Death

In the dull, dim dawn of day I heard
The twitter and thrill of a brown-backed bird,
As he sat and sang in the leafless tree,
A herald of beautiful days to be.

But the minor running under the strain
Went to my heart with a sudden pain,
For never so sad a sound I heard
As the troubled thrill of the brown-backed bird.

Not in the wearisome wash of waves,
With moaning murmur of wrecks and graves,
Not in the weird winds' wildest wail,
Not in the roar of the rushing gale.

Not in the sob of dying years
Are sounds so solemn and full of tears.
O herald of days that are green and glad,
Why was your morning song so sad?

Have you a secret hidden away,
Of sorrow to come with a coming day?
Folded under a folded leaf,
Lies there trouble ...

Star and coronal and bell
April underfoot renews,
And the hope of man as well
Flowers among the morning dews.

Now the old come out to look,
Winter past and winter’s pains.
How the sky in pool and brook
Glitters on the grassy plains.

Easily the gentle air
Wafts the turning season on;
Things to comfort them are there,
Though ‘tis true the best are gone.

Now the scorned unlucky lad
Rousing from his pillow gnawn
Mans his heart and deep and glad
Drinks the valiant air of dawn.

Half the night he longed to die,
Now are sown on hill and plain
Pleasures worth his while to try
Ere he longs to die again.

Blue the sky from east to west
Arches, and the world is wide,
Though the girl he loves the best
Rouses f...

1.
Hic sinu fessum caput hospitali
Cespitis dormit juvenis, nec illi
Fata ridebant, popularis ille
Nescius aurae.

2.
Musa non vultu genus arroganti
Rustica natum grege despicata,
Et suum tristis puerum notavit
Sollicitudo.

3.
Indoles illi bene larga, pectus
Veritas sedem sibi vindicavit,
Et pari tantis meritis beavit
Munere coelum.

4.
Omne quad moestis habuit miserto
Corde largivit lacrimam, recepit
Omne quod coelo voluit, fidelis
Pectus amici.

5.
Longius sed tu fuge curiosus
Caeteras laudes fuge suspicari,
Caeteras culpas fuge velle tractas
Sede tremenda.

6.
Spe tremescentes recubant in illa
Sede virtutes pariterque culpae,
In sui Patris gremio, tremenda
Sede Deique...

So all things come to our mind at last,
He is close by your side in the twilight gloom,
And you two are alone in the dim old room,
Yet he is mute, as you bade him be, time past.

You bade him to weary you, never again
With his idle love, in truth he was wise,
For he spake no more, although in his eyes
You read, you fancied, a language of pain.

But this is past, and vex you he never will,
With loving glance, or look of sad reproach;
His lips move not, smile not at your approach;
The flowers he clasps are not more calm and still.

Your favorite flowers he has heard you praise,
Purple pansies, and lilies creamy white;
But he offers them not to you to-night,
He troubles you not, he has learned "his place."

You wished to teach him that lesson,...

Ye storm-winds of Autumn
Who rush by, who shake
The window, and ruffle
The gleam-lighted lake;
Who cross to the hill-side
Thin-sprinkled with farms,
Where the high woods strip sadly
Their yellowing arms;
Ye are bound for the mountains,
Ah, with you let me go
Where your cold distant barrier,
The vast range of snow,
Through the loose clouds lifts dimly
Its white peaks in air,
How deep is their stillness!
Ah! would I were there!

But on the stairs what voice is this I hear,
Buoyant as morning, and as morning clear?
Say, has some wet bird-haunted English lawn
Lent it the music of its trees at dawn?
Or was it from some sun-fleck’d mountain-brook
That the sweet voice its upland clearness took?
Ah! it comes nearer,
Sweet notes,...

What sight so lured him thro’ the fields he knew
As where earth’s green stole into heaven’s own hue,

Far–far–away?

What sound was dearest in his native dells?
The mellow lin-lan-lone of evening bells

Far–far–away.

What vague world-whisper, mystic pain or joy,
Thro’ those three words would haunt him when a boy,

Far–far–away?

A whisper from his dawn of life? a breath
From some fair dawn beyond the doors of death

Far–far–away?

Far, far, how far? from o’er the gates of Birth,
The faint horizons, all the bounds of earth,

Far–far–away?

What charm in words, a charm no words could give?
O dying words, can Music make you live

Far–far–away?

    Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r,
    Thou's met me in an evil hour;
    For I maun crush amang the stoure
        Thy slender stem:
    To spare thee now is past my pow'r,
        Thou bonnie gem.

    Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,
    The bonnie lark, companion meet!
    Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet,
        Wi' spreckl'd breast,
    When upward-springing, blythe, to greet
        The purpling east.

    Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
    Upon thy early, humble birth;
    Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
        Amid the storm,
    Scarce rear'd above the parent earth
        Thy tender form.

    The flaunting flowers our gardens yield,
    High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield
    But thou, beneath t...

(After Walt Whitman.)


That light, that white, that weird, uncanny substance we call snow
    Is slowly sifting through the bare branches--and ever and anon
My thoughts sift with the drifting snow, and I am full of pale regret.
    Yes, full of pale regret and other things--you know what I mean.
And why? Because the snow must go; the time has came to part.
    Yes, it cannot wait much longer--like the flakes my thoughts are melting
'Tis here, 'tis there, in fact, 'tis everywhere--the snow I mean.
    Like the thick syrup which covers buckwheat cakes it lies.

The man who says he don't regret its passing also lies.
    And wilt thou never come again? Yes, thou ilt never come again. Alas!
How well I remember thee! 'Twas but yesterday, methinks.
    When a great daub...

Thou wert once the purest wave
Where the tempests roar;
Thou art now a golden wave
On the golden shore --
Ever -- ever -- evermore!

Thou wert once the bluest wave
Shadows e'er hung o'er;
Thou art now the brightest wave
On the brightest shore --
Ever -- ever -- evermore!

Thou wert once the gentlest wave
Ocean ever bore;
Thou art now the fairest wave
On the fairest shore --
Ever -- ever -- evermore!

Whiter foam than thine, O wave,
Wavelet never wore,
Stainless wave; and now you lave
The far and stormless shore --
Ever -- ever -- evermore!

Who bade thee go, O bluest wave,
Beyond the tempest's roar?
Who bade thee flow, O fairest wave,
Unto the golden shore,
Ever -- ever -- evermore?

Who wav...

Fluttering spread thy purple pinions,
    Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart:
I a slave in thy dominions;
    Nature must give way to art.

Mild Arcadians, ever blooming
    Nightly nodding o'er your flocks,
See my weary days consuming
    All beneath yon flowery rocks.

Thus the Cyprian goddess weeping
    Mourn'd Adonis, darling youth;
Him the boar, in silence creeping,
    Gored with unrelenting tooth.

Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers;
    Fair Discretion, string the lyre;
Sooth my ever-waking slumbers:
    Bright Apollo, lend thy choir.

Gloomy Pluto, king of terrors,
    Arm'd in adamantine chains,
Lead me to the crystal mirrors,
    Watering soft Elysian plains.

Mournful cypress, verdant willow,
    Gilding my...

Were I a skilful painter,
My pencil, not my pen,
Should try to teach thee hope and fear,
And who would blame me then?--
Fear of the tide of darkness
That floweth fast behind,
And hope to make thee journey on
In the journey of the mind.

Were I a skilful painter,
What should I paint for thee?--
A tiny spring-bud peeping out
From a withered wintry tree;
The warm blue sky of summer
O'er jagged ice and snow,
And water hurrying gladsome out
From a cavern down below;

The dim light of a beacon
Upon a stormy sea,
Where a lonely ship to windward beats
For life and liberty;
A watery sun-ray gleaming
Athwart a sullen cloud
And falling on some grassy flower
The rain had earthward bowed;

Morn peeping o'er a mountain,...

Go, sun, since go you must,
The dusky evening lowers above our sky,
Our sky which was so blue and sweetly fair;
Night is not terrible that we should sigh.
A little darkness we can surely bear;
Will there not be more sunshine--by and by?

Go, rose, since go you must,
Flowerless and chill the winter draweth nigh;
Closed are the blithe and fragrant lips which made
All summer long perpetual melody.
Cheerless we take our way, but not afraid:
Will there not be more roses--by and by?

Go, love, since go you must,
Out of our pain we bless you as you fly;
The momentary heaven the rainbow lit
Was worth whole days of black and stormy sky;
Shall we not see, as by the waves we sit,
Your bright sail winging shoreward--by and by?

Go, life, since go ...

I love the warm bare earth and all
That works and dreams thereon:
I love the seasons yet to fall:
I love the ages gone,

The valleys with the sheeted grain,
The river's smiling might,
The merry wind, the rustling rain,
The vastness of the night.

I love the morning's flame, the steep
Where down the vapour clings:
I love the clouds that float and sleep,
And every bird that sings.

I love the purple shower that pours
On far-off fields at even:
I love the pine-wood dusk whose floors
Are like the courts of heaven.

I love the heaven's azure span,
The grass beneath my feet:
I love the face of every man
Whose thought is swift and sweet.

I let the wrangling world go by,
And like an idle breath
Its echoes and its...

No. I

I’ve something of the bull-dog in my breed,
The spaniel is developed somewhat less;
While life is in me I can fight and bleed,
But never the chastising hand caress.
You say the stroke was well intended. “True.”
You mention “It was meant to do me good.”
“That may be.” “You deserve it.” “Granted, too.”
“Then take it kindly.” “No, I never could.”

-    -    -    -    -    -

How many a resolution to amend
Is made, and broken, as the years run round!
And how can others on your word depend,
When faithless to ourselves we’re often found?
I’ve often swore, “Henceforward I’ll reform,
And bid my vices, follies, all take wing.”
To keep my promise, ’mid temptation’s storm,
I’ve always found was quite another thing.

-    -    -...

Io avrò sempre in odio la fenestra.

BETTER IS IT TO DIE HAPPY THAN TO LIVE IN PAIN.


    Always in hate the window shall I bear,
Whence Love has shot on me his shafts at will,
Because not one of them sufficed to kill:
For death is good when life is bright and fair,
But in this earthly jail its term to outwear
Is cause to me, alas! of infinite ill;
And mine is worse because immortal still,
Since from the heart the spirit may not tear.
Wretched! ere this who surely ought'st to know
By long experience, from his onward course
None can stay Time by flattery or by force.
Oft and again have I address'd it so:
Mourner, away! he parteth not too soon
Who leaves behind him far his life's calm June.

MACGREGOR.

[During an anti-saloon campaign, in central Illinois.]


    In the midst of the battle I turned,
    (For the thunders could flourish without me)
    And hid by a rose-hung wall,
    Forgetting the murder about me;
    And wrote, from my wound, on the stone,
    In mirth, half prayer, half play: -
    "Send me a picture book,
    Send me a song, to-day."

    I saw him there by the wall
    When I scarce had written the line,
    In the enemy's colors dressed
    And the serpent-standard of wine
    Writhing its withered length
    From his ghostly hands o'er the ground,
    And there by his shadowy breast
    The glorious poem I found.

    This was his world-old cry:
    Thus read the famous prayer:
    "Wine, wine, wine a...

“And if there’s blood upon his hand,
‘Tis but the blood of deer.”
- W. Scott.


To beasts of the field, and fowls of the air,
And fish of the sea alike,
Man’s hand is ever slow to spare,
And ever ready to strike;
With a license to kill, and to work our will,
In season by land or by water,
To our heart’s content we may take our fill
Of the joys we derive from slaughter.

And few, I reckon, our rights gainsay
In this world of rapine and wrong,
Where the weak and the timid seem lawful prey
For the resolute and the strong;
Fins, furs, and feathers, they are and were
For our use and pleasure created,
We can shoot, and hunt, and angle, and snare,
Unquestioned, if not unsated.

I have neither the will nor the right to blame,<...

How sweet the sacred legend - if unblamed
In my slight verse such holy things are named -
Of Mary's secret hours of hidden joy,
Silent, but pondering on her wondrous boy!
Ave, Maria! Pardon, if I wrong
Those heavenly words that shame my earthly song!
The choral host had closed the Angel's strain
Sung to the listening watch on Bethlehem's plain,
And now the shepherds, hastening on their way,
Sought the still hamlet where the Infant lay.
They passed the fields that gleaning Ruth toiled o'er, -
They saw afar the ruined threshing-floor
Where Moab's daughter, homeless and forlorn,
Found Boaz slumbering by his heaps of corn;
And some remembered how the holy scribe,
Skilled in the lore of every jealous tribe,
Traced the warm blood of Jesse's royal son
To that fa...