Family

The clouds fast gather,
    The forest-oaks roar
A maiden is sitting
    Beside the green shore,
The billows are breaking with might, with might,
And she sighs aloud in the darkling night,
Her eyelid heavy with weeping.

"My heart's dead within me,
    The world is a void;
To the wish it gives nothing,
    Each hope is destroyed.
I have tasted the fulness of bliss below
I have lived, I have loved, Thy child, oh take now,
Thou Holy One, into Thy keeping!"

"In vain is thy sorrow,
    In vain thy tears fall,
For the dead from their slumbers
    They ne'er can recall;
Yet if aught can pour comfort and balm in thy heart,
Now that love its sweet pleasures no more can impart,
Speak thy wish, and thou granted shalt find it!"

"...

How busily those little fingers soft
That within mine own are clasped so oft
Have been, throughout this bright summer day,
With pebbles and shells and leaves at play.
They have sought birds' nests, plucked many a flower,
Have decked with mosses the garden bower,
Built tiny boats, without helm to steer,
Yet floated them safe o'er the lakelet clear.

Ah! a time will come, and that ere long,
When those soft hands will grow firm and strong;
When they'll fling all boyish toys aside
In the dawning strength of manhood's pride;
Disdaining the prizes, the treasures gay,
That they seize with such eager haste to-day;
And parting with youth's joys, hopes and fears,
Seek to grasp the aims of manhood's years.

Be it, then, thy care, my gentle boy,
That new-bo...

I.
Would it were I had been false, not you!
I that am nothing, not you that are all
I, never the worse for a touch or two
On my speckled hide; not you, the pride
Of the day, my swan, that a first fleck’s fall
On her wonder of white must unswan, undo!

II.
I had dipped in life’s struggle and, out again,
Bore specks of it here, there, easy to see,
When I found my swan and the cure was plain;
The dull turned bright as I caught your white
On my bosom: you saved me saved in vain
If you ruined yourself, and all through me!

III.
Yes, all through the speckled beast that I am,
Who taught you to stoop; you gave me yourself,
And bound your soul by the vows that damn:
Since on better thought you break, as you ought,
Vows words, no angel set down,...

While the earth is dark and grey
    How I laugh within:    I know
In my breast what ardours gay
    From the morning overflow.

Though the cheek be white and wet
    In my heart no fear may fall:
There my chieftain leads, and yet
    Ancient battle-trumpets call.

Bend on me no hasty frown
    If my spirit slight your cares:
Sunlike still my joy looks down
    Changing tears to beamy airs.

Think me not of fickle heart
    If with joy my bosom swells
Though your ways from mine depart:
    In the true are no farewells.

What I love in you I find
    Everywhere.    A friend I greet
In each flower and tree and wind--
    Oh, but life is sweet, is sweet.

What to you are bolts and bars
    Are to me the hands that...

        O yes, I love you, and with all my heart;
    Just as a weaker woman loves her own,
        Better than I love my beloved art,
    Which, till you came, reigned royally, alone,
        My king, my master. Since I saw your face
        I have dethroned it, and you hold that place.

        I am as weak as other women are:
    Your frown can make the whole world like a tomb;
        Your smile shines brighter than the sun, by far.
    Sometimes I think there is not space or room
        In all the earth for such a love as mine,
        And it soars up to breathe in realms divine.

        I know that your desertion or neglect
    Could break my heart, as women's hearts do break.
        If my wan days had nothing to expect
    From your love's splen...

Oh, roses, roses everywhere but only one for me!
But one wild-rose for me, my boy, your face that's like the morn's;
My rose of roses, dear my lad, my dark-eyed Romany;
The world may keep its roses now, that gave me only thorns.

Oh, song and singing everywhere; the woods are wild with song:
One simple song I knew, my lad, you crooned it in my ears;
It cheered my way by night and day; but, oh, the way was long!
And all the hard world gave to me was evil words and sneers.

Oh, song and blossoms everywhere and nature full of love:
But one sweet look of love was mine, and that you gave, my joy:
A look of love, a look of trust they helped my heart enough;
They helped me bear the look of scorn, the world's black look, my boy.

Oh, spring and love are everywhere; soft br...

Inside this northern summer’s fold
The fields are full of naked gold,
Broadcast from heaven on lands it loves;
The green veiled air is full of doves;
Soft leaves that sift the sunbeams let
Light on the small warm grasses wet
Fall in short broken kisses sweet,
And break again like waves that beat
Round the sun’s feet.

But I, for all this English mirth
Of golden-shod and dancing days,
And the old green-girt sweet-hearted earth,
Desire what here no spells can raise.
Far hence, with holier heavens above,
The lovely city of my love
Bathes deep in the sun-satiate air
That flows round no fair thing more fair
Her beauty bare.

There the utter sky is holier, there
More pure the intense white height of air,
More clear men’s eyes that mine ...

I stand upon my native hills again,
Broad, round, and green, that in the summer sky
With garniture of waving grass and grain,
Orchards, and beechen forests, basking lie,
While deep the sunless glens are scooped between,
Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen.

A lisping voice and glancing eyes are near,
And ever restless feet of one, who, now,
Gathers the blossoms of her fourth bright year;
There plays a gladness o'er her fair young brow,
As breaks the varied scene upon her sight,
Upheaved and spread in verdure and in light.

For I have taught her, with delighted eye,
To gaze upon the mountains, to behold,
With deep affection, the pure ample sky,
And clouds along its blue abysses rolled,
To love the song of waters, and to hear
The melo...

Bald heads forgetful of their sins,
Old, learned, respectable bald heads
Edit and annotate the lines
That young men, tossing on their beds,
Rhymed out in love’s despair
To flatter beauty’s ignorant ear.

They’ll cough in the ink to the world’s end;
Wear out the carpet with their shoes
Earning respect; have no strange friend;
If they have sinned nobody knows.
Lord, what would they say
Should their Catullus walk that way?

Nine sisters, beautiful in form and face,
    Came from their convent on the shining heights
    Of Pierus, the mountain of delights,
    To dwell among the people at its base.
Then seemed the world to change.    All time and space,
    Splendor of cloudless days and starry nights,
    And men and manners, and all sounds and sights,
    Had a new meaning, a diviner grace.
Proud were these sisters, but were not too proud
    To teach in schools of little country towns
    Science and song, and all the arts that please;
So that while housewives span, and farmers ploughed,
    Their comely daughters, clad in homespun gowns,
    Learned the sweet songs of the Pierides.

Tune - "Let me in this ae night."



I.

    Forlorn, my love, no comfort near,
    Far, far from thee, I wander here;
    Far, far from thee, the fate severe
        At which I most repine, love.
            O wert thou, love, but near me;
            But near, near, near me;
            How kindly thou wouldst cheer me,
                And mingle sighs with mine, love

II.

    Around me scowls a wintry sky,
    That blasts each bud of hope and joy;
    And shelter, shade, nor home have I,
        Save in those arms of thine, love.

III.

    Cold, alter'd friendship's cruel part,
    To poison Fortune's ruthless dart,
    Let me not break thy faithful heart,
        And say that fate is mine, lov...

[Manitoba, Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, Athabasca, Alberta, and British Columbia.]

At a feast in the east of our central plains,
Girt with the sheaths of the wheaten grains,
Manitoba lay where the sunflowers blow,
And sang to the chime of the Red River's flow:
"I am child of the spirit whom all men own,
My prairie no longer is green and lone,
For the hosts of the settler have ringed me round,
And his bride am I with the harvest crowned."

On her steed at speed o'er her burning grass
We saw Assiniboia pass:
"The bison and antelope still are mine,
And the Indian wars on my boundary-line;
Where his knife is dyed I love to ride
By the cactus blooms or the marshes wide,
While the quivering columns of thunder fire
Give light to the darkened land's desire."

    When in the womb of Time our souls' own son
    Dear Love lay sleeping till his natal hour,
    Long months I knew not that sweet life begun,
    Too dimly treasuring thy touch of power;
        And wandering all those days
        By far-off ways,
    Forgot immortal seed must have immortal flower.

    Only, beloved, since my beloved thou art
    I do remember, now that memory's vain,
    How twice or thrice beneath my beating heart
    Life quickened suddenly with proudest pain.
        Then dreamed I Love's increase,
        Yet held my peace
    Till I might render thee thy own great gift again.

    For as with bodies, so with souls it is,
    The greater gives, the lesser doth conceive:
    That thou hast fathered Love, I tell thee this,

1. Through cycles of darkness the diamond sleeps in its coal-black prison.

2. Purely incrusted in its scaly casket, the breath-tarnished pearl slumbers in mud and ooze.

3. Buried in the bowels of earth, rugged and obscure, lies the ingot of gold.

4. Long hast thou been buried, O Israel, in the bowels of earth; long hast thou slumbered beneath the overwhelming waves; long hast thou slept in the rayless house of darkness.

5. Rejoice and sing, for only thus couldst thou rightly guard the golden knowledge, Truth, the delicate pearl and the adamantine jewel of the Law.

'Black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool?'
Yes, sir - yes, sir:    three bags full.'

'I don't want any New Thought,' said he,
'Or any Theosophy, for, you see,
The faith I learned at my mother's knee
Is good enough for me.
Of course, I'm a wee bit broader than she,
Hearing one sermon where she heard three,
And I read my paper on Sunday, instead
Of the Bible only.    My mother said
I was a black sheep, when she saw
I strayed a trifle away from the law,
And didn't think every one left in the lurch
Who happened to go to a different church;
But, still, in the main, her creed is mine,
And I don't want anything more divine.'
Yet his mother's mother was more austere;
She taught her children a creed of fear,
And she called them 'black sheep' when, w...

Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow
Of crystal, wandering water,
Thou art an emblem of the glow
Of beauty, the unhidden heart,
The playful maziness of art
In old Alberto's daughter;

But when within thy wave she looks,
Which glistens then, and trembles,
Why, then, the prettiest of brooks
Her worshiper resembles;
For in his heart, as in thy stream,
Her image deeply lies,
His heart which trembles at the beam
Of her soul-searching eyes.

So closed our tale, of which I give you all
The random scheme as wildly as it rose:
The words are mostly mine; for when we ceased
There came a minute's pause, and Walter said,
'I wish she had not yielded!' then to me,
'What, if you drest it up poetically?'
So prayed the men, the women: I gave assent:
Yet how to bind the scattered scheme of seven
Together in one sheaf? What style could suit?
The men required that I should give throughout
The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque,
With which we bantered little Lilia first:
The women--and perhaps they felt their power,
For something in the ballads which they sang,
Or in their silent influence as they sat,
Had ever seemed to wrestle with burlesque,
And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close--
They hated banter, wi...

    I thought I had forever lost,
        Alas, though still so young,
    The tender joys and sorrows all,
        That unto youth belong;

    The sufferings sweet, the impulses
        Our inmost hearts that warm;
    Whatever gives this life of ours
        Its value and its charm.

    What sore laments, what bitter tears
        O'er my sad state I shed,
    When first I felt from my cold heart
        Its gentle pains had fled!

    Its throbs I felt no more; my love
        Within me seemed to die;
    Nor from my frozen, senseless breast
        Escaped a single sigh!

    I wept o'er my sad, hapless lot;
        The life of life seemed lost;
    The earth an arid wilderness,
        Locked in eternal frost;