Family

Ah! might I range each hallow'd bower and glade
    Musæus cultur'd, many a raptur'd sigh
    Wou'd that dear, local consciousness supply
    Beneath his willow, in the grotto's shade,
Whose roof his hand with ores and shells inlaid.
    How sweet to watch, with reverential eye,
    Thro' the sparr'd arch, the streams he oft survey'd,
    Thine, blue Thamésis, gently wandering by!
This is the POET's triumph, and it towers
    O'er Life's pale ills, his consciousness of powers
    That lift his memory from Oblivion's gloom,
Secure a train of these heart-thrilling hours
    By his idea deck'd in rapture's bloom,
    For Spirits rightly touch'd, thro' ages yet to come.

    If I did seem to you no more
        Than to myself I seem,
    Not thus you would fling wide the door,
        And on the beggar beam!

    You would not don your radiant best,
        Or dole me more than half!
    Poor palmer I, no angel guest;
        A shaking reed my staff!

    At home, no rich fruit, hanging low,
        Have I for Love to pull;
    Only unripe things that must grow
        Till Autumn's maund be full!

    But I forsake my niggard leas,
        My orchard, too late hoar,
    And wander over lands and seas
        To find the Father's door.

    When I have reached the ancestral farm,
        Have clomb the steepy hill,
    And round me rests the Father's arm,
        Then think me what you will.

The beaver cut his timber
With patient teeth that day,
The minks were fish-wards, and the crows
Surveyors of highway,

When Keezar sat on the hillside
Upon his cobbler’s form,
With a pan of coals on either hand
To keep his waxed-ends warm.

And there, in the golden weather,
He stitched and hammered and sung;
In the brook he moistened his leather,
In the pewter mug his tongue.

Well knew the tough old Teuton
Who brewed the stoutest ale,
And he paid the goodwife’s reckoning
In the coin of song and tale.

The songs they still are singing
Who dress the hills of vine,
The tales that haunt the Brocken
And whisper down the Rhine.

Woodsy and wild and lonesome,
The swift stream wound away,
Through birches and scar...

I.

When in the pansy-purpled stain
Of sunset one far star is seen,
Like some bright drop of rain,
Out of the forest, deep and green,
O'er me at Spirit seems to lean,
The fairest of her train.

II.

The Spirit, dowered with fadeless youth,
Of Lay and Legend, young as when,
Close to her side, in sooth,
She led me from the marts of men,
A child, into her world, which then
To me was true as truth.

III.

Her hair is like the silken husk
That holds the corn, and glints and glows;
Her brow is white as tusk;
Her body like a wilding rose,
And through her gossamer raiment shows
Like starlight closed in musk.

IV.

She smiles at me; she nods at me;
And by her looks I am beguiled
Into the mystery...

Some poets sing of sweethearts dead,
    Some sing of true loves far away;
Some sing of those that others wed,
    And some of idols turned to clay.
    I sing a pensive roundelay
To sweethearts of a doubtful lot,
    The passions vanished in a day,
The little loves that I've forgot.

For, as the happy years have sped,
    And golden dreams have changed to gray,
How oft the flame of love was fed
    By glance, or smile, from Maud or May,
    When wayward Cupid was at play;
Mere fancies, formed of who knows what,
    But still my debt I ne'er can pay,
The little loves that I've forgot.

O joyous hours forever fled!
    O sudden hopes that would not stay!
Held only by the slender thread
    Of memory that's all astray.
    Their ver...

Now nights grow cold and colder,
And North the wild vane swings,
And round each tree and boulder
The driving snow-storm sings -
Come, make my old heart older,
O memory of lost things!

Of Hope, when promise sung her
Brave songs and I was young,
That banquets now on hunger
Since all youth's songs are sung;
Of Love, who walks with younger
Sweethearts the flowers among.

Ah, well! while Life holds levee,
Death's ceaseless dance goes on.
So let the curtains, heavy
About my couch, be drawn -
The curtains, sad and heavy,
Where all shall sleep anon.

To an old air


"O I won't lead a homely life
As father's Jack and mother's Jill,
But I will be a fiddler's wife,
With music mine at will!
Just a little tune,
Another one soon,
As I merrily fling my fill!"

And she became a fiddler's Dear,
And merry all day she strove to be;
And he played and played afar and near,
But never at home played he
Any little tune
Or late or soon;
And sunk and sad was she!

'Tis a bleak wild hill, but green and bright
In the summer warmth and the mid-day light;
There's the hum of the bee and the chirp of the wren,
And the dash of the brook from the alder glen;
There's the sound of a bell from the scattered flock,
And the shade of the beech lies cool on the rock,
And fresh from the west is the free wind's breath,
There is nothing here that speaks of death.

Far yonder, where orchards and gardens lie,
And dwellings cluster, 'tis there men die.
They are born, they die, and are buried near,
Where the populous grave-yard lightens the bier;
For strict and close are the ties that bind
In death the children of human-kind;
Yea, stricter and closer than those of life,
'Tis a neighbourhood that knows no strife.
They are noiselessly gat...

Ill-Fated hour! oft as thy annual reign
Leads on th'autumnal tide, my pinion'd joys
Fade with the glories of the fading year;
"Remembrance 'wakes with all her busy train,"
And bids affection heave the heart-drawn sigh
O'er the cold tomb, rich with the spoils of death,
And wet with many a tributary tear!

Eight times has each successive season sway'd
The fruitful sceptre of our milder clime
Since My Loved ****** died! but why, ah! why
Should melancholy cloud my early years?
Religion spurns earth's visionary scene,
Philosophy revolts at misery's chain:
Just Heaven recall'd it's own, the pilgrim call'd
From human woes, from sorrow's rankling worm;
Shall frailty then prevail?

                Oh! be it mine
To curb the sigh which bursts o'er Heaven'...

In the Valley of the Vire
    Still is seen an ancient mill,
With its gables quaint and queer,
    And beneath the window-sill,
            On the stone,
            These words alone:
"Oliver Basselin lived here."

Far above it, on the steep,
    Ruined stands the old Chateau;
Nothing but the donjon-keep
    Left for shelter or for show.
            Its vacant eyes
            Stare at the skies,
Stare at the valley green and deep.

Once a convent, old and brown,
    Looked, but ah! it looks no more,
From the neighboring hillside down
    On the rushing and the roar
            Of the stream
            Whose sunny gleam
Cheers the little Norman town.

In that darksome mill of stone,
    To the water's dash and din...

    I.

    We bore him through the golden land,
    One early harvest morn;
    The corn stood ripe on either hand--
    He knew all about the corn.

    How shall the harvest gathered be
    Without him standing by?
    Without him walking on the lea,
    The sky is scarce a sky.

    The year's glad work is almost done;
    The land is rich in fruit;
    Yellow it floats in air and sun--
    Earth holds it by the root.

    Why should earth hold it for a day
    When harvest-time is come?
    Death is triumphant o'er decay,
    And leads the ripened home.


    II.

    And though the sun be not so warm,
    His shining is not lost;
    Both corn and hope, of heart and farm,
    Lie hid from coming...

Two doves once cherish'd for each other
The love that brother hath for brother.
But one, of scenes domestic tiring,
To see the foreign world aspiring,
Was fool enough to undertake
A journey long, o'er land and lake.
'What plan is this?' the other cried;
'Wouldst quit so soon thy brother's side?
This absence is the worst of ills;
Thy heart may bear, but me it kills.
Pray, let the dangers, toil, and care,
Of which all travellers tell,
Your courage somewhat quell.
Still, if the season later were -
O wait the zephyrs! - hasten not -
Just now the raven, on his oak,
In hoarser tones than usual spoke.
My heart forebodes the saddest lot, -
The falcons, nets - Alas, it rains!
My brother, are thy wants supplied -
Provisions, shelter, pocket-guide,

    Sing on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough,
        Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain:
        See, aged Winter, 'mid his surly reign,
    At thy blythe carol clears his furrow'd brow.

    So, in lone Poverty's dominion drear,
        Sits meek Content with light unanxious heart,
        Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part,
    Nor asks if they bring aught to hope or fear.

    I thank Thee, Author of this opening day!
        Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient skies!
        Riches denied, Thy boon was purer joys,
    What wealth could never give nor take away.

    Yet come, thou child of poverty and care,
    The mite high Heaven bestow'd, that mite with thee I'll share.

Oh, cast every care to the wind,
And dry, best beloved, the tear!
Secure, that thou ever shalt find,
The friend of thy bosom sincere.
Still friendship shall live in the breast of the brave,
And we'll love, the long day, where the forest-trees wave.

I have felt each emotion of bliss,
That affection the fondest can prove,
Have received on my lip the first kiss
Of thy holy and innocent love;
But perish each hope of delight,
Like the flashes of night on the sea,
If ever, though far from thy sight,
My soul is forgetful of thee!
Still the memory shall live in the breast of the brave,
How we loved, the long day, where the forest-trees wave.

Now bring my boy; may God above
Shower blessings on his head!
May he requite his mother's love,
And t...

Here in turn succeed and rule
Carter, smith, and village fool,
Then again the place is known
As tavern, shop, and Sunday-school;
Now somehow it's come to me
To light the fire and hold the key,
Here in Heaven to reign alone.

All the walls are white with lime,
Big blue periwinkles climb
And kiss the crumbling window-sill;
Snug inside I sit and rhyme,
Planning, poem, book, or fable,
At my darling beech-wood table
Fresh with bluebells from the hill.

Through the window I can see
Rooks above the cherry-tree,
Sparrows in the violet bed,
Bramble-bush and bumble-bee,
And old red bracken smoulders still
Among boulders on the hill,
Far too bright to seem quite dead.

But old Death, who can't forget,
Waits his time and watche...

Through Alpine meadows soft-suffused
With rain, where thick the crocus blows,
Past the dark forges long disused,
The mule-track from Saint Laurent goes.
The bridge is cross'd, and slow we ride,
Through forest, up the mountain-side.
The autumnal evening darkens round,
The wind is up, and drives the rain;
While, hark! far down, with strangled sound
Doth the Dead Guier's stream complain,
Where that wet smoke, among the woods,
Over his boiling cauldron broods.
Swift rush the spectral vapours white
Past limestone scars with ragged pines,
Showing then blotting from our sight!
Halt through the cloud-drift something shines!
High in the valley, wet and drear,
The huts of Courrerie appear.
Strike leftward! cries our guide; and higher
Mounts up the stony f...

She rose up in the early dawn,
    And white and silently she moved
About the house.    Four men had gone
    To battle for the land they loved,
And she, the mother and the wife,
Waited for tidings from the strife.
How still the house seemed! and her tread
Was like the footsteps of the dead.

The long day passed, the dark night came;
    She had not seen a human face.
Some voice spoke suddenly her name.
    How loud it echoed in that place
Where, day by day, no sound was heard
But her own footsteps!    "Bring you word,"
She cried to whom she could not see,
"Word from the battle-plain to me?"

A soldier entered at the door,
    And stood within the dim firelight:
"I bring you tidings of the four,"
    He said, "who left you for the figh...

"Come, pensive nun, devout and pure,
Sober, steadfast and demure."

            -- [Milton]


White-robed nun, I pray thee tell me
    Whatsoe'er my life shall be;
Thou of God art purely chosen,
    Ne'er can I be like to thee.

There is sunlight in the shadow
    Of the lives we live below;
There is starlight in the darkness
    Of the night of human woe.

Yet I pray thee, sweet-voiced woman,
    Tell me of thy life and thee;
Can the soul to heaven given
    Yield its secrets unto me?

Nevermore the earth shall claim thee,
    Only lilies bloom for thee;
All the world is full of beauty
    That thy eyes may never see.

On the hill the daisies springing,
    Lift their heads to greet the morn;
Yet tho...