Death

I was not; now I am--a few days hence
I shall not be; I fain would look before
And after, but can neither do; some Power
Or lack of power says "no" to all I would.
I stand upon a wide and sunless plain,
Nor chart nor steel to guide my steps aright.
Whene'er, o'ercoming fear, I dare to move,
I grope without direction and by chance.
Some feign to hear a voice and feel a hand
That draws them ever upward thro' the gloom.
But I--I hear no voice and touch no hand,
Tho' oft thro' silence infinite I list,
And strain my hearing to supernal sounds;
Tho' oft thro' fateful darkness do I reach,
And stretch my hand to find that other hand.
I question of th' eternal bending skies
That seem to neighbor with the novice earth;
But they roll on, and daily shut their eyes

This was her home; one mossy gable thrust
Above the cedars and the locust trees:
This was her home, whose beauty now is dust,
A lonely memory for melodies
The wild birds sing, the wild birds and the bees.
Here every evening is a prayer: no boast
Or ruin of sunset makes the wan world wroth;
Here, through the twilight, like a pale flower's ghost,
A drowsy flutter, flies the tiger-moth;
And dusk spreads darkness like a dewy cloth.
In vagabond velvet, on the placid day,
A stain of crimson, lolls the butterfly;
The south wind sows with ripple and with ray
The pleasant waters; and the gentle sky
Looks on the homestead like a quiet eye.
Their melancholy quaver, lone and low,
When day is done, the gray tree-toads repeat:
The whippoorwills, far in the afterglow,

Not asking or expecting aught,
    One day I went to view the court,
Unbent and free from care or thought,
    Though thither fears and hopes resort.

A piece of tapestry took my eye,
    The faded colours spoke it old;
But wrought with curious imagery,
    The figures lively seem'd and bold.

Here you might see the youth prevail,
    (In vain are eloquence and wit,)
The boy persists, Apollo's frail;
    Wisdom to nature does submit.

There mounts the eager charioteer;
    Soon from his seat he's downward hurl'd;
Here Jove in anger doth appear,
    There all, beneath, the flaming world.

What does this idle fiction mean?
    Is truth at court in such disgrace,
It may not on the walls be seen,
    Nor e'en in picture show its ...

    A child was born in sin and shame,
    Wronged by his very birth,
    Without a home, without a name,
    One over in the earth.

    No wifely triumph he inspired,
    Allayed no husband's fear;
    Intruder bare, whom none desired,
    He had a welcome drear.

    Heaven's beggar, all but turned adrift
    For knocking at earth's gate,
    His mother, like an evil gift,
    Shunned him with sickly hate.

    And now the mistress on her knee
    The unloved baby bore,
    The while the servant sullenly
    Prepared to leave her door.

    Her eggs are dear to mother-dove,
    Her chickens to the hen;
    All young ones bring with them their love,
    Of sheep, or goats, or men!

    This one lone child shall no...

(For the Rev. Edward F. Garesche, S. J.)



There was a little maiden
In blue and silver drest,
She sang to God in Heaven
And God within her breast.

It flooded me with pleasure,
It pierced me like a sword,
When this young maiden sang:    "My soul
Doth magnify the Lord."

The stars sing all together
And hear the angels sing,
But they said they had never heard
So beautiful a thing.

Saint Mary and Saint Joseph,
And Saint Elizabeth,
Pray for us poets now
And at the hour of death.

Duan First.[1]


    The sun had clos'd the winter day,
    The curlers quat their roaring play,
    An' hunger'd maukin ta'en her way
        To kail-yards green,
    While faithless snaws ilk step betray
        Whare she has been.

    The thresher's weary flingin'-tree
    The lee-lang day had tired me;
    And when the day had closed his e'e
        Far i' the west,
    Ben i' the spence, right pensivelie,
        I gaed to rest.

    There, lanely, by the ingle-cheek,
    I sat and ey'd the spewing reek,
    That fill'd, wi' hoast-provoking smeek,
        The auld clay biggin';
    An' heard the restless rattons squeak
        About the riggin'.

    All in this mottie, misty clime,
    I backward m...

1.
Rarely, rarely, comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day
'Tis since thou art fled away.

2.
How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free
Thou wilt scoff at pain.
Spirit false! thou hast forgot
All but those who need thee not.

3.
As a lizard with the shade
Of a trembling leaf,
Thou with sorrow art dismayed;
Even the sighs of grief
Reproach thee, that thou art not near,
And reproach thou wilt not hear.

4.
Let me set my mournful ditty
To a merry measure;
Thou wilt never come for pity,
Thou wilt come for pleasure;
Pity then will cut away
Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.

5...

It is moonlight. Alone in the silence
I ascend my stairs once more,
While waves, remote in a pale blue starlight,
Crash on a white sand shore.
It is moonlight. The garden is silent.
I stand in my room alone.
Across my wall, from the far-off moon,
A rain of fire is thrown . . .

There are houses hanging above the stars,
And stars hung under a sea:
And a wind from the long blue vault of time
Waves my curtain for me . . .

I wait in the dark once more,
Swung between space and space:
Before my mirror I lift my hands
And face my remembered face.

Is it I who stand in a question here,
Asking to know my name? . . .
It is I, yet I know not whither I go,
Nor why, nor whence I came.

It is I, who awoke at dawn
And arose and d...

These are the days of elfs and fays:
Who says that with the dreams of myth,
These imps and elves disport themselves?
Ah no, along the paths of song
Do all the tiny folk belong.

Round all our homes,
Kobolds and gnomes do daily cling,
Then nightly fling their lanterns out.
And shout on shout, they join the rout,
And sing, and sing, within the sweet enchanted ring.

Where gleamed the guile of moonlight's smile,
Once paused I, listening for a while,
And heard the lay, unknown by day,--
The fairies' dancing roundelay.

Queen Mab was there, her shimmering hair
Each fairy prince's heart's despair.
She smiled to see their sparkling glee,
And once I ween, she smiled at me.

Since when, you may by night or day,
Dispute the sway of elf...

Died at New York, November 17th, 1861.

WRITTEN ON HER BIRTH-DAY.


The day returns, beloved friend
    When in thy Mother's arms
Thou a fair gift from Heaven wert laid
    In all thine infant charms,
That day, with cloudless sky returns,
    But yet thou art not here
And from the smitten Mother's eye
    Distils the mourner's tear.

The wondrous brightness of thy smile,
    Thy tones of greeting kind,
The love of knowledge that inspired
    Thy strong and ardent mind,
Thy pity for the suffering poor,
    Thy patient zeal to teach
Their children, though in manners rude
    And ignorant in speech,

And all thy many deeds and words
    Of friendship's earnest part,
Are with a never-fading trace
    Depictured on ...

Daisies are over Nyren, and Hambledon
Hardly remembers any summer gone:
And never again the Kentish elms shall see
Mynn, or Fuller Pilch, or Colin Blythe.
Nor shall I see them, unless perhaps a ghost
Watching the elder ghosts beyond the moon.
But here in common sunshine I have seen
George Hirst, not yet a ghost, substantial,
His off-drives mellow as brown ale, and crisp
Merry late cuts, and brave Chaucerian pulls;
Waddington's fury and the patience of Dipper;
And twenty easy artful overs of Rhodes,
So many stanzas of the Faerie Queen.

The shadow of a poplar tree
Lay in that lake of sun,
As I with my little sword went in -
Against a thousand, one.

Haughty and infinitely armed,
Insolent in their wrath,
Plumed high with purple plumes they held
The narrow meadow path.

The air was sultry; all was still;
The sun like flashing glass;
And snip-snap my light-whispering steel
In arcs of light did pass.

Lightly and dull fell each proud head,
Spiked keen without avail,
Till swam my uncontented blade
With ichor green and pale.

And silence fell: the rushing sun
Stood still in paths of heat,
Gazing in waves of horror on
The dead about my feet.

Never a whir of wing, no bee
Stirred o'er the shameful slain;
Nought but a thirsty wasp crept in,
S...

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told;
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge; that branchless ash,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends
Behold the dark green file of long lank w...

O Friendship! cordial of the human breast!
So little felt, so fervently profess’d!
Thy blossoms deck our unsuspecting years;
The promise of delicious fruit appears:
We hug the hopes of constancy and truth,
Such is the folly of our dreaming youth;
But soon, alas! detect the rash mistake
That sanguine inexperience loves to make;
And view with tears the expected harvest lost,
Decay’d by time, or wither’d by a frost.
Whoever undertakes a friend’s great part
Should be renew’d in nature, pure in heart,
Prepared for martyrdom, and strong to prove
A thousand ways the force of genuine love.
He may be call’d to give up health and gain,
To exchange content for trouble, ease for pain,
To echo sigh for sigh, and groan for groan,
And wet his cheeks with sorrows not his...

Not all my treasure hath the bandit Time
    Locked in his glimmering caverns of the Past:
Fair women dead and friendships of old rhyme,
    And noble dreams that had to end at last: -
Ah! these indeed; and from youth's sacristy
    Full many a holy relic hath he torn,
Vessels of mystic faith God filled for me,
    Holding them up to Him in life's young morn.

All these are mine no more - Time hath them all,
    Time and his adamantine gaoler Death:
Despoilure vast - yet seemeth it but small,
    When unto thee I turn, thy bloom and breath
Filling with light and incense the last shrine,
    Innermost, inaccessible, - yea, thine.

When presses hard my load of care,
And other friends from me depart,
I want a friend my grief to share,
With faithful speech and loving heart.

I want a friend of noble mind,
Who loves me more than praise or pelf,
Reproves my faults with spirit kind,
And thinks of me as well as self--

A friend whose ear is ever closed
Against traducers' poison breath;
And, though in me be not disclosed
An equal love, yet loves till death--

A friend who knows my weakness well,
And ever seeks to calm my fears;
If words should fail the storm to quell,
Will soothe my fevered heart with tears--

A friend not moved by jealousy
Should I outrun him in life's race;
And though I doubt, still trusts in me
With loyal heart and cloudless face.

Oh! we are a lone, lost nation,
    We, who sing your songs.
With his moods, and his desolation
    The poet nowhere belongs.

We are not of the people
    Who labour, believe, and doubt.
Like the bell that rings in the steeple,
    We are in the world, yet out.

In the rustic town, or the city
    We seek our place in vain;
And our hearts are starved for pity,
    And our souls are sick with pain.

Yes, the people are buying, selling,
    And the world is one great mart.
And woe for the thoughts that are dwelling
    Up in the poet's heart.

We know what the waves are saying
    As they roll up from the sea,
And the weird old wind is playing
    Our own sad melody.

We send forth a song to wander
    Like a sp...

Now much there is need of doing must not be done in haste;
    But slowly and with patience, as a jungle is changed to a town.
    But listen, my brothers, listen; it is not always so:
When a murderer's hand is lifted to kill, there is no time to waste;
    And the way to change his purpose is first to knock him down
    And teach him the law of kindness after you give him the blow.

The acorn you plant in the morning will not give shade at noon;
    And the thornless cactus must be bred by year on year of toil.
    But listen, my brothers, listen; it is not ever the way,
For the roots of the poison ivy plant you cannot pull too soon;
    If you would better your garden and make the most of your soil,
    Hurry and dig up the evil things and cast them out to-day.

The a...