Death

The innocent, sweet Day is dead.
Dark Night hath slain her in her bed.
O, Moors are as fierce to kill as to wed!
- Put out the light, said he.

A sweeter light than ever rayed
From star of heaven or eye of maid
Has vanished in the unknown Shade.
- She's dead, she's dead, said he.

Now, in a wild, sad after-mood
The tawny Night sits still to brood
Upon the dawn-time when he wooed.
- I would she lived, said he.

Star-memories of happier times,
Of loving deeds and lovers' rhymes,
Throng forth in silvery pantomimes.
- Come back, O Day! said he.


Montgomery, Alabama, 1866.

The waning moon looks upward; this grey night
Slopes round the heavens in one smooth curve
Of easy sailing; odd red wicks serve
To show where the ships at sea move out of sight.

The place is palpable me, for here I was born
Of this self-same darkness. Yet the shadowy house below
Is out of bounds, and only the old ghosts know
I have come, I feel them whimper in welcome, and mourn.

My father suddenly died in the harvesting corn
And the place is no longer ours. Watching, I hear
No sound from the strangers, the place is dark, and fear
Opens my eyes till the roots of my vision seems torn.

Can I go no nearer, never towards the door?
The ghosts and I we mourn together, and shrink
In the shadow of the cart-shed. Must we hover on the brink
Forever, and nev...

Unmindful of the roses,
Unmindful of the thorn,
A reaper tired reposes
Among his gathered corn:
So might I, till the morn!

Cold as the cold Decembers,
Past as the days that set,
While only one remembers
And all the rest forget, -
But one remembers yet.

Tune - "M'Pherson's Rant."


I.

    Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong,
        The wretch's destinie!
    Macpherson's time will not be long
        On yonder gallows-tree.
                Sae rantingly, sae wantonly,
                    Sae dauntingly gaed he;
                He play'd a spring, and danc'd it round,
                    Below the gallows-tree.

II.

    Oh, what is death but parting breath?
        On many a bloody plain
    I've dar'd his face, and in this place
        I scorn him yet again!

III.

    Untie these bands from off my hands,
        And bring to me my sword;
    And there's no a man in all Scotland,
        But I'll brave him at a word.

IV.

    ...

Beauty sometime, in all her glory crowned,
Passing by that cleere fountain of thine eye,
Her sun-shine face there chaunsing to espy,
Forgot herselfe, and thought she had been drowned.
And thus, whilst Beautie on her beauty gazed,
Who then, yet liuing, deemd she had been dying,
And yet in death some hope of life espying,
At her owne rare perfections so amazed;
Twixt ioy and griefe, yet with a smyling frowning,
The glorious sun-beames of her eyes bright shining,
And shee, in her owne destiny diuining,
Threw in herselfe, to saue herselfe by drowning;
    The Well of Nectar, pau'd with pearle and gold,
    Where shee remaines for all eyes to behold.

As lone I sat one summer's day,
With mien dejected, Love came by;
His face distraught, his locks astray,
So slow his gait, so sad his eye,
I hailed him with a pitying cry:

"Pray, Love, what has disturbed thee so?"
Said I, amazed. "Thou seem'st bereft;
And see thy quiver hanging low,--
What, not a single arrow left?
Pray, who is guilty of this theft?"

Poor Love looked in my face and cried:
"No thief were ever yet so bold
To rob my quiver at my side.
But Time, who rules, gave ear to Gold,
And all my goodly shafts are sold."

All through the summer night, down the long lane in flower,
            The moon-white lane,
All through the summer night,--dim as a shower,
            Glimmer and fade the Twain:
Over the cricket hosts, throbbing the hour by hour,
            Young voices bloom and wane.

Down the long lane they go, and past one window, pale
            With visions silver-blurred;
Stirring the heart that waits,--the eyes that fail
            After a spring deferred.
Query, and hush, and Ah!--dim through a moon-lit veil,
            The same one word.

Down the long lane, entwined with all the fragrance there;
            The lane in flower somehow
With youth, and plighted hands, and star-strewn air,
            And muted 'Thee' and 'Thou':--
All the wild bloom an...

Ite, caldi sospiri, al freddo core.

HE IMPLORES MERCY OR DEATH.


    Go, my warm sighs, go to that frozen breast,
Burst the firm ice, that charity denies;
And, if a mortal prayer can reach the skies,
Let death or pity give my sorrows rest!
Go, softest thoughts! Be all you know express'd
Of that unnoticed by her lovely eyes,
Though fate and cruelty against me rise,
Error at least and hope shall be repress'd.
Tell her, though fully you can never tell,
That, while her days calm and serenely flow,
In darkness and anxiety I dwell;
Love guides your flight, my thoughts securely go,
Fortune may change, and all may yet be well;
If my sun's aspect not deceives my woe.

CHARLEMONT.


    Go, burning sighs, to her cold bosom go,...

Summer's pleasures they are gone like to visions every one,
And the cloudy days of autumn and of winter cometh on.
I tried to call them back, but unbidden they are gone
Far away from heart and eye and forever far away.
Dear heart, and can it be that such raptures meet decay?
I thought them all eternal when by Langley Bush I lay,
I thought them joys eternal when I used to shout and play
On its bank at "clink and bandy," "chock" and "taw" and "ducking stone,"
Where silence sitteth now on the wild heath as her own
Like a ruin of the past all alone.

When I used to lie and sing by old Eastwell's boiling spring,
When I used to tie the willow boughs together for a swing,
And fish with crooked pins and thread and never catch a thing,
With heart just like a feather, now as heav...

It was a wet wan hour in spring,
And Nature met King Doom beside a lane,
Wherein Hodge trudged, all blithely ballading
The Mother's smiling reign.

"Why warbles he that skies are fair
And coombs alight," she cried, "and fallows gay,
When I have placed no sunshine in the air
Or glow on earth to-day?"

"'Tis in the comedy of things
That such should be," returned the one of Doom;
"Charge now the scene with brightest blazonings,
And he shall call them gloom."

She gave the word: the sun outbroke,
All Froomside shone, the hedgebirds raised a song;
And later Hodge, upon the midday stroke,
Returned the lane along,

Low murmuring: "O this bitter scene,
And thrice accurst horizon hung with gloom!
How deadly like this sky, these fields, the...

Ave Faustina Imperatrix, morituri te salutant.


Lean back, and get some minutes’ peace;
Let your head lean
Back to the shoulder with its fleece
Of locks, Faustine.

The shapely silver shoulder stoops,
Weighed over clean
With state of splendid hair that droops
Each side, Faustine.

Let me go over your good gifts
That crown you queen;
A queen whose kingdom ebbs and shifts
Each week, Faustine.

Bright heavy brows well gathered up:
White gloss and sheen;
Carved lips that make my lips a cup
To drink, Faustine,

Wine and rank poison, milk and blood,
Being mixed therein
Since first the devil threw dice with God
For you, Faustine.

Your naked new-born soul, their stake,
Stood blind between;
...

(AGED SIXTEEN)

Dear boy unborn: the son but of my dream,
    Promise of yet unrisen day,
Come, sit beside me; let us talk, and seem
    To take such cares and courage for your way,
    As some year yet we may.

As some year yet, when you, my son to be,
    Look out on life, and turn to go,
And I, grown grey, shall wish you well, and see
    Myself imprinted as but she could know
    To make amendment so.

I see you then, your sixteen years alight
    With limbs all true and golden hair,
And you, unborn, I will, this April night,
    Tell of the faith and honour you must wear
    For love, whose light you bear.

Beauty you have; as, mothered so, could face
    Or limbs or hair be otherwise?
Years gone, dear boy, there was a virgin...

The wild pear whispers, and the ivy crawls,
Along the circuit of thine ancient walls,
Lone city of the dead! and near this mound,[200]
The buried coins of mighty men are found,
Silent remains of Cæsars and of kings,
Soldiers of whose renown the world yet rings,
In its sad story! These have had their day
Of glory, and have passed, like sounds, away!

And such their fame! While we the spot behold,
And muse upon the tale that Time has told,
We ask where are they? - they whose clarion brayed,
Whose chariot glided, and whose war-horse neighed;
Whose cohorts hastened o'er the echoing way,
Whose eagles glittered to the orient ray!

Ask of this fragment, reared by Roman hands,
That, now, a lone and broken column stands!
Ask of that road - whose track alone r...

Bring me to the blasted oak
That I, midnight upon the stroke,
(All find safety in the tomb.)
May call down curses on his head
Because of my dear Jack that's dead.
Coxcomb was the least he said:
The solid man and the coxcomb.

Nor was he Bishop when his ban
Banished Jack the Journeyman,
(All find safety in the tomb.)
Nor so much as parish priest,
Yet he, an old book in his fist,
Cried that we lived like beast and beast:
The solid man and the coxcomb.

The Bishop has a skin, God knows,
Wrinkled like the foot of a goose,
(All find safety in the tomb.)
Nor can he hide in holy black
The heron's hunch upon his back,
But a birch-tree stood my Jack:
The solid man and the coxcomb.

Jack had my virginity,
And bids me to the o...

As a forlorn soul waiting by the Styx
    Dimly expectant of lands yet more dim,
Might peer afraid where shadows change and mix
    Till the dark ferryman shall come for him.

And past all hope a long ray in his sight,
    Fall'n trickling down the steep crag Hades-black
Reveals an upward path to life and light,
    Nor any let but he should mount that track.

As with the sudden shock of joy amazed,
    He might a motionless sweet moment stand,
So doth that mortal lover, silent, dazed,
    For hope had died and loss was near at hand.

'Wilt thou?' his quest. Unready but for 'Nay,'
He stands at fault for joy, she whispering 'Ay.'

    Some lives have themes.
    Goldfish that stubbornly die;
    compatability only with distant lovers
    - flowers (but no sweet-breads)
    that wilt to the touch.

    Waiting. Charcoal-grey cat
    agreeably on a green linoleum table
    with light basking in....
    a tad playful,
    paws up,
    (classic boxer stance)
    but no one notices.
    Others oblique in their transparency,
    are unmindful of even the empty closet
    and greeting cards that smile hello.

    In the dark
    this room shimmers below
    life-raft status;
    chairs are buoys
    bobbing under waves
    of congealed fright.
    In the morning
    the first pigeons
    rifle over rooftops,
    mad flutterings like your eyes

Underneath this sable herse
Lies the subject of all verse:
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother:
Death, ere thou hast slain another,
Fair and learn'd, and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee.

Marble piles let no man raise
To her name: for after days
Some kind woman born as she,
Reading this, like Niobe
Shall turn marble, and become
Both her mourner and her tomb.

[Footnote: Sickness may be often an incentive to poetical composition; I found it so; and I esteem the following lines only because they remind me of past feelings which I would not willingly forget.]


Health! I seek thee; - dost thou love
The mountain top or quiet vale,
Or deign o'er humbler hills to rove
On showery June's dark south-west gale?
If so, I'll meet all blasts that blow,
With silent step, but not forlorn;
Though, goddess, at thy shrine I bow,
And woo thee each returning morn.

I seek thee where, with all his might,
The joyous bird his rapture tells,
Amidst the half-excluded light,
That gilds the fox-glove's pendant bells;
Where, cheerly up this bold hill's side
The deep'ning groves triumphant climb;
In groves Delight and Peace abide,