Death

O Thou that walkest with nigh hopeless feet
Past the one harbour, built for thee and thine.
Doth no stray odour from its table greet,
No truant beam from fire or candle shine?

At his wide door the host doth stand and call;
At every lattice gracious forms invite;
Thou seest but a dull-gray, solid wall
In forest sullen with the things of night!

Thou cravest rest, and Rest for thee doth crave,
The white sheet folded down, white robe apart.--
Shame, Faithless! No, I do not mean the grave!
I mean Love's very house and hearth and heart.

In moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter
(And heaven it knoweth what that may mean:
Meaning, however, is no great matter)
Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween;

Thro' God's own heather we wonn'd together,
I and my Willie (O love my love):
I need hardly remark it was glorious weather,
And flitterbats waver'd alow, above:

Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing,
(Boats in that climate are so polite),
And sands were a ribbon of green endowing,
And O the sundazzle on bark and bight!

Thro' the rare red heather we danced together,
(O love my Willie!) and smelt for flowers:
I must mention again it was gorgeous weather,
Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours:-

By rises that flush'd with their purple favours,
Thro' becks tha...

The Woman at the Washtub,
She works till fall of night;
With soap and suds and soda
Her hands are wrinkled white.
Her diamonds are the sparkles
The copper-fire supplies;
Her opals are the bubbles
That from the suds arise.

The Woman at the Washtub
Has lost the charm of youth;
Her hair is rough and homely,
Her figure is uncouth;
Her temper is like thunder,
With no one she agrees,
The children of the alley
They cling around her knees.

The Woman at the Washtub,
She too had her romance;
There was a time when lightly
Her feet flew in the dance.
Her feet were silver swallows,
Her lips were flowers of fire;
Then she was Bright and Early,
The Blossom of Desire.

0 Woman at the Washtub,
And do you ever dream<...

As some spent gladiator, struck by Death,
Whose reeling vision scarce a foe defines,
For one last effort gathers all his breath,
England draws in her lines.

Her blood-red flag floats out full fair, but flows
O'er crumbling bastions, in fictitious state:
Who stands a siege Cornwallis full well knows,
        Plays at a game with Fate.

Siege means surrender at the bitter end,
From Ilium downward such the sword-made rule,
With few exceptions, few indeed amend
    This law in any school!

The student who for these has ever sought
'Mid his exceptions Cæsar counts as one,
Besieger and besieged he, victor, fought
Under a Gallic sun.

For Vircinget'rex failed, but at the wall:
He strove and failed gilded by Glory's rays
So that true sol...

        "We are told that the bigots are growing old and fast wearing out. If it be so why not let us die in peace?"
        --LORD BEXLEY'S Letter to the Freeholders of Kent.


Stop, Intellect, in mercy stop,
    Ye curst improvements, cease;
And let poor Nick Vansittart drop
    Into his grave in peace.

Hide, Knowledge, hide thy rising sun,
    Young Freedom, veil thy head;
Let nothing good be thought or done,
    Till Nick Vansittart's dead!

Take pity on a dotard's fears,
    Who much doth light detest;
And let his last few drivelling years
    Be dark as were the rest.

You too, ye fleeting one-pound notes,
    Speed not so fast away--
Ye rags on which old Nicky gloats,
    A few months longer stay.

Togethe...

They sat in silent watchfulness
The sacred cypress-tree about,
And, from beneath old wrinkled brows,
Their failing eyes looked out.

Gray Age and Sickness waiting there
Through weary night and lingering day,
Grim as the idols at their side,
And motionless as they.

Unheeded in the boughs above
The song of Ceylon's birds was sweet;
Unseen of them the island flowers
Bloomed brightly at their feet.

O'er them the tropic night-storm swept,
The thunder crashed on rock and hill;
The cloud-fire on their eyeballs blazed,
Yet there they waited still!

What was the world without to them?
The Moslem's sunset-call, the dance
Of Ceylon's maids, the passing gleam
Of battle-flag and lance?

They waited for that falling leaf
O...

1.
The odour from the flower is gone
Which like thy kisses breathed on me;
The colour from the flower is flown
Which glowed of thee and only thee!

2.
A shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form,
It lies on my abandoned breast,
And mocks the heart which yet is warm,
With cold and silent rest.

3.
I weep, - my tears revive it not!
I sigh, - it breathes no more on me;
Its mute and uncomplaining lot
Is such as mine should be.

NOTES:
_1 odour]colour 1839.
_2 kisses breathed]sweet eyes smiled 1839.
_3 colour]odour 1839.
_4 glowed]breathed 1839.
_5 shrivelled]withered 1839.
_8 cold and silent all editions; its cold, silent Stacey manuscript.

The bells chime clear,
Soon will the sun behind the hills sink down;
Come, little Ann, your baby brother dear
Lies in his christening-gown.

His godparents
Are all across the fields stepped on before,
And wait beneath the crumbling monuments,
This side the old church door.

Your mammie dear
Leans frail and lovely on your daddie's arm;
Watching her chick, 'twixt happiness and fear,
Lest he should come to harm.

All to be blest
Full soon in the clear heavenly water, he
Sleeps on unwitting of't, his little breast
Heaving so tenderly.

I carried you,
My little Ann, long since on this same quest,
And from the painted windows a pale hue
Lit golden on your breast;

And then you woke,
Chill as the holy water trickled d...

Fire and wild light of hope and doubt and fear,
Wind of swift change, and clouds and hours that veer
As the storm shifts of the tempestuous year;
Cry wellaway, but well befall the right.

Hope sits yet hiding her war-wearied eyes,
Doubt sets her forehead earthward and denies,
But fear brought hand to hand with danger dies,
Dies and is burnt up in the fire of fight.

Hearts bruised with loss and eaten through with shame
Turn at the time’s touch to devouring flame;
Grief stands as one that knows not her own name,
Nor if the star she sees bring day or night.

No song breaks with it on the violent air,
But shrieks of shame, defeat, and brute despair;
Yet something at the star’s heart far up there
Burns as a beacon in our shipwrecked sight.

O s...

Here doth white Spring white violets show,
Broadcast doth white, frail wind-flowers sow
Through starry mosses amber-fair,
As delicate as ferns that grow,
Hart's-tongue and maiden-hair.

Here fungus life is beautiful,
White mushroom and the thick toad-stool
As various colored as wild blooms;
Existences that love the cool,
Distinct in rank perfumes.

Here stray the wandering cows to rest,
The calling cat-bird builds her nest
In spice-wood bushes dark and deep;
Here raps the woodpecker his best,
And here young rabbits leap.

Tall butternuts and hickories,
The pawpaw and persimmon trees,
    The beech, the chestnut, and the oak,
Wall shadows huge, like ghosts of bees
    Through which gold sun-bits soak.

Here to pale melanc...

I love thee, sweet Mary, but love thee in fear;
Were I but the morning breeze, healthy and airy,
As thou goest a walking I'd breathe in thine ear,
And whisper and sigh how I love thee, my Mary!

I wish but to touch thee, but wish it in vain;
Wert thou but a streamlet a winding so clearly,
And I little globules of soft dropping rain,
How fond would I press thy white bosom, my Mary!

I would steal a kiss, but I dare not presume;
Wert thou but a rose in thy garden, sweet fairy,
And I a bold bee for to rifle its bloom,
A whole summer's day would I kiss thee, my Mary!!

I long to be with thee, but cannot tell how;
Wert thou but the elder that grows by thy dairy,
And I the blest woodbine to twine on the bough,
I'd embrace thee and cling to thee ever, my Ma...

In some quaint Nurnberg maler-atelier
Uprummaged. When and where was never clear
Nor yet how he obtained it. When, by whom
'Twas painted - who shall say? itself a gloom
Resisting inquisition. I opine
It is a Dürer. Mark that touch, this line;
Are they deniable? - Distinguished grace
Of the pure oval of the noble face
Tarnished in color badly. Half in light
Extend it so. Incline. The exquisite
Expression leaps abruptly: piercing scorn;
Imperial beauty; each, an icy thorn
Of light, disdainful eyes and ... well! no use!
Effaced and but beheld! a sad abuse
Of patience. - Often, vaguely visible,
The portrait fills each feature, making swell
The heart with hope: avoiding face and hair
Start out in living hues; astonished, "There! -
The picture lives!" your...

Onely Ioy, now here you are,
Fit to heare and ease my care,
Let my whispering voyce obtaine
Sweete reward for sharpest paine;
Take me to thee, and thee to mee:
No, no, no, no, my Deare, let bee.

Night hath closde all in her cloke,
Twinkling starres loue-thoughts prouoke,
Danger hence, good care doth keepe,
Iealouzie hemselfe doth sleepe;
Take me to thee, and thee to mee:
No, no, no, no, my Deare, let bee.

Better place no wit can finde,
Cupids knot to loose or binde;
These sweet flowers our fine bed too,
Vs in their best language woo:
Take me to thee, and thee to mee:
No, no, no, no, my Deare, let bee.

This small light the moone bestowes
Serues thy beames but to disclose;
So to raise my hap more hie,
Feare not else, no...

Oh happy time! - Art's early days!
When o'er each deed, with sweet self-praise,
Narcissus-like I hung!
When great Rembrandt but little seemed,
And such Old Masters all were deemed
As nothing to the young!

Some scratchy strokes - abrupt and few,
So easily and swift I drew,
Sufficed for my design;
My sketchy, superficial hand
Drew solids at a dash - and spanned
A surface with a line.

Not long my eye was thus content,
But grew more critical - my bent
Essayed a higher walk;
I copied leaden eyes in lead -
Rheumatic hands in white and red,
And gouty feet - in chalk.

Anon my studious art for days
Kept making faces - happy phrase,
For faces such as mine!
Accomplished in the details then,
I left the minor parts of men,

The Lord's bin hard on me, Sir,
    He's stown my barn away.
O dowly, dowly was that neet
    He stole lile Doad away!

'Twas Whissuntide we wedded,
    Next Easter he was born,
Just as t' last star i' t' April sky
    Had faded into t' morn.
Throstles were singin, canty,(1)
    For they'd their young i' t' nest;
But birds don't know a mother's love
    That howds her barn to t' breast.

When wark was ower i' summer,
    I nussed him on my knees;
An' Mike browt home at lowsin'-time
    Wild rasps an' strawberries.
We used to sit on t' door-sill
    I' t' leet o' t' harvist-moon,
While our lile Doad would clench his fists
    An' suck his toes an' croon.

But when t' mell-sheaf(2) was gotten,
    An' back-end days set in,...

(On the Embankment in stormy weather.)


A livid sky on London
And like iron steeds that rear
A shock of engines halted,
And I knew the end was near:
And something said that far away, over the hills and far away,
There came a crawling thunder and the end of all things here.
For London Bridge is broken down, broken down, broken down,
As digging lets the daylight on the sunken streets of yore,
The lightning looked on London town, the broken bridge of London town,
The ending of a broken road where men shall go no more.

I saw the kings of London town,
The kings that buy and sell,
That built it up with penny loaves
And penny lies as well:
And where the streets were paved with gold, the shrivelled paper shone for gold,
The scorching light of p...

The winds, as at their hour of birth,
Leaning upon the ridged sea,
Breathed low around the rolling earth
With mellow preludes, ‘We are free.’

The streams, through many a lilied row
Down-carolling to the crisped sea,
Low-tinkled with a bell-like flow
Atween the blossoms, ‘We are free.’

Two flowers upon one parent stem
Together bloomed for many days.
At length a storm arose, and one
Was blighted, and cut down at noon.

The other hath transplanted been,
And flowers fair as herself hath borne;
She too has felt the withering storm,
Her strength's decayed, wasted her form.

May he who hears the mourner's prayer,
Renew her strength for years to come;
Long may He our Lilly spare,
Long delay to call her home.

But when the summons shall arrive
To bear this lovely flower away,
Again may she transplanted be
To blossom in eternity.

There may these sisters meet again,
Both freed from sorrow, sin, and pain;
There with united voices raise,
In sweet accord their hymns of praise;
Eternally his na...