Family

For G. H.



Say, does that stupid earth
Where they have laid her,
Bind still her sullen mirth,
Mirth which betrayed her?
Do the lush grasses hold,
Greenly and glad,
That brittle-perfect gold
She alone had?

Smugly the common crew,
Over their knitting,
Mourn her -- as butchers do
Sheep-throats they're slitting!
She was my enemy,
One of the best of them.
Would she come back to me,
God damn the rest of them!

Damn them, the flabby, fat,
Sleek little darlings!
We gave them tit for tat,
Snarlings for snarlings!
Squashy pomposities,
Shocked at our violence,
Let not one tactful hiss
Break her new silence!

Maids of antiquity,
Look well upon her;
Ice was her chastity,
Spotless h...

Farewell: how should not such as thou fare well,
Though we fare ill that love thee, and that live,
And know, whate'er the days wherein we dwell
May give us, thee again they will not give?
Peace, rest, and sleep are all we know of death,
And all we dream of comfort: yet for thee,
Whose breath of life was bright and strenuous breath,
We think the change is other than we see.
The seal of sleep set on thine eyes to-day
Surely can seal not up the keen swift light
That lit them once for ever. Night can slay
None save the children of the womb of night.
The fire that burns up dawn to bring forth noon
Was father of thy spirit: how shouldst thou
Die as they die for whom the sun and moon
Are silent? Thee the darkness holds not now:
Them, while they looked upon the light,...

    Hark, in the steeple the dull bell swinging
        Over the furrows ill ploughed by Death!
    Hark the bird-babble, the loud lark singing!
        Hark, from the sky, what the prophet saith!

    Hark, in the pines, the free Wind, complaining--
        Moaning, and murmuring, "Life is bare!"
    Hark, in the organ, the caught Wind, outstraining,
        Jubilant rise in a soaring prayer!

    Toll for the burying, sexton tolling!
        Sing for the second birth, angel Lark!
    Moan, ye poor Pines, with the Past condoling!
        Burst out, brave Organ, and kill the Dark!


II.

    Sit on the ground, and immure thy sorrow;
        I will give freedom to mine in song!
    Haunt thou the tomb, and deny the morrow;
        I wil...

    They were a couple well content
    With what they earned and what they spent,
    Cared not a whit for style's decree -
    For he was Scotch, and so was she.

    And oh, they loved to talk of Burns -
    Dear blithesome, tender Bobby Burns!
    They never wearied of his song,
    He never sang a note too strong.
    One little fault could neither see -
    For he was Scotch, and so was she.

    They loved to read of men who stood
    And gave for country life and blood,
    Who held their faith so grand a thing
    They scorned to yield it to a king.
    Ah, proud of such they well might be -
    For he was Scotch, and so was she.

    From neighbors' broils they kept away;
    No liking for such things had they,
    And oh, ea...

I.
If It be pleasant to look on, stalled in the packed serai,
Does not the Young Man try Its temper and pace ere he buy?
If She be pleasant to look on, what does the Young Man say?
"Lo! She is pleasant to look on, give Her to me to-day!"

II.
Yea, though a Kafir die, to him is remitted Jehannum
If he borrowed in life from a native at sixty per cent. per anuum.

III.
Blister we not for bursati? So when the heart is vext,
The pain of one maiden's refusal is drowned in the pain of the next.

IV.
The temper of chums, the love of your wife, and a new piano's tune
Which of the three will you trust at the end of an Indian June?

V.
Who are the rulers of Ind to whom shall we bow the knee?
Make your peace with the women, and men will make you L. G.<...

Nature in charms is exhaustless, in beauty ever reviving;
And, like Nature, fair art is inexhaustible too.
Hail, thou honored old man! for both in thy heart thou preservest
Living sensations, and thus ne'er-ending youth is thy lot!

On a bleak, bald hill with a dull world under,
    The dreary world of the Commonplace,
I have stood when the whole world seemed a blunder
    Of dotard Time, in an aimless race.
With worry about me and want before me -
    Yet deep in my soul was a rapture spring
That made me cry to the grey sky o'er me:
    'Oh, I know this life is a goodly thing!'

I have given sweet years to a thankless duty
    While cold and starving, though clothed and fed,
For a young heart's hunger for joy and beauty
    Is harder to bear than the need of bread.
I have watched the wane of a sodden season,
    Which let hope wither, and made care thrive,
And through it all, without earthly reason,
    I have thrilled with the glory of being alive.

And now I stand by the grea...

I.

First I asked the honeybee,
Busy in the balmy bowers;
Saying, "Sweetheart, tell it me:
Have you seen her, honeybee?
She is cousin to the flowers
All the sweetness of the south
In her wild-rose face and mouth."
But the bee passed silently.

II.

Then I asked the forest bird,
Warbling by the woodland waters;
Saying, "Dearest, have you heard?
Have you heard her, forest bird?
She is one of music's daughters
Never song so sweet by half
As the music of her laugh."
But the bird said not a word.

III.

Next I asked the evening sky,
Hanging out its lamps of fire;
Saying, "Loved one, passed she by?
Tell me, tell me, evening sky!
She, the star of my desire
Sister whom the Pleiads lost,
And my soul'...

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

To fair Fidele’s grassy tomb
Soft maids and village hinds shall bring
Each op’ning sweet, of earliest bloom,
And rifle all the breathing spring.


No wailing ghost shall dare appear,
To vex with shrieks this quiet grove:
But shepherd lads assemble here,
And melting virgins own their love.


No wither’d witch shall here be seen,
No goblins lead their nightly crew:
The female fays shall haunt the green,
And dress thy grave with pearly dew!


The redbreast oft at ev’ning hours
Shall kindly lend his little aid:
With hoary moss, and gather’d flow’rs,
To deck the ground where thou art laid.


When howling winds, and beating rain,
In tempests shake the sylvan cell,
Or midst the chase on ev’ry plain,
The tender th...

I.

    O thou to whom, athwart the perish'd days
    And parted nights long sped, we lift our gaze,
    Behold! I greet thee with a modern rhyme,
    Love-lit and reverent as befits the time,
    To solemnize the feast-day of thy son.


II.

    And who was he who flourish'd in the smiles
    Of thy fair face? 'Twas Shakespeare of the Isles,
    Shakespeare of England, whom the world has known
    As thine, and ours, and Glory's, in the zone
    Of all the seas and all the lands of earth.


III.

    He was un-famous when he came to thee,
    But sound, and sweet, and good for eyes to see,
    And born at Stratford, on St. George's Day,
    A week before the wondrous month of May;
    And God therein was gracious to us ...

Call me away; there's nothing here,
That wins my soul to stay;
Then let me leave this prospect drear,
And hasten far away.

To our beloved land I'll flee,
Our land of thought and soul,
Where I have roved so oft with thee,
Beyond the world's control.

I'll sit and watch those ancient trees,
Those Scotch firs dark and high;
I'll listen to the eerie breeze,
Among their branches sigh.

The glorious moon shines far above;
How soft her radiance falls,
On snowy heights, and rock, and grove;
And yonder palace walls!

Who stands beneath yon fir trees high?
A youth both slight and fair,
Whose bright and restless azure eye
Proclaims him known to care,
Though fair that brow, it is not smooth;
Though small those features, yet in...

In this old garden, fair, I walk to-day
Heart-charmed with all the beauty of the scene:
The rich, luxuriant grasses' cooling green,
The wall's environ, ivy-decked and gray,
The waving branches with the wind at play,
The slight and tremulous blooms that show between,
Sweet all: and yet my yearning heart doth lean
Toward Love's Egyptian fleshpots far away.

Beside the wall, the slim Laburnum grows
And flings its golden flow'rs to every breeze.
But e'en among such soothing sights as these,
I pant and nurse my soul-devouring woes.
Of all the longings that our hearts wot of,
There is no hunger like the want of love!

        I shouldn't like to say, I'm sure,
            I shouldn't like to say,
        Why I think of you more, and more, and more
            As day flits after day.
        Nor why I see in the Summer skies
        Only the beauty of your sweet eyes,
            The power by which you sway
        A kingdom of hearts, that little you prize
            I shouldn't like to say.

        I shouldn't like to say, I'm sure,
            I shouldn't like to say
        Why I hear your voice, so fresh and pure,
            In the dash of the laughing spray.
        Nor why the wavelets that all the while,
        In many a diamond-glittering file,
            With truant sunbeams play,
        Should make me remember your rippling smile
            I shou...

Oh! the days are gone, when Beauty bright
        My heart's chain wove;
When my dream of life, from morn till night,
        Was love, still love.
        New hope may bloom,
        And days may come,

    Of milder, calmer beam,
But there's nothing half so sweet in life
    As love's young dream;
No, there's nothing half so sweet in life
    As love's young dream.

Tho' the bard to purer fame may soar,
            When wild youth's past;
Tho' he win the wise, who frowned before,
            To smile at last;
            He'll never meet
            A joy so sweet,
    In all his noon of fame,
As when first he sung to woman's ear
    His soul-felt flame,
And, at every close, she blushed to hear
    The one lov'd name.
...

The night would sadden us with wind and rain
Let's to sweet Comedy and scorn the night!
Let's read together: how, by silver light,
The fairies went, a most enchanting train.
Amid those clowns and lovers; how the twain,
Celia and Rosalind, as shepherds dight.
Frolicked through Arden; or of that rare sprite,
That Ariel, who could trick the mortal brain
To strange beliefs. What! wilt have nothing glad?
Wilt read, while winds are moaning out regret.
The fate of Desdemona, Juliet?
Lovest the rain to come and make thee sad?
Ah, well!, I know!, How sweet the tragic part!
I am grown old, but once, was what thou art I

Exquisite mosses, so lovely and green,
Covering the rocks with emerald sheen;
Hiding the scars which convulsions have made;
Blessing the mound where our angel was laid;
Forming a carpet on which we may tread;
Clothing with beauty the rotten and dead;
Sheathing from storm-blasts the young forest tree--
Beautiful mosses, examples for me.

Trod under foot by all kinds of men;
Gracing the mountain or hid in the fen;
Never adorning the brow of the fair;
Seldom deemed worthy some corner to share
In the bouquets that are cast in the way
Princely feet tread on reception's proud day;
The glory of roses do not attain;
Beautiful mosses, ye grow not in vain.

Answer the end by your Maker designed.
Humble your bloom, but your mission is kind.
Those will...

"I pray you now, my little child,"
Thus once a kind old lady
Spoke to her niece in accents mild,
"Do try to be more steady.
I know that you will often see
Rude boys push, drive, and hurry;
But little girls should never be
All in a heat and flurry."


While thus the lady gave advice
And lectured little Polly,
To see her stand with downcast eyes,
You'd think she'd owned her folly.
She did, and many a promise made;
But when her aunt departed,
Forgetting all, the silly maid
Off to the playground started.


Now see what frolic and what fun,
The little folks are after;
Away they jump, away they run,
With many a shout and laughter.


But fools who never will be taught,
Except by some disaster,
Soon find thei...