Betrayal

To outer senses there is peace,
A dreamy peace on either hand
Deep silence in the shadowy land,
Deep silence where the shadows cease.

Save for a cry that echoes shrill
From some lone bird disconsolate;
A corncrake calling to its mate;
The answer from the misty hill.

And suddenly the moon withdraws
Her sickle from the lightening skies,
And to her sombre cavern flies,
Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze.

The days of a man are threescore years and ten.
The days of his life were half a man's, whom we
Lament, and would yet not bid him back, to be
Partaker of all the woes and ways of men.
Life sent him enough of sorrow: not again
Would anguish of love, beholding him set free,
Bring back the beloved to suffer life and see
No light but the fire of grief that scathed him then.
We know not at all: we hope, and do not fear.
We shall not again behold him, late so near,
Who now from afar above, with eyes alight
And spirit enkindled, haply toward us here
Looks down unforgetful yet of days like night
And love that has yet his sightless face in sight.

I
TRANSFIGURATION

But half a man's days, and his days were nights.
What hearts were ours who loved him, sho...

AFTER THE BATTLE OF BADE, BENEATH THE CANOPY OF HEAVEN.


MAHOMET (Speaks).

Let the foeman sorrow o'er his dead,

Ne'er will they return again to light;
O'er our brethren let no tear be shed,

For they dwell above yon spheres so bright.

All the seven planets open throw

All their metal doors with mighty shock,
And the forms of those we loved below

At the gates of Eden boldly knock.

There they find, with bliss ne'er dream'd before,

Glories that my flight first show'd to eye,
When the wondrous steed my person bore

In one second through the realms on high.

Wisdom's trees, in cypress-order growing,

High uphold the golden apples sweet;
Trees of life, their spreading shadows throwing,

(AFTER A. C. S.)

In the days of my season of salad,
    When the down was as dew on my cheek,
And for French I was bred on the ballad,
    For Greek on the writers of Greek,
Then I sang of the rose that is ruddy,
    Of 'pleasure that winces and stings,'
Of white women and wine that is bloody,
    And similar things.

Of Delight that is dear as Desi-er,
    And Desire that is dear as Delight;
Of the fangs of the flame that is fi-er,
    Of the bruises of kisses that bite;
Of embraces that clasp and that sever,
    Of blushes that flutter and flee
Round the limbs of Dolores, whoever
    Dolores may be.

I sang of false faith that is fleeting
    As froth of the swallowing seas,
Time's curse that is fatal as Keating
    Is fat...

Not only on cross and gibbet,
By sword, and fire, and flood,
Have perished the world’s sad martyrs
Whose names are writ in blood.

A woman lay in a hovel,
Mean, dismal, gasping for breath;
One friend alone was beside her,
The name of him was, Death.

For the sake of her orphan children,
For money to buy them food,
She had slaved in the dismal hovel
And wasted her womanhood.

Winter and Spring and Summer
Came each with a load of cares;
And Autumn to her brought only
A harvest of gray hairs.

Far out in the blessèd country,
Beyond the smoky town,
The winds of God were blowing
Evermore up and down;

The trees were waving signals
Of joy from the bush beyond;
The gum its blue-green banner,
The fern its dar...

PART SECOND

We left our Hero in a trance,
Beneath the alders, near the river;
The Ass is by the river-side,
And, where the feeble breezes glide,
Upon the stream the moonbeams quiver.

A happy respite! but at length
He feels the glimmering of the moon;
Wakes with glazed eve. and feebly signing
To sink, perhaps, where he is lying,
Into a second swoon!

He lifts his head, he sees his staff;
He touches 'tis to him a treasure!
Faint recollection seems to tell
That he is yet where mortals dwell
A thought received with languid pleasure!

His head upon his elbow propped,
Becoming less and less perplexed,
Sky-ward he looks to rock and wood
And then upon the glassy flood
His wandering eye is fixed.

Thought he, that is ...

The linnet had flown from its cage away,
And flitted and sang in the light of day--
Had flown from the lady who loved it well,
In Liberty's freer air to dwell.
Alas! poor bird, it was soon to prove,
Sweeter than Liberty is Love.

When night came on it had ceased to sing,
And had hidden its head beneath its wing.
It thought of the warm room left behind,
The shelter from cold and rain and wind;
It could not sleep, when to sleep it strove--
Liberty needeth the help of Love.

The night owls shrieked as they wheeled along,
Bent upon slaughter, and rapine, and wrong:
There was devilish mirth in their wild halloo,
And the linnet trembled when near they drew;
'Twas fearful to watch them madly rove,
Drunken with Liberty, left of Love.

When mor...

Monastic Domes! following my downward way,
Untouched by due regret I marked your fall!
Now, ruin, beauty, ancient stillness, all
Dispose to judgments temperate as we lay
On our past selves in life's declining day:
For as, by discipline of Time made wise,
We learn to tolerate the infirmities
And faults of others, gently as he may,
So with our own the mild Instructor deals,
Teaching us to forget them or forgive.
Perversely curious, then, for hidden ill
Why should we break Time's charitable seals?
Once ye were holy, ye are holy still;
Your spirit freely let me drink, and live!

Hide me, Mother! my Fathers belong’d to the church of old,
I am driven by storm and sin and death to the ancient fold,
I cling to the Catholic Cross once more, to the Faith that saves,
My brain is full of the crash of wrecks, and the roar of waves,
My life itself is a wreck, I have sullied a noble name,
I am flung from the rushing tide of the world as a waif of shame,
I am roused by the wail of a child, and awake to a livid light,
And a ghastlier face than ever has haunted a grave by night,
I would hide from the storm without, I would flee from the storm within,
I would make my life one prayer for a soul that died in his sin,
I was the tempter, Mother, and mine was the deeper fall;
I will sit at your feet, I will hide my face, I will tell you all.

II.
He that they gave...

Yours is the shame and sorrow
But the disgrace is mine;
Your love was dark and thorough,
Mine was the love of the sun for a flower
He creates with his shine.

I was diligent to explore you,
Blossom you stalk by stalk,
Till my fire of creation bore you
Shrivelling down in the final dour
Anguish - then I suffered a balk.

I knew your pain, and it broke
My fine, craftsman's nerve;
Your body quailed at my stroke,
And my courage failed to give you the last
Fine torture you did deserve.

You are shapely, you are adorned,
But opaque and dull in the flesh,
Who, had I but pierced with the thorned
Fire-threshing anguish, were fused and cast
In a lovely illumined mesh.

Like a painted window: the best
Suffering burnt through y...

1.
Mine eyes were dim with tears unshed;
Yes, I was firm - thus wert not thou; -
My baffled looks did fear yet dread
To meet thy looks - I could not know
How anxiously they sought to shine
With soothing pity upon mine.

2.
To sit and curb the soul's mute rage
Which preys upon itself alone;
To curse the life which is the cage
Of fettered grief that dares not groan,
Hiding from many a careless eye
The scorned load of agony.

3.
Whilst thou alone, then not regarded,
The ... thou alone should be,
To spend years thus, and be rewarded,
As thou, sweet love, requited me
When none were near - Oh! I did wake
From torture for that moment's sake.

4.
Upon my heart thy accents sweet
Of peace and pity fell like dew
On f...

Within this restless, hurried, modern world
We took our hearts' full pleasure You and I,
And now the white sails of our ship are furled,
And spent the lading of our argosy.

Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan,
For very weeping is my gladness fled,
Sorrow has paled my young mouth's vermilion,
And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed.

But all this crowded life has been to thee
No more than lyre, or lute, or subtle spell
Of viols, or the music of the sea
That sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell.

Silver key of the fountain of tears,
Where the spirit drinks till the brain is wild;
Softest grave of a thousand fears,
Where their mother, Care, like a drowsy child,
Is laid asleep in flowers.

Grant, that by this unsparing hurricane
Green leaves with yellow mixed are torn away,
And goodly fruitage with the mother spray;
'Twere madness, wished we, therefore, to detain,
With hands stretched forth in mollified disdain,
The "trumpery" that ascends in bare display
Bulls, pardons, relics, cowls black, white, and grey
Upwhirled, and flying o'er the ethereal plain
Fast bound for Limbo Lake. And yet not choice
But habit rules the unreflecting herd,
And airy bonds are hardest to disown;
Hence, with the spiritual sovereignty transferred
Unto itself, the Crown assumes a voice
Of reckless mastery, hitherto unknown.

When night was lifting,
And dawn had crept under its shade,
Amid cold clouds drifting
Dead-white as a corpse outlaid,
With a sudden scare
I seemed to behold
My Love in bare
Hard lines unfold.

Yea, in a moment,
An insight that would not die
Killed her old endowment
Of charm that had capped all nigh,
Which vanished to none
Like the gilt of a cloud,
And showed her but one
Of the common crowd.

She seemed but a sample
Of earth's poor average kind,
Lit up by no ample
Enrichments of mien or mind.
I covered my eyes
As to cover the thought,
And unrecognize
What the morn had taught.

O vision appalling
When the one believed-in thing
Is seen falling, falling,
With all to which hope can cling.
Of...

Steely stars and moon of brass,
How mockingly you watch me pass!
You know as well as I how soon
I shall be blind to stars and moon,
Deaf to the wind in the hemlock tree,
Dumb when the brown earth weighs on me.

With envious dark rage I bear,
Stars, your cold complacent stare;
Heart-broken in my hate look up,
Moon, at your clear immortal cup,
Changing to gold from dusky red,
Age after age when I am dead
To be filled up with light, and then
Emptied, to be refilled again.

What has man done that only he
Is slave to death, so brutally
Beaten back into the earth
Impatient for him since his birth?

Oh let me shut my eyes, close out
The sight of stars and earth and be
Sheltered a minute by this tree.
Hemlock, through your fragr...

A Song

Poor withered rose, she gave it me,
Half in revenge and half in glee;
Its petals not so pink by half
As are her lips when curled to laugh,
As are her cheeks when dimples gay
In merry mischief o'er them play.

Chorus

Forgive, forgive, it seems unkind
To cast thy petals to the wind;
But it is right, and lest I err
So scatter I all thought of her.

Poor withered rose, so like my heart,
That wilts at sorrow's cruel dart.
Who hath not felt the winter's blight
When every hope seemed warm and bright?
Who doth not know love unreturned,
E'en when the heart most wildly burned?

Poor withered rose, thou liest dead;
Too soon thy beauty's bloom hath fled.
'Tis not without a tearful ruth
I watch decay ...

If that we thus are guilty doth appear,
Ah, guilty tho’ we are, grave judges, hear!
Ah, yes; if ever you in your sweet youth
’Midst pleasure’s borders missed the track of truth,
Made love on benches underneath green trees,
Stuffed tender rhymes with old new similes,
Whispered soft anythings, and in the blood
Felt all you said not most was understood
Ah, if you have, as which of you has not?
Nor what you were have utterly forgot,
Then be not stern to faults yourselves have known,
To others harsh, kind to yourselves alone.

That we, young sir, beneath our youth’s green trees
Once did, not what should profit, but should please,
In foolish longing and in love-sick play
Forgot the truth and lost the flying day,
That we went wrong we say not is not true,
B...