Death

"Old man, upon the green hillside,
With yellow flowers besprinkled o'er,
How long in silence wilt thou bide
At this low stone door?

"I stoop: within 'tis dark and still;
But shadowy paths methinks there be,
And lead they far into the hill?"
"Traveller, come and see."

"'Tis dark, 'tis cold, and hung with gloom;
I care not now within to stay;
For thee and me is scarcely room,
I will hence away."

"Not so, not so, thou youthful guest,
Thy foot shall issue forth no more:
Behold the chamber of thy rest,
And the closing door!"

"O, have I 'scaped the whistling ball,
And striven on smoky fields of fight,
And scaled the 'leaguered city's wall
In the dangerous night;

"And borne my life unharméd still
Through foaming ...

I.

Clear-headed friend, whose joyful scorn,
Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain
The knots that tangle human creeds,
The wounding cords that bind and strain
The heart until it bleeds,
Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn
Roof not a glance so keen as thine;
If aught of prophecy be mine,
Thou wilt not live in vain.


II.

Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit;
Falsehood shall bare her plaited brow;
Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now
With shrilling shafts of subtle wit.
Nor martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords
Can do away that ancient lie;
A gentler death shall Falsehood die,
Shot thro’ and thro’ with cunning words.



III.

Weak Truth a-leaning on her crutch,
Wan, wasted Truth in her utmost need,

The Spirit of the Unborn Babe peered through the window-pane,
Peered through the window-pane that glowed like beacon in the night;
For, oh, the sky was desolate and wild with wind and rain;
And how the little room was crammed with coziness and light!
Except the flirting of the fire there was no sound at all;
The Woman sat beside the hearth, her knitting on her knee;
The shadow of her husband's head was dancing on the wall;
She looked with staring eyes at it, she looked yet did not see.
She only saw a childish face that topped the table rim,
A little wistful ghost that smiled and vanished quick away;
And then because her tender eyes were flooding to the brim,
She lowered her head. . . . "Don't sorrow, dear," she heard him softly say;
"It's over now. We'll try to be as happy as bef...

I would I might be with thee, when the year
Begins to wane, and that thou walk'st alone
Upon the rocky strand, whilst loud and clear,
The autumn wind sings, from his cloudy throne,
Wild requiems for the summer that is gone.
Or when, in sad and contemplative mood,
Thy feet explore the leafy-paven wood:
I would my soul might reason then with thine,
Upon those themes most solemn and most strange,
Which every falling leaf and fading flower,
Whisper unto us with a voice divine;
Filling the brief space of one mortal hour,
With fearful thoughts of death, decay, and change,
And the high mystery of that after birth,
That comes to us, as well as to the earth.

'Twas a fit hour for parting,
    For athwart the leaden sky
The heavy clouds came gathering
    And sailing gloomily:
The earth was drunk with heaven's tears,
    And each moaning autumn breeze
Shook the burthen of its weeping
    Off the overladen trees.
The waterfall rushed swollen down,
    In the gloaming, still and gray;
With a foam-wreath on the angry brow
    Of each wave that flashed away.
My tears were mingling with the rain,
    That fell so cold and fast,
And my spirit felt thy low deep sigh
    Through the wild and roaring blast.
The beauty of the summer woods
    Lay rustling round our feet,
And all fair things had passed away -
    'Twas an hour for parting meet.

From age to age the haggard human train
    Creeps wearily across Time's burning sands
    To look into her face, and lift weak hands
In supplication to the calm disdain
That crowns her stony brow.... But all in vain
    The riddle of mortality they try:
    Doom speaks still from her unrelenting eye--
Doom deep as passion, infinite as pain.
From age to age the voice of Love is heard
    Pleading above the tumult of the throng,
But evermore the inexorable word
    Comes like the tragic burden of a song.
"The answer is the same," the stern voice saith:
"Death yesterday, today and still tomorrow--Death!"

Like one who meets a staggering blow,
The stout old ship doth reel,
And waters vast go seething past
But will it last, this fearful blast,
On straining shroud and groaning mast,
O sailor at the wheel?

His face is smitten with the wind,
His cheeks are chilled with rain;
And you were right, his hair is white,
But eyes are calm and heart is light
He does not fear the strife to-night,
He knows the roaring main.

Ho, Sailor! Will to-morrow bring
The hours of pleasant rest?
An answer low “I do not know,
The thunders grow and far winds blow,
But storms may come and storms may go
Our God, He judgeth best!”

Now you are right, brave mariner,
But we are not like you;
We, used to shore, our fates deplore,
And fear the more when wa...

Sad is the thought of sunniest days
    Of love and rapture perished,
And shine through memory's tearful haze
    The eyes once fondliest cherished.
Reproachful is the ghost of toys
    That charmed while life was wasted.
But saddest is the thought of joys
    That never yet were tasted.

Sad is the vague and tender dream
    Of dead love's lingering kisses,
To crushed hearts haloed by the gleam
    Of unreturning blisses;
Deep mourns the soul in anguished pride
    For the pitiless death that won them, -
But the saddest wail is for lips that died
    With the virgin dew upon them.

I love to look on a scene like this,
    Of wild and careless play,
And persuade myself that I am not old
    And my locks are not yet gray;
For it stirs the blood in old man's heart,
    And makes his pulses fly,
To catch the thrill of a happy voice,
    And the light of a pleasant eye.

I have walked the world for fourscore years,
    And they say that I am old;
That my heart is ripe for the reaper, Death,
    And my years are well nigh told.
It is very true - it is very true -
    I'm old, and 'I bide my time' -
But my heart will leap at a scene like this,
    And I half renew my prime.

Play on! play on! I am with you there,
    In the midst of your merry ring;
I can feel the thrill of the daring jump,
    And the rush of the breat...

When Old Jack died, we stayed from school (they said,
At home, we needn't go that day), and none
Of us ate any breakfast - only one,
And that was Papa - and his eyes were red
When he came round where we were, by the shed
Where Jack was lying, half-way in the sun
And half-way in the shade. When we begun
To cry out loud, Pa turned and dropped his head
And went away; and Mamma, she went back
Into the kitchen. Then, for a long while,
All to ourselves, like, we stood there and cried.
We thought so many good things of Old Jack,
And funny things - although we didn't smile -
We couldn't only cry when Old Jack died.

When Old Jack died, it seemed a human friend
Had suddenly gone from us; that some face
That we had loved to fondle and embrace
From babyhood, no...

The autumn afternoon is dying o'er
    The quiet western valley where I lie
Beneath the maples on the river shore,
    Where tinted leaves, blue waters and fair sky
    Environ all; and far above some birds are flying by

To seek their evening haven in the breast
    And calm embrace of silence, while they sing
Te Deums to the night, invoking rest
    For busy chirping voice and tired wing -
    And in the hush of sleeping trees their sleeping cradles swing.

In forest arms the night will soonest creep,
    Where sombre pines a lullaby intone,
Where Nature's children curl themselves to sleep,
    And all is still at last, save where alone
    A band of black, belated crows arrive from lands unknown.

Strange sojourn has been theirs since waking day,<...

"Son of my buried Son, while thus thy hand"
"Is clasping mine, it saddens me to think"
"How Want may press thee down, and with thee sink"
"Thy children left unfit, through vain demand"
"Of culture, even to feel or understand"
"My simplest Lay that to their memory"
"May cling; hard fate! which haply need not be"
"Did Justice mould the statutes of the Land."
"A Book time-cherished and an honoured name"
"Are high rewards; but bound they Nature's claim"
"Or Reason's? No hopes spun in timid line"
"From out the bosom of a modest home"
"Extend through unambitious years to come,"
"My careless Little-one, for thee and thine!"

I Oft have met her slowly wandering
Beside a leafy stream, her locks blown wild,
Her cheeks a hectic flush, more fair than Spring,
As if on her the sumach copse had smiled.
Or I have seen her sitting, tall and brown,
Her gentle eyes with foolish weeping dim,
Beneath a twisted oak from whose red leaves
She wound great drowsy wreaths and east them down;
The west-wind in her hair, that made it swim
Far out behind, deep as the rustling sheaves.

Or in the hill-lands I have often seen
The marvel of her passage; glimpses faint
Of glimmering woods that glanced the hills between,
Like Indian faces, fierce with forest paint.
Or I have met her 'twixt two beechen hills,
Within a dingled valley near a fall,
Held in her nut-brown hand one cardinal flower;
Or wadi...

A man I praise that once in Tara's Hals
Said to the woman on his knees, "Lie still.
My hundredth year is at an end. I think
That something is about to happen, I think
That the adventure of old age begins.
To many women I have said, ""Lie still,''
And given everything a woman needs,
A roof, good clothes, passion, love perhaps,
But never asked for love; should I ask that,
I shall be old indeed.'
Thereon the man
Went to the Sacred House and stood between
The golden plough and harrow and spoke aloud
That all attendants and the casual crowd might hear.
"God I have loved, but should I ask return
Of God or woman, the time were come to die.'
He bade, his hundred and first year at end,
Diggers and carpenters make grave and coffin;
Saw that the grave was deep,...

I.
Birds of omen dark and foul,
Night-crow, raven, bat, and owl,
Leave the sick man to his dream,
All night long he heard you scream.
Haste to cave and ruin'd tower,
Ivy tod, or dingled-bower,
There to wink and mop, for, hark!
In the mid air sings the lark.

II.
Hie to moorish gills and rocks,
Prowling wolf and wily fox,
Hie ye fast, nor turn your view,
Though the lamb bleats to the ewe.
Couch your trains, and speed your flight,
Safety parts with parting night;
And on distant echo borne,
Comes the hunter's early horn.

III.
The moon's wan crescent scarcely gleams,
Ghost-like she fades in morning beams;
Hie hence, each peevish imp and fay
That scarce the pilgrim on his way,
Quench, kelpy! quench, in bog and fen,

I have beheld two lovers in a night
Hatched o'er with moonshine from their stolen delight
(When this to that, and that to this, had given
A kiss to such a jewel of the heaven,
Or while that each from other's breath did drink
Health to the rose, the violet, or pink),
Call'd on the sudden by the jealous mother,
Some stricter mistress or suspicious other,
Urging divorcement (worse than death to these)
By the soon jingling of some sleepy keys,
Part with a hasty kiss; and in that show
How stay they would, yet forced they are to go.
Even such are we, and in our parting do
No otherwise than as those former two
Natures like ours, we who have spent our time
Both from the morning to the evening chime.
Nay, till the bellman of the night had tolled
Past noon of night...

Some things that fly there be, --
Birds, hours, the bumble-bee:
Of these no elegy.

Some things that stay there be, --
Grief, hills, eternity:
Nor this behooveth me.

There are, that resting, rise.
Can I expound the skies?
How still the riddle lies!

(To L. L.)

Could we dig up this long-buried treasure,
Were it worth the pleasure,
We never could learn love's song,
We are parted too long.

Could the passionate past that is fled
Call back its dead,
Could we live it all over again,
Were it worth the pain!

I remember we used to meet
By an ivied seat,
And you warbled each pretty word
With the air of a bird;

And your voice had a quaver in it,
Just like a linnet,
And shook, as the blackbird's throat
With its last big note;

And your eyes, they were green and grey
Like an April day,
But lit into amethyst
When I stooped and kissed;

And your mouth, it would never smile
For a long, long while,
Then it rippled all over with laughter
Five minutes...