Family

Gruffly growled the wind on Toller downland broad and bare,
And lonesome was the house, and dark; and few came there.

"Now don't ye rub your eyes so red; we're home and have no cares;
Here's a skimmer-cake for supper, peckled onions, and some pears;
I've got a little keg o' summat strong, too, under stairs:
- What, slight your husband's victuals? Other brides can tackle theirs!"

The wind of winter mooed and mouthed their chimney like a horn,
And round the house and past the house 'twas leafless and lorn.

"But my dear and tender poppet, then, how came ye to agree
In Ivel church this morning? Sure, there-right you married me!"
- "Hoo-hoo! - I don't know - I forgot how strange and far 'twould be,
An' I wish I was at home again with dear daddee!"

Gruffly growl...

Two little children toddled up to me,
Their faces fair as faces well could be,
Roses and snow, but pale the roses were
Like flowers fainting for the lack of air.
Sad was the tender study which I gave
The winning creatures, both so sweet and grave,
Two beautiful young Saxons, scarce knee high!
As like as peas! Two Lilliputian men!
Immortal ere they knew it by the pen
Which waketh laughter or bedews the eye.
God bless you, little people! May His hand
Hold you within its hollow all your days!
Smooth all the rugged places, and your ways
Make long and pleasant in a fruitful land!

The sun at noon to higher air,
Unharnessing the silver Pair
That late before his chariot swam,
Rides on the gold wool of the Ram.

So braver notes the storm-cock sings
To start the rusted wheel of things,
And brutes in field and brutes in pen
Leap that the world goes round again.

The boys are up the woods with day
To fetch the daffodils away,
And home at noonday from the hills
They bring no dearth of daffodils.

Afield for palms the girls repair,
And sure enough the palms are there,
And each will find by hedge or pond
Her waving silver-tufted wand.

In farm and field through all the shire
The eye beholds the heart's desire;
Ah, let not only mine be vain,
For lovers should be loved again.

When the wasting embers redden the chimney-breast,
And Life's bare pathway looms like a desert track to me,
And from hall and parlour the living have gone to their rest,
My perished people who housed them here come back to me.

They come and seat them around in their mouldy places,
Now and then bending towards me a glance of wistfulness,
A strange upbraiding smile upon all their faces,
And in the bearing of each a passive tristfulness.

"Do you uphold me, lingering and languishing here,
A pale late plant of your once strong stock?" I say to them;
"A thinker of crooked thoughts upon Life in the sere,
And on That which consigns men to night after showing the day to them?"

" - O let be the Wherefore! We fevered our years not thus:
Take of Life what it grants, wi...

    "He is my friend," I said, -
    "Be patient!"    Overhead
    The skies were drear and dim;
    And lo! the thought of him
    Smited on my heart - and then
    The sun shone out again!

    "He is my friend!"    The words
    Brought summer and the birds;
    And all my winter-time
    Thawed into running rhyme
    And rippled into song,
    Warm, tender, brave, and strong.

    And so it sings to-day. -
    So may it sing alway!
    Though waving grasses grow
    Between, and lilies blow
    Their trills of perfume clear
    As laughter to the ear,
    Let each mute measure end
    With "Still he is thy friend."

A rose in my garden, the sweetest and fairest,
    Was hanging her head through the long golden hours;
And early one morning I saw her tears falling,
    And heard a low gossiping talk in the bowers.
The yellow Nasturtium, a spinster all faded,
    Was telling a Lily what ailed the poor Rose:
"That wild roving Bee who was hanging about her,
    Has jilted her squarely, as every one knows.

"I knew when he came, with his singing and sighing,
    His airs and his speeches so fine and so sweet,
Just how it would end; but no one would believe me,
    For all were quite ready to fall at his feet."
"Indeed, you are wrong," said the Lily-belle proudly,
    "I cared nothing for him; he called on me once,
And would have come often, no doubt, if I'd asked him,
    But t...

Soon as Glumdalclitch miss'd her pleasing care,
She wept, she blubber'd, and she tore her hair:
No British miss sincerer grief has known,
Her squirrel missing, or her sparrow flown.
She furl'd her sampler, and haul'd in her thread,
And stuck her needle into Grildrig's bed;
Then spread her hands, and with a bounce let fall
Her baby, like the giant in Guildhall.
In peals of thunder now she roars, and now
She gently whimpers like a lowing cow:
Yet lovely in her sorrow still appears:
Her locks dishevell'd, and her flood of tears,
Seem like the lofty barn of some rich swain,
When from the thatch drips fast a shower of rain.

In vain she search'd each cranny of the house,
Each gaping chink impervious to a mouse.
'Was it for this (she cried) with daily care

As o'er the glacier's frozen sheet
Breathes soft the Alpine rose,
So through life's desert springing sweet
The flower of friendship grows;
And as where'er the roses grow
Some rain or dew descends,
'T is nature's law that wine should flow
To wet the lips of friends.
Then once again, before we part,
My empty glass shall ring;
And he that has the warmest heart
Shall loudest laugh and sing.

They say we were not born to eat;
But gray-haired sages think
It means, Be moderate in your meat,
And partly live to drink.
For baser tribes the rivers flow
That know not wine or song;
Man wants but little drink below,
But wants that little strong.
Then once again, etc.

If one bright drop is like the gem
That decks a monarch's crown,

Summer is gone on swallows' wings,
And Earth has buried all her flowers:
No more the lark,--the linnet--sings,
But Silence sits in faded bowers.
There is a shadow on the plain
Of Winter ere he comes again,--
There is in woods a solemn sound
Of hollow warnings whisper'd round,
As Echo in her deep recess
For once had turn'd a prophetess.
Shuddering Autumn stops to list,
And breathes his fear in sudden sighs,
With clouded face, and hazel eyes
That quench themselves, and hide in mist.

Yes, Summer's gone like pageant bright;
Its glorious days of golden light
Are gone--the mimic suns that quiver,
Then melt in Time's dark-flowing river.
Gone the sweetly-scented breeze
That spoke in music to the trees;
Gone--for damp and chilly breath,
A...

Ere down yon blue Carpathian hills
The sun shall sink again,
Farewell to life and all its ills,
Farewell to cell and chain!

These prison shades are dark and cold,
But, darker far than they,
The shadow of a sorrow old
Is on my heart alway.

For since the day when Warkworth wood
Closed o'er my steed, and I,
An alien from my name and blood,
A weed cast out to die,

When, looking back in sunset light,
I saw her turret gleam,
And from its casement, far and white,
Her sign of farewell stream,

Like one who, from some desert shore,
Doth home's green isles descry,
And, vainly longing, gazes o'er
The waste of wave and sky;

So from the desert of my fate
I gaze across the past;
Forever on life's dial-plate
The...

Oh, the little bird is rocking in the cradle of the wind,
And it's bye, my little wee one, bye;
The harvest all is gathered and the pippins all are binned;
Bye, my little wee one, bye;
The little rabbit's hiding in the golden shock of corn,
The thrifty squirrel's laughing bunny's idleness to scorn;
You are smiling with the angels in your slumber, smile till morn;
So it's bye, my little wee one, bye.

There'll be plenty in the cellar, there'll be plenty on the shelf;
Bye, my little wee one, bye;
There'll be goodly store of sweetings for a dainty little elf;
Bye, my little wee one, bye.
The snow may be a-flying o'er the meadow and the hill,
The ice has checked the chatter of the little laughing rill,
But in your cosey cradle you are warm and happy still;
So bye,...

The cup of life is not so shallow
That we have drained the best,
That all the wine at once we swallow
And lees make all the rest.

Maids of as soft a bloom shall marry
As Hymen yet hath blessed,
And fairer forms are in the quarry
Than Phidias released.

    Two men were born the self-same hour:
    The one was heir to untold wealth,
    To pride of birth and love of power;
    The other's heritage was health.

    A sturdy frame, an honest heart,
    Of human sympathy a store,
    A strength and will to do his part,
    A nature wholesome to the core.

    The two grew up to man's estate,
    And took their places in the strife:
    One found a sphere both wide and great,
    One found the toil and stress of life.

    Fate is a partial jade, I trow;
    She threw the rich man gold and frame,
    The laurel wreath to deck his brow,
    High place, the multitude's acclaim.

    The common things the other had -
    The common hopes to thrill him deep,
    The common joys to make h...

To the garden, the world, anew ascending,
Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding,
The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being,
Curious, here behold my resurrection, after slumber;
The revolving cycles, in their wide sweep, have brought me again,
Amorous, mature all beautiful to me all wondrous;
My limbs, and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, for reasons, most wondrous;
Existing, I peer and penetrate still,
Content with the present content with the past,
By my side, or back of me, Eve following,
Or in front, and I following her just the same.

Old John, if I could sit with you a day
At Abram’s feet upon the asphodel,
There, while the grand old patriarch dreamed away,
To you my life’s whole progress I would tell;
To you would give accompt of what is well,
What ill performed; how used the trusted talents,
Since last we heard the sound of Braddan bell,
    "A wheen bit callants."

You were not of our kin nor of our race,
Old John, nor of our church, nor of our speech;
Yet what of strength, or truth, or tender grace
I owe, ‘twas you that taught me. Born to teach
All nobleness, whereof divines may preach,
And pedagogues may wag their tongues of iron,
I have no doubt you could have taught the leech
    That taught old Chiron.

For so it is, the nascent souls may wait,
And lose the flexile a...

After the Hazara War

I lie alone beneath the Almond blossoms,
    Where we two lay together in the spring,
And now, as then, the mountain snows are melting,
    This year, as last, the water-courses sing.

That was another spring, and other flowers,
    Hung, pink and fragile, on the leafless tree,
The land rejoiced in other running water,
    And I rejoiced, because you were with me.

You, with your soft eyes, darkly lashed and shaded,
    Your red lips like a living, laughing rose,
Your restless, amber limbs so lithe and slender
    Now lost to me.    Gone whither no man knows.

You lay beside me singing in the sunshine;
    The rough, white fur, unloosened at the neck,
Showed the smooth skin, fair as the Almond blossoms,
    On which th...

Shut it out of the heart this grief,
O Love, with the years grown old and hoary!
And let in joy that life is brief,
And give God thanks for the end of the story.

The bond of the flesh is transitory,
And beauty goes with the lapse of years
The brow's white rose and the hair's dark glory
God be thanked for the severing shears!

Over the past, Heart, waste no tears!
Over the past and all its madness,
Its wine and wormwood, hopes and fears,
That never were worth a moment's sadness.

Here she lies who was part o' its gladness,
Wife and mistress, and shared its woe,
The good of life as well as its badness,
Look on her face and see if you know.

Is this the face? yea, ask it slow!
The hair, the form, that we used to cherish?
Where is th...

Love lives beyond
The tomb, the earth, which fades like dew!
I love the fond,
The faithful, and the true.

Love lives in sleep,
The happiness of healthy dreams:
Eve's dews may weep,
But love delightful seems.

Tis seen in flowers,
And in the morning's pearly dew;
In earth's green hours,
And in the heaven's eternal blue.

Tis heard in Spring
When light and sunbeams, warm and kind,
On angel's wing
Bring love and music to the mind.

And where is voice,
So young, so beautiful, and sweet
As Nature's choice,
Where Spring and lovers meet?

Love lives beyond
The tomb, the earth, the flowers, and dew.
I love the fond,
The faithful, young and true.