Death

"Bring me my broken harp," he said;
"We both are wrecks, - but as ye will, -
Though all its ringing tones have fled,
Their echoes linger round it still;
It had some golden strings, I know,
But that was long - how long! - ago.

"I cannot see its tarnished gold,
I cannot hear its vanished tone,
Scarce can my trembling fingers hold
The pillared frame so long their own;
We both are wrecks, - a while ago
It had some silver strings, I know,

"But on them Time too long has played
The solemn strain that knows no change,
And where of old my fingers strayed
The chords they find are new and strange, -
Yes! iron strings, - I know, - I know, -
We both are wrecks of long ago.

"We both are wrecks, - a shattered pair, -
Strange to ourselves in t...

Here among the beeches
Winds and wild perfume,
That the twilight pleaches
Into gleam and gloom,
Build for her a room.

Her whose Beauty cometh,
Misty as the morn,
When the wild-bee hummeth,
At its honey-horn,
In the wayside thorn.

As the wood grows dimmer,
With the drowsy night,
Like a moonbeam glimmer
Here she walks in white,
With a firefly light.

Moths around her flitting,
Like a moth she goes,
Here a moment sitting
By this wilding rose,
With my heart's repose.

Every bud and flower
From her look has caught
Something of that hour
While she stood in thought
Gazing into naught.

Every bough that dances
Has assumed the grace
Of her form; and fancies,
Flashed from eye and face...

Here check we our career:
Long books I greatly fear.
I would not quite exhaust my stuff;
The flower of subjects is enough.
To me, the time is come, it seems,
To draw my breath for other themes.
Love, tyrant of my life, commands
That other work be on my hands.
I dare not disobey.
Once more shall Psyche be my lay.
I'm call'd by Damon to portray
Her sorrows and her joys.
I yield: perhaps, while she employs,
My muse will catch a richer glow;
And well if this my labour'd strain
Shall be the last and only pain
Her spouse[1] shall cause me here below.

I have a dream
to fill the golden sheath
of a remembered day....
(Air
heavy and massed and blue
as the vapor of opium...
domes
fired in sulphurous mist...
sea
quiescent as a gray seal...
and the emerging sun
spurting up gold
over Sydney, smoke-pale, rising out of the bay....)
But the day is an up-turned cup
and its sun a junk of red iron
guttering in sluggish-green water -
where shall I pour my dream?

With delicate, mad hands, behind his sordid bars,
Surely he hath his posies, which they tear and twine;
Those scentless wisps of straw, that miserably line
His strait, caged universe, whereat the dull world stares,

Pedant and pitiful. O, how his rapt gaze wars
With their stupidity! Know they what dreams divine
Lift his long, laughing reveries like enchaunted wine,
And make his melancholy germane to the stars'?

O lamentable brother! if those pity thee,
Am I not fain of all thy lone eyes promise me;
Half a fool's kingdom, far from men who sow and reap,
All their days, vanity? Better than mortal flowers,
Thy moon-kissed roses seem: better than love or sleep,
The star-crowned solitude of thine oblivious hours!

And what melodious sounds at times prevail!
And, ever and anon, how bright a gleam
Pours on the surface of the turbid Stream!
What heartfelt fragrance mingles with the gale
That swells the bosom of our passing sail!
For where, but on 'this' River's margin, blow
Those flowers of chivalry, to bind the brow
Of hardihood with wreaths that shall not fail?
Fair Court of Edward! wonder of the world!
I see a matchless blazonry unfurled
Of wisdom, magnanimity, and love;
And meekness tempering honourable pride;
The lamb is couching by the lion's side,
And near the flame-eyed eagle sits the dove.

In my mind's eye a Temple, like a cloud
Slowly surmounting some invidious hill,
Rose out of darkness: the bright Work stood still:
And might of its own beauty have been proud,
But it was fashioned and to God was vowed
By Virtues that diffused, in every part,
Spirit divine through forms of human art:
Faith had her arch, her arch, when winds blow loud,
Into the consciousness of safety thrilled;
And Love her towers of dread foundation laid
Under the grave of things; Hope had her spire
Star-high, and pointing still to something higher
Trembling I gazed, but heard a voice it said,
"Hell-gates are powerless Phantoms when 'we' build."

Remorse is memory awake,
Her companies astir, --
A presence of departed acts
At window and at door.

It's past set down before the soul,
And lighted with a match,
Perusal to facilitate
Of its condensed despatch.

Remorse is cureless, -- the disease
Not even God can heal;
For 't is his institution, --
The complement of hell.

The shadowy Daughter of Urthona stood before red Orc,
When fourteen suns had faintly journey'd o'er his dark abode:
His food she brought in iron baskets, his drink in cups of iron:
Crown'd with a helmet and dark hair the nameless female stood;
A quiver with its burning stores, a bow like that of night,
When pestilence is shot from heaven: no other arms she need!
Invulnerable though naked, save where clouds roll round her loins
Their awful folds in the dark air: silent she stood as night;
For never from her iron tongue could voice or sound arise,
But dumb till that dread day when Orc assay'd his fierce embrace.
'Dark Virgin,' said the hairy youth, 'thy father stern, abhorr'd,
Rivets my tenfold chains while still on high my spirit soars;
Sometimes an Eagle screaming in the sky, som...

I niver thowt when I grew owd
    I'd tak to leetin' lamps;
I sud have said, I'd rayther pad
    My hoof on t' road wi' tramps.
But sin I gate that skelp(1) i' t' mine,
    I'm wankle(2) i' my heead;
So gaffer said, I'd give ower wark
    An' leet town lamps atsteead.

At first, when I were liggin' snug
    I' bed, warm as a bee,
'T were hard to rise and get agate
    As sooin as t' clock strake three.
An' I were flaid to hear my steps
    Echoin' on ivery wall;
An' flaider yet when down by t' church
    Ullets would skreek and call.

But now I'm flaid o' nowt; I love
    All unkerd(3) sounds o' t' neet,
Frae childer talkin' i' their dreams
    To t' tramp o' p'licemen' feet.
But most of all I love to hark
    To t' song o' t...

We now, held in captivity,
Spring to our bondage nor grieve,
See now, how it is blesseder,
Brothers, to give than receive!
Keep trust, wherefore we were made,
Paying the debt that we owe;
For a clean thrust, and the shear of the blade,
Will carry us where would go.
The Ship that Found Herself.

All the world over, nursing their scars,
Sir the old fighting-men broke in the wars,
Sit the old fighting-men, surly and grim
Mocking the lilt of the conquerors' hymn.

Dust of the battle o'erwhelmed them and hid.
Fame never found them for aught that they did.
Wounded and spent to the lazar they drew,
Lining the road where the Legions roll through.

Sons of the Laurel who press to your meed,
Worthy God's pity most, you who succeed!)
Ere you...

Between the little Here and larger Yonder,
    There is a realm (or so one day I read)
Where faithful spirits love-enchained may wander,
    Till some remembering soul from earth has fled.
Then, reunited, they go forth afar,
From sphere to sphere, where wondrous angels are.

Not many spirits in that realm are waiting;
    Not many pause upon its shores to rest;
For only love, intense and unabating,
    Can hold them from the longer, higher quest.
And after grief has wept itself to sleep,
Few hearts on earth their vital memories keep.

Should I pass on, across the mystic border,
    Let thy love link me to that pallid land;
I would not seek the heavens of finer order
    Until thy barque had left this coarser strand.
How desolate such journeyings woul...

    Jane Fisher says to Susan Hamilton,
    That Coroner has no excuse to bring
    You, me before him. There are many too
    Who could throw light on Elenor Murray's life
    Besides the witnesses he calls to tell
    The cause of death: could he call us and hear
    About the traits we know, he should have us.
    What do we know of Elenor Murray's death?
    Why, not a thing, unless her death began
    With Simeon Strong and Gregory Wenner - then
    I could say something, for she told me much
    About her plan to marry Simeon Strong,
    And could have done so but for Gregory Wenner,
    Whose fault of life combined with fault of hers
    To break the faith of Simeon Strong in her.
    And so what have we? Gregory Wenner's love
    Poisons the love of Si...

Long years ago, within a distant clime,
Ere Love had touched me with his wand sublime,
I dreamed of one to make my life's calm May
The panting passion of a summer's day.
And ever since, in almost sad suspense,
I have been waiting with a soul intense
To greet and take unto myself the beams,
Of her, my star, the lady of my dreams.

O Love, still longed and looked for, come to me,
Be thy far home by mountain, vale, or sea.
My yearning heart may never find its rest
Until thou liest rapt upon my breast.
The wind may bring its perfume from the south,
Is it so sweet as breath from my love's mouth?
Oh, naught that surely is, and naught that seems
May turn me from the lady of my dreams.

Maggie, I ken that ye are happ'd in glory
    And nane can gar ye greet;
The joys o' Heaven are evermair afore ye,
    It's licht about yer feet.

I ken nae waefu' thochts can e'er be near ye
    Nor sorrow fash yer mind,
In yon braw place they winna let ye weary
    For him ye left behind.

Thae nichts an' days when dule seems mair nor double
    I'll need to dae my best,
For aye ye took the half o' ilka trouble,
    And noo I'd hae ye rest.

Yer he'rt'll be the same he'rt since yer flittin',
    Gin auld love doesna tire,
Sae dinna look an' see yer lad that's sittin'
    His lane aside the fire.

The sky is keen wi' dancin' stars in plenty,
    The New Year frost is strang;
But, O my lass! because the Auld Year kent ye
    ...

I didn't make you know how glad I was
To have you come and camp here on our land.
I promised myself to get down some day
And see the way you lived, but I don't know!
With a houseful of hungry men to feed
I guess you'd find.... It seems to me
I can't express my feelings any more
Than I can raise my voice or want to lift
My hand (oh, I can lift it when I have to).
Did ever you feel so? I hope you never.
It's got so I don't even know for sure
Whether I am glad, sorry, or anything.
There's nothing but a voice-like left inside
That seems to tell me how I ought to feel,
And would feel if I wasn't all gone wrong.
You take the lake. I look and look at it.
I see it's a fair, pretty sheet of water.
I stand and make myself repeat out loud
The advantages it has,...

Were't not for you, here should my pen have rest
And take a long leave of sweet poesy;
Britannia's swains, and rivers far by west,
Should hear no more mine oaten melody;
Yet shall the song I sung of them awhile
Unperfect lie, and make no further known
The happy loves of this our pleasant Isle;
Till I have left some record of mine own.
You are the subject now, and, writing you,
I well may versify, not poetize:
Here needs no fiction: for the graces true
And virtues clip not with base flatteries.
Here could I write what you deserve of praise,
Others might wear, but I should win the bays.

Mother of Roman games and Greek delights,
Lesbos, where kisses languorous or glad,
As hot as suns, or watermelon-fresh,
Make festivals of days and glorious nights;
Mother of Roman games and Greek delights,

Lesbos, where love is like the wild cascades
That throw themselves into the deepest gulfs,
And twist and run with gurglings and with sobs,
Stormy and secret, swarming underground;
Lesbos, where love is like the wild cascades!

Lesbos, where Phrynes seek each other out,
Where no sigh ever went without response,
Lovely as Paphos· in the sight of stars,
Where Venus envies Sappho, with good cause!
Lesbos, where Phrynes seek each other out.

Lesbos, land of the warm and languid nights
That draw in mirrors sterile fantasies,
So girls with holl...