Dreams

I mind me in the days departed,
How often underneath the sun
With childish bounds I used to run
To a garden long deserted.

The beds and walks were vanished quite;
And wheresoe'er had struck the spade,
The greenest grasses Nature laid
To sanctify her right.

I called the place my wilderness,
For no one entered there but I;
The sheep looked in, the grass to espy,
And passed it ne'ertheless.

The trees were interwoven wild,
And spread their boughs enough about
To keep both sheep and shepherd out,
But not a happy child.

Adventurous joy it was for me!
I crept beneath the boughs, and found
A circle smooth of mossy ground
Beneath a poplar tree.

Old garden rose-trees hedged it in,
Bedropt with roses waxen-white

(For Aline)



Homer, they tell us, was blind and could not see the beautiful faces
    Looking up into his own and reflecting the joy of his dream,
    Yet did he seem
Gifted with eyes that could follow the gods to their holiest places.

I have no vision of gods, not of Eros with love-arrows laden,
    Jupiter thundering death or of Juno his white-breasted queen,
    Yet have I seen
All of the joy of the world in the innocent heart of a maiden.

As to a child, I talked my heart asleep
With empty promise of the coming day,
And it slept rather for my words made sleep
Than from a thought of what their sense did say.
For did it care for sense, would it not wake
And question closer to the morrow's pleasure?
Would it not edge nearer my words, to take
The promise in the meting of its measure?
So, if it slept, 'twas that it cared but for
The present sleepy use of promised joy,
Thanking the fruit but for the forecome flower
Which the less active senses best enjoy.
    Thus with deceit do I detain the heart
    Of which deceit's self knows itself a part.

Within our happy Castle there dwelt One
Whom without blame I may not overlook;
For never sun on living creature shone
Who more devout enjoyment with us took:
Here on his hours he hung as on a book,
On his own time here would he float away,
As doth a fly upon a summer brook;
But go to-morrow, or belike to-day,
Seek for him, he is fled; and whither none can say.

Thus often would he leave our peaceful home,
And find elsewhere his business or delight;
Out of our Valley's limits did he roam:
Full many a time, upon a stormy night,
His voice came to us from the neighbouring height:
Oft could we see him driving full in view
At mid-day when the sun was shining bright;
What ill was on him, what he had to do,
A mighty wonder bred among our quiet crew.

Hers was a lonely, shadowed lot;
Or so the unperceiving thought,
Who looked no deeper than her face,
Devoid of chiselled lines of grace -
No farther than her humble grate,
And wondered how she bore her fate.

Yet she was neither lone nor sad;
So much of love her spirit had,
She found an ever-flowing spring
Of happiness in everything.

So near to her was Nature's heart
It seemed a very living part
Of her own self; and bud and blade,
And heat and cold, and sun and shade,
And dawn and sunset, Spring and Fall,
Held raptures for her, one and all.

The year's four changing seasons brought
To her own door what thousands sought
In wandering ways and did not find -
Diversion and content of mind.

She loved the tasks that filled e...

    I.

    A pale green sky is gleaming;
    The steely stars are few;
    The moorland pond is steaming
    A mist of gray and blue.

    Along the pathway lonely
    My horse is walking slow;
    Three living creatures only,
    He, I, and a home-bound crow!

    The moon is hardly shaping
    Her circle in the fog;
    A dumb stream is escaping
    Its prison in the bog.

    But in my heart are ringing
    Tones of a lofty song;
    A voice that I know, is singing,
    And my heart all night must long.


    II.

    Over a shining land--
    Once such a land I knew--
    Over its sea, by a soft wind fanned,
    The sky is all white and blue.

    The waves are kissing the shores,
...

I

Love is the light of the world, my dear,
Heigho, but the world is gloomy;
The light has failed and the lamp down hurled,
Leaves only darkness to me.

Love is the light of the world, my dear,
Ah me, but the world is dreary;
The night is down, and my curtain furled
But I cannot sleep, though weary.

Love is the light of the world, my dear,
Alas for a hopeless hoping,
When the flame went out in the breeze that swirled,
And a soul went blindly groping.


II

The light was on the golden sands,
A glimmer on the sea;
My soul spoke clearly to thy soul,
Thy spirit answered me.

Since then the light that gilds the sands,
And glimmers on the sea,
But vainly struggles to reflect
The radiant soul of thee.
...

Long through the night hours sorrow was my guest
And would not let my fainting body rest,
Till just ere dawn from out its slow dominions
Flew sleep to wrap me in its dear dusk pinions.
And then it was my mother did appear
Before mine eyes in vision doubly dear;
For in her arms she held my darling one,
My Ursula, just as she used to run
To me at dawn to say her morning prayer,
In her white nightgown, with her curling hair
Framing her rosy face, her eyes about
To laugh, like flowers only halfway out.
        "Art thou still sorrowing, my son?" Thus spoke
My mother. Sighing bitterly, I woke,
Or seemed to wake, and heard her say once more:
        "It is thy weeping brings me to this shore:
Thy lamentations, long uncomforted,
Have reached the hidden chambers ...

Poor and inadequate the shadow-play
Of gain and loss, of waking and of dream,
Against life’s solemn background needs must seem
At this late hour. Yet, not unthankfully,
I call to mind the fountains by the way,
The breath of flowers, the bird-song on the spray,
Dear friends, sweet human loves, the joy of giving
And of receiving, the great boon of living
In grand historic years when Liberty
Had need of word and work, quick sympathies
For all who fail and suffer, song’s relief,
Nature’s uncloying loveliness; and chief,
The kind restraining hand of Providence,
The inward witness, the assuring sense
Of an Eternal Good which overlies
The sorrow of the world, Love which outlives
All sin and wrong, Compassion which forgives
To the uttermost, and Justice whose cle...

        You will forget me. The years are so tender,
    They bind up the wounds which we think are so deep;
        This dream of our youth will fade out as the splendor
    Fades from the skies when the sun sinks to sleep;
        The cloud of forgetfulness, over and over
    Will banish the last rosy colors away,
        And the fingers of time will weave garlands to cover
    The scar which you think is a life-mark to-day.

        You will forget me. The one boon you covet
    Now above all things will soon seem no prize;
        And the heart, which you hold not in keeping to prove it
    True or untrue, will lose worth in your eyes.
        The one drop to-day, that you deem only wanting
    To fill your life-cup to the brim, soon will seem
        But a val...

I.

Vex not thou the poet’s mind
With thy shallow wit;
Vex not thou the poet’s mind,
For thou canst not fathom it.
Clear and bright it should be ever,
Flowing like a crystal river,
Bright as light, and clear as wind.


II.

Dark-brow’d sophist, come not anear;
All the place is holy ground;
Hollow smile and frozen sneer
Come not here.
Holy water will I pour
Into every spicy flower
Of the laurel-shrubs that hedge it around.
The flowers would faint at your cruel cheer.
In your eye there is death,
There is frost in your breath
Which would blight the plants.
Where you stand you cannot hear
From the groves within
The wild-bird’s din.
In the heart of the garden the merry bird chants.
It would fall to the gro...

The Sky Line.

Like black fangs in a cruel ogre's jaw
    The grim piles lift against the sunset sky;
Down drops the night, and shuts the horrid maw--
    I listen, breathless, but there comes no cry.


Defeat.

He sits and looks into the west
    Where twilight gathers, wan and gray,
A knight who quit the Golden Quest,
    And flung Excalibur away.


To an Amazon.

O! twain in spirit, we shall know
    Thy like no more, so fierce, so mild,
One breast shorn clean to rest the bow,
    One milk-full for thy warrior child.


The Old Mother.

Life is like an old mother whom trouble and toil
Have sufficed the best part of her nature to spoil,
Whom her children, the Passions, so ...

Fill for me a brimming bowl
And in it let me drown my soul:
But put therein some drug, designed
To Banish Women from my mind:
For I want not the stream inspiring
That fills the mind with—fond desiring,
But I want as deep a draught
As e'er from Lethe's wave was quaff'd;
From my despairing heart to charm
The Image of the fairest form
That e'er my reveling eyes beheld,
That e'er my wandering fancy spell'd.
In vain! away I cannot chace
The melting softness of that face,
The beaminess of those bright eyes,
That breast—earth's only Paradise.
My sight will never more be blest;
For all I see has lost its zest:
Nor with delight can I explore,
The Classic page, or Muse's lore.
Had she but known how beat my heart,
And with one smile reliev'd its ...

Clear was the night: the moon was young:
The larkspurs in the plots
Mingled their orange with the gold
Of the forget-me-nots.

The poppies seemed a silver mist:
So darkly fell the gloom.
You scarce had guessed yon crimson streaks
Were buttercups in bloom.

But one thing moved: a little child
Crashed through the flower and fern:
And all my soul rose up to greet
The sage of whom I learn.

I looked into his awful eyes:
I waited his decree:
I made ingenious attempts
To sit upon his knee.

The babe upraised his wondering eyes,
And timidly he said,
"A trend towards experiment
In modern minds is bred.

"I feel the will to roam, to learn
By test, experience, _nous_,
That fire is hot and ocean deep,
And wolves...

Letter IX. To-Morrow.


I.

    O Love! O Love! O Gateway of Delight!
    Thou porch of peace, thou pageant of the prime
    Of all God's creatures! I am here to climb
    Thine upward steps, and daily and by night
    To gaze beyond them, and to search aright
    The far-off splendour of thy track sublime.


II.

    For, in thy precincts, on the further side,
    Beyond the turret where the bells are rung,
    Beyond the chapel where the rites are sung,
    There is a garden fit for any bride.
    O Love! by thee, by thee are sa...

I.

The years have passed in ceaseless round
    Since first they laid her here to rest
In dreamless sleep beneath the silent mound,
    With folded hands upon her gentle breast.


II.

The ivy twines about the crumbling stone,
    And Springtime's scented blossoms fling
Their incense o'er the peaceful home
    That knows no more of suffering.


III.

Full many a Summer's sun has shed
    Its brightest smile upon the hallowed spot,
And sobered Autumn and wild Winter spread
    Their garments here--she heeds them not!


IV.

The feathered wildlings of the wood and field
    Their untaught melody around it make,
But she who sleeps with eyes so softly sealed
    Their gladsome songs can never more a...

We stood by the river that swept
    In its glory and grandeur away;
But never a pulse o' me leapt,
    And you wondered at me that day.

We stood by the lake as it lay
    With its dimpled face turned to the light;
Was it strange I had nothing to say
    To so fair and enchanting a sight?

I look on your tresses of gold -
    You are fair and a thing to be loved -
Do you think I am heartless and cold
    That I look and am wholly unmoved?

One answer, dear friend, I will make
    To the questions your eyes ask of me:
"Talk not of the river or lake
    To those who have looked on the sea"

Himself I read beneath the words he writes ...
I may come back and sing again. - RYAN.


I.

This Bard's to me a whole-souled man
In honesty and might,
For when he sees Wrong in the van
He leaps like any Knight
To horse, and charging on the wrong
Smites it with the great sword of Song.


II.

Beneath the cassock of the Priest
There throbs another heart -
Another - but 'tis not the least -
Which in his Lays takes part,
So that 'mid clash of Swords and Spears
There is no lack of Pity's tears.


III.

This other heart is brave and soft,
As such hearts always are,
And plumes itself, a bird aloft,
When Morning's gates unbar -
Till high it soars above the sod
Bathed in the very light of God.<...