Family

I

Had this effulgence disappeared
With flying haste, I might have sent,
Among the speechless clouds, a look
Of blank astonishment;
But 'tis endued with power to stay,
And sanctify one closing day,
That frail Mortality may see,
What is? ah no, but what 'can' be!
Time was when field and watery cove
With modulated echoes rang,
While choirs of fervent Angels sang
Their vespers in the grove;
Or, crowning, star-like, each some sovereign height,
Warbled, for heaven above and earth below,
Strains suitable to both. Such holy rite,
Methinks, if audibly repeated now
From hill or valley, could not move
Sublimer transport, purer love,
Than doth this silent spectacle, the gleam,
The shadow and the peace supreme!

II

No sound is...

The wild bee reels from bough to bough
With his furry coat and his gauzy wing,
Now in a lily-cup, and now
Setting a jacinth bell a-swing,
In his wandering;
Sit closer love: it was here I trow
I made that vow,

Swore that two lives should be like one
As long as the sea-gull loved the sea,
As long as the sunflower sought the sun,
It shall be, I said, for eternity
'Twixt you and me!
Dear friend, those times are over and done;
Love's web is spun.

Look upward where the poplar trees
Sway and sway in the summer air,
Here in the valley never a breeze
Scatters the thistledown, but there
Great winds blow fair
From the mighty murmuring mystical seas,
And the wave-lashed leas.

Look upward where the white gull screams,
What do...

'Tis a land where no hurricane falls,
But the infinite azure regards
Its waters for ever, its walls
Of granite, its limitless swards;
Where the fens to their innermost pool
With the chorus of May are aring,
And the glades are wind-winnowed and cool
With perpetual spring;

Where folded and half withdrawn
The delicate wind-flowers blow,
And the bloodroot kindles at dawn
Her spiritual taper of snow;
Where the limits are met and spanned
By a waste that no husbandman tills,
And the earth-old pine forests stand
In the hollows of hills.

'Tis the land that our babies behold,
Deep gazing when none are aware;
And the great-hearted seers of old
And the poets have known it, and there
Made halt by the well-heads of truth
On their difficu...

Sweet Flower! belike one day to have
A place upon thy Poet's grave,
I welcome thee once more:
But He, who was on land, at sea,
My Brother, too, in loving thee,
Although he loved more silently,
Sleeps by his native shore.

Ah! hopeful, hopeful was the day
When to that Ship he bent his way,
To govern and to guide:
His wish was gained: a little time
Would bring him back in manhood's prime
And free for life, these hills to climb;
With all his wants supplied.

And full of hope day followed day
While that stout Ship at anchor lay
Beside the shores of Wight;
The May had then made all things green;
And, floating there, in pomp serene,
That Ship was goodly to be seen,
His pride and his delight!

Yet then, when called ashore, he s...

Suggested on returning home for my holidays by an old portrait of the poet, which hangs in my room.

    Old friend! - I always loved thee;
        In childhood's early days,
    Delighted I would listen
        With laughter to thy lays.

    And better still I loved thee,
        To riper boyhood grown;
    Because thou wert the pride of
        The land that's part my own.

    But with devotion deepened
        I greet thee now anew,
    Of love, because thou singest
        So simple, sweet, and true.

Fling my past behind me, like a robe
Worn threadbare in the seams, and out of date.
I have outgrown it.    Wherefore should I weep
And dwell up on its beauty, and its dyes
Of Oriental splendour, or complain
That I must needs discard it?    I can weave
Upon the shuttles of the future years
A fabric far more durable.    Subdued,
It may be, in the blending of its hues,
Where sombre shades commingle, yet the gleam
Of golden warp shall shoot it through and through,
While over all a fadeless lustre lies,
And starred with gems made out of crystalled tears,
My new robe shall be richer than the old.

When I was small, a woman died.
To-day her only boy
Went up from the Potomac,
His face all victory,

To look at her; how slowly
The seasons must have turned
Till bullets clipt an angle,
And he passed quickly round!

If pride shall be in Paradise
I never can decide;
Of their imperial conduct,
No person testified.

But proud in apparition,
That woman and her boy
Pass back and forth before my brain,
As ever in the sky.

A singing voice is in my dream
The voice of Erskine, on his boulders,
Babbling and shouting till he shoulders
Stoutly against the heavier stream.

No longer now my curtained sight,
On serried books and pictures dwelling,
Of long-neglected work is telling,
But looks beyond the travelling night.

And here no longer is my home,
For you and I are far asunder:
I hear again the cascade thunder
And watch the little pool of foam.

And where the water, pouring sleek,
In sudden whiteness flings his treasure,
I see you sitting, Queen of Pleasure,
Clad only by the glittering creek.

I hold my arms to you once more,
For O my longing flesh is aching,
And you, your rocky throne forsaking,
Come cool and radiant to the shore.

I see...

And after all, and after all,
Our passionate prayers, and sighs, and tears,
Is life a reckless carnival?
And are they lost, our golden years?

Ah, no; ah, no; for, long ago,
Ere time could sear, or care could fret,
There was a youth called Romeo,
There was a maid named Juliet.

The players of the past are gone;
The races rise; the races pass;
And softly over all is drawn
The quiet Curtain of the Grass.

But when the world went wild with Spring,
What days we had! Do you forget?
When I of all the world was King,
And you were my Queen Juliet?

The things that are; the things that seem,
Who shall distinguish shape from show?
The great processional, splendid dream
Of life is all I wish to know.

The gods their faces turn...

    When the warm sun, that brings
Seed-time and harvest, has returned again,
'Tis sweet to visit the still wood, where springs
    The first flower of the plain.

    I love the season well,
When forest glades are teeming with bright forms,
Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell
    The coming-on of storms.

    From the earth's loosened mould
The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives;
Though stricken to the heart with winter's cold,
    The drooping tree revives.

    The softly-warbled song
Comes from the pleasant woods and coloured wings
Glance quick in the bright sun, that moves along
    The forest openings.

    When the bright sunset fills
The silver woods with light, the green slope throws
Its shadows in the hollows...

You know I left my forest home full loth,
And those weird ways I knew so well and long,
Dishevelled with their sloping sidelong growth
Of twisted thorn and kurrajong.

It seems to me, my friend (and this wild thought
Of all wild thoughts, doth chiefly make me bleed),
That in those hills and valleys wonder-fraught,
I loved and lost a noble creed.

A splendid creed! But let me even turn
And hide myself from what I’ve seen, and try
To fathom certain truths you know, and learn
The Beauty shining in your sky:

Remembering you in ardent autumn nights,
And Stenhouse near you, like a fine stray guest
Of other days, with all his lore of lights
So manifold and manifest!

Then hold me firm. I cannot choose but long
For that which lies and burns b...

When the evening broods quiescent
Over mountain, vale and lea,
And the moon uplifts her crescent
Far above the peaceful sea,
Little Rose, the fisher's daughter,
Passes in her cedar skiff
O'er the dreamy waste of water,
To the signal on the cliff.

Have a care, my merry maiden!
Young Adonis though he be,
Many hearts are secret-laden
That have trusted such as he.
Has he worth, and is he truthful?
Thoughtless maiden rarely knows;
But, "He's handsome, brave and youthful,"
Says the heart of little Rose.

Hark! the horn - its shrill vibrations
Tremble through the maiden's breast,
As the sweet reverberations
Dwindle to their whispered rest;
Sweeter far the honied sentence
Sealing up her mind's repose;
Love as yet needs no repen...

There! See the line of lights,
A chain of stars down either side the street,
Why can't you lift the chain and give it to me,
A necklace for my throat? I'd twist it round
And you could play with it. You smile at me
As though I were a little dreamy child
Behind whose eyes the fairies live.... And see,
The people on the street look up at us
All envious. We are a king and queen,
Our royal carriage is a motor bus,
We watch our subjects with a haughty joy....
How still you are! Have you been hard at work
And are you tired to-night? It is so long
Since I have seen you, four whole days, I think.
My heart is crowded full of foolish thoughts
Like early flowers in an April meadow,
And I must give them to you, all of them,
Before they fade. The people I have met,

1.
Little Bo-Peep, she lost her sheep,
And didn't know where to find them;
Let them alone, they'll all come home
And bring their tails behind them.

2.
Little Bo-Peep fell fast asleep,
And dreamt she heard them bleating;
But when she awoke, she found it a joke,
For they were still a-fleeting.

3.
Then up she took her little crook,
Determined for to find them,
She found them indeed, but it made her heart bleed
For they'd left their tails behind them.

4.
It happened one day as Bo-Peep did stray
Into a meadow hard by,
There she espied their tails side by side,
All hung on a tree to dry.

5.
She heaved a sigh and wiped her eye,
Then went o'er hill and dale,
And tried what she could, as a shepherdess should,

Ye in the age gone by,
Who ruled the world a world how lovely then!
And guided still the steps of happy men
In the light leading-strings of careless joy!
Ah, flourished then your service of delight!
How different, oh, how different, in the day
When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright,
O Venus Amathusia!

Then, through a veil of dreams
Woven by song, truth's youthful beauty glowed,
And life's redundant and rejoicing streams
Gave to the soulless, soul where'r they flowed
Man gifted nature with divinity
To lift and link her to the breast of love;
All things betrayed to the initiate eye
The track of gods above!

Where lifeless fixed afar,
A flaming ball to our dull sense is given,
Phoebus Apollo, in his golden car,
In silent glo...

Poems are painted window-panes:
Look from the square into the church--
Gloom and dusk are all your gains!
Sir Philistine is left in the lurch:
Outside he stands--spies nothing or use of it,
And nought is left him save the abuse of it.

But you, I pray you, just step in;
Make in the chapel your obeisance:
All at once 'tis a radiant pleasaunce:
Device and story flash to presence;
A gracious splendour works to win.
This to God's children is full measure:
It edifies and gives them pleasure.

    Love, if I weep it will not matter,
        And if you laugh I shall not care;
    Foolish am I to think about it,
        But it is good to feel you there.

    Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking,--
        White and awful the moonlight reached
    Over the floor, and somewhere, somewhere,
        There was a shutter loose,--it screeched!

    Swung in the wind,--and no wind blowing!--
        I was afraid, and turned to you,
    Put out my hand to you for comfort,--
        And you were gone!    Cold, cold as dew,

    Under my hand the moonlight lay!
        Love, if you laugh I shall not care,
    But if I weep it will not matter,--
        Ah, it is good to feel you there!

    What dost thou here, O soul,
Beyond thy own control,
Under the strange wild sky?
0 stars, reach down your hands,
And clasp me in your silver bands,
I tremble with this mystery!--
Flung hither by a chance
Of restless circumstance,
Thou art but here, and wast not sent;
Yet once more mayest thou draw
By thy own mystic law
To the centre of thy wonderment.

    Why wilt thou stop and start?
Draw nearer, oh my heart,
And I will question thee most wistfully;
Gather thy last clear resolution
To look upon thy dissolution.

    The great God's life throbs far and free,
And thou art but a spark
Known only in thy dark,
Or a foam-fleck upon the awful ocean,
Thyself thy slender dignity,
Thy own thy vexing mystery,
In the vast...