Death

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
    "Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers.
    And things are not what they seem.

Life is real!    Life is earnest!
    And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
    Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
    Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
    Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
    And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
    Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
    In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
    Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasan...

Gormlaith, wife of Niall Glendu,
        Happy was your dream that night,
        Dreamt you woke in sudden fright,
Niall of Ulster stood by you.

Niall of Ulster, dead and gone,
        Many a year had come again,
        Him who was in battle slain
Now your glad eyes rest upon.

Well your gaze caressed him o’er,
        His dark head you loved so well,
        Where the coulin curled and fell
On the clever brow he bore.

Those brave shoulders wide and strong,
        Many a Dane had quaked to see,
        Never a phantom fair as he,-
Wife of Glendu gazed so long.

Glad Queen Gormlaith, at the dawn
        Up you sprang to draw him near,
        Ah! the grey cock loud and clear
Crew, and then the Ghost was gone.

S...

    Sad thy tale, thou idle page,
        And rueful thy alarms:
    Death tears the brother of her love
        From Isabella's arms.

    Sweetly deck'd with pearly dew
        The morning rose may blow;
    But cold successive noontide blasts
        May lay its beauties low.

    Fair on Isabella's morn
        The sun propitious smil'd;
    But, long ere noon, succeeding clouds
        Succeeding hopes beguil'd.

    Fate oft tears the bosom chords
        That nature finest strung:
    So Isabella's heart was form'd,
        And so that heart was wrung.

    Were it in the poet's power,
        Strong as he shares the grief
    That pierces Isabella's heart,
        To give that heart relief!

    Dread Omnipo...

Found in the garden--dead in his beauty.
Ah! that a linnet should die in the spring!
Bury him, comrades, in pitiful duty,
Muffle the dinner-bell, solemnly ring.

Bury him kindly--up in the corner;
Bird, beast, and gold-fish are sepulchred there;
Bid the black kitten march as chief mourner,
Waving her tail like a plume in the air.

Bury him nobly--next to the donkey;
Fetch the old banner, and wave it about:
Bury him deeply--think of the monkey,
Shallow his grave, and the dogs got him out.

Bury him softly--white wool around him,
Kiss his poor feathers,--the first kiss and last;
Tell his poor widow kind friends have found him:
Plant his poor grave with whatever grows fast.

Farewell, sweet singer! dead in thy beauty,
Silent through summe...

Set your face toward the darkness tell of deserts weird and wide,
Where unshaken woods are huddled, and low, languid waters glide;
Turn and tell of deserts lonely, lying pathless, deep and vast,
Where in utter silence ever Time seems slowly breathing past
Silence only broken when the sun is flecked with cloudy bars,
Or when tropic squalls come hurtling underneath the sultry stars!
Deserts thorny, hot and thirsty, where the feet of men are strange,
And eternal Nature sleeps in solitudes which know no change.

Weakened with their lengthened labours, past long plains of stone and sand,
Down those trackless wilds they wandered, travellers from a far-off land,
Seeking now to join their brothers, struggling on with faltering feet,
For a glorious work was finished, and a noble task comp...

On Salathiel Peavy, A Child of Queen Elizabeth’s Chapel

Weep with me, all you that read
This little story;
And know, for whom a tear you shed
Death’s self is sorry.
’Twas a child that so did thrive
In grace and feature,
As Heaven and Nature seemed to strive
Which owned the creature.
Years he numbered scarce thirteen
When Fates turned cruel,
Yet three filled zodiacs had he been
The stage’s jewel;
And did act (what now we moan)
Old men so duly,
As, sooth, the Parcae thought him one,
He played so truly.
So, by error, to his fate
They all consented;
But viewing him since (alas, too late),
They have repented,
And have sought, to give new birth,
In baths to steep him;
But, being so much too good for earth,
Heaven vows to...

“EQUALITY OF SACRIFICE”

A. “I was a Have.” B. “I was a ‘have-not.’”
(Together.) “What hast thou given which I gave not?”

A SERVANT

We were together since the War began.
He was my servant, and the better man.

A SON

My son was killed while laughing at some jest. I would I knew
What it was, and it might serve me in a time when jests are few.

AN ONLY SON

I have slain none except my Mother.
She (Blessing her slayer) died of grief for me.

EX-CLERK

Pity not! The Army gave
Freedom to a timid slave:
In which Freedom did he find
Strength of body, will, and mind:
By which strength he came to prove
Mirth, Companionship, and Love:
For which Love to Death he went:
In which Death he lies content.
...

In evening as the sun goes down
She twists and dances mindlessly
Life, in her brash effrontery.
But also, when above the town

The night has risen, charming, vast,
Blessing the hungry with its peace,
Obliterating all disgrace,
The Poet tells himself: 'At last!

My spirit, like my backbone, seems
Intent on finding its repose;
The heart so full of mournful dreams,

I'll stretch out on my weary back
And roll up in your curtains, those
Consoling comforters of black!'

STR. 1

I laid my laurel-leaf
At the white feet of grief,
Seeing how with covered face and plumeless wings,
With unreverted head
Veiled, as who mourns his dead,
Lay Freedom couched between the thrones of kings,
A wearied lion without lair,
And bleeding from base wounds, and vexed with alien air.



STR. 2

Who was it, who, put poison to thy mouth,
Who lulled with craft or chant thy vigilant eyes,
O light of all men, lamp to north and south,
Eastward and westward, under all men’s skies?
For if thou sleep, we perish, and thy name
Dies with the dying of our ephemeral breath;
And if the dust of death o’ergrows thy flame,
Heaven also is darkened with the dust of death.
If thou be mortal, if thou change or cease,
If thine hand...

A Beautiful Little Girl.

Fair as some sea-child, in her coral bower,
    Decked with the rare, rich treasures of the deep;
Mild as the spirit of the dream whose power
    Bears back the infant's soul to heaven, in sleep
Brightens the hues of summer's first-born flower
    Pure as the tears repentant mourners weep
O'er deeds to which the siren, Sin, beguiled, -
Art thou, sweet, smiling, bright-eyed cherub child.

Thy presence is a spell of holiness,
    From which unhallowed thoughts shrink blushing back, -
Thy smile is a warm light that shines to bless,
    As beams the beacon o'er the wanderer's track, -
Thy voice is music, at whose sounds Distress
    Unbinds her writhing victim from the rack
Of misery, and charmed by what she hears,
Forgets her w...

The grass of fifty Aprils hath waved green
    Above the spent heart, the Olympian head,
The hands crost idly, the shut eyes unseen,
    Unseeing, the locked lips whose song hath fled;
Yet mystic-lived, like some rich, tropic flower,
His fame puts forth fresh blossoms hour by hour;
Wide spread the laden branches dropping dew
    On the low, laureled brow misunderstood,
    That bent not, neither bowed, until subdued
By the last foe who crowned while he o'erthrew.


Fair was the Easter Sabbath morn when first
    Men heard he had not wakened to its light:
The end had come, and time had done its worst,
    For the black cloud had fallen of endless night.
Then in the town, as Greek accosted Greek,
'T was not the wonted festal words to speak,
"Christ is ...

This is the house. On one side there is darkness,
On one side there is light.
Into the darkness you may lift your lanterns,
O, any number, it will still be night.
And here are echoing stairs to lead you downward
To long sonorous halls.
And here is spring forever at these windows,
With roses on the walls.

This is her room. On one side there is music,
On one side not a sound.
At one step she could move from love to silence,
Feel myriad darkness coiling round.
And here are balconies from which she heard you,
Your steady footsteps on the stair.
And here the glass in which she saw your shadow
As she unbound her hair.

Here is the room, with ghostly walls dissolving,
The twilight room in which she called you ‘lover’;
And the floorless room in wh...

And what is Life?--An hour-glass on the run,
A mist retreating from the morning sun,
A busy, bustling, still repeated dream;
Its length?--A minute's pause, a moment's thought;
And happiness?-A bubble on the stream,
That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought.

What are vain Hopes?--The puffing gale of morn,
That of its charms divests the dewy lawn,
And robs each floweret of its gem,--and dies;
A cobweb hiding disappointment's thorn,
Which stings more keenly through the thin disguise.

And thou, O Trouble?--Nothing can suppose,
(And sure the power of wisdom only knows,)
What need requireth thee:
So free and liberal as thy bounty flows,
Some necessary cause must surely be;
But disappointments, pains, and every woe
Devoted wretches feel,
The ...

Quiet he lived, and quietly died;
Nor, like the unwilling tide,
Did once complain or strive
To stay one brief hour more alive.
But as a summer wave
Serenely for a while
Will lift a crest to the sun,
Then sink again, so he
Back to the bright heavens gave
An answering smile;
Then quietly, having run
His course, bowed down his head,
And sank unmurmuringly,
Sank back into the sea,
The silent, the unfathomable sea
Of all the happy dead.

The pigeons, following the faint warm light,
Stayed at last on the roof till warmth was gone,
Then in the mist that's hastier than night
Disappeared all behind the carved dark stone,
Huddling from the black cruelty of the frost.
With the new sparkling sun they swooped and came
Like a cloud between the sun and street, and then
Like a cloud blown from the blue north were lost,
Vanishing and returning ever again,
Small cloud following cloud across the flame
That clear and meagre burned and burned away
And left the ice unmelting day by day.

... Nor could the sun through the roof's purple slate
(Though his gold magic played with shadow there
And drew the pigeons from the streaming air)
With any fiery magic penetrate.
Under the roof the air and water froze,

Said the red-cloaked crone
In a whispered moan:

"The dead man was limp
When laid in his chest;
Yea, limp; and why
But to signify
That the grave will crimp
Ere next year's sun
Yet another one
Of those in that house -
It may be the best -
For its endless drowse!"

Said the brown-shawled dame
To confirm the same:

"And the slothful flies
On the rotting fruit
Have been seen to wear
While crawling there
Crape scarves, by eyes
That were quick and acute;
As did those that had pitched
On the cows by the pails,
And with flaps of their tails
Were far away switched."

Said the third in plaid,
Each word being weighed:

"And trotting does
In the park, in the lane,
And just outside
Th...

    A small part only of my grief I write;
        And if I do not give you all the tale
    It is because my gloom gets some respite
        By just a small bewailing: I bewail
    That I with sly and stupid folk must bide
    Who steal my food and ruin my inside.

    Once I had books, each book beyond compare,
        But now no book at all is left to me,
    And I am spied and peeped on everywhere,
        And my old head, stuffed with latinity,
    And with the poet's load of grave and gay
    Will not get me skim-milk for half a day.

    Wild horse or quiet, not a horse have I,
        But to the forest every day I go
    Bending beneath a load of wood, that high!
        Which raises on my back a sorry row
    Of raw, red blisters; so I cry, ...

Thinking of these, of beautiful brief things,
Of things that are of sense and spirit made,
Of meadow flowers, dense hedges and dark bushes
With roses trailing over nests of thrushes;

Of dews so pure and bright and flush'd and cool,
And like the flowers as brief as beautiful;
Thinking of the tall grass and daisies tall
And whispered music of the waving bents;

Of these that like a simple child I love
Since they are life and life is flowers and grass;
Thinking of trees, and water at their feet
Answering the trees with murmur childlike sweet;

Thinking of those high thoughts that passed like the wind
Yet left their brightness lying on the mind,
As the white blossoms the raw airs shake down
That lie awhile yet lovely on the chill grass;

Think...