Death

    A woman in her youth, but lost to all
    The joys of innocence. Love she had known,
    Such love as leaves the soul filled full of shame.
    Passion was hers, hate and impurity,
    The gnawing of remorse, the longing vain
    To lose the mark of sin, the scarlet flush
    Of fallen womanhood, the envy of
    The spotless, the desire that they might sink
    Low in the mire as she.
            Oh, what a soul
    She carried on that day! The women drew
    Their robes back from her touch, men leered,
    And children seemed afraid to meet
    The devilish beauty of her form and face.
            Shunned and alone,
    Till One came to her side,
    And spake her name, and took her hand in His.
            And what He said
    Is past the telli...

It was three slim does and a ten-tined buck in the bracken lay;
And all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man,
Awaft on a wind-shift, wavered and ran
Down the hill-side and sifted along through the bracken and passed that way.

Then Nan got a-tremble at nostril; she was the daintiest doe;
In the print of her velvet flank on the velvet fern
She reared, and rounded her ears in turn.
Then the buck leapt up, and his head as a king's to a crown did go

Full high in the breeze, and he stood as if Death had the form of a deer;
And the two slim does long lazily stretching arose,
For their day-dream slowlier came to a close,
Till they woke and were still, breath-bound with waiting and wonder and fear.

Then Alan the huntsman sprang over the hillock, the hounds shot by,

Thirty years have come and gone,
Melting away like Southern Snows,
Since, in the light of a summer's night,
I went to the garden to seek my Rose.

Mine! Do you hear it, silver moon,
Flooding my heart with your mellow shine?
Mine! Be witness, ye distant stars,
Looking on me with eyes divine!

Tell me, tell me, wandering winds,
Whisper it, if you may not speak--
Did you ever, in all your round,
Fan a lovelier brow or cheek?

Long I nursed in my heart the love,
Love which felt, but dared not tell,
Till, I scarcely know how or when--
It found wild words,- and all was well!

I can hear her sweet voice even now--
It makes my pulses leap and thrill--
"I owe you more than I well can pay;
You may take me, Robert, if you will!"

It is easy to sit in the sunshine
    And talk to the man in the shade;
It is easy to float in a well-trimmed boat,
    And point out the places to wade.

But once we pass into the shadows,
    We murmur and fret and frown,
And, our length from the bank, we shout for a plank,
    Or throw up our hands and go down.

It is easy to sit in your carriage,
    And counsel the man on foot,
But get down and walk, and you'll change your talk,
    As you feel the peg in your boot.

It is easy to tell the toiler
    How best he can carry his pack,
But no one can rate a burden's weight
    Until it has been on his back.

The up-curled mouth of pleasure,
    Can prate of sorrow's worth,
But give it a sip, and a wryer lip,
    Was never ma...

I

I purposed once to take my pen and write,
Not songs, like some, tormented and awry
With passion, but a cunning harmony
Of words and music caught from glen and height,
And lucid colours born of woodland light
And shining places where the sea-streams lie.
But this was when the heat of youth glowed white,
And since I’ve put the faded purpose by.
I have no faultless fruits to offer you
Who read this book; but certain syllables
Herein are borrowed from unfooted dells
And secret hollows dear to noontide dew;
And these at least, though far between and few,
May catch the sense like subtle forest spells.



II

So take these kindly, even though there be
Some notes that unto other lyres belong,
Stray echoes from the elder sons of so...

I started early, took my dog,
And visited the sea;
The mermaids in the basement
Came out to look at me,

And frigates in the upper floor
Extended hempen hands,
Presuming me to be a mouse
Aground, upon the sands.

But no man moved me till the tide
Went past my simple shoe,
And past my apron and my belt,
And past my bodice too,

And made as he would eat me up
As wholly as a dew
Upon a dandelion's sleeve --
And then I started too.

And he -- he followed close behind;
I felt his silver heel
Upon my ankle, -- then my shoes
Would overflow with pearl.

Until we met the solid town,
No man he seemed to know;
And bowing with a mighty look
At me, the sea withdrew.

When God's wrath-cloud is o'er me,
Affrighting heart and mind;
When days seem dark before me,
And days seem black behind;
Those friends who think they know me,
Who deem their insight keen,
They ne'er forget to show me
The man I might have been.

He's rich and independent,
Or rising fast to fame;
His bright star is ascendant,
The country knows his name;
His houses and his gardens
Are splendid to be seen;
His fault the wise world pardons,
The man I might have been.

His fame and fortune haunt me;
His virtues wave me back;
His name and prestige daunt me
When I would take the track;
But you, my friend true-hearted,
God keep our friendship green!,
You know how I was parted
From all I might have been.

But what ...

To make a fairer,
A kinder, a more constant world than this;
To make time longer
And love a little stronger,

To give to blossoms
And trees and fruits more beauty than they bear,
Adding to sweetness
The aye-wanted completeness,

To say to sorrow,
"Ease now thy bosom of its snaky burden";
(And sorrow brightened,
No more stung and frightened),

To cry to death,
"Stay a little, O proud Shade, thy stony hand";
(And death removing
Left us amazed loving);--

For this and this,
O inward Spirit, arm thyself with power;
Be it thy duty
To give a body to beauty.

Thine to remake
The world in thy hid likeness, and renew
The fading vision
In spite of time's derision.

Be it thine, O spirit,
The worl...

Pace non trovo, e non ho da far guerra.

LOVE'S INCONSISTENCY.


    I fynde no peace and all my warre is done,
I feare and hope, I bourne and freese lyke yse;
I flye above the wynde, yet cannot ryse;
And nought I have, yet all the worlde I season,
That looseth, nor lacketh, holdes me in pryson,
And holdes me not, yet can I escape no wyse.
Nor lets me leeve, nor die at my devyce,
And yet of death it giveth none occasion.
Without eye I see, and without tongue I playne;
I desyre to perishe, yet aske I health;
I love another, and yet I hate my self;
I feede in sorrow and laughe in all my payne,
Lykewyse pleaseth me both death and lyf,
And my delight is cawser of my greif.

WYATT.[S]

[Footnote S: Harrington's Nugæ Antiquæ.]

He fell in victory's fierce pursuit,
    Holed through and through with shot,
A sabre sweep had hacked him deep
    Twixt neck and shoulderknot....

The potman cannot well recall,
    The ostler never knew,
Whether his day was Malplaquet,
    The Boyne or Waterloo.

But there he hangs for tavern sign,
    With foolish bold regard
For cock and hen and loitering men
    And wagons down the yard.

Raised high above the hayseed world
    He smokes his painted pipe,
And now surveys the orchard ways,
    The damsons clustering ripe.

He sees the churchyard slabs beyond,
    Where country neighbours lie,
Their brief renown set lowly down;
    His name assaults the sky.

He grips the tankard of brown ale
    Tha...

The small wind whispers through the leafless hedge
Most sharp and chill, where the light snowy flakes
Rest on each twig and spike of wither'd sedge,
Resembling scatter'd feathers;--vainly breaks
The pale split sunbeam through the frowning cloud,
On Winter's frowns below--from day to day
Unmelted still he spreads his hoary shroud,
In dithering pride on the pale traveller's way,
Who, croodling, hastens from the storm behind
Fast gathering deep and black, again to find
His cottage-fire and corner's sheltering bounds;
Where, haply, such uncomfortable days
Make musical the wood-sap's frizzling sounds,
And hoarse loud bellows puffing up the blaze.

Paul, he began ill, but he ended well;
Judas began well, but he foully fell:
In godliness not the beginnings so
Much as the ends are to be look'd unto.

        To you, dear mother heart, whose hair is gray
        Above this page to-day,
        Whose face, though lined with many a smile and care,
        Grows year by year more fair,

        Be tenderest tribute set in perfect rhyme,
        That haply passing time
        May cull and keep it for strange lips to pay
        When we have gone our way;

        And, to strange men, weary of field and street,
        Should this, my song, seem sweet,
        Yours be the joy, for all that made it so
        You know, dear heart, you know.

Levommi il mio pensier in parte ov' era.

SOARING IN IMAGINATION TO HEAVEN, HE MEETS LAURA, AND IS HAPPY.


    Fond fancy raised me to the spot, where strays
She, whom I seek but find on earth no more:
There, fairer still and humbler than before,
I saw her, in the third heaven's blessèd maze.
She took me by the hand, and "Thou shalt trace,
If hope not errs," she said, "this happy shore:
I, I am she, thy breast with slights who tore,
And ere its evening closed my day's brief space.
What human heart conceives, my joys exceed;
Thee only I expect, and (what remain
Below) the charms, once objects of thy love."
Why ceased she? Ah! my captive hand why freed?
Such of her soft and hallow'd tones the chain,
From that delightful heaven my soul could sca...

Widow of the late ANSON G. PHELPS, Esq., died at New York, April 24th, 1859, aged 74.


When the good mother dieth, and the home
So long made happy by her boundless love
Is desolate and empty, there are tears
Of filial anguish, not to be represt;
And when the many friends who at her side
Sought social sympathy and counsel sweet,
Or the sad poor, who, for their Saviour's sake,
Found bountiful relief, and kind regard,
Stand at that altered threshold, and perceive
Faces of strangers from her casement look,
There is a pang not to be told in words.

Yet, when the christian, having well discharged
A life-long duty, riseth where no sin
Or possibility of pain or death
May follow, should there not be praise to Him
Who gives such victory?
    ...

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world,s storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear.

O God within my breast.
Almighty ever-present Deity!
Life , that in me has rest,
As I Undying Life, have power in thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts, unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thy infinity;
So surely anchored on
The steadfast rock of Immortality.

With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though Earth and moon were gone,
And suns and universes c...

To-night the west o'er-brims with warmest dyes;
Its chalice overflows
With pools of purple colouring the skies,
Aflood with gold and rose;
And some hot soul seems throbbing close to mine,
As sinks the sun within that world of wine.

I seem to hear a bar of music float
And swoon into the west;
My ear can scarcely catch the whispered note,
But something in my breast
Blends with that strain, till both accord in one,
As cloud and colour blend at set of sun.

And twilight comes with grey and restful eyes,
As ashes follow flame.
But O! I heard a voice from those rich skies
Call tenderly my name;
It was as if some priestly fingers stole
In benedictions o'er my lonely soul.

I know not why, but all my being longed
And leapt at that sweet ...

Dear Mother-Earth
Of Titan birth,
Yon hills are your large breasts, and often I
Have climbed to their top-nipples, fain and dry
To drink my mother's-milk so near the sky.

O ye hill-stains,
Red, for all rains!
The blood that made you has all bled for us,
The hearts that paid you are all dead for us,
The trees that shade you groan with lead, for us!

And O, hill-sides,
Like giants' brides
Ye sleep in ravine-rumpled draperies,
And weep your springs in tearful memories
Of days that stained your robes with stains like these!

Sleep on, ye hills!
Weep on, ye rills!
The stainers have decreed the stains shall stay.
They chain the hands might wash the stains away.
They wait with cold hearts till we "rue the day".

O Mother-Earth...