Death

Spring.

Another four I've left yet to bring on,
Of four times four the last Quarternion
The Winter, Summer, Autumn & the Spring,
In season all these Seasons I shall bring:
Sweet Spring like man in his Minority,
At present claim'd, and had priority.
With smiling face and garments somewhat green,
She trim'd her locks, which late had frosted been,
Nor hot nor cold, she spake, but with a breath,
Fit to revive, the nummed earth from death.
Three months (quoth she) are 'lotted to my share
March, April, May of all the rest most fair.
Tenth of the first, Sol into Aries enters,
And bids defiance to all tedious winters,
Crosseth the Line, and equals night and day,
(Stil adds to th' last til after pleasant May)
And now makes glad the darkned nothern...

There is a quiet spirit in these woods,
That dwells where'er the gentle south wind blows;
Where, underneath the whitethorn, in the glade,
The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,
The leaves above their sunny palms outspread.
With what a tender and impassioned voice
It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought,
When the fast-ushering star of morning comes
O'er-riding the grey hills with golden scarf;
Or when the cowled and dusky-sandalled Eve,
In mourning weeds, from out the western gate,
Departs with silent pace!    That spirit moves
In the green valley, where the silver brook,
From its full laver, pours the white cascade;
And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,
Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.
And frequent, on the everla...

The Minstrels played their Christmas tune
To-night beneath my cottage-eaves;
While, smitten by a lofty moon,
The encircling laurels, thick with leaves,
Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen,
That overpowered their natural green.

Through hill and valley every breeze
Had sunk to rest with folded wings:
Keen was the air, but could not freeze,
Nor check, the music of the strings;
So stout and hardy were the band
That scraped the chords with strenuous hand;

And who but listened? till was paid
Respect to every Inmate's claim:
The greeting given, the music played,
In honour of each household name,
Duly pronounced with lusty call,
And "merry Christmas" wished to all!

O Brother! I revere the choice
That took thee from thy native hills;

I love the fitful gust that shakes
The casement all the day,
And from the glossy elm tree takes
The faded leaves away,
Twirling them by the window pane
With thousand others down the lane.

I love to see the shaking twig
Dance till the shut of eve,
The sparrow on the cottage rig,
Whose chirp would make believe
That Spring was just now flirting by
In Summer's lap with flowers to lie.

I love to see the cottage smoke
Curl upwards through the trees,
The pigeons nestled round the cote
On November days like these;
The cock upon the dunghill crowing,
The mill sails on the heath a-going.

The feather from the raven's breast
Falls on the stubble lea,
The acorns near the old crow's nest
Drop pattering down the tree;
The grunt...

All night long the sea out yonder all night long the wailful sea,
Vext of winds and many thunders, seeketh rest unceasingly!
Seeketh rest in dens of tempest, where, like one distraught with pain,
Shouts the wild-eyed sprite, Confusion seeketh rest, and moans in vain:
Ah! but you should hear it calling, calling when the haggard sky
Takes the darks and damps of Winter with the mournful marsh-fowl’s cry;
Even while the strong, swift torrents from the rainy ridges come
Leaping down and breaking backwards million-coloured shapes of foam!
Then, and then, the sea out yonder chiefly looketh for the boon
Portioned to the pleasant valleys and the grave sweet summer moon:
Boon of Peace, the still, the saintly spirit of the dew-dells deep
Yellow dells and hollows haunted by the soft, dim dreams o...

1.
Dares the lama, most fleet of the sons of the wind,
The lion to rouse from his skull-covered lair?
When the tiger approaches can the fast-fleeting hind
Repose trust in his footsteps of air?
No! Abandoned he sinks in a trance of despair,
The monster transfixes his prey,
On the sand flows his life-blood away;
Whilst India's rocks to his death-yells reply,
Protracting the horrible harmony.

2.
Yet the fowl of the desert, when danger encroaches,
Dares fearless to perish defending her brood,
Though the fiercest of cloud-piercing tyrants approaches
Thirsting - ay, thirsting for blood;
And demands, like mankind, his brother for food;
Yet more lenient, more gentle than they;
For hunger, not glory, the prey
Must perish. Revenge does not howl in the de...

I.

The shivering wind sits in the oaks, whose limbs,
Twisted and tortured, nevermore are still;
Grief and decay sit with it; they, whose chill
Autumnal touch makes hectic-red the rims
Of all the oak leaves; desolating, dims
The ageratum's blue that banks the rill;
And splits the milkweed's pod upon the hill,
And shakes it free of the last seed that swims.
Down goes the day despondent to its close:
And now the sunset's hands of copper build
A tower of brass, behind whose burning bars
The day, in fierce, barbarian repose,
Like some imprisoned Inca sits, hate-filled,
Crowned with the gold corymbus of the stars.

II.

There is a booming in the forest boughs;
Tremendous feet seem trampling through the trees:
The storm is at his wildman rev...

'Lady Jane, O Lady Jane!
Your hound hath broken bounds again,
    And chased my timorous deer, O;
    If him I see,
    That hour he'll dee;
    My brakes shall be his bier, O.'

'Lord Aërie, Lord Aërie,
My hound, I trow, is fleet and free,
    He's welcome to your deer, O;
    Shoot, shoot you may,
    He'll gang his way,
    Your threats we nothing fear, O.'

He's fetched him in, he's fetched him in,
Gone all his swiftness, all his din,
    White fang, and glowering eye, O:
    'Here is your beast,
    And now at least
    My herds in peace shall lie, O.'

"In peace!" my lord, O mark me well!
For what my jolly hound befell
    You shall sup twenty-fold, O!
    For every tooth
    Of his, i'sooth,
    A stag i...

I.

    The forest flowers are faded all,
    The winds complain, the snow-flakes fall,
                Elëanore!
    I turn to thee, as to a bower: -
    Thou breathest beauty like a flower,
    Thou smilest like a happy hour,
                Elëanore!


II.

    I turn to thee. I bless afar
    Thy name, which is my guiding-star,
                Elëanore!
    And yet, ah God! when thou art here
    I faint, I hold my breath for fear.
    Art thou some phantom wandering near,
                Elëanore?


III.

    Oh, take me to thy bosom fair;
    Oh, cover me with thy golden hair,
                Elëanore!
    There let me lie when I am dead,
    Those morning beams about me spread,
    The glo...

In the world's whitest morning
As hoary with hope,
The Builder of Bridges
Was priest and was pope:
And the mitre of mystery
And the canopy his,
Who darkened the chasms
And domed the abyss.

To eastward and westward
Spread wings at his word
The arch with the key-stone
That stoops like a bird;
That rides the wild air
And the daylight cast under;
The highway of danger,
The gateway of wonder.

Of his throne were the thunders
That rivet and fix
Wild weddings of strangers
That meet and not mix;
The town and the cornland;
The bride and the groom:
In the breaking of bridges
Is treason and doom.

But he bade us, who fashion
The road that can fly,
That we build not too heavy
And build not too high:

How heavy do I journey on the way,
When what I seek, my weary travel’s end,
Doth teach that ease and that repose to say,
‘Thus far the miles are measured from thy friend!’
The beast that bears me, tired with my woe,
Plods dully on, to bear that weight in me,
As if by some instinct the wretch did know
His rider lov’d not speed, being made from thee:
The bloody spur cannot provoke him on,
That sometimes anger thrusts into his hide,
Which heavily he answers with a groan,
More sharp to me than spurring to his side;
For that same groan doth put this in my mind,
My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.

Don’t mind me, I beg you, old fellow, I’ll do very well here alone;
You must not be kept from your “German” because I’ve dropped in like a stone.
Leave all ceremony behind you, leave all thought of aught but yourself;
And leave, if you like, the Madeira, and a dozen cigars on the shelf.

As for me, you will say to your hostess well, I scarcely need give you a cue.
Chant my praise! All will list to Apollo, though Mercury pipe to a few.
Say just what you please, my dear boy; there’s more eloquence lies in youth’s rash
Outspoken heart-impulse than ever growled under this grizzling mustache.

Go, don the dress coat of our tyrant, youth’s panoplied armor for fight,
And tie the white neckcloth that rumples, like pleasure, and lasts but a night;
And pray the Nine Gods to avert you what ...

Years, years ago, ere yet my dreams
    Had been of being wise and witty,
Ere I had done with writing themes,
    Or yawn'd o'er this infernal Chitty;
Years, years ago, while all my joy
    Was in my fowling-piece and filly:
In short, while I was yet a boy,
    I fell in love with Laura Lily.

I saw her at the county ball;
    There, when the sounds of flute and fiddle
Gave signal sweet in that old hall
    Of hands across and down the middle,
Hers was the subtlest spell by far
    Of all that set young hearts romancing:
She was our queen, our rose, our star;
    And when she danced, O Heaven, her dancing!

Dark was her hair, her hand was white;
    Her voice was exquisitely tender,
Her eyes were full of liquid light;
    I never saw a...

Across bleak widths of broken sea
A fierce north-easter breaks,
And makes a thunder on the lea
A whiteness of the lakes.
Here, while beyond the rainy stream
The wild winds sobbing blow,
I see the river of my dream
Four wasted years ago.

Narrara of the waterfalls,
The darling of the hills,
Whose home is under mountain walls
By many-luted rills!
Her bright green nooks and channels cool
I never more may see;
But, ah! the Past was beautiful
The sights that used to be.

There was a rock-pool in a glen
Beyond Narrara’s sands;
The mountains shut it in from men
In flowerful fairy lands;
But once we found its dwelling-place
The lovely and the lone
And, in a dream, I stooped to trace
Our names upon a stone.

Above ...

There are not many sins when once we sift them.
In actions of evolving human souls
Striving to reach high goals
And falling backward into dust and mire,
Some element we find that seems to lift them
Above our condemnation - even higher
Into the realm of pity and compassion.
So beauteous a thing as love itself can fashion
A chain of sins; descending to desire,
It wanders into dangerous paths, and leads
To most unholy deeds,
And light-struck, walks in madness toward the night.

Wrong oft-times is an over-ripened right,
A rank weed grown from some neglected flower,
The lightning uncontrolled:    flames meant for joy
And beauty, used to ravage and destroy.
For sins like these repentance can atone.
There is one sin alone
Which seems all unforgivable, ...

Hear me, O beeches! You
That have with ageless anguish slowly risen
From earth's still secret prison
Into the ampler prison of aery blue.
Your voice I hear, flowing the valleys through
After the wind that tramples from the west.
After the wind your boughs in new unrest
Shake, and your voice--one voice uniting voices
A thousand or a thousand thousand--flows
Like the wind's moody; glad when he rejoices
In swift-succeeding and diminishing blows,
And drooping when declines death's ardour in his breast;
Then over him exhausted weaving the soft fan-like noises
Of gentlest creaking stems and soothing leaves
Until he rest,
And silent too your easied bosom heaves.

That high and noble wind is rootless nor
From stable earth sucks nurture, but roams on
Chi...

As the voice of the watch to the mariner's dream,
As the footstep of Spring on the ice-girdled stream,
There comes a soft footstep, a whisper, to me, -
The vision is over, - the rivulet free.

We have trod from the threshold of turbulent March,
Till the green scarf of April is hung on the larch,
And down the bright hillside that welcomes the day,
We hear the warm panting of beautiful May.

We will part before Summer has opened her wing,
And the bosom of June swells the bodice of Spring,
While the hope of the season lies fresh in the bud,
And the young life of Nature runs warm in our blood.

It is but a word, and the chain is unbound,
The bracelet of steel drops unclasped to the ground;
No hand shall replace it, - it rests where it fell, - -
It is but...

There sat a raven 'mid the pines so dark,
    The pines so silent and so dark at morn
    A ragged bird with feathers rough and torn,
Whetting his grimy beak upon the bark,
    And croaking hoarsely to the woods forlorn.

Blood red the sky and misty in the east--
    Low vapours creeping bleakly o'er the hills--
    The rain will soon come plashing on the rills--
No sound in all the place of bird or beast,
    Save that hoarse croak that all the woodland fills.

A slimy pool all rank with rotting weeds,
    Close by the pines there at the highway side;
    No ripple on its green and stagnant tide,
Where only cold and still the horse-leech breeds--
    Ugh! might not here some bloody murder hide!

Pshaw! ... Cold the air slow stealing through the tree...