Death

Oh lapping waves!--oh gnawing waves!--
    That rest not day nor night,--
    I hear ye when the light
Is dim and awful in your hollow caves.--

All day the winds were out, and rode
    Their steeds, your tossing crest,--
    To-night the fierce winds rest,
And the moon walks above them her bright road.

Yet none the less ye lift your hands,
    And your despairing cry
    Up to the midnight sky,
And clutch, and trample on the shuddering sands,

That shrink and tremble even in sleep,
    Out of your passionate reach,
    Afraid of your dread speech,
And the more dreadful silence that ye keep

Oh sapping waves!--oh mining waves!--
    Under the oak's gnarled feet,
    And tower, and village street,
Scooping by stealth in darkn...

        Mother

Oh, what a heavy sigh!
    Dicky, are you ailing?

        Dicky

Even by this fireside, mother,
    My heart is failing.

To-night across the down,
    Whistling and jolly,
I sauntered out from town
    With my stick of holly.

Bounteous and cool from sea
    The wind was blowing,
Cloud shadows under the moon
    Coming and going.

I sang old roaring songs,
    Ran and leaped quick,
And turned home by St. Swithin's
    Twirling my stick.

And there as I was passing
    The churchyard gate
An old man stopped me, "Dicky,
    You're walking late."

I did not know the man,
    I grew afeared
At his lean lolling jaw,
    His spreading beard.

His garments...

When to the region of the tuneful Nine,
Rapt in poetic vision, I retire,
Listening intent to catch the strain divine
What a dead silence hangs upon the lyre!

Lo! with disorder'd locks, and streaming eyes,
Stray the fair daughters of immortal song;
Aonia's realm resounds their plaintive cries,
And all her murmuring rills the grief prolong.

O say! celestial maids, what cause of wo?
Why cease the rapture-breathing strains to soar?
A solemn pause ensues: then falters low
The voice of sorrow: 'Chatterton's no more!'

'Child of our fondest hopes! whose natal hour
Saw each poetic star indulgent shine;
E'en Phoebus' self o'erruled with kindliest power,
And cried: "ye Nine rejoice! the Birth is mine."

'Soon did he drink of this inspiring spring;<...

A sight in camp in the day-break grey and dim,
As from my tent I emerge so early, sleepless,
As slow I walk in the cool fresh air, the path near by the hospital
tent,
Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there, untended
lying,
Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woollen blanket,
Grey and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.

Curious, I halt, and silent stand;
Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest, the first,
just lift the blanket:
Who are you, elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-grey'd hair,
and flesh all sunken about the eyes?
Who are you, my dear comrade?

Then to the second I step--And who are you, my child and darling?
Who are you, sweet boy, with cheeks yet blooming?

Then to the third--a face n...

By painful sickness long severely prest,
Here sinks, on Nature's sacred lap of rest,
A friend, who, in a life too short, display'd
A mind in virtue bright, without one shade.
Hence with unusual grief is Fondness mov'd,
Hence more than Pity's sighs for one belov'd;
Unshaken Honour sheds a manly tear,
And weeping Virtue stops, a mourner here.

Hence, loathed Melancholy,
Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born
In Stygian cave forlorn
’Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy!
Find out some uncouth cell,
Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night-raven sings;
There, under Ebon shades and low-browed rocks,
As ragged as thy locks,
In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come, thou Goddess fair and free,
In heav’n yclep’d Euphrosyne,
And by men heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth,
With two sister Graces more,
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore:
Or whether (as some Sager sing)
The frolic Wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr, with Aurora playing,
As he met her once a-Maying,
There, on Beds of Violets blew,
And fresh-blown roses washed in de...

Audley Court


‘The Bull, the Fleece are cramm’d, and not a room
For love or money. Let us picnic there
At Audley Court.’

I spoke, while Audley feast

Humm’d like a hive all round the narrow quay,
To Francis, with a basket on his arm,
To Francis just alighted from the boat,
And breathing of the sea. ‘With all my heart,’
Said Francis. Then we shoulder’d thro’ the swarm,
And rounded by the stillness of the beach
To where the bay runs up its latest horn.

We left the dying ebb that faintly lipp’d
The flat red granite; so by many a sweep
Of meadow smooth from aftermath we reach’d
The griffin-guarded gates, and pass’d thro’ all
The pillar’d dusk of sounding sycamores,
And cross’d the garden to the gardener’s lodge,
With all its c...

While I, from that reed-throated whisperer
Who comes at need, although not now as once
A clear articulation in the air
But inwardly, surmise companions
Beyond the fling of the dull ass’s hoof,
Ben Jonson’s phrase, and find when June is come
At Kyle-na-no under that ancient roof
A sterner conscience and a friendlier home,
I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs,
Those undreamt accidents that have made me
Seeing that Fame has perished this long while
Being but a part of ancient ceremony,
Notorious, till all my priceless things
Are but a post the passing dogs defile.

WRITTEN IN DECEMBER, 1693


Strange to conceive, how the same objects strike
At distant hours the mind with forms so like!
Whether in time, Deduction's broken chain
Meets, and salutes her sister link again;
Or haunted Fancy, by a circling flight,
Comes back with joy to its own seat at night;
Or whether dead Imagination's ghost
Oft hovers where alive it haunted most;
Or if Thought's rolling globe, her circle run,
Turns up old objects to the soul her sun;
Or loves the Muse to walk with conscious pride
O'er the glad scene whence first she rose a bride:
    Be what it will; late near yon whispering stream,
Where her own Temple was her darling theme;
There first the visionary sound was heard,
When to poetic view the Muse appear'd.
Such seem'd her eye...

Deep languor overcometh mind and frame:
A listless, drowsy, utter weariness,
A trance wherein no thought finds speech or name,


The overstrained spirit doth possess.
She sinks with drooping wing - poor unfledged bird,
That fain had flown! - in fluttering breathlessness.


To what end those high hopes that wildly stirred
The beating heart with aspirations vain?
Why proffer prayers unanswered and unheard


To blank, deaf heavens that will not heed her pain?
Where lead these lofty, soaring tendencies,
That leap and fly and poise, to fall again,


Yet seem to link her with the utmost skies?
What mean these clinging loves that bind to earth,
And claim her with beseeching, wistful eyes?


This little resting-place 'twixt...

We never meet; yet we meet day by day
    Upon those hills of life, dim and immense:
    The good we love, and sleep-our innocence.
O hills of life, high hills! And higher than they,

Our guardian spirits meet at prayer and play.
    Beyond pain, joy, and hope, and long suspense,
    Above the summits of our souls, far hence,
An angel meets an angel on the way.

Beyond all good I ever believed of thee
    Or thou of me, these always love and live.
And though I fail of thy ideal of me,

My angel falls not short. They greet each other.
    Who knows, they may exchange the kiss we give,
Thou to thy crucifix, I to my mother.

I

I heard a small sad sound,
And stood awhile amid the tombs around:
"Wherefore, old friends," said I, "are ye distrest,
Now, screened from life's unrest?"

II

- "O not at being here;
But that our future second death is drear;
When, with the living, memory of us numbs,
And blank oblivion comes!

III

"Those who our grandsires be
Lie here embraced by deeper death than we;
Nor shape nor thought of theirs canst thou descry
With keenest backward eye.

IV

"They bide as quite forgot;
They are as men who have existed not;
Theirs is a loss past loss of fitful breath;
It is the second death.

V

"We here, as yet, each day
Are blest with dear recall; as yet, alway
In some soul hold a love...

I.

Solemnly, mournfully,
    Dealing its dole,
The Curfew Bell
    Is beginning to toll.

Cover the embers,
    And put out the light;
Toil comes with the morning,
    And rest with the night.

Dark grow the windows,
    And quenched is the fire;
Sound fades into silence,--
    All footsteps retire.

No voice in the chambers,
    No sound in the hall!
Sleep and oblivion
    Reign over all!


II.

The book is completed,
    And closed, like the day;
And the hand that has written it
    Lays it away.

Dim grow its fancies;
    Forgotten they lie;
Like coals in the ashes,
    They darken and die.

Song sinks into silence,
    The story is told,
The windows ar...

I stand above the city's rush and din,
And gaze far down with calm and undimmed eyes,
To where the misty smoke wreath grey and dim
Above the myriad roofs and spires rise;

Still is my heart and vacant is my breath--
This lovely view is breath and life to me,
Why I could charm the icy soul of death
With such a sight as this I stand and see.

I hear no sound of labor's din or stir,
I feel no weight of worldly cares or fears,
Sweet song of birds, of wings the soothing whirr,
These sounds alone assail my listening ears.

Unwhipt of conscience here I stand alone,
The breezes humbly kiss my garment's hem;
I am a king--the whole world is my throne,
The blue grey sky my royal diadem.

We sat at twilight nigh the sea,
    The fog hung gray and weird.
Through the thick film uncannily
    The broken moon appeared.


We heard the billows crack and plunge,
    We saw nor waves nor ships.
Earth sucked the vapors like a sponge,
    The salt spray wet our lips.


Closer the woof of white mist drew,
    Before, behind, beside.
How could that phantom moon break through,
    Above that shrouded tide?


The roaring waters filled the ear,
    A white blank foiled the sight.
Close-gathering shadows near, more near,
    Brought the blind, awful night.


O friends who passed unseen, unknown!
    O dashing, troubled sea!
Still stand we on a rock alone,
Walled round by mystery.

Emigravit, October Vi., Mdcccxcii.


Grief there will be, and may,
When King Apollo's bay
Is cut midwise;
Grief that a song is stilled,
Grief for the unfulfilled
Singer that dies.

Not so we mourn thee now,
Not so we grieve that thou,
MASTER, art passed,
Since thou thy song didst raise,
Through the full round of days,
E'en to the last.

Grief there may be, and will,
When that the Singer still
Sinks in the song;
When that the wingéd rhyme
Fails of the promised prime,
Ruined and wrong.

Not thus we mourn thee--we--
Not thus we grieve for thee,
MASTER and Friend;
Since, like a clearing flame,
Clearer thy pure song came
E'en to the end.

Nay--nor for thee we grieve
E'en as for those th...

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares...

        Dear Love, where the red lilies blossomed and grew
    The white snows are falling;
        And all through the woods where I wandered with you
    The loud winds are calling;
        And the robin that piped to us tune upon tune,
    Neath the oak, you remember,
        O'er hill-top and forest has followed the June
    And left us December.

        He has left like a friend who is true in the sun
    And false in the shadows;
        He has found new delights in the land where he's gone,
    Greener woodlands and meadows.
        Let him go! what care we? let the snow shroud the lea,
    Let it drift on the heather;
        We can sing through it all: I have you, you have me.
    And we'll laugh at the weather.

        The old year may di...