Death

I walked with Maisie long years back
The streets of Camden Town,
I splendid in my suit of black,
And she divine in brown.

Hers was a proud and noble face,
A secret heart, and eyes
Like water in a lonely place
Beneath unclouded skies.

A bed, a chest, a faded mat,
And broken chairs a few,
Were all we had to grace our flat
In Hazel Avenue.

But I could walk to Hampstead Heath,
And crown her head with daisies,
And watch the streaming world beneath,
And men with other Maisies.

When I was ill and she was pale
And empty stood our store,
She left the latchkey on its nail,
And saw me nevermore.

Perhaps she cast herself away
Lest both of us should drown:
Perhaps she feared to die, as they
Who die in Camden ...

If to Tradition faith be due,
And echoes from old verse speak true,
Ere the meek Saint, Columba, bore
Glad tidings to Iona's shore,
No common light of nature blessed
The mountain region of the west,
A land where gentle manners ruled
O'er men in dauntless virtues schooled,
That raised, for centuries, a bar
Impervious to the tide of war;
Yet peaceful Arts did entrance gain
Where haughty Force had striven in vain,
And, 'mid the works of skilful hands,
By wanderers brought from foreign lands
And various climes, was not unknown
The clasp that fixed the Roman Gown;
The Fibula, whose shape, I ween,
Still in the Highland Broach is seen,
Worn at the breast of some grave Dame
On road or path, or at the door
Of fern-thatched Hut on heathy moor:
B...

Reading sometyme, my sorrowes to beguile,
I find old Poets hylls and floods admire:
One, he doth wonder monster-breeding Nyle,
Another meruailes Sulphure Aetnas fire.
Now broad-brymd Indus, then of Pindus height,
Pelion and Ossa, frosty Caucase old,
The Delian Cynthus, then Olympus weight,
Slow Arrer, franticke Gallus, Cydnus cold.
Some Ganges, Ister, and of Tagus tell,
Some whir-poole Po, and slyding Hypasis;
Some old Pernassus where the Muses dwell,
Some Helycon, and some faire Simois:
    A, fooles! thinke I, had you Idea seene,
    Poore Brookes and Banks had no such wonders beene.

From out the dark of death, before the gates
Flung wide, that open into paradise--
More radiant than the white gates of the morn--
A human soul, new-born,
Stood with glad wonder in its luminous eyes,
For all the glory of that blessed place
Flowed thence, and made a halo round the face--
gentle, and strong with the rapt faith that waits
And faints not: sweet with hallowing pain
The face was, as a sunset after rain,
with a grave tender brightness. Now it turned
From the white splendours where God's glory burned,
And the long ranks of quiring cherubim--
Each with wing-shaded eyelids, near the throne,
Who sang--and ceased not--the adoring hymn
Of Holy, Holy! And the cloud of smoke
Went up from the waved censers, with the prayers
Of saints, that wafted outward...

‘Te somnia nostra reducunt.’
OVID.

And ask ye why these sad tears stream?
Why these wan eyes are dim with weeping?
I had a dream–a lovely dream,
Of her that in the grave is sleeping.

I saw her as ’twas yesterday,
The bloom upon her cheek still glowing;
And round her play’d a golden ray,
And on her brows were gay flowers blowing.

With angel-hand she swept a lyre,
A garland red with roses bound it;
Its strings were wreath’d with lambent fire
And amaranth was woven round it.

I saw her mid the realms of light,
In everlasting radiance gleaming;
Co-equal with the seraphs bright,
Mid thousand thousand angels beaming.

I strove to reach her, when, behold,
Those fairy forms of bliss Elysian,
And all that rich scene wrapt...

A harebell hung her wilful head:
"I am tired, so tired! I wish I was dead."

She hung her head in the mossy dell:
"If all were over, then all were well!"

The Wind he heard, and was pitiful,
And waved her about to make her cool.

"Wind, you are rough!" said the dainty Bell;
"Leave me alone--I am not well."

The Wind, at the word of the drooping dame,
Sighed to himself and ceased in shame.

"I am hot, so hot!" she moaned and said;
"I am withering up; I wish I was dead!"

Then the Sun he pitied her woeful case,
And drew a thick veil over his face.

"Cloud go away, and don't be rude,"
She said; "I do not see why you should!"

The Cloud withdrew. Then the Harebell cried,
"I am faint, so faint!--and no water beside!"

Ah, woe is me for pleasure that is vain,
    Ah, woe is me for glory that is past:
    Pleasure that bringeth sorrow at the last,
Glory that at the last bringeth no gain!
So saith the sinking heart; and so again
    It shall say till the mighty angel-blast
    Is blown, making the sun and moon aghast
And showering down the stars like sudden rain.
And evermore men shall go fearfully
    Bending beneath their weight of heaviness;
And ancient men shall lie down wearily,
    And strong men shall rise up in weariness;
Yea, even the young shall answer sighingly
    Saying one to another: How vain it is!

"Ah, where can he linger?" said Doll, with a sigh,
As bearing her milk-burthen home:
"Since he's broken his vow, near an hour has gone by,
So fair as he promis'd to come."
-She'd fain had him notice the loudly-clapt gate,
And fain call'd him up to her song;
But while her stretch'd shade prov'd the omen too late,
Heavy-hearted she mutter'd along.

She look'd and she listen'd, and sigh follow'd sigh,
And jealous thoughts troubled her head;
The skirts of the pasture were losing the eye,
As eve her last finishing spread;
And hope, so endearing, was topmost to see,
As 'tween-light was cheating the view,
Every thing at a distance--a bush, or a tree,
Her love's pleasing picture it drew.

The pasture-gate creak'd, pit-a-pat her heart went,
Fond thrillin...

"Farewell, Romance!" the Cave-men said;
"With bone well carved He went away,
Flint arms the ignoble arrowhead,
And jasper tips the spear to-day.
Changed are the Gods of Hunt and Dance,
And He with these. Farewell, Romance!"

"Farewell, Romance!" the Lake-folk sighed;
"We lift the weight of flatling years;
The caverns of the mountain-side
Hold him who scorns our hutted piers.
Lost hills whereby we dare not dwell,
Guard ye his rest. Romance, farewell!"

"Farewell, Romance!" the Soldier spoke;
"By sleight of sword we may not win,
But scuffle 'mid uncleanly smoke
Of arquebus and culverin.
Honour is lost, and none may tell
Who paid good blows. Romance, farewell!"

"Farewell, Romance!" the Traders cried;
"Our keels have lain with every ...

William Dewy, Tranter Reuben, Farmer Ledlow late at plough,
Robert's kin, and John's, and Ned's,
And the Squire, and Lady Susan, lie in Mellstock churchyard now!

"Gone," I call them, gone for good, that group of local hearts and heads;
Yet at mothy curfew-tide,
And at midnight when the noon-heat breathes it back from walls and leads,

They've a way of whispering to me fellow-wight who yet abide -
In the muted, measured note
Of a ripple under archways, or a lone cave's stillicide:

"We have triumphed: this achievement turns the bane to antidote,
Unsuccesses to success,
- Many thought-worn eves and morrows to a morrow free of thought.

"No more need we corn and clothing, feel of old terrestrial stress;
Chill detraction stirs no sigh;
Fear of death has...

When I would muse in boyhood
The wild green woods among,
And nurse resolves and fancies
Because the world was young,
It was not foes to conquer,
Nor sweethearts to be kind,
But it was friends to die for
That I would seek and find.

I sought them far and found them,
The sure, the straight, the brave,
The hearts I lost my own to,
The souls I could not save.
They braced their belts about them,
They crossed in ships the sea,
They sought and found six feet of ground,
And there they died for me.

She lived in storm and strife,
Her soul had such desire
For what proud death may bring
That it could not endure
The common good of life,
But lived as ’twere a king
That packed his marriage day
With banneret and pennon,
Trumpet and kettledrum,
And the outrageous cannon,
To bundle time away
That the night come.

(Nocturne)



I wayfared at the nadir of the sun
Where populations meet, though seen of none;
And millions seemed to sigh around
As though their haunts were nigh around,
And unknown throngs to cry around
Of things late done.

"O Seers, who well might high ensample show"
(Came throbbing past in plainsong small and slow),
"Leaders who lead us aimlessly,
Teachers who train us shamelessly,
Why let ye smoulder flamelessly
The truths ye trow?

"Ye scribes, that urge the old medicament,
Whose fusty vials have long dried impotent,
Why prop ye meretricious things,
Denounce the sane as vicious things,
And call outworn factitious things
Expedient?

"O Dynasties that sway and shake us so,
Why rank your magnanimities so low...

There is singing of birds in the deep wet woods,
In the heart of the listening solitudes,
Pewees, and thrushes, and sparrows, not few,
And all the notes of their throats are true.

The thrush from the innermost ash takes on
A tender dream of the treasured and gone;
But the sparrow singeth with pride and cheer
Of the might and light of the present and here.

There is shining of flowers in the deep wet woods,
In the heart of the sensitive solitudes,
The roseate bell and the lily are there,
And every leaf of their sheaf is fair.

Careless and bold, without dream of woe,
The trilliums scatter their flags snow;
But the pale wood-daffodil covers her face,
Agloom with the doom of a sorrowful race.

If the sad old world should jump a cog
    Sometime, in its dizzy spinning,
And go off the track with a sudden jog,
    What an end would come to the sinning,
What a rest from strife and the burdens of life
    For the millions of people in it,
What a way out of care, and worry and wear,
    All in a beautiful minute.

As 'round the sun with a curving sweep
    It hurries and runs and races,
Should it lose its balance, and go with a leap
    Into the vast sea-spaces,
What a blest relief it would bring to the grief,
    And the trouble and toil about us,
To be suddenly hurled from the solar world
    And let it go on without us.

With not a sigh or a sad good-bye
    For loved ones left behind us,
We would go with a lunge and a mighty plunge...

In the rapture of life and of living,
    I lift up my heart and rejoice,
And I thank the great Giver for giving
    The soul of my gladness a voice.
In the glow of the glorious weather,
    In the sweet-scented, sensuous air,
My burdens seem light as a feather -
    They are nothing to bear.

In the strength and the glory of power,
    In the pride and the pleasure of wealth
(For who dares dispute me my dower
    Of talents and youth-time and health?),
I can laugh at the world and its sages -
    I am greater than seers who are sad,
For he is most wise in all ages
    Who knows how to be glad.

I lift up my eyes to Apollo,
    The god of the beautiful days,
And my spirit soars off like a swallow,
    And is lost in the light of its ra...

I' mi soglio accusare, ed or mi scuso.

HE GLORIES IN HIS LOVE.


    I now excuse myself who wont to blame,
Nay, more, I prize and even hold me dear,
For this fair prison, this sweet-bitter shame,
Which I have borne conceal'd so many a year.
O envious Fates! that rare and golden frame
Rudely ye broke, where lightly twined and clear,
Yarn of my bonds, the threads of world-wide fame
Which lovely 'gainst his wont made Death appear.
For not a soul was ever in its days
Of joy, of liberty, of life so fond,
That would not change for her its natural ways,
Preferring thus to suffer and despond,
Than, fed by hope, to sing in others' praise,
Content to die, or live in such a bond.

MACGREGOR.

Shrieks out of smoke, a flame of dung-straw fire
    That is not quenched but hath for only fruit
    What writhes and dies not in its rotten root:
Two things made flesh, the visible desire
To match in filth the skunk, the ape in ire, {87a}
    Mouthing before the mirrors with wild foot
    Beyond all feebler footprint of pursuit,
The perfect twanger of the Chinese lyre!
A heart with generous virtues run to seed
In vices making all a jumbled creed:
    A soul that knows not love nor trust nor shame,
But cuts itself with knives to bawl and bleed -
    If thou we've known of late, art still the same,
    What need, O soul, to sign thee with thy name?

Once on thy lips the golden-honeyed bees
    Settling made sweet the heart that was not strong,
    And sky...