Death

(J. H. 1813-1904)



There's no more to be done, or feared, or hoped;
None now need watch, speak low, and list, and tire;
No irksome crease outsmoothed, no pillow sloped
Does she require.

Blankly we gaze. We are free to go or stay;
Our morrow's anxious plans have missed their aim;
Whether we leave to-night or wait till day
Counts as the same.

The lettered vessels of medicaments
Seem asking wherefore we have set them here;
Each palliative its silly face presents
As useless gear.

And yet we feel that something savours well;
We note a numb relief withheld before;
Our well-beloved is prisoner in the cell
Of Time no more.

We see by littles now the deft achievement
Whereby she has escaped the Wrongers all,
In vie...

The world is fainting,
And you will weep at last.

The world is fainting
And falling into a swoon.

The world is turning and changing;
The world is fainting,
And you will weep at last.

Look at the love of Farhad, who pierced a mountain
And pierced a brass hill for the love of Shirin.
The world is fainting,
And you will weep at last.

Qutab Khan of the Ranizais was in love
And death became the hostess of his lady.
The world is fainting,
And you will weep at last.

Adam loved Durkho, and they were separated.
You know the story;
There is no lasting love.
The world is fainting,
And you will weep at last.

Muhammad Din is ill for the matter of a little honey;
This is a moment to be generous.
The wo...

I

Lady and Queen and Mystery manifold
And very Regent of the untroubled sky,
Whom in a dream St. Hilda did behold
And heard a woodland music passing by:
You shall receive me when the clouds are high
With evening and the sheep attain the fold.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
And this is that in which I mean to die.

II

Steep are the seas and savaging and cold
In broken waters terrible to try;
And vast against the winter night the wold,
And harbourless for any sail to lie.
But you shall lead me to the lights, and I
Shall hymn you in a harbour story told.
This is the faith that I have held and hold,
And this is that in which I mean to die.

III

Help of the half-defeated, House of gold,
Shrine of the Swo...

        Now would I be in that removèd place
        Where the dim sunlight hardly comes at all
        And branches of the young trees interlace
        And long swathes of the brambles twine and fall;
        A space between the hedgerow and a road
        Not trod by foot of any known to me,
        Where now and then a cart with scented load
    Goes sleepy down the lane with creaking axle-tree.

        And there I'd lie upon the tumbled leaves,
        Watching a square of the all else hidden sky,
        And made such songs a drowsy mind believes
        To be most perfect music.    So would I
    Keep my face heavenwards and bless eternity,
        Wherein my heart could be as glad as this
        And lazily I'd bid all men come hither
        And in m...

Enough of climbing toil! Ambition treads
Here, as 'mid busier scenes, ground steep and rough,
Or slippery even to peril! and each step,
As we for most uncertain recompence
Mount toward the empire of the fickle clouds,
Each weary step, dwarfing the world below,
Induces, for its old familiar sights,
Unacceptable feelings of contempt,
With wonder mixed that Man could e'er be tied,
In anxious bondage, to such nice array
And formal fellowship of petty things!
Oh! 'tis the 'heart' that magnifies this life,
Making a truth and beauty of her own;
And moss-grown alleys, circumscribing shades,
And gurgling rills, assist her in the work
More efficaciously than realms outspread,
As in a map, before the adventurer's gaze
Ocean and Earth contending for regard.
The ...

Of all the speechless friends of man
    The faithful dog I deem
Deserving from the human clan
    The tenderest esteem:

This feeling creature form'd to love,
    To watch, and to defend,
Was given to man by powers above,
    A guardian, and a friend!

I sing, of all e'er known to live
    The truest friend canine;
And glory if my verse may give,
    Brave Fido! it is thine.

A dog of many a sportive trick,
    Tho' rough and large of limb.
Fido would chase the floating stick
    When Lucy cried, "go swim."

And what command could Lucy give,
    Her dog would not obey?
For her it seemed his pride to live,
    Blest in her gentle sway!

For conscious of her every care
    He strain'd each feeling nerve,
To...

From Cypress and from laurel boughs
    Are twined, in sorrow and in pride,
The leaves that deck the mouldering brows
    Of those who for their country died:
In sorrow, that the sable pall
    Enfolds the valiant and the brave;
In pride that those who nobly fall
    Win garlands that adorn the grave.

The onset--the pursuit--the roar
    Of victory o'er the routed foe--
Will startle from their rest no more
    The fallen brave of Mexico.
To God alone such spirits yield!
    He took them in their strength and bloom,
When gathering, on the tented field,
    The garlands woven for the tomb.

The shrouded flag--the drooping spear--
    The muffled drum--the solemn bell--
The funeral train--the dirge--the bier--
    The mourners' sad and l...

White maiden with the russet hair,
Whose garments, through their holes, declare
That poverty is part of you,
And beauty too.

To me, a sorry bard and mean,
Your youthful beauty, frail and lean,
With summer freckles here and there,
Is sweet and fair.

Your sabots tread the roads of chance,
And not one queen of old romance
Carried her velvet shoes and lace
With half your grace.

In place of tatters far too short
Let the proud garments worn at Court
Fall down with rustling fold and pleat
About your feet;

In place of stockings, worn and old,
Let a keen dagger all of gold
Gleam in your garter for the eyes
Of roués wise;

Let ribbons carelessly untied
Reveal to us the radiant pride
Of your white bosom purer far...

Name not his deed: in shuddering and in haste
We dragged him darkly o'er the windy fell:
That night there was a gibbet in the waste,
And a new sin in hell.

Be his deed hid from commonwealths and kings,
By all men born be one true tale forgot;
But three things, braver than all earthly things,
Faced him and feared him not.

Above his head and sunken secret face
Nested the sparrow's young and dropped not dead.
From the red blood and slime of that lost place
Grew daisies white, not red.

And from high heaven looking upon him,
Slowly upon the face of God did come
A smile the cherubim and seraphim
Hid all their faces from.

Love is fellow-service.


A youth and maid upon a summer night
Upon the lawn, while yet the skies were light,
Edmund and Emma, let their names be these,
Among the shrubs within the circling trees,
Joined in a game with boys and girls at play:
For games perhaps too old a little they;
In April she her eighteenth year begun,
And twenty he, and near to twenty-one.
A game it was of running and of noise;
He as a boy, with other girls and boys
(Her sisters and her brothers), took the fun;
And when her turn, she marked not, came to run,
‘Emma,’ he called, then knew that he was wrong,
Knew that her name to him did not belong.
Her look and manner proved his feeling true,
A child no more, her womanhood she knew;
Half was the colour mounted on her fa...

(By A. Turkey Gobbler.)


I'm just a turkey gobbler,
    But I've got a word to say
And I'd like to say it quickly
    Before I pass away,
For I will get it in the neck
    Upon Thanksgiving Day.

I cannot keep from thinking
    Of poor Marie Antoinette,
She lost her head completely,
    But this is what I'll get--
They'll knock the stuffin' out o' me
    Without the least regret.

I've just a few days left now
    Before I meet my fate,
For every turkey gets the axe,
    The little and the great.
There never was a turkey born
    Who didn't fill a plate.

Only three days left now,
    Goodness, how time flies!
It brings a sadness to my heart
    And teardrops to my eyes.
Does every turkey feel that w...

To fair Fidele’s grassy tomb
Soft maids and village hinds shall bring
Each op’ning sweet, of earliest bloom,
And rifle all the breathing spring.


No wailing ghost shall dare appear,
To vex with shrieks this quiet grove:
But shepherd lads assemble here,
And melting virgins own their love.


No wither’d witch shall here be seen,
No goblins lead their nightly crew:
The female fays shall haunt the green,
And dress thy grave with pearly dew!


The redbreast oft at ev’ning hours
Shall kindly lend his little aid:
With hoary moss, and gather’d flow’rs,
To deck the ground where thou art laid.


When howling winds, and beating rain,
In tempests shake the sylvan cell,
Or midst the chase on ev’ry plain,
The tender th...

    (A Dream.)


    Not a stain,
In the sun-brimmed sapphire cup that is the sky -
Not a ripple on the black translucent lane
Of the palace-walled lagoon.
    Not a cry
As the gondoliers with velvet oar glide by,
Through the golden afternoon.


    From this height
Where the carved, age-yellowed balcony o'erjuts
Yonder liquid, marble pavement, see the light
Shimmer soft beneath the bridge,
    That abuts
On a labyrinth of water-ways and shuts
Half their sky off with its ridge.


    We shall mark
All the pageant from this ivory porch of ours,
Masques and jesters, mimes and minstrels, while we hark
To their music as they fare.
    Scent their flowers
Flung from boat to boat in rainbow radiant showers
Throu...

I can write no stately proem
As a prelude to my lay;
From a poet to a poem
I would dare to say.

For if of these fallen petals
One to you seem fair,
Love will waft it till it settles
On your hair.

And when wind and winter harden
All the loveless land,
It will whisper of the garden,
You will understand.

Stay, speedy time! Behold, before thou pass
    From age to age, what thou hast sought to see,
    One in whom all the excellencies be,
In whom heaven looks itself as in a glass.
Time, look thou too in this translucent glass,
    And thy youth past in this pure mirror see!
    As the world's beauty in his infancy,
What it was then, and thou before it was.
Pass on and to posterity tell this--
    Yet see thou tell but truly what hath been.
    Say to our nephews that thou once hast seen
In perfect human shape all heavenly bliss;
    And bid them mourn, nay more, despair with thee,
    That she is gone, her like again to see.

        Cows in the stall and sheep in the fold;
        Clouds in the west, deep crimson and gold;
            A heron's far flight to a roost somewhere;
            The twitter of killdees keen in the air;
        The noise of a wagon that jolts through the gloam
            On the last load home.

        There are lights in the windows; a blue spire of smoke
        Climbs from the grange grove of elm and oak.
            The smell of the Earth, where the night pours to her
            Its dewy libation, is sweeter than myrrh,
        And an incense to Toil is the smell of the loam
            On the last load home.

". . . with two other priests; the same night he died,
and was buried by the shores of the lake that bears his name."
Chronicle.



"Nay, grieve not that ye can no honour give
To these poor bones that presently must be
But carrion; since I have sought to live
Upon God's earth, as He hath guided me,
I shall not lack!Where would ye have me lie?
High heaven is higher than cathedral nave:
Do men paint chancels fairer than the sky?"
Beside the darkened lake they made his grave,
Below the altar of the hills; and night
Swung incense clouds of mist in creeping lines
That twisted through the tree-trunks, where the light
Groped through the arches of the silent pines:
And he, beside the lonely path he trod,
Lay, tombed in splendour, in the House of God.

The murmuring of bees has ceased;
But murmuring of some
Posterior, prophetic,
Has simultaneous come, --

The lower metres of the year,
When nature's laugh is done, --
The Revelations of the book
Whose Genesis is June.