Death

"Nah, Matty! what meeans all this fuss?
Tha'rt as back'ard as back'ard can be;
Ther must be some reason, becoss
It used to be diff'rent wi' thee.

Aw've nooaticed, 'at allus befoor
If aw kussed thi, tha smiled an lukt fain;
Ther's summat nooan reight, lass, aw'm sewer,
Tha seems i' soa gloomy a vein.

If tha's met wi' a hansomer chap,
Aw'm sewer aw'll net stand i' thi way;
But tha mud get a war, lass, bi th' swap, -
If tha'rt anxious aw'll nivver say nay.

But tha knows 'at for monny a wick
Aw've been savin mi brass to get wed;
An aw'd meant thee gooin wi' me to pick
Aght some chairs an a table an bed.

Aw offer'd mi hand an mi heart;
An tha seemed to be fain to ha booath;
But if its thi wish we should part,
To beg on thi, na...

In the whole wide world there was but one;
Others for others, but she was mine,
The one fair woman beneath the sun.

From her gold-flax curls' most marvellous shine
Down to the lithe and delicate feet
There was not a curve nor a waving line

But moved in a harmony firm and sweet
With all of passion my life could know.
By knowledge perfect and faith complete

I was bound to her, - as the planets go
Adoring around their central star,
Free, but united for weal or woe.

She was so near and Heaven so far -
She grew my heaven and law and fate,
Rounding my life with a mystic bar

No thought beyond could violate.
Our love to fulness in silence nursed
Grew calm as morning, when through the gate

Of the glimmering east the sun has...

Here in the teeth of this triumphant wind
That shakes the naked shadows on the ground,
Making a key-board of the earth to strike
From clattering tree and hedge a separate sound,

Bear witness for me that I loved my life,
All things that hurt me and all things that healed,
And that I swore it this day in March,
Here at the edge of this new-broken field.

You only knew me, tell them I was glad
For every hour since my hour of birth,
And that I ceased to fear, as once I feared,
The last complete reunion with the earth.

    The sounds of mid-night trickle into the roar
    Of morning over the water growing blue.
    At ten o'clock the August sunbeams pour
    A blinding flood on Michigan Avenue.

    But yet the half-drawn shades of bottle green
    Leave the recesses of the room
    With misty auras drawn around their gloom
    Where things lie undistinguished, scarcely seen.

    You, standing between the window and the bed
    Are edged with rainbow colors. And I lie
    Drowsy with quizzical half-open eye
    Musing upon the contour of your head,
    Watching you comb your hair,
    Clothed in a corset waist and skirt of silk,
    Tied with white braid above your slender hips
    Which reaches to your knees and makes your bare
    And delicate legs by contrast w...

A man of kind and noble mind
Was H. Gustavus Hyde.
'Twould be amiss to add to this
At present, for he died,
In full possession of his senses,
The day before my tale commences.

One half his gold his four-year-old
Son Paul was known to win,
And Beatrix, whose age was six,
For all the rest came in,
Perceiving which, their Uncle Ben did
A thing that people said was splendid.

For by the hand he took them, and
Remarked in accents smooth:
"One thing I ask. Be mine the task
These stricken babes to soothe!
My country home is really charming:
I'll teach them all the joys of farming."

One halcyon week they fished his creek,
And watched him do the chores,
In haylofts hid, and, shouting, slid
Down sloping cellar doors:--
Beca...

Love lit a beacon in thine eyes,
        And I out in the storm,
And lo! the night had taken wings;
        I dream me safe and warm.

Love lit a beacon in thine eyes,
        A wreckers’ light for me;
My heart is broken on the rocks;
        I perish in the sea.

Brother, my thought of you
In this letter on a palm-leaf
Goes up about you
As her own scent
Goes up about the rose.

The bracelets on my arms
Have grown too large
Because you went away.

I think the sun of love
Melted the snow of parting,
For the white river of tears has overflowed.

But though I am sad
I am still beautiful,
The girl that you desired
In April.

Brother, my love for you
In this letter on a palm-leaf
Brightens about you
As her own rays
Brighten about the moon.

Love Poem of Cambodia.

I Love to hear thine earnest voice,
Wherever thou art hid,
Thou testy little dogmatist,
Thou pretty Katydid
Thou mindest me of gentlefolks, -
Old gentlefolks are they, -
Thou say'st an undisputed thing
In such a solemn way.

Thou art a female, Katydid
I know it by the trill
That quivers through thy piercing notes,
So petulant and shrill;
I think there is a knot of you
Beneath the hollow tree, -
A knot of spinster Katydids, - -
Do Katydids drink tea?

Oh tell me where did Katy live,
And what did Katy do?
And was she very fair and young,
And yet so wicked, too?
Did Katy love a naughty man,
Or kiss more cheeks than one?
I warrant Katy did no more
Than many a Kate has done.

Dear me! I'll tell you all about

A little while when I am gone
My life will live in music after me,
As spun foam lifted and borne on
After the wave is lost in the full sea.

A while these nights and days will burn
In song with the bright frailty of foam,
Living in light before they turn
Back to the nothingness that is their home.

i.

Arise, fair Phoebus! and with looks serene
    Survey the world which late the orbèd Queen
Did pave with pearl to please enamour'd swains.
Arise! Arise! The Dark is bound in chains,
And thou'rt immortal, and thy throne is here
To sway the seasons, and to make it clear
    How much we need thee, O thou silent god!
That art the crown'd controller of the year.


ii.

And while the breezes re-construct for thee
    The shimmering clouds; and while, from lea to lea,
The great earth reddens with a maid's delight,
Behold! I bring to thee, as yesternight,
My subject song. Do thou protect apace
My peerless one, my Peri with the face
    That is a marvel to the minds of men,
And like a flower for humbleness of grace.


iii.

BOOK II.


Sweet, when the great sea's water is stirred to his depths by the storm- winds,
Standing ashore to descry one afar-off mightily struggling:
Not that a neighbour's sorrow to you yields blissful enjoyment;
But that the sight hath a sweetness, of ills ourselves are exempt from.
Sweet 'tis too to behold, on a broad plain mustering, war-hosts
Arm them for some great battle, one's self unscathed by the danger:-
Yet still happier this:- To possess, impregnably guarded,
Those calm heights of the sages, which have for an origin Wisdom;
Thence to survey our fellows, observe them this way and that way
Wander amidst Life's paths, poor stragglers seeking a highway:
Watch mind battle with mind, and escutcheon rival escutcheon;
Gaze on that untold strife, which is waged 'ne...

Faster, faster,
O Circe, Goddess,
Let the wild, thronging train
The bright procession
Of eddying forms,
Sweep through my soul!
Thou standest, smiling
Down on me! thy right arm,
Lean'd up against the column there,
Props thy soft cheek;
Thy left holds, hanging loosely,
The deep cup, ivy-cinctured,
I held but now.
Is it, then, evening
So soon? I see, the night-dews,
Cluster'd in thick beads, dim
The agate brooch-stones
On thy white shoulder;
The cool night-wind, too,
Blows through the portico,
Stirs thy hair, Goddess,
Waves thy white robe!

Circe.
Whence art thou, sleeper?

The Youth.
When the white dawn first
Through the rough fir-planks
Of my hut, by the chestnuts,
Up at the valley-head,

BOYS SING:
Night! with all thine eyes look down!
Darkness! weep thy holiest dew!
Never smiled the inconstant moon
On a pair so true.
Haste, coy hour! and quench all light,
Lest eyes see their own delight!
Haste, swift hour! and thy loved flight
Oft renew!

GIRLS SING:
Fairies, sprites, and angels, keep her!
Holy stars! permit no wrong!
And return, to wake the sleeper,
Dawn, ere it be long!
O joy! O fear! there is not one
Of us can guess what may be done
In the absence of the sun: -
Come along!

BOYS:
Oh! linger long, thou envious eastern lamp
In the damp
Caves of the deep!

GIRLS:
Nay, return, Vesper! urge thy lazy car!
Swift unbar
The gates of Sleep!

CHORUS:
The golden gate of Sleep u...

I.
Doubt no longer that the Highest is the wisest and the best,
Let not all that saddens Nature blight thy hope or break thy rest,
Quail not at the fiery mountain, at the shipwreck, or the rolling
Thunder, or the rending earthquake, or the famine, or the pest!

II.
Neither mourn if human creeds be lower than the heart’s desire!
Thro’ the gates that bar the distance comes a gleam of what is higher.
Wait till Death has flung them open, when the man will make the Maker
Dark no more with human hatreds in the glare of deathless fire!

The day ban done, and darkness
Falling from vengs of night,
Lak fedder flying from ruster,
Ven he ban having fight.
Ay see the lights of willage
Shining tru rain and mist,
And ay skol feel dam sleepy,
Lak fallers playing whist.

Come, read tu me some werses,
Ay ant care vat yu read,
Yust so it ant 'bout trouble
Or hearts vich ache and bleed.
Ay lak dese har nice yingles
'Bout sun and trees and grass;
But, ven it com to heartache,
Yerusalem! ay skol pass!

Read from some humble geezer,
Whose songs ban sveet to hear -
Who making, from his poetry,
'Bout saxteen cents a year.
Ay lak to hear his yingles,
Ay tell yu, dey ban fine;
Dis har ban vy ay lak dem -
Dey ban so much lak mine.

Such songs have gude, nice ...

I have seen that which sweeter is
Than happy dreams come true.
I have heard that which echo is
Of speech past all I ever knew.
Vision and echo, come again,
Nor let me grieve in easeless pain!

It was a hill I saw, that rose
Like smoke over the street,
Whose greening rampires were upreared
Suddenly almost at my feet;
And tall trees nodded tremblingly
Making the plain day visionary.

But ah, the song, the song I heard
And grieve to hear no more!
It was not angel-voice, nor child's
Singing alone and happy, nor
Note of the wise prophetic thrush
As lonely in the leafless bush.

It was not these, and yet I knew
That song; but now, alas,
My unpurged ears prove all too gross
To keep the nameless air that was
And is not; and...

Sleep is supposed to be,
By souls of sanity,
The shutting of the eye.

Sleep is the station grand
Down which on either hand
The hosts of witness stand!

Morn is supposed to be,
By people of degree,
The breaking of the day.

Morning has not occurred!
That shall aurora be
East of eternity;

One with the banner gay,
One in the red array, --
That is the break of day.

In a quiet, pleasant meadow,
Beneath a summer sky,
Where green old trees their branches waved,
And winds went singing by;
Where a little brook went rippling
So musically low,
And passing clouds cast shadows
On the waving grass below;
Where low, sweet notes of brooding birds
Stole out on the fragrant air,
And golden sunlight shone undimmed
On all most fresh and fair;--
There bloomed a lovely sisterhood
Of happy little flowers,
Together in this pleasant home,
Through quiet summer hours.
No rude hand came to gather them,
No chilling winds to blight;
Warm sunbeams smiled on them by day,
And soft dews fell at night.
So here, along the brook-side,
Beneath the green old trees,
The flowers dwelt among their friends,
The sunbeams and ...