Death

Who's there? who's there? who was it tried
To force the entrance I've denied?
An 'twere a friend, I'd gladly borne it,
But no--'twas Want! I could have sworn it.
I heard thy voice, old witch, I know thee!
Avaunt, thou evil hag, beshrew thee!
God's curse! why seekest thou to find me?
Away to all black years behind me!

To torture me was thine endeavor,
My body from my soul to sever,
Of pride and courage to deprive me,
And into beggary to drive me.
Begone, where thousand devils burn--
Begone, nor evermore return!
Begone, most wretched thou of creatures,
And hide for aye thine hateful features!
--Beloved, ope the door in pity!

No friend have I in all the city
Save thee, then open to my call!
The night is bleak, the snowflakes fall.
...

Cuckoo, are you calling me,
Or is it a voice of wizardry?
In these woodlands I am lost,
From glade to glade of flowers tost.
Seven times I held my way,
And seven times the voice did say,
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! No man could
Issue from this underwood,
Half of green and half of brown,
Unless he laid his senses down.
Only let him chance to see
The snows of the anemone
Heaped above its greenery;
Cuckoo! Cuckoo! No man could
Issue from the master wood.

Magic paths there are that cross;
Some beset with jewelled moss
And boughs all bare; where others run,
Bluebells bathe in mist and sun
Past a clearing filled with clumps
Of primrose round the nutwood stumps;
All as gay as gay can be,
And bordered with dog-mercury,
The wizard flower, t...

Look in my book, and herein see
Life endless signed to thee and me.
We o'er the tombs and fates shall fly;
While other generations die.

Look at my knees,
That island rising from the steamy seas!
The candles a tall lightship; my two hands
Are boats and barges anchored to the sands,
With mighty cliffs all round;
They're full of wine and riches from far lands....
I wonder what it feels like to be drowned?

I can make caves,
By lifting up the island and huge waves
And storms, and then with head and ears well under
Blow bubbles with a monstrous roar like thunder,
A bull-of-Bashan sound.
The seas run high and the boats split asunder....
I wonder what it feels like to be drowned?

The thin soap slips
And slithers like a shark under the ships.
My toes are on the soap-dish, that's the effect
Of my huge storms; an iron steamer's wrecked.
The soap slides round and round;...

    Sing on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough,
        Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain:
        See, aged Winter, 'mid his surly reign,
    At thy blythe carol clears his furrow'd brow.

    So, in lone Poverty's dominion drear,
        Sits meek Content with light unanxious heart,
        Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part,
    Nor asks if they bring aught to hope or fear.

    I thank Thee, Author of this opening day!
        Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient skies!
        Riches denied, Thy boon was purer joys,
    What wealth could never give nor take away.

    Yet come, thou child of poverty and care,
    The mite high Heaven bestow'd, that mite with thee I'll share.

This now is the poem of praise and of lamentation that was made for Columcille, Speckled Salmon of the Boyne, High Saint of the Gael, by Forgaill that was afterwards called Blind Forgaill, Chief Poet of Ireland:

It is not a little story this is; it is not a story about a fool it is; it is not one district that is keening but every district, with a great sound that is not to be borne, hearing the story of Columcille, without life, without a church.

It is not the trouble of one house, or the grief of one harp-string; all the plains are heavy, hearing the word that is a wound.

What way will a simple man tell of him? Even Nera from the Sidhe could not do it; he is not made much of now; our learned one is not the light of our life, now he is hidden away from us.

He that used to keep us living is dead...

A paper book is sent by Boyle,
Too neatly gilt for me to soil.
Delany sends a silver standish,
When I no more a pen can brandish.
Let both around my tomb be placed:
As trophies of a Muse deceased;
And let the friendly lines they writ,
In praise of long-departed wit,
Be graved on either side in columns,
More to my praise than all my volumes,
To burst with envy, spite, and rage,
The Vandals of the present age.

The cold moon hangs to the sky by its horn,
And centres its gaze on me;
The stars, like eyes in reverie,
Their westering as for a while forborne,
Quiz downward curiously.

Old Robert draws the backbrand in,
The green logs steam and spit;
The half-awakened sparrows flit
From the riddled thatch; and owls begin
To whoo from the gable-slit.

Yes; far and nigh things seem to know
Sweet scenes are impending here;
That all is prepared; that the hour is near
For welcomes, fellowships, and flow
Of sally, song, and cheer;

That spigots are pulled and viols strung;
That soon will arise the sound
Of measures trod to tunes renowned;
That She will return in Love's low tongue
My vows as we wheel around.

You have come your way, I have come my way;
You have stepped across your people, carelessly, hurting them all;
I have stepped across my people, and hurt them in spite of my care.

But steadily, surely, and notwithstanding
We have come our ways and met at last
Here in this upper room.

Here the balcony
Overhangs the street where the bullock-wagons slowly
Go by with their loads of green and silver birch- trees
For the feast of Corpus Christi.

Here from the balcony
We look over the growing wheat, where the jade- green river
Goes between the pine-woods,
Over and beyond to where the many mountains
Stand in their blueness, flashing with snow and the morning.

I have done; a quiver of exultation goes through me, like the first
Breeze of the morni...

Bristol! in vain thy rocks attempt the sky,
The wild woods waving on their giddy brow;
And vainly, devious Avon! vainly sigh
Thy waters, winding thro' the vales below; -

In vain, upon thy glassy bosom borne,
Th' expected vessel proudly glides along,
While, 'mid thy echoes, at the break of morn
Is heard the homeward ship-boy's happy song; -

For, ah! amid thy sweet romantic shade,
By Friendship led, fair drooping Beauty moves;
Thy hallow'd cup of health affords no aid,
Nor charm thy birds, that chant their woodland loves.

Each morn I view her thro' thy wave-girt grove,
Her white robe flutt'ring round her sinking form;
O'er the sweet ruin shine those eyes of love,
As bright stars beaming thro' a midnight storm.

Here sorrowing Love seeks a ...

I never dreamed we'd meet that day
In our old haunts down Fricourt way,
Plotting such marvellous journeys there
For jolly old "Après-la-guerre."

Well, when it's over, first we'll meet
At Gweithdy Bach, my country seat
In Wales, a curious little shop
With two rooms and a roof on top,
A sort of Morlancourt-ish billet
That never needs a crowd to fill it.
But oh, the country round about!
The sort of view that makes you shout
For want of any better way
Of praising God: there's a blue bay
Shining in front, and on the right
Snowden and Hebog capped with white,
And lots of other jolly peaks
That you could wonder at for weeks,
With jag and spur and hump and cleft.
There's a grey castle on the left,
And back in the high Hinterland
You'll s...

(Algernon Charles Swinburne, 1837-1909)



I

In this fair niche above the unslumbering sea,
That sentrys up and down all night, all day,
From cove to promontory, from ness to bay,
    The Fates have fitly bidden that he should be Pillowed eternally.

II

- It was as though a garland of red roses
Had fallen about the hood of some smug nun
When irresponsibly dropped as from the sun,
In fulth of numbers freaked with musical closes,
Upon Victoria's formal middle time
    His leaves of rhythm and rhyme.

III

O that far morning of a summer day
When, down a terraced street whose pavements lay
Glassing the sunshine into my bent eyes,
I walked and read with a quick glad surprise
    New words, in classic guise, -

I hold a letter in my hand, -
A flattering letter, more's the pity, -
By some contriving junto planned,
And signed per order of Committee.
It touches every tenderest spot, -
My patriotic predilections,
My well-known-something - don't ask what, -
My poor old songs, my kind affections.

They make a feast on Thursday next,
And hope to make the feasters merry;
They own they're something more perplexed
For poets than for port and sherry.
They want the men of - (word torn out);
Our friends will come with anxious faces,
(To see our blankets off, no doubt,
And trot us out and show our paces.)

They hint that papers by the score
Are rather musty kind of rations, -
They don't exactly mean a bore,
But only trying to the patience;
That...

    Oh, daughter, lovelier than your lovely mother,
        Whatever punishment you may desire
        Give my offending verses; in the fire
    Throw them, please you, or in the Adriatic.
    Not Dindymene, no, nor even Apollo
        So shakes the minds of priests within the shrine;
        Nor so disturbing is the God of wine,
    Nor Corybantes doubling their shrill cymbals,
    As direful fits of anger that are frightened
        Neither by Noric sword nor savage flame,
        Nor by ship-wrecking seas, nor them can tame
    Great Jupiter himself, with all his thunders.
    To our original clay, they say Prometheus
        Was forced to add a portion he had made
        Of bits from every creature, and he laid
    In human hearts rage from the furious lion.

When violets were springing
    And sunshine filled the day,
And happy birds were singing
    The praises of the May,
A word came to me, blighting
    The beauty of the scene,
And in my heart was winter,
    Though all the trees were green.

Now down the blast go sailing
    The dead leaves, brown and sere;
The forests are bewailing
    The dying of the year;
A word comes to me, lighting
    With rapture all the air,
And in my heart is summer,
    Though all the trees are bare.

Shall our memories live, when the sod rolls above us
    And marks our last home with a mouldering heap?
Shall the voices of those who profess that they love us
    E'er mention our names, as we dreamlessly sleep?

Will their eyes ever dim at some fond recollection,
    Or their hands ever plant a small flower o'er the breast,
Or will they gaze with a sad circumspection
    At the tablets, which tell of our last solemn rest?

Ah! soon shall the hearts which our memories cherish
    Forget, as they strive with the cares of their own;
And even the last dim remembrance shall perish
    As we peacefully slumber, unwept and unknown.

But if our lives, though of transient duration,
    Are filled with some work in humanity's name,
Some uplifting effort, or self...

I.

From hill and hollow, side by side,
The shadows came, like dreams, to sit
And watch, mysterious, sunset-eyed,
The wool-winged moths and bats aflit,
And the lone owl that cried and cried.
And then the forest rang a gong,
Hoarse, toadlike; and from out the gate
Of darkness came a sound of song,
As of a gnome that called his mate,
Who answered in his own strange tongue.
And all the forest leaned to hear,
And saw, from forth the entangling trees,
A naked spirit drawing near,
A glimmering presence, whom the breeze
Kept whispering, "Forward! Have no fear."

II.

The woodland, seeming at a loss,
Afraid to breathe, or make a sound,
Poured, where her silvery feet should cross,
A dripping pathway on the ground,
And hedged it i...

Tune - "Here's a health to them that's awa."



I.

    Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear;
        Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear;
    Thou art sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet,
        And soft as their parting tear - Jessy!

II.

    Altho' thou maun never be mine,
        Altho' even hope is denied;
    'Tis sweeter for thee despairing,
        Then aught in the world beside - Jessy!

III.

    I mourn through the gay, gaudy day,
        As, hopeless, I muse on thy charms:
    But welcome the dream o' sweet slumber,
        For then I am lockt in thy arms - Jessy!

IV.

    I guess by the dear angel smile,
        I guess by the love rolling e'e;
    But why urge the tender...