Death

An old man's thought of School;
An old man, gathering youthful memories and blooms, that youth itself cannot.

Now only do I know you!
O fair auroral skies! O morning dew upon the grass!

And these I see--these sparkling eyes,
These stores of mystic meaning--these young lives,
Building, equipping, like a fleet of ships--immortal ships!
Soon to sail out over the measureless seas,
On the Soul's voyage.

Only a lot of boys and girls?
Only the tiresome spelling, writing, ciphering classes?
Only a Public School?

Ah more--infinitely more;
(As George Fox rais'd his warning cry, "Is it this pile of brick and mortar--these dead floors, windows, rails--you call the church?
Why this is not the church at all--the Church is living, ever living Souls.")

Hear me, O God!
A broken heart
Is my best part.
Use still thy rod,
That I may prove
Therein thy Love.

If thou hadst not
Been stern to me,
But left me free,
I had forgot
Myself and thee.

For sin's so sweet,
As minds ill-bent
Rarely repent,
Until they meet
Their punishment.

Who more can crave
Than thou hast done?
That gav'st a Son,
To free a slave,
First made of nought;
With all since bought.

Sin, Death, and Hell
His glorious name
Quite overcame,
Yet I rebel
And slight the same.

But I'll come in
Before my loss
Me farther toss,
As sure to win
Under His cross.

The Sphinx is drowsy,
Her wings are furled:
Her ear is heavy,
She broods on the world.
"Who'll tell me my secret,
The ages have kept?--
I awaited the seer
While they slumbered and slept:--

"The fate of the man-child,
The meaning of man;
Known fruit of the unknown;
Daedalian plan;
Out of sleeping a waking,
Out of waking a sleep;
Life death overtaking;
Deep underneath deep?

"Erect as a sunbeam,
Upspringeth the palm;
The elephant browses,
Undaunted and calm;
In beautiful motion
The thrush plies his wings;
Kind leaves of his covert,
Your silence he sings.

"The waves, unashamèd,
In difference sweet,
Play glad with the breezes,
Old playfellows meet;
The journeying atoms,
Primordial wh...

Nauhaught, the Indian deacon, who of old
Dwelt, poor but blameless, where his narrowing Cape
Stretches its shrunk arm out to all the winds
And the relentless smiting of the waves,
Awoke one morning from a pleasant dream
Of a good angel dropping in his hand
A fair, broad gold-piece, in the name of God.

He rose and went forth with the early day
Far inland, where the voices of the waves
Mellowed and Mingled with the whispering leaves,
As, through the tangle of the low, thick woods,
He searched his traps. Therein nor beast nor bird
He found; though meanwhile in the reedy pools
The otter plashed, and underneath the pines
The partridge drummed: and as his thoughts went back
To the sick wife and little child at home,
What marvel that the poor man felt his faith...

All was up with Richard Tanner
‘Wait-a-Bit’ we called him. Dead?
Yes. The braceman dropped a spanner,
Landed Richard on the head;
Cracked his skull, sir, like a teacup,
Down the pump-shaft in the well.
Braceman hadn’t time to speak up,
Tanner never knew what fell.

Tell the widow? Who’d go through it?
No one on the shift would stir;
But Pat Ryan said he’d do it
‘Nately break the news to her.’
Pat’s a splitter, and a kinder
Heart I never wish to know.
Stephens told him where to find her,
Begged him gently deal the blow.

In a very solemn manner
Ryan met the dead man’s wife
‘Mornin’ to yez, Widdy Tanner!’
Says he gravely, ‘Such is life!’
‘I’m no widow!’ says she, prying
For the joke in Ryan’s eye.
‘’Scuse me, mum,’ says Pa...

If you had known
When listening with her to the far-down moan
Of the white-selvaged and empurpled sea,
And rain came on that did not hinder talk,
Or damp your flashing facile gaiety
In turning home, despite the slow wet walk
By crooked ways, and over stiles of stone;
If you had known

You would lay roses,
Fifty years thence, on her monument, that discloses
Its graying shape upon the luxuriant green;
Fifty years thence to an hour, by chance led there,
What might have moved you? yea, had you foreseen
That on the tomb of the selfsame one, gone where
The dawn of every day is as the close is,
You would lay roses!

The weary, weary days gang by,
    The weary nichts they fa',
I mauna rest, I canna lie
    Since my ain bairn's awa'.

The soughing o' the springtide breeze
    Abune her heid blaws sweet,
There's nests amang the kirkyaird trees
    And gowans at her feet.

She gae'd awa' when winds were hie,
    When the deein' year was cauld,
An noo the young year seems to me
    A waur ane nor the auld.

And, bedded, 'twixt the nicht an' day,
    Yest're'en, I couldna bide
For thinkin', thinkin' as I lay
    O' the wean that lies outside.

O, mickle licht to me was gie'n
    To reach my bairn's abode,
But heaven micht blast a mither's een
    And her feet wad find the road.

The kirkyaird loan alang the brae
    Was choked ...

Wot’s that you’re readin’? a novel? A novel! well, darn my skin!
You a man grown and bearded and histin’ such stuff ez that in
Stuff about gals and their sweethearts! No wonder you’re thin ez a knife.
Look at me clar two hundred and never read one in my life!

That’s my opinion o’ novels. And ez to their lyin’ round here,
They belong to the Jedge’s daughter the Jedge who came up last year
On account of his lungs and the mountains and the balsam o’ pine and fir;
And his daughter well, she read novels, and that’s what’s the matter with her.

Yet she was sweet on the Jedge, and stuck by him day and night,
Alone in the cabin up ‘yer till she grew like a ghost, all white.
She wus only a slip of a thing, ez light and ez up and away
Ez rifle smoke blown through the woods, but she w...

Deem not this book a creed, 't is but the cry
Of one who fears not death, yet would not die;
Who at the table feigns with sorry jest.
To love the wine the Master's hand has pressed,
The while he loves the absent Master best,
The bitter cry of Love for love's reply!

A little dog disturbed my trust in Heaven.
I praised most faithfully
All the great things that be,
Man’s pain and pleasure even,
I said though hard this weighing
Of pains and tears and praying
He will reward most just.

I said your bitter weeping man or maid,
Your tears or laughter
Shall gain a just Hereafter;
Meet you the will of God then unafraid,
Gird you to your trials for God’s abode
Is open for all sorrow;
Live for the great to-morrow.
There passed me on the road

A little dog with hungry eyes, and sad
Thin flesh all shivering,
All sore and quivering,
Whining beneath the fell disease he had.
I hurried home and praised God as before
For thus affording
To man rewarding,
The dog was whining outside my door.

The morning shone on Tagus' rocky side,
And airs of summer swelled the yellow tide,
When, rising from his melancholy bed,
And faint, and feebly by Antonio[2] led,
Poor Camoens, subdued by want and woe,
Along the winding margin wandered slow,
His harp, that once could each warm feeling move
Of patriot glory or of tenderest love,
His sole and sable friend[3] (while a faint tone
Rose from the wires) placed by a mossy stone.
How beautiful the sun ascending shines
From ridge to ridge, along the purple vines!
How pure the azure of the opening skies!
How resonant the nearer rock replies
To call of early mariners! and, hark!
The distant whistle from yon parting bark,
That down the channel as serene she strays,
Her gray sail mingles with the ...

I.

There's the rose and the lily, the daisy and pink,
And many rare flowers which others may think
Are the fairest and best, the sweetest that blow,
With delicious perfume, and colors that glow--
But go to the orchard and sniff the delight
Of the incense that's shed by the pink and the white,
And let the soul float away in a swoon
On the ambient air where the apple trees bloom!


II.

There's the cowslip, narcissus, and sweet mignonette,
The asters, verbenas, the fuschias; and yet,
As much as I love them in Summer array,
It's the white and the pink I dream of to-day,
And I walk 'neath the branches that just interlace
And shower their blossoms right down in my face
When the breeze that is laden with rarest perfume
Is wafted along where...

That second time they hunted me
From hill to plain, from shore to sea,
And Austria, hounding far and wide
Her blood-hounds thro’ the country-side,
Breathed hot and instant on my trace,
I made six days a hiding-place
Of that dry green old aqueduct
Where I and Charles, when boys, have plucked
The fire-flies from the roof above,
Bright creeping thro’ the moss they love:
How long it seems since Charles was lost!
Six days the soldiers crossed and crossed
The country in my very sight;
And when that peril ceased at night,
The sky broke out in red dismay
With signal fires; well, there I lay
Close covered o’er in my recess,
Up to the neck in ferns and cress,
Thinking on Metternich our friend,
And Charles’s miserable end,
And much beside, two days; t...

On the black road through the wood
    As I rode,
There the Headless Horseman stood;
By the wild pool in the wood,
    As I rode.

From the shadow of an oak,
    As I rode,
Demon steed and rider broke;
By the thunder-shattered oak,
    As I rode.

On the waste road through the plain,
    As I rode,
At my back he whirled like rain;
On the tempest-blackened plain,
    As I rode.

Four fierce hoofs shod red with fire,
    As I rode,
Woke the wild rocks, dark and dire;
Eyes and nostrils streamed with fire,
    As I rode.

On the deep road through the rocks,
    As I rode,
I could reach his horse's locks;
Through the echo-hurling rocks,
    As I rode.

And again I looked behind,
    As I rod...

Not while I live may I forget
That garden which my spirit trod!
Where dreams were flowers, wild and wet,
And beautiful as God.

Not while I breathe, awake, adream,
Shall live again for me those hours,
When, in its mystery and gleam,
I met her 'mid the flowers.

Eyes, talismanic heliotrope,
Beneath mesmeric lashes, where
The sorceries of love and hope
Had made a shining lair.

And daydawn brows, whereover hung
The twilight of dark locks: wild birds,
Her lips, that spoke the rose's tongue
Of fragrance-voweled words.

I will not tell of cheeks and chin,
That held me as sweet language holds;
Nor of the eloquence within
Her breasts' twin-moonéd molds.

Nor of her body's languorous
Wind-grace, that glanced like starl...

Round Cleon's brow the Delphic laurels twine,
    And lo! the laurel decks Amanda's breast!
    Charm'd shall he mark its glossy branches shine
    On that contrasting snow; shall see express'd
Love's better omens, in the green hues dress'd
    Of this selected foliage. - Nymph, 't is thine
    The warning story on its leaves to find,
    Proud Daphne's fate, imprison'd in its rind,
And with its umbrage veil'd, great Phoebus' power
    Scorning, and bent, with feet of wind, to foil
    His swift pursuit, till on Thessalian shore
Shot into boughs, and rooted to the soil. -
    Thus warn'd, fair Maid, Apollo's ire to shun,
    Soon may his Spray's and VOTARY's lot be one.

It is usual
for people in this country
(out of pretended respect
but rather from an impertinent curiosity)
to desire to see
persons
after they are
dead.

It is my earnest request that no person
on any pretence whatever
may be permitted to see my
corpse
but those who
unavoidably must.

I desire to be buried
in the north side of the churchyard
of Tregynon
somewhere about the centre
my coffin to be made in the most
plain and simple manner
without the usual fantastical decorations
and the more
perishable the material
the better.

I desire that no undertaker
or professed performer of funerals
may be employed:
but that I may be conveyed
to the churchyard
in some country hears
which ...

I saw a tract of ocean locked in-land
    Within a field's embrace--
The very sea! Afar it fled the strand
    And gave the seasons chase,
And met the night alone, the tempest spanned,
    Saw sunrise face to face.

O Poet, more than ocean, lonelier!
    In inaccessible rest
And storm remote, thou, sea of thoughts, dost stir,
    Scattered through east to west,--
Now, while thou closest with the kiss of her
    Who locks thee to her breast.