Betrayal

Although you hide in the ebb and flow
Of the pale tide when the moon has set,
The people of coming days will know
About the casting out of my net,
And how you have leaped times out of mind
Over the little silver cords,
And think that you were hard and unkind,
And blame you with many bitter words.

How strange, in some brief interval of rest,
    Backward to look on her far-stretching past.
To see how much is conquered and repressed,
    How much is gained in victory at last!
The shadow is not lifted, - but her faith,
Strong from life's miracles, now turns toward death.


Though much be dark where once rare splendor shone,
    Yet the new light has touched high peaks unguessed
In her gold, mist-bathed dawn, and one by one
    New outlooks loom from many a mountain crest.
She breathes a loftier, purer atmosphere,
And life's entangled paths grow straight and clear.


Nor will Death prove an all-unwelcome guest;
    The struggle has been toilsome to this end,
Sleep will be sweet, and after labor rest,
    And all will be atoned with him to fr...

Through the calm and silent air
    Floats the tolling funeral bell,
    Swooning over hill and dell,
Heavy laden with despair;
    Mute between each muffled stroke,
    Sad as though a dead voice spoke,
    Out of the dim Past time spoke,
Stands my heart all mute with care.

The Bell is tolling on, and deep,
    Deep and drear into my heart
    All its bitter accents dart.
Peace! sad chime, I will not weep--
    What is there within thy tone,
    That should wring my heart alone,
    Rive it with this endless moan?
Peace! and let past sorrows sleep!

Fling your music on the breeze,
    Mock the sighing of the willows,
    Mock the lapping of the billows,
Mock not human sympathies;
    Slow chime, sad chime, mock me not,
    ...

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and...

Oh, the old wall here! How I could pass
Life in a long midsummer day,
My feet confined to a plot of grass,
My eyes from a wall not once away!

And lush and lithe, do the creepers clothe
Yon wall I watch, with a wealth of green:
Its bald red bricks draped, nothing loth,
In lappets of tangle they laugh between.

Now, what is it makes pulsate the robe?
Why tremble the sprays? What life o’er brims
The body, the house, no eye can probe,
Divined as, beneath a robe, the limbs?

And there again! But my heart may guess
Who tripped behind; and she sang perhaps:
So, the old wall throbbed, and its life’s excess
Died out and away in the leafy wraps!

Wall upon wall are between us: life
And song should away from heart to heart!
I, prison bird, ...

Golden-locked Erato, and thou, sweet lute,
The comfort of the sad and destitute,
Calm thou my sorrow, lest I too become
A marble pillar shedding through the dumb
But living stone my almost bloody tears,
A monument of grief for coming years.
For when we think of mankind's evil chance
Does not our private grief gain temperance?
Unhappy mother (if 'tis evil hap
We blame when caught in our own folly's trap)
Where are thy sons and daughters, seven each,
The joyful cause of thy too boastful speech?
I see their fourteen stones, and thou, alas,
Who from thy misery wouldst gladly pass
To death, dost kiss the tombs, O wretched one,
Where lies thy fruit so cruelly undone.
Thus blossoms fall where some keen sickle passes
And so, when rain doth level them, green grass...

I.
I WAS the chief of the race—he had stricken my father dead—
But I gather’d my fellows together, I swore I would strike off his head.
Each of them look’d like a king, and was noble in birth as in worth,
And each of them boasted he sprang from the oldest race upon earth.
Each was as brave in the light as the bravest hero of song,
And each of them liefer had died than have done one another a wrong.
He lived on an isle in the ocean—we sail’d on a Friday morn—
He that had slain my father the day before I was born.

II.
And we came to the isle in the ocean, and there on the shore was he.
But a sudden blast blew us out and away thro’ a boundless sea.

III.
And we came to the Silent Isle that we never had touch’d at before,
Where a silent ocean always broke on a si...

[This and the following poem are, with some alterations, introduced in the Play of "The Robbers."]

ANDROMACHE.
Will Hector leave me for the fatal plain,
Where, fierce with vengeance for Patroclus slain,
    Stalks Peleus' ruthless son?
Who, when thou glid'st amid the dark abodes,
To hurl the spear and to revere the gods,
    Shall teach thine orphan one?

HECTOR.
Woman and wife beloved cease thy tears;
My soul is nerved the war-clang in my ears!
    Be mine in life to stand
Troy's bulwark! fighting for our hearths, to go
In death, exulting to the streams below,
    Slain for my fatherland!

ANDROMACHE.
No more I hear thy martial footsteps fall
Thine arms shall hang, dull trophies, on the wall
    Fallen the stem of Troy!
Thou goe...

'Maiden, thou wert thoughtless once
Of beauty or of grace,
Simple and homely in attire
Careless of form and face.
Then whence this change, and why so oft
Dost smooth thy hazel hair?
And wherefore deck thy youthful form
With such unwearied care?
'Tell us, and cease to tire our ears
With yonder hackneyed strain
Why wilt thou play those simple tunes
So often o'er again?'
'Nay, gentle friends, I can but say
That childhood's thoughts are gone.
Each year its own new feelings brings
And years move swiftly on,

And for these little simple airs,
I love to play them o'er
So much I dare not promise now
To play them never more.'
I answered and it was enough;
They turned them to depart;
They could not read my secret thoughts
Nor see ...

CHORUS.

To the strand! quick, mount the bark!

If no favouring zephyrs blow,

Ply the oar and nimbly row,
And with zeal your prowess mark!

O'er the sea we thus career.

RINALDO.


Oh, let me linger one short moment here!
'Tis heaven's decree, I may not hence away.
The rugged cliffs, the wood-encircled bay,
Hold me a prisoner, and my flight delay.

Ye were so fair, but now that dream is o'er;
The charms of earth, the charms of heaven are nought.
What keeps me in this spot so terror-fraught?

My only joy is fled for evermore.

Let me taste those days so sweet,

Heav'n-descended, once again!
Heart, dear heart! ay, warmly beat!

Spirit true, recall those days

Freeborn breath thy gen...

O flower of all that springs from gentle blood,
And all that generous nurture breeds to make
Youth amiable; O friend so true of soul
To fair Aglaia; by what envy moved,
Lelius! has death cut short thy brilliant day
In its sweet opening? and what dire mishap
Has from Savona torn her best delight?
For thee she mourns, nor e'er will cease to mourn;
And, should the out-pourings of her eyes suffice not
For her heart's grief, she will entreat Sebeto
Not to withhold his bounteous aid, Sebeto
Who saw thee, on his margin, yield to death,
In the chaste arms of thy beloved Love!
What profit riches? what does youth avail?
Dust are our hopes; I, weeping bitterly,
Penned these sad lines, nor can forbear to pray
That every gentle Spirit hither led
May read them, not wit...

1.
Let those who pine in pride or in revenge,
Or think that ill for ill should be repaid,
Who barter wrong for wrong, until the exchange
Ruins the merchants of such thriftless trade,
Visit the tower of Vado, and unlearn
Such bitter faith beside Marenghi's urn.

2.
A massy tower yet overhangs the town,
A scattered group of ruined dwellings now...

...

3.
Another scene are wise Etruria knew
Its second ruin through internal strife
And tyrants through the breach of discord threw
The chain which binds and kills. As death to life,
As winter to fair flowers (though some be poison)
So Monarchy succeeds to Freedom's foison.

4.
In Pisa's church a cup of sculptured gold
Was brimming with the blood of feuds forsworn:
A Sacram...

Have I dreamed? or was it real,
    What I saw as in a vision,
When to marches hymeneal
In the land of the Ideal
    Moved my thought o'er Fields Elysian?

What! are these the guests whose glances
    Seemed like sunshine gleaming round me?
These the wild, bewildering fancies,
That with dithyrambic dances
    As with magic circles bound me?

Ah! how cold are their caresses!
    Pallid cheeks, and haggard bosoms!
Spectral gleam their snow-white dresses,
And from loose dishevelled tresses
    Fall the hyacinthine blossoms!

O my songs! whose winsome measures
    Filled my heart with secret rapture!
Children of my golden leisures!
Must even your delights and pleasures
    Fade and perish with the capture?

Fair they seemed,...

This is the treacherous month when autumn days
With summer's voice come bearing summer's gifts.
Beguiled, the pale down-trodden aster lifts
Her head and blooms again. The soft, warm haze
Makes moist once more the sere and dusty ways,
And, creeping through where dead leaves lie in drifts,
The violet returns. Snow noiseless sifts
Ere night, an icy shroud, which morning's rays
Will idly shine upon and slowly melt,
Too late to bid the violet live again.
The treachery, at last, too late, is plain;
Bare are the places where the sweet flowers dwelt.
What joy sufficient hath November felt?
What profit from the violet's day of pain?

I.

Wailing, wailing, wailing, the wind over land and sea–
And Willy’s voice in the wind, ‘O mother, come out to me.’
Why should he call me to-night, when he knows that I cannot go?
For the downs are as bright as day, and the full moon stares at the snow.

II.

We should be seen, my dear; they would spy us out of the town.
The loud black nights for us, and the storm rushing over the down,
When I cannot see my own hand, but am led by the creak of the chain,
And grovel and grope for my son till I find myself drenched with the rain.

III.

Anything fallen again? nay–what was there left to fall?
I have taken them home, I have number’d the bones, I have hidden them all.
What am I saying? and what are you? do you come as a spy?
Falls? what falls? who ...

When I am dead a few poor souls shall grieve
As I grieved for my brother long ago.
Scarce did my eyes grow dim,
I had forgotten him;
I was far-off hearing the spring winds blow,
And many summers burned
When, though still reeling with my eyes aflame,
I heard that faded name
Whispered one Spring amid the hurrying world
From which, years gone, he turned.

I looked up at my windows and I saw
The trees, thin spectres sucked forth by the moon.
The air was very still
Above a distant hill;
It was the hour of night's full silver moon.
'O are thou there my brother?' my soul cried;
And all the pale stars down bright rivers wept,
As my heart sadly crept
About the empty hills, bathed in that light
That lapped him when he died.

Ah! it was cold...

You know I left my forest home full loth,
And those weird ways I knew so well and long,
Dishevelled with their sloping sidelong growth
Of twisted thorn and kurrajong.

It seems to me, my friend (and this wild thought
Of all wild thoughts, doth chiefly make me bleed),
That in those hills and valleys wonder-fraught,
I loved and lost a noble creed.

A splendid creed! But let me even turn
And hide myself from what I’ve seen, and try
To fathom certain truths you know, and learn
The Beauty shining in your sky:

Remembering you in ardent autumn nights,
And Stenhouse near you, like a fine stray guest
Of other days, with all his lore of lights
So manifold and manifest!

Then hold me firm. I cannot choose but long
For that which lies and burns b...

Whither was it that my spirit wended
When from thee my fleeting shadow moved?
Is not now each earthly conflict ended?
Say, have I not lived, have I not loved?

Art thou for the nightingales inquiring
Who entranced thee in the early year
With their melody so joy-inspiring?
Only whilst they loved they lingered here.

Is the lost one lost to me forever?
Trust me, with him joyfully I stray
There, where naught united souls can sever,
And where every tear is wiped away.

And thou, too, wilt find us in yon heaven,
When thy love with our love can compare;
There my father dwells, his sins forgiven,
Murder foul can never reach him there.

And he feels that him no vision cheated
When he gazed upon the stars on high;
For as each one metes, to...