tis ours -alas! we find
    There's nothing in it.

We turn our sad, reluctant gaze
    Upon the path of duty;
Its barren, uninviting ways
    Are void of bloom and beauty.
Yet in that road, though dark and cold,
    It seems as we begin...

Young Harry leapt over the stile and kissed her,
Over the stile the stars a-winking;
He thought it was Mary, 't was Mary's sister
And love hath a way of thinking.

"Thy pail, sweetheart, I will take and carry."
Over the stile the stars hang yellow.
"Just to the spring, my sweetheart Harry."
And love is a heartless fellow.

"Thou saidst me yea when the frost did shower
Over the stile from stars a-shiver."
"I say thee nay now the cherry-trees flower,
And love is taker and giver."

"O false! thou art false to me, sweetheart!"
Over the stile the stars a-glister.
"To thee, the stars, and myself, sweetheart,
I never was aught save Mary's sister.

"Sweet Mary's sister and thou my Harry,
Her Harry and mine, but mine the weeping:<...

[1]

'Tis use that constitutes possession.
I ask that sort of men, whose passion
It is to get and never spend,
Of all their toil what is the end?
What they enjoy of all their labours
Which do not equally their neighbours?
Throughout this upper mortal strife,
The miser leads a beggar's life.
Old Aesop's man of hidden treasure
May serve the case to demonstrate.
He had a great estate,
But chose a second life to wait
Ere he began to taste his pleasure.
This man, whom gold so little bless'd,
Was not possessor, but possess'd.
His cash he buried under ground,
Where only might his heart be found;
It being, then, his sole delight
To ponder of it day and night,
And consecrate his rusty pelf,
A sacred offering, to himself.
In...

Tune - "Morag."


I.

    Streams that glide in orient plains,
    Never bound by winter's chains;
        Glowing here on golden sands,
    There commix'd with foulest stains
        From tyranny's empurpled bands;
    These, their richly gleaming waves,
    I leave to tyrants and their slaves;
    Give me the stream that sweetly laves
        The banks by Castle-Gordon.

II.

    Spicy forests, ever gay,
    Shading from the burning ray,
        Hapless wretches sold to toil,
        Or the ruthless native's way,
            Bent on slaughter, blood, and spoil:
    Woods that ever verdant wave,
    I leave the tyrant and the slave,
    Give me the groves that lofty brave
        The storms by Castle-Gordon....