Family

Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air

That crossed me from sweet things,
The flow of was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Downhill at dusk?

I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they're gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle.

I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.

Now no joy but lacks salt,
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain

Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.

When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it har...

I must leave thee, lady sweet
Months shall waste before we meet;
Winds are fair and sails are spread,
Anchors leave their ocean bed;
Ere this shining day grow dark,
Skies shall gird my shoreless bark.
Through thy tears, O lady mine,
Read thy lover's parting line.

When the first sad sun shall set,
Thou shalt tear thy locks of jet;
When the morning star shall rise,
Thou shalt wake with weeping eyes;
When the second sun goes down,
Thou more tranquil shalt be grown,
Taught too well that wild despair
Dims thine eyes and spoils thy hair.

All the first unquiet week
Thou shalt wear a smileless cheek;
In the first month's second half
Thou shalt once attempt to laugh;
Then in Pickwick thou shalt dip,
Slightly puckering round the lip,...

I said I will go back again where we
Were glad together. But my dear, my dear,
Where are the roses we were wont to see
The songs we used to hear?

I said the hearth-flame that once burned for us
I will renew with all the cheer of old,
Yet here within the circle luminous
Our very hearts are cold.

That was a barren garden that we found,
This was an empty house we came to meet,
We, who for all our longing, hear no sound
Of Love's returning feet.

Gift from the cold and silent Past!
A relic to the present cast,
Left on the ever-changing strand
Of shifting and unstable sand,
Which wastes beneath the steady chime
And beating of the waves of Time!
Who from its bed of primal rock
First wrenched thy dark, unshapely block?
Whose hand, of curious skill untaught,
Thy rude and savage outline wrought?
The waters of my native stream
Are glancing in the sun's warm beam;
From sail-urged keel and flashing oar
The circles widen to its shore;
And cultured field and peopled town
Slope to its willowed margin down.
Yet, while this morning breeze is bringing
The home-life sound of school-bells ringing,
And rolling wheel, and rapid jar
Of the fire-winged and steedless car,
And voices from the wayside nea...

Alas! they have left me all alone
By the receding tide;
But oh! the countless multitudes
Upon the other side!

The loved, the lost, the cherished ones,
Who dwelt with us awhile,
To scatter sunbeams on our path,
And make the desert smile.

The other side! how fair it is!
Its loveliness untold,
Its "every several gate a pearl,"
Its streets are paved with gold.

Its sun shall never more go down,
For there is no night there!
And oh! what heavenly melodies
Are floating through the air!

How sweet to join the ransomed ones
On the other side the flood,
And sing a song of praise to Him
Who washed us in His blood.

Ten thousand times ten thousand
Are hymning the new song!
O Father, join Thy weary child
To that...

Ah! sweet romantic spot, adieu!
Ere your green fields again I view,
These looks may change their youthful hue.

Dependence sternly bids me part
From all that ye, lov'd scenes! impart,
Far from my treasure and my heart.

Tho' winter shall your bloom invade,
Fancy may visit ev'ry shade,
Each bow'r shall kiss the wand'ring maid.

To busier scenes of life I fly,
Where many smile, where many sigh,
As Chance, not Worth, turns up the die.

"Where art thou wandering, little child?"
I said to one I met to-day--
She push'd her bonnet up and smil'd,
"I'm going upon the green to play:
Folks tell me that the May's in flower,
That cowslip-peeps are fit to pull,
And I've got leave to spend an hour
To get this little basket full."

--And thou'st got leave to spend an hour !
My heart repeated--she was gone;
--And thou hast heard the thorn's in flower,
And childhood bliss is urging on:
Ah, happy child! thou mak'st me sigh,
This once as happy heart of mine,
Would nature with the boon comply,
How gladly would I change for thine.

    Youth has no fear of ill, by no cloudy days annoyed,
    But the old man's all hath fled, and his hopes have met their doom:
    The bud hath burst to flower, and the flower been long destroyed,
    The root also is withered; I no more can look for bloom.
    So I have said my say, and I have had my day,
    And sorrow, like a young storm, creeps dark upon my brow;
    Hopes, like to summer clouds, have all blown far away,
    And the world's sunny side is turned over with me now,
    And I am left a lame bird upon a withered bough.

    I look upon the past: 't is as black as winter days,
    But the worst is not yet over; there are blacker, days to come.
    O, I would I had but known of the wide world's many ways,
    But youth is ever blind, so I e'en must meet my do...

The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry
Came loud, and hark, again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame
Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;
Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,<...

The dead are in their silent graves,
And the dew is cold above,
And the living weep and sigh,
Over dust that once was love.

Once I only wept the dead,
But now the living cause my pain:
How couldst thou steal me from my tears,
To leave me to my tears again?

My Mother rests beneath the sod, -
Her rest is calm and very deep:
I wish'd that she could see our loves, -
But now I gladden in her sleep.

Last night unbound my raven locks,
The morning saw them turned to gray,
Once they were black and well beloved,
But thou art changed, - and so are they!

The useless lock I gave thee once,
To gaze upon and think of me,
Was ta'en with smiles, - but this was torn
In sorrow that I send to thee!

I.

                        Broken!
    It's only a ring - a plain, old ring,
        Worn down to a thread almost -
    Fling it away - the useless thing!
        What value now can it boast? -
                Fling it away!
            Yet stay! - oh stay
                Ere you cast it away!
        There's a tale of the vanished years
            That ever will cling,
                To that broken ring,
        That hallows and endears -
                        Oh stay!
In vain! - in vain! - What matters it now
    That tenderest memories cling
To that thread of gold so wasted and old -
    Who cares for a broken ring? -
                Fling it away!


II.

                        Broken!
    It's only a vase ...

    Do you remember, Leda?


    There are those who love, to whom Love brings
    Great gladness: such thing have not I.
    Love looks and has no mercy, brings
    Long doom to others.    Such was I.
    Heart breaking hand upon the lute,
    Touching one note only ... such were you.
    Who shall play now upon that lute
    Long last made musical by you?
    Sharp bird-beak in the swelling fruit,
    Blind frost upon the eyes of flowers.
    Who shall now praise the shrivelled fruit,
    Or raise the eyelids of those flowers?

    I dare not watch that hidden pool,
    Nor see the wild bird's sudden wing
    Lifting the wide, brown, shaken pool,
    But round me falls that secret wing,
    And in that sharp, perverse, sweet pain

My father-in-law is a careworn man,
And a silent man is he;
But he summons a smile as well as he can
Whenever he meets with me.
The sign we make with a silent shake
That speaks of the days gone by,
Like men who meet at a funeral,
My father-in-law and I.

My father-in-law is a sober man
(And a virtuous man, I think);
But we spare a shilling whenever we can,
And we both drop in for a drink.
Our pints they fill, and we say, “Ah, well!”
With the sound of the world-old sigh,
Like the drink that comes after a funeral,
My father-in-law and I.

My father-in-law is a kindly man,
A domestic man is he.
He tries to look cheerful as well as he can
Whenever he meets with me.
But we stand and think till the second drink
In a silence that mi...

I dare not spoil this spotless page
With any feeble verse of mine;
The Poet's fire has lost its rage,
Around his lyre no myrtles twine.

The voice of fame cannot recal
Those fairy days of past delight,
When pleasure seem'd to welcome all,
And morning hail'd a welcome night.

E'en love has lost its soothing power,
Its spells no more can chain my soul;
I must not venture in the bower,
Where Wit and Verse and Wine controul.

And yet, I fear, in thoughtless mirth
I once did say, Eliza, dear!
That I would tell the world thy worth,
And write the living record here.

Come Love, and Truth, and Friendship, come,
Enwreath'd in Virtue's snowy arms,
With magic rhymes the page illume,
And fancy sketch her varied charms--

Which ...

Love scatters oil
On Life's dark sea,
Sweetens its toil--
Our helmsman he.

Around him hover
Odorous clouds;
Under this cover
His arrows he shrouds.

The cloud was around me,
I knew not why
Such sweetness crowned me.
While Time shot by.

No pain was within,
But calm delight,
Like a world without sin,
Or a day without night.

The shafts of the god
Were tipped with down,
For they drew no blood,
And they knit no frown.

I knew of them not
Until Cupid laughed loud,
And saying "You're caught!"
Flew off in the cloud.

O then I awoke,
And I lived but to sigh,
Till a clear voice spoke,--
And my tears are dry.

Only in sleep I see their faces,
Children I played with when I was a child,
Louise comes back with her brown hair braided,
Annie with ringlets warm and wild.

Only in sleep Time is forgotten,
What may have come to them, who can know?
Yet we played last night as long ago,
And the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair.

The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces,
I met their eyes and found them mild,
Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder,
And for them am I too a child?

Sweet, be not proud of those two eyes,
Which, star-like, sparkle in their skies;
Nor be you proud, that you can see
All hearts your captives, yours, yet free;
Be you not proud of that rich hair
Which wantons with the love-sick air;
When as that ruby which you wear,
Sunk from the tip of your soft ear,
Will last to be a precious stone,
When all your world of beauty's gone.

I hid my love when young till I
Couldn’t bear the buzzing of a fly;
I hid my love to my despite
Till I could not bear to look at light:
I dare not gaze upon her face
But left her memory in each place;
Where’er I saw a wild flower lie
I kissed and bade my love good-bye.

I met her in the greenest dells,
Where dewdrops pearl the wood bluebells;
The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye,
The bee kissed and went singing by,
A sunbeam found a passage there,
A gold chain round her neck so fair;
As secret as the wild bee’s song
She lay there all the summer long.

I hid my love in field and town
Till e’en the breeze would knock me down;
The bees seemed singing ballads o’er,
The fly’s bass turned a lion’s roar;
And even silence found a to...