Betrayal

You were the sort that men forget;
    Though I - not yet! -
Perhaps not ever. Your slighted weakness
Adds to the strength of my regret!

You'd not the art - you never had
    For good or bad -
To make men see how sweet your meaning,
Which, visible, had charmed them glad.

You would, by words inept let fall,
    Offend them all,
Even if they saw your warm devotion
Would hold your life's blood at their call.

You lacked the eye to understand
    Those friends offhand
Whose mode was crude, though whose dim purport
Outpriced the courtesies of the bland.

I am now the only being who
    Remembers you
It may be. What a waste that Nature
Grudged soul so dear the art its due!

Some men were born for great things,
Some were born for small;
Some - it is not recorded
Why they were born at all;
But Uncle Sammy was certain he had a legitimate call.

Some were born with a talent,
Some with scrip and land;
Some with a spoon of silver,
And some with a different brand;
But Uncle Sammy came holding an argument in each hand.

Arguments sprouted within him,
And twinked in his little eye;
He lay and calmly debated
When average babies cry,
And seemed to be pondering gravely whether to live or to die.

But prejudiced on that question
He grew from day to day,
And finally he concluded
'Twas better for him to stay;
And so into life's discussion he reasoned and reasoned his way.

Through childhood, through youth...

PETER RONSARD loquitur.


“Heigho!” yawned one day King Francis,
“Distance all value enhances!
“When a man’s busy, why, leisure
“Strikes him as wonderful pleasure,
“’Faith, and at leisure once is he?
“Straightway he wants to be busy.
“Here we’ve got peace; and aghast I’m
“Caught thinking war the true pastime!
“Is there a reason in metre?
“Give us your speech, master Peter!”
I who, if mortal dare say so,
Ne’er am at loss with my Naso,
“Sire,” I replied, “joys prove cloudlets:
“Men are the merest Ixions”,
Here the King whistled aloud, “Let’s
“ . . Heigho . . go look at our lions!”
Such are the sorrowful chances
If you talk fine to King Francis.

And so, to the courtyard proceeding,
Our company, Francis was leading,
...

I.

"Did they dare, did they dare, to slay Eoghan Ruadh O'Neill?"
"Yes, they slew with poison him they feared to meet with steel."
"May God wither up their hearts! May their blood cease to flow!
May they walk in living death, who poisoned Eoghan Ruadh!"


II.

"Though it break my heart to hear, say again the bitter words.
From Derry, against Cromwell, he marched to measure swords:
But the weapon of the Sacsanach met him on his way,
And he died at Cloch Uachtar,[2] upon St. Leonard's day.


III.

"Wail, wail ye for the Mighty One! Wail, wail ye for the Dead!
Quench the hearth, and hold the breath--with ashes strew the head.
How tenderly we loved him! How deeply we deplore!
Holy Saviour! but to think we shall never see him mor...

    Ye aspiring ones, listen to the story of the unknown
    Who lies here with no stone to mark the place.
    As a boy reckless and wanton,
    Wandering with gun in hand through the forest
    Near the mansion of Aaron Hatfield,
    I shot a hawk perched on the top
    Of a dead tree. He fell with guttural cry
    At my feet, his wing broken.
    Then I put him in a cage
    Where he lived many days cawing angrily at me
    When I offered him food.
    Daily I search the realms of Hades
    For the soul of the hawk,
    That I may offer him the friendship
    Of one whom life wounded and caged.
    Alexander Throckmorton

    In youth my wings were strong and tireless,
    But I did not know the mountains.
    In age I knew the mountains

Ah me! too soon the autumn comes
Among these purple-plaintive hills!
Too soon among the forest gums
Premonitory flame she spills,
Bleak, melancholy flame that kills.

Her white fogs veil the morn, that rims
With wet the moonflower's elfin moons;
And, like exhausted starlight, dims
The last slim lily-disk; and swoons
With scents of hazy afternoons.

Her gray mists haunt the sunset skies,
And build the west's cadaverous fires,
Where Sorrow sits with lonely eyes,
And hands that wake an ancient lyre,
Beside the ghost of dead Desire.

Ah me! too soon the autumn comes
Among these purple-plaintive hills!
Too soon among the forest gums
Premonitory flame she spills,
Bleak, melancholy flame that kills.

Her white fogs veil the morn, that rims
With wet the moonflower's elfin moons;
And, like exhausted starlight, dims
The last slim lily-disk; and swoons
With scents of hazy afternoons.

Her gray mists haunt the sunset skies,
And build the west's cadaverous fires,
Where Sorrow sits with lonely eyes,
And hands that wake an ancient lyre,
Beside the ghost of dead Desire.

Lives there who, with unhallow'd hand, would tear,
One leaf from that immortal wreath which shades
The Hero's living brow, or decks his urn?
Breathes there who does not triumph in the thought
That "Nelson's language is his mother tongue,"
And that St. Vincent's country is his own?
Oh! these bright guerdons of renown are won
By means most palpable to sense and sight;
By days of peril and by nights of toil;
By Valour's long probation, closed at last
In Victory's arms--consummated and seal'd
In deathless Glory and immortal Fame.

Musing I stand upon his lowly grave,
Who, though he fought no battle--though he pour'd
No hostile thunders on his country's foes,
Achieved for Britain triumphs, less array'd
"In pomp and circumstance," nor visible
To vul...

Or look'd I back unto the times hence flown
To praise those Muses and dislike our own--
Or did I walk those Pæan-gardens through,
To kick the flowers and scorn their odours too--
I might, and justly, be reputed here
One nicely mad or peevishly severe.
But by Apollo! as I worship wit,
Where I have cause to burn perfumes to it;
So, I confess, 'tis somewhat to do well
In our high art, although we can't excel
Like thee, or dare the buskins to unloose
Of thy brave, bold, and sweet Maronian muse.
But since I'm call'd, rare Denham, to be gone,
Take from thy Herrick this conclusion:
'Tis dignity in others, if they be
Crown'd poets, yet live princes under thee;
The while their wreaths and purple robes do shine
Less by their own gems than those beams of thine.

Now gird thee well for courage,
My knight of twenty year,
Against the marching morrows
That fill the world with fear!

The flowers fade before them;
The summer leaves the hill;
Their trumpets range the morning,
And those who hear grow still.

Like pillagers of harvest,
Their fame is far abroad,
As gray remorseless troopers
That plunder and maraud.

The dust is on their corselets;
Their marching fills the world;
With conquest after conquest
Their banners are unfurled.

They overthrow the battles
Of every lord of war,
From world-dominioned cities
Wipe out the names they bore.

Sohrab, Rameses, Roland,
Ramoth, Napoleon, Tyre,
And the Romeward Huns of Attila--
Alas, for their desire!

By April a...

Now, dearest comrade, lift me to your face,
We must separate awhile, Here! take from my lips this kiss.
Whoever you are, I give it especially to you;
So long!, And I hope we shall meet again.

Happy are they and charmed in life
Who through long wars arrive unscarred
At peace. To such the wreath be given,
If they unfalteringly have striven--
In honor, as in limb, unmarred.
Let cheerful praise be rife,
And let them live their years at ease,
Musing on brothers who victorious died--
Loved mates whose memory shall ever please.

And yet mischance is honorable too--
Seeming defeat in conflict justified
Whose end to closing eyes is hid from view.
The will, that never can relent--
The aim, survivor of the bafflement,
Make this memorial due.

Reader! what soul that loaves a verse can see
The spring return, nor glow like you and me?
Hear the quick birds, and see the landscape fill,
Nor long to utter his melodious will?

This more than ever leaps into the veins,
When spring has been delay'd by winds and rains,
And coming with a burst, comes like a show,
Blue all above, and basking green below,
And all the people culling the sweet prime:
Then issues forth the bee to clutch the thyme,
And the bee poet rushes into rhyme.

For lo! no sooner has the cold withdrawn,
Than the bright elm is tufted on the lawn;
The merry sap has run up in the bowers,
And bursts the windows of the buds in flowers;
With song the bosoms of the birds run o'er,
The cuckoo calls, the swallow's at the door,
And apple-...

Farewell, Life! My senses swim,
And the world is growing dim;
Thronging shadows cloud the light,
Like the advent of the night, -
Colder, colder, colder still,
Upward steals a vapor chill -
Strong the earthy odor grows -
I smell the mould above the rose!

Welcome, Life! the Spirit strives!
Strength returns, and hope revives;
Cloudy fears and shapes forlorn
Fly like shadows at the morn, -
O'er the earth there comes a bloom -
Sunny light for sullen gloom,
Warm perfume for vapor cold -
smell the rose above the mould!

February 1845.

One night a tiny dewdrop fell
Into the bosom of a rose,--
"Dear little one, I love thee well,
Be ever here thy sweet repose!"

Seeing the rose with love bedight,
The envious sky frowned dark, and then
Sent forth a messenger of light
And caught the dewdrop up again.

"Oh, give me back my heavenly child,--
My love!" the rose in anguish cried;
Alas! the sky triumphant smiled,
And so the flower, heart-broken, died.

Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray,
And when I cross'd the Wild,
I chanc'd to see at break of day
The solitary Child.

No Mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wild Moor,
The sweetest Thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!

You yet may spy the Fawn at play,
The Hare upon the Green;
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.

"To-night will be a stormy night,
You to the Town must go,
And take a lantern, Child, to light
Your Mother thro' the snow."

"That, Father! will I gladly do;
'Tis scarcely afternoon,
The Minster-clock has just struck two,
And yonder is the Moon."

At this the Father rais'd his hook
And snapp'd a faggot-band;
He plied his work, and Lucy took
The lantern in her hand....