Death

Oh that Pieria's spring[1] would thro' my breast
Pour its inspiring influence, and rush
No rill, but rather an o'erflowing flood!
That, for my venerable Father's sake
All meaner themes renounced, my Muse, on wings
Of Duty borne, might reach a loftier strain.
For thee, my Father! howsoe'er it please,
She frames this slender work, nor know I aught,
That may thy gifts more suitably requite;
Though to requite them suitably would ask
Returns much nobler, and surpassing far
The meagre stores of verbal gratitude.
But, such as I possess, I send thee all.
This page presents thee in their full amount
With thy son's treasures, and the sum is nought;
Naught, save the riches that from airy dreams
In secret grottos and in laurel bow'rs,
I have, by golden Cli...

Now is the time for mirth,
Nor cheek or tongue be dumb;
For with the flow'ry earth
The golden pomp is come.

The golden pomp is come;
For now each tree does wear,
Made of her pap and gum,
Rich beads of amber here.

Now reigns the rose, and now
Th' Arabian dew besmears
My uncontrolled brow
And my retorted hairs.

Homer, this health to thee,
In sack of such a kind
That it would make thee see
Though thou wert ne'er so blind.

Next, Virgil I'll call forth
To pledge this second health
In wine, whose each cup's worth
An Indian commonwealth.

A goblet next I'll drink
To Ovid, and suppose,
Made he the pledge, he'd think
The world had all one nose.

Then this immensive cup
Of aromatic wine,

Poet, a truce to your song!
Have you heard the heart sing?
Like a brook among trees,
Like the humming of bees,
Like the ripple of wine:
Had you heard, would you stay
Blowing bubbles so long?
You have ears for the spheres -
Have you heard the heart sing?

*            *            *            *            *

Have you loved the good books of the world, -
And written none?
Have you loved the great poet, -
And burnt your little rhyme?
'O be my friend, and teach me to be thine.'

*            *            *            *            *

By many hands the work of God is done,
Swart toil, pale thought, flushed dream, he spurneth none:
Yea! and the weaver of a little rhyme
Is seen his worker in his own full time.

The songs Love sang to us are dead:
Yet shall he sing to us again,
When the dull days are wrapped in lead,
And the red woodland drips with rain.

The lily of our love is gone,
That touched our spring with golden scent;
Now in the garden low upon
The wind-stripped way its stalk is bent.

Our rose of dreams is passed away,
That lit our summer with sweet fire;
The storm beats bare each thorny spray,
And its dead leaves are trod in mire.

The songs Love sang to us are dead;
Yet shall he sing to us again,
When the dull days are wrapped in lead,
And the red woodland drips with rain.

The marigold of memory
Shall fill our autumn then with glow;
Haply its bitterness will be
Sweeter than love of long ago.

The cypress of for...

Serene, indifferent of Fate,
Thou sittest at the Western Gate;

Upon thy height, so lately won,
Still slant the banners of the sun;

Thou seest the white seas strike their tents,
O Warder of two continents!

And, scornful of the peace that flies
Thy angry winds and sullen skies,

Thou drawest all things, small, or great,
To thee, beside the Western Gate.

O lion’s whelp, that hidest fast
In jungle growth of spire and mast!

I know thy cunning and thy greed,
Thy hard high lust and willful deed,

And all thy glory loves to tell
Of specious gifts material.

Drop down, O Fleecy Fog, and hide
Her skeptic sneer and all her pride!

Wrap her, O Fog, in gown and hood
Of her Franciscan Brotherhood.

H...

- Placidâque ibi demum morte quievit.—Virg.


There calm at length he breathed his soul away.


“O most delightful hour by man
Experienced here below,
The hour that terminates his span,
His folly and his woe!


“Worlds should not bribe me back to tread
Again life’s dreary waste,
To see again my day o’erspread
With all the gloomy past.


“My home henceforth is in the skies,
Earth, seas, and sun, adieu!
All heaven unfolded to my eyes,
I have no sight for you.”


So spake Aspasio, firm possess’d
Of faith’s supporting rod,
Then breathed his soul into its rest,
The bosom of his God.


He was a man among the few
Sincere on virtue’s side;
And all his strength from Scripture drew,
To ...

I.

An empty sky, a world of heather,
Purple of foxglove, yellow of broom;
We two among them wading together,
Shaking out honey, treading perfume.

Crowds of bees are giddy with clover,
Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet,
Crowds of larks at their matins hang over,
Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet.

Flusheth the rise with her purple favor,
Gloweth the cleft with her golden ring,
'Twixt the two brown butterflies waver,
Lightly settle, and sleepily swing.

We two walk till the purple dieth
And short dry grass under foot is brown.
But one little streak at a distance lieth
Green like a ribbon to prank the down.


II.

Over the grass we stepped unto it,
And God He knoweth how blithe we were!
Never a vo...

And if you meet the Canon of Chimay,
    As going to Ortaise you well may do,
Greet him from John of Castel Neuf, and say
    All that I tell you, for all this is true.

This Geffray Teste Noire was a Gascon thief,
    Who, under shadow of the English name,
Pilled all such towns and countries as were lief
    To King Charles and St. Denis; thought it blame

If anything escaped him; so my lord,
    The Duke of Berry, sent Sir John Bonne Lance,
And other knights, good players with the sword,
    To check this thief, and give the land a chance.

Therefore we set our bastides round the tower
    That Geffray held, the strong thief! like a king,
High perch'd upon the rock of Ventadour,
    Hopelessly strong by Christ! It was mid spring,

When fi...

Around the castle turrets fiercely moaned the autumn blast,
And within the old lords daughter seemed dying, dying fast;
While o'er her couch in frenzied grief the stricken father bent,
And in deep sobs and stifled moans his anguish wild found vent.

"Oh cheer thee up, my daughter dear, my Maude, he softly said,
As tremblingly he strove to raise that young and drooping head;
'I'll deck thee out in jewels rare in robes of silken sheen,
Till thou shalt be as rich and gay as any crowned queen."

"Ah, never, never!" sighed the girl, and her pale cheek paler grew,
While marble brow and chill white hands were bathed in icy dew;
"Look in my face - there thou wilt read such hopes are folly all,
No garment shall I wear again, save shroud and funeral pall."

"My Maude thou'rt...

i.

O thou refulgent essence of all grace!
    O thou that with the witchery of thy face
Hast made of me thy servant unto death,
I pray thee pause, ere, musical of breath,
And rapt of utterance, thou condemn indeed
My venturous wooing, and the wanton speed
    With which I greet thee, dear and tender soul!
From out the fullness of my passion-creed.


ii.

I am so truly thine that nevermore
    Shall man be found, this side the Stygian shore,
So meek as I, so patient under blame,
And yet, withal, so minded to proclaim
His life-long ardour. For my theme is just:
A heart enslaved, a smile, a broken trust,
    A soft mirage, a glimpse of fairyland,
And then the wreck thereof in tears and dust.


iii.

Thou wast not...

The year grows still again, the surging wake
Of full-sailed summer folds its furrows up,
As after passing of an argosy
Old Silence settles back upon the sea,
And ocean grows as placid as a cup.
Spring, the young morn, and Summer, the strong noon,
Have dreamed and done and died for Autumn's sake:
Autumn that finds not for a loss so dear
Solace in stack and garner hers too soon -
Autumn, the faithful widow of the year.

Autumn, a poet once so full of song,
Wise in all rhymes of blossom and of bud,
Hath lost the early magic of his tongue,
And hath no passion in his failing blood.
Hear ye no sound of sobbing in the air?
'Tis his. Low bending in a secret lane,
Late blooms of second childhood in his hair,
He tries old magic, like a dotard mage;
Tries ...

Why do you harbour that great cheval-glass
    Filling up your narrow room?
    You never preen or plume,
Or look in a week at your full-length figure -
    Picture of bachelor gloom!

"Well, when I dwelt in ancient England,
    Renting the valley farm,
    Thoughtless of all heart-harm,
I used to gaze at the parson's daughter,
    A creature of nameless charm.

"Thither there came a lover and won her,
    Carried her off from my view.
    O it was then I knew
Misery of a cast undreamt of -
    More than, indeed, my due!

"Then far rumours of her ill-usage
    Came, like a chilling breath
    When a man languisheth;
Followed by news that her mind lost balance,
    And, in a space, of her death.

"Soon sank her father; an...

Keen in his blood ran the old mad desire
To right the world's wrongs and champion truth;
Deep in his eyes shone a heaven-lit fire,
And royal and radiant day-dreams of youth!

Gracious was he to both beggar and stranger,
And for a rose tossed from fair finger-tips
He would have ridden hard-pressed through all danger,
The rose on his heart and a song on his lips!

All the king's foes he counted his foemen;
His not to say that a cause could be lost;
Spirits like his faced the enemies' bowmen
On long vanished fields - nor counted the cost.

Wide was his out-look and far was his vision;
Soul-fretting trifles he sent down the wind;
Small griefs gained only his cheerful derision, -
God's weather always was fair to his mind.

But he would comfort a...

"Give me my bow," said Robin Hood,
"An arrow give to me;
And where 't is shot mark thou that spot,
For there my grave shall be."

Then Little John did make no sign,
And not a word he spake;
But he smiled, altho' with mickle woe
His heart was like to break.

He raised his master in his arms,
And set him on his knee;
And Robin's eyes beheld the skies,
The shaws, the greenwood tree.

The brook was babbling as of old,
The birds sang full and clear,
And the wild-flowers gay like a carpet lay
In the path of the timid deer.

"O Little John," said Robin Hood,
"Meseemeth now to be
Standing with you so stanch and true
Under the greenwood tree.

"And all around I hear the sound
Of Sherwood long ago,
And my merry men ...

Lilies will languish; violets look ill;
Sickly the primrose; pale the daffodil;
That gallant tulip will hang down his head,
Like to a virgin newly ravished;
Pansies will weep, and marigolds will wither,
And keep a fast and funeral together;
Sappho droop, daisies will open never,
But bid good-night, and close their lids for ever.

Time is a thief who leaves his tools behind him;
He comes by night, he vanishes at dawn;
We track his footsteps, but we never find him
Strong locks are broken, massive bolts are drawn,

And all around are left the bars and borers,
The splitting wedges and the prying keys,
Such aids as serve the soft-shod vault-explorers
To crack, wrench open, rifle as they please.

Ah, these are tools which Heaven in mercy lends us
When gathering rust has clenched our shackles fast,
Time is the angel-thief that Nature sends us
To break the cramping fetters of our past.

Mourn as we may for treasures he has taken,
Poor as we feel of hoarded wealth bereft,
More precious are those implements forsaken,
Found in the wreck his ruthless hands have left.

Some leve...

    The damsel from the field returns,
    The sun is sinking in the west;
    Her bundle on her head she sets,
    And in her hand she bears
    A bunch of roses and of violets.
    To-morrow is a holiday,
    And she, as usual, must them wear
    Upon her bodice, in her hair.
    The old crone sits among her mates,
    Upon the stairs, and spins;
    And, looking at the fading light,
    Of good old-fashioned times she prates,
    When she, too, dressed for holidays,
    And with light heart, and limb as light,
    Would dance at night
    With the companions of her merry days.
    The twilight shades around us close,
    The sky to deepest blue is turned;
    From hills and roofs the shadows fall,
    And the new moon her face of silver shows...

How steep the stairs within King's houses are
For exile-wearied feet as mine to tread,
And O how salt and bitter is the bread
Which falls from this Hound's table, - better far
That I had died in the red ways of war,
Or that the gate of Florence bare my head,
Than to live thus, by all things comraded
Which seek the essence of my soul to mar.

'Curse God and die:    what better hope than this?
He hath forgotten thee in all the bliss
Of his gold city, and eternal day' -
Nay peace:    behind my prison's blinded bars
I do possess what none can take away,
My love and all the glory of the stars.