Death

There pass the careless people
That call their souls their own:
Here by the road I loiter,
How idle and alone.

Ah, past the plunge of plummet,
In seas I cannot sound,
My heart and soul and senses,
World without end, are drowned.

His folly has not fellow
Beneath the blue of day
That gives to man or woman
His heart and soul away.

There flowers no balm to sain him
From east of earth to west
That's lost for everlasting
The heart out of his breast.

Here by the labouring highway
With empty hands I stroll:
Sea-deep, till doomsday morning,
Lie lost my heart and soul.

Like some sad spirit from an unknown shore
Thou comest with two children in thine arms:
Flushed, poppied Sleep, whom mortals aye adore,
Her flowing raiment sculptured to her charms.
Soft on thy bosom in pure baby rest
Clasped as a fair white rose in musky nest;
But on thy other, like a thought of woe,
Her brother, lean, cold Death doth thin recline,
To thee as dear as she, thy maid divine,
Whose frowsy hair his hectic breathings blow
In poppied ringlets billowing all her marble brow.

Oft have I taken Sleep from thy vague arms
And fondled her faint head, with poppies wreath'd,
Within my bosom's depths, until its storms
With her were hushed and I but mildly breath'd.
And then this child, O Night! with frolic art
Arose from rest, and on my panting heart

A Log-Hut in the solitude,
A clapboard roof to rest beneath!
This side, the shadow-haunted wood;
That side, the sunlight-haunted heath.

At daybreak Morn shall come to me
In raiment of the white winds spun;
Slim in her rosy hand the key
That opes the gateway of the sun.

Her smile shall help my heart enough
With love to labour all the day,
And cheer the road, whose rocks are rough,
With her smooth footprints, each a ray.

At dusk a voice shall call afar,
A lone voice like the whippoorwill's;
And, on her shimmering brow one star,
Night shall descend the western hills.

She at my door till dawn shall stand,
With gothic eyes, that, dark and deep,
Are mirrors of a mystic land,
Fantastic with the towns of sleep.

This little rill, that from the springs
Of yonder grove its current brings,
Plays on the slope a while, and then
Goes prattling into groves again,
Oft to its warbling waters drew
My little feet, when life was new,
When woods in early green were dressed,
And from the chambers of the west
The warmer breezes, travelling out,
Breathed the new scent of flowers about,
My truant steps from home would stray,
Upon its grassy side to play,
List the brown thrasher's vernal hymn,
And crop the violet on its brim,
With blooming cheek and open brow,
As young and gay, sweet rill, as thou.

And when the days of boyhood came,
And I had grown in love with fame,
Duly I sought thy banks, and tried
My first rude numbers by thy side.
Words cannot tell how br...

A curious vision on mine eyes unfurled
    In the deep night.    I saw, or seemed to see,
    Two Centuries meet, and sit down vis-a-vis
Across the great round table of the world:
One with suggested sorrows in his mien,
    And on his brow the furrowed lines of thought;
    And one whose glad expectant presence brought
A glow and radiance from the realms unseen.

Hand clasped with hand, in silence for a space
    The Centuries sat; the sad old eyes of one
    (As grave paternal eyes regard a son)
Gazing upon that other eager face.
And then a voice, as cadenceless and gray
    As the sea's monody in winter time,
    Mingled with tones melodious, as the chime
Of bird choirs, singing in the dawns of May.

THE OLD CENTURY SPEAKS

By you, Hope s...

        Ask not the cause, why sullen Spring
            So long delays her flowers to bear;
        Why warbling birds forget to sing,
            And winter storms invert the year:
        Chloris is gone, and fate provides
        To make it Spring, where she resides.

        Chloris is gone, the cruel fair;
            She cast not back a pitying eye;
        But left her lover in despair,
            To sigh, to languish, and to die:
        Ah, how can those fair eyes endure
        To give the wounds they will not cure?

        Great God of love, why hast thou made
            A face that can all hearts command,
        That all religions can evade,
            And change the laws of every land?
        Where thou hadst placed such power bef...

I.

White-shrouded, latest-born of all the year,
    In thy cold hands no bud or floweret bearing,
Thou comest now to wail above the bier
    Of thy dead sisters--on thy bosom wearing
The icy jewel and the frosted gem--
But on thy marble brow the Star of Bethlehem!


II.

Beneath thy foot-prints lie the Autumn leaves,
    Mould'ring and hast'ning to decay;
And where the drifting snow its mantle weaves
    The Summer songsters sang the happy hours away.
What tho' the birds have flown the blighted stem?
There's in thy jeweled crown the Star of Bethlehem!

These to His Memory—since he held them dear,
Perchance as finding there unconsciously
Some image of himself—I dedicate,
I dedicate, I consecrate with tears—
These Idylls.

And indeed He seems to me
Scarce other than my king’s ideal knight,
‘Who reverenced his conscience as his king;
Whose glory was, redressing human wrong;
Who spake no slander, no, nor listened to it;
Who loved one only and who clave to her—’
Her—over all whose realms to their last isle,
Commingled with the gloom of imminent war,
The shadow of His loss drew like eclipse,
Darkening the world. We have lost him: he is gone:
We know him now: all narrow jealousies
Are silent; and we see him as he moved,
How modest, kindly, all-accomplished, wise,
With what sublime repression of himse...

The waters leap,
The waters roar;
And on the shore
One sycamore
Stands, towering hoar.

The mountains heap
Gaunt pines and crags
That hoar-frost shags;
And, pierced with snags,
Like horns of stags,
The water lags,
The water drags,
Where trees, like hags,
Lean from the steep.

The mist begins
To swirl; then spins
'Mid outs and ins
Of heights; and thins
Where the torrent dins;
And lost in sweep
Of its whiteness deep
The valleys sleep.

Now morning strikes
On wild rampikes
Of forest spikes,
And, down dim dykes
Of dawn, like sheep,
Scatters the mists,
And amethysts
With light, that twists,
And rifts that run
Azure with sun,
Wild-whirled and spun,
The foggy dun
...

Bard of the Fleece, whose skilful genius made
That work a living landscape fair and bright;
Nor hallowed less with musical delight
Than those soft scenes through which thy childhood strayed,
Those southern tracts of Cambria, "deep embayed,
With green hills fenced, with ocean's murmur lulled;"
Though hasty Fame hath many a chaplet culled
For worthless brows, while in the pensive shade
Of cold neglect she leaves thy head ungraced,
Yet pure and powerful minds, hearts meek and still,
A grateful few, shall love thy modest Lay,
Long as the shepherd's bleating flock shall stray
O'er naked Snowdon's wide aerial waste;
Long as the thrush shall pipe on Grongar Hill!

Where the waters of the Mohawk
Through a quiet valley glide,
From the brown church to her dwelling
She that morning passed a bride.
In the mild light of October
Beautiful the forest stood,
As the temple on Mount Zion
When God filled its solitude.

Very quietly the red leaves,
On the languid zephyr's breath,
Fluttered to the mossy hillocks
Where their sisters slept in death:
And the white mist of the Autumn
Hung o'er mountain-top and dale,
Soft and filmy, as the foldings
Of the passing bridal veil.

From the field of Saratoga
At the last night's eventide,
Rode the groom, - a gallant soldier
Flushed with victory and pride,
Seeking, as a priceless guerdon
From the dark-eyed Madeline,
Leave to lead her to the altar
When...

1

In green sea-caverns dim,
Deep down,
A monarch pale and slim,
Whose soul's a frown,
He ruleth cold and grim
In foamy crown:
In green sea-caverns dim,
    Deep down.


2

He hears the Mermaid sing
    So sad!
Far off like some curs'd thing,
That ne'er is glad,
A vague, wild murmuring,
That drives men mad:
He hears the Mermaid sing
    So sad!


3

Strange monster bulks are there,
    That yawn
Or roll huge eyes that glare
And then are gone;
Weird foliage passing fair
Where clings the spawn:
Strange monster bulks are there,
    That yawn.


4

What cares he for wrecked hulls
    These years!
Red gold the water dulls!
Grim, dead-men jeer...

An ancient minstrel sagely said,
"Where is the life which late we led?"
That motley clown in Arden wood,
Whom humorous Jaques with envy viewed,
Not even that clown could amplify,
On this trite text, so long as I.
Eleven years we now may tell,
Since we have known each other well;
Since, riding side by side, our hand,
First drew the voluntary brand;
And sure, through many a varied scene,
Unkindness never came between.
Away these winged years have flown,
To join the mass of ages gone;
And though deep marked, like all below,
With checkered shades of joy and woe;
Though thou o'er realms and seas hast ranged,
Marked cities lost, and empires changed,
While here, at home, my narrower ken
Somewhat of manners saw, and men;
Though varying wishes, hope...

Out of the rolling ocean, the crowd, came a drop gently to me,
Whispering, I love you, before long I die,
I have travel'd a long way, merely to look on you, to touch you,
For I could not die till I once look'd on you,
For I fear'd I might afterward lose you.

(Now we have met, we have look'd, we are safe;
Return in peace to the ocean, my love;
I too am part of that ocean, my love - we are not so much separated;
Behold the great rondure - the cohesion of all, how perfect!
But as for me, for you, the irresistible sea is to separate us,
As for an hour, carrying us diverse - yet cannot carry us diverse for ever;
Be not impatient - a little space - Know you, I salute the air, the ocean and the land,
Every day, at sundown, for your dear sake, my love.)

We buried old Bob where the bloodwoods wave
At the foot of the Eaglehawk;
We fashioned a cross on the old man's grave
For fear that his ghost might walk;
We carved his name on a bloodwood tree
With the date of his sad decease
And in place of "Died from effects of spree"
We wrote "May he rest in peace".

For Bob was known on the Overland,
A regular old bush wag,
Tramping along in the dust and sand,
Humping his well-worn swag.
He would camp for days in the river-bed,
And loiter and "fish for whales".
"I'm into the swagman's yard," he said.
"And I never shall find the rails."

But he found the rails on that summer night
For a better place, or worse,
As we watched by turns in the flickering light
With an old black gin for nurse.
The b...

I.

There is one road, one only, to the Light:
    A narrow way, but Freedom walks therein;
A straight, firm road through Chaos and old Night,
    And all these wandering Jack-o-Lents of Sin.

It is the road of Law, where Pilate stays
    To hear, at last, the answer to his cry;
And mighty sages, groping through their maze
    Of eager questions, hear a child reply.

Truth? What is Truth? Come, look upon my tables.
    Begin at your beginnings once again.
Twice one is two! Though all the rest be fables,
    Here's one poor glimpse of Truth to keep you sane.

For Truth, at first, is clean accord with fact,
Whether in line or thought, or word, or act.


II.

Then, by those first, those clean, precise, accords,

Ah! this wild desolated spot,
Calls forth the plaintive tear;
Remembrance paints my little cot,
Which once did flourish here.

No more the early lark and thrush
Shall hail the rising day,
Nor warble on their native bush,
Nor charm me with their lay.

No more the foliage of the oak
Shall spread its wonted shade;
Now fell'd beneath the hostile stroke
Of red destruction's blade.

Beneath its bloom when summer smil'd,
How oft the rural train
The lingering hours with tales beguil'd,
Or danc'd to Colin's strain.

And, when Aurora with the dawn
Dispell'd the midnight shade,
Her flocks to the accustom'd lawn
Would lovely Phillis lead.

Delusive grandeur never wreath'd
Around Contentment's head,
'Till war its flami...

    The sun is sinking in the west,
    Long grow the shadows dim;
    Have patience, sister, to be blest,
    Wait patiently for Him.

    Thou knowest love, much love hast had,
    Great things of love mayst tell,
    Ought'st never to be very sad
    For thou too hast lov'd well.

    His house thou know'st, who on the brink
    Of death loved more than thou,
    Loved more than thy great heart can think,
    And just as then loves now--

    In that great house is one who waits
    For thy slow-coming foot;
    Glad is he with his angel-mates
    Yet often listens mute,

    For he of all men loves thee best:
    He haunts the heavenly clock;
    Ah, he has long been up and drest
    To open to thy knock!

    F...