Death

An Incident Of The French Revolution And Reign Of Robespierre.


Day dawned above a city's mart,
Yet not 'mid peace and prayer:
The shouts of frenzied multitudes
Were on the thrilling air.

A guiltless man to death was led,
Through crowded streets and wide,
And a fairy child, with waving curls,
Was clinging to his side.

The father's brow with pride was calm,
But, trusting and serene,
The child's was like the Holy One's
In Raphael's paintings seen.

She shrank not from the heartless throng,
Nor from the scaffold high;
But now and then, with beaming smile,
Addressed her parent's eye.

Athwart the golden flood of morn
Was poised the wing of Death,
As 'neath the fearful guillotine
The doomed one drew his breath.

Poets love Nature, and themselves are love.
Though scorn of fools, and mock of idle pride.
The vile in nature worthless deeds approve,
They court the vile and spurn all good beside.
Poets love Nature; like the calm of Heaven,
Like Heaven's own love, her gifts spread far and wide:
In all her works there are no signs of leaven
* * * *

Her flowers * * * *
They are her very Scriptures upon earth,
And teach us simple mirth where'er we go.
Even in prison they can solace me,
For where they bloom God is, and I am free.

Tho' leafless are the woods, tho' flow'rs no more,
In beauty blushing, spread their fragrant store,
Yet still 'tis sweet to quit the crowded scene,
And rove with Nature, tho' no longer green;
For Winter bids her winds so softly blow,
That, cold and famine scorning, even now
The feather'd warblers still delight the ear,
And all of Summer, but her leaves, is here.
Here, on this winding garden's sloping bound,
'Tis sweet to listen to each rustic sound,
The distant dog-bark, and the rippling rill,
Or catch the sparkling of the water-mill.
The tranquil scene each tender feeling moves;
As the eye rests on Holwood's naked groves,
A tear bedims the sight for Chatham's son,
For him whose god-like eloquence could stun,
Like some vast cat'ract, Faction's clam'rous tongue...

To G. E. M.

    'Tis a little room, my friend--
Baby walks from end to end;
All the things look sadly real
This hot noontide unideal;
Vaporous heat from cope to basement
All you see outside the casement,
Save one house all mud-becrusted,
And a street all drought-bedusted!
There behold its happiest vision,
Trickling water-cart's derision!
Shut we out the staring space,
Draw the curtains in its face!

    Close the eyelids of the room,
Fill it with a scarlet gloom:
Lo, the walls with warm flush dyed!
Lo, the ceiling glorified,
As when, lost in tenderest pinks,
White rose on the red rose thinks!
But beneath, a hue right rosy,
Red as a geranium-posy,
Stains the air with power estranging,
Known with unknown clouding, changin...

In the minister's morning sermon
He had told of the primal fall,
And how thenceforth the wrath of God
Rested on each and all.

And how of His will and pleasure,
All souls, save a chosen few,
Were doomed to the quenchless burning,
And held in the way thereto.

Yet never by faith's unreason
A saintlier soul was tried,
And never the harsh old lesson
A tenderer heart belied.

And, after the painful service
On that pleasant Sabbath day,
He walked with his little daughter
Through the apple-bloom of May.

Sweet in the fresh green meadows
Sparrow and blackbird sung;
Above him their tinted petals
The blossoming orchards hung.

Around on the wonderful glory
The minister looked and smiled;
"How good is the Lord who g...

I sat on cushioned otter-skin:
My word was law from Ith to Emain,
And shook at Inver Amergin
The hearts of the world-troubling seamen,
And drove tumult and war away
From girl and boy and man and beast;
The fields grew fatter day by day,
The wild fowl of the air increased;
And every ancient Ollave said,
While he bent down his fading head.
"He drives away the Northern cold.'
i[They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.]
I sat and mused and drank sweet wine;
A herdsman came from inland valleys,
Crying, the pirates drove his swine
To fill their dark-beaked hollow galleys.
I called my battle-breaking men
And my loud brazen battle-cars
From rolling vale and rivery glen;
And under the blinking of the stars
Fell on the...

O crimson-tined flowers
    That live when others die,
What thoughtless hand unloving
    Could ever pass you by?

You are the last bright blossoms,
    The summer's after-glow,
When all her early children
    Have faded long ago.

Sweet golden-rod and xenia
    And crimson marigold,
What dreams of autumn splendor
    Your velvet leaves unfold.

Long, long ago the violets
    Have closed their sweet blue eyes,
And lain with pale, dead faces
    Beneath the summer skies.

And on their graves you blossom
    With leaves of gold and red,
And yet--how soon forever
    Your beauty will be fled.

The frost will come to kill you
    The snows will wrap you round;
And you will sleep forgotten
    Upon the fro...

Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing,
Among the green leaves as they shake
Far down within some shadowy lake,
To me a painted paroquet
Hath been, a most familiar bird,
Taught me my alphabet to say,
To lisp my very earliest word
While in the wild wood I did lie,
A child, with a most knowing eye.

Of late, eternal Condor years
So shake the very Heaven on high
With tumult as they thunder by,
I have no time for idle cares
Through gazing on the unquiet sky.
And when an hour with calmer wings
Its down upon my spirit flings,
That little time with lyre and rhyme
To while away, forbidden things!
My heart would feel to be a crime
Unless it trembled with the strings.

        Here now forevermore our lives must part.
    My path leads there, and yours another way.
        What shall we do with this fond love, dear heart?
    It grows a heavier burden day by day.

        Hide it? In all earth's caverns, void and vast,
    There is not room enough to hide it, dear;
        Not even the mighty storehouse of the past
    Could cover it from our own eyes, I fear.

        Drown it? Why, were the contents of each ocean
    Merged into one great sea, too shallow then
        Would be its waters to sink this emotion
    So deep it could not rise to life again.

        Burn it? In all the furnace flames below,
    It would not in a thousand years expire.
        Nay! it would thrive, exult, expand, and grow,
    For from...

'Twas on a day of cold and sleet,
A little nomad of the street
With tattered garments, shoeless feet,
    And face with hunger wan,
Great wonder-eyes, though beautiful,
Hedged in by features pinched and dull,
Betraying lines so pitiful
    By sorrow sharply drawn;

Ere yet the service half was o'er,
Approached the great cathedral door
As choir and organ joined to pour
    Their sweetness on the air;
Then, sudden, bold, impelled to glide
With fleetness to the altar's side,
Her trembling form she sought to hide
    Amid the shadows there,

Half fearful lest some worshiper,
Enveloped close in robes of fur,
Had cast a scornful glance at her
    As she had stolen by,
But soon the swelling anthem, fraught
With reverence, her spirit...

Heart-sick of his journey was the Wanderer;
    Footsore and parched was he;
And a Witch who long had lurked by the wayside,
    Looked out of sorcery.

"Lift up your eyes, you lonely Wanderer,"
    She peeped from her casement small;
"Here's shelter and quiet to give you rest, young man,
    And apples for thirst withal."

And he looked up out of his sad reverie,
    And saw all the woods in green,
With birds that flitted feathered in the dappling,
    The jewel-bright leaves between.

And he lifted up his face towards her lattice,
    And there, alluring-wise,
Slanting through the silence of the long past,
    Dwelt the still green Witch's eyes.

And vaguely from the hiding-place of memory
    Voices seemed to cry;
"What is the ...

She was born in the season of fire,
When a mantle of murkiness lay
On the front of the crimson Destroyer:
And none knew the name of her sire
But the woman; and she, ashen grey,
In the fierce pangs of motherhood lay.

The skies were aflame at her coming
With a marvellous message of ill;
And fear-stricken pinions were drumming
The hot, heavy air, whence the humming
Of insects rose, sudden and shrill,
As they fled from that hell-begirt hill.

Then the smoke-serpent writhed in her tresses:
The flame kissed her hard on the lips:
She smiled at their ardent caresses
As the wanton who smiles, but represses
A lover's hot haste, and so slips
From the arm that would girdle her hips.

Such the time of her coming and fashion:
How long ere her ...

"Conquer the gloomy night of thy sorrow, for the morning greets
thee with laughter.
Rise and clothe thyself with noble pride,
Break loose from the tyranny of grief.
Thou standest alone among men,
Thy song is like a pearl in beauty."


So spake my friend. 'T is well!
The billows of the stormy sea which overwhelmed my soul, -
These I subdue; I quake not
Before the bow and arrow of destiny.
I endured with patience when he deceitfully lied to me
With his treacherous smile.


Yea, boldly I defy Fate,
I cringe not to envious Fortune.
I mock the towering floods.
My brave heart does not shrink -
This heart of mine, that, albeit young in years,
Is none the less rich in deep, keen-eyed experience.

Solomon Ben Judah Gabirol (Died Betwe...

        I.

Mist on the mountain height
Silvery creeping;
Incarnate beads of light
Bloom-cradled sleeping,
Dripped from the brow of Night.


        II.

Shadows, and winds that rise
Over the mountain;
Stars in the spar that lies
Cold in the fountain,
Pale as the quickened skies.


        III.

Sheep in the wattled folds
Dreamily bleating,
Dim on the thistled wolds,
Where, glad with meeting,
Morn the thin Night enfolds.


        IV.

Sleep on the moaning sea
Hushing his trouble;
Rest on the cares that be
Hued in Life's bubble,
Calm on the woes of me....


        V.

Mist from the mountain height
Hurriedly fleeting;
Star in the locks of Nig...

He'd been for years in Sydney "a-acting of the goat",
His name was Joseph Swallow, "the Great Australian Pote",
In spite of all the stories and sketches that he wrote.

And so his friends held meetings (Oh, narrow souls were theirs!)
To advertise their little selves and Joseph's own affairs.
They got up a collection for Joseph unawares.

They looked up his connections and rivals by the score,
The wife who had divorced him some twenty years before,
And several politicians he'd made feel very sore.

They sent him down to Coolan, a long train ride from here,
Because of his grey hairs and "pomes" and painted blondes, and beer.
(I mean to say the painted blondes would always give him beer.)

(They loved him for his eyes were dark, and you must not condemn
The ...

’Tis the tale of Simon Steven, braceman at the Odd-and-Even,
At The Nations, in the gully. They were sinking in the rock.
Sim was small and wiry rather, and a husband and a father,
But he’s gone and left his family as a consequence of shock.

Shock was Sim’s disease, we reckoned, for it took him in a second,
And no doctor born could dognose what the symptoms were, I think,
But we’re missin’ Sim completely, he could play the whistle sweetly,
And was always very sociable and brotherly in drink.

That was how poor Steven drifted into trouble, being gifted,
He was hungry for an audience, and it led him up to Coy’s;
But his wife made no deductions for the artist, and the ructions
What she raised around that public were just fireworks for the boys.

When she caught him o...

Ah me! too soon the Autumn comes
Among these purple-plaintive hills!
Too soon among the forest gums
Premonitory flame she spills,
Bleak, melancholy flame that kills.

Her white fogs veil the morn that rims
With wet the moonflow'r's elfin moons;
And, like exhausted starlight, dims
The last slim lily-disk; and swoons
With scents of hazy afternoons.

Her gray mists haunt the sunset skies,
And build the west's cadaverous fire,
Where Sorrow sits with lonely eyes,
And hands that wake her ancient lyre,
Beside the ghost of dead Desire.

Oh, soon the forests all will boast
    A crown of red and gold;
A purple haze will circle round
    The mountains dim and old;
Afar the hills, now green and fair,
    Their sombre robes will wear;
A mist-like veil will dim the sun
    And linger on the air.

Already seems the earth half sad
    The summer-child is dead;
And who can tell the dreams gone by,
    The tales of life unsaid?
September is a glowing time;
    A month of happy hours;
Yet in its crimson heart lies hid
    The frost that kills the flowers.

Life, too, may feel the glory near
    And wear its crown of gold;
Yet are the snows not nearest then?
    Are hearts not growing old?
September is the prime of life,
    The glory of the year;
Yet when the lea...