Death

"And now, blow out your candle, lad, and get to bed. See, the dawn is in the sky. Open your window and let its freshness rouge your cheek.
You've earned your rest. Sleep."

Aye, but before I do so, let me read again the last of my Ballads.




The Sewing-Girl



The humble garret where I dwell
Is in that Quarter called the Latin;
It isn't spacious - truth to tell,
There's hardly room to swing a cat in.
But what of that! It's there I fight
For food and fame, my Muse inviting,
And all the day and half the night
You'll find me writing, writing, writing.

Now, it was in the month of May
As, wrestling with a rhyme rheumatic,
I chanced to look across the way,
And lo! within a neighbor attic,
A hand drew back the wi...

When all works that have
From cradle run to grave
From grave to cradle run instead;
When thoughts that a fool
Has wound upon a spool
Are but loose thread, are but loose thread;
When cradle and spool are past
And I mere shade at last
Coagulate of stuff
Transparent like the wind,
I think that I may find
A faithful love, a faithful love.

"He left his body to the sea,
And made a shark his legatee."
BRYAN AND PERENNE.


"Oh! what is that comes gliding in,
And quite in middling haste?
It is the picture of my Jones,
And painted to the waist.

"It is not painted to the life,
For where's the trowsers blue?
Oh Jones, my dear! - Oh dear! my Jones,
What is become of you?"

"Oh! Sally dear, it is too true, -
The half that you remark
Is come to say my other half
Is bit off by a shark!

"Oh! Sally, sharks do things by halves,
Yet most completely do!
A bite in one place soems enough,
But I've been bit in two.

"You know I once was all your own,
But now a shark must share!
But let that pass - for now, to you
I'm neither here nor there."

...

I.

White art thou, O Lilith! as the foam that glimmers and quivers,
Glitters and clingingly silvers and snows from the balm
Of the beautiful breasts of the nymphs of the seas and rivers
That crystal and pearl by clusters of tropical palm,
Forests of tenebrous palm.
Once didst thou beckon and smile, O Lilith! as givers
Of heavenly gifts smile: and, lo! my heart no longer was calm.

II.

Cruel art thou, O Lilith! as spirits that battle
In tempest and night, in ultimate realms of the Earth;
Immaterial hosts, that shimmer and shout and rattle
Elemental armour and drive, with madness and mirth,
Down from the mountains, into the sea, like cattle,
Gaunt and glacial cattle,
Congealed thunder, the icebergs, gigantic of girth.

III.

Subtl...

There came a wind like a bugle;
It quivered through the grass,
And a green chill upon the heat
So ominous did pass
We barred the windows and the doors
As from an emerald ghost;
The doom's electric moccason
That very instant passed.
On a strange mob of panting trees,
And fences fled away,
And rivers where the houses ran
The living looked that day.
The bell within the steeple wild
The flying tidings whirled.
How much can come
And much can go,
And yet abide the world!

Fallen, and diffused into a shapeless heap,
Or quietly self-buried in earth's mould,
Is that embattled House, whose massy Keep,
Flung from yon cliff a shadow large and cold.
There dwelt the gay, the bountiful, the bold;
Till nightly lamentations, like the sweep
Of winds, though winds were silent, struck a deep
And lasting terror through that ancient Hold.
Its line of Warriors fled; they shrunk when tried
By ghostly power: but Time's unsparing hand
Hath plucked such foes, like weeds, from out the land;
And now, if men with men in peace abide,
All other strength the weakest may withstand,
All worse assaults may safely be defied.

Ye Trees! whose slender roots entwine
Altars that piety neglects;
Whose infant arms enclasp the shrine
Which no devotion now respects;
If not a straggler from the herd
Here ruminate, nor shrouded bird,
Chanting her low-voiced hymn, take pride
In aught that ye would grace or hide
How sadly is your love misplaced,
Fair Trees, your bounty run to waste!

Ye, too, wild Flowers! that no one heeds,
And ye, full often spurned as weeds
In beauty clothed, or breathing sweetness
From fractured arch and mouldering wall
Do but more touchingly recall
Man's headstrong violence and Time's fleetness,
Making the precincts ye adorn
Appear to sight still more forlorn.

Not for themselves did human kind
Contrive the parts by heaven assign'd
On life's wide scene to play:
Not Scipio's force, nor Cæsar's skill
Can conquer glory's arduous hill,
If fortune close the way.
Yet still the self-depending soul,
Though last and least in fortune's roll,
His proper sphere commands;
And knows what nature's seal bestow'd,
And sees, before the throne of God,
The rank in which he stands.

Who train'd by laws the future age,
Who rescu'd nations from the rage
Of partial, factious power,
My heart with distant homage views;
Content if thou, celestial Muse,
Did'st rule my natal hour.
Nor far beneath the hero's feet,
Nor from the legislator's seat
Stands far remote the bard.
Though not with public terrors crown'd,
...

The doubtful dawn came dim and wan,
And dimmer grew the day:
The kildee whistled among the weeds,
The blue crane clanged in the river reeds,
And a mist fell wild and gray.

At dawn she stood, her heavy hood
Flung back, in the ferry boat,
To watch the rebel raiders ride,
Her rebel-love, with his men beside,
His kiss on her mouth and throat.

Like some dark spell the tempest fell,
Like some wild curse night came:
For hours she heard the warring dead,
Whose batteries opened overhead
With thunder and with flame.

And now again, in wind and rain,
She toiled at the creaking oar:
Oh what had she heard in the night and storm?
Whose voice was that? and whose the form
That galloped to the shore?

Across the stream, in the tempest'...

Where Time the measure of his hours
By changeful bud and blossom keeps,
And, like a young bride crowned with flowers,
Fair Shiraz in her garden sleeps;

Where, to her poet's turban stone,
The Spring her gift of flowers imparts,
Less sweet than those his thoughts have sown
In the warm soil of Persian hearts:

There sat the stranger, where the shade
Of scattered date-trees thinly lay,
While in the hot clear heaven delayed
The long and still and weary day.

Strange trees and fruits above him hung,
Strange odors filled the sultry air,
Strange birds upon the branches swung,
Strange insect voices murmured there.

And strange bright blossoms shone around,
Turned sunward from the shadowy bowers,
As if the Gheber's soul had found
A fi...

Since first I met thee, Dear, and long before
    I knew myself beloved, save by the sense
    All women have, a shadowy confidence
Half-fear, that feels its bliss nor asks for more,
    I have learned new desires, known Love's distress
    Sounded the deepest depths of loneliness.

I was a child at heart, and lived alone,
    Dreaming my dreams, as children may, at whiles,
    Between their hours of play, and Earth's broad smiles
Allured my heart, and ocean's marvellous tone
    Woke no strange echoes, and the woods' complain
    Made chants sonorous, stirred no thoughts of pain.

And if, sometimes, dear Nature spoke to me
    In tones mysterious, I had learned so much
    Dwelling beside her daily, that her touch
Made me discerning. Though I migh...

While one sere leaf, that parting Autumn gilds,
    Trembles upon the thin, and naked spray,
    November, dragging on his sunless day,
    Lours, cold and fallen, on the watry fields;
And Nature to the waste dominion yields,
    Stript her last robes, with gold and purple gay. -
    So droops my life, of your soft beams despoil'd,
    Youth, Health, and Hope, that long exulting smil'd;
And the wild carols, and the bloomy hues
    Of merry Spring-time, spruce on every plain
    Her half-blown bushes, moist with sunny rain,
More pensive thoughts in my sunk heart infuse
    Than Winter's grey, and desolate domain,
    Faded, like my lost Youth, that no bright Spring renews.

Tu semper amoris
Sis memor, et cari comitis ne abscedat imago.

VAL. FLAC. 'Argonaut', iv. 36.


1.

Friend of my youth! when young we rov'd,
Like striplings, mutually belov'd,
With Friendship's purest glow;
The bliss, which wing'd those rosy hours,
Was such as Pleasure seldom showers
On mortals here below.


2.

The recollection seems, alone,
Dearer than all the joys I've known,
When distant far from you:
Though pain, 'tis still a pleasing pain,
To trace those days and hours again,
And sigh again, adieu!


3.

My pensive mem'ry lingers o'er,
Those scenes to be enjoy'd no more,
Those scenes regretted ever;
The measure of our youth is full,
Life's evening dream is dark and dull,

When we had passed the threshold of the gate
(Which the soul's ill affection doth disuse,
Making the crooked seem the straighter path),
I heard its closing sound. Had mine eyes turn'd,
For that offence what plea might have avail'd?

We mounted up the riven rock, that wound
On either side alternate, as the wave
Flies and advances. "Here some little art
Behooves us," said my leader, "that our steps
Observe the varying flexure of the path."

Thus we so slowly sped, that with cleft orb
The moon once more o'erhangs her wat'ry couch,
Ere we that strait have threaded. But when free
We came and open, where the mount above
One solid mass retires, I spent, with toil,
And both, uncertain of the way, we stood,
Upon a plain more lonesome, than the roads
That...

Letter V. Confessions.


I.

    O Lady mine! O Lady of my Life!
    Mine and not mine, a being of the sky
    Turn'd into Woman, and I know not why -
    Is't well, bethink thee, to maintain a strife
    With thy poor servant? War unto the knife,
    Because I greet thee with a lover's eye?


II.

    Is't well to visit me with thy disdain,
    And rack my soul, because, for love of thee,
    I was too prone to sink upon my knee,
    And too intent to make my meaning plain,
    And too resolved to make my loss a gain
    To...

Across the dripping ridges,
O, look, luxurious night!
She comes, the bright-haired beauty,
My luminous delight!
My luminous delight!
So hush, ye shores, your roar,
That my soul may sleep, forgetting
Dead Love’s wild Nevermore!

Astarte, Syrian sister,
Your face is wet with tears;
I think you know the secret
One heart hath held for years!
One heart hath held for years!
But hide your hapless love,
And my sweet my Syrian sister,
Dead Love’s wild Nevermore!

Ah, Helen Hope in heaven,
My queen of long ago,
I’ve swooned with adoration,
But could not tell you so,
Or dared not tell you so,
My radiant queen of yore!
And you’ve passed away and left me
Dead Love’s wild Nevermore!

Astarte knoweth, darling,
Of ey...

When my heart was sad and lonely,
    And had closed its inmost cell
Over the impulsive feelings
    That rule my nation's hearts too well.

When the tie was cut asunder,
    That had bound me to a home,
And I felt the desolation
    Of being in the world alone;

When I first, the veil assuming,
    Masked before a treacherous world,
And the hopes romance expanded
    Reality had sternly furled;

And the touch of disappointment,
    Blighted what was green and fair,
And the spirit's bright revealings
    Are not so hopeful as they were.

Precious are the words of kindness,
    Falling on the heart like dew,
Freshening though, alas for weakness,
    They cannot make things new.

Thoughts come warm from that deep foun...

Come, walk with me and Memory;
And let us see what we shall see:
A wild green lane of stones and weeds
That to a wilder woodland leads.
An old board gate, the lichens crust,
Whose ancient hinges croak with rust.
A vale; a creek; and a bridge of planks,
And the wild sunflowers that wall its banks:
A path that winds through shine and shade
To a ferned and wildflowered forest glade;
Where, out of a grotto, a voice replies
With a faint hollo to your voice that cries:
And every wind that passes seems
A foot that follows from Lands o' Dreams.
A voice, a foot, and a shadow, too,
That whispers of things your childhood knew:
A girl that waited, a boy that came,
And an old beech tree where he carved her name;
Where still he sees her, whom still he hears
B...