Death

ON KEATS, WHO DESIRED THAT ON HIS TOMB SHOULD BE INSCRIBED -

'Here lieth One whose name was writ on water.
But, ere the breath that could erase it blew,
Death, in remorse for that fell slaughter,
Death, the immortalizing winter, flew
Athwart the stream, - and time's printless torrent grew
A scroll of crystal, blazoning the name
Of Adonais!

Look down, fair moon, and bathe this scene;
Pour softly down night's nimbus floods, on faces ghastly, swollen, purple;
On the dead, on their backs, with their arms toss'd wide,
Pour down your unstinted nimbus, sacred moon.

The wild bee reels from bough to bough
With his furry coat and his gauzy wing,
Now in a lily-cup, and now
Setting a jacinth bell a-swing,
In his wandering;
Sit closer love: it was here I trow
I made that vow,

Swore that two lives should be like one
As long as the sea-gull loved the sea,
As long as the sunflower sought the sun,
It shall be, I said, for eternity
'Twixt you and me!
Dear friend, those times are over and done;
Love's web is spun.

Look upward where the poplar trees
Sway and sway in the summer air,
Here in the valley never a breeze
Scatters the thistledown, but there
Great winds blow fair
From the mighty murmuring mystical seas,
And the wave-lashed leas.

Look upward where the white gull screams,
What do...

They say that fair Romance is dead, and in her cold grave lying low,
The green grass waving o'er her head, the mould upon her breasts of snow;
Her voice, they say, is dumb for aye, that once was clarion-clear and high,
But in their hearts, their frozen hearts, they know that bitterly they lie.

Her brow of white, that was with bright rose-garland in the old days crowned,
Is now, they say, all shorn of light, and with a fatal fillet bound.
Her eyes divine no more shall shine to lead the hardy knight and good
Unto the Castle Perilous, beyond the dark Enchanted Wood.

And do they deem, these fools supreme, whose iron wheels unceasing whirr,
That, in this rushing Age of Steam, there is no longer room for her?
That, as they hold the Key of Gold that shuts or opens Mammon's Den,
R...

I

With nodding plumes, and lightly drest
Like foresters in leaf-green vest,
The Helvetian Mountaineers, on ground
For Tell's dread archery renowned,
Before the target stood, to claim
The guerdon of the steadiest aim.
Loud was the rifle-gun's report
A startling thunder quick and short!
But, flying through the heights around,
Echo prolonged a tell-tale sound
Of hearts and hands alike "prepared
The treasures they enjoy to guard!"
And, if there be a favoured hour
When Heroes are allowed to quit
The tomb, and on the clouds to sit
With tutelary power,
On their Descendants shedding grace
This was the hour, and that the place.

II

But Truth inspired the Bards of old
When of an iron age they told,
Which to unequal laws gav...

Ah me! in ages far away,
    The good, the heavenly land,
Though unbeheld, quite near them lay,
    And men could understand.

The dead yet find it, who, when here,
    Did love it more than this;
They enter in, are filled with cheer,
    And pain expires in bliss.

Oh, fairly shines the blessed land!
    Ah, God! I weep and pray--
The heart thou holdest in thy hand
    Loves more this sunny day.

I see the hundred thousand wait
    Around the radiant throne:
To me it is a dreary state,
    A crowd of beings lone.

I do not care for singing psalms;
    I tire of good men's talk;
To me there is no joy in palms,
    Or white-robed solemn walk.

I love to hear the wild winds meet,
    The wild old winds at night;<...

Maud Muller on a summer’s day,
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.

But when she glanced to the far-off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast,

A wish, that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.

The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse’s chestnut mane.

He drew his bridle in the shade
Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,

And asked a draught from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow across the road.

She stooped where ...

On yonder verdant hilloc laid,
Where oaks and elms, a friendly shade,
O'erlook the falling stream,
O master of the Latin lyre,
Awhile with thee will i retire
From summer's noontide beam.
And, lo, within my lonely bower,
The industrious bee from many a flower
Collects her balmy dews:
“For me,” she sings, “the gems are born,
“For me their silken robe adorn,
“Their fragrant breath diffuse.”
Sweet murmurer! may no rude storm
This hospitable scene deform,
Nor check thy gladsome toils;
Still may the buds unsullied spring,
Still showers and sunshine court thy wing
To these ambrosial spoils.
Nor shall my Muse hereafter fail
Her fellow-labourer thee to hail;
And lucky be the strains!
For long ago did nature frame
Your seasons and your arts...

Bowdoin Street, Boston, 1877.

The end has come, as come it must
To all things; in these sweet June days
The teacher and the scholar trust
Their parting feet to separate ways.

They part: but in the years to be
Shall pleasant memories cling to each,
As shells bear inland from the sea
The murmur of the rhythmic beach.

One knew the joy the sculptor knows
When, plastic to his lightest touch,
His clay-wrought model slowly grows
To that fine grace desired so much.

So daily grew before her eyes
The living shapes whereon she wrought,
Strong, tender, innocently wise,
The child's heart with the woman's thought.

And one shall never quite forget
The voice that called from dream and play,
The firm but kindly hand that set<...

A baby played with the surplice sleeve
Of a gentle priest; while in accents low,
The sponsors murmured the grand "I believe,"
And the priest bade the mystic waters to flow
In the name of the Father, and the Son,
And Holy Spirit -- Three in One.

Spotless as a lily's leaf,
Whiter than the Christmas snow;
Not a sign of sin or grief,
And the babe laughed, sweet and low.

A smile flitted over the baby's face:
Or was it the gleam of its angel's wing
Just passing then, and leaving a trace
Of its presence as it soared to sing?
A hymn when words and waters win
To grace and life a child of sin.

Not an outward sign or token,
That a child was saved from woe;
But the bonds of sin were broken,
And the babe laughed, sweet and low.

A...

[1]

The lion's consort died:
Crowds, gather'd at his side,
Must needs console the prince,
And thus their loyalty evince
By compliments of course;
Which make affliction worse.
Officially he cites
His realm to funeral rites,
At such a time and place;
His marshals of the mace
Would order the affair.
Judge you if all came there.
Meantime, the prince gave way
To sorrow night and day.
With cries of wild lament
His cave he well-nigh rent.
And from his courtiers far and near,
Sounds imitative you might hear.

The court a country seems to me,
Whose people are, no matter what, -
Sad, gay, indifferent, or not, -
As suits the will of majesty;
Or, if unable so to be,
Their task it is to seem it all -
Chamel...

Last night I dreamed I saw you lying dead,
And by your sheeted form stood all alone:
Frail as a flow'r you lay upon your bed,
And on your still face, through the casement, shone
The moon, as lingering to kiss you there
Fall'n asleep, white violets in your hair.

Oh, sick to weeping was my soul, and sad
To breaking was my heart that would not break;
And for my soul's great grief no tear I had,
No lamentation for my heart's deep ache;
Yet all I bore seemed more than I could bear
Beside you dead, white violets in your hair.

A white rose, blooming at your window-bar,
And glimmering in it, like a fire-fly caught
Upon the thorns, the light of one white star,
Looked on with me; as if they felt and thought
As did my heart, "How beautiful and fair
And y...

Dread Mother of Forgetfulness
Who, when Thy reign begins,
Wipest away the Soul's distress,
And memory of her sins.

The trusty Worm that dieth not
The steadfast Fire also,
By Thy contrivance are forgot
In a completer woe.

Thine are the lidless eyes of night
That stare upon our tears,
Through certain hours which in our sight
Exceed a thousand years:

Thine is the thickness of the Dark
That presses in our pain,
As Thine the Dawn that bids us mark
Life's grinning face again.

Thine is the weariness outworn
No promise shall relieve,
That says at eve, "Would God 'twere morn"
At morn, "Would God 'twere eve!"

And when Thy tender mercies cease
And life unvexed is due,
Instant upon the false release
The Worm...

I oft have net thee, Autumn, wandering
Beside a misty stream, thy locks flung wild;
Thy cheeks a hectic flush more fair than Spring,
As if on thee the scarlet copse had smiled.
Or thee I've seen a twisted oak beneath,
Thy gentle eyes with foolish weeping dim,
    Beneath a faded oak from whose tinged leaves
Thou woundedst drowsy wreaths, while the soft breath
Of Morn did kiss thy locks and make them swim
    Far out behind, brown as the rustling sheaves.

Oft have I thee upon a hillock seen,
Dream-visaged, all agaze at glimpses faint
Of glimmering woods that glanced the hills between
With Indian faces from thy airy paint.
Or I have met thee 'twixt two dappled hills
Within a dingled valley nigh a fall,
    Clasped in thy tinted hand a ruddy flower,
An...

A sky of wind! And while these fitful gusts
Are beating round the windows in the cold,
With sullen sobs of rain, behold I shape
A settler’s story of the wild old times:
One told by camp-fires when the station drays
Were housed and hidden, forty years ago;
While swarthy drivers smoked their pipes, and drew,
And crowded round the friendly gleaming flame
That lured the dingo, howling, from his caves,
And brought sharp sudden feet about the brakes.

A tale of Love and Death. And shall I say
A tale of love in death for all the patient eyes
That gathered darkness, watching for a son
And brother, never dreaming of the fate
The fearful fate he met alone, unknown,
Within the ruthless Australasian wastes?

For in a far-off, sultry summer, rimmed
With thun...

Last evening's huge lax clouds of turbid white
Grew dark and louring, burthened with the rain
Which that long wind monotonous all night
Swept clashing loud through Dreamland's still domain,

Until my spirit in fatigue's despite
Was driven to weary wakefulness again:
With such wild dirge and ceaseless streaming tears
Died out the last of all my ill-used years.

The morn his risen pure and fresh and keen;
Its perfect vault of bright blue heaven spreads bare
Above the earth's wide laughter twinkling green.
The sun, long climbing up with lurid glare
Athwart the storm-rack's rent and hurrying screen,
Leapt forth at dawn to breathe this stainless air;
The strong west wind still streams on full and high,
Inspiring fresher life through earth and sky.

Y...

Out of the pregnant darkness, where from fire
To glimmering fire the watchword leaps,
The dirge floats up from those who build the pyre
High and still higher
That yet shall blaze across the verminous deeps.

Farewell, O brother-heart,
Yet we shall not forget;
Though hand from hand must part,
Your hope is with us yet.
The clank of the swaggerer’s sword
And clink of the grasper’s gold
Are not so loud as the lover’s word
In a thousand echoes rolled.

The lords of the tottering order sit and plot,
With cunning courtesy haggling still:
The insistent chorus cannot be forgot
Its words are shot
Like summoning rockets from the eastern hill.

You, it was you who showed
How Murder made his pact
In busy Greed’s abode,
Preparing for ...

I'll lay me down on the green sward,
Mid yellowcups and speedwell blue,
And pay the world no more regard,
But be to Nature leal and true.
Who break the peace of hapless man
But they who Truth and Nature wrong?
I'll hear no more of evil's plan,
But live with Nature and her song.

Where Nature's lights and shades are green,
Where Nature's place is strewn with flowers.
Where strife and care are never seen,
There I'll retire to happy hours,
And stretch my body on the green,
And sleep among the flowers in bloom,
By eyes of malice seldom seen,
And dream upon the days to come.

I'll lay me by the forest green,
I'll lay me on the pleasant grass;
My life shall pass away unseen;
I'll be no more the man I was.
The tawny bee upon the flower,<...