Death

1.
Thus to be lost and thus to sink and die,
Perchance were death indeed! - Constantia, turn!
In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie,
Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which burn
Between thy lips, are laid to sleep;
Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour, it is yet,
And from thy touch like fire doth leap.
Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet.
Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget!

2.
A breathless awe, like the swift change
Unseen, but felt in youthful slumbers,
Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange,
Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers.
The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven
By the enchantment of thy strain,
And on my shoulders wings are woven,
To follow its sublime career
Beyond ...

    'Tis hard, my friend, to write in such an age,
    As damns, not only poets, but the stage.
    That sacred art, by Heaven itself infused,
    Which Moses, David, Solomon have used,
    Is now to be no more: the Muses' foes
    Would sink their Maker's praises into prose.
    Were they content to prune the lavish vine
    Of straggling branches, and improve the wine,
    Who but a madman would his thoughts defend?
    All would submit; for all but fools will mend.
    But when to common sense they give the lie,
    And turn distorted words to blasphemy,
    They give the scandal; and the wise discern,
    Their glosses teach an age, too apt to learn.
    What I have loosely, or profanely, writ,
    Let them to fires, their due desert, commit:
    Nor, when...

There is one sin: to call a green leaf grey,
Whereat the sun in heaven shuddereth.
There is one blasphemy: for death to pray,
For God alone knoweth the praise of death.

There is one creed: 'neath no world-terror's wing
Apples forget to grow on apple-trees.
There is one thing is needful--everything--
The rest is vanity of vanities.

I

The thick lids of Night closed upon me
Alone at the Bill
Of the Isle by the Race {1} -
Many-caverned, bald, wrinkled of face -
And with darkness and silence the spirit was on me
To brood and be still.

II

No wind fanned the flats of the ocean,
Or promontory sides,
Or the ooze by the strand,
Or the bent-bearded slope of the land,
Whose base took its rest amid everlong motion
Of criss-crossing tides.

III

Soon from out of the Southward seemed nearing
A whirr, as of wings
Waved by mighty-vanned flies,
Or by night-moths of measureless size,
And in softness and smoothness well-nigh beyond hearing
Of corporal things.

IV

And they bore to the bluff, and alighted -
A dim-discerned train
O...

    I.

    Back shining from the pane, the fire
    Seems outside in the snow:
    So love set free from love's desire
    Lights grief of long ago.

    The dark is thinned with snow-sheen fine,
    The earth bedecked with moon;
    Out on the worlds we surely shine
    More radiant than in June!

    In the white garden lies a heap
    As brown as deep-dug mould:
    A hundred partridges that keep
    Each other from the cold.

    My father gives them sheaves of corn,
    For shelter both and food:
    High hope in me was early born,
    My father was so good.


    II.

    The frost weaves ferns and sultry palms
    Across my clouded pane;
    Weaves melodies of ancient psalms
    All through my...

Died at Hartford, on Saturday Evening, November 15th, 1862, aged 62 years.


A sense of loss is on us. One hath gone
    Whose all-pervading energy doth leave
A void and silence 'mid the haunts of men
    And desolation for the hearts that grieve
In his fair mansion, so bereft and lone,
Whence the inspiring smile, and cheering voice have flown.

Those too there are who eloquently speak
    Of his firm friendship, not without a tear,
Of its strong power to undergird the weak
    And hold the faltering feet in duty's sphere,
While in the cells of want, a broken trust
In bitterness laments, that he is of the dust.

In foreign climes, with patriotic eye
    He sought what might his Country's welfare aid,
And the rich flocks of Spain, at his behest

Thou silent power, whose welcome sway
Charms every anxious thought away;
In whose divine oblivion drown'd,
Sore pain and weary toil grow mild,
Love is with kinder looks beguil'd,
And grief forgets her fondly-cherish'd wound;
Oh whither hast thou flown, indulgent god?
God of kind shadows and of healing dews,
Whom dost thou touch with thy Lethaean rod?
Around whose temples now thy opiate airs diffuse?
Lo, midnight from her starry reign
Looks awful down on earth and main.
The tuneful birds lie hush'd in sleep,
With all that crop the verdant food,
With all that skim the crystal flood,
Or haunt the caverns of the rocky steep.
No rushing winds disturb the tufted bowers;
No wakeful sound the moon-light valley knows,
Save where the brook its liquid murmur po...

Weary, oh, so weary
With it all!
Sunny days or dreary--
How they pall!
Why should we be heroes,
Launa Dee,
Striving to no winning?
Let the world be Zero's!
As in the beginning
Let it be!

What good comes of toiling,
When all's done?
Frail green sprays for spoiling
Of the sun;
Laurel leaf or myrtle,
Love or fame--
Ah, what odds what spray, sweet?
Time, that makes life fertile,
Makes its blooms decay, sweet,
As they came.

Lie here with me dreaming,
Cheek to cheek,
Lithe limbs twined and gleaming,
Brown and sleek;
Like two serpents coiling
In their lair.
Where's the good of wreathing
Sprays for Time's despoiling?
Let me feel your breathing
In my hair.

You and I together--
...

A lassie sells the War Cry on the corner
And the big drum booms, and the raucous brass horns
Mingle with the cymbals and the silver triangle.
I stand a moment listening, then my friend
Who studies all religions, finds a wonder
In orphic spectacles like this, lays hold
Upon my arm and draws me to a door
Through which we look and see a room of seats,
A platform at the end, a table on it,
And signs upon the wall, "Jesus is Waiting,"
And "God is Love."

        We enter, take a seat.
The band comes in and fills the room to bursting
With horns and drums. They cease and feet are heard,
The crowd has followed, half the seats are full.
After a prayer, a song, the captain mounts
The platform by the table and begins:
"Praise God so many girls are here to-night...

I wish I was by that dim Lake,[1]
Where sinful souls their farewell take
Of this vain world, and half-way lie
In death's cold shadow, ere they die.
There, there, far from thee,
Deceitful world, my home should be;
Where, come what might of gloom and pain,
False hope should ne'er deceive again.

The lifeless sky, the mournful sound
Of unseen waters falling round;
The dry leaves, quivering o'er my head,
Like man, unquiet even when dead!
These, ay, these shall wean
My soul from life's deluding scene,
And turn each thought, o'ercharged with gloom,
Like willows, downward towards the tomb.

As they, who to their couch at night
Would win repose, first quench the light,
So must the hopes, that keep this breast
Awake, be quenched, ere...

Affections lose their object; Time brings forth
No successors; and, lodged in memory,
If love exist no longer, it must die,
Wanting accustomed food, must pass from earth,
Or never hope to reach a second birth.
This sad belief, the happiest that is left
To thousands, share not Thou; howe'er bereft,
Scorned, or neglected, fear not such a dearth.
Though poor and destitute of friends thou art,
Perhaps the sole survivor of thy race,
One to whom Heaven assigns that mournful part
The utmost solitude of age to face,
Still shall be left some corner of the heart
Where Love for living Thing can find a place.

How richly glows the water's breast
Before us, tinged with evening hues,
While, facing thus the crimson west,
The boat her silent course pursues!
And see how dark the backward stream!
A little moment past so smiling!
And still, perhaps, with faithless gleam,
Some other loiterers beguiling.

Such views the youthful Bard allure;
But, heedless of the following gloom,
He deems their colours shall endure
Till peace go with him to the tomb.
And let him nurse his fond deceit,
And what if he must die in sorrow!
Who would not cherish dreams so sweet,
Though grief and pain may come to-morrow?

Come, walk with me,
There's only thee
To bless my spirit now
We used to love on winter nights
To wander through the snow;
Can we not woo back old delights?
The clouds rush dark and wild
They fleck with shade our mountain heights
The same as long ago
And on the horizon rest at last
In looming masses piled;
While moonbeams flash and fly so fast
We scarce can say they smiled

Come walk with me, come walk with me;
We were not once so few
But Death has stolen our company
As sunshine steals the dew
He took them one by one and we
Are left the only two;
So closer would my feelings twine
Because they have no stay but thine

'Nay call me not, it may not be
Is human love so true?
Can Friendship's flower droop on for years

A pistol-shot rings round and round the world:
In pitiful defeat a warrior lies.
A last defiance to dark Death is hurled,
A last wild challenge shocks the sunlit skies.
Alone he falls with wide, wan, woeful eyes:
Eyes that could smile at death - could not face shame.

Alone, alone he paced his narrow room,
In the bright sunshine of that Paris day;
Saw in his thought the awful hand of doom;
Saw in his dream his glory pass away;
Tried in his heart, his weary heart, to pray:
"O God! who made me, give me strength to face
The spectre of this bitter, black disgrace."

*    *    *    *    *

The burn brawls darkly down the shaggy glen,
The bee-kissed heather blooms around the door;
He sees himself a barefoot boy again,
Bending o'er page of legenda...

Clear eyes do dim at last,
And cheeks outlive their rose.
Time, heedless of the past,
No loving-kindness knows;
Chill unto mortal lip
Still Lethe flows.

Griefs, too, but brief while stay,
And sorrow, being o'er,
Its salt tears shed away,
Woundeth the heart no more.
Stealthily lave those waters
That solemn shore.

Ah, then, sweet face burn on,
While yet quick memory lives!
And Sorrow, ere thou art gone,
Know that my heart forgives -
Ere yet, grown cold in peace,
It loves not, nor grieves.

Still glides the stream, slow drops the boat
Under the rustling poplars’ shade;
Silent the swans beside us float
None speaks, none heeds ah, turn thy head.

Let those arch eyes now softly shine,
That mocking mouth grow sweetly bland:
Ah, let them rest, those eyes, on mine;
On mine let rest that lovely hand.

My pent-up tears oppress my brain,
My heart is swoln with love unsaid:
Ah, let me weep, and tell my pain,
And on thy shoulder rest my head.

Before I die, before the soul,
Which now is mine, must re-attain
Immunity from my control,
And wander round the world again:

Before this teas’d o’erlabour’d heart
For ever leaves its vain employ,
Dead to its deep habitual smart,
And dead to hopes of future joy.

Oh night and sleep,
Ye are so soft and deep,
I am so weary, come ye soon to me.
Oh hours that creep,
With so much time to weep,
I am so tired, can ye no swifter be?

Come, night, anear;
I'll whisper in thine ear
What makes me so unhappy, full of care;
Dear night, I die
For love that all men buy
With tears, and know not it is dark despair.

Dear night, I pray,
How is it that men say
That love is sweet? It is not sweet to me.
For one boy's sake
A poor girl's heart must break;
So sweet, so true, and yet it could not be!

Oh, I loved well,
Such love as none can tell:
It was so true, it could not make him know:
For he was blind,
All light and all unkind:
Oh, had he known, would he have hurt me so?

Oh nigh...

Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room,
And hermits are contented with their cells,
And students with their pensive citadels;
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest peak of Furness fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:
In truth the prison unto which we doom
Ourselves no prison is: and hence for me,
In sundry moods, ’twas pastime to be bound
Within the Sonnet’s scanty plot of ground;
Pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
Should find brief solace there, as I have found.