Death

I love thee, Sabbath morn! - I cannot say
    But 'tis because my father loved thee so, -
    Because my mother's care-worn face would grow
So sweetly placid in thy peaceful ray; -

It may be, that is part of what endears
    Thee, Sabbath, to my soul; for memory stirs
    Old buried thoughts of his voice and of hers -
Heard never more on Earth - till sudden tears

So sadly sweet well up, I bid them flow,
    They leave a Sabbath in the soul when past;
    As when the sky, by April clouds o'ercast,
Shows fairer in the sun's returning glow.

I see the grass-grown lane we trod of old,
    Dear father, sainted mother! while
    The Sabbath sun looked down with loving smile,
And touched the hills and streams with rippling gold.

I hear y...

I.
‘Wait a little,’ you say, ‘you are sure it ’ll all come right,’
But the boy was born i’ trouble, an’ looks so wan an’ so white:
Wait! an’ once I ha’ waited—I hadn’t to wait for long.
Now I wait, wait, wait for Harry.—No, no, you are doing me wrong!
Harry and I were married: the boy can hold up his head,
The boy was born in wedlock, but after my man was dead;
I ha’ work’d for him fifteen years, an’ I work an’ I wait to the end.
I am all alone in the world, an’ you are my only friend.

II.
Doctor, if you can wait, I’ll tell you the tale o’ my life.
When Harry an’ I were children, he call’d me his own little wife;
I was happy when I was with him, an’ sorry when he was away.
An’ when we play’d together, I loved him better than play;
He workt me the daisy chain—he ma...

While I was fearing it, it came,
But came with less of fear,
Because that fearing it so long
Had almost made it dear.
There is a fitting a dismay,
A fitting a despair.
'Tis harder knowing it is due,
Than knowing it is here.
The trying on the utmost,
The morning it is new,
Is terribler than wearing it
A whole existence through.

I strove, like Israel, with my youth,
    And said, "Till thou bestow
Upon my life Love's joy and truth,
    I will not let thee go."

And sudden on my night there woke
    The trouble of the dawn;
Out of the east the red light broke,
    To broaden on and on.

And now let death be far or nigh,
    Let fortune gloom or shine,
I cannot all untimely die,
    For love, for love is mine.

My days are tuned to finer chords,
    And lit by higher suns;
Through all my thoughts and all my words
    A purer purpose runs.

The blank page of my heart grows rife
    With wealth of tender lore;
Her image, stamped upon my life,
    Gives value evermore.

She is so noble, firm, and true,
    I drink truth from her eyes,
...

O daughter of our Southern sun,
Sweet sister of each flower,
Dost dream in terraced Avalon
A shadow-haunted hour?
Or stand with Guinevere upon
Some ivied Camelot tower?

Or in the wind dost breathe the musk
That blows Tintagel's sea on?
Or 'mid the lists by castled Usk
Hear some wild tourney's pæon?
Or 'neath the Merlin moons of dusk
Dost muse in old Cærleon?

Or now of Launcelot, and then
Of Arthur, 'mid the roses,
Dost speak with wily Vivien?
Or where the shade reposes,
Dost walk with stately armored men
In marble-fountained closes?

So speak the dreams within thy gaze.
The dreams thy spirit cages,
Would that Romance, which on thee lays
The spell of bygone ages
Held me! a memory of those days,
A portion of it...

            All night a slow soft rain,
A shadowy stranger from a cloudy land,
Sighing and sobbing, with unsteady hand
    Beat at the lattice, ceased, and beat again,
And fled like some wild startled thing pursued
By demons of the night and solitude,
    Returning ever--wistful--timid--fain--
            The intermittent rain.

            And still the sad hours crept
Within uncounted, the while hopes and fears
Swayed our full hearts, and overflowed in tears
    That fell in silence, as she waked or slept,
Still drawing nearer to that unknown shore
Whence foot of mortal cometh nevermore,
    And still the rain was as a pulse that kept
            Time as the slow hours crept.

            The plummet of the night
Sank through the hollow dark t...

Wine can invest the most disgusting hole
With wonders to our eyes,
And make the fabled porticoes arise
In its red vapour's gold
That show in sunsets seen through hazy skies.

Opium will expand beyond all measures,
Stretch out the limitless,
Will deepen time, make rapture bottomless,
With dismal pleasures
Surfeit the soul to point of helplessness.

But that is nothing to the poison flow
Out of your eyes, those round
Green lakes in which my soul turns upside-down...
To these my dreams all go
At these most bitter gulfs to drink or drown.

But all that is not worth the prodigy
Of your saliva, girl,
That bites my soul, and dizzies it, and swirls
It down remorselessly,
Rolling it, fainting, to the underworld!

There is darkness still, gross darkness, Lord,
On this fair earth of Thine.
There are prisoners still in the prison-house,
Where never a light doth shine.
There are doors still bolted against Thee,
There are faces set like a wall;
And over them all the Shadow of Death
Hangs like a pall.
Do you hear the voices calling,
Out there in the black of the night?
Do you hear the sobs of the women,
Who are barred from the blessed light?
And the children,--the little children,--
Do you hear their pitiful cry?
O brothers, we must seek them,
Or there in the dark they die!

Spread the Light! Spread the Light!
Till earth's remotest bounds have heard
The glory of the Living Word;
Till those that see not have their sight;
Till all the fringes of...

Gods, what a black, fierce day! The clouds were iron,
Wrenched to strange, rugged shapes; the red sun winked
Over the rough crest of the hairy wood
In angry scorn; the grey road twisted, kinked,
Like a sick serpent, seeming to environ
The trees with magic. All the wood was still --

Cracked, crannied pines bent like malicious cripples
Before the gusty wind; they seemed to nose,
Nudge, poke each other, cackling with ill mirth --
Enchantment's days were over -- sh! -- Suppose
That crouching log there, where the white light stipples
Should -- break its quiet! WAS THAT CRIMSON -- EARTH?

It smirched the ground like a lewd whisper, "Danger!" --
I hunched my cloak about me -- then, appalled,
Turned ice and fire by turns -- for -- someone stirred
The brown, dry ...

I.

Tuscara! thou art lovely now,
Thy woods, that frown'd in sullen strength
Like plumage on a giant's brow,
Have bowed their massy pride at length.
The rustling maize is green around,
The sheep is in the Congar's bed;
And clear the ploughman's whistlings sound
Where war-whoop's pealed o'er mangled dead.
Fair cots around thy breast are set,
Like pearls upon a coronet;
And in Aluga's vale below
The gilded grain is moving slow
Like yellow moonlight on the sea,
Where waves are swelling peacefully;
As beauty's breast, when quiet dreams
Come tranquilly and gently by;
When all she loves and hopes for seems
To float in smiles before her eye.

II.

And hast thou lost the grandeur rude
That made me breathless, when at first
...

CLoud-Puffball, torn tufts, tossed pillows | flaunt forth, then chevy on an air-
built thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers, in gay-gangs | they throng; they glitter in marches.
Down roughcast, down dazzling whitewash, | wherever an elm arches,
Shivelights and shadowtackle in long | lashes lace, lance, and pair.
Delightfully the bright wind boisterous | ropes, wrestles, beats earth bare
Of yestertempest's creases; in pool and rut peel parches
Squandering ooze to squeezed | dough, crust, dust; stanches, starches
Squadroned masks and manmarks | treadmire toil there
Footfretted in it. Million-fuelèd, | nature's bonfire burns on.
But quench her bonniest, dearest | to her, her clearest-selvèd spark
Man, how fast his firedint, | his mark on mind, is gone!
Both are in an unfathomable, all is in a...

From The Purgatorio Of Dante, Canto 28, Lines 1-51.


And earnest to explore within - around -
The divine wood, whose thick green living woof
Tempered the young day to the sight - I wound

Up the green slope, beneath the forest's roof,
With slow, soft steps leaving the mountain's steep,
And sought those inmost labyrinths, motion-proof

Against the air, that in that stillness deep
And solemn, struck upon my forehead bare,
The slow, soft stroke of a continuous...

In which the ... leaves tremblingly were
All bent towards that part where earliest
The sacred hill obscures the morning air.

Yet were they not so shaken from the rest,
But that the birds, perched on the utmost spray,
Incessantly renewing their blithe quest,

With per...

Come, let me kiss your wistful face
Where Sorrow curves her bow of pain,
And live sweet days and bitter days
With you, or wanting you again.

I dread your perishable gold:
Come near me now; the years are few.
Alas, when you and I are old
I shall not want to look at you:

And yet come in. I shall not dare
To gaze upon your countenance,
But I shall huddle in my chair,
Turn to the fire my fireless glance,

And listen, while that slow and grave
Immutable sweet voice of yours
Rises and falls, as falls a wave
In summer on forgotten shores.

It's moughty tiahsome layin' 'roun'
Dis sorrer-laden earfly groun',
An' oftentimes I thinks, thinks I,
'T would be a sweet t'ing des to die,
An' go 'long home.

Home whaih de frien's I loved 'll say,
"We've waited fu' you many a day,
Come hyeah an' res' yo'se'f, an' know
You's done wid sorrer an' wid woe,
Now you's at home."

W'en I gits home some blessid day,
I 'lows to th'ow my caihs erway,
An' up an' down de shinin' street,
Go singin' sof' an' low an' sweet,
W'en I gits home.

I wish de day was neah at han',
I's tiahed of dis grievin' lan',
I's tiahed of de lonely yeahs,
I want to des dry up my teahs,
An' go 'long home.

Oh, Mastah, won't you sen' de call?
My frien's is daih, my hope, my all.
I 's waitin' wh...

Now light the candles; one; two; there's a moth;
What silly beggars they are to blunder in
And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame -
No, no, not that, - it's bad to think of war,
When thoughts you've gagged all day come back to scare you;
And it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad
Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts
That drive them out to jabber among the trees.

Now light your pipe; look, what a steady hand,
Draw a deep breath; stop thinking, count fifteen,
And you're as right as rain...
    Why won't it rain? ...
I wish there'd be a thunder-storm to-night,
With bucketsful of water to sluice the dark,
And make the roses hang their dripping heads.

Books; what a jolly company they are,
Standing so quiet and patient on their shelves...

Hearken! now the hermit bee
Drones a quiet threnody;
Greening on the stagnant pool
The criss-cross light is beautiful;
In the venomed yew tree wings
Preen and flit. The linnet sings.

Gradually the brave sun
Sinks to a day's journey done;
In the marshy flats abide
Mists to muffle midnight-tide.
Puffed within the belfry tower
Hungry owls drowse out their hour....

Walk in beauty. Vaunt thy rose.
Flaunt thy poisonous loveliness!
Pace for pace with thee there goes
A shape that hath not come to bless.
I, thine enemy?... Nay, nay!
I can only watch, and wait
Patient treacherous time away,
Hold ajar the wicket gate.

Buy my English posies!
Kent and Surrey may,
Violets of the Undercliff
Wet with Channel spray;
Cowslips from a Devon combe,
Midland furze afire,
Buy my English posies
And I'll sell your heart's desire!

Buy my English posies!
You that scorn the May,
Won't you greet a friend from home
Half the world away?
Green against the draggled drift,
Faint and frail but first,
Buy my Northern blood-root
And I'll know where you were nursed:
Robin down the logging-road whistles, "Come to me!"
Spring has found the maple-grove, the sap is running free.
All the winds of Canada call the ploughing-rain.
Take the flower and turn the hour, and kiss your love again!

Buy my English posies!
Here's to match your need,
Buy a tuft of royal heath,

The days are long and lonely,
    The weary eve comes on,
And the nights are filled with dreaming
    Of one beloved and gone.

I reach out in the darkness
    And clasp but empty air,
For Rutha dear has vanished -
    I wonder, wonder where.

Yet must it be: her nature
    So lovely, pure, and true;
So nearly like the angels,
    Is she an angel too.

The cottage is dismantled
    Of all that made it bright;
Beyond its silent portal
    No love, nor life, nor light.

Where are the hopes I cherished,
    The joys that once I knew,
The dreams, the aspirations?
    All, all are perished too.

Yes, love's dear chain is broken;
    From shore to shore I roam -
No comfort, no companion,
    No happiness, n...