Death

Went up a year this evening!
I recollect it well!
Amid no bells nor bravos
The bystanders will tell!
Cheerful, as to the village,
Tranquil, as to repose,
Chastened, as to the chapel,
This humble tourist rose.
Did not talk of returning,
Alluded to no time
When, were the gales propitious,
We might look for him;
Was grateful for the roses
In life's diverse bouquet,
Talked softly of new species
To pick another day.

Beguiling thus the wonder,
The wondrous nearer drew;
Hands bustled at the moorings --
The crowd respectful grew.
Ascended from our vision
To countenances new!
A difference, a daisy,
Is all the rest I knew!

'T is eight miles out and eight miles in,
    Just at the break of morn.
'T is ice without and flame within,
    To gain a kiss at dawn!

Far, where the Lilac Hills arise
    Soft from the misty plain,
A lone enchanted hollow lies
    Where I at last drew rein.

Midwinter grips this lonely land,
    This stony, treeless waste,
Where East, due East, across the sand,
    We fly in fevered haste.

Pull up! the East will soon be red,
    The wild duck westward fly,
And make above my anxious head,
    Triangles in the sky.

Like wind we go; we both are still
    So young; all thanks to Fate!
(It cuts like knives, this air so chill,)
    Dear God! if I am late!

Behind us, wrapped in mist and sleep
    The Ruined Cit...

    Rivers I have seen which were beautiful,
    Slow rivers winding in the flat fens,
    With bands of reeds like thronged green swords
        Guarding the mirrored sky;
    And streams down-tumbling from the chalk hills
    To valleys of meadows and watercress-beds,
    And bridges whereunder, dark weed-coloured shadows,
        Trout flit or lie.

    I know those rivers that peacefully glide
    Past old towers and shaven gardens,
    Where mottled walls rise from the water
        And mills all streaked with flour;
    And rivers with wharves and rusty shipping,
    That flow with a stately tidal motion
    Towards their destined estuaries
        Full of the pride of power;

    Noble great rivers, Thames and Severn,
    Tweed with his g...

Thin, chisel-fine a cricket chipped
The crystal silence into sound;
And where the branches dreamed and dripped
A grasshopper its dagger stripped
And on the humming darkness ground.

A bat, against the gibbous moon,
Danced, imp-like, with its lone delight;
The glow-worm scrawled a golden rune
Upon the dark; and, emerald-strewn,
The firefly hung with lamps the night.

The flowers said their beads in prayer,
Dew-syllables of sighed perfume;
Or talked of two, soft-standing there,
One like a gladiole, straight and fair,
And one like some rich poppy-bloom.

The mignonette and feverfew
Laid their pale brows together:" See!"
One whispered. "Did their step thrill through
Your roots?"" Like rain."" I touched the two
And a new bud was born i...

[Greek text which cannot be reproduced]

O well for him who lives at ease
With garnered gold in wide domain,
Nor heeds the splashing of the rain,
The crashing down of forest trees.

O well for him who ne'er hath known
The travail of the hungry years,
A father grey with grief and tears,
A mother weeping all alone.

But well for him whose foot hath trod
The weary road of toil and strife,
Yet from the sorrows of his life.
Builds ladders to be nearer God.

You know "The Teacups," that congenial set
Which round the Teapot you have often met;
The grave DICTATOR, him you knew of old, -
Knew as the shepherd of another fold
Grayer he looks, less youthful, but the same
As when you called him by a different name.
Near him the MISTRESS, whose experienced skill
Has taught her duly every cup to fill;
"Weak;" "strong;" "cool;" "lukewarm;" "hot as you can pour;"
"No sweetening;" "sugared;" "two lumps;" "one lump more."
Next, the PROFESSOR, whose scholastic phrase
At every turn the teacher's tongue betrays,
Trying so hard to make his speech precise
The captious listener finds it overnice.

Nor be forgotten our ANNEXES twain,
Nor HE, the owner of the squinting brain,
Which, while its curious fancies we pursue,
Oft m...

How careful was I when I took my way,
Each trifle under truest bars to thrust,
That to my use it might unused stay
From hands of falsehood, in sure wards of trust!
But thou, to whom my jewels trifles are,
Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief,
Thou best of dearest, and mine only care,
Art left the prey of every vulgar thief.
Thee have I not lock’d up in any chest,
Save where thou art not, though I feel thou art,
Within the gentle closure of my breast,
From whence at pleasure thou mayst come and part;
And even thence thou wilt be stol’n I fear,
For truth proves thievish for a prize so dear.

Coming, clean from the Maryland-end
Of this great National Road of ours,
Through your vast West; with the time to spend,
Stopping for days in the main towns, where
Every citizen seemed a friend,
And friends grew thick as the wayside flowers, -
I found no thing that I might narrate
More singularly strange or queer
Than a thing I found in your sister-state
Ohio, - at a river-town - down here
In my notebook: Zanesville - situate
On the stream Muskingum - broad and clear,
And navigable, through half the year,
North, to Coshocton; south, as far
As Marietta. - But these facts are
Not of the story, but the scene
Of the simple little tale I mean
To tell directly - from this, straight through
To the end that is best worth li...

One morn I looked across the way,
    And saw you fling your window wide
To welcome in the breath of May
    In breezes from the mountain-side,
And greet the sunlight's earliest ray
    With happy look and satisfied.

The pansies on your window-sill
    In terra cotta flowerpot,
Like royal gold and purple frill
    Upon the stony casement wrought,
Adorned your tasteful domicile
    And claimed your time and care and thought.

In cherry trees the robins sang
    Their sweetest carol to your ear,
And shouts of merry children rang
    Out on the dewy atmosphere,
But to my heart there came a pang
    That my salute you did not hear.

I envied then the favored breeze
    That dallied with your flowing hair,
Begrudged the songsters...

What is yonder white thing in the forest?
Is it snow, or can it swans perchance be?
Were it snow, ere this it had been melted,
Were it swans, they all away had hastend.
Snow, in truth, it is not, swans it is not,
'Tis the shining tents of Asan Aga.
He within is lying, sorely wounded;
To him come his mother and his sister;
Bashfully his wife delays to come there.
When the torment of his wounds had lessen'd,
To his faithful wife he sent this message:
"At my court no longer dare to tarry,
At my court, or e'en amongst my people."

When the woman heard this cruel message,
Mute and full of sorrow stood that true one.
At the doors she hears the feet of horses,
And bethinks that Asan comes her husband,
To the tower she springs, to leap thence headlong,
...

In days of peace my fellow-men
    Rightly regarded me as more like
A Bishop than a Major-Gen.,
    And nothing since has made me warlike;
But when this age-long struggle ends
    And I have seen the Allies dish up
The goose of Hindenburg - oh, friends!
    I shall out-bish the mildest Bishop.

When the War is over and the Kaiser's out of print
I'm going to buy some tortoises and watch the beggars sprint;
When the War is over and the sword at last we sheathe
I'm going to keep a jelly-fish and listen to it breathe.

I never really longed for gore,
    And any taste for red corpuscles
That lingered with me left before
    The German troops had entered Brussels.
In early days the Colonel's "'Shun!"
    Froze me; and as the war grew older

    'The puir auld folk at home, ye mind,
    Are frail and failing sair;
    And weel I ken they'd miss me, lad,
    Gin I come hame nae mair.
    The grist is out, the times are hard,
    The kine are only three;
    I canna leave the auld folk now.
    We'd better bide a wee.


    'I fear me sair they're failing baith;
    For when I sit apart,
    They talk o' Heaven so earnestly,
    It well nigh breaks my heart.
    So, laddie, dinna urge me now,
    It surely winna be;
    I canna leave the auld folk yet.
    We'd better bide a wee.'

Paths that wind
O'er the hills and by the streams
I must leave behind -
Dawns and dews and dreams.
Trails that go
Through the woods and down the slopes
To the vale below;
Done with fears and hopes,
I must wander on
Till the purple twilight ends,
Where the sun has gone -
Faces, flowers and friends.

I.

When late I watched the arrows of the sleet
Against the windows of the Tavern beat,
    I heard a Rose that murmured from her Pot:
"Why trudge thy fellows yonder in the Street?

II.

"Before the phantom of False Morning dies,
Choked in the bitter Net that binds the skies,
    Their feet, bemired with Yesterday, set out
For the dark alleys where To-morrow lies.

III.

"Think you, when all their petals they have bruised,
And all the fragrances of Life confused,
    That Night with sweeter rest will comfort these
Than us, who still within the Garden mused?

IV.

"Think you the Gold they fight for all day long
Is worth the frugal Peace their clamours wrong?
    Their Titles, and the Name they toil to build---
W...

"My birth-day"--what a different sound
    That word had in my youthful ears!
And how, each time the day comes round,
    Less and less white its mark appears!

"When first our scanty years are told,
It seems like pastime to grow old;
And as Youth counts the shining links
    That Time around him binds so fast,
Pleased with the task, he little thinks
    How hard that chain will press at last.
Vain was the man, and false as vain,
    Who said--"were he ordained to run
"His long career of life again,
    "He would do all that he had done."--
Ah, 'tis not thus the voice that dwells
    In sober birth-days speaks to me;
Far otherwise--of time it tells,
    Lavished unwisely, carelessly:
Of counsel mockt; of talents made
    Haply for hi...

        In the sleep-haunted gloom
Born of the slumbrous twilight in these shades,
These vast and venerable collonades,
        I welcome thee, dear June!

        And while with head reclined,
And limbs aweary with my woodland walk,
I listen to the low melodious talk
        Of leaves and singing wind,

        The merry roundelay
Of the swart ploughman, sowing summer grain,
And tinkling sheep-bell on the distant plain,
        And pastures far away,

        Come with a soft refrain,
Like a faint echo from the outer world,
While Peace sits by me with her white wings furled,
        Within my green domain.

        This is my palace, where
Great trunks are amber pillars to support
The blue roof of the vast and silent court,
...

A languid atmosphere, a lazy breeze,
    With labored respiration, moves the wheat
From distant reaches, till the golden seas
    Break in crisp whispers at my feet.

My book, neglected of an idle mind,
    Hides for a moment from the eyes of men;
Or lightly opened by a critic wind,
    Affrightedly reviews itself again.

Off through the haze that dances in the shine
    The warm sun showers in the open glade,
The forest lies, a silhouette design
    Dimmed through and through with shade.

A dreamy day; and tranquilly I lie
    At anchor from all storms of mental strain;
With absent vision, gazing at the sky,
    "Like one that hears it rain."

The Katydid, so boisterous last night,
    Clinging, inverted, in uneasy poise,
Beneath...

    Little bird, is that thy sphere,
Yonder threat'ning cloud so near?
Sunbeams blaze along its brow,
Yet what darkness reigns below!
There the sullen thunder mutt'ring,
Wrathful sounds is sternly utt'ring; -
There the red-eyed lightning gleameth,
Where no more the sunlight beameth,
And the strong wind, fiercely waking,
Wings of fearful might is taking; -
Creature of the calmer air,
Wherefore art thou soaring there?

    Wert thou weary of the vale,
With its blossom-scented gale? -
Weary of thy breezy bowers? -
Weary of thy wild-wood flowers? -
Weary of thy wind-rocked nest
In the bright, green willow's breast? -
Didst thou sigh, on daring wing,
Up in heaven's blue depths to sing? -
Claim with storms companionship,
And in clouds t...