Death

Frowning, the owl in the oak complained him
Sore, that the song of the robin restrained him
Wrongly of slumber, rudely of rest.
"From the north, from the east, from the south and the west,
Woodland, wheat-field, corn-field, clover,
Over and over and over and over,
Five o'clock, ten o'clock, twelve, or seven,
Nothing but robin-songs heard under heaven:
How can we sleep?

`Peep!' you whistle, and `cheep! cheep! cheep!'
Oh, peep, if you will, and buy, if 'tis cheap,
And have done; for an owl must sleep.
Are ye singing for fame, and who shall be first?
Each day's the same, yet the last is worst,
And the summer is cursed with the silly outburst
Of idiot red-breasts peeping and cheeping
By day, when all honest birds ought to be sleeping.
Lord, what a din! ...

'Ouvre ta port', Germin', c'est moi qu'est ton mari.'
'Donnez-moi des indic's de la première nuit,
    Et par là je croirai que vous et's mon mari.'

        --Germaine.


The Text is Fraser Tytler's, taken down from the recitation of Mrs. Brown in 1800, who had previously (1783) recited a similar version to Jamieson. The later recitation, which was used by Scott, with others, seems to contain certain improvisations of Mrs. Brown's which do not appear in the earlier form.

The Story.--A mother, who feigns to be her own son and demands tokens of the girl outside the gate, turns her son's love away, and is cursed by him. Similar ballads exist in France, Germany, and Greece.

There is an early eighteenth-century MS. (Elizabeth Cochrane's Song-Book) of this ballad, which giv...

Alice, I need not tell you that the Art
That copies Nature, even at its best,
Is but the echo of a splendid tone,
Or like the answer of a little child
To the deep question of some frosted sage.
For Nature in her grand magnificence,
Compared to Art, must ever raise her head
Beyond the cognizance of human minds:
This is the spirit merely; that, the soul.
We watch her passing, like some gentle dream,
And catch sweet glimpses of her perfect face;
We see the flashing of her gorgeous robes,
And, if her mantle ever falls at all,
How few Elishas wear it sacredly,
As if it were a valued gift from heaven.
God has created; we but re-create,
According to the temper of our minds;
According to the grace He has bequeathed;
According to the uses we have made
Of...

Letter IV. Yearnings.


I.

    The earth is glad, I know, when night is spent,
    For then she wakes the birdlings in the bowers;
    And, one by one, the rosy-footed hours
    Start for the race; and from his crimson tent
    The soldier-sun looks o'er the firmament;
    And all his path is strewn with festal flowers.


II.

    But what his mission? What the happy quest
    Of all this toil? He journeys on his way
    As Cæsar did, unbiass'd by the sway
    Of maid or man. His goal is in the west.
    Will he unbuckle there, a...

Well, how are things in Heaven? I wish you'd say,
Because I'd like to know that you're all right.
Tell me, have you found everlasting day,
Or been sucked in by everlasting night?
For when I shut my eyes your face shows pain;
I hear you make some cheery old remark -
I can rebuild you in my brain,
Though you've gone out patrolling in the dark.

You hated tours of trenches; you were proud
Of nothing more than having good years to spend;
Longed to get home and join the careless crowd
Of chaps who work in peace with Time for friend.
That's all washed out now. You're beyond the wire:
No earthly chance can send you crawling back;
You've finished with machine-gun fire -
Knocked over in a hopeless dud-attack.

Somehow I always thought you'd get done in,
...

I met the Bishop on the road
And much said he and I.
'Those breasts are flat and fallen now,
Those veins must soon be dry;
Live in a heavenly mansion,
Not in some foul sty.'

'Fair and foul are near of kin,
And fair needs foul,' I cried.
'My friends are gone, but that's a truth
Nor grave nor bed denied,
Learned in bodily lowliness
And in the heart's pride.

'A woman can be proud and stiff
When on love intent;
But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.'

Inside this northern summer’s fold
The fields are full of naked gold,
Broadcast from heaven on lands it loves;
The green veiled air is full of doves;
Soft leaves that sift the sunbeams let
Light on the small warm grasses wet
Fall in short broken kisses sweet,
And break again like waves that beat
Round the sun’s feet.

But I, for all this English mirth
Of golden-shod and dancing days,
And the old green-girt sweet-hearted earth,
Desire what here no spells can raise.
Far hence, with holier heavens above,
The lovely city of my love
Bathes deep in the sun-satiate air
That flows round no fair thing more fair
Her beauty bare.

There the utter sky is holier, there
More pure the intense white height of air,
More clear men’s eyes that mine ...

Bright scenes must all depart as they've departed,
Unshadowed years will fly as they have flown,
And fairer visions leave us silent-hearted,
Keen, lashing blasts must blow as they have blown.

Old mem'ries must grow dim and fade away,
Across the world's wide wastes the sun shall set,
Thou shalt press forward on thy toil-trod way,
Nor leave me one, just one, one sad regret.

Ah, where shall I be then?--forgot--estranged,
When years have rolled their glory at thy feet,
When friends and kindred all, yea, all have changed
And others come their chosen one to greet.

And yet what prayer from me could now implore,
Could crave for all it would, for words have fled?
May Heaven preserve thee as thou wast before,
And multiply all blessings on thy head.

Never the time and the place
And the loved one all together!
This path, how soft to pace!
This May, what magic weather!
Where is the loved one's face?
In a dream that loved one's face meets mine,
But the house is narrow, the place is bleak
Where, outside, rain and wind combine
With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak,
With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,
With a malice that marks each word, each sign!
O enemy sly and serpentine,
Uncoil thee from the waking man!
Do I hold the Past
Thus firm and fast
Yet doubt if the Future hold I can?
This path so soft to pace shall lead
Thro' the magic of May to herself indeed!
Or narrow if needs the house must be,
Outside are the storms and strangers: we
Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she,
I and...

I will not wash my face;
I will not brush my hair;
I "pig" around the place -
There's nobody to care.
Nothing but rock and tree;
Nothing but wood and stone,
Oh, God, it's hell to be
Alone, alone, alone!

Snow-peaks and deep-gashed draws
Corral me in a ring.
I feel as if I was
The only living thing
On all this blighted earth;
And so I frowst and shrink,
And crouching by my hearth
I hear the thoughts I think.

I think of all I miss -
The boys I used to know;
The girls I used to kiss;
The coin I used to blow:
The bars I used to haunt;
The racket and the row;
The beers I didn't want
(I wish I had 'em now).

Day after day the same,
Only a little worse;
No one to grouch or blame -
Oh, for a loving...

I

Now, in the thousandth year,
When April's near,
Now comes it that the great ones of the earth
Take all their mirth
Away with them, far off, to orchard-places,--
Nor they nor Solomon arrayed like these,--
To sun themselves at ease;
To breathe of wind-swept spaces;
To see some miracle of leafy graces;--
To catch the out-flowing rapture of the trees.
Considering the lilies.
                                            --Yes. And when
Shall they consider Men?

            (O showering May-clad tree,
            Bear yet awhile with me.)


II

For now at last, they have beheld the trees.
Lo, even these!--
The men of sounding laughter and low fears;
The women of light laughter, and no tears;
The great ones o...

    If I had known
That when the morrow dawned the roses would be dead
I would have filled my hands with blossoms white and red.
    If I had known!

    If I had known
That I should be to-day deaf to all happy birds
I would have lain for hours to listen to your words.
    If I had known!

    If I had known
That with the morning light you would be gone for aye
I would have been more kind; - sweet Love had won his way
    If I had known.

Was it the double of my dream
The woman that by me lay
Dreamed, or did we halve a dream
Under the first cold gleam of day?
I thought: "There is a waterfall
Upon Ben Bulben side
That all my childhood counted dear;
Were I to travel far and wide
I could not find a thing so dear.'
My memories had magnified
So many times childish delight.
I would have touched it like a child
But knew my finger could but have touched
Cold stone and water. I grew wild.
Even accusing Heaven because
It had set down among its laws:
Nothing that we love over-much
Is ponderable to our touch.
I dreamed towards break of day,
The cold blown spray in my nostril.
But she that beside me lay
Had watched in bitterer sleep
The marvelous stag of Arthur,
That lofty...

Physician and Naturalist to Lord Amherst, Governor General of India, who died at Cawnpoor, 24th of November, 1826.


Another awful warning voice of death
To human dignity, and human pride;
'Tis sad, to mark how short the longest life--
How brief was thine! Thy day is done,
And all its complicated hopes and fears
Lie buried, ABEL! in an early grave.
The unavailing tear for thee shall flow,
And love and friendship faithful record keep
Of all thy varied worth, thy anxious strife
For fame and years, now gone for ever!
Yet o'er thy tomb science and learning
Bend in mute regret, and truth proclaims
Thy just inheritance an honour'd name!

Lamented most by those who knew thee best,
Accept this humble, tributary lay,
From one, who in thy boyhood and thy ...

The last light fails - that shallow pool of day!
The coursers of the dark stamp down to drink,
Arch their wild necks, lift their wild heads and neigh;
Their drivers, gathering at the water-brink,
With eyes ashine from out their clustering hair,
Utter their hollow speech, or gaze afar,
Rapt in irradiant reverie, to where
Languishes, lost in light, the evening star.

Come the wood-nymphs to dance within the glooms,
Calling these charioteers with timbrels' din;
Ashen with twilight the dark forest looms
O'er the nocturnal beasts that prowl within
"O glory of beauty which the world makes fair!"
Pant they their serenading on the air.

Sound the loud hooves, and all abroad the sky
The lusty charioteers their stations take;
Planet to planet do the sweet Love...

    Know you her secret none can utter?
        Hers of the Book, the tripled Crown?
    Still on the spire the pigeons flutter,
        Still by the gateway flits the gown;
    Still on the street, from corbel and gutter,
        Faces of stone look down.

    Faces of stone, and stonier faces--
        Some from library windows wan
    Forth on her gardens, her green spaces,
        Peer and turn to their books anon.
    Hence, my Muse, from the green oases
        Gather the tent, begone!

Nay, should she by the pavement linger
        Under the rooms where once she played,
    Who from the feast would rise to fling her
        One poor sou for her serenade?
    One short laugh for the antic finger
        Thrumming a lute-strin...

’Tis midnight o’er the dim mere’s lonely bosom,
Dark, dusky, windy midnight: swift are driven
The swelling vapours onward: every blossom
Bathes its bright petals in the tears of heaven.
Imperfect, half-seen objects meet the sight,
The other half our fancy must pourtray;
A wan, dull, lengthen’d sheet of swimming light
Lies the broad lake: the moon conceals her ray,
Sketch’d faintly by a pale and lurid gleam
Shot thro’ the glimmering clouds: the lovely planet
Is shrouded in obscurity; the scream
Of owl is silenc’d; and the rocks of granite
Rise tall and drearily, while damp and dank
Hang the thick willows on the reedy bank.
Beneath, the gurgling eddies slowly creep,
Blacken’d by foliage; and the glutting wave,
That saps eternally the cold grey steep,
Sounds...

Phoebus, arise!
And paint the sable skies
With azure, white, and red:
Rouse Memnon’s mother from her Tithon’s bed
That she may thy career with roses spread:
The nightingales thy coming each-where sing:
Make an eternal spring!
Give life to this dark world which lieth dead;
Spread forth thy golden hair
In larger locks than thou wast wont before,
And emperor-like decore
With diadem of pearl thy temples fair:
Chase hence the ugly night
Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light.

This is that happy morn,
That day, long-wished day,
Of all my life so dark,
(If cruel stars have not my ruin sworn,
And fates my hopes betray),
Which, purely white, deserves
An everlasting diamond should it mark.
This is the morn should bring unto this ...