Family

Give me your patience, sister, while I frame
Exact in capitals your golden name;
Or sue the fair Apollo and he will
Rouse from his heavy slumber and instill
Great love in me for thee and Poesy.
Imagine not that greatest mastery
And kingdom over all the Realms of verse,
Nears more to heaven in aught, than when we nurse
And surety give to love and Brotherhood.

Anthropophagi in Othello's mood;
Ulysses storm'd and his enchanted belt
Glow with the Muse, but they are never felt
Unbosom'd so and so eternal made,
Such tender incense in their laurel shade
To all the regent sisters of the Nine
As this poor offering to you, sister mine.

Kind sister! aye, this third name says you are;
Enchanted has it been the Lord knows where;
And may it taste to yo...

Past life, past tears, far past the grave,
    The tryst is set for me,
Since, for our all, your all you gave
    On the slopes of Picardy.

On Angus, in the autumn nights,
    The ice-green light shall lie,
Beyond the trees the Northern Lights
    Slant on the belts of sky.

But miles on miles from Scottish soil
    You sleep, past war and scaith,
Your country's freedman, loosed from toil,
    In honour and in faith.

For Angus held you in her spell,
    Her Grampians, faint and blue,
Her ways, the speech you knew so well,
    Were half the world to you.

Yet rest, my son; our souls are those
    Nor time nor death can part,
And lie you proudly, folded close
    To France's deathless heart.

The rain set early in to-night,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake,
I listened with heart fit to break;
When glided in Porphyria: straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sate down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread o’er all her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she...

    Sometimes we remember kisses,
    Remember the dear heart-leap when they came:
    Not always, but sometimes we remember
    The kindness, the dumbness, the good flame
    Of laughter and farewell.

                    Beside the road
    Afar from those who said "Good-by" I write,
    Far from my city task, my lawful load.

    Sun in my face, wind beside my shoulder,
    Streaming clouds, banners of new-born night
    Enchant me now.    The splendors growing bolder
    Make bold my soul for some new wise delight.

    I write the day's event, and quench my drouth,
    Pausing beside the spring with happy mind.
    And now I feel those kisses on my mouth,
    Hers most of all, one little friend most kind.

("Regardez: les enfants.")

[XX., June, 1884.]


See all the children gathered there,
Their mother near; so young, so fair,
An eider sister she might be,
And yet she hears, amid their games,
The shaking of their unknown names
In the dark urn of destiny.

She wakes their smiles, she soothes their cares,
On that pure heart so like to theirs,
Her spirit with such life is rife
That in its golden rays we see,
Touched into graceful poesy,
The dull cold commonplace of life.

Still following, watching, whether burn
The Christmas log in winter stern,
While merry plays go round;
Or streamlets laugh to breeze of May
That shakes the leaf to break away -
A shadow falling to the ground.

If some poor man with hungry e...

I’m sitting alone by the fire,
Dressed just as I came from the dance,
In a robe even you would admire,
It cost a cool thousand in France;
I’m be-diamonded out of all reason,
My hair is done up in a cue:
In short, sir, “the belle of the season”
Is wasting an hour upon you.

A dozen engagements I’ve broken;
I left in the midst of a set;
Likewise a proposal, half spoken,
That waits on the stairs for me yet.
They say he’ll be rich, when he grows up,
And then he adores me indeed;
And you, sir, are turning your nose up,
Three thousand miles off as you read.

“And how do I like my position?”
“And what do I think of New York?”
“And now, in my higher ambition,
With whom do I waltz, flirt, or talk?”
“And isn’t it nice to have riches,
A...

Ye scenes beloved! O welcome once again!
Forbidden long to my desiring sight,
Now, now! triumphant o'er disease and pain,
I visit ye with fresh, increased delight.

Vine-mantled Hills, whose heights I joy'd to climb,
The Morn's sweet infant breathings to inhale;
River! whose banks I roved in trance sublime,
While fancy-whispering Eve spread soft her veil;

And thou, O Wood, in whose moon-checkered shade
The nightly songstress oft has charm'd my ear
Till Morning told me I so long had stay'd:
Hail all ye objects to my memory dear!
Once more, to feel the transports ye impart,
Health wakes my every sense and tunes my heart.

The hills are clad in purple and in gold,
The ripened maize is gathered in the shock,
The frost has kissed the nuts, their shells unfold,
And fallen leaves are floating on the lock.

The flowers their many-colored petals drop;
But seed-pods full and ripe they leave behind,
A prophecy of more abundant crop,
And proof that nature in decay is kind.

But still the dahlia blooms, and pansies, too;
The golden-rod still rears its yellow crest.
The sumach bobs are now of crimson hue,
The luscious grape has donned its purple vest.

The forest trees, so long arrayed in green,
Wear now a robe like Joseph's coat of old,
Brighter than that on eastern satrap seen,
Tho' clad was he in purple and fine gold.

The woodbine twined about the giant oak
Ble...

Thin summer rain on grass and bush and hedge,
    Reddening the road and deepening the green
On wide, blurred lawn, and in close-tangled sedge;
    Veiling in gray the landscape stretched between
    These low broad meadows and the pale hills seen
But dimly on the far horizon's edge.


In these transparent-clouded, gentle skies,
    Wherethrough the moist beams of the soft June sun
Might any moment break, no sorrow lies,
    No note of grief in swollen brooks that run,
    No hint of woe in this subdued, calm tone
Of all the prospect unto dreamy eyes.


Only a tender, unnamed half-regret
    For the lost beauty of the gracious morn;
A yearning aspiration, fainter yet,
    For brighter suns in joyous days unborn,
    Now while brief showers ...

Poets with whom I learned my trade,
Companions of the Cheshire Cheese,
Here’s an old story I’ve re-made,
Imagining ’twould better please
Your ears than stories now in fashion,
Though you may think I waste my breath
Pretending that there can be passion
That has more life in it than death,
And though at bottling of your wine
The bow-legged Goban had no say;
The moral’s yours because it’s mine.

When cups went round at close of day,
Is not that how good stories run?
Somewhere within some hollow hill,
If books speak truth in Slievenamon,
But let that be, the gods were still
And sleepy, having had their meal,
And smoky torches made a glare
On painted pillars, on a deal
Of fiddles and of flutes hung there
By the ancient holy hands that broug...

Fancy and Reality.--Rain-drops and Lakes.--Plan of a Story.--Where to place the Scene of it.--In some unknown Region.--Psalmanazar's Imposture with respect to the Island of Formosa.


The more I've viewed this world the more I've found,
    That, filled as 'tis with scenes and creatures rare.
Fancy commands within her own bright round
    A world of scenes and creatures far more fair.
Nor is it that her power can call up there
    A single charm, that's not from Nature won,
No more than rainbows in their pride can wear
    A single hue unborrowed from the sun--
But 'tis the mental medium it shines thro'
That lends to Beauty all its charm and hue;
As the same light that o'er the level lake
    One dull monotony of lustre flings,
Will, entering in the rounded ...

“So say the foolish!” Say the foolish so, Love?
“Flower she is, my rose” or else, “My very swan is she”
Or perhaps, “Yon maid-moon, blessing earth below, Love,
That art thou!” to them, belike: no such vain words from me.

“Hush, rose, blush! no balm like breath,” I chide it:
“Bend thy neck its best, swan, hers the whiter curve!”
Be the moon the moon: my Love I place beside it:
What is she? Her human self, no lower word will serve.

"What ails my love, where can he be?
He never broke a vow,
Though twice the clock's reminded me
That he's deceiv'd me now.
Through some bad girl, I well know that,
Poor Peggy's love's forgot:"
Thus sigh'd a lass, as down she sat
On the appointed spot.

The night was gathering dark and deep,
But absent was the swain;
The dews on many a flower did weep,
But Peggy wept in vain:
And every noise that meets her ear,
And fancy of her eye,
Hope instant wipes away the tear,
And paints the shepherd nigh.

"Ah, now he comes, my cheek glows hot,
His dog barks to the sheep!"
Alas, her own dog lay forgot,
Loud whimpering in his sleep.
"He rustles down the wood-path park,
The boughs hung o'er it stirr'd!"--
Alas, her Rover's dreaming b...

One golden summer day,
Along the forest-way,
Young Colin passed with blithesome steps alert.

His locks with careless grace
Rimmed round his handsome face
And drifted outward on the airy surge.

So blithe of heart was he,
He hummed a melody,
And all the birds were hushed to hear him sing.

Across his shoulders flung
His bow and baldric hung:
So, in true huntsman's guise, he threads the wood.

The sun mounts up the sky,
The air moves sluggishly,
And reeks with summer heat in every pore.

His limbs begin to tire,
Slumbers his youthful fire;
He sinks upon a violet-bed to rest.

The soft winds go and come
With low and drowsy hum,
And ope for him the ivory gate of dreams.

Beneath the forest-shade
The...

She is free of the trap and the paddle,
The portage and the trail,
But something behind her savage life
Shines like a fragile veil.

Her dreams are undiscovered,
Shadows trouble her breast,
When the time for resting cometh
Then least is she at rest.

Oft in the morns of winter,
When she visits the rabbit snares,
An appearance floats in the crystal air
Beyond the balsam firs.

Oft in the summer mornings
When she strips the nets of fish,
The smell of the dripping net-twine
Gives to her heart a wish.

But she cannot learn the meaning
Of the shadows in her soul,
The lights that break and gather,
The clouds that part and roll,

The reek of rock-built cities,
Where her fathers dwelt of yore,
The gleam of loch an...

Tune - "I had a horse."



I.

    O poortith cauld, and restless love,
        Ye wreck my peace between ye;
    Yet poortith a' I could forgive,
            An' twere na' for my Jeanie.
                O why should fate sic pleasure have,
                    Life's dearest bands untwining?
                Or why sae sweet a flower as love
                    Depend on fortune's shining?

II.

    This warld's wealth when I think on,
        It's pride, and a' the lave o't
    Fie, fie on silly coward man,
        That he should be the slave o't!

III.

    Her een sae bonnie blue betray
        How she repays my passion;
    But prudence is her o'erword ay,
        She talks of rank and fashion.

Where Hudson's wave o'er silvery sands
Winds through the hills afar,
Old Cronest like a monarch stands,
Crowned with a single star!
And there, amid the billowy swells
Of rock-ribbed, cloud-capped earth,
My fair and gentle Ida dwells,
A nymph of mountain-birth.

The snow-flake that the cliff receives,
The diamonds of the showers,
Spring's tender blossoms, buds, and leaves,
The sisterhood of flowers,
Morn's early beam, eve's balmy breeze,
Her purity define;
Yet Ida's dearer far than these
To this fond breast of mine.

My heart is on the hills.    The shades
Of night are on my brow;
Ye pleasant haunts and quiet glades,
My soul is with you now!
I bless the star-crowned highlands where
My Ida's footsteps roam:
O for a falcon'...

THE POET SINGS TO HIS POET

From dawn to dusk, and from dusk to dawn,
    We two are sundered always, sweet.
A few stars shake o'er the rocky lawn
    And the cold sea-shore when we meet.
    The twilight comes with thy shadowy feet.

We are not day and night, my Fair,
    But one. It is an hour of hours.
And thoughts that are not otherwhere
    Are thought here 'mid the blown sea-flowers,
    This meeting and this dusk of ours.

Delight has taken Pain to her heart,
    And there is dusk and stars for these.
Oh, linger, linger! They would not part;
    And the wild wind comes from over-seas
    With a new song to the olive trees.

And when we meet by the sounding pine
    Sleep draws near to his dreamless brother.
And when thy swe...