Death

Ashes denote that fire was;
Respect the grayest pile
For the departed creature's sake
That hovered there awhile.

Fire exists the first in light,
And then consolidates, --
Only the chemist can disclose
Into what carbonates.

Prologue

I heard an angel speak last night,
And he said "Write!
Write a Nation's curse for me,
And send it over the Western Sea."

I faltered, taking up the word:
"Not so, my lord!
If curses must be, choose another
To send thy curse against my brother.

"For I am bound by gratitude,
By love and blood,
To brothers of mine across the sea,
Who stretch out kindly hands to me."

"Therefore," the voice said, "shalt thou write
My curse to-night.
From the summits of love a curse is driven,
As lightning is from the tops of heaven."

"Not so," I answered. "Evermore
My heart is sore
For my own land's sins: for little feet
Of children bleeding along the street:

"For parked-up honors that gainsay
The righ...

I.

No riches from his scanty store
    My lover could impart;
He gave a boon I valued more -
    He gave me all his heart!


II.

His soul sincere, his gen'rous worth,
    Might well this bosom move;
And when I ask'd for bliss on earth,
    I only meant his love.


III.

But now for me, in search of gain
    From shore to shore he flies:
Why wander riches to obtain,
    When love is all I prize?


IV.

The frugal meal, the lowly cot
    If blest my love with thee!
That simple fare, that humble lot,
    Were more than wealth to me.


V.

While he the dang'rous ocean braves,
    My tears but vainly flow:
Is pity in the faithless waves
    To which I pour my ...

O little one, daughter, my dearest,
With your smiles and your beautiful curls,
And your laughter, the brightest and clearest,
O gravest and gayest of girls;

With your hands that are softer than roses,
And your lips that are lighter than flowers,
And that innocent brow that discloses
A wisdom more lovely than ours;

With your locks that encumber, or scatter
In a thousand mercurial gleams,
And those feet whose impetuous patter
I hear and remember in dreams;

With your manner of motherly duty,
When you play with your dolls and are wise;
With your wonders of speech, and the beauty
In your little imperious eyes;

When I hear you so silverly ringing
Your welcome from chamber or stair.
When you run to me, kissing and clinging,
So r...

        Changed? Yes, I will confess it - I have changed.
    I do not love in the old fond way.
        I am your friend still - time has not estranged
    One kindly feeling of that vanished day.

        But the bright glamour which made life a dream,
    The rapture of that time, its sweet content,
        Like visions of a sleeper's brain they seem -
    And yet I cannot tell you how they went.

        Why do you gaze with such accusing eyes
    Upon me, dear? Is it so very strange
        That hearts, like all things underneath God's skies
    Should sometimes feel the influence of change?

        The birds, the flowers, the foliage of the trees,
    The stars which seem so fixed and so sublime,
        Vast continents and the eternal seas -
...

My gentle harp, once more I waken
    The sweetness of thy slumbering strain;
In tears our last farewell was taken,
    And now in tears we meet again.
No light of joy hath o'er thee broken,
    But, like those Harps whose heavenly skill
Of slavery, dark as thine, hath spoken,
    Thou hang'st upon the willows still.

And yet, since last thy chord resounded,
    An hour of peace and triumph came,
And many an ardent bosom bounded
    With hopes--that now art turned to shame.
Yet even then, while Peace was singing
    Her halcyon song o'er land and sea,
Tho' joy and hope to others bringing,
    She only brought new tears to thee.

Then, who can ask for notes of pleasure,
    My drooping Harp, from chords like thine?
Alas, the lark's gay morni...

Within a vale in distant Saxony,
    In time uncertain, though 'twas long ago.
There dwelt a woman, most unhappily,
    From borrowed trouble, and imagined woe.

Hers was a husband generous, and kind,
    Her children, three, were not of uncouth mold;
Hers was a thatch which mocked at rain and wind;
    Within her secret purse were coins of gold.

The drouth had ne'er descended on her field,
    Nor had distemper sore distressed her kine;
The vine had given its accustomed yield,
    So that her casks were filled with ruddy wine.

Her sheep and goats waxed fat, and ample fleece
    Rewarded every harvest of the shear;
Her lambs all bleated in sequestered peace,
    Nor prowling wolf occasioned nightly fear.

With all she fretted, pined, and ...

A beautiful great lady, past her prime,
    Behold her dreaming in her easy chair;
    Gray robed, and veiled; in laces old and rare,
Her smiling eyes see but the vanished time,
Of splendid prowess, and of deeds sublime.
    Self satisfied she sits, all unaware
    That peace has flown before encroaching care,
And through her halls stalks hunger, linked with crime.

England, awake! from dreams of what has been,
    Look on what IS, and put the past away.
Speak to your sons, until they understand.
England, awake! for dreaming now is sin;
    In all your ancient wisdom, rise to-day,
And save the glory of your menaced land.

    On hospitable thoughts intent
    To me the Inner Temple sent
                An invitation,
    A garden party 'twas to be,
    And I accepted readily
                And with elation;
    Good reason too, but oft the seeds
    Of reason flower in senseless deeds.

    I stood as savage as a bear,
    For not a human being there
                Knew I from Adam
    I heard around in various tones,
    "So glad to see you, Mr. Jones;"
                "Good morning, Madam."
    It seemed so painfully absurd
    To stand and never speak a word.

    I brought my doom upon myself,
    And there I was upon the shelf
                In melancholy.
    Why, say you, did I go at all?
    I once met Chloris at a ball,
    ...

But I have looked on pictures made by man,
Wherein, at first, appeared but chaos wild;
So high the art transcended, it beguiled
The eye as formless, and without a plan;
Until the spirit, brooding o'er, began
To see a purpose rise, like mountains piled,
When God said: Let the dry earth, undefiled,
Rise from the waves: it rose in twilight wan.
And so I fear thy pictures were too strange
For us to pierce beyond their outmost look;
A vapour and a darkness; a sealed book;
An atmosphere too high for wings to range:
At God's designs our spirits pale and change,
Trembling as at a void, thought cannot brook.

    Airy and quick and wise
    In the shed light of the sun,
    You clasp with friendly eyes
    The thoughts from mine that run.

    But something breaks the link;
    I solitary stand
    By a giant gully's brink
    In some vast gloomy land.

    Sole central watcher, I
    With steadfast sadness now
    In that waste place descry
    'Neath the awful heavens how

    Your life doth dizzy drop
    A little foam of flame
    From a peak without a top
    To a pit without a name.

I never saw that you did painting need,
And therefore to your fair no painting set;
I found, or thought I found, you did exceed
That barren tender of a poet’s debt:
And therefore have I slept in your report,
That you yourself, being extant, well might show
How far a modern quill doth come too short,
Speaking of worth, what worth in you doth grow.
This silence for my sin you did impute,
Which shall be most my glory being dumb;
For I impair not beauty being mute,
When others would give life, and bring a tomb.
There lives more life in one of your fair eyes
Than both your poets can in praise devise.

    The four Equinox sisters,
    the one, Fox, streaked -
    all color, a blur
    a Bloomingdale's on fire,
    a wedge between Everest
    & her fortune.

    Samantha, the other
    dun-coloured
    earth-tide (in full bloom),
    blossoms vernally & literally
    busting out of her breeches with
    eyes like barely sugar.
    Jubilee. Fête de la vie.
    Lighthouse keeper beckoning twin
    shafts of warmth. Camberwell Beauty.
    Rattan Bar, shooting star.

    Carraciou (and castanet) an evening song,
    the most buxom but with dog days & tiresome moods
    flushed with heat.
    Tidewater in full ripple, a
    murmuring of abstract intelligence
    orchestrating summer's growth.
    Emerald keeper....

    We quarreled that morning,
    For he was sixty - five, and I was thirty,
    And I was nervous and heavy with the child
    Whose birth I dreaded.
    I thought over the last letter written me
    By that estranged young soul
    Whose betrayal of me I had concealed
    By marrying the old man.
    Then I took morphine and sat down to read.
    Across the blackness that came over my eyes
    I see the flickering light of these words even now:
    "And Jesus said unto him, Verily
    I say unto thee, To-day thou shalt
    Be with me in paradise."

Thou go'st! I murmur
Go! let me murmur.
Oh, worthy man,
Fly from this land!

Deadly marshes,
Steaming mists of October
Here interweave their currents,
Blending for ever.

Noisome insects
Here are engender'd;
Fatal darkness
Veils their malice.

The fiery-tongued serpent,
Hard by the sedgy bank,
Stretches his pamper'd body,
Caress'd by the sun's bright beams.

Tempt no gentle night-rambles
Under the moon's cold twilight!
Loathsome toads hold their meetings
Yonder at every crossway.

Injuring not,
Fear will they cause thee.
Oh, worthy man,
Fly from this land!

Which is the weakest thing of all
Mine heart can ponder?
The sun, a little cloud can pall
With darkness yonder?
The cloud, a little wind can move
Where'er it listeth?
The wind, a little leaf above,
Though sere, resisteth?

What time that yellow leaf was green,
My days were gladder;
But now, whatever Spring may mean,
I must grow sadder.
Ah me! a leaf with sighs can wring
My lips asunder
Then is mine heart the weakest thing
Itself can ponder.

Yet, Heart, when sun and cloud are pined
And drop together,
And at a blast, which is not wind,
The forests wither,
Thou, from the darkening deathly curse
To glory breakest,
The Strongest of the universe
Guarding the weakest!

The darkness that hung upon Willumberg's walls
    Had long been remembered with awe and dismay;
For years not a sunbeam had played in its halls,
    And it seemed as shut out from the regions of day.

Though the valleys were brightened by many a beam,
    Yet none could the woods of that castle illume;
And the lightning which flashed on the neighboring stream
    Flew back, as if fearing to enter the gloom!

"Oh! when shall this horrible darkness disperse!"
    Said Willumberg's lord to the Seer of the Cave;--
"It can never dispel," said the wizard of verse,
    "Till the bright star of chivalry sinks in the wave!"

And who was the bright star of chivalry then?
    Who could be but Reuben, the flower of the age?
For Reuben was first in the combat ...

Tune - "Oran-gaoil."



I.

    Behold the hour, the boat arrive;
        Thou goest, thou darling of my heart!
    Sever'd from thee can I survive?
        But fate has will'd, and we must part.
    I'll often greet this surging swell,
        Yon distant isle will often hail:
    "E'en here I took the last farewell;
        There, latest mark'd her vanish'd sail."

II.

    Along the solitary shore
        While flitting sea-fowl round me cry,
    Across the rolling, dashing roar,
        I'll westward turn my wistful eye:
    Happy, thou Indian grove, I'll say,
        Where now my Nancy's path may be!
    While thro' thy sweets she loves to stray,
        O tell me, does she muse on me?