Family

She knelt upon her brother's grave,
My little girl of six years old,
He used to be so good and brave,
The sweetest lamb of all our fold;
He used to shout, he used to sing,
Of all our tribe the little king,
And so unto the turf her ear she laid,
To hark if still in that dark place he play'd.
No sound! no sound!
Death's silence was profound;
And horror crept
Into her aching heart, and Dora wept.
If this is as it ought to be,
My God, I leave it unto Thee.

    My country, I the walls, the arches see,
    The columns, statues, and the towers
    Deserted, of our ancestors;
    But, ah, the glory I do not behold,
    The laurel and the sword, that graced
    Our sires of old.
    Now, all unarmed, a naked brow,
    A naked breast dost thou display.
    Ah, me, how many wounds, what stains of blood!
    Oh, what a sight art thou,
    Most beautiful of women! I
    To heaven cry aloud, and to the world:
    "Who hath reduced her to this pass?
    Say, say!" And worst of all, alas,
    See, both her arms in chains are bound!
    With hair dishevelled, and without a veil
    She sits, disconsolate, upon the ground,
    And hides her face between her knees,
    As she bewails her miseries.
    Oh, weep, ...

You can sigh o'er the sad-eyed Armenian
    Who weeps in her desolate home.
You can mourn o'er the exile of Russia
    From kindred and friends doomed to roam.

You can pity the men who have woven
    From passion and appetite chains
To coil with a terrible tension
    Around their heartstrings and brains.

You can sorrow o'er little children
    Disinherited from their birth,
The wee waifs and toddlers neglected,
    Robbed of sunshine, music and mirth.

For beasts you have gentle compassion;
    Your mercy and pity they share.
For the wretched, outcast and fallen
    You have tenderness, love and care.


But hark! from our Southland are floating
    Sobs of anguish, murmurs of pain,
And women heart-stricken are weeping

I

Blind

When first the shadows fell, like prison bars,
And darkness spread before me, like a pall,
I cried out for the sun, the earth, the stars,
And beat the air, as madmen beat a wall,
Till, impotent, and broken with despair,
I turned my vision inward.    Lo, a spark -
A light - a torch; and all my world grew bright;
For God's dear eyes were shining through the dark.
Then, bringing to me gifts of recompense,
Came keener hearing, finer taste, and touch;
And that oft unappreciated sense,
Which finds sweet odours, and proclaims them such;
And not until my mortal eyes were blind
Did I perceive how kind the world, how kind.

II

Deaf

I can recall a time, when on mine ears
There fell chaotic sounds of earthly life,
S...

Mi darlin' Muse, aw coax and pet her,
To pleeas yo, for aw like nowt better;
An' if aw find aw connot get her
To lend her aid,
Into foorced measure then aw set her,
The stupid jade!

An' if mi lines dooant run as spreetly,
Nor beam wi gems o' wit soa breetly,
Place all the blame, - yo'll place it reightly,
Upon her back;
To win her smile aw follow neetly,
Along her track.

Maybe shoo thinks to stop mi folly,
An let me taste o' melancholy;
But just to spite her awl be jolly,
An say mi say;
Awl fire away another volley
Tho' shoo says "Nay."

We've had some happy times together,
For monny years we've stretched our tether,
An as aw dunnot care a feather
For fowk 'at grummel,
We'll have another try. Aye! whether
We ...

"My birth-day"--what a different sound
    That word had in my youthful ears!
And how, each time the day comes round,
    Less and less white its mark appears!

"When first our scanty years are told,
It seems like pastime to grow old;
And as Youth counts the shining links
    That Time around him binds so fast,
Pleased with the task, he little thinks
    How hard that chain will press at last.
Vain was the man, and false as vain,
    Who said--"were he ordained to run
"His long career of life again,
    "He would do all that he had done."--
Ah, 'tis not thus the voice that dwells
    In sober birth-days speaks to me;
Far otherwise--of time it tells,
    Lavished unwisely, carelessly:
Of counsel mockt; of talents made
    Haply for hi...

That Captain Kidd scribbling of rock in the fields
yellowed bristle of pages
back of a farm where
piratical breaking of land knocks
clean holes in the soil,
gypsy dancers vernal growth before
a spy-glass hour moon.

And black print smudged
on a thumb, a child's glossary of tales
thick with terror
before the faceless wretch
crawls for grog,
his peg-leg
in step with
one part of my brain
Old Phew hardly
any Smee from Peter Pan
but the holocaust    -
the raven in the tree
eyeing the baby Treasure Island,
that fledgling reason
butchering both nostrils
at the skunk cabbage whose nectar
is the prize of cemeteries
& wild reunion of the bees.

There is a gladness over all the earth,
For summer is abroad in breezy mirth,
Nature rejoices and the heavens are glad,
And I alone am desolate and sad,
For I sit mourning by an empty cot,
Refusing comfort because one is not.

And I will mourn because I am bereaved,
Others have suffered others too have grieved
Over hopes broken even as mine are broke,
By a swift unexpected bitter stroke,
And I must weep as weeping Jacob prest,
To grieving lips his last ones princely vest

You tell me cease weeping, to resign
Unto the Father's a will this will of mine,
You say my lamb is on the Shepherd s breast,
My flower blooms in gardens of the blest,
I know it all I say, Thy will be done
Yet I must mourn for him--my son! my son!

        Minstrel, what have you to do
        With this man that, after you,
        Sharing not your happy fate,
        Sat as England's Laureate?
        Vainly, in these iron days,
        Strives the poet in your praise,
        Minstrel, by whose singing side
        Beauty walked, until you died.

        Still, though none should hark again,
        Drones the blue-fly in the pane,
        Thickly crusts the blackest moss,
        Blows the rose its musk across,
        Floats the boat that is forgot
        None the less to Camelot.

        Many a bard's untimely death
        Lends unto his verses breath;
        Here's a song was never sung:
        Growing old is dying young.
        Minstrel, what is this to you:
        ...

Piping down the valleys wild,
Piping songs of pleasant glee,
On a cloud I saw a child,
And he laughing said to me:

"Pipe a song about a Lamb!"
So I piped with merry cheer.
"Piper, pipe that song again;"
So I piped: he wept to hear.

"Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
Sing thy songs of happy cheer!"
So I sang the same again,
While he wept with joy to hear.

"Piper, sit thee down and write
In a book, that all may read."
So he vanish'd from my sight;
And I pluck'd a hollow reed,

And I made a rural pen,
And I stain'd the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear.

    I am slowly treading the mazy track
That leadeth, through sunshine and shadows, back -
Through freshest meads where the dews yet cling
As erst they did to each lowly thing,
Where flowers bloom and where streamlets flow
With the tender music of long ago -
To the far-off past that, through mists of tears,
In its spring time loveliness still appears,
And wooes me back to the gleaming shore
Of sunny years that return no more.

    And to night, all weary, and sad, and lone,
I return in thought to those bright years flown,
Whose lingering sweetness, e'en yet, I feel
Like the breath of flower-scents over me steal
I am treading o'er mounds where the dead repose, -
I am stirring the dust of life's perished rose, -
I am rustling the withered leaves that lie

I

When first we met (the Sea and I),
    Like one before a King,
I stood in awe; nor felt nor saw
The sun, the winds, the earth, the sky
    Or any other thing.
    God's Universe, to me,
        Was just the Sea.

When next we met, the lordly Main
    Played but a courtier's part;
Crowned Queen was I; and earth and sky,
And sun and sea were my domain,
    Since love was in my heart.
    Before, beyond, above,
        Was only Love.

II

Love built me, on a little rock,
    A little house of pine,
    At first, the Sea
    Beat angrily
About that house of mine;
(That dear, dear home of mine).

But when it turned to go away
    Beyond the sandy track,
    Down o'er its wall
    The house wou...

My Fair, no beauty of thine will last
    Save in my love's eternity.
    Thy smiles, that light thee fitfully,
Are lost for ever--their moment past--
    Except the few thou givest to me.

Thy sweet words vanish day by day,
    As all breath of mortality;
    Thy laughter, done, must cease to be,
And all thy dear tones pass away,
    Except the few that sing to me.

Hide then within my heart, oh, hide
    All thou art loth should go from thee.
    Be kinder to thyself and me.
My cupful from this river's tide
    Shall never reach the long sad sea.

    Heavily slumbered noonday bright
    Upon the lone field, glory-dight,
    A burnished grassy sea:
    The child, in gorgeous golden hours,
    Through heaven-descended starry flowers,
    Went walking on the lea.

    Velvety bees make busy hum;
    Green flies and striped wasps go and come;
    The butterflies gleam white;
    Blue-burning, vaporous, to and fro
    The dragon-flies like arrows go,
    Or hang in moveless flight:--

    Not one she followed; like a rill
    She wandered on with quiet will;
    Received, but did not miss;
    Her step was neither quick nor long;
    Nought but a snatch of murmured song
    Ever revealed her bliss.

    An almost solemn woman-child,
    Not fashioned frolicsome and wild,
 ...

The grand, authentic songs that roll
Across grey widths of wild-faced sea,
The lordly anthems of the Pole,
Are loud upon the lea.

Yea, deep and full the South Wind sings
The mighty symphonies that make
A thunder at the mountain springs
A whiteness on the lake.

And where the hermit hornet hums,
When Summer fires his wings with gold,
The hollow voice of August comes,
Across the rain and cold.

Now on the misty mountain tops,
Where gleams the crag and glares the fell,
Wild Winter, like one hunted, stops
And shouts a fierce farewell.

Keen fitful gusts shoot past the shore
And hiss by moor and moody mere
The heralds bleak that come before
The turning of the year.

A sobbing spirit wanders where
By fits and starts...

IN MEMORY OF CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

Shall I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel,
Brother, on this that was the veil of thee?
Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea,
Or simplest growth of meadow-sweet or sorrel,
Such as the summer-sleepy Dryads weave,
Waked up by snow-soft sudden rains at eve?
Or wilt thou rather, as on earth before,
Half-faded fiery blossoms, pale with heat
And full of bitter summer, but more sweet
To thee than gleanings of a northern shore
Trod by no tropic feet?

For always thee the fervid languid glories
Allured of heavier suns in mightier skies;
Thine ears knew all the wandering watery sighs
Where the sea sobs round Lesbian promontories,
The barren kiss of piteous wave to wave
That knows not where is that Leucadian grave...

Once a stranger youth to Corinth came,

Who in Athens lived, but hoped that he
From a certain townsman there might claim,

As his father's friend, kind courtesy.

Son and daughter, they

Had been wont to say

Should thereafter bride and bridegroom be.

But can he that boon so highly prized,

Save tis dearly bought, now hope to get?
They are Christians and have been baptized,

He and all of his are heathens yet.

For a newborn creed,

Like some loathsome weed,

Love and truth to root out oft will threat.

Father, daughter, all had gone to rest,

And the mother only watches late;
She receives with courtesy the guest,

And conducts him to the room of state.

Wine and food are bro...

I am tired of cursing the Bishop,
(Said Crazy Jane)
Nine books or nine hats
Would not make him a man.
I have found something worse
To meditate on.
A King had some beautiful cousins.
But where are they gone?
Battered to death in a cellar,
And he stuck to his throne.
Last night I lay on the mountain.
(Said Crazy Jane)
There in a two-horsed carriage
That on two wheels ran
Great-bladdered Emer sat.
Her violent man
Cuchulain sat at her side;
Thereupon'
Propped upon my two knees,
I kissed a stone
I lay stretched out in the dirt
And I cried tears down.