Death

(On a certain goddess, acclaimed as "new" but known in Babylon.)

I saw the assembled artists of our day
    Waiting for light, for music and for song.
A woman stood before them, fresh as May
    And beautiful; but, in that modish throng,

None heeded her. They said, "In our first youth
    Surely, long since, your hair was touched with grey."
"I do not change," she answered. "I am Truth."
    "Old and banal," they sneered, and turned away.

Then came a formless thing, with breasts dyed scarlet.
    The roses in her hair were green and blue.
        "I am new," she said. "I change, and
            Death knows why."

Then with the eyes and gesture of a harlot
    She led them all forth, whinneying, "New, how new!
        Tell us your name!...

    Approaching now the end of his abode
    On earth, Consalvo lay; complaining once,
    Of his hard fate, but now quite reconciled,
    When, in the midst of his fifth lustre, o'er
    His head oblivion, so longed-for, hung.
    As for some time, so, on his dying day,
    He lay, abandoned by his dearest friends:
    For in the world, few friends to him will cling,
    Who shows that he is weary of the world.
    Yet she was at his side, by pity led,
    In his lone wretchedness to comfort him,
    Who was alone and ever in his thought;
    Elvira, for her loveliness renowned;
    And knowing well her power; that a look,
    A single sweet and gracious word from her,
    A thousand-fold repeated in the heart,
    Devoted, of her hapless...

Spirit whose work is done! spirit of dreadful hours!
Ere, departing, fade from my eyes your forests of bayonets;
Spirit of gloomiest fears and doubts, (yet onward ever unfaltering pressing;)
Spirit of many a solemn day, and many a savage scene!
Electric spirit!
That with muttering voice, through the war now closed, like a tireless phantom flitted,
Rousing the land with breath of flame, while you beat and beat the drum;
Now, as the sound of the drum, hollow and harsh to the last, reverberates round me;
As your ranks, your immortal ranks, return, return from the battles;
While the muskets of the young men yet lean over their shoulders;
While I look on the bayonets bristling over their shoulders;
While those slanted bayonets, whole forests of them, appearing in the distance, approach and...

I
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.

Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro' the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.

By the margin, willow veil'd,
Slide the heavy barges trail'd
By slow horses; and unhail'd
The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd
Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her w...

    Oh! why should sorrow wound the heart,
        And rob the soul of rest?
    Why is misfortune's bitter dart
        Allowed to pierce the breast?

    We dare not ask; 'tis heaven's decree,
        While faring here below,
    Man's bark is tossed upon the sea
        Of trouble, grief and woe.

    But Mercy holdeth forth a light
        Upon the waves to shine,
    And cheer him in the darkest night, -
        The star of Hope divine.

    Enabled thus, he looks before,
        And sees, Oh! joyful sight!
    The waves subside, the storm is o'er,
        The sky is clear and bright.

    What comfort 'tis when cares annoy
        To know they are from One
    Whose hand dispenses peace and joy
        As well as grief ...

The story of the following ballad was related to me, when a school boy, as a fact which had really happened in the North of England. I have adopted the metre of Mr. Lewis's Alonzo and Imogene--a poem deservedly popular.


MARY.

I.

Who is she, the poor Maniac, whose wildly-fix'd eyes
    Seem a heart overcharged to express?
She weeps not, yet often and deeply she sighs,
She never complains, but her silence implies
    The composure of settled distress.


II.

No aid, no compassion the Maniac will seek,
    Cold and hunger awake not her care:
Thro' her rags do the winds of the winter blow bleak
On her poor withered bosom half bare, and her cheek
    Has the deathy pale hue of despair.


III.

Yet chearful and happy,...

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)

    The moon's an open furnace door
    Where all can see the blast,
    We shovel in our blackest griefs,
    Upon that grate are cast
    Our aching burdens, loves and fears
    And underneath them wait
    Paper and tar and pitch and pine
    Called strife and blood and hate.

    Out of it all there comes a flame,
    A splendid widening light.
    Sorrow is turned to mystery
    And Death into delight.

SPRING

A sudden softness in the wind;
    A glint of song, a-wing;
A fragrant sound that trails behind,
    And joy in everything.

A sudden flush upon the cheek,
    The teardrop quick to start;
A hope too delicate to speak,
    And heaven within the heart.

SUMMER

A riotous dawn and the sea's great wonder;
    The red, red heart of a rose uncurled;
And beauty tearing her veil asunder,
    In sight of a swooning world.

A call of the soul, and the senses blended;
    The Springtime lost in the glow of the sun,
And two lives rushing, as God intended,
    To meet and mingle as one.

AUTUMN

The world is out in gala dress;
    And yet it is not gay.
Its splendour hides a loneliness
    For someth...

I might as well be king of rainy lands
Wealthy and young, but impotent and old,
Who scorns the troupe of tutors at his feet
And dallies with his dogs and other beasts.
Nothing can cheer him - game or falconry
Not even subjects dying at his door.
The comic jingles of the court buffoon
Do not amuse this twisted invalid.
His regal bed is nothing but a tomb,
And courtesans, who dote on any prince,
No longer have the antics or the clothes
To get a smile from this young rack of bones.
The alchemist who made him gold cannot
Attend his soul and extirpate the flaw;
Nor in those baths of blood the Romans claimed
Would bring an old man's body youthful force,
Can scholar's knowledge bring to life a corpse
With Lethe's putrid water in its veins.

Far in the purple valleys of illusion
I see her waiting, like the soul of music,
With deep eyes, lovelier than cerulean pansies,
Shadow and fire, yet merciless as poison;
With red lips sweeter than Arabian storax,
Yet bitterer than myrrh. O tears and kisses!
O eyes and lips, that haunt my soul for ever!
Again Spring walks transcendent on the mountains:
The woods are hushed: the vales are blue with shadows:
Above the heights, steeped in a thousand splendours,
Like some vast canvas of the gods, hangs burning
The sunset's wild sciography: and slowly
The moon treads heaven's proscenium, night's stately
White queen of love and tragedy and madness.
Again I know forgotten dreams and longings;
Ideals lost; desires dead and buried
Beside the altar sacrifice erected

(In a Style Skeltonical)

Listen now this time
Shortly to my rhyme
That herewith starts
About certain kind hearts
In those stricken parts
That lie behind Calais,
Old crones and aged men
And young children.
About the Picardais,
Who earned my thousand thanks,
Dwellers by the banks
Of mournful Somme
(God keep me therefrom
Until War ends),
These, then, are my friends:
Madame Averlant Lune,
From the town of Bethune;
Good Professeur la Brune
From that town also.
He played the piccolo,
And left his locks to grow.
Dear Madame Hojdes,
Sempstress of Saint Fe.
With Jules and Susette
And Antoinette.
Her children, my sweethearts,
For whom I made darts
Of paper to throw
In their mimic show,
"La guerr...

How good some years of life may be!
Ah, once it was not guessed by me,
Past years would shine, like some bright sea,
In golden dusks of memory.

Ere then the music of the dawn
From me had long since surged away;
And in the disillusioned day
Of chill mid-life I plodded on.

Anon a fuller music thrilled
My world with meaning undertones,
That elegized our vanished ones,
And told how Lethe's banks are filled

With wordless calm, and wistful rest,
And sweet large silence, solemn sleep,
And brooding shadows cool and deep,
And grand oblivions, undistressed.

No more 'twas "Lethe rolling doom,"
But Lethe calling, "Come to me,
And wash away all memory
And taint of what precedes the tomb;

And know the changeless afterthought...

A light departed from the hearth of home,
    Leaving a shadow where its radiance shone, -
A flower just bursting into life and bloom,
    Lopped from its stem, the bower left sad and lone, -
A golden link dropped from love's precious chain, -
    Gem from affection's sacred casket riven, -
Of music's richest tones a missing strain, -
    A bird-note hushed in the blue summer heaven!

That light is gathered to its Source again,
    Though long its radiance will be missed on earth,
That flower, transplanted to a sunnier plain,
    Bloometh immortal where no blight has birth;
That missing link gleams in Love's chain above, -
    That lost gem sparkles on the Saviour's breast, -
That music-uttrance, tuned to holier love,
    Swells richly 'mid the anthems of the ...

1.
Ye who intelligent the Third Heaven move,
Hear the discourse which is within my heart,
Which cannot be declared, it seems so new.
The Heaven whose course follows your power and art,
Oh, gentle creatures that ye are! me drew,
And therefore may I dare to speak to you,
Even of the life which now I live - and yet
I pray that ye will hear me when I cry,
And tell of mine own heart this novelty;
How the lamenting Spirit moans in it,
And how a voice there murmurs against her
Who came on the refulgence of your sphere.

2.
A sweet Thought, which was once the life within
This heavy heart, man a time and oft
Went up before our Father's feet, and there
It saw a glorious Lady throned aloft;
And its sweet talk of her my soul did win,
So that I said, 'T...

The Desert is parched in the burning sun
And the grass is scorched and white.
But the sand is passed, and the march is done,
We are camping here to-night.
    I sit in the shade of the Temple walls,
    While the cadenced water evenly falls,
    And a peacock out of the Jungle calls
    To another, on yonder tomb.
    Above, half seen, in the lofty gloom,
    Strange works of a long dead people loom,
Obscene and savage and half effaced -
An elephant hunt, a musicians' feast -
And curious matings of man and beast;
What did they mean to the men who are long since dust?
    Whose fingers traced,
    In this arid waste,
These rioting, twisted, figures of love and lust.

Strange, weird things that no man may say,
Things Humanity hides away; -
  ...

The rabbit in his burrow keeps
No guarded watch, in peace he sleeps;
The wolf that howls in challenging night
Cowers to her lair at morning light;
The simplest bird entwines a nest
Where she may lean her lovely breast,
Couched in the silence of the bough.
But thou, O man, what rest hast thou?

Thy emptiest solitude can bring
Only a subtler questioning
In thy divided heart. Thy bed
Recalls at dawn what midnight said.
Seek how thou wilt to feign content,
Thy flaming ardour's quickly spent;
Soon thy last company is gone,
And leaves thee - with thyself - alone.

Pomp and great friends may hem thee round,
A thousand busy tasks be found;
Earth's thronging beauties may beguile
Thy longing lovesick heart awhile;
And pride, like clouds of ...

Dark is the morning with mist; in the narrow mouth of the harbor
    Motionless lies the sea, under its curtain of cloud;
Dreamily glimmer the sails of ships on the distant horizon,
    Like to the towers of a town, built on the verge of the sea.

Slowly and stately and still, they sail forth into the ocean;
    With them sail my thoughts over the limitless deep,
Farther and farther away, borne on by unsatisfied longings,
    Unto Hesperian isles, unto Ausonian shores.

Now they have vanished away, have disappeared in the ocean;
    Sunk are the towers of the town into the depths of the sea!
AU have vanished but those that, moored in the neighboring roadstead,
    Sailless at anchor ride, looming so large in the mist.

Vanished, too, are the thoughts, the dim, unsa...

I.

Pessimist

There is never a thing we dream or do
But was dreamed and done in the ages gone;
Everything's old; there is nothing that's new,
And so it will be while the world goes on.

The thoughts we think have been thought before;
The deeds we do have long been done;
We pride ourselves on our love and lore
And both are as old as the moon and sun.

We strive and struggle and swink and sweat,
And the end for each is one and the same;
Time and the sun and the frost and wet
Will wear from its pillar the greatest name.

No answer comes for our prayer or curse,
No word replies though we shriek in air;
Ever the taciturn universe
Stretches unchanged for our curse or prayer.

With our mind's small light in the dark we crawl,<...