Death

Ye have met, ye have met, disencumbered of pain,
Of sorrow, and sickness, and care;
And the slave and the prisoner, now freed from their chain,
Have rejoicingly welcomed you there.

The true light now shines and the darkness is past,
For that which is perfect is come,
And your pure loving spirits are gathered at last,
In their only congenial home.

May the balm of your memory steal through the soul,
Like a gale from Arabia the blest,
Exert o'er the feelings a sacred control,
And hush every murmur to rest!

In the world we shall seek your resemblance in vain,
Your places shall know you no more;
Yet who by a wish would recall you again?
For the days of your mourning are o'er.

The King in His beauty your eyes now behold,
He has sweetly d...

Unknown to you, I walk the cheerless shore.
    The cutting blast, the hurl of biting brine
May freeze, and still, and bind the waves at war,
    Ere you will ever know, O! Heart of mine,
That I have sought, reflected in the blue
    Of these sea depths, some shadow of your eyes;
Have hoped the laughing waves would sing of you,
    But this is all my starving sight descries -

I

Far out at sea a sail
    Bends to the freshening breeze,
Yields to the rising gale
    That sweeps the seas;

II

Yields, as a bird wind-tossed,
    To saltish waves that fling
Their spray, whose rime and frost
    Like crystals cling

III

To canvas, mast and spar,
    Till, gleaming like a gem,
She sinks beyond the far
   ...

Old monasteries under steadfast walls
Displayed tableaux of holy Verity,
Warming the inner men in those cold halls
Against the chill of their austerity.

Those times, when seeds of Christ would thrive and grow,
More than one monk, now in obscurity,
Taking the graveyard as his studio,
Ennobled Death, in all simplicity.

My soul's a tomb that, wretched cenobite,
I travel in throughout eternity;
Nothing adorns the walls of this sad shrine

O slothful monk! Oh, when may I assign
This living spectacle of misery
To labour of my hands, my eyes' delight?

Bald heads forgetful of their sins,
Old, learned, respectable bald heads
Edit and annotate the lines
That young men, tossing on their beds,
Rhymed out in love’s despair
To flatter beauty’s ignorant ear.

They’ll cough in the ink to the world’s end;
Wear out the carpet with their shoes
Earning respect; have no strange friend;
If they have sinned nobody knows.
Lord, what would they say
Should their Catullus walk that way?

I sat beside a bed of pain,
    And all the muffled hours were still;
The breeze that bent the summer grain,
    Scarce sighed along the pine-clad hill;
The pensive stars, the silvery moon
    Seemed sleeping in a sea of calm.
And all the leafy bowers of June
    Were steeped in midnight's dewy balm.

She seemed to sleep, for lull of pain
    Had calmed the fevered pulse a while,
But, as I watched, she woke again,
    With wondering glance and eager smile.
The pale lips moved as if to speak,
    The thin hand trembled in my own,
Then, with a sigh for words too weak,
    The eyelids closed, and she was gone.

Gone! gone! - but where, or how, or when?
    I had not seen or form or face;
Unmarked God's messenger had been
    Beside me in ...

[1]

Two parrots lived, a sire and son,
On roastings from a royal fire.
Two demigods, a son and sire,
These parrots pension'd for their fun.
Time tied the knot of love sincere:
The sires grew to each other dear;
The sons, in spite of their frivolity,
Grew comrades boon, in joke and jollity;
At mess they mated, hot or cool;
Were fellow-scholars at a school.
Which did the bird no little honour, since
The boy, by king begotten, was a prince.
By nature fond of birds, the prince, too, petted
A sparrow, which delightfully coquetted.
These rivals, both of unripe feather,
One day were frolicking together:
As oft befalls such little folks,
A quarrel follow'd from their jokes.
The sparrow, quite uncircumspect,
Was by the parrot sadly ...

    See how the storm of life ascends
Up through the shadow of the world!
Beyond our gaze the line extends,
Like wreaths of vapour tempest-hurled!
Grasp tighter, brother, lest the storm
Should sweep us down from where we stand,
And we may catch some human form
We know, amongst the straining band.

    See! see in yonder misty cloud
One whirlwind sweep, and we shall hear
The voice that waxes yet more loud
And louder still approaching near!

    Tremble not, brother, fear not thou,
For yonder wild and mystic strain
Will bring before us strangely now
The visions of our youth again!

    Listen! oh listen!
See how its eyeballs roll and glisten
With a wild and fearful stare
Upwards through the shining air,
Or backwards with averte...

If men should rise and return to the noise and time of the tourney,
The name and fame of the tabard, the tangle of gules and gold,
Would these things stand and suffice for the bourne of a backward journey,
A light on our days returning, as it was in the days of old?

Nay, there is none rides back to pick up a glove or a feather,
Though the gauntlet rang with honour or the plume was more than a crown:
And hushed is the holy trumpet that called the nations together
And under the Horns of Hattin the hope of the world went down.

Ah, not in remembrance stored, but out of oblivion starting,
Because you have sought new homes and all that you sought is so,
Because you had trodden the fire and barred the door in departing,
Returns in your chosen exile the glory of long ago.

I wad I were where Helen lies;
Night and day on me she cries;
O that I were where Helen lies,
On fair Kirkconnell lea!

Curst be the heart that thought the thought,
And curst the hand that fired the shot,
When in my arms burd Helen dropt,
And died to succour me!

O think na but my heart was sair
When my Love dropt and spak nae mair!
I laid her down wi' meikle care,
On fair Kirkconnell lea.

As I went down the water side,
Nane but my foe to be my guide,
Nane but my foe to be my guide,
On fair Kirkconnell lea.

I lighted down my sword to draw,
I hacked him in pieces sma',
I hacked him in pieces sma',
For her sake that died for me.

O Helen fair, beyond compare!
I'll make a garland of thy hair,
Shall bind my ...

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning my pilot sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;
Over ea...

The night has set her outposts there
Of wind and rain;
And to and fro, with ragged hair,
At intervals they search the pane.

The fir-trees, creepers redly climb,
That seem to bleed,
Like old conspirators in crime,
Drip, whispering of some desperate deed.

'Tis as if wild skirts, flying fast,
Besieged the house;
The wittol grass, bent to the blast,
Whines as if witches held carouse.

And now dark feet steal to the door
And tap and tip,
Shuffle, and then go on once more
The eaves keep a persistent drip.

And then a skurry, and a bound;
Wild feet again?
A wind-wrenched tree that to the ground
Sweeps instantly its weight of rain.

What is it, finger on its lip,
That up and down
Treads, with dark raiment all a-...

Cry from the thicket my heart's bird!
The other birds woke all around,
Rising with toot and howl they stirred
Their plumage, broke the trembling sound,
They craned their necks, they fluttered wings,
"While we are silent no one sings,
And while we sing you hush your throat,
Or tune your melody to our note."

Cry from the thicket my heart's bird!
The screams and hootings rose again:
They gaped with raucous beaks, they whirred
Their noisy plumage; small but plain
The lonely hidden singer made
A well of grief within the glade.
"Whist, silly fool, be off," they shout,
"Or we'll come pluck your feathers out."

Cry from the thicket my heart's bird!
Slight and small the lovely cry
Came trickling down, but no one heard.
Parrot and cuckoo, crow,...

The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see
The wantonest singing birds,
Are lips, and all thy melody
Of lip-begotten words,

Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrined,
Then desolately fall,
O God! on my funereal mind
Like starlight on a pall,

Thy heart, thy heart!, I wake and sigh,
And sleep to dream till day
Of the truth that gold can never buy,
Of the baubles that it may.

[1]Dim grows the vital flame in his dear breast
    From whom my life I drew; - and thrice has Spring
    Bloom'd; and fierce Winter thrice, on darken'd wing,
    Howl'd o'er the grey, waste fields, since he possess'd
Or strength of frame, or intellect. - - Now bring
    Nor Morn, nor Eve, his cheerful steps, that press'd
    Thy pavement, LICHFIELD, in the spirit bless'd
    Of social gladness. They have fail'd, and cling
Feebly to the fix'd chair, no more to rise
    Elastic! - Ah! my heart forebodes that soon
    The FULL OF DAYS shall sleep; - nor Spring's soft sighs,
Nor Winter's blast awaken him! - Begun
    The twilight! - Night is long! - but o'er his eyes
    Life-weary slumbers weigh the pale lids down!

1: When this Sonnet was written, the Subject of it ...

The Philosophy of a Feast


Make merry, comrades, eat and drink
(The sunlight flickers on the sea),
The garlands gleam, the glasses clink,
The grape juice mantles fair and free,
The lamps are trimm’d, although the light
Of day still lingers on the sky;
We sit between the day and night,
And push the wine flask merrily.
I see you feasting round me still,
All gay of heart and strong of limb;
Make merry, friends, your glasses fill,
The lights are growing dim.

I miss the voice of one I’ve heard
(The sunlight sinks upon the sea),
He sang as blythe as any bird,
And shook the rafters with his glee;
But times have changed with him, I wot,
By fickle fortune cross’d and flung;
Far stouter heart than mine he’s got
If now he sings...

"Thou solitary!" the Blackbird cried,
"I, from the happy Wren,
Linnet and Blackcap, Woodlark, Thrush,
Perched all upon a sweetbrier bush,
Have come at cold of midnight-tide
To ask thee, Why and when
Grief smote thy heart so thou dost sing
In solemn hush of evening,
So sorrowfully, lovelorn Thing -
Nay, nay, not sing, but rave, but wail,
Most melancholic Nightingale?
Do not the dews of darkness steep
All pinings of the day in sleep?
Why, then, when rocked in starry nest
We mutely couch, secure, at rest,
Doth thy lone heart delight to make
Music for sorrow's sake?"
A Moon was there. So still her beam,
It seemed the whole world lay in dream,
Lulled by the watery sea.
And from her leafy night-hung nook
Upon this stranger soft did look

Oh, ye Dead! oh, ye Dead![1] whom we know by the light you give
From your cold gleaming eyes, tho' you move like men who live,
    Why leave you thus your graves,
    In far off fields and waves,
Where the worm and the sea-bird only know your bed,
    To haunt this spot where all
    Those eyes that wept your fall,
And the hearts that wailed you, like your own, lie dead?

It is true, it is true, we are shadows cold and wan;
And the fair and the brave whom we loved on earth are gone;
    But still thus even in death,
    So sweet the living breath
Of the fields and the flowers in our youth we wander'd o'er,
    That ere, condemned, we go
    To freeze mid Hecla's snow,
We would taste it awhile, and think we live once more!

Grown tired of mourning for my sins,
And brooding over merits,
The other night with bothered brow
I went amongst the spirits;
And I met one that I knew well:
‘Oh, Scotty’s Ghost, is that you?
‘And did you see the fearsome crowd
‘At Robbie Burns’s statue?
‘They hurried up in hansom cabs,
‘Tall-hatted and frock-coated;
‘They trained it in from all the towns,
‘The weird and hairy-throated;
‘They spoke in some outlandish tongue,
‘They cut some comic capers,
‘And ilka man was wild to get
‘His name in all the papers.

‘They showed no gleam of intellect,
‘Those frauds who rushed before us;
‘They knew one verse of “Auld Lang Syne, ”
‘The first one and the chorus:
‘They clacked the clack o’ Scotlan’s Bard,
‘They glibly talked of “Rabby;”