Death

Right Trusty, and so forth - we let you know
We are very ill used by you mortals below.
For, first, I have often by chemists been told,
(Though I know nothing on't,) it is I that make gold;
Which when you have got, you so carefully hide it,
That, since I was born, I hardly have spied it.
Then it must be allow'd, that, whenever I shine,
I forward the grass, and I ripen the vine;
To me the good fellows apply for relief,
Without whom they could get neither claret nor beef:
Yet their wine and their victuals, those curmudgeon lubbards
Lock up from my sight in cellars and cupboards.
That I have an ill eye, they wickedly think,
And taint all their meat, and sour all their drink.
But, thirdly and lastly, it must be allow'd,
I alone can inspire the poetical crowd:
This...

I hid my love when young till I
Couldn’t bear the buzzing of a fly;
I hid my love to my despite
Till I could not bear to look at light:
I dare not gaze upon her face
But left her memory in each place;
Where’er I saw a wild flower lie
I kissed and bade my love good-bye.

I met her in the greenest dells,
Where dewdrops pearl the wood bluebells;
The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye,
The bee kissed and went singing by,
A sunbeam found a passage there,
A gold chain round her neck so fair;
As secret as the wild bee’s song
She lay there all the summer long.

I hid my love in field and town
Till e’en the breeze would knock me down;
The bees seemed singing ballads o’er,
The fly’s bass turned a lion’s roar;
And even silence found a to...

The Décadent was speaking to his soul -
Poor useless thing, he said,
Why did God burden me with such as thou?
The body were enough,
The body gives me all.

The soul's a sort of sentimental wife
That prays and whimpers of the higher life,
Objects to latch-keys, and bewails the old,
The dear old days, of passion and of dream,
When life was a blank canvas, yet untouched
Of the great painter Sin.

Yet, little soul, thou hast fine eyes,
And knowest fine airy motions,
Hast a voice -
Why wilt thou so devote them to the church?

His face grew strangely sweet -
As when a toad smiles.
He dreamed of a new sin:
An incest 'twixt the body and the soul.

He drugged his soul, and in a house of sin
She played all she remembered out of he...

At the golden gates of the visions
I knelt me adown one day;
But sudden my prayer was a silence,
For I heard from the "Far away"
The murmur of many voices
And a silvery censer's sway.

I bowed in awe, and I listened --
The deeps of my soul were stirred,
But deepest of all was the meaning
Of the far-off music I heard,
And yet it was stiller than silence,
Its notes were the "Dream of a Word".

A word that is whispered in heaven,
But cannot be heard below;
It lives on the lips of the angels
Where'er their pure wings glow;
Yet only the "Dream of its Echo"
Ever reaches this valley of woe.

But I know the word and its meaning;
I reached to its height that day,
When prayer sank into a silence
And my heart was so far away;
...

    Love is a madness, love is a fevered dream,
    A white soul lost in a field of scarlet flowers,
    Love is a search for the lost, the ever vanishing gleam
    Of wings, desires and sorrows and haunted hours.

    Will the look return to your eyes, the warmth to your hand?
    Love is a doubt, an ache, love is a writhing fear.
    Love is a potion drunk when the ship puts out from land,
    Rudderless, sails at full, and with none to steer.

    The end is a shattered lamp, a drunken seraph asleep,
    The upturned face of the drowned on a barren beach.
    The glare of noon is o'er us, we are ashamed to weep,
    The beginning and end of love are devoid of speech.

Come to me, O ye children!
    For I hear you at your play,
And the questions that perplexed me
    Have vanished quite away.

Ye open the eastern windows,
    That look towards the sun,
Where thoughts are singing swallows
    And the brooks of morning run.

In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,
    In your thoughts the brooklet's flow,
But in mine is the wind of Autumn
    And the first fall of the snow.

Ah! what would the world be to us
    If the children were no more?
We should dread the desert behind us
    Worse than the dark before.

What the leaves are to the forest,
    With light and air for food,
Ere their sweet and tender juices
    Have been hardened into wood,--

That to the world are childre...

Lo! steadfast and serene,
In patient pause between
The seen and the unseen,
    What gentle zephyrs fan
Your silken silver hair, -
And what diviner air
Breathes round you like a prayer,
    Old Man?

Can you, in nearer view
Of Glory, pierce the blue
Of happy Heaven through;
    And, listening mutely, can
Your senses, dull to us,
Hear Angel-voices thus,
In chorus glorious -
    Old Man?

In your reposeful gaze
The dusk of Autumn days
Is blent with April haze,
    As when of old began
The bursting of the bud
Of rosy babyhood -
When all the world was good,
    Old Man.

And yet I find a sly
Little twinkle in your eye;
And your whisperingly shy
    Little laugh is simply an
Internal shout o...

I, who was always counted, they say,
Rather a bad stick any way,
Splintered all over with dodges and tricks,
Known as "the worst of the Deacon's six;"
I, the truant, saucy and bold,
The one black sheep in my father's fold,
"Once on a time," as the stories say,
Went over the hill on a winter's day -
Over the hill to the poor-house.

Tom could save what twenty could earn;
But givin' was somethin' he ne'er would learn;
Isaac could half o' the Scriptur's speak -
Committed a hundred verses a week;
Never forgot, an' never slipped;
But "Honor thy father and mother" he skipped;
So over the hill to the poor-house.

As for Susan, her heart was kind
An' good - what there was of it, mind;
Nothin' too big, an' nothin' too nice,
Nothin' she w...

Before the ice is in the pools,
Before the skaters go,
Or any cheek at nightfall
Is tarnished by the snow,

Before the fields have finished,
Before the Christmas tree,
Wonder upon wonder
Will arrive to me!

What we touch the hems of
On a summer's day;
What is only walking
Just a bridge away;

That which sings so, speaks so,
When there's no one here, --
Will the frock I wept in
Answer me to wear?

1.
Once, early in the morning, Beelzebub arose,
With care his sweet person adorning,
He put on his Sunday clothes.

2.
He drew on a boot to hide his hoof,
He drew on a glove to hide his claw,
His horns were concealed by a Bras Chapeau,
And the Devil went forth as natty a Beau
As Bond-street ever saw.

3.
He sate him down, in London town,
Before earth's morning ray;
With a favourite imp he began to chat,
On religion, and scandal, this and that,
Until the dawn of day.

4.
And then to St. James's Court he went,
And St. Paul's Church he took on his way;
He was mighty thick with every Saint,
Though they were formal and he was gay.

5.
The Devil was an agriculturist,
And as bad weeds quickly grow,
In lookin...

Too late! though flowerets round me blow,
And clearing skies shine bright and fair;
Their genial warmth avails not now
Thou art not here the beam to share.

Through many a dark and dreary day,
We journeyed on 'midst grief and gloom;
And now at length the cheering ray
Breaks forth, it only gilds thy tomb.

Our days of hope and youth are past,
Our short-lived joys for ever flown;
And now when Fortune smiles at last,
She finds me cheerless, chilled alone!

Ah! no; too late the boon is given,
Alike the frowns and smiles of Fate;
The broken heart by sorrow riv'n,
But murmurs now, 'Too late! Too late!'

I lift my heart as spring lifts up
A yellow daisy to the rain;
My heart will be a lovely cup
Altho' it holds but pain.

For I shall learn from flower and leaf
That color every drop they hold,
To change the lifeless wine of grief
To living gold.

My soul is like a prisoned lark,
    That sings and dreams of liberty,
The nights are long, the days are dark,
    Away from home, away from thee!

My only joy is in my dreams,
    When I thy loving face can see.
How dreary the awakening seems,
    Away from home, away from thee!

At dawn I hasten to the shore,
    To gaze across the sparkling sea--
The sea is bright to me no more,
    Which parts me from my home and thee.

At twilight, when the air grows chill,
    And cold and leaden is the sea,
My tears like bitter dews distil,
    Away from home, away from thee.

I could not live, did I not know
    That thou art ever true to me,
I could not bear a doubtful woe,
    Away from home, away from thee.

I could not l...

Angel of Peace, the hounds of war,
Unleashed, are all abroad,
And war's foul trade again is made
    Man's leading aim in life.
Blood dyes the billow and the sod;
    The very winds are rife
With tales of slaughter.    Angel, pray,
What can we do or think or say
In times like these?
    'Child, think of God!'

'Before this little speck in space
Called Earth with light was shod,
Great chains and tiers of splendid spheres
    Were fashioned by His hand.
Be thine the part to love and laud,
    Nor seek to understand.
Go lift thine eyes from death-charged guns
To one who made a billion suns;
And trust and wait.
    Child, dwell on God!'

I marked her ruined hues,
Her custom-straitened views,
And asked, "Can there indwell
My Amabel?"

I looked upon her gown,
Once rose, now earthen brown;
The change was like the knell
Of Amabel.

Her step's mechanic ways
Had lost the life of May's;
Her laugh, once sweet in swell,
Spoilt Amabel.

I mused: "Who sings the strain
I sang ere warmth did wane?
Who thinks its numbers spell
His Amabel?" -

Knowing that, though Love cease,
Love's race shows undecrease;
All find in dorp or dell
An Amabel.

- I felt that I could creep
To some housetop, and weep,
That Time the tyrant fell
Ruled Amabel!

I said (the while I sighed
That love like ours had died),
"Fond things I'll no more tell
...

    Poets, like disputants, when reasons fail,
    Have one sure refuge left--and that's to rail.
    Fop, coxcomb, fool, are thunder'd through the pit;
    And this is all their equipage of wit.
    We wonder how the devil this difference grows,
    Betwixt our fools in verse, and yours in prose:
    For, 'faith, the quarrel rightly understood,
    'Tis civil war with their own flesh and blood.
    The threadbare author hates the gaudy coat;
    And swears at the gilt coach, but swears afoot:
    For 'tis observed of every scribbling man,
    He grows a fop as fast as e'er he can;
    Prunes up, and asks his oracle, the glass,
    If pink and purple best become his face.
    For our poor wretch, he neither rails nor prays;
    Nor likes your wit, just as you like ...

    The three following Sonnets are written in the character of Werter; the sentiments and images chiefly, but not intirely taken from one of his letters.

Up this bleak Hill, in wintry Night's dread hour,
    With mind congenial to the scene, I come!
    To see my Valley in the lunar gloom,
    To see it whelm'd. - Amid the cloudy lour
Gleams the cold Moon; - and shows the ruthless power
    Of yon swoln Floods, that white with turbid foam
    Roll o'er the fields; - and, billowy as they roam,
    Against the bushes beat! - A Vale no more,
A troubled Sea, toss'd by the furious Wind! -
    Alas! the wild and angry Waves efface
    Pathway, and hedge, and bank, and stile! - I find
But one wide waste of waters! - In controul
    Thus dire, to tides of Misery...

Died at Hartford, Nov. 11th, 1839, aged 4 years and 6 months.


The garner'd Jewel of our heart,
    The Darling of our tent!
Cold rains were falling thick and fast,
    When forth from us she went.

The sweetest blossom on our tree,
    When droop'd her fairy head,
We might not lay her 'mid the flowers,
    For all the flowers were dead.

The youngest birdling of our nest,
    Her song from us hath fled;
Yet mingles with a purer strain
    That floats above our head.

We gaze,--her wings we may not see:
    We listen,--all in vain:
But when this wintry life is o'er,
    We'll hear her voice again.