Death

The Mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small--
So soft and slow the great wheels go they scarcely move at all;
But the souls of men fall into them and are powdered into dust,
And in that dust grow the Passion-Flowers--Love, Hope, Trust.

Most wondrous their upspringing, in the dust of the Grinding-Mills,
And rare beyond the telling the fragrance each distils.
Some grow up tall and stately, and some grow sweet and small,
But Life out of Death is in each one--with purpose grow they all.

For that dust is God's own garden, and the Lord Christ tends it fair,
With oh, such loving tenderness! and oh, such patient care!
In sorrow the seeds are planted, they are watered with bitter tears,
But their roots strike down to the Water-Springs and the Sources of the Years....

MacLeod's wizard flag from the grey castle sallies,
The rowers are seated, unmoor'd are the galleys;
Gleam war-axe and broadsword, clang target and quiver,
As Mackrimmon sings, "Farewell to Dunvegan for ever!
Farewell to each cliff, on which breakers are foaming;
Farewell, each dark glen, in which red-deer are roaming;
MacLeod may return, but Mackrimmon shall never!

"Farewell the bright clouds that on Quillan are sleeping;
Farewell the bright eyes in the Dun that are weeping;
To each minstrel delusion, farewell! and for ever,
Mackrimmon departs, to return to you never!
The Banshee's wild voice sings the death-dirge before me,
The pall of the dead for a mantle hangs o'er me;
But my heart shall not flag, and my nerves shall not shiver,
Though devoted I go, to return...

[1]

I hate that saying, old and savage,
"'Tis nothing but a woman drowning."
That's much, I say. What grief more keen should have edge
Than loss of her, of all our joys the crowning?
Thus much suggests the fable I am borrowing.
A woman perish'd in the water,
Where, anxiously, and sorrowing,
Her husband sought her,
To ease the grief he could not cure,
By honour'd rites of sepulture.
It chanced that near the fatal spot,
Along the stream which had
Produced a death so sad,
There walk'd some men that knew it not.
The husband ask'd if they had seen
His wife, or aught that hers had been.
One promptly answer'd, 'No!
But search the stream below:
It must nave borne her in its flow.'
'No,' said another; 'search above.
In that dir...

The day opens with the brown light of snowfall
And past the window snowflakes fall and fall.
I sit in my chair all day and work and work
Measuring words against each other.
I open the piano and play a tune
But find it does not say what I feel,
I grow tired of measuring words against each other,
I grow tired of these four walls,
And I think of you, who write me that you have just had a daughter
And named her after your first sweetheart,
And you, who break your heart, far away,
In the confusion and savagery of a long war,
And you who, worn by the bitterness of winter,
Will soon go south.
The snowflakes fall almost straight in the brown light
Past my window,
And a sparrow finds refuge on my window-ledge.
This alone comes to me out of the world outside
A...

And wilt thou, faithless one, then, leave me,
With all thy magic phantasy,
With all the thoughts that joy or grieve me,
Wilt thou with all forever fly?
Can naught delay thine onward motion,
Thou golden time of life's young dream?
In vain! eternity's wide ocean
Ceaselessly drowns thy rolling stream.

The glorious suns my youth enchanting
Have set in never-ending night;
Those blest ideals now are wanting
That swelled my heart with mad delight.
The offspring of my dream hath perished,
My faith in being passed away;
The godlike hopes that once I cherish
Are now reality's sad prey.

As once Pygmalion, fondly yearning,
Embraced the statue formed by him,
Till the cold marble's cheeks were burning,
And life diffused through every limb,
So...

Voi, ch' ascoltate in rime sparse il suono.

HE CONFESSES THE VANITY OF HIS PASSION


    Ye who in rhymes dispersed the echoes hear
Of those sad sighs with which my heart I fed
When early youth my mazy wanderings led,
Fondly diverse from what I now appear,
Fluttering 'twixt frantic hope and frantic fear,
From those by whom my various style is read,
I hope, if e'er their hearts for love have bled,
Not only pardon, but perhaps a tear.
But now I clearly see that of mankind
Long time I was the tale: whence bitter thought
And self-reproach with frequent blushes teem;
While of my frenzy, shame the fruit I find,
And sad repentance, and the proof, dear-bought,
That the world's joy is but a flitting dream.

CHARLEMONT.


    O...

O heart of mine, we shouldn't
        Worry so!
What we've missed of calm we couldn't
        Have, you know!
What we've met of stormy pain,
And of sorrow's driving rain,
We can better meet again,
        If it blow!

We have erred in that dark hour
        We have known,
When our tears fell with the shower,
        All alone! -
Were not shine and shadow blent
As the gracious Master meant? -
Let us temper our content
        With His own.

For, we know, not every morrow
        Can be sad;
So, forgetting all the sorrow
        We have had,
Let us fold away our fears,
And put by our foolish tears,
And through all the coming years
    Just be glad.

Out of thy door I run to do the thing
    That calls upon me. Straight the wind of words
Whoops from mine ears the sounds of them that sing
About their work, "My God, my father-king!"

I turn in haste to see thy blessed door,
    But, lo, a cloud of flies and bats and birds,
    And stalking vapours, and vague monster-herds
        Have risen and lighted, rushed and swollen between!

Ah me! the house of peace is there no more.
Was it a dream then?--Walls, fireside, and floor,
    And sweet obedience, loving, calm, and free,
        Are vanished--gone as they had never been!

    I labour groaning. Comes a sudden sheen!--
And I am kneeling at my father's knee,
Sighing with joy, and hoping utterly.

I will be happy if but for once:
Only help me, Autumn weather,
Me and my cares to screen, ensconce
In luxury’s sofa-lap of leather!

Sleep? Nay, comfort with just a cloud
Suffusing day too clear and bright:
Eve’s essence, the single drop allowed
To sully, like milk, Noon’s water-white.

Let gauziness shade, not shroud, adjust,
Dim and not deaden, somehow sheathe
Aught sharp in the rough world’s busy thrust,
If it reach me through dreaming’s vapor-wreath.

Be life so, all things ever the same!
For, what has disarmed the world? Outside,
Quiet and peace: inside, nor blame
Nor want, nor wish whate’er betide.

What is it like that has happened before?
A dream? No dream, more real by much.
A vision? But fanciful days of yore
Brough...

    It's the lonesomest house you ever saw,
    This big gray house where I stay.
    I don't call it living at all, at all,
    Since my mother's gone away.

    Only four weeks now - it seems a year -
    Gone to heaven, the preacher said,
    And my heart is just broke awaiting her,
    And my eyes are always red.

    I stay out of doors till I'm almost froze,
    'Cause every identical room
    Seems empty enough to scare a boy,
    And packed to the door with gloom.

    Oh, but I hate to come in to my meals,
    And her not there in her place,
    Pouring the tea, and passing the things,
    With that lovin' shine on her face!

    But night-time is worse. I creep up the stair
    And to bed as still 's a mouse,
    And cry...

Now Morning from her orient chamber came,
And her first footsteps touch'd a verdant hill;
Crowning its lawny crest with amber flame,
Silv'ring the untainted gushes of its rill;
Which, pure from mossy beds, did down distill,
And after parting beds of simple flowers,
By many streams a little lake did fill,
Which round its marge reflected woven bowers,
And, in its middle space, a sky that never lowers.

There the king-fisher saw his plumage bright
Vieing with fish of brilliant dye below;
Whose silken fins, and golden scales' light
Cast upward, through the waves, a ruby glow:
There saw the swan his neck of arched snow,
And oar'd himself along with majesty;
Sparkled his jetty eyes; his feet did show
Beneath the waves like Afric's ebony,
And on his back a ...

I'm weary waiting here,
The chill east wind is sighing,
The autumn tints are sere,
The summer flowers are dying.
The river's sullen way
Winds on through vacant meadows,
The dying light of day
Strives vainly with the shadows.

A footstep stirs the leaves!
The faded fields seem brighter,
The sunset gilds the sheaves,
The low'ring clouds look lighter.
The river sparkles by,
Not all the flowers are falling,
There's azure in the sky,
And thou, my love, art calling.

A spirit is out to-night!
His steeds are the winds; oh, list,
How he madly sweeps o'er the clouds,
And scatters the driving mist.

We will let the curtains fall
Between us and the storm;
Wheel the sofa up to the hearth,
Where the fire is glowing warm.

Little student, leave your book,
And come and sit by my side;
If you dote on Tennyson so,
I'll be jealous of him, my bride.

There, now I can call you my own!
Let me push back the curls from your brow,
And look in your dark eyes and see
What my bird is thinking of now.

Is she thinking of some high perch
Of freedom, and lofty flight?
You smile; oh, little wild bird,
You are hopelessly bound to-night!

You are bound with a golden ring,
And your captor, like some g...

Just now the lilac is in bloom,
All before my little room;
And in my flower-beds, I think,
Smile the carnation and the pink;
And down the borders, well I know,
The poppy and the pansy blow . . .
Oh! there the chestnuts, summer through,
Beside the river make for you
A tunnel of green gloom, and sleep
Deeply above; and green and deep
The stream mysterious glides beneath,
Green as a dream and deep as death.
    Oh, damn! I know it! and I know
How the May fields all golden show,
And when the day is young and sweet,
Gild gloriously the bare feet
That run to bathe . . .
'Du lieber Gott!'

Here am I, sweating, sick, and hot,
And there the shadowed waters fresh
Lean up to embrace the naked flesh.
Temperamentvoll German Jews
Drink bee...

The hue, which coward dread on my pale cheeks
Imprinted, when I saw my guide turn back,
Chas'd that from his which newly they had worn,
And inwardly restrain'd it. He, as one
Who listens, stood attentive: for his eye
Not far could lead him through the sable air,
And the thick-gath'ring cloud. "It yet behooves
We win this fight"--thus he began--"if not--
Such aid to us is offer'd.--Oh, how long
Me seems it, ere the promis'd help arrive!"

I noted, how the sequel of his words
Clok'd their beginning; for the last he spake
Agreed not with the first. But not the less
My fear was at his saying; sith I drew
To import worse perchance, than that he held,
His mutilated speech. "Doth ever any
Into this rueful concave's extreme depth
Descend, out of the first de...

O, Cartmel bells ring soft to-night,
And Cartmel bells ring clear,
But I lie far away to-night,
Listening with my dear;

Listening in a frosty land
Where all the bells are still
And the small-windowed bell-towers stand
Dark under heath and hill.

I thought that, with each dying year,
As long as life should last
The bells of Cartmel I should hear
Ring out an aged past:

The plunging, mingling sounds increase
Darkness's depth and height,
The hollow valley gains more peace
And ancientness to-night:

The loveliness, the fruitfulness,
The power of life lived there
Return, revive, more closely press
Upon that midnight air.

But many deaths have place in men
Before they come to die;
Joys must be used and spent, a...

They were hanging men in Buckland who would not cheer King George,
The parson from his pulpit and the blacksmith from his forge;
They were hanging men and brothers, and the stoutest heart was down,
When a quiet man from Buckland rode at dusk to raise Charlestown.

Not a young man in his glory filled with patriotic fire,
Not an orator or soldier, or a known man in his shire;
He was just the Unexpected, one of Danger's Volunteers,
At a time for which he'd waited, all unheard of, many years.

And Charlestown met in council, the quiet man to hear,
The town was large and wealthy, but the folks were filled with fear,
The fear of death and plunder; and none to lead had they,
And Self fought Patriotism as will always be the way.

The man turned to the people, and he spoke ...

(In an Album.)


In the spring-time, out of the dew,
    From my garden, sweet friend, I gather,
    A garland of verses, or rather
A poem of blossoms for you.

There are pansies, purple and white,
    That hold in their velvet splendour,
    Sweet thoughts as fragrant and tender,
And rarer than poets can write.

The Iris her pennon unfurls,
    My unspoken message to carry,
    A flower-poem writ by a fairy,
And Buttercups rounder than pearls.

And Snowdrops starry and sweet,
    Turn toward thee their pale pure faces
    And Crocus, and Cowslips, and Daisies
The song of the spring-time repeat.

So merry and full of cheer,
    With the warble of birds overflowing,
    The wind through the fresh grass blowing
A...