Death

I went back to the clanging city,
I went back where my old loves stayed,
But my heart was full of my new love's glory,
My eyes were laughing and unafraid.

I met one who had loved me madly
And told his love for all to hear,
But we talked of a thousand things together,
The past was buried too deep to fear.

I met the other, whose love was given
With never a kiss and scarcely a word,
Oh, it was then the terror took me
Of words unuttered that breathed and stirred.

Oh, love that lives its life with laughter
Or love that lives its life with tears
Can die, but love that is never spoken
Goes like a ghost through the winding years....

I went back to the clanging city,
I went back where my old loves stayed,
My heart was full of my new lo...

Oh, for the fire that used to glow
In those my days of old!
I never thought a man could grow
So callous and so cold.
Ah, for the heart that used to ache
For those in sorrow’s ways;
I often wish my heart could break
As it did in those dead days.

Along my track of storm and stress,
And it is plain to trace,
I look back from the loneliness
And the depth of my disgrace.
’Twas fate and only fate I know,
But all mistakes are plain,
’Tis sadder than the afterglow,
More dreary than the rain.

But still there lies a patch of sun
That ne’er will come again,
Those golden days when I was one
Of Nature’s gentlemen.
And if there is a memory
Could break me down at last,
It sure would be the thought of this,
The sunshine in the pa...

The Story Of Catskin.

    There once was a gentleman grand,
        Who lived at his country seat;
    He wanted an heir to his land,
        For he'd nothing but daughters yet.

    His lady's again in the way,
        So she said to her husband with joy,
    "I hope some or other fine day,
        To present you, my dear, with a boy."

    The gentleman answered gruff,
        "If 't should turn out a maid or a mouse,
    For of both we have more than enough,
        She shan't stay to live in my house."

    The lady, at this declaration,
        Almost fainted away with pain;
    But what was her sad consternation,
        When a sweet little girl came again.

    She sent her away to be nurs'd,
        Without seeing he...

The holy boy
Went from his mother out in the cool of the day
Over the sun-parched fields
And in among the olives shining green and shining grey.

There was no sound,
No smallest voice of any shivering stream.
Poor sinless little boy,
He desired to play and to sing; he could only sigh and dream.

Suddenly came
Running along to him naked, with curly hair,
That rogue of the lovely world,
That other beautiful child whom the virgin Venus bare.

The holy boy
Gazed with those sad blue eyes that all men know.
Impudent Cupid stood
Panting, holding an arrow and pointing his bow.

(Will you not play?
Jesus, run to him, run to him, swift for our joy.
Is he not holy, like you?
Are you afraid of his arrows, O beautiful dreaming boy?)
...

        You will forget me. The years are so tender,
    They bind up the wounds which we think are so deep;
        This dream of our youth will fade out as the splendor
    Fades from the skies when the sun sinks to sleep;
        The cloud of forgetfulness, over and over
    Will banish the last rosy colors away,
        And the fingers of time will weave garlands to cover
    The scar which you think is a life-mark to-day.

        You will forget me. The one boon you covet
    Now above all things will soon seem no prize;
        And the heart, which you hold not in keeping to prove it
    True or untrue, will lose worth in your eyes.
        The one drop to-day, that you deem only wanting
    To fill your life-cup to the brim, soon will seem
        But a val...

The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves
The brilliant moon and all the milky sky,
And all that famous harmony of leaves,
Had blotted out man's image and his cry.

A girl arose that had red mournful lips
And seemed the greatness of the world in tears,
Doomed like Odysseus and the laboring ships
And proud as Priam murdered with his peers,

Arose, and on the instant clamorous eaves,
A climbing moon upon an empty sky,
And all that lamentation leaves,
Could but compose man's image and his cry.

"Why do you weep there, O sweet lady,
Why do you weep before that brass? -
(I'm a mere student sketching the mediaeval)
Is some late death lined there, alas? -
Your father's? . . . Well, all pay the debt that paid he!"

"Young man, O must I tell! - My husband's! And under
His name I set mine, and my DEATH! -
Its date left vacant till my heirs should fill it,
Stating me faithful till my last breath."
- "Madam, that you are a widow wakes my wonder!"

"O wait! For last month I - remarried!
And now I fear 'twas a deed amiss.
We've just come home. And I am sick and saddened
At what the new one will say to this;
And will he think - think that I should have tarried?

"I may add, surely, - with no wish to harm him -
That he's a temper - yes, I fear!

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound,
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.
The fact is the sweetest dream that labour knows.
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.

Joy comes and goes: hope ebbs and flows,
Like the wave.
Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men.
Love lends life a little grace,
A few sad smiles: and then.
Both are laid in one cold place,
In the grave.

Dreams dawn and fly: friends smile and die,
Like spring flowers.
Our vaunted life is one long funeral.
Men dig graves, with bitter tears,
For their dead hopes; and all,
Maz’d with doubts, and sick with fears,
Count the hours.

We count the hours: these dreams of ours,
False and hollow,
Shall we go hence and find they are not dead?
Joys we dimly apprehend,
Faces that smil’d and fled,
Hopes born here, and born to end,
Shall we follow?

I hear no footfall beating through the dark,
A lonely gust is loitering at the pane;
There is no sound within these forests stark
Beyond a splash or two of sullen rain;

But you are with us! and our patient land
Is filled with long-expected change at last,
Though we have scarce the heart to lift a hand
Of welcome, after all the yearning past!

Ah! marvel not; the days and nights were long
And cold and dull and dashed with many tears;
And lately there hath been a doleful song,
Of “Mene, Mene,” in our restless ears!

Indeed, we’ve said, “The royal son of Time,
Whose feet will shortly cross our threshold floor,
May lead us to those outer heights sublime
Our Sires have sold their lives to see before!

We’ll follow him! Beyond the waves and wrec...

Through the open door of dreamland
Came a ghost of long ago, long ago.
When I wakened, all unheeding
Was the phantom to my pleading;
For he would not turn and go,
But beside me all the day,
In my work and in my play,
Trod this ghost of long ago, long ago.

Not a vague and pallid phantom
Was this ghost that came to me, followed me:
Though he rose from regions haunted,
Though he came unbid, unwanted,
He was very fair to see.
Like the radiant sun in space
Was the halo round the face
Of that ghost that came to me, followed me.

And he wore no shroud or cere-cloth
As he wandered at my side, close beside:
He was clothed in royal splendour
And his eyes were deep and tender,
While he walked in stately pride;
And he seemed like some g...

Canst thou not rest, O city,
That liest so wide and fair;
Shall never an hour bring pity,
Nor end be found for care?

Thy walls are high in heaven,
Thy streets are gay and wide,
Beneath thy towers at even
The dreamy waters glide.

Thou art fair as the hills at morning,
And the sunshine loveth thee,
But its light is a gloom of warning
On a soul no longer free.

The curses of gold are about thee,
And thy sorrow deepeneth still;
One madness within and without thee,
One battle blind and shrill.

I see the crowds for ever
Go by with hurrying feet;
Through doors that darken never
I hear the engines beat.

Through days and nights that follow
The hidden mill-wheel strains;
In the midnight's windy hollow
I hea...

Where are those gates through which so long ago
Orpheus descended to the realms below
To seek his lost one? Little daughter, I
Would find that path and pass that ford whereby
The grim-faced boatman ferries pallid shades
And drives them forth to joyless cypress glades.
But do thou not desert me, lovely lute!
Be thou the furtherance of my mournful suit
Before dread Pluto, till he shall give ear
To our complaints and render up my dear.
To his dim dwelling all men must repair,
And so must she, her father's joy and heir;
But let him grant the fruit now scarce in flower
To fill and ripen till the harvest hour!
Yet if that god doth bear a heart within
So hard that one in grief can nothing win,
What can I but renounce this upper air
And lose my soul, but also los...

God hath laid his hand on me:
He hath taken all my glee,
And my spirit's emptied cup
Soon must give its life-blood up.

If the sun doth wake and rise,
If it sink in gilded skies,
All alike my heart doth ache,
Comfort it can never take.

From my eyelids there do flow
Tears, and I must weep e'en so
Ever, ever. Lord of Light,
Who can hide him from thy sight!

Though we shun the stormy sea,
Though from war's affray we flee,
Yet misfortune shows her face
Howsoe'er concealed our place.

Mine a life so far from fame
Few there were could know my name;
Evil hap and jealousy
Had no way of harming me.

But the Lord, who doth disdain
Flimsy safeguards raised by man,
Struck a blow more swift and sure
In that I was...

Dear friends, left darkling in the long eclipse
That veils the noonday, - you whose finger-tips
A meaning in these ridgy leaves can find
Where ours go stumbling, senseless, helpless, blind.
This wreath of verse how dare I offer you
To whom the garden's choicest gifts are due?
The hues of all its glowing beds are ours,
Shall you not claim its sweetest-smelling flowers?

Nay, those I have I bring you, - at their birth
Life's cheerful sunshine warmed the grateful earth;
If my rash boyhood dropped some idle seeds,
And here and there you light on saucy weeds
Among the fairer growths, remember still
Song comes of grace, and not of human will:
We get a jarring note when most we try,
Then strike the chord we know not how or why;
Our stately verse with too aspirin...

Eyes aloft, over dangerous places,
The children follow the butterflies,
And, in the sweat of their upturned faces,
Slash with a net at the empty skies.

So it goes they fall amid brambles,
And sting their toes on the nettle-tops,
Till, after a thousand scratches and scrambles,
They wipe their brows and the hunting stops.

Then to quiet them comes their father
And stills the riot of pain and grief,
Saying, "Little ones, go and gather
Out of my garden a cabbage-leaf.

"You will find on it whorls and clots of
Dull grey eggs that, properly fed,
Turn, by way of the worm, to lots of
Glorious butterflies raised from the dead."

"Heaven is beautiful, Earth is ugly,"
The three-dimensioned preacher saith;
So we must not look where the snail...

O, tomb of the past
Where buried hopes lie,
In my visions I see
Thy phantoms pass by!
A form, long departed,
    Before me appears;
A sweet voice, long silent,
    Again greets my ears.

Fond memory dwells
    On the things that have been;
And my eyes calmly gaze
    On a long vanished scene;
A scene such as memory
    Stores deep in the breast,
Which only appears
    In a season of rest.

Once more we wander,
    Her fair hand in mine;
Once more her promise,
    "I'll ever be thine";
Once more the parting,
    The shroud, and the pall,
The sods' hollow thump
    As they coffinward fall.

The reverie ends--
    All the fancies have flown;
And my sad, lonely heart,
    Now seems doubly alone;...

You and I and Burd so blithe--
    Burd so blithe, and you, and I--
The Mower he would whet his scythe
    Before the dew was dry.

And he woke soon, but we woke soon
    And drew the nursery blind,
All wondering at the waning moon
    With the small June roses twined:
Low in her cradle swung the moon
    With an elfin dawn behind.

In whispers, while our elders slept,
    We knelt and said our prayers,
And dress'd us and on tiptoe crept
    Adown the creaking stairs.

The world's possessors lay abed,
    And all the world was ours--
"Nay, nay, but hark! the Mower's tread!
    And we must save the flowers!"

The Mower knew not rest nor haste--
    That old unweary man:
But we were young. We paused and raced
    And ...