Betrayal

Flourishing vine, whose kindling clusters glow
Beneath the autumnal sun, none taste of thee;
For thou dost shroud a ruin, and below
The rotting bones of dead antiquity.

And they shook their sweetness out in their sleep,
On the brink of that beautiful stream,
But it wandered along with a wearisome song
Like a lover that walks in a dream:
So the roses blew
When the winds went through,
In the moonlight so white and so still;
But the river it beat
All night at the feet
Of a cold and flinty hill
Of a hard and senseless hill!

I said, “We have often showered our loves
Upon something as dry as the dust;
And the faith that is crost, and the hearts that are lost
Oh! how can we wittingly trust?
Like the stream which flows,
And wails as it goes,
Through the moonlight so white and so still,
To beat and to beat
All night at the feet
Of a cold and flinty hill
Of a hard and senseless hill?

“River, I ...

(Oscar Wilde.)


I gazed upon thee desolate and heard
    Thine anguished cry when fell the iron gin
That all but broke thy soul, yet gave thy word
    The strength to ask forgiveness of thy sin.

I saw thee fleeing from the cruel light
    Of thine own fame; I saw thee hide thy face
In alien dust to cover up the blight
    Upon thy brow that time may yet erase.

I knew thy creed, although thy lips were mute;
    I knew the gods thou didst not dare to own;
I knew the Upas poison at the root
    Of thy last flower of song, in prison blown.

And out of all thy woe there came to me
    This miracle of dogma, like a cry:
"No law but freedom for the vagrant bee--
    No love but summer for the butterfly."

I


How shall a maid make answer to a man
Who summons her, by love's supreme decree,
To open her whole heart, that he may see
The intricate strange ways that love began.
So many streams from that great fountain ran
To feed the river that now rushes free,
So deep the heart, so full of mystery;
How shall a maid make answer to a man?

If I turn back each leaflet of my heart,
And let your eyes scan all the records there,
Of dreams of love that came before I KNEW,
Though in those dreams you had no place or part,
Yet, know that each emotion was a stair
Which led my ripening womanhood to YOU.



II


Nay, I was not insensate till you came;
I know man likes to think a woman clay,
Devoid of feeling till the warming ray<...

The Sky Line.

Like black fangs in a cruel ogre's jaw
    The grim piles lift against the sunset sky;
Down drops the night, and shuts the horrid maw--
    I listen, breathless, but there comes no cry.


Defeat.

He sits and looks into the west
    Where twilight gathers, wan and gray,
A knight who quit the Golden Quest,
    And flung Excalibur away.


To an Amazon.

O! twain in spirit, we shall know
    Thy like no more, so fierce, so mild,
One breast shorn clean to rest the bow,
    One milk-full for thy warrior child.


The Old Mother.

Life is like an old mother whom trouble and toil
Have sufficed the best part of her nature to spoil,
Whom her children, the Passions, so ...

The shower is past, and the sky
O'erhead is both mild and serene,
Save where a few drops from on high,
Like gems, twinkle over the green:
And glowing fair, in the black north,
The rainbow o'erarches the cloud;
The sun in his glory comes forth,
And larks sweetly warble aloud.

That dismally grim northern sky
Says God in His vengeance once frowned,
And opened His flood-gates on high,
Till obstinate sinners were drowned:
The lively bright south, and that bow,
Say all this dread vengeance is o'er;
These colours that smilingly glow
Say we shall be deluged no more.

Ever blessed be those innocent days,
Ever sweet their remembrance to me;
When often, in silent amaze,
Enraptured, I'd gaze upon thee!
Whilst arching adown the black sky

Fasten your hair with a golden pin,
And bind up every wandering tress;
I bade my heart build these poor rhymes:
It worked at them, day out, day in,
Building a sorrowful loveliness
Out of the battles of old times.
You need but lift a pearl-pale hand,
And bind up your long hair and sigh;
And all men's hearts must burn and beat;
And candle-like foam on the dim sand,
And stars climbing the dew-dropping sky,
Live but to light your passing feet.

    High on the hill, with moss o'ergrown,
    A hermit chapel stood;
    It spoke the tale of seasons gone,
    And half-revealed its ivied stone.
    Amid the beechen wood.

    Here often, when the mountain trees
    A leafy murmur made,
    Now still, now swaying to the breeze,
    (Sounds that the musing fancy please),
    The widowed mourner strayed.

    And many a morn she climbed the steep,
    From whence she might behold,
    Where, 'neath the clouds, in shining sweep,
    And mingling with the mighty deep,
    The sea-broad Severn rolled.

    Her little boy beside her played,
    With sea-shells in his hand;
    And sometimes, 'mid the bents delayed,
    And sometimes running onward, said,
    Oh, where is Holy Land!<...

So looks Anthea, when in bed she lies
O'ercome or half betray'd by tiffanies,
Like to a twilight, or that simpering dawn
That roses show when misted o'er with lawn.
Twilight is yet, till that her lawns give way;
Which done, that dawn turns then to perfect day.

They lifted her out of a story
Too sordid and selfish by far,
They left me the innocent glory
Of love that was pure as a star;
They left me all guiltless of “evil”
That would have brought years of distress
When the chance to be man, god or devil,
Was mine, on return from Success.

With a name and a courage uncommon
She had come in the soul striving days,
She had come as a child, girl and woman,
Come only to comfort and praise.
There was never a church that could marry,
For never a court could divorce,
In the season of Hannah and Harry
When the love of my life ran its course.

Her hair was red gold on head Grecian,
But fluffed from the parting away,
And her eyes were the warm grey Venetian
That comes with the dawn of the day.
No Fa...

A gentle shepherd, born in Arcady,
That well could tune his pipe, and deftly play
The nymphs asleep with rural minstrelsy,
Methought I saw, upon a summer's day,
Take up a little satyr in a wood,
All masterless forlorn as none did know him,
And nursing him with those of his own blood,
On mighty Pan he lastly did bestow him;
But with the god he long time had not been,
Ere he the shepherd and himself forgot,
And most ingrateful, ever stepp'd between
Pan and all good befell the poor man's lot:
Whereat all good men griev'd, and strongly swore
They never would be foster-fathers more.

MAY 30, 1878,

Dying for victory, cheer on cheer
Thundered on his eager ear.
            - CHARLES L. HOLSTEIN.

I

Deep, tender, firm and true, the Nation's heart
    Throbs for her gallant heroes passed away,
Who in grim Battle's drama played their part,
    And slumber here to-day. -

Warm hearts that beat their lives out at the shrine
    Of Freedom, while our country held its breath
As brave battalions wheeled themselves in line
    And marched upon their death:

When Freedom's Flag, its natal wounds scarce healed,
    Was torn from peaceful winds and flung again
To shudder in the storm of battle-field -
    The elements of men, -

When every star that glittered was a mark
    For Treason's ball, and every rippling ...

Dark days have passed, but you who taught me then
To look upon the world with trustful eyes,
Are not forgotten! Quick to sympathise
With noble thoughts, I’ve dreamt of moments when
Your low voice filled with strains of fairer skies!
Stray breaths of Grecian song that went and came,
Like floating fragrance from some quiet glen
In those far hills which shine with classic fame
Of passioned nymphs and grand-browed god-like men!
I sometimes fear my heart hath lost the same
Sweet sense of harmony; but this I know
That Beauty waits on you where’er you go,
Because she loveth child-like Faith! Her bowers
Are rich for it with glad perennial flowers.

Smile of the Moon! for I so name
That silent greeting from above;
A gentle flash of light that came
From her whom drooping captives love;
Or art thou of still higher birth?
Thou that didst part the clouds of earth,
My torpor to reprove!

Bright boon of pitying Heaven! alas,
I may not trust thy placid cheer!
Pondering that Time tonight will pass
The threshold of another year;
For years to me are sad and dull;
My very moments are too full
Of hopelessness and fear.

And yet, the soul-awakening gleam,
That struck perchance the farthest cone
Of Scotland's rocky wilds, did seem
To visit me, and me alone;
Me, unapproached by any friend,
Save those who to my sorrow lend
Tears due unto their own.

To night the church-tower bells ...

If gibbets, axes, confiscations, chains,
And racks of subtle torture, if the pains
Of shame, of fiery Hell's tempestuous wave,
Seen through the caverns of the shadowy grave,
Hurling the damned into the murky air
While the meek blest sit smiling; if Despair
And Hate, the rapid bloodhounds with which Terror
Hunts through the world the homeless steps of Error,
Are the true secrets of the commonweal
To make men wise and just;...
And not the sophisms of revenge and fear,
Bloodier than is revenge...
Then send the priests to every hearth and home
To preach the burning wrath which is to come,
In words like flakes of sulphur, such as thaw
The frozen tears...
If Satire's scourge could wake the slumbering hounds
Of Conscience, or erase the deeper wounds,
The le...

Were they but dreams?    Upon the darkening world
Evening comes down, the wings of fire are furled,
On which the day soared to the sunny west:
The moon sits calmly, like a soul at rest,
Looking upon the never-resting earth;
All things in heaven wait on the solemn birth
Of night, but where has fled the happy dream
That at this hour, last night, our life did seem?
Where are the mountains with their tangled hair,
The leafy hollow, and the rocky stair?
Where are the shadows of the solemn hills,
And the fresh music of the summer rills?
Where are the wood-paths, winding, long and steep,
And the great, glorious river, broad and deep,
And the thick copses, where soft breezes meet,
And the wild torrent's snowy, leaping feet,
The rustling, rocking boughs, the running st...

River, myrtle rimmed, and set
Deep amongst unfooted dells
Daughter of grey hills of wet,
Born by mossed and yellow wells;

Now that soft September lays
Tender hands on thee and thine,
Let me think of blue-eyed days,
Star-like flowers and leaves of shine!

Cities soil the life with rust;
Water banks are cool and sweet;
River, tired of noise and dust,
Here I come to rest my feet.

Now the month from shade to sun
Fleets and sings supremest songs,
Now the wilful wood-winds run
Through the tangled cedar throngs.

Here are cushioned tufts and turns
Where the sumptuous noontide lies:
Here are seen by flags and ferns
Summer’s large, luxurious eyes.

On this spot wan Winter casts
Eyes of ruth, and spares its green
...

All that a man can say of woman's charms,
    Mine eyes have spoken and my lips have told
To you a thousand times.    Your perfect arms
    (A replica from that lost Melos mould),
The fair firm crescents of your bosom (shown
With full intent to make their splendours known),

Your eyes (that mask with innocence their smile),
    The (artful) artlessness of all your ways,
Your kiss-provoking mouth, its lure, its guile -
    All these have had my fond and frequent praise.
And something more than praise to you I gave -
Something which made you know me as your slave.

Yet slaves, at times, grow mutinous and rebel.
    Here in this morning hour, from you apart,
The mood is on me to be frank and tell
    The thoughts long hidden deep down in my heart.
These...