Death

What though my harp and viol be
Both hung upon the willow tree?
What though my bed be now my grave,
And for my house I darkness have?
What though my healthful days are fled,
And I lie number'd with the dead?
Yet I have hope, by Thy great power,
To spring; though now a wither'd flower.

High on her speculative tower
Stood Science waiting for the hour
When Sol was destined to endure
'That' darkening of his radiant face
Which Superstition strove to chase,
Erewhile, with rites impure.

Afloat beneath Italian skies,
Through regions fair as Paradise
We gaily passed, till Nature wrought
A silent and unlooked-for change,
That checked the desultory range
Of joy and sprightly thought.

Where'er was dipped the toiling oar,
The waves danced round us as before,
As lightly, though of altered hue,
'Mid recent coolness, such as falls
At noontide from umbrageous walls
That screen the morning dew.

No vapour stretched its wings; no cloud
Cast far or near a murky shroud;
The sky an azure field displayed;
'Twas sunlight s...

He placed a rose in my nut-brown hair--
A deep red rose with a fragrant heart
And said: "We'll set this day apart,
So sunny, so wondrous fair."

His face was full of a happy light,
His voice was tender and low and sweet,
The daisies and the violets grew at our feet--
Alas, for the coming of night!

The rose is black and withered and dead!
'Tis hid in a tiny box away;
The nut-brown hair is turning to gray,
And the light of the day is fled!

The light of the beautiful day is fled,
Hush'd is the voice so sweet and low--
And I--ah, me! I loved him so--
And the daisies grow over his head!

They tell me new methods now govern the Muses,
    The modes of expression have changed with the times;
That low is the rank of the poet who uses
    The old-fashioned verse with intentional rhymes.
And quite out of date, too, is rhythmical metre;
    The critics declare it an insult to art.
But oh! the sweet swing of it, oh! the clear ring of it,
    Oh the great pulse of it, right from the heart,
        Art or no art.

I sat by the side of that old poet, Ocean,
    And counted the billows that broke on the rocks;
The tide lilted in with a rhythmical motion;
    The sea-gulls dipped downward in time-keeping flocks.
I watched while a giant wave gathered its forces,
    And then on the gray granite precipice burst;
And I knew as I counted, while other waves mo...

I met my mates in the morning (and oh, but I am old!)
Where roaring on the ledges the summer ground-swell rolled;
I heard them lift the chorus that dropped the breakers' song,
The beaches of Lukannon, two million voices strong!


The song of pleasant stations beside the salt lagoons,
The song of blowing squadrons that shuffled down the dunes,
The song of midnight dances that churned the sea to flame,
The beaches of Lukannon, before the sealers came!
I met my mates in the morning (I'll never meet them more!);
They came and went in legions that darkened all the shore.
And through the foam-flecked offing as far as voice could reach
We hailed the landing-parties and we sang them up the beach.


The beaches of Lukannon, the winter-wheat so tall,
The dripping, ...

"O where will ye gang to and where will ye sleep,
Against the night begins?"
"My bed is made wi' cauld sorrows,
My sheets are lined wi' sins.
"And a sair grief sitting at my foot,
And a sair grief at my head;
And dule to lay me my laigh pillows,
And teen till I be dead.
"And the rain is sair upon my face,
And sair upon my hair;
And the wind upon my weary mouth,
That never may man kiss mair.
"And the snow upon my heavy lips,
That never shall drink nor eat;
And shame to cledding, and woe to wedding,
And pain to drink and meat.
"But woe be to my bairns' father,
And ever ill fare he:
He has tane a braw bride hame to him,
Cast out my bairns and me."
"And what shall they have to their marriage meat
This day they twain are wed?"
"Meat of...

In the Capitol is mourning,
    Mourning and woe this day,
For a nation's heart is throbbing--
    A great man has passed away

It was yester'even only
    Rejoicing wild and high,
Waving flags and shouting people
    Proclaimed a victory

For our God had led our armies,
    In the cause of truth and right,
It was, therefore, the brave Southren
    Had bowed to Northern might.

Then flashed o'er the land the tidings,
    The flush of joy to quell,
Fallen is the people's hero,
    As William the Silent fell.

The stealthy step of the panther,
    The tiger's cruel eye;
A flash--and the wail of a nation
    Rang in that terrified cry.

Shame falls on the daring Southren,
    Woe on the Southren land,
The sta...

Waileth a woman, "O my God!"
A breaking heart in a broken breath,
A hopeless cry o'er her heart-hope's death!
Can words catch the chords of the winds that wail,
When love's last lily lies dead in the vale!
    Let her alone,
        Under the rod
    With the infinite moan
        Of her soul for God.
Ah! song! you may echo the sound of pain,
    But you never may shrine,
    In verse or line,
The pang of the heart that breaks in twain.

Waileth a woman, "O my God!"
Wind-driven waves with no hearts that ache,
Why do your passionate pulses throb?
No lips that speak -- have ye souls that sob?
We carry the cross -- ye wear the crest,
We have our God -- and ye, your shore,
Whither ye rush in the storm to rest;
We have the havens of holy pr...

Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the lover’s ear alone,
What once to me befell.

When she I loved look’d every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening moon.

Upon the moon I fix’d my eye,
All over the wide lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.

And now we reach’d the orchard-plot;
And, as we climb’d the hill,
The sinking moon to Lucy’s cot
Came near and nearer still.

In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature’s gentlest boon!
And all the while my eyes I kept
On the descending moon.

My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopp’d:
When down behind the cottage roof,
At on...

With troubled heart and trembling hand I write.
The heavens have changed to sorrow my delight.
How oft with dissappointment have I met
When I on fading things my hopes have set.
Experience might ‘fore this have made me wise
To value things according to their price.
Was ever stable joy yet found below?
Or perfect bliss without mixture of woe?
I knew she was but as a withering flower,
That’s here today, perhaps gone in an hour;
Like as a bubble, or the brittle glass,
Or like a shadow turning, as it was.
More fool, then, I to look on that was lent
As if mine own, when thus impermanent.
Farewell, dear child; thou ne’er shalt come to me,
But yet a while and I shall go to thee.
Meantime my throbbing heart’s cheered up with this
Thou with thy Savior art in endle...

O to make the most jubilant poem!
Even to set off these, and merge with these, the carols of Death.
O full of music! full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!
Full of common employments! full of grain and trees.

O for the voices of animals! O for the swiftness and balance of fishes!
O for the dropping of rain-drops in a poem!
O for the sunshine, and motion of waves in a poem.

O the joy of my spirit! it is uncaged! it darts like lightning!
It is not enough to have this globe, or a certain time I will have thousands of globes, and all time.

O the engineer's joys!
To go with a locomotive!
To hear the hiss of steam the merry shriek the steam-whistle the laughing locomotive!
To push with resistless way, and speed off in the distance.

O the gleesome saunter over...

Now you are mine, to-night at last I say it;
You're a dove I have bought for sacrifice,
And to-night I slay it.

Here in my arms my naked sacrifice!
Death, do you hear, in my arms I am bringing
My offering, bought at great price.

She's a silvery dove worth more than all I've got.
Now I offer her up to the ancient, inexorable God,
Who knows me not.

Look, she's a wonderful dove, without blemish or spot!
I sacrifice all in her, my last of the world,
Pride, strength, all the lot.

All, all on the altar! And death swooping down
Like a falcon. 'Tis God has taken the victim;
I have won my renown.

Hark! ah, the nightingale
The tawny-throated!
Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst!
What triumph! hark! what pain!

O wanderer from a Grecian shore,
Still, after many years, in distant lands,
Still nourishing in thy bewilder'd brain
That wild, unquench'd, deep-sunken, old-world pain

Say, will it never heal?
And can this fragrant lawn
With its cool trees, and night,
And the sweet, tranquil Thames,
And moonshine, and the dew,
To thy rack'd heart and brain
Afford no balm?

Dost thou to-night behold,
Here, through the moonlight on this English grass,
The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild?
Dost thou again peruse
With hot cheeks and sear'd eyes
The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame?
Dost thou once more ass...

Were you but lying cold and dead,
And lights were paling out of the West,
You would come hither, and bend your head,
And I would lay my head on your breast;
And you would murmur tender words,
Forgiving me, because you were dead:
Nor would you rise and hasten away,
Though you have the will of the wild birds,
But know your hair was bound and wound
About the stars and moon and sun:
O would, beloved, that you lay
Under the dock-leaves in the ground,
While lights were paling one by one.

Remember me when I am gone away,
    Gone far away into the silent land;
    When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
    You tell me of our future that you planned:
    Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
    And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
    For if the darkness and corruption leave
    A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
    Than that you should remember and be sad.

1.

Start not - nor deem my spirit fled:
In me behold the only skull,
From which, unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.


2.

I lived, I loved, I quaff'd, like thee:
I died: let earth my bones resign;
Fill up - thou canst not injure me;
The worm hath fouler lips than thine.


3.

Better to hold the sparkling grape,
Than nurse the earth-worm's slimy brood;
And circle in the goblet's shape
The drink of Gods, than reptile's food.

4.

Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
In aid of others' let me shine;
And when, alas! our brains are gone,
What nobler substitute than wine?


5.

Quaff while thou canst: another race,
When thou and thine, like me, are sped,

        1.

        LORD, I do choose the higher than my will.
        I would be handled by thy nursing arms
        After thy will, not my infant alarms.
        Hurt me thou wilt--but then more loving still,
        If more can be and less, in love's perfect zone!
        My fancy shrinks from least of all thy harms,
        But do thy will with me--I am thine own.

        2.

        Some things wilt thou not one day turn to dreams?
        Some dreams wilt thou not one day turn to fact?
        The thing that painful, more than should be, seems,
        Shall not thy sliding years with them retract--
        Shall fair realities not counteract?
        The thing that was well dreamed of bliss and joy--
        Wilt thou not breathe thy life int...

I put by the half-written poem,
While the pen, idly trailed in my hand,
Writes on, "Had I words to complete it,
Who'd read it, or who'd understand?"
But the little bare feet on the stairway,
And the faint, smothered laugh in the hall,
And the eerie-low lisp on the silence,
Cry up to me over it all.

So I gather it up - where was broken
The tear-faded thread of my theme,
Telling how, as one night I sat writing,
A fairy broke in on my dream,
A little inquisitive fairy -
My own little girl, with the gold
Of the sun in her hair, and the dewy
Blue eyes of the fairies of old.

'Twas the dear little girl that I scolded -
"For was it a moment like this,"
I said, "when she knew I was busy,
To come romping in for a kiss?
Come rowdying up fr...