Family

It happened thus: my slab, though new,
Was getting weather-stained, beside,
Herbage, balm, peppermint, o’ergrew
Letter and letter: till you tried
Somewhat, the Name was scarce descried.

That strong stern man my lover came:
Was he my lover? Call him, pray,
My life’s cold critic bent on blame
Of all poor I could do or say
To make me worth his love one day,

One far day when, by diligent
And dutiful amending faults,
Foibles, all weaknesses which went
To challenge and excuse assaults
Of culture wronged by taste that halts,

Discrepancies should mar no plan
Symmetric of the qualities
Claiming respect from, say, a man
That’s strong and stem. “Once more he pries
Into me with those critic eyes!”

No question! so, “Conclude, con...

Poems are heavenly things,
And only souls with wings
May reach them where they grow,
May pluck and bear below,
Feeding the nations thus
With food all glorious.

Verses are not of these;
They bloom on earthly trees,
Poised on a low-hung stem,
And those may gather them
Who cannot fly to where
The heavenly gardens are.

So I by devious ways
Have pulled some easy sprays
From the down-dropping bough
Which all may reach, and now
I knot them, bud and leaf,
Into a rhymed sheaf.

Not mine the pinion strong
To win the nobler song;
I only cull and bring
A hedge-row offering
Of berry, flower, and brake,
If haply some may take.

Time looked me in the eyes while passing by
The milestone of the year.    That piercing gaze
Was both an accusation and reproach.
No speech was needed.    In a sorrowing look
More meaning lies than in complaining words,
And silence hurts as keenly as reproof.

Oh, opulent, kind giver of rich hours,
How have I used thy benefits!    As babes
Unstring a necklace, laughing at the sound
Of priceless jewels dropping one by one,
So have I laughed while precious moments rolled
Into the hidden corners of the past.
And I have let large opportunities
For high endeavour move unheeded by,
While little joys and cares absorbed my strength.

And yet, dear Time, set to my credit this:
NOT ONE WHITE HOUR HAVE I MADE BLACK WITH HATE,
NOR WISHED ONE LIVING CREATURE...

    McLeod of Dare called his son to him.
    McLeod of Dare looked stern and grim,

    For he was sending on mission grave
    His son, and though he knew him brave

    The old man trembled lest he should make
    In heedless youth a grave mistake.

    'Twas not for the country, nor for the king,
    Nay, 'twas a more important thing

    Than country, or clan, or feud, or strife,
    The young man went to woo a wife.

    He listened, did Neil, with scanty grace,
    Haughty gloom on his handsome face,

    While the old man told him where to go,
    And what to say, and what to do.

    "The morrow ye'll go for a lang, lang stay
    Wi' your rich uncle, Donald Gray.

    "He'll gie ye a welcome wairm and true,

O'er the Campagna it is dim warm weather;
    The Spring comes with a full heart silently,
    And many thoughts; a faint flash of the sea
Divides two mists; straight falls the falling feather.

With wild Spring meanings hill and plain together
    Grow pale, or just flush with a dust of flowers.
    Rome in the ages, dimmed with all her towers,
Floats in the midst, a little cloud at tether.

I fain would put my hands about thy face,
    Thou with thy thoughts, who art another Spring,
    And draw thee to me like a mournful child.

Thou lookest on me from another place;
    I touch not this day's secret, nor the thing
    That in the silence makes thy sweet eyes wild.

To the leaven'd soil they trod, calling, I sing, for the last;
(Not cities, nor man alone, nor war, nor the dead,
But forth from my tent emerging for good, loosing, untying the tent-ropes;)
In the freshness, the forenoon air, in the far-stretching circuits and vistas, again to peace restored,
To the fiery fields emanative, and the endless vistas beyond, to the south and the north;
To the leaven'd soil of the general western world, to attest my songs,
(To the average earth, the wordless earth, witness of war and peace,)
To the Alleghanian hills, and the tireless Mississippi,
To the rocks I, calling, sing, and all the trees in the woods,
To the plain of the poems of heroes, to the prairie spreading wide,
To the far-off sea, and the unseen winds, and the same impalpable air;
And respondi...

As lightens the brown Hill to vivid green
    When juvenescent April's showery Sun
    Looks on its side, with golden glance, at Noon;
    So on the gloom of Life's now faded scene
Shines the dear image of those days serene,
    From Memory's consecrated treasures won;
    The days that rose, ere youth, and years were flown,
    Soft as the morn of May; - and well I ween
If they had clouds, in Time's alembic clear
    They vanish'd all, and their gay vision glows
    In brightness unobscur'd; and now they wear
A more than pristine sunniness, which throws
    Those mild reflected lights that soften care,
    Loss of lov'd Friends, and all the train of Woes.

O wayward rose, why dost thou wreathe so high,
Wasting thyself in sweet-breath'd ecstasy?

"The pulses of the wind my life uplift,
And through my sprays I feel the sunlight sift;

"And all my fibres, in a quick consent
Entwined, aspire to fill their heavenward bent.

"I feel the shaking of the far-off sea,
And all things growing blend their life with me:

"When men and women on me look, there glows
Within my veins a life not of the rose.

"Then let me grow, until I touch the sky,
And let me grow and grow until I die!"

So, every year, the sweet rose shooteth higher,
And scales the roof upon its wings of fire,

And pricks the air, in lovely discontent,
With thorns that question still of its intent.

But when it reached th...

Low at my feet there lies to-night
    A crushed and withered rose;
Within its heart of fading red
    No crimson fire glows;
For o'er its leaves the frost of death
    Steals like an icy breath;
And soon 't will vanish from my sight,
    A thing of gloom and death.

Ah! beauteous flower, once thou wert
    My pleasure and my pride;
And now when thou art old and worn
    I will not turn aside;
But gently o'er thy faded leaves
    I'll shed one kindly tear;
That thou wilt know, though dead and gone,
    To memory thou art dear.

Before my gaze there lies to-night
    A rose-bud fresh and fair;
And like the breath of dewy morn
    Its fragrance scents the air.
This fragile flower I fain would pluck
    With hand most kind yet b...

I wonder what he is thinking
    In the ploughing field all day.
He watches the heads of his oxen,
    And never looks this way.

And the furrows grow longer and longer,
    Around the base of the hill,
And the valley is bright with the sunset,
    Yet he ploughs and whistles still.

I am tired of counting the ridges,
    Where the oxen come and go,
And of thinking of all the blossoms
    That are trampled down below.

I wonder if ever he guesses
    That under the ragged brim
Of his torn straw hat I am peeping
    To steal a look at him.

The spire of the church and the windows
    Are all ablaze in the sun.
He has left the plough in the furrow,
    His summer day's work is done.

And I hear him carolling softly

Out in the west, where runs are wide,
And days than ours are hotter,
Not very far from Lachlan Side
There dwelt a wealthy squatter.

Of old opinions he was full,
An Englishman, his sire,
Was hated long where peasants pull
Their forelocks to the squire.

He loved the good old British laws,
And Royalty’s regalia,
And oft was heard to growl because
They wouldn’t fit Australia.

This squatter had a lovely child,
An angel bright we thought her;
And all the stockmen rude and wild
Adored the squatter’s daughter.

But on a bright eventful morn,
A swell of northern nation,
A lordling, brought his languid yawn
And eyeglass to the station.

He coveted the squatter’s wealth;
He saw the squatter’s daughter:
And, what i...

Oh what a Wreck! how changed in mien and speech!
Yet, though dread Powers, that work in mystery, spin
Entanglings of the brain; though shadows stretch
O'er the chilled heart reflect; far, far within
Hers is a holy Being, freed from Sin.
She is not what she seems, a forlorn wretch;
But delegated Spirits comfort fetch
To Her from heights that Reason may not win.
Like Children, She is privileged to hold
Divine communion; both do live and move,
Whate'er to shallow Faith their ways unfold,
Inly illumined by Heaven's pitying love;
Love pitying innocence not long to last,
In them, in Her our sins and sorrows past.

Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
And dear the last embraces of our wives
And their warm tears; but all hath suffer’d change;
For surely now our household hearths are cold,
Our sons inherit us, our looks are strange,
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
Or else the island princes over-bold
Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Before them of the ten years’ war in Troy,
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
Is there confusion in the little isle?
Let what is broken so remain.
The Gods are hard to reconcile;
‘T is hard to settle order once again.
There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
Long labor unto aged breath,
Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars
And eyes grown dim with gazing on ...

Surprised by joy, impatient as the Wind
I turned to share the transport, Oh! with whom
But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind,
But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss! That thought's return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, Night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the roses blown.

For a breeze of morning moves,
And the planet of Love is on high,
Beginning to faint in the light that she loves
On a bed of daffodil sky,
To faint in the light of the sun she loves,
To faint in his light, and to die.

All night have the roses heard
The flute, violin, bassoon;
All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd
To the dancers dancing in tune:
Till a silence fell with the waking bird,
And a hush with the setting moon.

I said to the lily, "There is but one
With whom she has heart to be gay.
When will the dancers leave her...

I had a guinea golden;
I lost it in the sand,
And though the sum was simple,
And pounds were in the land,
Still had it such a value
Unto my frugal eye,
That when I could not find it
I sat me down to sigh.

I had a crimson robin
Who sang full many a day,
But when the woods were painted
He, too, did fly away.
Time brought me other robins, --
Their ballads were the same, --
Still for my missing troubadour
I kept the 'house at hame.'

I had a star in heaven;
One Pleiad was its name,
And when I was not heeding
It wandered from the same.
And though the skies are crowded,
And all the night ashine,
I do not care about it,
Since none of them are mine.

My story has a moral:
I have a missing friend, --
Ple...

When I am in hell or some such place,
A-groaning over my sorry case,
What will those seven women say to me
Who, when I coaxed them, answered "Aye" to me?

"I did not understand your sign!"
Will be the words of Caroline;
While Jane will cry, "If I'd had proof of you,
I should have learnt to hold aloof of you!"

"I won't reproach: it was to be!"
Will dryly murmur Cicely;
And Rosa: "I feel no hostility,
For I must own I lent facility."

Lizzy says: "Sharp was my regret,
And sometimes it is now! But yet
I joy that, though it brought notoriousness,
I knew Love once and all its gloriousness!"

Says Patience: "Why are we apart?
Small harm did you, my poor Sweet Heart!
A manchild born, now tall and beautiful,
Was worth the ache of da...

i.

O Love! O Lustre of the sunlit earth
    That knows thy step and revels in the worth
Of thy much beauty! Is't thy will anew,
Famed as thou art, to marvel that I sue
With such persistence, and in such unrest
Amid the frenzies of my passion-quest?
    Wilt look ungently, and without a tear,
On all the pangs I bear at thy behest?


ii.

Morning and eve I cease not, when I kneel
    To my Redeemer for my spirit's weal
And for my body's,--as becomes a man,--
Morning and eve I cease not in the span
Of all my days, O thou Unconquer'd One!
To pray for thee, and do what may be done
    To re-acquire the friendship I have lost,
Which is the holiest thing beneath the sun.


iii.

For what is fame that with so loud a v...