Death

As one, who, journeying westward with the sun,
Beholds at length from the up-towering hills,
Far off, a land unspeakable beauty fills,
Circean peaks and vales of Avalon:
And, sinking weary, watches, one by one,
The big seas beat between; and knows it skills
No more to try; that now, as Heaven wills,
This is the helpless end, that all is done:
So 'tis with him, whom long a vision led
In quest of Beauty, and who finds at last
She lies beyond his effort. All the waves
Of all the world between them: While the dead,
The myriad dead, who people all the Past
With failure, hail him from forgotten graves.

Mine is a wayward lay;
And, if its echoing rhymes I try to string,
Proveth a truant thing,
Whenso some names I love, send it away!

For then, eyes swimming o'er,
And clasped hands, and smiles in fondness meant,
Are much more eloquent,
So it had fain begone, and speak no more!

Yet shall it come again,
Ah, friend belov'd! if so thy wishes be,
And, with wild melody,
I will, upon thine ear, cadence my strain.

Cadence my simple line,
Unfashion'd by the cunning hand of Art,
But coming from my heart,
To tell the message of its love to thine!

As ocean shells, when taken
From Ocean's bed, will faithfully repeat
Her ancient music sweet,
Ev'n so these words, true to my heart, shall waken!

Oh! while our bark is seen,
O...

A wounded Chieftain, lying
    By the Danube's leafy side,
Thus faintly said, in dying,
    "Oh! bear, thou foaming tide.
    "This gift to my lady-bride."

'Twas then, in life's last quiver,
    He flung the scarf he wore
Into the foaming river,
    Which, ah too quickly, bore
    That pledge of one no more!

With fond impatience burning,
    The Chieftain's lady stood,
To watch her love returning
    In triumph down the flood,
    From that day's field of blood.

But, field, alas, ill-fated!
    The lady saw, instead
Of the bark whose speed she waited,
    Her hero's scarf, all red
With the drops his heart had shed.

One shriek--and all was over--
    Her life-pulse ceased to beat;
The gloomy waves now cover<...

I'll tell the story, kissing
    This white hand for my pains:
No sweeter heart, nor falser,
    E'er filled such fine, blue veins.

I'll sing a song of true love,
    My Lilith, dear! to you;
Contraria contrariis -
    The rule is old and true.

The happiest of all lovers
    Was Ernst of Edelsheim;
And why he was the happiest,
    I'll tell you in my rhyme.

One summer night he wandered
    Within a lonely glade,
And, couched in moss and moonlight,
    He found a sleeping maid.

The stars of midnight sifted
    Above her sands of gold;
She seemed a slumbering statue,
    So fair and white and cold.

Fair and white and cold she lay
    Beneath the starry skies;
Rosy was her waking
    Beneath the Rit...

Seest thou those diamonds which she wears
In that rich carcanet;
Or those, on her dishevell'd hairs,
Fair pearls in order set?
Believe, young man, all those were tears
By wretched wooers sent,
In mournful hyacinths and rue,
That figure discontent;
Which when not warmed by her view,
By cold neglect, each one
Congeal'd to pearl and stone;
Which precious spoils upon her
She wears as trophies of her honour.
Ah then, consider, what all this implies:
She that will wear thy tears would wear thine eyes.

An Orpheus! an Orpheus! yes, Faith may grow bold,
And take to herself all the wonders of old;
Near the stately Pantheon you'll meet with the same
In the street that from Oxford hath borrowed its name.

His station is there; and he works on the crowd,
He sways them with harmony merry and loud;
He fills with his power all their hearts to the brim,
Was aught ever heard like his fiddle and him?

What an eager assembly! what an empire is this!
The weary have life, and the hungry have bliss;
The mourner is cheered, and the anxious have rest;
And the guilt-burthened soul is no longer opprest.

As the Moon brightens round her the clouds of the night,
So He, where he stands, is a centre of light;
It gleams on the face, there, of dusky-browed Jack,
And the pal...

I.
If It be pleasant to look on, stalled in the packed serai,
Does not the Young Man try Its temper and pace ere he buy?
If She be pleasant to look on, what does the Young Man say?
"Lo! She is pleasant to look on, give Her to me to-day!"

II.
Yea, though a Kafir die, to him is remitted Jehannum
If he borrowed in life from a native at sixty per cent. per anuum.

III.
Blister we not for bursati? So when the heart is vext,
The pain of one maiden's refusal is drowned in the pain of the next.

IV.
The temper of chums, the love of your wife, and a new piano's tune
Which of the three will you trust at the end of an Indian June?

V.
Who are the rulers of Ind to whom shall we bow the knee?
Make your peace with the women, and men will make you L. G.<...

I

Beneath the vine-clad eaves,
Whose shadows fall before
Thy lowly cottage door
Under the lilac’s tremulous leaves,
Within thy snowy claspeèd hand
The purple flowers it bore.
Last eve in dreams, I saw thee stand,
Like queenly nymphs from Fairy-land,
Enchantress of the flowery wand,
Most beauteous Isadore!

II

And when I bade the dream
Upon thy spirit flee,
Thy violet eyes to me
Upturned, did overflowing seem
With the deep, untold delight
Of Love’s serenity;
Thy classic brow, like lilies white
And pale as the Imperial Night
Upon her throne, with stars bedight,
Enthralled my soul to thee!

III

Ah! ever I behold
Thy dreamy, passionate eyes,
Blue as the languid skies
Hung with the sunset...

    Once I loved a fairy,
    Queen Mab it was.    Her voice
    Was like a little Fountain
    That bids the birds rejoice.
    Her face was wise and solemn,
    Her hair was brown and fine.
    Her dress was pansy velvet,
    A butterfly design.

    To see her hover round me
    Or walk the hills of air,
    Awakened love's deep pulses
    And boyhood's first despair;
    A passion like a sword-blade
    That pierced me thro' and thro':
    Her fingers healed the sorrow
    Her whisper would renew.
    We sighed and reigned and feasted
    Within a hollow tree,
    We vowed our love was boundless,
    Eternal as the sea.

    She banished from her kingdom
    The mortal boy I grew -
    So tall and crude and noisy,

(For Cecil Chesterton)



At the foot of the Cross on Calvary
Three soldiers sat and diced,
And one of them was the Devil
And he won the Robe of Christ.

When the Devil comes in his proper form
To the chamber where I dwell,
I know him and make the Sign of the Cross
Which drives him back to Hell.

And when he comes like a friendly man
And puts his hand in mine,
The fervour in his voice is not
From love or joy or wine.

And when he comes like a woman,
With lovely, smiling eyes,
Black dreams float over his golden head
Like a swarm of carrion flies.

Now many a million tortured souls
In his red halls there be:
Why does he spend his subtle craft
In hunting after me?

Kings, queens and crested warriors...

We were apart: yet, day by day,
I bade my heart more constant be;
I bade it keep the world away,
And grow a home for only thee:
Nor fear’d but thy love likewise grew,
Like mine, each day more tried, more true.

The fault was grave: I might have known,
What far too soon, alas, I learn’d
The heart can bind itself alone,
And faith is often unreturn’d.
Self-sway’d our feelings ebb and swell:
Thou lov’est no more: Farewell! Farewell!

Farewell! and thou, thou lonely heart,
Which never yet without remorse
Even for a moment didn’t depart
From thy remote and spherèd course
To haunt the place where passions reign,
Back to thy solitude again!

Back, with the conscious thrill of shame
Which Luna felt, that summer night,
Flash through he...

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise?
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jeweled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?

HUSSEIN

O most just Vizier, send away
The cloth-merchants, and let them be,
Them and their dues, this day: the King
Is ill at ease, and calls for thee.

THE VIZIER

O merchants, tarry yet a day
Here in Bokhara: but at noon
To-morrow, come, and ye shall pay
Each fortieth web of cloth to me,
As the law is, and go your way.

O Hussein, lead me to the King.
Thou teller of sweet tales, thine own,
Ferdousi’s, and the others’, lead.
How is it with my lord?

HUSSEIN

Alone,
Ever since prayer-time, he doth wait,
O Vizier, without lying down,
In the great window of the gate,
Looking into the Registàn;
Where through the sellers’ booths the slaves
Are this way bringing the dead man.
O Vizier, here is the Ki...

I have been so great a lover: filled my days
So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise,
The pain, the calm, and the astonishment,
Desire illimitable, and still content,
And all dear names men use, to cheat despair,
For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear
Our hearts at random down the dark of life.
Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife
Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,
My night shall be remembered for a star
That outshone all the suns of all men's days.
Shall I not crown them with immortal praise
Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me
High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see
The inenarrable godhead of delight?
Love is a flame; we have beaconed the world's night.
A city: and we have built it, these and I.
...

    O rough, rude, ready-witted Rankine,
    The wale o' cocks for fun an' drinkin'!
    There's monie godly folks are thinkin',
        Your dreams[1] an' tricks
    Will send you, Korah-like, a-sinkin'
        Straught to auld Nick's.

    Ye hae sae monie cracks an' cants,
    And in your wicked, dru'ken rants,
    Ye mak a devil o' the saunts,
        An' fill them fou;
    And then their failings, flaws, an' wants,
        Are a' seen through.

    Hypocrisy, in mercy spare it!
    That holy robe, O dinna tear it!
    Spare't for their sakes wha aften wear it,
        The lads in black!
    But your curst wit, when it comes near it,
        Rives't aff their back.

    Think, wicked sinner, wha ye're skaithing,
   ...

Gone now the baby's nurse,
a lioness who ruled the roost
and made the Mother cry.
She used to tie
gobbets of porkrind to bowknots of gauze
three months they hung like soggy toast
on our eight foot magnolia tree,
and helped the English sparrows
weather a Boston winter.

Three months, three months!
Is Richard now himself again?
Dimpled with exaltation,
my daughter holds her levee in the tub.
Our noses rub,
each of us pats a stringy lock of hair
they tell me nothing's gone.
Though I am forty-one,
not forty now, the time I put away
was child's play. After thirteen weeks
my child still dabs her cheeks
to start me shaving. When
we dress her in her sky-blue corduroy,
she changes to a boy,
and floats my shaving brush
and wa...

The natural thirst, ne'er quench'd but from the well,
Whereof the woman of Samaria crav'd,
Excited: haste along the cumber'd path,
After my guide, impell'd; and pity mov'd
My bosom for the 'vengeful deed, though just.
When lo! even as Luke relates, that Christ
Appear'd unto the two upon their way,
New-risen from his vaulted grave; to us
A shade appear'd, and after us approach'd,
Contemplating the crowd beneath its feet.
We were not ware of it; so first it spake,
Saying, "God give you peace, my brethren!" then
Sudden we turn'd: and Virgil such salute,
As fitted that kind greeting, gave, and cried:
"Peace in the blessed council be thy lot
Awarded by that righteous court, which me
To everlasting banishment exiles!"

"How!" he exclaim'd, nor from his spe...

Two Rivulets side by side,
Two blended, parallel, strolling tides,
Companions, travelers, gossiping as they journey.

For the Eternal Ocean bound,
These ripples, passing surges, streams of Death and Life,
Object and Subject hurrying, whirling by,
The Real and Ideal,

Alternate ebb and flow the Days and Nights,
(Strands of a Trio twining, Present, Future, Past.)

In You, whoe'er you are, my book perusing,
In I myself, in all the World, these ripples flow,
All, all, toward the mystic Ocean tending.

(O yearnful waves! the kisses of your lips!
Your breast so broad, with open arms, O firm, expanded shore!)