Death

The saints'-bell calls, and, Julia, I must read
The proper lessons for the saints now dead:
To grace which service, Julia, there shall be
One holy collect said or sung for thee.
Dead when thou art, dear Julia, thou shalt have
A trentall sung by virgins o'er thy grave:
Meantime we two will sing the dirge of these,
Who dead, deserve our best remembrances.

1.
Those whom nor power, nor lying faith, nor toil,
Nor custom, queen of many slaves, makes blind,
Have ever grieved that man should be the spoil
Of his own weakness, and with earnest mind
Fed hopes of its redemption; these recur
Chastened by deathful victory now, and find
Foundations in this foulest age, and stir
Me whom they cheer to be their minister.

2.
Dark is the realm of grief: but human things
Those may not know who cannot weep for them.

...

3.
Once more descend
The shadows of my soul upon mankind,
For to those hearts with which they never blend,
Thoughts are but shadows which the flashing mind
From the swift clouds which track its flight of fire,
Casts on the gloomy world it leaves behind.

"A hunter of shadows, himself a shade."--HOMER.


Oh! weary sleeper by the lone sea-shore,
    Where billows toil for ever 'mid the rocks,
    Scourged on by winds in stormy equinox,
Rise! rise in haste, or slumber evermore!
    The stern Earth calls thee, and the Ocean mocks;
    Roll thy poor sightless orbs about the sky,
    Through tears of blind and powerless agony;
Rise! rise in haste, or slumber evermore!

Ay! blind I stand beside the lone sea-shore;
    Hearing the mighty murmur of the waves,
    Shaking with giant arms earth's architraves,
Scaling the riven cloud-crags bald and boar,
    Surging hoarse secrets through the central caves;
    God! shall thine ocean undiscernèd roll,
    Night on mine eyes, and darkness on my soul,
Groping...

Oh, not for us the easy mirth
Of men that never roam!
The crackling of the narrow hearth,
The cabined joys of home!
Keep your tame, regulated glee,
O pale protected State!
Our dwelling-place is on the sea,
Our joy the joy of Fate!

No long caresses give us ease,
No lazy languors warm,
We seize our mates as the sea-gulls seize,
And leave them to the storm.
But in the bridal halls of gloom
The couch is stern and strait;
For us the marriage rite of Doom,
The nuptial joy of Fate.

Wine for the weaklings of the town,
Their lucky toasts to drain!
Our skoal for them whose star goes down,
Our drink the drink of men!
No Bacchic ivy for our brows!
Like vikings, we await
The grim, ungarlanded carouse
We keep to-night with Fate...

They prize not most the opulence of June
Who from the year's beginning to its close
Dwell, where unfading verdure tireless grows,
And where sweet summer's harp is kept in tune.
We must have listened to the winter's rune,
And felt impatient longings for the rose,
Ere its full radiance on our vision glows,
Or with its fragrant soul, we can commune.

Not they most prize life's blessings, and delights,
Who walk in safe and sunny paths alway.
But those, who, groping in the darkness, borrow
Pale rays from hope, to lead them through the night,
And in the long, long watches wait for day.
He knows not joy who has not first known sorrow.

    Jaspar was poor, and want and vice
    Had made his heart like stone,
    And Jaspar look'd with envious eyes
    On riches not his own.

    On plunder bent abroad he went
    Towards the close of day,
    And loitered on the lonely road
    Impatient for his prey.

    No traveller came, he loiter'd long
    And often look'd around,
    And paus'd and listen'd eagerly
    To catch some coming sound.

    He sat him down beside the stream
    That crossed the lonely way,
    So fair a scene might well have charm'd
    All evil thoughts away;

    He sat beneath a willow tree
    That cast a trembling shade,
    The gentle river full in front
    A little island made,

    Where pleasantly the moon-beam shone

They sat with hearts untroubled,
    The clear sky sparkled above,
And an ancient wisdom bubbled
    From the lips of a youthful love.

They read in a coloured history
    Of Egypt and of the Nile,
And half it seemed a mystery,
    Familiar, half, the while.

Till living out of the story
    Grew old Egyptian men,
And a shadow looked forth Rory
    And said, "We meet again!"

And over Aileen a maiden
    Looked back through the ages dim:
She laughed, and her eyes were laden
    With an old-time love for him.

In a mist came temples thronging
    With sphinxes seen in a row,
And the rest of the day was a longing
    For their homes of long ago.

"We'd go there if they'd let us,"
    They said with wounded pride:...

The dawn grows red in the eastern sky,
    (Long, so long is the day,)
And I lean from my lattice and sigh and sigh,
As I watch the night fog creeping by
    And vanish over the bay.

The thrush soars up, over green clad hills,
    (The day is long, so long;)
Like liquid silver his music spills,
And ever it quivers, and runs, and trills
    In a glad sweet burst of song.

Under my window there blooms a rose,
    (How long a day can be.)
And I lean and whisper what no soul knows
Of my heart's sorrows and secret woes,
    And the red rose sighs, 'Ah me!'

A ship sails into the waiting bay,
    (The day is long, alack,)
But what would that matter to me, I pray
If the ship that sailed out yesterday
    Should never more come back.

Down the long hall she glistens like a star,
The foam-born mother of Love, transfixed to stone,
Yet none the less immortal, breathing on.
Time's brutal hand hath maimed but could not mar.
When first the enthralled enchantress from afar
Dazzled mine eyes, I saw not her alone,
Serenely poised on her world-worshipped throne,
As when she guided once her dove-drawn car, -
But at her feet a pale, death-stricken Jew,
Her life adorer, sobbed farewell to love.
Here Heine wept!    Here still we weeps anew,
Nor ever shall his shadow lift or move,
While mourns one ardent heart, one poet-brain,
For vanished Hellas and Hebraic pain.

I cannot quite recall
When first he came,
So reticent and tall,
With his eyes of flame.

The neighbors used to say
(They know so much!)
He looked to them half way
Spanish or Dutch.

Outlandish certainly
He is--and queer!
He has been lodged with me
This thirty year;

All the while (it seems absurd!)
We hardly have
Exchanged a single word.
Mum as the grave!

Minds only his own affairs,
Goes out and in,
And keeps himself upstairs
With his violin.

Mum did I say? And yet
That talking smile
You never can forget,
Is all the while

Full of such sweet reproofs
The darkest day,
Like morning on the roofs
In flush of May.

Like autumn on the hills;
At four o'clock
The...

Gone are the glorious Greeks of old,
Glorious in mien and mind;
Their bones are mingled with the mould,
Their dust is on the wind;
The forms they hewed from living stone
Survive the waste of years, alone,
And, scattered with their ashes, show
What greatness perished long ago.

Yet fresh the myrtles there, the springs
Gush brightly as of yore;
Flowers blossom from the dust of kings,
As many an age before.
There nature moulds as nobly now,
As e'er of old, the human brow;
And copies still the martial form
That braved Platæa's battle storm.

Boy! thy first looks were taught to seek
Their heaven in Hellas' skies:
Her airs have tinged thy dusky cheek,
Her sunshine lit thine eyes;
Thine ears have drunk the woodland strains
Heard by ...

Pensive and faltering,
The words, the dead, I write;
For living are the Dead;
(Haply the only living, only real,
And I the apparition - I the spectre.)

I built a little House of Dreams,
And fenced it all about,
But still I heard the Wind of Truth
That roared without.
I laid a fire of Memories
And sat before the glow,
But through the chinks and round the door
The wind would blow.
I left the House, for all the night
I heard the Wind of Truth;
I followed where it seemed to lead
Through all my youth.
But when I sought the House of Dreams,
To creep within and die,
The Wind of Truth had leveled it,
And passed it by.

    Hic pietatis honos? sic nos in sceptra reponis!

                                                VIRG.


Her Guilford clasps her, beautiful in death,
And with a kiss recalls her fleeting breath,
To tapers thus, which by a blast expire,
A lighted taper, touch'd, restores the fire:
She rear'd her swimming eye, and saw the light,
And Guilford too, or she had loath'd the sight:
Her father's death she bore, despis'd her own,
But now she must, she will, have leave to groan:
Ah! Guilford, she began, and would have spoke;
But sobs rush'd in, and ev'ry accent broke:
Reason itself, as gusts of passion blew,
Was ruffled in the tempest, and withdrew.
    So the youth lost his image in the well,
When tears upon the yielding surface fell.
The scatter'd fe...

1837.


    The sunshine streaming through the stainèd glass
    Touched her with rosy colors as she stood,
    The maiden Queen of all the British realm,
    In the old Abbey on that soft June day.
    Youth shone within her eyes, where God had set
    All steadfastness, and high resolve, and truth;
    Youth flushed her cheek, dwelt on the smooth white brow
    Whereon the heavy golden circlet lay.

    The ashes of dead kings, the history of
    A nation's growth, of strife, and victory,
    The mighty past called soft through aisle and nave:
    "Be strong, O Queen; be strong as thou art fair!"
    A virgin, white of soul and unafraid,
    Since back of her was God, and at her feet
    A people loyal to the core, and strong,
    And loving w...

He. Where thou dwellest, in what grove,
Tell me Fair One, tell me Love;
Where thou thy charming nest dost build,
O thou pride of every field!

She. Yonder stands a lonely tree,
There I live and mourn for thee;
Morning drinks my silent tear,
And evening winds my sorrow bear.

He. O thou summer's harmony,
I have liv'd and mourn'd for thee;
Each day I mourn along the wood,
And night hath heard my sorrows loud.

She. Dost thou truly long for me?
And am I thus sweet to thee?
Sorrow now is at an end,
O my Lover and my Friend!

He. Come, on wings of joy we'll fly
To where my bower hangs on high;
Come, and make thy calm retreat
Among green leaves and blossoms sweet.

I

Wreathed in myrtle, my sword I’ll conceal,
Like those champions devoted and brave,
When they plunged in the tyrant their steel,
And to Athens deliverance gave.

II

Beloved heroes! your deathless souls roam
In the joy breathing isles of the blest;
Where the mighty of old have their home,
Where Achilles and Diomed rest.

III

In fresh myrtle my blade I’ll entwine,
Like Harmodius, the gallant and good,
When he made at the tutelar shrine
A libation of Tyranny’s blood.

IV

Ye deliverers of Athens from shame!
Ye avengers of Liberty’s wrongs!
Endless ages shall cherish your fame,
Embalmed in their echoing songs!

Made from a fetter of Bonnivard, the Prisoner of Chillon; the handle of wood from the Frigate Constitution, and bound with a circlet of gold, inset with three precious stones from Siberia, Ceylon, and Maine.

I thought this Pen would arise
From the casket where it lies--
    Of itself would arise and write
My thanks and my surprise.

When you gave it me under the pines,
I dreamed these gems from the mines
    Of Siberia, Ceylon, and Maine
Would glimmer as thoughts in the lines;

That this iron link from the chain
Of Bonnivard might retain
    Some verse of the Poet who sang
Of the prisoner and his pain;

That this wood from the frigate's mast
Might write me a rhyme at last,
    As it used to write on the sky
The song of the sea and the blas...