Death

April 1, 1888

Lent gathers up her cloak of sombre shading
    In her reluctant hands.
Her beauty heightens, fairest in its fading,
    As pensively she stands
Awaiting Easter's benediction falling,
    Like silver stars at night,
Before she can obey the summons calling
    Her to her upward flight,
Awaiting Easter's wings that she must borrow
    Ere she can hope to fly -
Those glorious wings that we shall see to-morrow
    Against the far, blue sky.
Has not the purple of her vesture's lining
    Brought calm and rest to all?
Has her dark robe had naught of golden shining
    Been naught but pleasure's pall?
Who knows? Perhaps when to the world returning
    In youth's light joyousness,
We'll wear some rarer jewels we found burning
  ...

Come round me, little childer;
There, don't fling stones at me
Because I mutter as I go;
But pity Moll Magee.
My man was a poor fisher
With shore lines in the say;
My work was saltin' herrings
The whole of the long day.
And sometimes from the Saltin' shed
I scarce could drag my feet,
Under the blessed moonlight,
Along thc pebbly street.
I'd always been but weakly,
And my baby was just born;
A neighbour minded her by day,
I minded her till morn.
I lay upon my baby;
Ye little childer dear,
I looked on my cold baby
When the morn grew frosty and clear.
A weary woman sleeps so hard!
My man grew red and pale,
And gave me money, and bade me go
To my own place, Kinsale.
He drove me out and shut the door.
And gave his curse ...

When I am dead and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
Though you should lean above me broken-hearted,
I shall not care.

I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough,
And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted
Than you are now.

("Il est nuit. La cabane est pauvre.")

[Bk. LII. iii.]

'Tis night - within the close stout cabin door,
The room is wrapped in shade save where there fall
Some twilight rays that creep along the floor,
And show the fisher's nets upon the wall.

In the dim corner, from the oaken chest,
A few white dishes glimmer; through the shade
Stands a tall bed with dusky curtains dressed,
And a rough mattress at its side is laid.

Five children on the long low mattress lie -
A nest of little souls, it heaves with dreams;
In the high chimney the last embers die,
And redden the dark room with crimson gleams.

The mother kneels and thinks, and pale with fear,
She prays alone, hearing the billows shout:
While to wild winds, to rocks, to midnigh...

Come list, while I tell of the heart-wounded Stranger
    Who sleeps her last slumber in this haunted ground;
Where often, at midnight, the lonely wood-ranger
    Hears soft fairy music re-echo around.

None e'er knew the name of that heart-stricken lady,
    Her language, tho' sweet, none could e'er understand;
But her features so sunned, and her eyelash so shady,
    Bespoke her a child of some far Eastern land.

'Twas one summer night, when the village lay sleeping,
    A soft strain of melody came o'er our ears;
So sweet, but so mournful, half song and half weeping,
    Like music that Sorrow had steeped in her tears.

We thought 'twas an anthem some angel had sung us;--
    But, soon as the day-beams had gushed from on high,
With wonder we saw this b...

Ah, Posthumus!    our years hence fly
And leave no sound:    nor piety,
Or prayers, or vow
Can keep the wrinkle from the brow;
But we must on,
As fate does lead or draw us; none,
None, Posthumus, could e'er decline
The doom of cruel Proserpine.

The pleasing wife, the house, the ground
Must all be left, no one plant found
To follow thee,
Save only the curst cypress-tree!
--A merry mind
Looks forward, scorns what's left behind;
Let's live, my Wickes, then, while we may,
And here enjoy our holiday.

We've seen the past best times, and these
Will ne'er return; we see the seas,
And moons to wane,
But they fill up their ebbs again;
But vanish'd man,
Like to a lily lost, ne'er can,
Ne'er can repullulate, or bring
His days...

I

The happiest day the happiest hour
My seared and blighted heart hath known,
The highest hope of pride and power,
I feel hath flown.


II

Of power! said I? Yes! such I ween
But they have vanished long, alas!
The visions of my youth have been
But let them pass.


III

And pride, what have I now with thee?
Another brow may ev'n inherit
The venom thou hast poured on me
Be still my spirit!


IV

The happiest day the happiest hour
Mine eyes shall see have ever seen
The brightest glance of pride and power
I feel have been:


V

But were that hope of pride and power
Now offered with the pain
Ev'n then I felt that brightest hour
I would not live again:

Una donna più bella assai che 'l sole.

GLORY AND VIRTUE.


    A lady, lovelier, brighter than the sun,
Like him superior o'er all time and space,
Of rare resistless grace,
Me to her train in early life had won:
She, from that hour, in act, and word and thought,
--For still the world thus covets what is rare--
In many ways though brought
Before my search, was still the same coy fair:
For her alone my plans, from what they were,
Grew changed, since nearer subject to her eyes;
Her love alone could spur
My young ambition to each hard emprize:
So, if in long-wish'd port I e'er arrive,
I hope, for aye through her,
When others deem me dead, in honour to survive.

Full of first hope, burning with youthful love,
She, at her will, ...

Let me move slowly through the street,
Filled with an ever-shifting train,
Amid the sound of steps that beat
The murmuring walks like autumn rain.

How fast the flitting figures come!
The mild, the fierce, the stony face;
Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some
Where secret tears have left their trace.

They pass, to toil, to strife, to rest;
To halls in which the feast is spread;
To chambers where the funeral guest
In silence sits beside the dead.

And some to happy homes repair,
Where children, pressing cheek to cheek,
With mute caresses shall declare
The tenderness they cannot speak.

And some, who walk in calmness here,
Shall shudder as they reach the door
Where one who made their dwelling dear,
Its flower, its ligh...

It is not over yet-the fight
    Where those immortal dreamers failed.
They stormed the citadels of night
    And the night praised them--and prevailed.
So long ago the cause was lost
    We scarce distinguish friend from foe;
But--if the dead can help it most--
    The armies of the dead will grow.

The world has all our banners now,
    And filched our watchwords for its own.
The world has crowned the "rebel's" brow
    And millions crowd his lordly throne.
The masks have altered. Names are names;
    They praise the "truth" that is not true.
The "rebel" that the world acclaims
    Is not the rebel Shelley knew.

We may not build that Commonweal.
    We may not reach the goal we set.
But there's a flag they dare not steal.
    Forwar...

    Where is my love -
In silence and shadow she lies,
Under the April-grey, calm waste of the skies;
    And a bird above,
In the darkness tender and clear,
Keeps saying over and over, Love lies here!

    Not that she's dead;
Only her soul is flown
Out of its last pure earthly mansion;
    And cries instead
In the darkness, tender and clear,
Like the voice of a bird in the leaves, Love - love lies here.

How cold are thy baths, Apollo!
    Cried the African monarch, the splendid,
As down to his death in the hollow
    Dark dungeons of Rome he descended,
    Uncrowned, unthroned, unattended;
How cold are thy baths, Apollo!

How cold are thy baths, Apollo!
    Cried the Poet, unknown, unbefriended,
As the vision, that lured him to follow,
    With the mist and the darkness blended,
    And the dream of his life was ended;
How cold are thy baths, Apollo!

In desultory walk through orchard grounds,
Or some deep chestnut grove, oft have I paused
The while a Thrush, urged rather than restrained
By gusts of vernal storm, attuned his song
To his own genial instincts; and was heard
(Though not without some plaintive tones between)
To utter, above showers of blossom swept
From tossing boughs, the promise of a calm,
Which the unsheltered traveler might receive
With thankful spirit. The descant, and the wind
That seemed to play with it in love or scorn,
Encouraged and endeared the strain of words
That haply flowed from me, by fits of silence
Impelled to livelier pace. But now, my Book!
Charged with those lays, and others of like mood,
Or loftier pitch if higher rose the theme,
Go, single yet aspiring to be joined
W...

Loth to depart, but yet at last each one
Back must now go to's habitation;
Not knowing thus much when we once do sever,
Whether or no that we shall meet here ever.
As for myself, since time a thousand cares
And griefs hath filed upon my silver hairs,
'Tis to be doubted whether I next year
Or no shall give ye a re-meeting here.
If die I must, then my last vow shall be,
You'll with a tear or two remember me.
Your sometime poet; but if fates do give
Me longer date and more fresh springs to live,
Oft as your field shall her old age renew,
Herrick shall make the meadow-verse for you.

The Abbot of Innisfallen
awoke ere dawn of day;
Under the dewy green leaves
went he forth to pray.
The lake around his island
lay smooth and dark and deep,
And wrapt in a misty stillness
the mountains were all asleep.
Low kneel'd the Abbot Cormac
when the dawn was dim and gray;
The prayers of his holy office
he faithfully 'gan say.
Low kneel'd the Abbot Cormac
while the dawn was waxing red;
And for his sins' forgiveness
a solemn prayer he said:
Low kneel'd that holy Abbot
while the dawn was waxing clear;
And he pray'd with loving-kindness
for his convent-brethren dear.
Low kneel'd that blessed Abbot
while the dawn was waxing bright;
He pray'd a great prayer for Ireland,
he pray'd with all his might.
Low kneel'd that good...

By Rome's dim relics there walks a man,
Eyes bent; and he carries a basket and spade;
I guess what impels him to scrape and scan;
Yea, his dreams of that Empire long decayed.

"Vast was Rome," he must muse, "in the world's regard,
Vast it looms there still, vast it ever will be;"
And he stoops as to dig and unmine some shard
Left by those who are held in such memory.

But no; in his basket, see, he has brought
A little white furred thing, stiff of limb,
Whose life never won from the world a thought;
It is this, and not Rome, that is moving him.

And to make it a grave he has come to the spot,
And he delves in the ancient dead's long home;
Their fames, their achievements, the man knows not;
The furred thing is all to him nothing Rome!

"Here...

(For A. K. K.)



What distant mountains thrill and glow
    Beneath our Lady Folly's tread?
Why has she left us, wise in woe,
    Shrewd, practical, uncomforted?
We cannot love or dream or sing,
    We are too cynical to pray,
There is no joy in anything
    Since Lady Folly went away.

Many a knight and gentle maid,
    Whose glory shines from years gone by,
Through ignorance was unafraid
    And as a fool knew how to die.
Saint Folly rode beside Jehanne
    And broke the ranks of Hell with her,
And Folly's smile shone brightly on
    Christ's plaything, Brother Juniper.

Our minds are troubled and defiled
    By study in a weary school.
O for the folly of the child!
    The ready courage of the fool!
Lord, c...

Di dì in dì vo cangiando il viso e 'l pelo.

HIS WOUNDS CAN BE HEALED ONLY BY PITY OR DEATH.


    I alter day by day in hair and mien,
Yet shun not the old dangerous baits and dear,
Nor sever from the laurel, limed and green,
Which nor the scorching sun, nor fierce cold sear.
Dry shall the sea, the sky be starless seen,
Ere I shall cease to covet and to fear
Her lovely shadow, and--which ill I screen--
To like, yet loathe, the deep wound cherish'd here:
For never hope I respite from my pain,
From bones and nerves and flesh till I am free,
Unless mine enemy some pity deign,
Till things impossible accomplish'd be,
None but herself or death the blow can heal
Which Love from her bright eyes has left my heart to feel.

MACGREGOR.