Death

Down the white ward with slow, unswerving tread
He came ere break of day -
A cowl was drawn about his down-bent head,
His misty robes were grey.

And no man even knew that he went by,
None saw or heard him pass;
Softly he moved as clouds drift down the sky,
Or shadows cross the grass.

Close to a little bed where one lay low,
At last he took his stand,
And touched the head that tossed in restless woe
With gentle, outstretched hand.

"When bitterness," he said, "is at an end,
And joy grows far and dim,
I am the angel whom the Lord doth send
To lead men on to Him.

"Past the innumerable stars, my friend,
Past all the winds that blow,
We, too, must travel to our journey's end.
Arise! And let us go!"

"Stay! Stay!" the ...

(A Humble Imitation.)

"And birds of calm sit brooding on the charméd wave."

    It is the noon of night,
    And the world's Great Light
Gone out, she widow-like doth carry her:
    The moon hath veiled her face,
    Nor looks on that dread place
Where He lieth dead in sealéd sepulchre;
    And heaven and hades, emptied, lend
Their flocking multitudes to watch and wait the end.

    Tier above tier they rise,
    Their wings new line the skies,
And shed out comforting light among the stars;
    But they of the other place
    The heavenly signs deface,
The gloomy brand of hell their brightness mars;
    Yet high they sit in thronéd state, -
It is the hour of darkness to them dedicate.

    And first and highest set,
...

(For Alden March)



With drooping sail and pennant
That never a wind may reach,
They float in sunless waters
Beside a sunless beach.
Their mighty masts and funnels
Are white as driven snow,
And with a pallid radiance
Their ghostly bulwarks glow.

Here is a Spanish galleon
That once with gold was gay,
Here is a Roman trireme
Whose hues outshone the day.
But Tyrian dyes have faded,
And prows that once were bright
With rainbow stains wear only
Death's livid, dreadful white.

White as the ice that clove her
That unforgotten day,
Among her pallid sisters
The grim Titanic lay.
And through the leagues above her
She looked aghast, and said:
"What is this living ship that comes
Where every ship is dead?"...

Thou who wouldst see the lovely and the wild
Mingled in harmony on Nature's face,
Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot
Fail not with weariness, for on their tops
The beauty and the majesty of earth,
Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget
The steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand'st,
The haunts of men below thee, and around
The mountain summits, thy expanding heart
Shall feel a kindred with that loftier world
To which thou art translated, and partake
The enlargement of thy vision. Thou shalt look
Upon the green and rolling forest tops,
And down into the secrets of the glens,
And streams, that with their bordering thickets strive
To hide their windings. Thou shalt gaze, at once,
Here on white villages, and tilth, and herds,
And swarming r...

Frederick leaves the land of France,
Homeward hastes his steps to measure,
Careless casts the parting glance
On the scene of former pleasure.

Joying in his prancing steed,
Keen to prove his untried blade,
Hope's gay dreams the soldier lead
Over mountain, moor, and glade.

Helpless, ruin'd, left forlorn,
Lovely Alice wept alone;
Mourn'd o'er love's fond contract torn,
Hope, and peace, and honour flown.

Mark her breast's convulsive throbs!
See, the tear of anguish flows!
Mingling soon with bursting sobs,
Loud the laugh of frenzy rose.

Wild she cursed, and wild she pray'd;
Seven long days and nights are o'er;
Death in pity brought his aid,
As the village bell struck four.

Far from her, and far from France,
Fai...

Ah! hapless stranger! who, without a tear,
Can this sad record of thy fate survey?
No angry tempest laid thee breathless here,
Nor hostile sword, nor Nature's mild decay.

The fond companion of thy pilgrim feet,
Who watch'd thee in thy sleep, who moan'd if miss'd,
And sprung with such delight his Lord to greet,
Imbu'd with death the hand he oft had kiss'd.

And here, remov'd from Love's lamenting eye,
Far from thy native cat'racts' awful sound,
Far from thy dusky forests' pensive sigh,
Thy poor remains repose on alien ground;
Yet Pity oft shall sit beside thy stone,
And sigh as tho' she mourn'd a brother gone.

Death stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear:
Of his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear.

PART SECOND

We left our Hero in a trance,
Beneath the alders, near the river;
The Ass is by the river-side,
And, where the feeble breezes glide,
Upon the stream the moonbeams quiver.

A happy respite! but at length
He feels the glimmering of the moon;
Wakes with glazed eve. and feebly signing
To sink, perhaps, where he is lying,
Into a second swoon!

He lifts his head, he sees his staff;
He touches 'tis to him a treasure!
Faint recollection seems to tell
That he is yet where mortals dwell
A thought received with languid pleasure!

His head upon his elbow propped,
Becoming less and less perplexed,
Sky-ward he looks to rock and wood
And then upon the glassy flood
His wandering eye is fixed.

Thought he, that is ...

"Hospes comesque corporis,
Quae nunc abitis in loca?"

Cease, Wind, to blow
And drive the peopled snow,
And move the haunted arras to and fro,
And moan of things I fear to know
Yet would rend from thee, Wind, before I go
On the blind pilgrimage.
Cease, Wind, to blow.

Thy brother too,
I leave no print of shoe
In all these vasty rooms I rummage through,
No word at threshold, and no clue
Of whence I come and whither I pursue
The search of treasures lost
When time was new.

Thou janitor
Of the dim curtained door,
Stir thy old bones along the dusty floor
Of this unlighted corridor.
Open! I have been this dark way before;
Thy hollow face shall peer
In mine no more. . . . .

Sky, the dear sky!
Ah, ghostly h...

Far off is the sea, and the land is afar:
The low banks reach at the sky,
Seen hence, and are heavenward high;
Though light for the leap of a boy they are,
And the far sea late was nigh.
The fair wild fields and the circling downs,
The bright sweet marshes and meads
All glorious with flowerlike weeds,
The great grey churches, the sea-washed towns,
Recede as a dream recedes.
The world draws back, and the world's light wanes,
As a dream dies down and is dead;
And the clouds and the gleams overhead
Change, and change; and the sea remains,
A shadow of dreamlike dread.
Wild, and woful, and pale, and grey,
A shadow of sleepless fear,
A corpse with the night for bier,
The fairest thing that beholds the day
Lies haggard and hopeless here.
And the w...

When some beloved voice that was to you
Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly,
And silence, against which you dare not cry,
Aches round you like a strong disease and new
What hope? what help? what music will undo
That silence to your sense? Not friendship's sigh,
Not reason's subtle count; not melody
Of viols, nor of pipes that Faunus blew;
Not songs of poets, nor of nightingales
Whose hearts leap upward through the cypress-trees
To the clear moon; nor yet the spheric laws
Self-chanted, nor the angels' sweet 'All hails,'
Met in the smile of God: nay, none of these.
Speak thou, availing Christ! and fill this pause.

I

One by one they go
Into the unknown dark--
Star-lit brows of the brave,
Voices that drew men's souls.
Rich is the land, O Death!
Can give you dead like our dead!--
Such as he from whose hand
The magic web of romance
Slipt, and the art was lost!
Such as he who erewhile--
The last of the Titan brood--
With his thunder the Senate shook;
Or he who, beside the Charles,
Untoucht of envy or hate,
Tranced the world with his song;
Or that other, that gray-eyed seer
Who in pastoral Concord ways
With Plato and Hafiz walked.


II

Not of these was the man
Whose wraith, through the mists of night,
Through the shuddering wintry stars,
Has passed to eternal morn.
Fit were the moan of the sea
And the clashing...

But, Song, arise thee on a greater wing,
Nor twitter robin-like of love, nor sing
A pretty dalliance with grief - but try
Some metre like a sky,
Wherein to set
Stars that may linger yet
When I, thy master, shall have come to die.
        Twitter and tweet
            Thy carollings
            Of little things,
        Of fair and sweet;
        For it is meet,
            O robin red!
        That little theme
            Hath little song,
            That little head
        Hath little dream,
            And long.
But we have starry business, such a grief
As Autumn's, dead by some forgotten sheaf,
While all the distance echoes of the wain;
Grief as an ocean's for some sudden isle
Of living green that stayed with it a while,

The old priest Peter Gilligan
Was weary night and day;
For half his flock were in their beds,
Or under green sods lay.
Once, while he nodded on a chair,
At the moth-hour of eve,
Another poor man sent for him,
And he began to grieve.
"I have no rest, nor joy, nor peace,
For people die and die";
And after cried he, "God forgive!
My body spake, not I!"
He knelt, and leaning on the chair
He prayed and fell asleep;
And the moth-hour went from the fields,
And stars began to peep.
They slowly into millions grew,
And leaves shook in the wind;
And God covered the world with shade,
And whispered to mankind.
Upon the time of sparrow-chirp
When the moths came once more.
The old priest Peter Gilligan
Stood upright on the floor.
"Mavr...

Sad is old Ben Thistlewaite,
Now his day is done,
And all his children
Far away are gone.

He sits beneath his jasmined porch,
His stick between his knees,
His eyes fixed vacant
On his moss-grown trees.

Grass springs in the green path,
His flowers are lean and dry,
His thatch hangs in wisps against
The evening sky.

He has no heart to care now,
Though the winds will blow
Whistling in his casement,
And the rain drip thro'.

He thinks of his old Bettie,
How she'd shake her head and say,
'You'll live to wish my sharp old tongue
Could scold - some day,'

But as in pale high autumn skies
The swallows float and play,
His restless thoughts pass to and fro,
But nowhere stay.

Soft, on the morrow, t...

I measure every grief I meet
With analytic eyes;
I wonder if it weighs like mine,
Or has an easier size.

I wonder if they bore it long,
Or did it just begin?
I could not tell the date of mine,
It feels so old a pain.

I wonder if it hurts to live,
And if they have to try,
And whether, could they choose between,
They would not rather die.

I wonder if when years have piled --
Some thousands -- on the cause
Of early hurt, if such a lapse
Could give them any pause;

Or would they go on aching still
Through centuries above,
Enlightened to a larger pain
By contrast with the love.

The grieved are many, I am told;
The reason deeper lies, --
Death is but one and comes but once,
And only nails the eyes.

IF there's a tale more common than the rest,
The one I mean to give is such confessed.
Why choose it then? you ask; at whose desire?
Hast not enough already tuned thy lyre?
What favour can thy MATRON now expect,
Since novelty thou clearly dost neglect?
Besides, thou'lt doubtless raise the critick's rage.
See if it looks more modern in my page.

AT Ephesus, in former times, once shone,
A fair, whose charms would dignify a throne;
And, if to publick rumour credit 's due,
Celestial bliss her husband with her knew.
Naught else was talked of but her beauteous face,
And chastity that adds the highest grace;
From ev'ry quarter numbers flocked to see
This belle, regarded as from errors free.
The honour of her sex, and country too;
As such, old mothers held h...

    Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene?
        How I so found it full of pleasing charms?
    Some drops of joy with draughts of ill between:
        Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms:
    Is it departing pangs my soul alarms?
        Or Death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode?
    For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms;
        I tremble to approach an angry God,
    And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod.

    Fain would I say, "Forgive my foul offence!"
        Fain promise never more to disobey;
    But, should my Author health again dispense,
        Again I might desert fair virtue's way:
    Again in folly's path might go astray;
        Again exalt the brute and sink the man;
    Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray,