Death

You tell me these great lords have raised up Art:
I say they have degraded it. Look you,
When ever did they let the poet sing,
The painter paint, the sculptor hew and cast,
The music raise her heavenly voice, except
To praise them and their wretched rule o'er men?
Behold our English poets that were poor
Since these great lords were rich and held the state:
Behold the glories of the German land,
Poets, musicians, driven, like them, to death
Unless they'd tune their spirits' harps to play
Drawing-room pieces for the chattering fools
Who aped the taste for Art or for a leer.
Go to, no Art was ever noble yet,
Noble and high, the speech of godlike men,
When fetters bound it, be they gold or flowers.
All that is noblest, highest, greatest, best,
Comes from the ...

The tent-lights glimmer on the land,
The ship-lights on the sea;
The night-wind smooths with drifting sand
Our track on lone Tybee.

At last our grating keels outslide,
Our good boats forward swing;
And while we ride the land-locked tide,
Our negroes row and sing.

For dear the bondman holds his gifts
Of music and of song
The gold that kindly Nature sifts
Among his sands of wrong:

The power to make his toiling days
And poor home-comforts please;
The quaint relief of mirth that plays
With sorrow’s minor keys.

Another glow than sunset’s fire
Has filled the west with light,
Where field and garner, barn and byre,
Are blazing through the night.

The land is wild with fear and hate,
The rout runs mad and fast;

"Wreck and stray and castaway." - SWINBURNE.

        Once more adrift.
O'er dappling sea and broad lagoon,
O'er frowning cliff and yellow dune,
The long, warm lights of afternoon
        Like jewel dustings sift.

        Once more awake.
I dreamed an hour of port and quay,
Of anchorage not meant for me;
The sea, the sea, the hungry sea
        Came rolling up the break.

        Once more afloat.
The billows on my moorings press't,
They drove me from my moment's rest,
And now a portless sea I breast,
        And shelterless my boat.

        Once more away.
The harbour lights are growing dim,
The shore is but a purple rim,
The sea outstretches grey and grim.
        Away, away, away!

        Once more at sea...

Laid out for dead, let thy last kindness be
With leaves and moss-work for to cover me;
And while the wood-nymphs my cold corpse inter,
Sing thou my dirge, sweet-warbling chorister!
For epitaph, in foliage, next write this:
Here, Here the tomb of Robin Herrick is!

    Another night has turned itself to day,
    Another day has melted into eve,
    And lo! again I tread the measured way
    Of word and thought, the twain to interweave,
    As flowers absorb the rays that they receive.
    And, all along the woodland where I stray,
    I think of thee, and Nature keeps me gay,
    And sorrow soothes the soul it would bereave.
    Nor will I fear that thou, so far apart,
    So dear to me, so fair, and so benign,
    Wilt un-desire the fealty of a heart
    Which evermore is pledg'd to thee and thine,
    And turns to thee, in regions where thou art,
    To hymn the praises of thy face divine!

I.

Once more the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,
And domes the red-plow’d hills
With loving blue;
The blackbirds have their wills,
The throstles too.



II.

Opens a door in heaven;
From skies of glass
A Jacob’s ladder falls
On greening grass,
And o’er the mountain-walls
Young angels pass.



III.

Before them fleets the shower,
And burst the buds,
And shine the level lands,
And flash the floods;
The stars are from their hands
Flung thro’ the woods,



IV.

The woods with living airs
How softly fann’d,
Light airs from where the deep,
All down the sand,
Is breathing in his sleep,
Heard by the land.



V.

O,...

"Lullaby, oh, lullaby!"
Thus I heard a father cry,
"Lullaby, oh, lullaby!"
The brat will never shut an eye;
Hither come, some power divine!
Close his lids, or open mine!

"Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
What the devil makes him cry?
Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
Still he stares - I wonder why,
Why are not the sons of earth
Blind, like puppies, from the birth?"

"Lullaby, oh, lullaby!"
Thus I heard the father cry;
"Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
Mary, you must come and try! -
Hush, oh, hush, for mercy's sake -
The more I sing, the more you wake!"

"Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
Fie, you little creature, fie!
Lullaby, oh, lullaby!
Is no poppy-syrup nigh?
Give him some, or give him all,
I am nodding to his fall!"

"Lullaby, oh, lullaby!<...

Homeward we turn. Isle of Columba's Cell,
Where Christian piety's soul-cheering spark
(Kindled from Heaven between the light and dark
Of time) shone like the morning-star, farewell!
And fare thee well, to Fancy visible,
Remote St. Kilda, lone and loved sea-mark
For many a voyage made in her swift bark,
When with more hues than in the rainbow dwell
Thou a mysterious intercourse dost hold,
Extracting from clear skies and air serene,
And out of sun-bright waves, a lucid veil,
That thickens, spreads, and, mingling fold with fold,
Makes known, when thou no longer canst be seen,
Thy whereabout, to warn the approaching sail.

Welcome, wild North-easter.
    Shame it is to see
Odes to every zephyr;
    Ne'er a verse to thee.
Welcome, black North-easter!
    O'er the German foam;
O'er the Danish moorlands,
    From thy frozen home.
Tired we are of summer,
    Tired of gaudy glare,
Showers soft and steaming,
    Hot and breathless air.
Tired of listless dreaming,
    Through the lazy day:
Jovial wind of winter
    Turns us out to play!
Sweep the golden reed-beds;
    Crisp the lazy dyke;
Hunger into madness
    Every plunging pike.
Fill the lake with wild-fowl;
    Fill the marsh with snipe;
While on dreary moorlands
    Lonely curlew pipe.
Through the black fir-forest
    Thunder harsh and dry,
Shattering down the snow-flakes
   ...

The nuns sing, "ora pro nobis,"
The lancets glitter above;
And the beautiful Virgin whose robe is
Woven of infinite love,
Infinite love and sorrow,
Prays for them there on high;
Who has most need of her prayers, to-morrow
Shall tell them, they or I?

Up in the hills together
We loved, where the world seemed true;
Our world of the whin and heather,
Our skies of a nearer blue,
A blue from which one borrows
A faith that helps one die
O Mother, sweet Mother of Sorrows,
None needs such more than I!

We lived, we loved unwedded
Love's sin and its shame that slays!
No ill of the year we dreaded,
No day of its coming days;
Its coming days, their many
Trials by morn and night,
And I know no land, not any,
Where love's...

I.

There's a boy who lives next door;
And this boy is just as bad
As a boy can be; and poor!
He's so poor it makes me sad
When I see him. Out at knee;
And no shoes; and, more than that,
Hardly any shirt or hat.
He's as poor as Poverty.

II.

But I like him; yes, I do.
He can play 'most any game,
And tell fairy stories, too;
Funny stories, just the same
As my father does. And he
Told me one about a frog,
Living near a lake or bog,
Frog that married a bumblebee.

III.

And another of Jumping Joan
And Hink Minx, the old witch that
Sits before the fire alone
Frying fat for her black cat.
And of Craney Crow; her dog
And her chicken. But the best,
One I like more than the rest,
'S that one o...

Traveller! on thy journey toiling
By the swift Powow,
With the summer sunshine falling
On thy heated brow,
Listen, while all else is still,
To the brooklet from the hill.

Wild and sweet the flowers are blowing
By that streamlet's side,
And a greener verdure showing
Where its waters glide,
Down the hill-slope murmuring on,
Over root and mossy stone.

Where yon oak his broad arms flingeth
O'er the sloping hill,
Beautiful and freshly springeth
That soft-flowing rill,
Through its dark roots wreathed and bare,
Gushing up to sun and air.

Brighter waters sparkled never
In that magic well,
Of whose gift of life forever
Ancient legends tell,
In the lonely desert wasted,
And by mortal lip untasted.

Waters wh...

        The little white bride is left alone
        With him, her lord; the guests have gone;
                The festal hall is dim.
        No jesting now, nor answering mirth.
        The hush of sleep falls on the earth
                And leaves her here with him.

        Why should there be, O little white bride,
        When the world has left you by his side,
                A tear to brim your eyes?
        Some old love-face that comes again,
        Some old love-moment sweet with pain
                Of passionate memories?

        Does your heart yearn back with last regret
        For the maiden meads of mignonette
                And the fairy-haunted wood,
        That you had not withheld from love,
        A little while, the fre...

When I come in f'om de co'n-fiel' aftah wo'kin' ha'd all day,
It 's amazin' nice to fin' my suppah all erpon de way;
An' it 's nice to smell de coffee bubblin' ovah in de pot,
An' it 's fine to see de meat a-sizzlin' teasin'-lak an' hot.

But when suppah-time is ovah, an' de t'ings is cleahed away;
Den de happy hours dat foller are de sweetes' of de day.
When my co'ncob pipe is sta'ted, an' de smoke is drawin' prime,
My ole 'ooman says, "I reckon, Ike, it 's candle-lightin' time."

Den de chillun snuggle up to me, an' all commence to call,
"Oh, say, daddy, now it 's time to mek de shadders on de wall."
So I puts my han's togethah--evah daddy knows de way,--
An' de chillun snuggle closer roun' ez I begin to say:--

"Fus' thing, hyeah come Mistah Rabbit; don' you see...

Unconscious on thy lap I lay,
A spiritual thing,
Stirless until the yet unlooked-for day
Of human birth
Should call me from thy starry twilight, Earth.
And did thy bosom rock and clear voice sing?
I know not--now no more a spiritual thing.
Nor then thy breathed Adieu
I rightly knew.

--Until those human kind arms caught
And nursed my head
Upon her breast who from the twilight brought
This stranger me.
Mother, it were yet happiness to be
Within your arms; but now that you are dead
Your memory sleeps in mine; so mine is comforted,
Though I breathed dear Adieu
Unheard by you.

And I have gathered to my breast
Wife, mistress, child,
Affections insecure but tenderest
Of all that clutch
Man's heart with their "Too little!" and...

Friend of my many years
When the great silence falls, at last, on me,
Let me not leave, to pain and sadden thee,
A memory of tears,

But pleasant thoughts alone
Of one who was thy friendship’s honored guest
And drank the wine of consolation pressed
From sorrows of thy own.

I leave with thee a sense
Of hands upheld and trials rendered less
The unselfish joy which is to helpfulness
Its own great recompense;

The knowledge that from thine,
As from the garments of the Master, stole
Calmness and strength, the virtue which makes whole
And heals without a sign;

Yea more, the assurance strong
That love, which fails of perfect utterance here,
Lives on to fill the heavenly atmosphere
With its immortal song.

When Sam goes back in memory,
    It is to where the sea
Breaks on the shingle, emerald-green,
    In white foam, endlessly;
He says - with small brown eye on mine -
    "I used to keep awake,
And lean from my window in the moon,
    Watching those billows break.
And half a million tiny hands,
    And eyes, like sparks of frost,
Would dance and come tumbling into the moon,
    On every breaker tossed.
And all across from star to star,
    I've seen the watery sea,
With not a single ship in sight,
    Just ocean there, and me;
And heard my father snore. And once,
    As sure as I'm alive,
Out of those wallowing, moon-flecked waves
    I saw a mermaid dive;
Head and shoulders above the wave,
    Plain as I now see you,
Combing her h...

As a fisher-boy I fared

To the black rock in the sea,
And, while false gifts I prepared.

Listen'd and sang merrily,
Down descended the decoy,

Soon a fish attack'd the bait;
One exultant shout of joy,

And the fish was captured straight.

Ah! on shore, and to the wood

Past the cliffs, o'er stock and stone,
One foot's traces I pursued,

And the maiden was alone.
Lips were silent, eyes downcast

As a clasp-knife snaps the bait,
With her snare she seized me fast,

And the boy was captured straight.

Heav'n knows who's the happy swain

That she rambles with anew!
I must dare the sea again,

Spite of wind and weather too.
When the great and little fish

Wail and flounder in...