Betrayal

I.
Love, loyallest and lordliest born of things,
Immortal that shouldst be, though all else end,
In plighted hearts of fearless friend with friend,
Whose hand may curb or clip thy plume-plucked wings?
Not grief’s nor time’s: though these be lords and kings
Crowned, and their yoke bid vassal passions bend,
They may not pierce the spirit of sense, or blend
Quick poison with the soul’s live watersprings.
The true clear heart whose core is manful trust
Fears not that very death may turn to dust
Love lit therein as toward a brother born,
If one touch make not all its fine gold rust,
If one breath blight not all its glad ripe corn,
And all its fire be turned to fire of scorn.

II.
Scorn only, scorn begot of bitter proof
By keen experience of a trustless he...

The world is taking little heed
And plods from day to day:
The vulgar flourish like a weed,
The learned pass away.

We miss him on the summer path
The lonely summer day,
Where mowers cut the pleasant swath
And maidens make the hay.

The vulgar take but little heed;
The garden wants his care;
There lies the book he used to read,
There stands the empty chair.

The boat laid up, the voyage oer,
And passed the stormy wave,
The world is going as before,
The poet in his grave.

TO MARGOT


When I go free,
I think 'twill be
A night of stars and snow,
And the wild fires of frost shall light
My footsteps as I go;
Nobody - nobody will be there
With groping touch, or sight,
To see me in my bush of hair
Dance burning through the night.




VOICES


Who is it calling by the darkened river
    Where the moss lies smooth and deep,
And the dark trees lean unmoving arms,
    Silent and vague in sleep,
And the bright-heeled constellations pass
    In splendour through the gloom;
Who is it calling o'er the darkened river
        In music, "Come!"?

Who is it wandering in the summer meadows
    Where the children stoop and play
In the green faint-scented flowers, spinning
 ...

O ye dead Poets, who are living still
    Immortal in your verse, though life be fled,
    And ye, O living Poets, who are dead
    Though ye are living, if neglect can kill,
Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill,
    With drops of anguish falling fast and red
    From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head,
    Ye were not glad your errand to fulfil?
Yes; for the gift and ministry of Song
    Have something in them so divinely sweet,
    It can assuage the bitterness of wrong;
Not in the clamor of the crowded street,
    Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
    But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.

None, none can tell where I shall be
When the unclean earth covers me;
Only in surety if thou cry
Where my perplexed ashes lie,
Know, 'tis but death's necessity
That keeps my tongue from answering thee.

Even if no more my shadow may
Lean for a moment in thy day;
No more the whole earth lighten, as if,
Thou near, it had nought else to give:
Surely 'tis but Heaven's strategy
To prove death immortality.

Yet should I sleep - and no more dream,
Sad would the last awakening seem,
If my cold heart, with love once hot,
Had thee in sleep remembered not:
How could I wake to find that I
Had slept alone, yet easefully?

Or should in sleep glad visions come:
Sick, in an alien land, for home
Would be my eyes in their bright beam;
Aw...

Silent I sat, dejected, and alone,
Making in thought the public woes my own,
When, first, arose the image in my breast
Of England's sufferings by that scourge, the pest.3
How death, his fun'ral torch and scythe in hand,
Ent'ring the lordliest mansions of the land,
Has laid the gem-illumin'd palace low,
And level'd tribes of Nobles at a blow.
I, next, deplor'd the famed fraternal pair4
Too soon to ashes turn'd and empty air,
The Heroes next, whom snatch'd into the skies
All Belgia saw, and follow'd with her sighs;
But Thee far most I mourn'd, regretted most,
Winton's chief shepherd and her worthiest boast;
Pour'd out in tears I thus complaining said
Death, next in pow'r to Him who rules the Dead!
Is't not enough that all the woodlands yiel...

In that desolate land and lone,
Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone
    Roar down their mountain path,
By their fires the Sioux Chiefs
Muttered their woes and griefs
    And the menace of their wrath.

"Revenge!" cried Rain-in-the-Face,
"Revenue upon all the race
    Of the White Chief with yellow hair!"
And the mountains dark and high
From their crags re-echoed the cry
    Of his anger and despair.

In the meadow, spreading wide
By woodland and riverside
    The Indian village stood;
All was silent as a dream,
Save the rushing a of the stream
    And the blue-jay in the wood.

In his war paint and his beads,
Like a bison among the reeds,
    In ambush the Sitting Bull
Lay with three thousand braves
Crouched in the c...

How sweet the music sounded
That summer long ago,
When you were by my side, love,
To list its gentle flow.

I saw your eyes a-shining,
I felt your rippling hair,
I kissed your pearly cheek, love,
And had no thought of care.

And gay or sad the music,
With subtle charm replete;
I found in after years, love
'Twas you that made it sweet.

For standing where we heard it,
I hear again the strain;
It wakes my heart, but thrills it
With sad, mysterious pain.

It pulses not so joyous
As when you stood with me,
And hand in hand we listened
To that low melody.

Oh, could the years turn back, love!
Oh, could events be changed
To what they were that time, love,
Before we were estranged;

Wert thou once ...

Over the threshold of his pleasant home
Set in green clearings passed the exiled Friend,
In simple trust, misdoubting not the end.
"Dear heart of mine!" he said, "the time has come
To trust the Lord for shelter." One long gaze
The goodwife turned on each familiar thing,
The lowing kine, the orchard blossoming,
The open door that showed the hearth-fire's blaze,
And calmly answered, "Yes, He will provide."
Silent and slow they crossed the homestead's bound,
Lingering the longest by their child's grave-mound.
"Move on, or stay and hang!" the sheriff cried.
They left behind them more than home or land,
And set sad faces to an alien strand.

Safer with winds and waves than human wrath,
With ravening wolves than those whose zeal for God
Was cruelty to man, the ...

        Spring-time is coming again, my dear;
            Sunshine and violets blue, you know;
        Crocuses lifting their sleepy heads
            Out of their sheets of snow.
        And I know a blossom sweeter by far
        That violets blue, or crocuses are,
            And bright as the sunbeam's glow.
        But how can I dare to look in her eyes,
            Colored with heaven's own hue?
        That wouldn't do at all, my dear,
            It really wouldn't do.

        Her hair is a rippling, tossing sea;
            In its golden depths the fairies play,
        Beckoning, dancing, mocking there,
            Luring my heart away.
        And her merry lips are the ripest red
        That ever addled a poor man's head,
            Or...

I

The Sheep-boy whistled loud, and lo!
That instant, startled by the shock,
The Buzzard mounted from the rock
Deliberate and slow:
Lord of the air, he took his flight;
Oh! could he on that woeful night
Have lent his wing, my Brother dear,
For one poor moment's space to Thee,
And all who struggled with the Sea,
When safety was so near.

II

Thus in the weakness of my heart
I spoke (but let that pang be still)
When rising from the rock at will,
I saw the Bird depart.
And let me calmly bless the Power
That meets me in this unknown Flower.
Affecting type of him I mourn!
With calmness suffer and believe,
And grieve, and know that I must grieve,
Not cheerless, though forlorn.

III

Here did we stop; and he...

A timid child with heart oppressed
By images of sin,
I slunk into the bush for rest,
And found my fairy kin.

The fire I carried kept me warm:
The friendly air was chill.
The laggards of the lowing storm
Trailed gloom along the hill.

I watched the crawling monsters melt
And saw their shadows wane
As on my satin skin I felt
The fingers of the rain.

The sunlight was a golden beer,
I drank a magic draught;
The sky was clear and, void of fear,
I stood erect and laughed.

And sudden laughter, idly free,
About me trilled and rang,
And love was shed from every tree,
And little bushes sang.

The bay of conscience’ bloody hound
That tears the world apart
Has never drowned the silent sound
Within my happy hea...

Take hands and part with laughter;
Touch lips and part with tears;
Once more and no more after,
Whatever comes with years.
We twain shall not remeasure
The ways that left us twain;
Nor crush the lees of pleasure
From sanguine grapes of pain.

We twain once well in sunder,
What will the mad gods do
For hate with me, I wonder,
Or what for love with you?
Forget them till November,
And dream there’s April yet;
Forget that I remember,
And dream that I forget.

Time found our tired love sleeping,
And kissed away his breath;
But what should we do weeping,
Though light love sleep to death?
We have drained his lips at leisure,
Till there’s not left to drain
A single sob of pleasure,
A single pulse of pain.

Dream t...

I.
Is it you, that preach’d in the chapel there looking over the sand?
Follow’d us too that night, and dogg’d us, and drew me to land?

II.
What did I feel that night? You are curious. How should I tell?
Does it matter so much what I felt? You rescued me—yet—was it well
That you came unwish’d for, uncall’d, between me and the deep and my doom,
Three days since, three more dark days of the Godless gloom
Of a life without sun, without health, with out hope, without any delight
In anything here upon earth? but ah God, that night, that night
When the rolling eyes of the lighthouse there on the fatal neck
Of land running out into rock—they had saved many hundreds from wreck—
Glared on our way toward death, I remember I thought, as we past,
Does it matter how many they saved?...

Leonainie - Angels named her;
And they took the light
Of the laughing stars and framed her
In a smile of white;
    And they made her hair of gloomy
    Midnight, and her eyes of bloomy
    Moonshine, and they brought her to me
In the solemn night. - -

In a solemn night of summer,
When my heart of gloom
Blossomed up to greet the comer
Like a rose in bloom;
    All forebodings that distressed me
    I forgot as Joy caressed me -
    (Lying Joy! that caught and pressed me
In the arms of doom!)

Only spake the little lisper
In the Angel-tongue;
Yet I, listening, heard her whisper -
"Songs are only sung
    Here below that they may grieve you -
    Tales but told you to deceive you, -
    So must Leonainie leave you<...

Heart of my heart, the day is chill,
The mist hangs low o'er the wooded hill,
The soft white mist and the heavy cloud
The sun and the face of heaven shroud.
The birds are thick in the dripping trees,
That drop their pearls to the beggar breeze;
No songs are rife where songs are wont,
Each singer crouches in his haunt.

Heart of my heart, the day is chill,
Whene'er thy loving voice is still,
The cloud and mist hide the sky from me,
Whene'er thy face I cannot see.
My thoughts fly back from the chill without,
My mind in the storm drops doubt on doubt,
No songs arise. Without thee, love,
My soul sinks down like a frightened dove.

Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,
And I will comment upon that offence:
Speak of my lameness, and I straight will halt,
Against thy reasons making no defence.
Thou canst not love disgrace me half so ill,
To set a form upon desired change,
As I’ll myself disgrace; knowing thy will,
I will acquaintance strangle, and look strange;
Be absent from thy walks; and in my tongue
Thy sweet beloved name no more shall dwell,
Lest I, too much profane, should do it wrong,
And haply of our old acquaintance tell.
For thee, against my self I’ll vow debate,
For I must ne’er love him whom thou dost hate.

Oh, Magdeberg the town!
Fair maids thy beauty crown,
Thy charms fair maids and matrons crown;
Oh, Magdeburg the town!

Where all so blooming stands,
Advance fierce Tilly's bands;
O'er gardens and o'er well till'd lands
Advance fierce Tilly's bands.

Now Tilly's at the gate.
Our homes who'll liberate?
Go, loved one, hasten to the gate,
And dare the combat straight!

There is no need as yet,
However fierce his threat;
Thy rosy cheeks I'll kiss, sweet pet!
There is no need as yet.

My longing makes me pale.
Oh, what can wealth avail?
E'en now thy father may be pale.
Thou mak'st my courage fail.

Oh, mother, give me bread!
Is then my father dead?
Oh, mother, one small crust of bread!
Oh, what misfortune d...