Death

O, EVER DEAR! thy precious, vital powers
    Sink rapidly! - the long and dreary Night
    Brings scarce an hope that Morn's returning light
    Shall dawn for THEE! - In such terrific hours,
When yearning Fondness eagerly devours
    Each moment of protracted life, his flight
    The Rashly-Chosen of thy heart has ta'en
    Where dances, songs, and theatres invite.
EXPIRING SWEETNESS! with indignant pain
    I see him in the scenes where laughing glide
    Pleasure's light Forms; - see his eyes gaily glow,
Regardless of thy life's fast ebbing tide;
    I hear him, who shou'd droop in silent woe,
    Declaim on Actors, and on Taste decide!

MICHAEL, ARCHANGEL.

High on Imaus' solitary van,
Which overlooked the kingdoms of the world,
With stature more majestic, his stern brow
In the clear light, the thunder at his feet;
In his right hand the flaming sword that waved
O'er Eden's gate; and in his left the trump,
That on the day of doom shall sound and wake
Earth's myriads, starting from the wormy grave,
The great archangel stood: and, hark, his voice!

AIR.

It comes, it comes, o'er cities, temples, towers;
O'er mountain heights I see the deluge sweep;
Heard ye from earth the cry at that last hour?
Heard ye the tossing of the desert deep?
How dismal is its roar!
I heard the sound of multitudes no more.
Great Lord of heaven and earth, thy voice is fate;
Thou canst destroy, as...

SAILOR

You, who have compassed land and sea,
Now all unburied lie;
All vain your store of human lore,
For you were doomed to die.
The sire of Pelops likewise fell,--
Jove's honored mortal guest;
So king and sage of every age
At last lie down to rest.
Plutonian shades enfold the ghost
Of that majestic one
Who taught as truth that he, forsooth,
Had once been Pentheus' son;
Believe who may, he's passed away,
And what he did is done.
A last night comes alike to all;
One path we all must tread,
Through sore disease or stormy seas
Or fields with corpses red.
Whate'er our deeds, that pathway leads
To regions of the dead.


SHADE

The fickle twin Illyrian gales
Overwhelmed me on the wave;
But you that live, ...

I have a life that did not become,
that turned aside and stopped,
astonished:
I hold it in me like a pregnancy or
as on my lap a child
not to grow old but dwell on

it is to his grave I most
frequently return and return
to ask what is wrong, what was
wrong, to see it all by
the light of a different necessity
but the grave will not heal
and the child,
stirring, must share my grave
with me, an old man having
gotten by on what was left

when I go back to my home country in these
fresh far-away days, its convenient to visit
everybody, aunts and uncles, those who used to say,
look how hes shooting up, and the
trinket aunts who always had a little
something in their pocketbooks, cinnamon bark
or a penny or nickel, and uncles w...

Tempo era omai da trovar pace o tregua.

HE CONSOLES HIMSELF WITH THE BELIEF THAT SHE NOW AT LAST SYMPATHISES WITH HIM.


    'Twas time at last from so long war to find
Some peace or truce, and, haply, both were nigh,
But Death their welcome feet has turn'd behind,
Who levels all distinctions, low as high;
And as a cloud dissolves before the wind,
So she, who led me with her lustrous eye,
Whom ever I pursue with faithful mind,
Her fair life briefly ending, sought the sky.
Had she but stay'd, as I grew changed and old
Her tone had changed, and no distrust had been
To parley with me on my cherish'd ill:
With what frank sighs and fond I then had told
My lifelong toils, which now from heaven, I ween,
She sees, and with me sympathises still.
...

Dawn

On skies still and starlit
White lustres take hold,
And grey flushes scarlet,
And red flashes gold.
And sun-glories cover
The rose shed above her,
Like lover and lover
They flame and unfold.

-    -    -    -    -

Still bloom in the garden
Green grass-plot, fresh lawn,
Though pasture lands harden
And drought fissures yawn.
While leaves not a few fall,
Let rose leaves for you fall,
Leaves pearl-strung with dew-fall,
And gold shot with dawn.

Does the grass-plot remember
The fall of your feet
In autumn’s red ember,
When drought leagues with heat,
When the last of the roses
Despairingly closes
In the lull that reposes
Ere storm winds wax fleet?

Love’s melodies languish
...

Over the darkened city, the city of towers,
The city of a thousand gates,
Over the gleaming terraced roofs, the huddled towers,
Over a somnolent whisper of loves and hates,
The slow wind flows, drearily streams and falls,
With a mournful sound down rain-dark walls.
On one side purples the lustrous dusk of the sea,
And dreams in white at the city’s feet;
On one side sleep the plains, with heaped-up hills.
Oaks and beeches whisper in rings about it.
Above the trees are towers where dread bells beat.

The fisherman draws his streaming net from the sea
And sails toward the far-off city, that seems
Like one vague tower.
The dark bow plunges to foam on blue-black waves,
And shrill rain seethes like a ghostly music about him
In a quiet shower.

Rain wi...

I hear a voice low in the sunset woods;
    Listen, it says: "Decay, decay, decay!"
I hear it in the murmuring of the floods,
    And the wind sighs it as it flies away.
Autumn is come; seest thou not in the skies,
The stormy light of his fierce lurid eyes?
Autumn is come; his brazen feet have trod,
Withering and scorching, o'er the mossy sod.
The fainting year sees her fresh flowery wreath
Shrivel in his hot grasp; his burning breath
Dries the sweet water-springs that in the shade
Wandering along, delicious music made.
A flood of glory hangs upon the world,
Summer's bright wings shining ere they are furled.

Here lies to each her parents’ Ruth,
Mary, the daughter of their youth:
Yet, all heaven’s gifts, being heaven’s due,
It makes the father, less, to rue.
At six months’ end, she parted hence
With safety of her innocence;
Whose soul heaven’s queen, (whose name she bears)
In comfort of her mother’s tears,
Hath placed amongst her virgin train:
Where, while that severed doth remain,
This grave partakes the fleshly birth.
Which cover lightly, gentle earth.

Oh come, Eurydice!
The Stygian deeps are past
Well-nigh; the light dawns fast.
Oh come, Eurydice!

The gods have heard my song!
My love's despairing cry
Filled hell with melody, -
And the gods heard my song.

I knew no life but thee;
Persephone was moved;
She, too, hath lived, hath loved;
She saw I lived for thee.

I may not look on thee,
Such was the gods' decree; -
Till sun and earth we see
No kiss, no smile for thee!

The way is rough, is hard;
I cannot hear thy feet
Swift following; speak, my Sweet, -
Is the way rough and hard?

"Oh come, Eurydice!"
I turn: "our woe is o'er,
I will not lose thee more!"
I cry: "Eurydice!"

O father Hermes, help!
I see her fade away
Back from the...

Massachusetts Bay, 1760.


The robins sang in the orchard, the buds into blossoms grew;
Little of human sorrow the buds and the robins knew!
Sick, in an alien household, the poor French neutral lay;
Into her lonesome garret fell the light of the April day,
Through the dusty window, curtained by the spider's warp and woof,
On the loose-laid floor of hemlock, on oaken ribs of roof,
The bedquilt's faded patchwork, the teacups on the stand,
The wheel with flaxen tangle, as it dropped from her sick hand.

What to her was the song of the robin, or warm morning light,
As she lay in the trance of the dying, heedless of sound or sight?

Done was the work of her bands, she had eaten her bitter bread;
The world of the alien people lay behind her dim and dead.

        "Sleep, weary ones, while ye may --
            Sleep, oh, sleep!"
                    Eugene Field.


        Thro' May time blossoms, with whisper low,
        The soft wind sang to the dead below:
        "Think not with regret on the Springtime's song
        And the task ye left while your hands were strong.
        The song would have ceased when the Spring was past,
        And the task that was joyous be weary at last."

        To the winter sky when the nights were long
        The tree-tops tossed with a ceaseless song:
        "Do ye think with regret on the sunny days
        And the path ye left, with its untrod ways?
        The sun might sink in a storm cloud's frown
        And the path grow rough when the night came down."...

Whoe'er thou art, approach, and, with a sigh,
Mark where the small remains of Greatness lie.[2]
There sleeps the dust of Him for ever gone;
How near the Scene where once his Glory shone!
And, tho' no more ascends the voice of Prayer,
Tho' the last footsteps cease to linger there,
Still, like an awful Dream that comes again,
Alas, at best, as transient and as vain,
Still do I see (while thro' the vaults of night
The funeral-song once more proclaims the rite)
The moving Pomp along the shadowy Isle,
That, like a Darkness, fill'd the solemn Pile;
The illustrious line, that in long order led,
Of those that lov'd Him living, mourn'd Him dead;
Of those, the Few, that for their Country stood
Round Him who dar'd be singularly good;
All, of all ranks, that claim'd Him f...

There is a smell of roses in the room
Tea-roses, dead of bloom;
An invalid, she sits there in the gloom,
And contemplates her doom.

The pattern of the paper, and the grain
Of carpet, with its stain,
Have stamped themselves, like fever, on her brain,
And grown a part of pain.

It has been long, so long, since that one died,
Or sat there by her side;
She felt so lonely, lost, she would have cried,
But all her tears were dried.

A knock came on the door: she hardly heard;
And then a whispered word,
And someone entered; at which, like a bird,
Her caged heart cried and stirred.

And then she heard a voice; she was not wrong:
His voice, alive and strong:
She listened, while the silence filled with song
Oh, she had waited long!

Wasted, weary, wherefore stay,
Wrestling thus with earth and clay?
From the body pass away;
Hark! the mass is singing.

From thee doff thy mortal weed,
Mary Mother be thy speed,
Saints to help thee at thy need;
Hark! the knell is ringing.

Fear not snow-drift driving fast,
Sleet, or hail, or levin blast;
Soon the shroud shall lap thee fast,
And the sleep be on thee cast
That shall ne'er know waking.

Haste thee, haste thee, to be gone,
Earth flits fast, and time draws on,
Gasp thy gasp, and groan thy groan,
Day is near the breaking.

When the stunned soul can first lift tired eyes
    On her changed world of ruin, waste and wrack,
Ah, what a pang of aching sharp surprise
    Brings all sweet memories of the lost past back,
With wild self-pitying grief of one betrayed,
Duped in a land of dreams where Truth is dead!


Are these the heavens that she deemed were kind?
    Is this the world that yesterday was fair?
What painted images of folk half-blind
    Be these who pass her by, as vague as air?
What go they seeking? there is naught to find.
Let them come nigh and hearken her despair.


A mocking lie is all she once believed,
    And where her heart throbbed, is a cold dead stone.
This is a doom we never preconceived,
    Yet now she cannot fancy it undone.
Part of herse...

Love owes tribute unto Death,
Being but a flower of breath,
Ev'n as thy fair body is
Moment's figure of the bliss
Dwelling in the mind of God
When He called thee from the sod,
Like a crocus up to start,
Gray-eyed with a golden heart,
Out of earth, and point our sight
To thy eternal home of light.

Here on earth is all we know:
To let our love as steadfast blow,
Open-hearted to the sun,
Folded down when our day's done,
As thy flower that bids it be
Flower of thy charity.
'Tis not ours to boast or pray
Breath from us shall outlive clay;
'Tis not thine, thou Pitiful,
Set me task beyond my rule.

Yet as young men carve on trees
Lovely names, and find in these
Solace in the after time,
So to have hid thee in my rhyme

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory -
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.