Death

From all the rest I single out you, having a message for you:
You are to die Let others tell you what they please, I cannot prevaricate,
I am exact and merciless, but I love you There is no escape for you.

Softly I lay my right hand upon you you just feel it,
I do not argue I bend my head close, and half envelope it,
I sit quietly by I remain faithful,
I am more than nurse, more than parent or neighbor,
I absolve you from all except yourself, spiritual, bodily that is eternal you yourself will surely escape,
The corpse you will leave will be but excrementitious.

The sun bursts through in unlooked-for directions!
Strong thoughts fill you, and confidence you smile!
You forget you are sick, as I forget you are sick,
You do not see the medicines you do not mind the weepin...

O the frozen valley and frozen hill make a coffin wide and deep,
And the dead river lies, all its laughter stilled within it, fast asleep.

The trees that have played with the merry thing, and freighted its breast with leaves,
Give never a murmur or sigh of woe - they are dead - no dead thing grieves.

No carol of love from a song-bird's throat; the world lies naked and still,
For all things tender, and all things sweet, have been touched by the gruesome chill.

Not a flower - a blue forget-me-not, a wild rose, or jasmine soft -
To lay its bloom on the dead river's lips, that have kissed them all so oft.

But look! a ladder is spanning the space 'twixt earth and the sky beyond,
A ladder of gold for the Maid of Grace - the strong, the subtle, the fond!

Spring, with...

The summer-flower has run to seed,
And yellow is the woodland bough;
And every leaf of bush and weed
Is tipt with autumn's pencil now.

And I do love the varied hue,
And I do love the browning plain;
And I do love each scene to view,
That's mark'd with beauties of her reign.

The woodbine-trees red berries bear,
That clustering hang upon the bower;
While, fondly lingering here and there,
Peeps out a dwindling sickly flower.

The trees' gay leaves are turned brown,
By every little wind undress'd;
And as they flap and whistle down,
We see the birds' deserted nest.

No thrush or blackbird meets the eye,
Or fills the ear with summer's strain;
They but dart out for worm and fly,
Then silent seek their rest again.

Beside...

I dreamt last night; and in that dream
My boyhood's heart was mine again;
These latter years did nothing seem
With all their mingled joy and pain,
Their thousand deeds of good and ill,
Their hopes which time did not fulfil,
Their glorious moments of success,
Their love that closed in bitterness,
Their hate that grew with growing strength,
Their darling projects, dropped at length,
And higher aims that still prevail,
For I must perish ere they fail,
That crowning object of my life,
The end of all my toil and strife,
Source of my virtues and my crimes,
For which I've toiled and striven in vain,
But, if I fail a thousand times,
Still I will toil and strive again:
Yet even this was then forgot;
My present heart and soul were not:
All the rough ...

How strange it seems!    These Hebrews in their graves,
    Close by the street of this fair seaport town,
Silent beside the never-silent waves,
    At rest in all this moving up and down!

The trees are white with dust, that o'er their sleep
    Wave their broad curtains in the south-wind's breath,
While underneath such leafy tents they keep
    The long, mysterious Exodus of Death.

And these sepulchral stones, so old and brown,
    That pave with level flags their burial-place,
Seem like the tablets of the Law, thrown down
    And broken by Moses at the mountain's base.

The very names recorded here are strange,
    Of foreign accent, and of different climes;
Alvares and Rivera interchange
    With Abraham and Jacob of old times.

"Bless...

Solea dalla fontana di mia vita.

MEMORY IS HIS ONLY SOLACE AND SUPPORT.


    I who was wont from life's best fountain far
So long to wander, searching land and sea,
Pursuing not my pleasure, but my star,
And alway, as Love knows who strengthen'd me,
Ready in bitter exile to depart,
For hope and memory both then fed my heart;
Alas! now wring my hands, and to unkind
And angry Fortune, which away has reft
That so sweet hope, my armour have resign'd;
And, memory only left,
I feed my great desire on that alone,
Whence frail and famish'd is my spirit grown.

As haply by the way, if want of food
Compel the traveller to relax his speed,
Losing that strength which first his steps endued,
So feeling, for my weary life, the need
Of ...

Amor, se vuoi ch' i' torni al giogo antico.

UNLESS LOVE CAN RESTORE HER TO LIFE, HE WILL NEVER AGAIN BE HIS SLAVE.


    If thou wouldst have me, Love, thy slave again,
One other proof, miraculous and new,
Must yet be wrought by you,
Ere, conquer'd, I resume my ancient chain--
Lift my dear love from earth which hides her now,
For whose sad loss thus beggar'd I remain;
Once more with warmth endow
That wise chaste heart where wont my life to dwell;
And if as some divine, thy influence so,
From highest heaven unto the depths of hell,
Prevail in sooth--for what its scope below,
'Mid us of common race,
Methinks each gentle breast may answer well--
Rob Death of his late triumph, and replace
Thy conquering ensign in her lovely face!

...

If some day this body of mine were burned
(It found no favour alas! with you)
And the ashes scattered abroad, unurned,
Would Love die also, would Thought die too?
    But who can answer, or who can trust,
    No dreams would harry the windblown dust?

Were I laid away in the furrows deep
Secure from jackal and passing plough,
Would your eyes not follow me still through sleep
Torment me then as they torture now?
    Would you ever have loved me, Golden Eyes,
    Had I done aught better or otherwise?

Was I overspeechful, or did you yearn
When I sat silent, for songs or speech?
Ah, Beloved, I had been so apt to learn,
So apt, had you only cared to teach.
    But time for silence and song is done,
    You wanted nothing, my Golden Sun!

W...

I have been down in the darkest water -
    Deep, deep down where no light could pierce;
Alone with the things that are bent on slaughter,
    The mindless things that are cruel and fierce.
I have fought with fear in my wave-walled prison,
    And begged for the beautiful boon of death;
But out of the billows my soul has risen
    To glorify God with my latest breath.

There is no potion I have not tasted
    Of all the bitters in life's large store;
And never a drop of the gall was wasted
    That the lords of Karma saw fit to pour,
Though I cried as my Elder Brother before me,
    'Father in heaven, let pass this cup!'
And the only response from the still skies o'er me
    Was the brew held close for my lips to sup.

Yet I have grown strong on the ...

Oh! call us not silent,
The throng of the dead!
Though in visible being
No longer we tread
The pathways of earth,
From the grave and the sky,
From the halls of the Past
And the star-host on high,
We speak to the spirit
In language divine;
List, Mortal, our song,
Ere its burden be thine.

Our labor is finished,
Our race it is run;
The guerdon eternal
Is lost or is won;
A beautiful gift
Is the life thou dost share;
Bewail not its sorrow,
Despise not its care;
The rainbow of Hope
Spans the ocean of Time;
High triumph and holy
Makes conflict sublime.

Work ever! Life's moments
Are fleeting and brief;
Behind is the burden,
Before, the relief.
Work nobly! the deed
Liveth bright in the Past,

There is no break in all the wide grey sky,
Nor light on any field, and the wind grieves,
And talks of death. Where cold grey waters lie
Round greyer stones, and the new-fallen leaves
Heap the chill hollows of the naked woods,
A lisping moan, an inarticulate cry,
Creeps far among the charnel solitudes,
Numbing the waste with mindless misery.
In these bare paths, these melancholy lands,
What dream, or flesh, could ever have been young?
What lovers have gone forth with linkèd hands?
What flowers could ever have bloomed, what birds have sung?
Life, hopes, and human things seem wrapped away,
With shrouds and spectres, in one long decay.

                            TO SHAKESPEARE

                Longer than thine, than thine,
    Is now my time of life; and thus thy years
    Seem to be clasped and harboured within mine.
    O how ignoble this my clasp appears!

                Thy unprophetic birth,
    Thy darkling death: living I might have seen
    That cradle, marked those labours, closed that earth.
    O first, O last, O infinite between!

                Now that my life has shared
    Thy dedicated date, O mortal, twice,
    To what all-vain embrace shall be compared
    My lean enclosure of thy paradise?

                To ignorant arms that fold
    A poet to a foolish breast?    The Line,
    That is not, with the world within its hold?
    So, days with days,...

FROM "THE TRIUMPH OF MUSIC."


    ... Fresh from bathing in orient fountains,
In wells of rock water and snow,
Comes the Dawn with her pearl-brimming fingers
O'er the thyme and the pines of yon mountain;
Where she steps young blossoms fresh blow....

And sweet as the star-beams in fountains,
And soft as the fall of the dew,
Wet as the hues of the rain-arch,
To me was the Dawn when on mountains
Pearl-capped o'er the hyaline blue,
Saint-fair and pure thro' the blue,
Her spirit in dimples comes dancing,
In dimples of light and of fire,
Planting her footprints in roses
On the floss of the snow-drifts, while glancing
Large on her brow is her tire,
Gemmed with the morning-star's fire.

But sweet as the incense from altars,
And war...

        I.


The shadow of the houses leave behind,
In the cool boscage of the grove reclined,
The wine of friendship from love's goblet drink,
And entertain with cheerful speech the mind.


Drink, friend! behold, the dreary winter's gone,
The mantle of old age has time withdrawn.
The sunbeam glitters in the morning dew,
O'er hill and vale youth's bloom is surging on.


Cup-bearer! quench with snow the goblet's fire,
Even as the wise man cools and stills his ire.
Look, when the jar is drained, upon the brim
The light foam melteth with the heart's desire.


Cup-bearer! bring anear the silver bowl,
And with the glowing gold fulfil the whole,
Unto the weak new vigor it imparts,
And without lance subdues the hero's soul.

I meant to find her when I came;
Death had the same design;
But the success was his, it seems,
And the discomfit mine.

I meant to tell her how I longed
For just this single time;
But Death had told her so the first,
And she had hearkened him.

To wander now is my abode;
To rest, -- to rest would be
A privilege of hurricane
To memory and me.

Se lamentar augelli, o Verdi fronde.

SHE IS EVER PRESENT TO HIM.


    If the lorn bird complain, or rustling sweep
Soft summer airs o'er foliage waving slow,
Or the hoarse brook come murmuring down the steep,
Where on the enamell'd bank I sit below
With thoughts of love that bid my numbers flow;
'Tis then I see her, though in earth she sleep!
Her, form'd in heaven! I see, and hear, and know!
Responsive sighing, weeping as I weep:
"Alas," she pitying says, "ere yet the hour,
Why hurry life away with swifter flight?
Why from thy eyes this flood of sorrow pour?
No longer mourn my fate! through death my days
Become eternal! to eternal light
These eyes, which seem'd in darkness closed, I raise!"

DACRE.


    Where the gr...

In Nature's bright blossoms not always reposes
    That strange subtle essence more rare than their bloom,
Which lies in the hearts of carnations and roses,
    That unexplained something by men called perfume.
Though modest the flower, yet great is its power
    And pregnant with meaning each pistil and leaf,
If only it hides there, if only abides there,
    The fragrance suggestive of love, joy, and grief.

Not always the air that a master composes
    Can stir human heart-strings with pleasure or pain.
But strange, subtle chords, like the scent of the roses,
    Breathe out of some measures, though simple the strain.
And lo! when you hear them, you love them and fear them,
    You tremble with anguish, you thrill with delight,
For back of them slumber old dreams...

I

I wot well o' his going
To think in flowers fair; -
His a right kind heart, my dear,
To give the grass such hair.


II.

I wot well o' his lying
Such nights out in the cold, -
To list the cricket's crick, my sweet,
To see the glow-worm's gold.


III.

An mine eyes be laughterful,
Well may they laugh, I trow, -
Since two dead eyes a yesternight
Gazed in them sad enow.


IV.

An my heart make moan and ache,
Well may it dree, I'm sure; -
He is dead and gone, my love,
And it is beggar poor.