Death

Falls from her heaven the Moon, and stars sink burning
Into the sea where blackness rims the sea,
Silently quenched. Faint light that the waves hold
Is only light remaining; yet still gleam
The sands where those now-sleeping young moon-bathers
Came dripping out of the sea and from their arms
Shook flakes of light, dancing on the foamy edge
Of quiet waves. They were all things of light
Tossed from the sea to dance under the Moon,
Her nuns, dancing within her dying round,
Clear limbs and breasts silvered with Moon and waves
And quick with windlike mood and body's joy,
Withdrawn from alien vows, by wave and wind
Lightly absolved and lightly all forgetting.

An hour ago they left. Remains the gleam
Of their late motion on the salt sea-meadow,
As loveliest hue...

Bless'd be thy slumbers, little love!
Unconscious of the ills so near;
May no rude noise thy dreams remote,
Or prompt the artless early tear; -

For she who gave thee life is gone,
Whose trust it was thy life to rear,
Now in the cold and mould'ring stone
Calls for that artless early tear.

Sleep on, thou little dreamer! sleep;
For, long as I shall tarry here,
I'll soothe thee; thou shalt never weep,
Tho' flows for thee the tend'rest tear.

Then be thy gentle visions blest,
Nor e'er thy bosom know that fear,
Which thro' the night disturbs my rest,
And prompts Affection's trembling tear.

Dark is the night,
The fire burns faint and low,
Hours - days - years,
Into grey ashes go;
I strive to read,
But sombre is the glow.

Thumbed are the pages,
And the print is small;
Mocking the winds
That from the darkness call;
Feeble the fire that lends
Its light withal.

O ghost, draw nearer;
Let thy shadowy hair,
Blot out the pages
That we cannot share;
Be ours the one last leaf
By Fate left bare!

Let's Finis scrawl,
And then Life's book put by;
Turn each to each
In all simplicity:
Ere the last flame is gone
To warm us by.

        (Being the philosophy of many Soldiers.)



    Sit on the bed; I'm blind, and three parts shell,
    Be careful; can't shake hands now; never shall.
    Both arms have mutinied against me--brutes.
    My fingers fidget like ten idle brats.

    I tried to peg out soldierly--no use!
    One dies of war like any old disease.
    This bandage feels like pennies on my eyes.
    I have my medals?--Discs to make eyes close.
    My glorious ribbons?--Ripped from my own back
    In scarlet shreds. (That's for your poetry book.)

    A short life and a merry one, my brick!
    We used to say we'd hate to live dead old,--
    Yet now . . . I'd willingly be puffy, bald,
    And patriotic. Buffers catch from boys
    At least the jokes hurled ...

Life was trembling, faintly trembling
On the bondman's latest breath,
And he felt the chilling pressure
Of the cold, hard hand of Death.

He had been an Afric chieftain,
Worn his manhood as a crown;
But upon the field of battle
Had been fiercely stricken down.


He had longed to gain his freedom,
Waited, watched and hoped in vain,
Till his life was slowly ebbing -
Almost broken was his chain.

By his bedside stood the master,
Gazing on the dying one,
Knowing by the dull grey shadows
That life's sands were almost run.

"Master," said the dying bondman,
"Home and friends I soon shall see;
But before I reach my country,
Master write that I am free;

"For the spirits of my fathers
Would shrink back from me in ...

I dreaded that first robin so,
But he is mastered now,
And I 'm accustomed to him grown, --
He hurts a little, though.

I thought if I could only live
Till that first shout got by,
Not all pianos in the woods
Had power to mangle me.

I dared not meet the daffodils,
For fear their yellow gown
Would pierce me with a fashion
So foreign to my own.

I wished the grass would hurry,
So when 't was time to see,
He 'd be too tall, the tallest one
Could stretch to look at me.

I could not bear the bees should come,
I wished they 'd stay away
In those dim countries where they go:
What word had they for me?

They 're here, though; not a creature failed,
No blossom stayed away
In gentle deference to me,
The Queen ...

The croak of a raven hoar!
    A dog's howl, kennel-tied!
Loud shuts the carriage-door:
    The two are away on their ghastly ride
To Death's salt shore!

Where are the love and the grace?
    The bridegroom is thirsty and cold!
The bride's skull sharpens her face!
    But the coachman is driving, jubilant, bold,
The devil's pace.

The horses shivered and shook
    Waiting gaunt and haggard
With sorry and evil look;
    But swift as a drunken wind they staggered
'Longst Lethe brook.

Long since, they ran no more;
    Heavily pulling they died
On the sand of the hopeless shore
    Where never swelled or sank a tide,
And the salt burns sore.

Flat their skeletons lie,
    White shadows on shining sand;
The cruste...

    As, in the lonely night,
    Above the silvered fields and streams
    Where zephyr gently blows,
    And myriad objects vague,
    Illusions, that deceive,
    Their distant shadows weave
    Amid the silent rills,
    The trees, the hedges, villages, and hills;
    Arrived at heaven's boundary,
    Behind the Apennine or Alp,
    Or into the deep bosom of the sea,
    The moon descends, the world grows dim;
    The shadows disappear, darkness profound
    Falls on each hill and vale around,
    And night is desolate,
    And singing, with his plaintive lay,
    The parting gleam of friendly light
    The traveller greets, whose radiance bright,
    Till now, hath guided him upon his way;

    So vanishes, so desolate
    Youth le...

My soul, lost in the music's mist,
Roamed, rapt, 'neath skies of amethyst.
The cheerless streets grew summer meads,
The Son of Phoebus spurred his steeds,
And, wand'ring down the mazy tune,
December lost its way in June,
While from a verdant vale I heard
The piping of a love-lorn bird.

A something in the tender strain
Revived an old, long-conquered pain,
And as in depths of many seas,
My heart was drowned in memories.
The tears came welling to my eyes,
Nor could I ask it otherwise;
For, oh! a sweetness seems to last
Amid the dregs of sorrows past.

It stirred a chord that here of late
I 'd grown to think could not vibrate.
It brought me back the trust of youth,
The world again was joy and truth.
And Avice, blooming like a bride,<...

By the City Dead-House, by the gate,
As idly sauntering, wending my way from the clangor,
I curious pause for lo! an outcast form, a poor dead prostitute brought;
Her corpse they deposit unclaim'd it lies on the damp brick pavement;
The divine woman, her body I see the Body I look on it alone,
That house once full of passion and beauty all else I notice not;
Nor stillness so cold, nor running water from faucet, nor odors morbific impress me;
But the house alone that wondrous house that delicate fair house that ruin!
That immortal house, more than all the rows of dwellings ever built!
Or white-domed Capitol itself, with majestic figure surmounted or all the old high-spired cathedrals;
That little house alone, more than them all poor, desperate house!
Fair, fearful wreck! tenement of a ...

I - THE MOTHER'S KISS

Love breathed a secret to her listening heart,
    And said "Be silent."    Though she guarded it,
And dwelt as one within a world apart,
    Yet sun and star seemed by that secret lit.
And where she passed, each whispering wind ablow,
    And every little blossom in the sod,
Called joyously to her, "We know, we know,
    For are we not the intimates of God?"
Life grew so radiant, and so opulent,
    That when her fragile body and her brain
By mortal throes of agony were rent,
    She felt a curious rapture in her pain.
Then, after anguish, came the supreme bliss -
They brought the little baby, for her kiss!

II - THE BETROTHAL

There was a little pause between the dances;
    Without, somewhere, a tinkling fountain p...

Think no more, lad; laugh, be jolly:
Why should men make haste to die?
Empty heads and tongues a-talking
Make the rough road easy walking,
And the feather pate of folly
Bears the falling sky.

Oh, 'tis jesting, dancing, drinking
Spins the heavy world around.
If young hearts were not so clever,
Oh, they would be young for ever:
Think no more; 'tis only thinking
Lays lads underground.

Do not let any woman read this verse;
It is for men, and after them their sons
And their sons' sons.

The time comes when our hearts sink utterly;
When we remember Deirdre and her tale,
And that her lips are dust.

Once she did tread the earth: men took her hand;.
They looked into her eyes and said their say,
And she replied to them.

More than a thousand years it is since she
Was beautiful: she trod the waving grass;
She saw the clouds.

A thousand years! The grass is still the same,
The clouds as lovely as they were that time
When Deirdre was alive.

But there has never been a woman born
Who was so beautiful, not one so beautiful
Of all the women born.

Let all men go apart and mourn together;
No man can ever love...

Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span;
Cease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man;
Delight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain.

Even from that delight memory treasures so,
Death, despair, division of families, all entanglements of mankind grow,
As that old wandering beggar and these God-hated children know.

In the long echoing street the laughing dancers throng,
The bride is catried to the bridegroom’s chamber through torchlight and tumultuous song;
I celebrate the silent kiss that ends short life or long.

Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say;
Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day;
The second best’s a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.

These are the flowers of sleep
That nod in the heavy noon,
Ere the brown shades eastward creep
To a drowsy and dreamful tune,
These are the flowers of sleep.

Love’s lilies are passion-pale,
But these on the sun-kissed flood
Of the corn, that rolls breast deep,
Burn redder than drops of blood
On a dead king’s golden mail.

Heart’s dearest, I would that we
These blooms of forgetfulness
Might bind on our brows, and steep
Our love in Lethe ere less
Grow its flame with thee or me.

When Time with his evil eye
The beautiful Love has slain,
There is nought to gain or keep
Thereafter, and all is vain.
Should we wait to see Love die?

Sweetheart, of the joys men reap
We have reaped; ’tis time to rest.
Why should we wak...

When my arms wrap you round I press
My heart upon the loveliness
That has long faded from the world;
The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled
In shadowy pools, when armies fled;
The love-tales wrought with silken thread
By dreaming ladies upon cloth
That has made fat the murderous moth;
The roses that of old time were
Woven by ladies in their hair,
The dew-cold lilies ladies bore
Through many a sacred corridor
Where such grey clouds of incense rose
That only God's eyes did not close:
For that pale breast and lingering hand
Come from a more dream-heavy land,
A more dream-heavy hour than this;
And when you sigh from kiss to kiss
I hear white Beauty sighing, too,
For hours when all must fade like dew.
But flame on flame, and deep on deep,

Why rings the knell of the funeral bell from a hundred village shrines?
Through broad Fingall, where hasten all those long and ordered lines?
With tear and sigh they're passing by--the matron and the maid--
Has a hero died--is a nation's pride in that cold coffin laid?
With frown and curse, behind the hearse, dark men go tramping on--
Has a tyrant died, that they cannot hide their wrath till the rites
are done?


THE CHANT.

"Ululu! ululu! high on the wind,
There's a home for the slave where no fetters can bind.
Woe, woe to his slayers!"--comes wildly along,
With the trampling of feet and the funeral song.

And now more clear
It swells on the ear;
Breathe low, and listen, 'tis solemn to hear.

"Ululu! ululu! wail for the dead....

(France -- Ancient Regime.)



I.

Go away!

Go away; I will not confess to you!

His black biretta clings like a hangman's cap; under his twitching fingers
the beads shiver and click,
As he mumbles in his corner, the shadow deepens upon him;
I will not confess!...

Is he there or is it intenser shadow?
Dark huddled coilings from the obscene depths,
Black, formless shadow,
Shadow.
Doors creak; from secret parts of the chateau come the scuffle and worry
of rats.

Orange light drips from the guttering candles,
Eddying over the vast embroideries of the bed
Stirring the monstrous tapestries,
Retreating before the sable impending gloom of the canopy
With a swift thrust and sparkle of gold,
Lipping my hands,