Death

On the wooden deck of the wooden Junk, silent, alone, we lie,
With silver foam about the bow, and a silver moon in the sky:
A glimmer of dimmer silver here, from the anklets round your feet,
Our lips may close on each other's lips, but never our souls may meet.

For though in my arms you lie at rest, your name I have never heard,
To carry a thought between us two, we have not a single word.
And yet what matter we do not speak, when the ardent eyes have spoken,
The way of love is a sweeter way, when the silence is unbroken.

As a wayward Fancy, tired at times, of the cultured Damask Rose,
Drifts away to the tangled copse, where the wild Anemone grows;
So the ordered and licit love ashore, is hardly fresh and free
As this light love in the open wind and salt of the outer sea.<...

Young Calidore is paddling o'er the lake;
His healthful spirit eager and awake
To feel the beauty of a silent eve,
Which seem'd full loath this happy world to leave;
The light dwelt o'er the scene so lingeringly.
He bares his forehead to the cool blue sky,
And smiles at the far clearness all around,
Until his heart is well nigh over wound,
And turns for calmness to the pleasant green
Of easy slopes, and shadowy trees that lean
So elegantly o'er the waters' brim
And show their blossoms trim.
Scarce can his clear and nimble eye-sight follow
The freaks, and dartings of the black-wing'd swallow,
Delighting much, to see it half at rest,
Dip so refreshingly its wings, and breast
'Gainst the smooth surface, and to mark anon,
The widening circles into nothing gon...

When I was not quite five years old
    I first saw the blue picture book,
And Fraulein Spitzenburger told
Stories that sent me hot and cold;
    I loathed it, yet I had to look:
    It was a German book.

I smiled at first, for she'd begun
    With a back-garden broad and green,
And rabbits nibbling there:    page one
Turned; and the gardener fired his gun
    From the low hedge:    he lay unseen
    Behind:    oh, it was mean!

They're hurt, they can't escape, and so
    He stuffs them head-down in a sack,
Not quite dead, wriggling in a row,
And Fraulein laughed, "Ho, ho!    Ho, ho!"
    And gave my middle a hard smack,
    I wish that I'd hit back.

Then when I cried she laughed again;
    On the next page was a dead boy
M...

The year like a ship in the distance
    Comes over life's mystical sea.
We know not what change of existence
    'Tis bringing to you or to me.
But we wave out the ship that is leaving
    And we welcome the ship coming in,
Although it be loaded with grieving,
    With trouble, or losses, or sin.

Old year passing over the border, -
    And fading away from our view;
All idleness, sloth, and disorder,
    All hatred and spite go with you.
All bitterness, gloom, and repining
    Down into your stronghold are cast.
Sail out where the sunsets are shining,
    Sail out with them into the past.

Good reigns over all; and above us,
    As sure as the sun gives us light,
Great forces watch over and love us,
    And lead us along through the ...

A youth too certain of his power to wade
On the smooth bottom of this clear bright sea,
To sight so shallow, with a bather's glee
Leapt from this rock, and but for timely aid
He, by the alluring element betrayed,
Had perished. Then might Sea-nymphs (and with sighs
Of self-reproach) have chanted elegies
Bewailing his sad fate, when he was laid
In peaceful earth: for, doubtless, he was frank,
Utterly in himself devoid of guile;
Knew not the double-dealing of a smile;
Nor aught that makes men's promises a blank,
Or deadly snare: and He survives to bless
The Power that saved him in his strange distress.

The sun went down in flame and smoke,
The cold night passed without alarms,
And when the bitter morning broke
Our men stood to their arms.

But not a foe in front was found
After the long and stubborn fight.
The enemy had left the ground
Where we had lain that night.

In hollows where the sun was lost
Unthawed still lay the shining snow,
And on the rugged ground the frost
In slender spears did grow.

Close to us, where our final rush
Was made at closing in of day,
We saw, amid an awful hush,
The rigid shapes of clay:

Things, which but yesterday had life,
And answered to the trumpet's call,
Remained as victims of the strife,
Clods of the Valley all!

Then, the grim detail marched away
A grave from the hard soil...

An old lane, an old gate, an old house by a tree;
A wild wood, a wild brook they will not let me be:
In boyhood I knew them, and still they call to me.

Down deep in my heart's core I hear them and my eyes
Through tear-mists behold them beneath the oldtime skies,
'Mid bee-boom and rose-bloom and orchardlands arise.

I hear them; and heartsick with longing is my soul,
To walk there, to dream there, beneath the sky's blue bowl;
Around me, within me, the weary world made whole.

To talk with the wild brook of all the long-ago;
To whisper the wood-wind of things we used to know
When we were old companions, before my heart knew woe.

To walk with the morning and watch its rose unfold;
To drowse with the noontide lulled on its heart of gold;
To lie with th...

As once, if not with light regard,
I read aright that gifted bard,
(Him whose school above the rest
His loveliest Elfin Queen has blest,)
One, only one, unrival’d fair,
Might hope the magic girdle wear,
At solemn tourney hung on high,
The wish of each love-darting eye;
Lo! to each other nymph in turn applied,
As if, in air unseen, some hov’ring hand,
Some chaste and angel-friend to virgin-fame,
With whisper’d spell had burst the starting band,
It left unblest her loath’d dishonour’d side;
Happier, hopeless fair, if never
Her baffled hand with vain endeavour
Had touch’d that fatal zone to her denied!
Young Fancy thus, to me divinest name,
To whom, prepar’d and bath’d in Heav’n,
The cest of amplest pow’r is giv’n:
To few the god-like gift assigns,...

There’s not a nook within this solemn Pass,
But were an apt confessional for one
Taught by his summer spent, his autumn gone,
That Life is but a tale of morning grass
Wither’d at eve. From scenes of art which chase
That thought away, turn, and with watchful eyes
Feed it ’mid Nature’s old felicities,
Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear than glass
Untouch’d, unbreathed upon. Thrice happy quest,
If from a golden perch of aspen spray
(October’s workmanship to rival May)
The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast
That moral sweeten by a heaven-taught lay,
Lulling the year, with all its cares, to rest!

O many-toned rain!
O myriad sweet voices of the rain!
How welcome is its delicate overture
At evening, when the moist and glowing west
Seals all things with cool promise of night's rest.

At first it would allure
The earth to kinder mood,
With dainty flattering
Of soft, sweet pattering:
Faintly now you hear the tramp
Of the fine drops, falling damp
On the dry, sun-seasoned ground
And the thirsty leaves, resound.
But anon, imbued
With a sudden, bounding access
Of passion, it relaxes
All timider persuasion.
And, with nor pretext nor occasion,
Its wooing redoubles;
And pounds the ground, and bubbles
In sputtering spray,
Flinging itself in a fury
Of flashing white away;
Till the dusty road,
Dank-perfumed, is o'erflowed;...

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s proud livery so gazed on now,
Will be a tatter’d weed of small worth held:
Then being asked, where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days;
To say, within thine own deep sunken eyes,
Were an all-eating shame, and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserv’d thy beauty’s use,
If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count, and make my old excuse,’
Proving his beauty by succession thine!
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.

Not to be conquered by these headlong days,
But to stand free: to keep the mind at brood
On life's deep meaning, nature's altitude
Of loveliness, and time's mysterious ways;
At every thought and deed to clear the haze
Out of our eyes, considering only this,
What man, what life, what love, what beauty is,
This is to live, and win the final praise.

Though strife, ill fortune and harsh human need
Beat down the soul, at moments blind and dumb
With agony; yet, patience - there shall come
Many great voices from life's outer sea,
Hours of strange triumph, and, when few men heed,
Murmurs and glimpses of eternity.

"Tha wodn't goa an leave me, Jim,
All lonely by mysel?
My een at th' varry thowts grow dim -
Aw connot say farewell.

Tha vow'd tha couldn't live unless
Tha saw me every day,
An' said tha knew noa happiness
When aw wor foorced away.

An th' tales tha towld, I know full weel,
Wor true as gospel then;
What is it, lad, 'at ma's thee feel
Soa strange - unlike thisen?

Ther's raam enuff, aw think tha'll find,
I'th taan whear tha wor born,
To mak a livin, if tha'll mind
To ha' faith i' to-morn.

Aw've mony a time goan to mi wark
Throo claads o' rain and sleet;
All's seem'd soa dull, soa drear, an' dark,
It ommust mud be neet.

But then, when braikfast time's come raand,
Aw've seen th' sun's cheerin ray,
An' th' ...

We have sent him seeds of the melon's core,
And nailed a warning upon his door:
By the Ku Klux laws we can do no more.

Down in the hollow, 'mid crib and stack,
The roof of his low-porched house looms black;
Not a line of light at the door-sill's crack.

Yet arm and mount! and mask and ride!
The hounds can sense though the fox may hide!
And for a word too much men oft have died.

The clouds blow heavy toward the moon.
The edge of the storm will reach it soon.
The kildee cries and the lonesome loon.

The clouds shall flush with a wilder glare
Than the lightning makes with its angled flare,
When the Ku Klux verdict is given there.

In the pause of the thunder rolling low,
A rifle's answer - who shall know
From the wind's fierce hurl...

    Small is the new-born plant scarce seen
    Amid the soft encircling green,
        Where yonder budding acorn rears,
    Just o'er the waving grass, its tender head:
        Slow pass along the train of years,
    And on the growing plant, their dews and showers they shed.
        Anon it rears aloft its giant form,
        And spreads its broad-brown arms to meet the storm.
    Beneath its boughs far shadowing o'er the plain,
From summer suns, repair the grateful village train.

        Nor BEDFORD will my friend survey
    The book of Nature with unheeding eye;
        For never beams the rising orb of day,
        For never dimly dies the refluent ray,
    But as the moralizer marks the sky,
He broods with strange delight upon futurity.

    ...

Winter's cold drift lies glistening o'er his breast;
For him no spring shall bid the leaf unfold
What Love could speak, by sudden grief oppressed,
What swiftly summoned Memory tell, is told.

Even as the bells, in one consenting chime,
Filled with their sweet vibrations all the air,
So joined all voices, in that mournful time,
His genius, wisdom, virtues, to declare.

What place is left for words of measured praise,
Till calm-eyed History, with her iron pen,
Grooves in the unchanging rock the final phrase
That shapes his image in the souls of men?

Yet while the echoes still repeat his name,
While countless tongues his full-orbed life rehearse,
Love, by his beating pulses taught, will claim
The breath of song, the tuneful throb of verse, -

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
    I shun the thought that lurks in all delight-
    The thought of thee-and in the blue Heaven's height,
And in the sweetest passage of a song.

Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng
    This breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright;
    But it must never, never come in sight;
I must stop short of thee the whole day long.

But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
    When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
    And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,

Must doff my will as raiment laid away,-
    With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
    I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.

Ahi bella libertà, come tu m' hai.

HE DEPLORES HIS LOST LIBERTY AND THE UNHAPPINESS OF HIS PRESENT STATE.


    Alas! fair Liberty, thus left by thee,
Well hast thou taught my discontented heart
To mourn the peace it felt, ere yet Love's dart
Dealt me the wound which heal'd can never be;
Mine eyes so charm'd with their own weakness grow
That my dull mind of reason spurns the chain;
All worldly occupation they disdain,
Ah! that I should myself have train'd them so.
Naught, save of her who is my death, mine ear
Consents to learn; and from my tongue there flows
No accent save the name to me so dear;
Love to no other chase my spirit spurs,
No other path my feet pursue; nor knows
My hand to write in other praise but hers.

MACGREGOR.