Death

I scorn the man, a fool at most,
And ignorant and blind,
Who loves to go about and boast
“He understands mankind.”
I thought I had that knowledge too,
And boasted it with pride,
But since, I’ve learned that human hearts
Cannot be classified.

In days when I was young and wild
I had no vanity,
I always thought when women smiled
That they were fooling me.
I was content to let them fool,
And let them deem I cared;
For, tutored in a narrow school,
I held myself prepared.

But Lily had a pretty face,
And great blue Irish eyes,
And she was fair as any race
Beneath the Northern skies,
The sweetest voice I ever heard,
Although it was unschooled.
So for a season I preferred
By Lily to be fooled.

A friend embittere...

Such were the notes thy once-loved Poet sung,
Till Death untimely stopp'd his tuneful tongue.
Oh just beheld and lost! admired and mourn'd!
With softest manners, gentlest arts adorn'd!
Blest in each science, blest in every strain!
Dear to the Muse! to Harley dear--in vain!

For him, thou oft hast bid the world attend,
Fond to forget the statesman in the friend;
For Swift and him, despised the farce of state,
The sober follies of the wise and great;
Dext'rous, the craving, fawning crowd to quit,
And pleased to 'scape from Flattery to Wit.

Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear,
(A sigh the absent claims, the dead a tear,)
Recall those nights that closed thy toilsome days,
Still hear thy Parnell in his living lays,
Who, careless now of interest, f...

I.

Beautiful Autumn is dead and gone -
                Weep for her!
Calm, and gracious, and very fair,
With sunny robe and with shining hair,
And a tender light in her dreamy eye,
She came to earth but to smile and die -
                Weep for her!

Nay, nay, I will not weep!
        She came with a smile,
        And tarried awhile,
    Quieting Nature to sleep; -
        Then went on her way
        O'er the hill-tops grey,
And yet - and yet, she is dead, you say!
Nay! - she brought us blessings, and left us cheer,
And alive and well shell return next year! -
            Why should I weep?


II.

Desolate Winter has come again -
                Frown on him!
    He comes with a withering breath,

I.

        That phantoms fair, with radiant hair,
        May seek at midnight hour
        The sons of men, belov'd again,
        And give them holy power;
    That souls survive the mortal hive, and sinless come and go,
    Is true as death, the prophet saith; and God will have it so.


II.

        For who be ye who doubt and prate?
        O sages! make it clear
        If ye be more than men of fate,
        Or less than men of cheer;
    If ye be less than bird or beast? O brothers! make it plain
    If ye be bankrupts at a feast, or sharers in a gain.


III.

        You say there is no future state;
        The clue ye fail to find.
        The flesh is here, and bones appear
        When graves are underm...

Not they who know the awful gibbet's anguish,
    Not they who, while sad years go by them, in
The sunless cells of lonely prisons languish,
    Do suffer fullest penalty for sin.

'Tis they who walk the highways unsuspected,
    Yet with grim fear for ever at their side,
Who hug the corpse of some sin undetected,
    A corpse no grave or coffin-lid can hide -

'Tis they who are in their own chambers haunted
    By thoughts that like unbidden guests intrude,
And sit down, uninvited and unwanted,
    And make a nightmare of the solitude.

Sweet songstress! whom the melancholy Muse
With more than fondness loved, for thee she strung
The lyre, on which herself enraptured hung,
And bade thee through the world its sweets diffuse.
Oft hath my childhood's tributary tear
Paid homage to the sad harmonious strain,
That told, alas! too true, the grief and pain
Which thy afflicted mind was doom'd to bear.
Rest, sainted spirit! from a life of woe,
And though no friendly hand on thee bestow
The stately marble, or emblazon'd name,
To tell a thoughtless world who sleeps below:
Yet o'er thy narrow bed a wreath shall blow.
Deriving vigour from the breath of fame!

Robert Rawlin! Frosts were falling
When the ranger's horn was calling
Through the woods to Canada.

Gone the winter's sleet and snowing,
Gone the spring-time's bud and blowing,
Gone the summer's harvest mowing,
And again the fields are gray.
Yet away, he's away!
Faint and fainter hope is growing
In the hearts that mourn his stay.

Where the lion, crouching high on
Abraham's rock with teeth of iron,
Glares o'er wood and wave away,
Faintly thence, as pines far sighing,
Or as thunder spent and dying,
Come the challenge and replying,
Come the sounds of flight and fray.
Well-a-day! Hope and pray!
Some are living, some are lying
In their red graves far away.

Straggling rangers, worn with dangers,
Homeward faring, weary strang...

Posthumous Fragments Of Margaret Mcholson.

Being Poems found amongst the Papers of that noted Female who attempted the life of the King in 1786. Edited by John Fitzvictor.

[The "Posthumous Fragments", published at Oxford by Shelley, appeared in November, 1810.]


Melody To A Scene Of Former Times.

Art thou indeed forever gone,
Forever, ever, lost to me?
Must this poor bosom beat alone,
Or beat at all, if not for thee?
Ah! why was love to mortals given,
To lift them to the height of Heaven,
Or dash them to the depths of Hell?
Yet I do not reproach thee, dear!
Ah, no! the agonies that swell
This panting breast, this frenzied brain,
Might wake my - 's slumb'ring tear.
Oh! Heaven is witness I did love,
And Heaven does know I love thee s...

Letter III. Regrets.


I.

    When I did wake, to-day, a bird of Heaven,
    A wanton, woeless thing, a wandering sprite,
    Did seem to sing a song for my delight;
    And, far away, did make its holy steven
    Sweeter to hear than lute-strings that are seven;
    And I did weep thereat in my despite.


II.

    O glorious sun! I thought, O gracious king,
    Of all this splendour that we call the earth!
    For thee the lark distils his morning mirth,
    But who will hear the matins that I sing?
    Who will be glad to greet ...

    Nor wilt thou rest forever, weary heart.
    The last illusion is destroyed,
    That I eternal thought. Destroyed!
    I feel all hope and all desire depart,
    For life and its deceitful joys.
    Forever rest! Enough! Thy throbbings cease!
    Naught can requite thy miseries;
    Nor is earth worthy of thy sighs.
    Life is a bitter, weary load,
    The world a slough. And now, repose!
    Despair no more, but find in Death
    The only boon Fate on our race bestows!
    Still, Nature, art thou doomed to fall,
    The victim scorned of that blind, brutal power
    That rules and ruins all.

When insect wings are glistening in the beam
Of the low sun, and mountain-tops are bright,
Oh, let me, by the crystal valley-stream,
Wander amid the mild and mellow light;
And while the wood-thrush pipes his evening lay,
Give me one lonely hour to hymn the setting day.

Oh, sun! that o'er the western mountains now
Goest down in glory! ever beautiful
And blessed is thy radiance, whether thou
Colourest the eastern heaven and night-mist cool,
Till the bright day-star vanish, or on high
Climbest and streamest thy white splendours from mid-sky.

Yet, loveliest are thy setting smiles, and fair,
Fairest of all that earth beholds, the hues
That live among the clouds, and flush the air,
Lingering and deepening at the hour of dews.
Then softest gales are breat...

[To the memory of Lieut. Wm. W. Wardell, of the First Massachusetts Cavalry, killed May 28, 1864.]


Above his head the cypress waves
    Its dark green drooping leaves;
The sunlight through its branches wide
Where bright birds linger side by side
    A golden net-work weaves.

Within the church-yard's silent gloom
    He lies in quiet rest;
And never more to cold, pale brow,
Or proud lips mute with silence now
    Will loving lips be pressed.

Perhaps even now in death's dark dream
    He sees the deadly strife;
Where brothers fought with blinded eyes,
Forgetting all the tender ties
    That bound them life to life.

Ah! nobly there he proudly rode
    With honest, warm, true heart;
And shrank not from the carnage red,
...

‘Although I’d lie lapped up in linen
A deal I’d sweat and little earn
If I should live as live the neighbours,’
Cried the beggar, Billy Byrne;
‘Stretch bones till the daylight come
On great-grandfather’s battered tomb.’

Upon a grey old battered tombstone
In Glendalough beside the stream,
Where the O’Byrnes and Byrnes are buried,
He stretched his bones and fell in a dream
Of sun and moon that a good hour
Bellowed and pranced in the round tower;

Of golden king and silver lady,
Bellowing up and bellowing round,
Till toes mastered a sweet measure,
Mouth mastered a sweet sound,
Prancing round and prancing up
Until they pranced upon the top.

That golden king and that wild lady
Sang till stars began to fade,
Hands gripped in hand...

    In Lola Schaefer's studio in the Tower,
    Tea being served to painters, poets, singers,
    Herr Ludwig Haibt, a none too welcome guest,
    Of vital body, brisk, too loud of voice,
    And Lilli Alm crossed swords.

    It came about
    When Ludwig Haibt said: "Have you read the papers
    About this Elenor Murray?" And then said:
    "I tried to train her voice - she was a failure."
    And Lilli Alm who taught the art of song
    Looked at him half contemptuous and said:
    "Why did she fail?" To which Herr Ludwig answered
    "She tried too hard. She made her throat too tense,
    And made its muscles stiff by too much thought,
    Anxiety for song, the vocal triumph."

    "O, yes, I understand," said Lilli Aim.
    Then stabbing him she...

Are they indeed the bitterest tears we shed,
Those we let fall over the silent dead?
Can our thoughts image forth no darker doom,
Than that which wraps us in the peaceful tomb?
Whom have ye laid beneath that mossy grave,
Round which the slender, sunny, grass-blades wave?
Who are ye calling back to tread again
This weary walk of life? towards whom, in vain,
Are your fond eyes and yearning hearts upraised;
The young, the loved, the honoured, and the praised?
Come hither; - look upon the faded cheek
Of that still woman, who with eyelids meek
Veils her most mournful eyes; - upon her brow
Sometimes the sensitive blood will faintly glow,
When reckless hands her heart-wounds roughly tear,
But patience oftener sits palely there.
Beauty has left her - hope and joy have...

Face in the tomb, that lies so still,
    May I draw near,
And watch your sleep and love you,
    Without word or tear.

You smile, your eyelids flicker;
    Shall I tell
How the world goes that lost you?
    Shall I tell?

Ah! love, lift not your eyelids;
    'Tis the same
Old story that we laughed at, -
    Still the same.

We knew it, you and I,
    We knew it all:
Still is the small the great,
    The great the small;

Still the cold lie quenches
    The flaming truth,
And still embattled age
    Wars against youth.

Yet I believe still in the ever-living God
    That fills your grave with perfume,
Writing your name in violets across the sod,
    Shielding your holy face from hail and snow;
 ...

There is a village in a southern land,
By rounded hills closed in on every hand.
The streets slope steeply to the market-square,
Long lines of white-washed houses, clean and fair,
With roofs irregular, and steps of stone
Ascending to the front of every one.
The people swarthy, idle, full of mirth,
Live mostly by the tillage of the earth.

Upon the northern hill-top, looking down,
Like some sequestered saint upon the town,
Stands the great convent.

            On a summer night,
Ten years ago, the moon with rising light
Made all the convent towers as clear as day,
While still in deepest shade the village lay.
Both light and shadow with repose were filled,
The village sounds, the convent bells were stilled.
No foot in all the streets was now asti...

List, ye who pass by Lyulph's Tower
At eve; how softly then
Doth Aira-force, that torrent hoarse,
Speak from the woody glen!
Fit music for a solemn vale!
And holier seems the ground
To him who catches on the gale
The spirit of a mournful tale,
Embodied in the sound.

Not far from that fair site whereon
The Pleasure-house is reared,
As story says, in antique days
A stern-browed house appeared;
Foil to a Jewel rich in light
There set, and guarded well;
Cage for a Bird of plumage bright,
Sweet-voiced, nor wishing for a flight
Beyond her native dell.

To win this bright Bird from her cage,
To make this Gem their own,
Came Barons bold, with store of gold,
And Knights of high renown;
But one She prized, and only one;
Sir ...