Betrayal

If I swear by that eye, you'll allow,
    Its look is so shifting and new,
That the oath I might take on it now
    The very next glance would undo.

Those babies that nestle so sly
    Such thousands of arrows have got,
That an oath, on the glance of an eye
    Such as yours, may be off in a shot.

Should I swear by the dew on your lip,
    Though each moment the treasure renews,
If my constancy wishes to trip,
    I may kiss off the oath when I choose.

Or a sigh may disperse from that flower;
    Both the dew and the oath that are there;
And I'd make a new vow every hour,
    To lose them so sweetly in air.

But clear up the heaven of your brow,
    Nor fancy my faith is a feather;
On my heart I will pledge you my vow,
   ...

It was the pleasant harvest time,
When cellar-bins are closely stowed,
And garrets bend beneath their load,

And the old swallow-haunted barns
Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams
Through which the moted sunlight streams,

And winds blow freshly in, to shake
The red plumes of the roosted cocks,
And the loose hay-mow's scented locks

Are filled with summer's ripened stores,
Its odorous grass and barley sheaves,
From their low scaffolds to their eaves.

On Esek Harden's oaken floor,
With many an autmn threshing worn,
Lay the heaped ears of unhusked corn.

And thither came young men and maids,
Beneath a moon that, large and low,
Lit that sweet eve of long ago.

They took their places; some by chance,
And others by a m...

How sweet it is to sit and read the tales
Of mighty poets and to hear the while
Sweet music, which when the attention fails
Fills the dim pause -

Quel rosignuol che sì soave piagne.

THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE REMINDS HIM OF HIS UNHAPPY LOT.


    Yon nightingale, whose bursts of thrilling tone,
Pour'd in soft sorrow from her tuneful throat,
Haply her mate or infant brood bemoan,
Filling the fields and skies with pity's note;
Here lingering till the long long night is gone,
Awakes the memory of my cruel lot--
But I my wretched self must wail alone:
Fool, who secure from death an angel thought!
O easy duped, who thus on hope relies!
Who would have deem'd the darkness, which appears,
From orbs more brilliant than the sun should rise?
Now know I, made by sad experience wise,
That Fate would teach me by a life of tears,
On wings how fleeting fast all earthly rapture flies!

WRANG...

I determined to find out whose it was -
The portrait he looked at so, and sighed;
Bitterly have I rued my meanness
    And wept for it since he died!

I searched his desk when he was away,
And there was the likeness - yes, my own!
Taken when I was the season's fairest,
    And time-lines all unknown.

I smiled at my image, and put it back,
And he went on cherishing it, until
I was chafed that he loved not the me then living,
    But that past woman still.

Well, such was my jealousy at last,
I destroyed that face of the former me;
Could you ever have dreamed the heart of woman
    Would work so foolishly!

I cannot tell what change hath come to you
To vex your splendid hair. I only know
One grief. The passion left betwixt us two,
Like some forsaken watchfire, burneth low.
’Tis sad to turn and find it dying so,
Without a hope of resurrection! Yet,
O radiant face that found me tired and lone!
I shall not for the dear, dead past forget
The sweetest looks of all the summers gone.
Ah! time hath made familiar wild regret;
For now the leaves are white in last year’s bowers,
And now doth sob along the ruined leas
The homeless storm from saddened southern seas,
While March sits weeping over withered flowers.

I

What is this I read in history,
Full of marvel, full of mystery,
Difficult to understand?
Is it fiction, is it truth?
Children in the flower of youth,
Heart in heart, and hand in hand,
Ignorant of what helps or harms,
Without armor, without arms,
Journeying to the Holy Land!

Who shall answer or divine?
Never since the world was made
Such a wonderful crusade
Started forth for Palestine.
Never while the world shall last
Will it reproduce the past;
Never will it see again
Such an army, such a band,
Over mountain, over main,
Journeying to the Holy Land.

Like a shower of blossoms blown
From the parent trees were they;
Like a flock of birds that fly
Through the unfrequented sky,
Holding nothing as their own...

As a fisher-boy I fared

To the black rock in the sea,
And, while false gifts I prepared.

Listen'd and sang merrily,
Down descended the decoy,

Soon a fish attack'd the bait;
One exultant shout of joy,

And the fish was captured straight.

Ah! on shore, and to the wood

Past the cliffs, o'er stock and stone,
One foot's traces I pursued,

And the maiden was alone.
Lips were silent, eyes downcast

As a clasp-knife snaps the bait,
With her snare she seized me fast,

And the boy was captured straight.

Heav'n knows who's the happy swain

That she rambles with anew!
I must dare the sea again,

Spite of wind and weather too.
When the great and little fish

Wail and flounder in...

Are they indeed the bitterest tears we shed,
Those we let fall over the silent dead?
Can our thoughts image forth no darker doom,
Than that which wraps us in the peaceful tomb?
Whom have ye laid beneath that mossy grave,
Round which the slender, sunny, grass-blades wave?
Who are ye calling back to tread again
This weary walk of life? towards whom, in vain,
Are your fond eyes and yearning hearts upraised;
The young, the loved, the honoured, and the praised?
Come hither; - look upon the faded cheek
Of that still woman, who with eyelids meek
Veils her most mournful eyes; - upon her brow
Sometimes the sensitive blood will faintly glow,
When reckless hands her heart-wounds roughly tear,
But patience oftener sits palely there.
Beauty has left her - hope and joy have...

The Story Of Catskin.

    There once was a gentleman grand,
        Who lived at his country seat;
    He wanted an heir to his land,
        For he'd nothing but daughters yet.

    His lady's again in the way,
        So she said to her husband with joy,
    "I hope some or other fine day,
        To present you, my dear, with a boy."

    The gentleman answered gruff,
        "If 't should turn out a maid or a mouse,
    For of both we have more than enough,
        She shan't stay to live in my house."

    The lady, at this declaration,
        Almost fainted away with pain;
    But what was her sad consternation,
        When a sweet little girl came again.

    She sent her away to be nurs'd,
        Without seeing he...

With sweet Regret—(the dearest thing that Yesterday has left us)—
We often turn our homeless eyes to scenes whence Fate has reft us.
Here sitting by a fading flame, wild waifs of song remind me
Of Annie with her gentle ways, the Girl I left behind me.

I stood beside the surging sea, with lips of silent passion—
I faced you by the surging sea, O brows of mild repression!
I never said—“My darling, stay!”—the moments seemed to bind me
To something stifling all my words for the Girl I left behind me.

The pathos worn by common things—by every wayside flower,
Or Autumn leaf on lonely winds, revives the parting hour.
Ye swooning thoughts without a voice—ye tears which rose to blind me,
Why did she fade into the Dark, the Girl I left behind me.

At night they always come...

Dearest, best and brightest,
Come away,
To the woods and to the fields!
Dearer than this fairest day
Which, like thee to those in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough Year just awake
In its cradle in the brake.
The eldest of the Hours of Spring,
Into the Winter wandering,
Looks upon the leafless wood,
And the banks all bare and rude;
Found, it seems, this halcyon Morn
In February's bosom born,
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
Kissed the cold forehead of the Earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free;
And waked to music all the fountains,
And breathed upon the rigid mountains,
And made the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, Dear.

Radiant Sister of the Day,

    I wrote the burning words to you
    That meant so much to me.
    I sent them speeding straight to you,
    To you across the sea;
    I waited with sure reckoning
    For your reply to me.

    I waited, and the counted day
    Fruitlessly came and went;
    I made excuse for the delay,
    Pitiable confident.
    I knew to-morrow's light must bring
    The words you must have sent.

    And still I stand on that dim verge
    And look across the sea;
    The waves have changed into a dirge
    Their volubility.
    And in my disillusioned heart
    Is a little grave for me.

    But still with shaded eyes I gaze
    As mournfully I sing,
    And one by one the trailing days,
    As they no message bring,
    ...

The whitethorn is budding and rushes are green,
The ivy leaves rustle around the ash tree,
On the sweet sunny bank blue violets are seen,
That tremble beneath the wild hum of the bee.
The sunbeams they play on the brook's plashy ripples,
Like millions of suns in each swirl looking on;
The rush nods and bows till its tasseled head tipples
Right into the wimpled flood, kissing the stones.

'T was down in the cow pasture, just at the gloaming,
I met a young woman sweet tempered and mild,
I said "Pretty maiden, say, where are you roving?"
"I'm walking at even," she answered, and smiled.
"Here my sweetheart and I gathered posies at even;
It's eight years ago since they sent him to sea.
Wild flowers hung with dew are like angels from heaven:
They look up in my face ...

    My soul, it shall not take us,
    O we will escape
    This world that strives to break us
    And cast us to its shape;
    Its chisel shall not enter,
    Its fire shall not touch,
    Hard from rim to centre,
    We will not crack or smutch.

    'Gainst words sweet and flowered
    We have an amulet,
    We will not play the coward
    For any black threat;
    If we but give endurance
    To what is now within,
    The single assurance
    That it is good to win.

    Slaves think it better
    To be weak than strong,
    Whose hate is a fetter
    And their love a thong.
    But we will view those others
    With eyes like stone,
    And if we have no brothers
    We will walk alone.

High travelling winds by royal hill
Their awful anthem sing,
And songs exalted flow and fill
The caverns of the spring.

To-night across a wild wet plain
A shadow sobs and strays;
The trees are whispering in the rain
Of long departed days.

I cannot say what forest saith
Its words are strange to me:
I only know that in its breath
Are tones that used to be.

Yea, in these deep dim solitudes
I hear a sound I know
The voice that lived in Penrith woods
Twelve weary years ago.

And while the hymn of other years
Is on a listening land,
The Angel of the Past appears
And leads me by the hand;

And takes me over moaning wave,
And tracts of sleepless change,
To set me by a lonely grave
Within a lonely range.

"The evening passes fast away.
'Tis almost time to rest;
What thoughts has left the vanished day,
What feelings in thy breast?

"The vanished day? It leaves a sense
Of labour hardly done;
Of little gained with vast expense,
A sense of grief alone?

"Time stands before the door of Death,
Upbraiding bitterly
And Conscience, with exhaustless breath,
Pours black reproach on me:

"And though I've said that Conscience lies
And Time should Fate condemn;
Still, sad Repentance clouds my eyes,
And makes me yield to them!

"Then art thou glad to seek repose?
Art glad to leave the sea,
And anchor all thy weary woes
In calm Eternity?

"Nothing regrets to see thee go,
Not one voice sobs' farewell;'
And where thy heart h...

When the evening came my love said to me:
Let us go into the garden now that the sky is cool;
The garden of black hellebore and rosemary,
Where wild woodruff spills in a milky pool.

Low we passed in the twilight, for the wavering heat
Of day had waned; and round that shaded plot
Of secret beauty the thickets clustered sweet:
Here is heaven, our hearts whispered, but our lips spake not.

Between that old garden and seas of lazy foam
Gloomy and beautiful alleys of trees arise
With spire of cypress and dreamy beechen dome,
So dark that our enchanted sight knew nothing but the skies:

Veiled with a soft air, drench'd in the roses' musk
Or the dusky, dark carnation's breath of clove:
No stars burned in their deeps, but through the dusk
I saw my love's ey...