Family

There never was success so nobly gained,
    Or victory so free from selfish dross,
But in the winning some one had been pained
    Or some one suffered loss.

There never was so nobly planned a fete,
    Or festal throng with hearts on pleasure bent,
But some neglected one outside the gate
    Wept tears of discontent.

There never was a bridal morning fair
    With hope's blue skies and love's unclouded sun
For two fond hearts, that did not bring despair
    To some sad other one.

Oh fairest of the rural maids!
Thy birth was in the forest shades;
Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky,
Were all that met thy infant eye.

Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child,
Were ever in the sylvan wild;
And all the beauty of the place
Is in thy heart and on thy face.

The twilight of the trees and rocks
Is in the light shade of thy locks;
Thy step is as the wind, that weaves
Its playful way among the leaves.

Thine eyes are springs, in whose serene
And silent waters heaven is seen;
Their lashes are the herbs that look
On their young figures in the brook.

The forest depths, by foot unpressed,
Are not more sinless than thy breast;
The holy peace, that fills the air
Of those calm solitudes, is there.

How clear she shines! How quietly
I lie beneath her guardian light;
While heaven and earth are whispering me,
"To morrow, wake, but dream to-night."
Yes, Fancy, come, my Fairy love!
These throbbing temples softly kiss;
And bend my lonely couch above,
And bring me rest, and bring me bliss.

The world is going; dark world, adieu!
Grim world, conceal thee till the day;
The heart thou canst not all subdue
Must still resist, if thou delay!

Thy love I will not, will not share;
Thy hatred only wakes a smile;
Thy griefs may wound, thy wrongs may tear,
But, oh, thy lies shall ne'er beguile!
While gazing on the stars that glow
Above me, in that stormless sea,
I long to hope that all the woe
Creation knows, is held in thee!

And this s...

1.

Few years have pass'd since thou and I
Were firmest friends, at least in name,
And Childhood's gay sincerity
Preserved our feelings long the same.


2.

But now, like me, too well thou know'st
What trifles oft the heart recall;
And those who once have loved the most
Too soon forget they lov'd at all.


3.

And such the change the heart displays,
So frail is early friendship's reign,
A month's brief lapse, perhaps a day's,
Will view thy mind estrang'd again.


4.

If so, it never shall be mine
To mourn the loss of such a heart;
The fault was Nature's fault, not thine,
Which made thee fickle as thou art.


5.

As rolls the Ocean's changing tide,
So human feelings e...

I.

    While winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw,
    And bar the doors wi' driving snaw,
        And hing us owre the ingle,
    I set me down to pass the time,
    And spin a verse or twa o' rhyme,
        In hamely westlin jingle.
    While frosty winds blaw in the drift,
        Ben to the chimla lug,
    I grudge a wee the great folks' gift,
        That live sae bien an' snug:
            I tent less and want less
                Their roomy fire-side;
            But hanker and canker
                To see their cursed pride.

II.

    It's hardly in a body's power
    To keep, at times, frae being sour,
        To see how things are shar'd;
    How best o' chiels are whiles in want.
    While coofs on countless thousands...

    1.
    There lived a wife at Usher's Well,
        And a wealthy wife was she;
    She had three stout and stalwart sons,
        And sent them o'er the sea.

    2.
    They hadna been a week from her,
        A week but barely ane,
    When word came to the carline wife
        That her three sons were gane.

    3.
    They hadna been a week from her,
        A week but barely three,
    When word came to the carlin wife,
        That her sons she'd never see.

    4.
    'I wish the wind may never cease,
        Nor fishes in the flood,
    Till my three sons come hame to me,
        In earthly flesh and blood.'

    5.
    It fell about the Martinmass,
        When nights are lang and mirk,
    Th...

Sapphics.


Down the green hill-side fro' the castle window
Lady Jane spied Bill Amaranth a-workin';
Day by day watched him go about his ample
            Nursery garden.

Cabbages thriv'd there, wi' a mort o' green-stuff--
Kidney beans, broad beans, onions, tomatoes,
Artichokes, seakale, vegetable marrows,
            Early potatoes.

Lady Jane cared not very much for all these:
What she cared much for was a glimpse o' Willum
Strippin' his brown arms wi' a view to horti-
            -Cultural effort.

Little guessed Willum, never extra-vain, that
Up the green hill-side, i' the gloomy castle,
Feminine eyes could so delight to view his
            Noble proportions.

Only one day while, in an innocent mood,
Moppin' his br...

Splendor of ended day, floating and filling me!
Hour prophetic hour resuming the past!
Inflating my throat you, divine average!
You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing.

Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness,
Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection,
Natural life of me, faithfully praising things;
Corroborating forever the triumph of things.

Illustrious every one!
Illustrious what we name space sphere of unnumber'd spirits;
Illustrious the mystery of motion, in all beings, even the tiniest insect;
Illustrious the attribute of speech the senses the body;
Illustrious the passing light! Illustrious the pale reflection on the new moon in the western sky!
Illustrious whatever I see, or hear, or touch, to the last.

Good in all,
In the satisfac...

I.

To-night he sees their star burn, dewy-bright,
Deep in the pansy, eve hath made for it,
Low in the west; a placid purple lit
At its far edge with warm auroral light:
Love's planet hangs above a cedared height;
And there in shadow, like gold music writ
Of dusk's dark fingers, scale-like fire-flies flit
Now up, now down the balmy bars of night.
How different from that eve a year ago!
Which was a stormy flower in the hair
Of dolorous day, whose sombre eyes looked, blurred,
Into night's sibyl face, and saw the woe
Of parting near, and imaged a despair,
As now a hope caught from a homing word.


II.

She came unto him, as the springtime does
Unto the land where all lies dead and cold,
Until her rosary of days is told
And beaut...

I

The moving sun-shapes on the spray,
The sparkles where the brook was flowing,
Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May,
These were the things we wished would stay;
But they were going.

II

Seasons of blankness as of snow,
The silent bleed of a world decaying,
The moan of multitudes in woe,
These were the things we wished would go;
But they were staying.

III

Then we looked closelier at Time,
And saw his ghostly arms revolving
To sweep off woeful things with prime,
Things sinister with things sublime
Alike dissolving.

Daughter of my nobler hope
    That dying gave thee birth,
    Sweet Melancholy!
    For memory of the dead,
    In her dear stead,
    'Bide thou with me,
    Sweet Melancholy!
As purple shadows to the tree,
When the last sun-rays sadly slope
Athwart the bare and darkening earth,
    Art thou to me,
    Sweet Melancholy!

There was a time, when love's young flowers
With many a joy my bosom prest:
Sweet hours of bliss!--but short are hours,
Those hours are fled--and I'm distrest.
I would not wish, in reason's spite;
I would not wish new joy to gain;
I only wish for one delight,--
To see those hours of bliss again.

There was a day, when love was young,
And nought but bliss did there belong;
When blackbirds nestling o'er us sung,
Ah me! what sweetness wak'd his song.
I wish not springs for ever fled;
I wish not birds' forgotten strain;
I only wish for feelings dead
To warm, and wake, and feel again.

But ah! what once was joy is past:
The time's gone by; the day and hour
Are whirring fled on trouble's blast,
As winter nips the summer flower.
A shadow...

I sit in the cloud and the darkness
Where I lost you, peerless one;
Your bright face shines upon fairer lands,
Like the dawning of the sun,
And what to you is the rustic youth,
You sometimes smiled upon.

You have roamed through mighty cities,
By the Orient's gleaming sea,
Down the glittering streets of Venice,
And soft-skied Araby:
Life to you has been an anthem,
But a solemn dirge to me.

For everywhere, by Rome's bright hills,
Or by the silvery Rhine,
You win all hearts to you, where'er
Your glancing tresses shine;
But, darling, the love of the many,
Is not a love like mine.

Last night I heard your voice in my dreams,
I woke with a joyous thrill
To hear but the half-awakened birds,
For the dark dawn lingered still,

To the willows of the brookside
The mill wheel sings to-day--
Sings and weeps,
As the brooklet creeps
Wondering on its way;
And here is the ring she gave me
With love's sweet promise then--
It hath burst apart
Like the trusting heart
That may never be soothed again!

Oh, I would be a minstrel
To wander far and wide,
Weaving in song the merciless wrong
Done by a perjured bride!
Or I would be a soldier,
To seek in the bloody fray
What gifts of fate can compensate
For the pangs I suffer to-day!

Yet may this aching bosom,
By bitter sorrow crushed,
Be still and cold
In the churchyard mould
Ere thy sweet voice be hushed;
So sing, sing on forever,
O wheel of the brookside mill,
For you mind me agai...

It was not then her heart broke--
That moment when she knew
That all her faith held holiest
Was utterly untrue.

It was not then her heart broke--
That night of prayer and tears
When first she dared the thought of life
Through all the empty years.

But when beneath the April boughs
She felt the blossoms stir,
The careless mirth of yesterday
Came near and smiled at her.

Old singing lingered in the wind,
Old joy came close again,
Oh, underneath the April boughs,
I think her heart broke then.

I Thought of the road through the glen,
With its hawk's nest high in the pine;
With its rock, where the fox had his den,
'Mid tangles of sumach and vine,
Where she swore to be mine.

I thought of the creek and its banks,
Now glooming, now gleaming with sun;
The rustic bridge builded of planks,
The bridge over Chenoweth's Run,
Where I wooed her and won.

I thought of the house in the lane,
With its pinks and its sweet mignonette;
Its fence and the gate with the chain,
Its porch where the roses hung wet,
Where I kissed her and met.

Then I thought of the family graves,
Walled rudely with stone, in the West,
Where the sorrowful cedar-tree waves,
And the wind is a spirit distressed,
Where they laid her to rest.

And my soul,...

        I.

Where thronged poppies with globed shields
    Of fierce red
Warrior all the harvest fields
    Is my bed.
Here I tumble with the bee,
Robber bee of low degree
    Gay with dust:
Wit ye of a bracelet bold
Broadly belting him with gold?
It was I who bound it on
When a-gambol on the lawn -
    It can never rust.


        II.

Where the glow-worm lights his lamp
    There am I;
Where within the grasses damp
    Crickets cry.
Cheer'ly, cheer'ly in the burne
Where the lins the torrents churn
    Into foam,
Leap I on a whisp of broom, -
Cheer'ly, cheer'ly through the gloom, -
All aneath a round-cheeked moon,
Treading on her silver shoon
    Lightly o'er the gloam,


        ...

She behind yon mountain lives,
Who my love's sweet guerdon gives.
Tell me, mount, how this can be!
Very glass thou seem'st to me,
And I seem to be close by,
For I see her drawing nigh;
Now, because I'm absent, sad,
Now, because she sees me, glad!

Soon between us rise to sight
Valleys cool, with bushes light,
Streams and meadows; next appear

Mills and wheels, the surest token
That a level spot is near,

Plains far-stretching and unbroken.
And so onwards, onwards roam,
To my garden and my home!

But how comes it then to pass?
All this gives no joy, alas!
I was ravish'd by her sight,
By her eyes so fair and bright,
By her footstep soft and light.
How her peerless charms I praised,
When from head to foot I gazed!...