Death

Fit retribution, by the moral code
Determined, lies beyond the State's embrace,
Yet, as she may, for each peculiar case
She plants well-measured terrors in the road
Of wrongful acts. Downward it is and broad,
And, the main fear once doomed to banishment,
Far oftener then, bad ushering worse event,
Blood would be spilt that in his dark abode
Crime might lie better hid. And, should the change
Take from the horror due to a foul deed,
Pursuit and evidence so far must fail,
And, guilt escaping, passion then might plead
In angry spirits for her old free range,
And the "wild justice of revenge" prevail.

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it, for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O! if, I say you look upon this verse,
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
But let your love even with my life decay;
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.

    "An honest man's the noblest work of God."

Pope.


    Has auld Kilmarnock seen the deil?
    Or great M'Kinlay[2] thrawn his heel?
    Or Robinson[3] again grown weel,
        To preach an' read?
    "Na, waur than a'!" cries ilka chiel,
        Tam Samson's dead!

    Kilmarnock lang may grunt an' grane,
    An' sigh, an' sob, an' greet her lane,
    An' cleed her bairns, man, wife, an wean,
        In mourning weed;
    To death, she's dearly paid the kane,
        Tam Samson's dead!

    The brethren o' the mystic level
    May hing their head in woefu' bevel,
    While by their nose the tears will revel,
        Like ony bead;
    Death's gien the lodge an unco devel,
        Tam Samson's ...

A bell tolls on in my heart
As though in my ears a knell
Had ceased for awhile to swell,
But the sense of it would not part
From the spirit that bears its part
In the chime of the soundless bell.
Ah dear dead singer of sorrow,
The burden is now not thine
That grief bade sound for a sign
Through the songs of the night whose morrow
Has risen, and I may not borrow
A beam from its radiant shrine.
The burden has dropped from thee
That grief on thy life bound fast;
The winter is over and past
Whose end thou wast fain to see.
Shall sorrow not comfort me
That is thine no longer, at last?
Good day, good night, and good morrow,
Men living and mourning say.
For thee we could only pray
That night of the day might borrow
Such comfort as dreams...

Lycidas

Thyrsis, the music of that murm'ring spring,
Is not so mournful as the strains you sing.
Nor rivers winding thro' the vales below,
So sweetly warble, or so smoothly flow.
Now sleeping flocks on their soft fleeces lie,
The moon, serene in glory, mounts the sky,
Wile silent birds forget their tuneful lays,
Oh sing of Daphne's fate, and Daphne's praise!

Thyrsis

Behold the groves that shine with silver frost,
Their beauty wither'd, and their verdure lost.
Here shall I try the sweet Alexis' strain,
That call'd the list'ning Dryads to the plain?
Thames heard the numbers as he flow'd along,
And bade his willows learn the moving song.

Lycidas

So may kind rains their vital moisture yield,
And swell the future harvest of t...

The summer day is closed, the sun is set:
Well they have done their office, those bright hours,
The latest of whose train goes softly out
In the red West. The green blade of the ground
Has risen, and herds have cropped it; the young twig
Has spread its plaited tissues to the sun;
Flowers of the garden and the waste have blown
And withered; seeds have fallen upon the soil,
From bursting cells, and in their graves await
Their resurrection. Insects from the pools
Have filled the air awhile with humming wings,
That now are still for ever; painted moths
Have wandered the blue sky, and died again;
The mother-bird hath broken for her brood
Their prison shell, or shoved them from the nest,
Plumed for their earliest flight. In bright alcoves,
In woodland cottages with ...

Witness all: that unrepenting,
Feathers flying, music high,
I go down to death unshaken
By your mean philosophy.

For your wages, take my body,
That at least to you I leave;
Set the sulky plumes upon it,
Bid the grinning mummers grieve.

Stand in silence: steep your raiment
In the night that hath no star;
Don the mortal dress of devils,
Blacker than their spirits are.

Since ye may not, of your mercy,
Ere I lie on such a hearse,
Hurl me to the living jackals
God hath built for sepulchres.

Let us go far from here!
Here there is sadness in the early year:
Here sorrow waits where joy went laughing late:
The sicklied face of heaven hangs like hate
Above the woodland and the meadowland;
And Spring hath taken fire in her hand
Of frost and made a dead bloom of her face,
Which was a flower of marvel once and grace,
And sweet serenity and stainless glow.
Delay not. Let us go.

Let us go far away
Into the sunrise of a fairer May:
Where all the nights resign them to the moon,
And drug their souls with odor and soft tune,
And tell their dreams in starlight: where the hours
Teach immortality with fadeless flowers;
And all the day the bee weights down the bloom,
And all the night the moth shakes strange perfume,
Like music, from the flower-bel...

Mary, ah me! gentle Mary,
    Can it be you're lying there,
Pale and still, and cold as marble,
    You that was so young and fair.

Seemeth it as yestereven,
    When the golden autumn smiled,
On our meeting, gentle Mary,
    You were then a very child.

Busy fingers, flitting footsteps,
    Never resting all day long;
Shy and bashful, and the sweet voice
    Ever breaking into song

Always gentle, kind and thoughtful,
    Blameless and so free from art,
'Twas no wonder one so lovely
    Found a place within my heart.

You, while life was in its spring time,
    Made the Scripture Mary's choice;
Jesus saw you, loved you, called you,
    And you listened to His voice.

Ever patient and rejoicing,
    Shielded t...

Written on the news of the death of Lord Leighton
A light has passed that never shall pass away,
A sun has set whose rays are unquelled of night.
The loyal grace, the courtesy bright as day,
The strong sweet radiant spirit of life and light
That shone and smiled and lightened on all men's sight,
The kindly life whose tune was the tune of May,
For us now dark, for love and for fame is bright.
Nay, not for us that live as the fen-fires live,
As stars that shoot and shudder with life and die,
Can death make dark that lustre of life, or give
The grievous gift of trust in oblivion's lie.
Days dear and far death touches, and draws them nigh,
And bids the grief that broods on their graves forgive
The day that seems to mock them as clouds that fly.
If life be life more fai...

"Coming events cast their shadow before."


I had a vision in the summer light -
Sorrow was in it, and my inward sight
Ached with sad images. The touch of tears
Gushed down my cheeks: - the figured woes of years
Casting their shadows across sunny hours.
Oh, there was nothing sorrowful in flowers
Wooing the glances of an April sun,
Or apple blossoms opening one by one
Their crimson bosoms - or the twittered words
And warbled sentences of merry birds; -
Or the small glitter and the humming wings
Of golden flies and many colored things -
Oh, these were nothing sad - nor to see Her,
Sitting beneath the comfortable stir
Of early leaves - casting the playful grace
Of moving shadows in so fair a face -
Nor in her brow serene - nor in the love

Unnamed at times, at times unknown,
Our graves lie thick beyond the seas;
Unnamed, but not of Him unknown;--
He knows!--He sees!

And not one soul has fallen in vain.
Here was no useless sacrifice.
From this red sowing of white seed
New life shall rise.

All that for which they fought lives on,
And flourishes triumphantly;
Watered with blood and hopeful tears,
It could not die.

The world was sinking in a slough
Of sloth, and ease, and selfish greed;
God surely sent this scourge to mould
A nobler creed.

Birth comes with travail; all these woes
Are birth-pangs of the days to be.
Life's noblest things are ever born
In agony.

So--comfort to the stricken heart!
Take solace in the thought that he
You mourn wa...

Life's Vesper-bells are ringing
In the temple of my heart,
And yon sunset, sure, is singing
"Nunc dimittis -- Now depart!"
Ah! the eve is golden-clouded,
But to-morrow's sun shall shine
On this weary body shrouded;
But my soul doth not repine.

"Let me see the sun descending,
I will see his light no more,
For my life, this eve, is ending;
And to-morrow on the shore
That is fair, and white, and golden,
I will meet my God; and ye
Will forget not all the olden,
Happy hours ye spent with me.

"I am glad that I am going;
What a strange and sweet delight
Is thro' all my being flowing
When I know that, sure, to-night
I will pass from earth and meet Him
Whom I loved thro' all the years,
Who will crown me when I greet Him,
A...

    Lament in rhyme, lament in prose,
    Wi' saut tears trickling down your nose;
    Our bardie's fate is at a close,
        Past a' remead;
    The last sad cape-stane of his woes;
        Poor Mailie's dead.

    It's no the loss o' warl's gear,
    That could sae bitter draw the tear,
    Or mak our bardie, dowie, wear
        The mourning weed;
    He's lost a friend and neebor dear,
        In Mailie dead.

    Thro' a' the toun she trotted by him;
    A long half-mile she could descry him;
    Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him,
        She run wi' speed:
    A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh him,
        Than Mailie dead.

    I wat she was a sheep o' sense,
    An' could behave hersel wi' mense:
    I'll sa...

Why come ye here to sigh that I,
Who with crossed wrists so peaceless lie
Before ye, am at rest, at rest!
For that the pistons of my blood
No more in this machinery thud?
And on these eyes, that once were blest
With magnetism of fire, are prest
Thin, damp, pale eyelids for a sheath,
Whereon the bony claw of Death
Hath set his coins of unseen lead,
Stamped with the image of his head?

Why come ye here to weep for one,
Who is forgotten when he's gone
From ye and burthened with this rest
Your God hath given him! unsought
Of any prayers, whiles yet he wrought, -
And with what sacrifices bought!
Low, sweet communion mouth to mouth
Of thoughts that dewed eternal drought
Of Life's bald barrenness, - a jest,
An irony hath grown confessed
...

    When I lie musing on my bed alone,
    And listen to the wintry waterfall;[1]
    And many moments that are past and gone,
    Moments of sunshine and of joy, recall;

    Though the long night is dark and damp around,
    And no still star hangs out its friendly flame;
    And the winds sweep the sash with sullen sound,
    And freezing palsy creeps o'er all my frame;

    I catch consoling phantasies that spring
    From the thick gloom, and as the night airs beat,
    They touch my heart, like wind-swift wires[2] that ring
    In mournful modulations, strange and sweet.

    Was it the voice of thee, my buried friend?
    Was it the whispered vow of faithful love?
    Do I in Knoyle's green shades thy steps attend,
    An...

Dark clouds are smouldering into red
While down the craters morning burns.
The dying soldier shifts his head
To watch the glory that returns:
He lifts his fingers toward the skies
Where holy brightness breaks in flame;
Radiance reflected in his eyes,
And on his lips a whispered name.

You'd think, to hear some people talk,
That lads go West with sobs and curses,
And sullen faces white as chalk,
Hankering for wreaths and tombs and hearses.
But they've been taught the way to do it
Like Christian soldiers; not with haste
And shuddering groans; but passing through it
With due regard for decent taste.

Lost Youth, come back again!
Laugh at weariness and pain.
Come not in dreams, but come in truth,
            Lost Youth.

Sweetheart of long ago,
Why do you haunt me so?
Were you not glad to part,
            Sweetheart?

Still Death, that draws so near,
Is it hope you bring, or fear?
Is it only ease of breath,
            Still Death?