Death

The sweetest singer once thou wast, but art no more;
    An elf thou wast of what thou now shalt be,
Where thou art in realms of that celestial shore;
    There thou shalt sing through all eternity.
        We, peerless bard, bewail thy loss
            And shed heart-broken tears,
        Though meekly thou hast borne thy cross
            And winged the flight of years!

Thrice blessed singer, wrapped in heavenly bliss,
    Of earth's poor souls thy fortune who can tell?
Perchance thy splendid lot be solely this:
    To change thy lute with the angel Israfel!
        If so, then smite thy golden strings
            With fingers nimble, strong,
        Till all along fair heaven rings
            With cadence of thy song!

Thee tyrant earth once hel...

Bells ring out a joyful sound,
Old and young alike seem gay;
One more year has gone its round,
Again we greet a New Year's Day.
Whilst to some they tell of cheer,
Other hearts may grief betide,
For 'twas in the glad New Year
When our darling Cora died.

Like a snowdrop, pure and fair,
She had blossomed in our home;
Her we nursed with tender care,
Lest Death's blighting frost should come.
And we prayed to keep her here,
But our pleading was denied; -
Early in the glad New Year,
Little darling Cora died.

Death had taken some before,
Some from whom 'twas hard to part;
And their voices now no more,
Come to cheer the longing heart.
In that one frail blossom dear,
Centered all our hope and pride;
Alas! Then came the sad New Y...

Unto the house of prayer my spirit yearns,
Unto the sources of her being turns,
To where the sacred light of heaven burns,
She struggles thitherward by day and night.


The splendor of God's glory blinds her eyes,
Up without wings she soareth to the skies,
With silent aspiration seeks to rise,
In dusky evening and in darksome night.


To her the wonders of God's works appear,
She longs with fervor Him to draw anear,
The tidings of His glory reach her ear,
From morn to even, and from night to night.


The banner of thy grace did o'er me rest,
Yet was thy worship banished from my breast.
Almighty, thou didst seek me out and test
To try and to instruct me in the night.


I dare not idly on my pillow lie,
With winged fe...

Life is the body's light; which, once declining,
Those crimson clouds i' th' cheeks and lips leave shining:
Those counter-changed tabbies in the air,
The sun once set, all of one colour are:
So, when death comes, fresh tinctures lose their place,
And dismal darkness then doth smutch the face.

Yes! even I was in Arcadia born,
    And, in mine infant ears,
A vow of rapture was by Nature sworn;
Yes! even I was in Arcadia born,
    And yet my short spring gave me only tears!

Once blooms, and only once, life's youthful May;
    For me its bloom hath gone.
The silent God O brethren, weep to-day
The silent God hath quenched my torch's ray,
    And the vain dream hath flown.

Upon thy darksome bridge, Eternity,
    I stand e'en now, dread thought!
Take, then, these joy-credentials back from me!
Unopened I return them now to thee,
    Of happiness, alas, know naught!

Before Thy throne my mournful cries I vent,
    Thou Judge, concealed from view!
To yonder star a joyous saying went
With judgment's scales to rule us thou art sent,<...

I

Oh Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!
I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;
But although I take your meaning, ’tis with such a heavy mind!

II

Here you come with your old music, and here’s all the good it brings.
What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings,
Where Saint Mark’s is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?

III

Ay, because the sea’s the street there; and ’tis arched by . . . what you call
. . . Shylock’s bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival:
I was never out of England, it’s as if I saw it all.

IV

Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?
Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day,

When these eyes, long dimmed with weeping,
In the silent dust are sleeping;
When above my narrow bed
The breeze shall wave the thistle's head--
                    Thou wilt think of me, love!

When the queen of beams and showers
Comes to dress the earth with flowers;
When the days are long and bright,
And the moon shines all the night--
                    Thou wilt think of me, love!

When the tender corn is springing,
And the merry thrush is singing;
When the swallows come and go,
On light wings flitting to and fro--
                    Thou wilt think of me, love!

When laughing childhood learns by rote
The cuckoo's oft-repeated note;
When the meads are fresh and green,
And the hawthorn buds are seen--
                    Thou...

Here’s the criminal’s friend, delightful evening:
come like an accomplice, with a wolf’s loping:
slowly the sky’s vast vault hides each feature,
and restless man becomes a savage creature.

Evening, sweet evening, desired by him who can say
without his arms proving him a liar: ‘Today
we’ve worked!’ – It refreshes, this evening hour,
those spirits that savage miseries devour,
the dedicated scholar with heavy head,
the bowed workman stumbling home to bed.
Yet now unhealthy demons rise again
clumsily, in the air, like busy men,
beat against sheds and arches in their flight.
And among the wind-tormented gas-lights
Prostitution switches on through the streets
opening her passageways like an ant-heap:
weaving her secret tunnels everywhere,
like an enemy pl...

        God had called us, and we came;
            Our loved Earth to ashes left;
        Heaven was a neighbor's house,
            Open to us, bereft.

        Gay the lights of Heaven showed,
            And 'twas God who walked ahead;
        Yet I wept along the road,
            Wanting my own house instead.

        Wept unseen, unheeded cried,
            "All you things my eyes have kissed,
        Fare you well!    We meet no more,
            Lovely, lovely tattered mist!

        Weary wings that rise and fall
            All day long above the fire!"--
        Red with heat was every wall,
            Rough with heat was every wire--

        "Fare you well, you little winds
            That the flying embers chase!
...

Here lies, whom hound did ne’er pursue,
Nor swifter greyhound follow,
Whose foot ne’er tainted morning dew,
Nor ear heard huntsman’s halloo;


Old Tiney, surliest of his kind,
Who, nursed with tender care,
And to domestic bounds confined,
Was still a wild Jack hare.


Though duly from my hand he took
His pittance every night,
He did it with a jealous look,
And, when he could, would bite.


His diet was of wheaten bread
And milk, and oats, and straw;
Thistles, or lettuces instead,
With sand to scour his maw.


On twigs of hawthorn he regaled,
On pippins’ russet peel,
And, when his juicy salads fail’d,
Sliced carrot pleased him well.


A Turkey carpet was his lawn,
Whereon he loved to bou...

Ah, I have changed, I do not know
Why lonely hours affect me so.
In days of yore, this were not wont,
No loneliness my soul could daunt.

For me too serious for my age,
The weighty tome of hoary sage,
Until with puzzled heart astir,
One God-giv'n night, I dreamed of her.

I loved no woman, hardly knew
More of the sex that strong men woo
Than cloistered monk within his cell;
But now the dream is lost, and hell

Holds me her captive tight and fast
Who prays and struggles for the past.
No living maid has charmed my eyes,
But now, my soul is wonder-wise.

For I have dreamed of her and seen
Her red-brown tresses' ruddy sheen,
Have known her sweetness, lip to lip,
The joy of her companionship.

When days were bleak and wi...

Not while the fever of the blood is strong,
The heart throbs loud, the eyes are veiled, no less
With passion than with tears, the Muse shall bless
The poet-soul to help and soothe with song.
Not then she bids his trembling lips express
The aching gladness, the voluptuous pain.
Life is his poem then; flesh, sense, and brain
One full-stringed lyre attuned to happiness.
But when the dream is done, the pulses fail,
The day's illusion, with the day's sun set,
He, lonely in the twilight, sees the pale
Divine Consoler, featured like Regret,
Enter and clasp his hand and kiss his brow.
Then his lips ope to sing - as mine do now.

Lines addressed to the daughter of Richard Dalton Williams.



Child of the heart of a child of sweetest song!
The poet's blood flows through thy fresh pure veins;
Dost ever hear faint echoes float along
Thy days and dreams of thy dead father's strains?
        Dost ever hear,
    In mournful times,
        With inner ear,
The strange sweet cadences of thy father's rhymes?

Child of a child of art, which Heaven doth give
To few, to very few as unto him!
His songs are wandering o'er the world, but live
In his child's heart, in some place lone and dim;
    And nights and days
        With vestal's eyes
        And soundless sighs
Thou keepest watch above thy father's lays.

Child of a dreamer of dreams all unfulfilled --
(And t...

Vast are its halls, as vast the halls and lone
Where DEATH stalks listening to the wind and rain;
And dark that house, where I shall meet again
My long-dead Sin in some dread way unknown;
For I have dreamed of stairs of haunted stone,
And spectre footsteps I have fled in vain;
And windows glaring with a blood-red stain,
And horrible eyes, that burn me to the bone,
Within a face that looks as that black night
It looked when deep I dug for it a grave, -
The dagger wound above the brow, the thin
Blood trickling down slantwise the ghastly white; -
And I have dreamed not even GOD can save
Me and my soul from that risen Sin.

O sight of shame, and pain, and dole!
O fearful thought a convict Soul!

Rang the refrain along the hall, the prison,
Rose to the roof, the vaults of heaven above,
Pouring in floods of melody, in tones so pensive, sweet and strong, the like whereof was never heard,
Reaching the far-off sentry, and the armed guards, who ceas'd their pacing,
Making the hearer's pulses stop for extasy and awe.

O sight of pity, gloom, and dole!
O pardon me, a hapless Soul!

The sun was low in the west one winter day,
When down a narrow aisle, amid the thieves and outlaws of the land,
(There by the hundreds seated, sear-faced murderers, wily counterfeiters,
Gather'd to Sunday church in prison walls the keepers round,
Plenteous, well-arm'd, watching, with vigilant eyes,)
All t...

    Hark, in the steeple the dull bell swinging
        Over the furrows ill ploughed by Death!
    Hark the bird-babble, the loud lark singing!
        Hark, from the sky, what the prophet saith!

    Hark, in the pines, the free Wind, complaining--
        Moaning, and murmuring, "Life is bare!"
    Hark, in the organ, the caught Wind, outstraining,
        Jubilant rise in a soaring prayer!

    Toll for the burying, sexton tolling!
        Sing for the second birth, angel Lark!
    Moan, ye poor Pines, with the Past condoling!
        Burst out, brave Organ, and kill the Dark!


II.

    Sit on the ground, and immure thy sorrow;
        I will give freedom to mine in song!
    Haunt thou the tomb, and deny the morrow;
        I wil...

Its a long time sin thee an' me have met befoor, owd lad, -
Soa pull up thi cheer, an sit daan, for ther's noabdy moor welcome nor thee:
Thi toppin's grown whiter nor once, - yet mi heart feels glad,
To see ther's a rooas o' thi cheek, an a bit ov a leet i' thi e'e.

Thi limbs seem to totter an shake, like a crazy owd fence,
'At th' wind maks to tremel an creak; but tha still fills thi place;
An it shows 'at tha'rt bless'd wi' a bit o' gradely gooid sense,
'At i' spite o' thi years an thi cares, tha still wears a smile o' thi face.

Come fill up thi pipe - for aw knaw tha'rt reight fond ov a rick, -
An tha'll find a drop o' hooam-brew'd i' that pint up o'th' hob, aw dar say;
An nah, wol tha'rt tooastin thi shins, just scale th' foir, an aw'll side thi owd stick,
Then aw'll t...

I.

Morning

Deep in her broom-sedge, burs and iron-weeds,
Her frost-slain asters and dead mallow-moons,
Where gray the wilding clematis balloons
The brake with puff-balls: where the slow stream leads
Her sombre steps: decked with the scarlet beads
Of hip and haw: through dolorous maroons
And desolate golds, she goes: the wailing tunes
Of all the winds about her like wild reeds.
The red wrought-iron hues that flush the green
Of blackberry briers, and the bronze that stains
The oak's sere leaves, are in her cheeks: the gray
Of forest pools, clocked thin with ice, is keen
In her cold eyes: and in her hair the rain's
Chill silver glimmers like a winter ray.

II.

Noon

Lost in the sleepy grays and drowsy browns
Of woodlands...