Death

I.

When I fare forth to kiss the eyes of Spring,
On ways, which arch gold sunbeams and pearl buds
Embraced, two whispers we search - wandering
By goblin forests and by girlish floods
Deep in the hermit-holy solitudes -
For stalwart Dryads romping in a ring;
Firm limbs an oak-bark-brown, and hair - wild woods
Have perfumed - loops of radiance; and they,
Most coyly pleasant, as we linger by,
Pout dimpled cheeks, more rose than rosiest sky,
Honeyed; and us good-hearted laughter fling
Like far-out reefs that flute melodious spray.


II.

Then we surprise each Naiad ere she slips -
Nude at her toilette - in her fountain's glass,
With damp locks dewy, and large godlike hips
Cool-glittering; but discovered, when - alas!
From green, inde...

What do I care about the swift newspaper boys.
The approach of the late auto-beasts does not frighten me.
I rest on my moving legs.
My face is wet with rain.
Green remains of the night
Stick to my eyes.
That's the way I like it -
Even as the sharp, secret
Drops of water crack on thousands of walls.
Plop from thousands of roofs.
Hop along shining streets...
And all the sullen houses
Listen to their
Eternal song.
Close behind me the burning night is ruined...
Its smelly corpse burdens my back.
But above me I feel the rushing,
Cool heaven.
Behold - I am in front of a
Streaming church.
Large and quiet it takes me in.
Here I shall stay for a while.
Immersed in its dreams.
Dreams out of gray
Silk that does not shimmer.

Out of the past there rises a week -
Who shall read the years O! -
Out of the past there rises a week
Enringed with a purple zone.
Out of the past there rises a week
When thoughts were strung too thick to speak,
And the magic of its lineaments remains with me alone.

In that week there was heard a singing -
Who shall spell the years, the years! -
In that week there was heard a singing,
And the white owl wondered why.
In that week, yea, a voice was ringing,
And forth from the casement were candles flinging
Radiance that fell on the deodar and lit up the path thereby.

Could that song have a mocking note? -
Who shall unroll the years O! -
Could that song have a mocking note
To the white owl's sense as it fell?
Could that song have a mocking n...

    My dearely loued friend how oft haue we,
In winter evenings (meaning to be free,)
To some well-chosen place vs'd to retire;
And there with moderate meate, and wine, and fire,
Haue past the howres contentedly with chat,
Now talk of this, and then discours'd of that,
Spoke our owne verses 'twixt our selves, if not
Other mens lines, which we by chance had got,
Or some Stage pieces famous long before,
Of which your happy memory had store;
And I remember you much pleased were,
Of those who liued long agoe to heare,
As well as of those, of these latter times,
Who have inricht our language with their rimes,
And in succession, how still vp they grew,
Which is the subiect, that I now pursue;
For from my cradle, (you must know that) I,
Was still inclin'd to nob...

What would you have? said I;1
’Tis so easy to go and die,
’Tis so hard to stay and live,
In this alien peace and this comfort callous,
Where only the murderers get the gallows,
Where the jails are for rogues who thieve.

’Tis so easy to go and die,
Where our Country, our Mother, the Martyr,
Moaning in bonds doth lie,
Bleeding with stabs in her breast,
Her throat with a foul clutch prest,
Under the thrice-accursed Tartar.

But Smith, your man of sense,
Ruddy, and broad, and round, like so!
Kindly, but dense, butt dense,
Said to me: “Do not go:
It is hopeless; right is wrong;
The tyrant is too strong.”

Must a man have hope to fight?
Can a man not fight in despair?
Must the soul cower down for the body’s weakness,

The yellow sky grows vivid as the sun:
The sea glittering, and the hills dun.

The stones quiver. Twenty pounds of lead
Fold upon fold, the air laps my head.

Both eyes scorch: tongue stiff and bitter:
Flies buzz, but no birds twitter:
Slow bullocks stand with stinging feet,
And naked fishes scarcely stir for heat.

White as smoke,
As jetted steam, dead clouds awoke
And quivered on the Western rim.
Then the singing started: dim
And sibilant as rime-stiff reeds
That whistle as the wind leads.
The South whispered hard and sere,
The North answered, low and clear;
And thunder muffled up like drums
Beat, whence the East wind comes.
The heavy sky that could not weep
Is loosened: rain falls steep:
And thirty singing furies ride

Where I am, thou ask’st, and where I wended
When my fleeting shadow pass’d from thee?
Am I not concluded now, and ended?
Have not life and love been granted me?

Ask, where now those nightingales are singing,
Who, of late, on the soft nights of May,
Set thine ears with soul-fraught music ringing
Only, while their love liv’d, lasted they.

Find I him, from whom I had to sever?
Doubt it not, we met, and we are one.
There, where what is join’d, is join’d for ever,
There, where tears are never more to run.

There thou too shalt live with us together,
When thou too hast borne the love we bore:
There, from sin deliver’d, dwells my Father,
Track’d by Murder’s bloody sword no more.

There he feels, it was no dream deceiving
Lur’d him starwards...

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and oh,
The difference to me!

Indicative of the passion of the people on the 15th of April, 1865

Goon Friday was the day
Of the prodigy and crime,
When they killed him in his pity,
When they killed him in his prime
Of clemency and calm--
When with yearning he was filled
To redeem the evil-willed,
And, though conqueror, be kind;
But they killed him in his kindness,
In their madness and their blindness,
And they killed him from behind.

There is sobbing of the strong,
    And a pall upon the land;
But the People in their weeping
    Bare the iron hand;
Beware the People weeping
    When they bare the iron hand.

He lieth in his blood--
The father in his face;
They have killed him, the Forgiver--
The Avenger takes his place,
The Avenger wis...

I would build a cloudy House
For my thoughts to live in;
When for earth too fancy-loose
And too low for Heaven!
Hush! I talk my dream aloud,
I build it bright to see,
I build it on the moonlit cloud,
To which I looked with thee.

Cloud-walls of the morning's grey,
Faced with amber column,
Crowned with crimson cupola
From a sunset solemn!
May mists, for the casements, fetch,
Pale and glimmering;
With a sunbeam hid in each,
And a smell of spring.

Build the entrance high and proud,
Darkening and then brightening,
If a riven thunder-cloud,
Veined by the lightning.
Use one with an iris-stain,
For the door within;
Turning to a sound like rain,
As I enter in.

Build a spacious hall thereby:
Boldly, never fe...

How sweet, when weary, dropping on a bank,
Turning a look around on things that be!
E'en feather-headed grasses, spindling rank,
A trembling to the breeze one loves to see;
And yellow buttercup, where many a bee
Comes buzzing to its head and bows it down;
And the great dragon-fly with gauzy wings,
In gilded coat of purple, green, or brown,
That on broad leaves of hazel basking clings,
Fond of the sunny day:--and other things
Past counting, please me while thus here I lie.
But still reflective pains are not forgot:
Summer sometime shall bless this spot, when I
Hapt in the cold dark grave, can heed it not.

Fold now thine arms and hang the head,
Like to a lily withered;
Next look thou like a sickly moon,
Or like Jocasta in a swoon;
Then weep and sigh and softly go,
Like to a widow drown'd in woe,
Or like a virgin full of ruth
For the lost sweetheart of her youth;
And all because, fair maid, thou art
Insensible of all my smart,
And of those evil days that be
Now posting on to punish thee.
The gods are easy, and condemn
All such as are not soft like them.

Why is that wanton gossip Fame
    So dumb about this man's affairs?
Why do we titter at his name
    Who come to buy his curious wares?

Here is a shop of wonderment.
    From every land has come a prize;
Rich spices from the Orient,
    And fruit that knew Italian skies,

And figs that ripened by the sea
    In Smyrna, nuts from hot Brazil,
Strange pungent meats from Germany,
    And currants from a Grecian hill.

He is the lord of goodly things
    That make the poor man's table gay,
Yet of his worth no minstrel sings
    And on his tomb there is no bay.

Perhaps he lives and dies unpraised,
    This trafficker in humble sweets,
Because his little shops are raised
    By thousands in the city streets.

Yet stars ...

When life looks drear and lonely, love,
    And pleasant fancies flee,
Then will the Muses only, love,
    Bestow a thought on me!
Mine is a harp which Pleasure, love,
    To waken strives in vain;
To Joy's entrancing measure, love,
    It ne'er can thrill again!--
            Why mock me, Bessy Bell?

Oh, do not ask me ever, love,
    For rapture-woven rhymes;
For vain is each endeavor, love,
    To sound Mirth's play-bell chimes!
Yet still believe me, dearest love,
    Though sad my song may be,
This heart still dotes sincerest, love,
    And grateful turns to thee--
            My once fond Bessy Bell!

Those eyes still rest upon me, love!
    I feel their magic spell!
With that same look you won me, love,
    Fair, gentle...

An agate-black, your roguish eyes
Claim no proud lineage of the skies,
No starry blue; but of good earth
The reckless witchery and mirth.

Looped in your raven hair's repose,
A hot aroma, one red rose
Dies; envious of that loveliness,
By being near which its is less.

Twin sea shells, hung with pearls, your ears,
Whose slender rosiness appears
Part of the pearls; whose pallid fire
Binds the attention these inspire.

One slim hand crumples up the lace
About your bosom's swelling grace;
A ruby at your samite throat
Lends the required color note.

The moon bears through the violet night
A pearly urn of chaliced light;
And from your dark-railed balcony
You stoop and wave your fan at me.

O'er orange orchards and the ros...

She knelt by the dead, in her passionate grief,
Beneath a weird forest of Tanna;
She kissed the stern brow of her father and chief,
And cursed the dark race of Alkanna.
With faces as wild as the clouds in the rain,
The sons of Kerrara came down to the plain,
And spoke to the mourner and buried the slain.
Oh, the glory that died with Deloya!

“Wahina,” they whispered, “Alkanna lies low,
And the ghost of thy sire hath been gladdened,
For the men of his people have fought with the foe
Till the rivers of Warra are reddened!”
She lifted her eyes to the glimmering hill,
Then spoke, with a voice like a musical rill,
“The time is too short; can I sojourn here still?”
Oh, the Youth that was sad for Deloya!

“Wahina, why linger,” Annatanam said,
“When the...

Some parts may perish, die thou canst not all:
The most of thee shall 'scape the funeral.

[In the vale of Grasmere, by the side of an old highway
leading to Ambleside, is a gate, which, from time out of
mind, has been called the Wishing-gate, from a belief that
wishes formed or indulged there have a favorable issue.]

Hope rules a land forever green:
All powers that serve the bright-eyed Queen
Are confident and gay;
Clouds at her bidding disappear;
Points she to aught? the bliss draws near,
And Fancy smooths the way.

Not such the land of Wishes there
Dwell fruitless day-dreams, lawless prayer,
And thoughts with things at strife;
Yet how forlorn, should ye depart
Ye superstitions of the heart,
How poor, were human life!

When magic lore abjured its might,
Ye did not forfeit one dear right,
One tender claim abate;
Witne...