Family

Came the dread Archer up yonder lawn -
    Night is the time for the old to die -
But woe for an arrow that smote the fawn,
    When the hind that was sick unscathed went by.

Father lay moaning, "Her fault was sore
    (Night is the time when the old must die),
Yet, ah to bless her, my child, once more,
    For heart is failing: the end is nigh."

"Daughter, my daughter, my girl," I cried
    (Night is the time for the old to die),
"Woe for the wish if till morn ye bide" -
    Dark was the welkin and wild the sky.

Heavily plunged from the roof the snow -
    (Night is the time when the old will die),
She answered, "My mother, 'tis well, I go."
    Sparkled the north star, the wrack flew high.

First at his head, and last at his feet
...

As thro' the land at eve we went,
And pluck'd the ripen'd ears,
We fell out, my wife and I,
O we fell out I know not why,
And kiss'd again with tears.
And blessings on the falling out
That all the more endears,
When we fall out with those we love
And kiss again with tears!
For when we came where lies the child
We lost in other years,
There above the little grave,
O there above the little grave,
We kiss'd again with tears.

Draw closer to my side to-night,
Dear wife, give me thy hand,
My heart is sad with memories
Which thou canst understand,
Its twenty years this very day,
I know thou minds it well,
Since o'er our happy wedded life
The heaviest trouble fell.

We stood beside the little cot,
But not a word we said;
With breaking hearts we learned, alas,
Our little Claude was dead,
He was the last child born to us,
The loveliest, - the best,
I sometimes fear we loved him more
Than any of the rest.

We tried to say "Thy will be done,"
We strove to be resigned;
But all in vain, our loss had left
Too deep a wound behind.
I saw the tears roll down thy cheek,
And shared thy misery,
But could not speak a soothing word,
I could but grieve with...

        God had called us, and we came;
            Our loved Earth to ashes left;
        Heaven was a neighbor's house,
            Open to us, bereft.

        Gay the lights of Heaven showed,
            And 'twas God who walked ahead;
        Yet I wept along the road,
            Wanting my own house instead.

        Wept unseen, unheeded cried,
            "All you things my eyes have kissed,
        Fare you well!    We meet no more,
            Lovely, lovely tattered mist!

        Weary wings that rise and fall
            All day long above the fire!"--
        Red with heat was every wall,
            Rough with heat was every wire--

        "Fare you well, you little winds
            That the flying embers chase!
...

A fool I was to sleep at noon,
And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily.

My garden-plot I have not kept;
Faded and all-forsaken,
I weep as I have never wept:
Oh it was summer when I slept,
It's winter now I waken.

Talk what you please of future spring
And sun-warmed sweet to-morrow: -
Stripped bare of hope and every thing,
No more to laugh, no more to sing,
I sit alone with sorrow.

[Knows he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?]

That field by spirits bad and good,
By Hell and Heaven is haunted,
And every rood in the hemlock wood
I know is ground enchanted.

[In the long sunny afternoon
The plain was full of ghosts:
I wandered up, I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.]

For in those lonely grounds the sun
Shines not as on the town,
In nearer arcs his journeys run,
And nearer stoops the moon.

There in a moment I have seen
The buried Past arise;
The fields of Thessaly grew green,
Old gods forsook the skies.

I cannot publish in my rhyme
What pranks the greenwood played;
It was the Carnival of time,
And ...

I once knew all the birds that came
And nested in our orchard trees;
For every flower I had a name--
My friends were woodchucks, toads, and bees;
I knew where thrived in yonder glen
What plants would soothe a stone-bruised toe--
Oh, I was very learned then;
But that was very long ago!

I knew the spot upon the hill
Where checkerberries could be found,
I knew the rushes near the mill
Where pickerel lay that weighed a pound!
I knew the wood,--the very tree
Where lived the poaching, saucy crow,
And all the woods and crows knew me--
But that was very long ago.

And pining for the joys of youth,
I tread the old familiar spot
Only to learn this solemn truth:
I have forgotten, am forgot.
Yet here's this youngster at my knee
Knows al...

MUSKOKA

A stream of tender gladness,
Of filmy sun, and opal tinted skies;
Of warm midsummer air that lightly lies
In mystic rings,
Where softly swings
The music of a thousand wings
That almost tones to sadness.

Midway 'twixt earth and heaven,
A bubble in the pearly air, I seem
To float upon the sapphire floor, a dream
Of clouds of snow,
Above, below,
Drift with my drifting, dim and slow,
As twilight drifts to even.

The little fern-leaf, bending
Upon the brink, its green reflection greets,
And kisses soft the shadow that it meets
With touch so fine,
The border line
The keenest vision can't define;
So perfect is the blending.

The far, fir trees that cover
The brownish hills with needles green and gold,

O waters fresh and sweet and clear,
Where bathed her lovely frame,
Who seems the only lady unto me;
O gentle branch and dear,
(Sighing I speak thy name,)
Thou column for her shapely thighs, her supple knee;
O grass, O flowers, which she
Swept with her gown that veiled
The angelic breast unseen;
O sacred air serene,
Whence the divine-eyed Love my heart assailed,
By all of ye be heard
This my supreme lament, my dying word.


Oh, if it be my fate
(As Heaven shall so decree)
That Love shall close for me my weeping eyes,
Some courteous friend I supplicate
Midst these to bury me,
Whilst my enfranchised spirit homeward flies;
Less dreadful death shall rise,
If I may bear this hope
To that mysterious goal.
For ne'er did weary so...

She said, and for her lost Calanthis sighs,
When the fair Consort of her son replies.
"Since you a servant's ravish'd form bemoan,
And kindly sigh for sorrows not your own;
Let me (if tears and grief permit) relate
A nearer woe, a sister's stranger fate.
No Nymph of all OEchalia could compare
For beauteous form with Dryope the fair,
Her tender mother's only hope and pride,
(Myself the offspring of a second bride)
This Nymph compress'd by him who rules the day,
Whom Delphi and the Delian isle obey,
Andraemon lov'd; and, bless'd in all those charms
That pleas'd a God, succeeded to her arms.
"A lake there was, with shelving banks around,
Whose verdant summit fragrant myrtles crown'd.
These shades, unknowing of the fates, she sought,
And to the Naiads flow'ry...

You took my empty dreams
And filled them every one
With tenderness and nobleness,
April and the sun.

The old empty dreams
Where my thoughts would throng
Are far too full of happiness
To even hold a song.

Oh, the empty dreams were dim
And the empty dreams were wide,
They were sweet and shadowy houses
Where my thoughts could hide.

But you took my dreams away
And you made them all come true,
My thoughts have no place now to play,
And nothing now to do.

    "I am doing no good!" said a little rill,
As it rippled along at the foot of a hill,
"I am doing no good with my babbling here,
No one is listening, - no one is near!"

    "'No good! - no good!'" said a violet blue,
As it shook from its petals the sparkling dew,
And opened its wondering, azure eyes
To the soft, clear light of the morning skies.

    "'No good?'" - said a willow tree, bending low
To kiss the rivulet, "say not so!
Daily and hourly I draw from thee
The grace and beauty that dwell with me!"
And the rustling reeds in the marge that stood
Reproachfully murmured - "'no good! - no good!'"
    "'No good,' indeed!" - cried a dainty bird,
And she sprang from her nest as the sound she heard,
And fluttered her wings o'er the sorrowing stream...

No more summer for Molly and me;
There is snow on the tree,
And the blackbirds plump large as the rooks are, almost,
And the water is hard
Where they used to dip bills at the dawn ere her figure was lost
To these coasts, now my prison close-barred.

No more planting by Molly and me
Where the beds used to be
Of sweet-william; no training the clambering rose
By the framework of fir
Now bowering the pathway, whereon it swings gaily and blows
As if calling commendment from her.

No more jauntings by Molly and me
To the town by the sea,
Or along over Whitesheet to Wynyard's green Gap,
Catching Montacute Crest
To the right against Sedgmoor, and Corton-Hill's far-distant cap,
And Pilsdon and Lewsdon to west.

No more singing by Molly to me

    When God's own child came down to earth,
    High heaven was very glad;
    The angels sang for holy mirth;
    Not God himself was sad!

    Shall we, when ours goes homeward, fret?
    Come, Hope, and wait on Sorrow!
    The little one will not forget;
    It's only till to-morrow!

The leaves are many under my feet,
    And drift one way.
Their scent of death is weary and sweet.
    A flight of them is in the grey
Where sky and forest meet.

The low winds moan for dead sweet years;
    The birds sing all for pain,
Of a common thing, to weary ears,--
    Only a summer's fate of rain,
And a woman's fate of tears.

I walk to love and life alone
    Over these mournful places,
Across the summer overthrown,
    The dead joys of these silent faces,
To claim my own.

I know his heart has beat to bright
    Sweet loves gone by.
I know the leaves that die to-night
    Once budded to the sky,
And I shall die from his delight.

O leaves, so quietly ending now,
    You have heard cuckoos sing.
And I ...

(The exile Meliboeus finds Tityrus in possession of his own farm, restored to him by the emperor Augustus, and a conversation ensues. The poem is in praise of Augustus, peace and pastoral life.)


Meliboeus--
Tityrus, all in the shade of the wide-spreading beech tree reclining,
Sweet is that music you've made on your pipe that is oaten and slender;
Exiles from home, you beguile our hearts from their hopeless repining,
As you sing Amaryllis the while in pastorals tuneful and tender.

Tityrus--
A god--yes, a god, I declare--vouchsafes me these pleasant conditions,
And often I gayly repair with a tender white lamb to his altar,
He gives me the leisure to play my greatly admired compositions,
While my heifers go browsing all day, unhampered of bell and halter.

John Pierpont, the eloquent preacher and poet of Boston.


Not as a poor requital of the joy
With which my childhood heard that lay of thine,
Which, like an echo of the song divine
At Bethlehem breathed above the Holy Boy,
Bore to my ear the Airs of Palestine,
Not to the poet, but the man I bring
In friendship's fearless trust my offering
How much it lacks I feel, and thou wilt see,
Yet well I know that thou Last deemed with me
Life all too earnest, and its time too short
For dreamy ease and Fancy's graceful sport;
And girded for thy constant strife with wrong,
Like Nehemiah fighting while he wrought
The broken walls of Zion, even thy song
Hath a rude martial tone, a blow in every thought!

Hear me now, my hobby-horse, my steed of prancing paces!
Time is it that you and I won something more than races.
I have got a fine cocked hat, with feathers proudly waving;
Out into the world we'll go, both death and danger braving.

Doubt not that I know the way--the garden-gate is clapping:
Who forgot to lock it last deserves his fingers slapping.
When they find we can't be found, oh won't there be a chorus!
You and I may laugh at that, with all the world before us.

All the world, the great green world that lies beyond the paling!
All the sea, the great round sea where ducks and drakes are sailing!
I a knight, my charger thou, together we will wander
Out into that grassy waste where dwells the Goosey Gander.

Months ago, my faithful steed, that Goose attacked y...