Death

When Shakespeare soared from life to death, above
All praise, all adoration, save of love,
As here on earth above all men he stood
That were or are or shall be, great, and good,
Past thank or thought of England or of man,
Light from the sunset quickened as it ran.
His word, who sang as never man may sing
And spake as never voice of man may ring,
Not fruitless fell, as seed on sterile ways,
But brought forth increase even to Shakespeare's praise.
Our skies were thrilled and filled, from sea to sea,
With stars outshining all their suns to be.
No later light of tragic song they knew
Like his whose lightning clove the sunset through.
Half Shakespeare's glory, when his hand sublime
Bade all the change of tragic life and time
Live, and outlive all date of quick and ...

Maid of Jerusalem, by the Dead Sea,
I wandered all sorrowing thinking of thee,--
Thy city in ruins, thy kindred deplored,
All fallen and lost by the Ottoman's sword.

I saw thee sit there in disconsolate sighs,
Where the hall of thy fathers a ruined heap lies.
Thy fair finger showed me the place where they trod,
In thy childhood where flourished the city of God.

The place where they fell and the scenes where they lie,
In the tomb of Siloa--the tear in her eye
She stifled: transfixed there it grew like a pearl,
Beneath the dark lash of the sweet Jewish Girl.

Jerusalem is fallen! still thou art in bloom,
As fresh as the ivy around the lone tomb,
And fair as the lily of morning that waves
Its sweet-scented bells over desolate graves.

When I...

That day we wandered 'mid the hills,—so lone
Clouds are not lonelier,—the forest lay
In emerald darkness 'round us. Many a stone
And gnarly root, gray-mossed, made wild our way:
And many a bird the glimmering light along
Showered the golden bubbles of its song.
Then in the valley, where the brook went by,
Silvering the ledges that it rippled from,—
An isolated slip of fallen sky,
Epitomizing heaven in its sum,—
An iris bloomed—blue, as if, flower-disguised,
The gaze of Spring had there materialized.
I have forgotten many things since then—
Much beauty and much happiness and grief;
And toiled and dreamed among my fellow-men,
Rejoicing in the knowledge life is brief.
"'T is winter now," so says each barren bough;
And face and hair proclaim 't is winter now....

    An abandoned house -
    dark salved to eclectic;
    crinkly, black pigment of old pine boards
    disparate to the elements.

    The waters of the bay lie beneath.
    A long slope trailing back of brush,
    garbles stones hoarse
    in the throat of a dust-flecked field
    are made more barren
    by the skunk cabbage weeds,
    the ugly, flotsam cloaks
    of horse hair to the neck -
    a hair shirt, coddling abrupt the barren pain
    tilled from empty soil.

    The summer's heat.
    Nameless insect waifs
    wavering, adjusting tumult
    to straighten the tight air
    about the outward door frame.
    Pinched in windows, glass in
    refugee lots billowing about
    urine paper;
    nails a ruddy pick

BY THE SAME (DR. DELANY)

Hoc tumulata jacet proles Lenaea sepulchro,
Immortale genus, nee peritura jacet;
Quin oritura iterum, matris concreditur alvo:
Bis natum referunt te quoque, Bacche Pater.

Thus I
Pass by,
And die:
As one
Unknown
And gone:
I'm made
A shade,
And laid
I' th' grave:
There have
My cave,
Where tell
I dwell.
Farewell.

Feel for the wrongs to universal ken
Daily exposed, woe that unshrouded lies;
And seek the Sufferer in his darkest den,
Whether conducted to the spot by sighs
And moanings, or he dwells (as if the wren
Taught him concealment) hidden from all eyes
In silence and the awful modesties
Of sorrow; feel for all, as brother Men!
Rest not in hope want's icy chain to thaw
By casual boons and formal charities;
Learn to be just, just through impartial law;
Far as ye may, erect and equalise;
And, what ye cannot reach by statute, draw
Each from his fountain of self-sacrifice!

A blue-eyed phantom far before
    Is laughing, leaping toward the sun:
Like lead I chase it evermore,
    I pant and run.

It breaks the sunlight bound on bound:
    Goes singing as it leaps along
To sheep-bells with a dreamy sound
    A dreamy song.

I laugh, it is so brisk and gay;
    It is so far before, I weep:
I hope I shall lie down some day,
    Lie down and sleep.

Once upon Iceland's solitary strand
    A poet wandered with his book and pen,
    Seeking some final word, some sweet Amen,
    Wherewith to close the volume in his hand.
The billows rolled and plunged upon the sand,
    The circling sea-gulls swept beyond his ken,
    And from the parting cloud-rack now and then
    Flashed the red sunset over sea and land.
Then by the billows at his feet was tossed
    A broken oar; and carved thereon he read,
    "Oft was I weary, when I toiled at thee";
And like a man, who findeth what was lost,
    He wrote the words, then lifted up his head,
    And flung his useless pen into the sea.

Will the garden never forget
That it whispers over and over,
"Where is your lover, Nanette?
Where is your lover--your lover?"
Oh, roses I helped to grow,
Oh, lily and mignonette,
Must you always question me so,
"Where is your lover, Nanette?"
Since you looked on my joy one day,
Is my grief then a lesser thing?
Have you only this to say
When I pray you for comforting?
Now that I walk alone
Here where our hands were met,
Must you whisper me every one,
"Where is your lover, Nanette?"

I have mourned with you year and year,
When the Autumn has left you bare,
And now that my heart is sere
Does not one of your roses care?
Oh, help me forget--forget,
Nor question over and over,
"Where is your lover, Nanette?
Where is your lover...

When dark November bade the leaves adieu,
And the gale sung amid the sea-boy's shrouds,
Methought I saw four winged forms, that flew,
With garments streaming light, amid the clouds;
From adverse regions of the sky,
In dim succession, they went by.
The first, as o'er the billowy deep he passed,
Blew from its brazen trump a far-resounding blast.
Upon a beaked promontory high,
With streaming heart, and cloudy brow severe,
Marked ye the father of the frowning year![1]
Dark vapours rolled o'er the tempestuous sky,
When creeping WINTER from his cave came forth;
Stern courier of the storm, he cried, what from the north?

    North Wind.

From the vast and desert deeps,
Where the lonely Kraken sleeps,
Where fixed the icy mountains high
G...

As a brave man faces the foe,
Alone against hundreds, and sees Death grin in his teeth,
But, shutting his lips, fights on to the end
Without speech, without hope, without flinching,--
So, silently, grimly, the steamer
Lurches ahead through the night.

A beacon-light far off,
Twinkling across the waves like a star!
But no star in the dark overhead!
The splash of waters at the prow, and the evil light
Of the death-fires flitting like will-o'-the-wisps beneath! And beyond
Silence and night!

I sit by the taffrail,
Alone in the dark and the blown cold mist and the spray,
Feeling myself swept on irresistibly,
Sunk in the night and the sea, and made one with their footfall-less onrush,
Letting myself be borne like a spar adrift
Helplessly into the nig...

Him best in all the dim Arthuriad,
Of lovers of fair women, him I prize,--
The Pagan Palomydes. Never glad
Was he with sweetness of his lady's eyes,
Nor joy he had.

But, unloved ever, still must love the same,
And riding ever through a lonely world,
Whene'er on adverse shield or crest he came,
Against the danger desperately hurled,
Crying her name.

So I, who strove to You I may not earn,
Methinks, am come unto so high a place,
That though from hence I can but vainly yearn
For that averted favour of your face,
I shall not turn.

No, I am come too high. Whate'er betide,
To find the doubtful thing that fights with me,
Toward the mountain tops I still shall ride,
And cry your name in my extremity,
As Palomyde,

Until the i...

This silver-edged geranium leaf
Is one sign of a bitter grief
Whose symbols are a myriad more;
They cluster round a carven stone
Where she who sleeps is never alone
For two hearts at the core,

Bound with her heart make one of three,
A trinity in unity,
One sentient heart that grieves;
And myriad dark-leaved memories keep
Vigil above the triune sleep, -
Edged all with silver are the leaves.

Verdi panni, sanguigni, oscuri o persi.

WHETHER OR NOT HE SHOULD CEASE TO LOVE LAURA.


    Green robes and red, purple, or brown, or gray
No lady ever wore,
Nor hair of gold in sunny tresses twined,
So beautiful as she, who spoils my mind
Of judgment, and from freedom's lofty path
So draws me with her that I may not bear
Any less heavy yoke.

And if indeed at times--for wisdom fails
Where martyrdom breeds doubt--
The soul should ever arm it to complain
Suddenly from each reinless rude desire
Her smile recalls, and razes from my heart
Every rash enterprise, while all disdain
Is soften'd in her sight.

For all that I have ever borne for love,
And still am doom'd to bear,
Till she who wounded it shall heal my heart,

Silver key of the fountain of tears,
Where the spirit drinks till the brain is wild;
Softest grave of a thousand fears,
Where their mother, Care, like a drowsy child,
Is laid asleep in flowers.

    (Air: “The Old Stable Jacket.”)


A strapping young stockman lay dying,
    His saddle supporting his head;
His two mates around him were crying,
    As he rose on his pillow and said:

                            Chorus

    “Wrap me up with my stockwhip and blanket,
        And bury me deep down below,
    Where the dingoes and crows can’t molest me,
        In the shade where the coolibahs grow.

“Oh! had I the flight of the bronzewing,
    Far o’er the plains would I fly,
Straight to the land of my childhood,
    And there would I lay down and die.

                Chorus: Wrap me up, &c.

“Then cut down a couple of saplings,
    Place one at my head and my toe,
Carve on them cross, stockwhip, and saddle,

    I

Deep in the sloping forest that surrounds
The head of a green valley that I know,
Spread the fair gardens and ancestral grounds
Of Bellinglise, the beautiful chateau.
Through shady groves and fields of unmown grass,
It was my joy to come at dusk and see,
Filling a little pond's untroubled glass,
Its antique towers and mouldering masonry.
Oh, should I fall to-morrow, lay me here,
That o'er my tomb, with each reviving year,
Wood-flowers may blossom and the wood-doves croon;
And lovers by that unrecorded place,
Passing, may pause, and cling a little space,
Close-bosomed, at the rising of the moon.


    II

Here, where in happier times the huntsman's horn
Echoing from far made sweet midsummer eves,
Now serried cannon thunder n...