Dreams

Why reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing?
What deepening twilight! scum floating atop of the waters!
Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the Capitol?
What a filthy Presidentiad! (O south, your torrid suns! O north, your arctic freezings!)
Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that the President?
Then I will sleep awhile yet for I see that These States sleep, for reasons;
(With gathering murk with muttering thunder and lambent shoots, we all duly awake,
South, north, east, west, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)

God made a little gentian;
It tried to be a rose
And failed, and all the summer laughed.
But just before the snows
There came a purple creature
That ravished all the hill;
And summer hid her forehead,
And mockery was still.
The frosts were her condition;
The Tyrian would not come
Until the North evoked it.
"Creator! shall I bloom?"

Ye children of the Land of Gold,
I sing a song to you,
And if the jokes are somewhat old,
The main idea is new.
So be it sung, by hut and tent,
Where tall the native grows;
And understand, the song is meant
For singing through the nose.

There dwelt a hard old cockatoo
On western hills far out,
Where everything is green and blue,
Except, of course, in drought;
A crimson Anarchist was he,
Held other men in scorn,
Yet preached that ev’ry man was free,
And also ‘ekal born.’

He lived in his ancestral hut,
His missus wasn’t there,
And there was no one with him but
His daughter, Mabel Clare.
Her eyes and hair were like the sun;
Her foot was like a mat;
Her cheeks a trifle overdone;
She was a democrat.

A manly ...

There is no escape by the river,
There is no flight left by the fen;
We are compassed about by the shiver
Of the night of their marching men.
Give a cheer!
For our hearts shall not give way.
Here's to a dark to-morrow,
And here's to a brave to-day!

The tale of their hosts is countless,
And the tale of ours a score;
But the palm is naught to the dauntless,
And the cause is more and more.
Give a cheer!
We may die, but not give way.
Here's to a silent morrow,
And here's to a stout to-day!

God has said: "Ye shall fail and perish;
But the thrill ye have felt to-night
I shall keep in my heart and cherish
When the worlds have passed in night."
Give a cheer!
For the soul shall not give way.
Here's to the greater to-morrow

    I cannot loiter on my way,
        The ice is drifting through Belle Isle,
    And far to seaward by Cape Ray
        Broad leagues of open water smile.
    Unheeded now, the inland barge
        Creeps heavily, the fisher dips
    His meshes in my brimming marge;
        I go to meet the coming ships.

    They steam from Thames by Dover Strait,
        They cleave the Bristol Channel's tide,
    They pass the Mersey's thronging gate,
        And issue from the crowded Clyde.
    Out past the homing craft they sheer,
        The Irish coastline by them slips;
    Ere many days they will be here:
        I go to meet the coming ships.

    Full-fraught with wealth of merchandise,
        They plough the main with furrows deep;
    Upon ...

In fairyland the little boys
Would rather fight than eat their meals.
They like to chase a gauze-winged fly
And catch and beat him till he squeals.
Sometimes they come to sleeping men
Armed with the deadly red-rose thorn,
And those that feel its fearful wound
Repent the day that they were born.

O'er hill, and dale, and distant sea,
Through all the miles that stretch between,
My thought must fly to rest on thee,
And would, though worlds should intervene.

Nay, thou art now so dear, methinks
The farther we are forced apart,
Affection's firm elastic links
But bind the closer round the heart.

For now we sever each from each,
I learned what I have lost in thee;
Alas, that nothing else could teach
How great indeed my love should be!

Farewell! I did not know thy worth;
But thou art gone, and now 'tis prized:
So angels walk'd unknown on earth,
But when they flew were recognized!

Not he, O MUSE! whom thy auspicious eyes
    In his primeval hour beheld,
Shall victor in the Isthmian Contest rise;
    Nor o'er the long-resounding field
Impetuous steeds his kindling wheels shall roll,
Gay in th' Olympic Race, and foremost at the goal.

Nor in the Capitol, triumphant shown,
    The victor-laurel on his brow,
For Cities storm'd, and vaunting Kings o'erthrown; -
    But Tibur's streams, that warbling flow,
And groves of fragrant gloom, resound his strains,
Whose sweet Æolian grace high celebration gains.

Now that his name, her noblest Bards among,
    Th' imperial City loudly hails,
That proud distinction guards his rising song,
    When Envy's carping tongue assails;
In sullen silence now she hears his praise,
Nor sheds her c...

Come, if thou'rt cold to Summer's charms,
Her clouds of green, her starry flowers,
And let this bird, this wandering bird,
Make his fine wonder yours;
He, hiding in the leaves so green,
When sampling this fair world of ours,
Cries cuckoo, clear; and like Lot's wife,
I look, though it should cost my life.

When I can hear that charmed one's voice,
I taste of immortality;
My joy's so great that on my heart
Doth lie eternity,
As light as any little flower,
So strong a wonder works in me;
Cuckoo! he cries, and fills my soul
With all that's rich and beautiful.

And yet I fear lest men who read these lines,
Should judge of them as if they wholly spake
The love I bear Thee and thy holy sake;
Saying: "He doth the high name wrong who twines
Earth's highest aim with Him, and thus combines
Jesus and Art." But I my refuge make
In what the Word said: "Man his life shall take
From every word:" in Art God first designs,--
He spoke the word. And let me humbly speak
My faith, that Art is nothing to the act,
Lowliest, that to the Truth bears witness meek,
Renownless, even unknown, but yet a fact:
The glory of thy childhood and thy youth,
Was not that Thou didst show, but didst the Truth.

I.

January

Shaggy with skins of frost-furred gray and drab,
Harsh, hoary hair framing a bitter face,
He bends above the dead Year's fireplace
Nursing the last few embers of its slab
To sullen glow: from pinched lips, cold and crab,
The starved flame shrinks; his breath, like a menáce,
Shrieks in the flue, fluttering its sooty lace,
Piercing the silence like an icy stab.
From rheum-gnarled knees he rises, slow with cold,
And to the frost-bound window, muttering, goes,
With iron knuckles knocking on the pane;
And, lo! outside, his minions manifold
Answer the summons: wolf-like shapes of woes,
Hunger and suffering, trooping to his train.

II.

February

Gray-muffled to his eyes in rags of cloud,
His whip of winds forever ...

Ne'er talk of Wisdom's gloomy schools;
    Give me the sage who's able
To draw his moral thoughts and rules
    From the study of the table;--
Who learns how lightly, fleetly pass
    This world and all that's in it.
From the bumper that but crowns his glass,
    And is gone again next minute!

The diamond sleeps within the mine,
    The pearl beneath the water;
While Truth, more precious, dwells in wine.
    The grape's own rosy daughter.
And none can prize her charms like him,
    Oh, none like him obtain her,
Who thus can, like Leander, swim
    Thro' sparkling floods to gain her!

By the old tavern door on the causey there lay
A hogshead of stingo just rolled from a dray,
And there stood the blacksmith awaiting a drop
As dry as the cinders that lay in his shop;
And there stood the cobbler as dry as a bun,
Almost crackt like a bucket when left in the sun.
He'd whetted his knife upon pendil and hone
Till he'd not got a spittle to moisten the stone;
So ere he could work--though he'd lost the whole day--
He must wait the new broach and bemoisten his clay.

The cellar was empty, each barrel was drained
To its dregs--and Sir John like a rebel remained
In the street--for removal too powerful and large
For two or three topers to take into charge.
Odd zooks, said a gipsey, with bellows to mend,
Had I strength I would just be for helping a friend...

    We never say, "Good Night;"
For our eager lips are fleeter
Than the tongue, and a kiss is sweeter
    Than parting words,
    That out like swords;
So we always kiss Good Night.

    We never say "Good Night."
Words are precious, love, why lose 'em?
Fold them up in your maiden bosom;
    There let them rest,
    Like love unconfessed,
While we kiss a sweet Good Night.

    There comes a last Good Night.
Human life - not love - is fleeting;
Heaven send many a birth-day greeting;
    Dim years roll on
    To life's gray-haired dawn,
Ere we kiss our last Good Night.

            -    -    -

    We've kissed our last Good Night!
Love's warm tendrils torn and bleeding,
Vain all human interceding!
    Oh, life! ...

Dell' aureo albergo con l' Aurora innanzi.


    Behind Aurora's wheels the rising sun
His voyage from his golden shrine begun,
With such ethereal speed, as if the Hours
Had caught him slumb'ring in her rosy bowers.
With lordly eye, that reach'd the world's extreme,
Methought he look'd, when, gliding on his beam,
That wingèd power approach'd that wheels his car
In its wide annual range from star to star,
Measuring vicissitude; till, now more near,
Methought these thrilling accents met my ear:--
"New laws must be observed if mortals claim,
Spite of the lapse of time, eternal fame.
Those laws have lost their force that Heaven decreed,
And I my circle run with fruitless speed;
If fame's loud breath the slumb'ring dust inspire,
And bid to live wit...

Tune - "Lass an I come near thee."


I.

    Wha is that at my bower door?
        O, wha is it but Findlay?
    Then gae your gate, ye'se nae be here!
        Indeed, maun I, quo' Findlay.
    What mak ye sae like a thief?
        O come and see, quo' Findlay;
    Before the morn ye'll work mischief;
        Indeed will I, quo' Findlay.

II.

    Gif I rise and let you in?
        Let me in, quo' Findlay;
    Ye'll keep me waukin wi' your din;
        Indeed will I, quo' Findlay.
    In my bower if you should stay?
        Let me stay, quo' Findlay;
    I fear ye'll bide till break o' day;
        Indeed will I, quo' Findlay.

III.

    Here this night if ye remain;
        I'll remain, quo' F...

For the seven times seventh time love would renew the delight without end or alloy
That it takes in the praise as it takes in the presence of eyes that fulfil it with joy;
But how shall it praise them and rest unrebuked by the presence and pride of the boy?
Praise meet for a child is unmeet for an elder whose winters and springs are nine
What song may have strength in its wings to expand them, or light in its eyes to shine,
That shall seem not as weakness and darkness if matched with the theme I would fain make mine?
The round little flower of a face that exults in the sunshine of shadowless days
Defies the delight it enkindles to sing of it aught not unfit for the praise
Of the sweetest of all things that eyes may rejoice in and tremble with love as they gaze.
Such tricks and such meanings abo...

    My glass is filled, my pipe is lit,
    My den is all a cosy glow;
    And snug before the fire I sit,
    And wait to FEEL the old year go.
    I dedicate to solemn thought
    Amid my too-unthinking days,
    This sober moment, sadly fraught
    With much of blame, with little praise.

    Old Year! upon the Stage of Time
    You stand to bow your last adieu;
    A moment, and the prompter's chime
    Will ring the curtain down on you.
    Your mien is sad, your step is slow;
    You falter as a Sage in pain;
    Yet turn, Old Year, before you go,
    And face your audience again.

    That sphinx-like face, remote, austere,
    Let us all read, whate'er the cost:
    O Maiden! why that bitter tear?
    Is it for dear one ...