Death

Alexis shun'd his Fellow Swains,
Their rural Sports, and jocund Strains:
(Heav'n guard us all from Cupid's Bow!)
He lost his Crook, He left his Flocks;
And wand'ring thro' the lonely Rocks,
He nourish'd endless Woe.
The Nymphs and Shepherds round Him came:
His Grief Some pity, Others blame:
The fatal Cause All kindly seek.
He mingled his Concern with Their's:
He gave 'em back their friendly Tears:
He sigh'd, but would not speak.
Clorinda came among the rest:
And She too kind Concern exprest,
And ask'd the Reason of his Woe:
She ask'd, but with an Air and Mein,
That made it easily foreseen,
She fear'd too much to know.
The Shepherd rais'd his mournful Head:
And will You pardon Me, He said,
While I the cruel Truth reveal?
Which nothing f...

One would say your gaze was a misted screen:
your strange eyes (are they blue, grey or green?)
changeable, tender, dreamy, cruel, and again
echoing the indolence and pallor of heaven.

You bring me those blank days, mild and hazy,
that melt bewitched hearts into weeping,
when twisted, stirred by some unknown hurt,
our over-stretched nerves mock the numbed spirit.

Often you resemble the loveliest horizons
lit by the suns of foggy seasons....
how splendid you are, a dew-wet country,
inflamed by the rays of a misted sky!

O dangerous woman, o seductive glow,
will I someday adore your frost and snow,
and learn to draw, from implacable winter
sharp-edged as steel or ice, new pleasure?

The Lovers took within this ancient grove
Their last embrace; beside those crystal springs
The Hermit saw the Angel spread his wings
For instant flight; the Sage in yon alcove
Sate musing; on that hill the Bard would rove,
Not mute, where now the linnet only sings:
Thus everywhere to truth Tradition clings,
Or Fancy localises Powers we love.
Were only History licensed to take note
Of things gone by, her meagre monuments
Would ill suffice for persons and events:
There is an ampler page for man to quote,
A readier book of manifold contents,
Studied alike in palace and in cot.

    Oh, list to the wind of the night, oh, hark,
    How it shrieks as it goes on its hurrying quest!
    Forever its voice is a voice of the dark,
    Forever its voice is a voice of unrest.
    Oh, list to the pines as they shiver and sway
    'Neath the ceaseless beat of its myriad wings -
    How they moan and they sob like living things
    That cry in the darkness for light and day!
    Now bend they low as the wind mounts higher,
    And its eerie voice comes piercingly,
    Like the plaint of humanity's misery,
    And its burden of vain desire.
    Now to a sad, tense whisper it fails,
    Then wildly and madly it raves and it wails.

    Oh, the night is filled with its sob and its shriek,
    Its weird and its restless, yearning cry,
    As it ...

The spirits of our fathers rise not from every wave,
They left the sea behind them long ago;
It was many years of “slogging,” where strong men must be brave,
For the sake of unborn children, and, maybe, a soul to save,
And the end a tidy homestead, and four panels round a grave,
And, the bones of poor old Someone down below.

Some left happy homes in old lands when they heard the New Land call
(Some were gentlemen and some were social wrecks)
Some left squalor and starvation, they were soldiers one and all,
And their weapons were the cross-cut and the wedges and the maul.
(How we used to run as children when we heard the big trees fall!
While they paused to wipe their faces and their necks.)

They were buried by our uncles where the ground was hard to dig
(It was l...

On such a night, or such a night,
Would anybody care
If such a little figure
Slipped quiet from its chair,

So quiet, oh, how quiet!
That nobody might know
But that the little figure
Rocked softer, to and fro?

On such a dawn, or such a dawn,
Would anybody sigh
That such a little figure
Too sound asleep did lie

For chanticleer to wake it, --
Or stirring house below,
Or giddy bird in orchard,
Or early task to do?

There was a little figure plump
For every little knoll,
Busy needles, and spools of thread,
And trudging feet from school.

Playmates, and holidays, and nuts,
And visions vast and small.
Strange that the feet so precious charged
Should reach so small a goal!

The birds are pirates of her notes,
The blossoms steal her face's light;
The stars in ambush lie all day,
To take her glances for the night.
Her voice can shame rain-pelted leaves;
Young robin has no notes as sweet
In autumn, when the air is still,
And all the other birds are mute.

When I set eyes on ripe, red plums
That seem a sin and shame to bite,
Such are her lips, which I would kiss,
And still would keep before my sight.
When I behold proud gossamer
Make silent billows in the air,
Then think I of her head's fine stuff,
Finer than gossamer's, I swear.

The miser has his joy, with gold
Beneath his pillow in the night;
My head shall lie on soft warm hair,
And miser's know not that delight.
Captains that own their ships can boas...

The splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story;
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying
Blow, bugle; answers, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying;
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river;
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying ,dying

Now the joys of the road are chiefly these:
A crimson touch on the hard-wood trees;

A vagrant's morning wide and blue,
In early fall when the wind walks, too;

A shadowy highway cool and brown,
Alluring up and enticing down

From rippled water to dappled swamp,
From purple glory to scarlet pomp;

The outward eye, the quiet will,
And the striding heart from hill to hill;

The tempter apple over the fence;
The cobweb bloom on the yellow quince;

The palish asters along the wood,--
A lyric touch of the solitude;

An open hand, an easy shoe.
And a hope to make the day go through,--

Another to sleep with, and a third
To wake me up at the voice of a bird;

The resonant far-listening morn,
And the hoarse w...

Know Celia, since thou art so proud,
'Twas I that gave thee thy renown;
Thou hadst, in the forgotten crowd
Of common beauties, liv'd unknown,
Had not my verse exhal'd thy name,
And with it imp'd the wings of fame.

That killing power is none of thine,
I gave it to thy voice, and eyes;
Thy sweets, thy graces, all are mine;
Thou art my star, shin'st in my skies;
Then dart not from thy borrow'd sphere
Lightning on him that fix'd thee there.

Tempt me with such affrights no more,
Lest what I made, I uncreate;
Let fools thy mystic forms adore,
I'll know thee in thy mortal state;
Wise poets that wrapp'd Truth in tales,
Knew her themselves, through all her veils.

        What! only to stay
        For a single day?
Thou beautiful, bright hued on
        Just to open thine eyes
        To the blue of the skies
And the light of the glorious sun,
        Then, to fade away
        In the same rich ray,
And die ere the day is done?

        Bright thing of a day
        Thou hast caught a ray
From Morn's jewelled curtain fold
        On thy burning cheek,
        And the ruby streak
His dyed it with charms untold -
        And the gorgeous vest
        On thy queenly breast,
Is dashed with her choicest gold.

        A statelier queen
        Has never been seen,
A lovelier never will be! -
        Nay, Solomon, dressed
        In his kingliest best,
Was never a match for thee,<...

The day had been a day of wind and storm;
The wind was laid, the storm was overpast,
And stooping from the zenith bright and warm
Shone the great sun on the wide earth at last.
I stood upon the upland slope, and cast
My eye upon a broad and beauteous scene,
Where the vast plain lay girt by mountains vast,
And hills o'er hills lifted their heads of green,
With pleasant vales scooped out and villages between.

The rain-drops glistened on the trees around,
Whose shadows on the tall grass were not stirred,
Save when a shower of diamonds, to the ground,
Was shaken by the flight of startled bird;
For birds were warbling round, and bees were heard
About the flowers; the cheerful rivulet sung
And gossiped, as he hastened ocean-ward;
To the gray oak the squirrel, ...

Sleep a little, a little little, for there is nothing at all to fear, Diarmuid grandson of Duibhne; sleep here soundly, Diarmuid to whom I have given my love. It is I will keep watch for you, grandchild of shapely Duibhne; sleep a little, a blessing on you, beside the well of the strong field; my lamb from above the lake, from the banks of the strong streams.

Let your sleep be like the sleep in the North of fair comely Fionnchadh of Ess Ruadh, the time he took Slaine with bravery as we think, in spite of Failbhe of the Hard Head.

Let your sleep be like the sleep in the West of Aine daughter of Galian, the time she went on a journey in the night with Dubhthach from Dorinis, by the light of torches.

Let your sleep be like the sleep in the East of Deaghadh the proud, the brave fighter, the time he took Coinch...

Her heart knew naught of sorrow,
    Nor the vaguest taint of sin -
'Twas an ever-blooming blossom
    Of the purity within:
And her hands knew only touches
    Of the mother's gentle care,
And the kisses and caresses
    Through the interludes of prayer.

Her baby-feet had journeyed
    Such a little distance here,
They could have found no briers
    In the path to interfere;
The little cross she carried
    Could not weary her, we know,
For it lay as lightly on her
    As a shadow on the snow.

And yet the way before us -
    O how empty now and drear! -
How ev'n the dews of roses
    Seem as dripping tears for her!
And the song-birds all seem crying,
    As the winds cry and the rain,
All sobbingly, - "We want - we wa...

Lonely and cold and fierce I keep my way,
Scourge of the lands, companioned by the storm,
Tossing to heaven my frontlet, wild and gray,
Mateless, yet conscious ever of a warm
And brooding presence close to mine all day.

What is this alien thing, so near, so far,
Close to my life always, but blending never?
Hemmed in by walls whose crystal gates unbar
Not at the instance of my strong endeavor
To pierce the stronghold where their secrets are?

Buoyant, impalpable, relentless, thin,
Rise the clear, mocking walls. I strive in vain
To reach the pulsing heart that beats within,
Or with persistence of a cold disdain,
To quell the gladness which I may not win.

Forever sundered and forever one,
Linked by a bond whose spell I may not guess,
Our hos...

'Mid the waving Woods of Wytham,
    Now so far, so far from me,
    Where the grand old beeches be,
And the deer-herds feeding by them:
'Mid the mossy Woods of Wytham,
    Oft I roam in memory;

Down the grand wide-arching alleys,
    Marged by plumy ferns and flowers,
    Whence all through the noontide hours
Many a fearless leveret sallies;
For amid those grassy alleys
    Never hound nor huntsman scours.

Still I see, through leafy casements,
    Wytham Hall so quaint and old,
    Remnant of the age of gold,
Gabled o'er from roof to basement
In most fanciful enlacement,
    Looking far o'er wood and wold;

With the mere outspread before it;
    Whitest swans upon its tide,
    That in mystic beauty glide;
And the wil...

We throw us down on the dusty plain
When the gold has gone from the west,
But we rise and tramp on the track again,
For we’re tired, too tired to rest.
Darker and denser the shadows fall
That are cramping each aching brow,
Scotty the Wrinkler! you’ve solved it all,
Give us a wrinkle now.

But no one lieth so still in death
As the rover who never could rest;
And he’s free of thought as he’s free of breath,
And his hands are crossed on his breast.
You have earned your rest, you brave old tramp,
As I hope in the end we will.
Ah me! ’Twas a long, long way to camp
Since the days when they called you “Phil’.

What have they done with your quaint old soul
Now they have passed you through?
But we can’t but think, as our swags we roll,
That it’...

Oh, what a blessed interval
    A rainy day may be!
No lightning flash nor tempest roar,
But one incessant, steady pour
    Of dripping melody;
When from their sheltering retreat
Go not with voluntary feet
The storm-beleaguered family,
    Nor bird nor animal.

When business takes a little lull,
    And gives the merchantman
A chance to seek domestic scenes,
To interview the magazines,
    Convoke his growing clan,
The boys and girls almost unknown,
And get acquainted with his own;
As well the household budget scan,
    Or write a canticle.

When farmer John ransacks the barn,
    Hunts up the harness old -
Nigh twenty years since it was new -
Puts in an extra thong or two,
    And hopes the thing will hold
Without ...