Death

Dark lies the earth, and bright with worlds the sky:
That soft, large, lustrous star, that first outshone,
Still holds us spelled with potent sorcery.


Dilating, shrinking, lightening, it hath won
Our spirit with its strange strong influence,
And sways it as the tides beneath the moon.


What impulse this, o'ermastering heart and sense?
Exalted, thrilled, the freed soul fain would soar
Unto that point of shining prominence,


Craving new fields and some unheard-of shore,
Yea, all the heavens, for her activity,
To mount with daring flight, to hover o'er


Low hills of earth, flat meadows, level sea,
And earthly joy and trouble.    In this hour
Of waning light and sound, of mystery,


Of shadowed love and beauty-veil...

Who, e'en in words unfetter'd, might at full
Tell of the wounds and blood that now I saw,
Though he repeated oft the tale? No tongue
So vast a theme could equal, speech and thought
Both impotent alike. If in one band
Collected, stood the people all, who e'er
Pour'd on Apulia's happy soil their blood,
Slain by the Trojans, and in that long war
When of the rings the measur'd booty made
A pile so high, as Rome's historian writes
Who errs not, with the multitude, that felt
The grinding force of Guiscard's Norman steel,
And those the rest, whose bones are gather'd yet
At Ceperano, there where treachery
Branded th' Apulian name, or where beyond
Thy walls, O Tagliacozzo, without arms
The old Alardo conquer'd; and his limbs
One were to show transpierc'd, another ...

Singeth the Thrush, forgetting she is dead....
How could you, Thrush, forget that she is dead?
Or though forgetting, sing--and she is dead?
O hush,
Untimely, truant Thrush!

Singeth the Thrush, "I sing that she is dead!"
Thou thoughtless Thrush, she loved you who is dead,
Singeth the Thrush, "I sing her praise though dead."
O hush,
Untimely, grievous Thrush!

Singeth the Thrush, "I sing your happy dead,
I sing her who is living, and no more dead,
I sing her joy--she is no longer dead."
O hush,
Enough, thou heavenly Thrush!

See yon opening flower
Spreads its fragrance to the blast;
It fades within an hour,
Its decay is pale - is fast.
Paler is yon maiden;
Faster is her heart's decay;
Deep with sorrow laden,
She sinks in death away.

No sooner come, but gone, and fal'n asleep,
Acquaintance short, yet parting caus'd us weep.
Three flours, two scarcely blown, the last i'th' bud,
Cropt by th' Almighties hand; yet is he good,
With dreadful awe before him let's be mute,
Such was his will, but why, let's not dispute,
With humble hearts and mouths put in the dust,
Let's say he's merciful as well as just.
He will return, and make up all our losses,
And smile again, after our bitter crosses.
Go pretty babe go rest with Sisters twain
Among the blest in endless joyes remain.

"I'll be your second." - LISTON.


In Middle Row, some years ago,
There lived one Mr. Brown;
And many folks considered him
The stoutest man in town.

But Brown and stout will both wear out -
One Friday he died hard,
And left a widow'd wife to mourn,
At twenty pence a yard.

Now widow B. in two short months
Thought mourning quite a tax;
And wished, like Mr. Wilberforce,
To manumit her blacks.

With Mr. Street she soon was sweet;
The thing came thus about:
She asked him in at home, and then
At church, he asked her out!

Assurance such as this the man
In ashes could not stand;
So like a Phoenix he rose up
Against the Hand in Hand!

One dreary night the angry sprite
Appeared before her view;

I

First I asked the honeybee,
Busy in the balmy bowers;
Saying, "Sweetheart, tell it me:
Have you seen her, honeybee?
She is cousin to the flowers -
All the sweetness of the south
In her wild-rose face and mouth."
But the bee passed silently.

II

Then I asked the forest bird,
Warbling by the woodland waters;
Saying, "Dearest, have you heard?
Have you heard her, forest bird?
She is one of music's daughters -
Never song so sweet by half
As the music of her laugh."
But the bird said not a word.

III

Next I asked the evening sky,
Hanging out its lamps of fire;
Saying, "Loved one, passed she by?
Tell me, tell me, evening sky!
She, the star of my desire -
Sister whom the Pleiads lost,
And my so...

This is the last of all, this is the last!
I must hold my hands, and turn my face to the fire,
I must watch my dead days fusing together in dross,
Shape after shape, and scene after scene from my past
Fusing to one dead mass in the sinking fire
Where the ash on the dying coals grows swiftly, like heavy moss.

Strange he is, my son, whom I have awaited like a lover,
Strange to me like a captive in a foreign country, haunting
The confines and gazing out on the land where the wind is free;
White and gaunt, with wistful eyes that hover
Always on the distance, as if his soul were chaunting
The monotonous weird of departure away from me.

Like a strange white bird blown out of the frozen seas,
Like a bird from the far north blown with a broken wing
Into our sooty ga...

God knows all things -- but we
In darkness walk our ways;
We wonder what will be,
We ask the nights and days.

Their lips are sealed; at times
The bards, like prophets, see,
And rays rush o'er their rhymes
From suns of "days to be".

They see To-morrow's heart,
They read To-morrow's face,
They grasp -- is it by art --
The far To-morrow's trace?

They see what is unseen,
And hear what is unheard,
And To-morrow's shade or sheen
Rests on the poet's word.

As seers see a star
Beyond the brow of night,
So poets scan the far
Prophetic when they write.

They read a human face,
As readers read their page,
The while their thought will trace
A life from youth to age.

They have a mournful gift,
T...

Speak and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward far away,
O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican array,
Who is losing? who is winning? are they far or come they near?
Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the storm we hear.

Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of battle rolls;
Blood is flowing, men are dying; God have mercy on their souls!
"Who is losing? who is winning?" Over hill and over plain,
I see but smoke of cannon clouding through the mountain rain."

Holy Mother! keep our brothers! Look, Ximena, look once more.
"Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly as before,
Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend and foeman, foot and horse,
Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping down its mountain course."

Look forth once m...

Love, indeed thy strength is mighty
Thus, alone, such strife to bear,
Three 'gainst one, and never ceasing,
Death, and Madness, and Despair!

'Tis not my own strength has saved me;
Health, and hope, and fortitude,
But for love, had long since failed me;
Heart and soul had sunk subdued.

Often, in my wild impatience,
I have lost my trust in Heaven,
And my soul has tossed and struggled,
Like a vessel tempest-driven;

But the voice of my beloved
In my ear has seemed to say,
'O, be patient if thou lov'st me!'
And the storm has passed away.

When outworn with weary thinking,
Sight and thought were waxing dim,
And my mind began to wander,
And my brain began to swim,

Then those hands outstretched to save me
Seemed to...

I only knew one poet in my life:
And this, or something like it, was his way.

You saw go up and down Valladolid,
A man of mark, to know next time you saw.
His very serviceable suit of black
Was courtly once and conscientious still,
And many might have worn it, though none did:
The cloak that somewhat shone and shewed the threads
Had purpose, and the ruff, significance.
He walked and tapped the pavement with his cane,
Scenting the world, looking it full in face,
An old dog, bald and blindish, at his heels.
They turned up, now, the alley by the church,
That leads no whither; now, they breathed themselves
On the main promenade just at the wrong time.
You’d come upon his scrutinising hat,
Making a peaked shade blacker than itself
Against the single wind...

"O Mother Earth! upon thy lap
Thy weary ones receiving,
And o'er them, silent as a dream,
Thy grassy mantle weaving,
Fold softly in thy long embrace
That heart so worn and broken,
And cool its pulse of fire beneath
Thy shadows old and oaken.

Shut out from him the bitter word
And serpent hiss of scorning;
Nor let the storms of yesterday
Disturb his quiet morning.
Breathe over him forgetfulness
Of all save deeds of kindness,
And, save to smiles of grateful eyes,
Press down his lids in blindness.

There, where with living ear and eye
He heard Potomac's flowing,
And, through his tall ancestral trees,
Saw autumn's sunset glowing,
He sleeps, still looking to the west,
Beneath the dark wood shadow,
As if he still would see the...

Midnight June 30 1879

I.

Midnight–in no midsummer tune
The breakers lash the shores:
The cuckoo of a joyless June
Is calling out of doors:

And thou hast vanish’d from thine own
To that which looks like rest,
True brother, only to be known
By those who love thee best.


II.

Midnight–and joyless June gone by,
And from the deluged park
The cuckoo of a worse July
Is calling thro’ the dark:

But thou art silent underground,
And o’er thee streams the rain,
True poet, surely to be found
When Truth is found again.


III.

And now, in these unsummer’d skies
The summer bird is still,
Far off a phantom cuckoo cries
From out a phantom hill;

And thro’ this midnight breaks th...

Night, and beneath star-blazoned summer skies
    Behold the Spirit of the musky South,
A creole with still-burning, languid eyes,
    Voluptuous limbs and incense-breathing mouth:
    Swathed in spun gauze is she,
From fibres of her own anana tree.


Within these sumptuous woods she lies at ease,
    By rich night-breezes, dewy cool, caressed:
'Twixt cypresses and slim palmetto trees,
    Like to the golden oriole's hanging nest,
    Her airy hammock swings,
And through the dark her mocking-bird yet sings.


How beautiful she is!    A tulip-wreath
    Twines round her shadowy, free-floating hair:
Young, weary, passionate, and sad as death,
    Dark visions haunt for her the vacant air,
    While movelessly she lies
With lithe, lax, fo...

I do not count the hours I spend
In wandering by the sea;
The forest is my loyal friend,
Like God it useth me.

In plains that room for shadows make
Of skirting hills to lie,
Bound in by streams which give and take
Their colors from the sky;

Or on the mountain-crest sublime,
Or down the oaken glade,
O what have I to do with time?
For this the day was made.

Cities of mortals woe-begone
Fantastic care derides,
But in the serious landscape lone
Stern benefit abides.

Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy,
And merry is only a mask of sad,
But, sober on a fund of joy,
The woods at heart are glad.

There the great Planter plants
Of fruitful worlds the grain,
And with a million spells enchants
The souls that walk...

As for Deirdre, she cried pitifully, wearily, and tore her fair hair, and she was talking of the sons of Usnach, and of Alban, and it is what she said:

A blessing eastward to Alban from me; good is the sight of her bays and valleys, pleasant was it to sit on the slopes of her hills, where the sons of Usnach used to be hunting.

One day, when the nobles of Alban were drinking with the sons of Usnach, Naoise gave a kiss secretly to the daughter of the lord of Duntreon. He sent her a frightened deer, wild, and a fawn at its foot; and he went to visit her coming home from the troops of Inverness.

When myself heard that, my head filled full of jealousy; I put my boat on the waves, it was the same to me to live or to die. They followed me swimming, Ainnle and Ardan, that never said a lie; they turned me back agai...

Corn-colored clouds upon a sky of gold,
And 'mid their sheaves, - where, like a daisy-bloom
Left by the reapers to the gathering gloom,
The star of twilight glows, - as Ruth, 'tis told,
Dreamed homesick 'mid the harvest fields of old,
The Dusk goes gleaning color and perfume
From Bible slopes of heaven, that illume
Her pensive beauty deep in shadows stoled.
Hushed is the forest; and blue vale and hill
Are still, save for the brooklet, sleepily
Stumbling the stone with one foam-fluttering foot:
Save for the note of one far whippoorwill,
And in my heart her name, - like some sweet bee
Within a rose, - blowing a faery flute.