Family

        Let them bury your big eyes
        In the secret earth securely,
        Your thin fingers, and your fair,
        Soft, indefinite-colored hair,--
        All of these in some way, surely,
        From the secret earth shall rise;
        Not for these I sit and stare,
        Broken and bereft completely;
        Your young flesh that sat so neatly
        On your little bones will sweetly
        Blossom in the air.

        But your voice,--never the rushing
        Of a river underground,
        Not the rising of the wind
        In the trees before the rain,
        Not the woodcock's watery call,
        Not the note the white-throat utters,
        Not the feet of children pushing
        Yellow leaves along the gutters
  ...

An Ode. 1685.


I.

    Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,
    Made in the last promotion of the blest;
    Whose palms, new pluck'd from Paradise,
    In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
    Rich with immortal green above the rest:
    Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star,
    Thou roll'st above us, in thy wandering race,
        Or, in procession fix'd and regular,
        Mov'st with the heavens' majestic pace;
        Or, call'd to more superior bliss,
    Thou tread'st, with seraphims, the vast abyss:

    Whatever happy region is thy place,
    Cease thy celestial song a little space;
    Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,
        Since Heaven's eternal year is thine.
    Hear then a mortal Muse th...

Ye silent shades, whose each tree here
Some relique of a saint doth wear;
Who for some sweet-heart's sake, did prove
The fire and martyrdom of Love:
Here is the legend of those saints
That died for love, and their complaints;
Their wounded hearts, and names we find
Encarved upon the leaves and rind.
Give way, give way to me, who come
Scorch'd with the self-same martyrdom!
And have deserved as much, Love knows,
As to be canonized 'mongst those
Whose deeds and deaths here written are
Within your Greeny-kalendar.
By all those virgins' fillets hung
Upon! your boughs, and requiems sung
For saints and souls departed hence,
Here honour'd still with frankincense;
By all those tears that have been shed,
As a drink-offering to the dead;
By all those ...

Ah! why with tell-tale tongue reveal [1]
What most her blushes would conceal?
Why lift that modest veil to trace
The seraph-sweetness of her face?
Some fairer, better sport prefer;
And feel for us, if not for her.
    For this presumption, soon or late,
Know thine shall be a kindred fate.
Another shall in vengeance rise--
Sing Harriet's cheeks, and Harriet's eyes;
And, echoing back her wood-notes wild,
--Trace all the mother in the child!

Autumn comes laden with her ripened load
Of fruitage and so scatters them abroad
That each fern-smothered heath and mole-hill waste
Are black with bramble berries--where in haste
The chubby urchins from the village hie
To feast them there, stained with the purple dye;
While painted woods around my rambles be
In draperies worthy of eternity.
Yet will the leaves soon patter on the ground,
And death's deaf voice awake at every sound:
One drops--then others--and the last that fell
Rings for those left behind their passing bell.
Thus memory every where her tidings brings
How sad death robs us of life's dearest things.

My father's halls, so rich and rare,
Are desolate and bleak and bare;
My father's heart and halls are one,
Since I, their life and light, am gone.

O, valiant knight, with hand of steel
And heart of gold, hear my appeal:
Release me from the spoiler's charms,
And bear me to my father's arms.

They dressed us up in black,
Susan and Tom and me -
And, walking through the fields
All beautiful to see,
With branches high in the air
And daisy and buttercup,
We heard the lark in the clouds -
In black dressed up.

They took us to the graves,
Susan and Tom and me,
Where the long grasses grow
And the funeral tree:
We stood and watched; and the wind
Came softly out of the sky
And blew in Susan's hair,
As I stood close by.

Back through the fields we came,
Tom and Susan and me,
And we sat in the nursery together,
And had our tea.
And, looking out of the window,
I heard the thrushes sing;
But Tom fell asleep in his chair,
He was so tired, poor thing.

SISTER of the first-born light,

Type of sorrowing gentleness!

Quivering mists in silv'ry dress
Float around thy features bright;
When thy gentle foot is heard,

From the day-closed caverns then

Wake the mournful ghosts of men,
I, too, wake, and each night-bird.

O'er a field of boundless span

Looks thy gaze both far and wide.

Raise me upwards to thy side!
Grant this to a raving man!
And to heights of rapture raised,

Let the knight so crafty peep

At his maiden while asleep,
Through her lattice-window glazed.

Soon the bliss of this sweet view,

Pangs by distance caused allays;

And I gather all thy rays,
And my look I sharpen too.
Round her unveil'd limbs I see

Bri...

    Through the closed curtains comes the early sun,
        First a pale finger, preluding the hand.
    Outside more certainly the day's begun,
        Where bright and brighter still the chestnuts stand,
    Broad candles lighting up at the first fire.
        I stir and turn in my uneasy sleep
    But in my sorrow sleep's my whole desire.
        About the still room small lights move and creep
    Silently, stealthily on wall and chair,
        Till to strong rays and shining lights they grow,
    Which with their magic change the waiting air
        And all its sleeping motes to gold and throw
    A golden radiance on your empty bed,
    Which wakes me with vain likeness to your head.

Along the avenue I pass
    Huge piles of wood and stone,
And glance at each amorphous mass,
Whose cumbrous weight has crushed the grass,
    With half resentful groan.

Say I: "O labor, to despoil
    Some lovely forest scene,
Or at the granite stratum toil,
And desecrate whole roods of soil,
    Is vandal-like and mean!

"Than ever to disfigure thus
    Our prairie garden-land,
Let me consort with Cerberus,
Be chained to crags precipitous,
    Or seek an alien strand."

But while this pining, pouting Muse
    The interval ignores,
Deft industry, no time to lose,
Contrives and carries, hoists and hews,
    And symmetry restores.

Behold! of rock and pile and board
    A modern miracle,
My neighbor's dwelling, ...

A thousand summers ere the time of Christ
From out his ancient city came a Seer
Whom one that loved, and honour’d him, and yet
Was no disciple, richly garb’d, but worn
From wasteful living, follow’d—in his hand
A scroll of verse—till that old man before
A cavern whence an affluent fountain pour’d
From darkness into daylight, turn’d and spoke.

This wealth of waters might but seem to draw
From yon dark cave, but, son, the source is higher,
Yon summit half-a-league in air—and higher,
The cloud that hides it—higher still, the heavens
Whereby the cloud was moulded, and whereout
The cloud descended. Force is from the heights.
I am wearied of our city, son, and go
To spend my one last year among the hills.
What hast thou there? Some deathsong for the Ghouls

Let's love one another, it's better bi far;
Mak peace wi yor Brother - it's better nor war!
Life's rooad's rough enuff, - let's mak it mooar smooth,
Let's sprinkle awr pathway wi kindness an love.
Ther's hearts at are heavy, and een at are dim,
Ther's deep cups o' sorrow at's full up to th' brim;
Ther's want an misfortun, - ther's crime an ther's sin;
Let's feight 'em wi Love, - for Love's sarten to win.

Give yor hand, - a kind hand, - to yor brother i' need,
Dooant question his conduct, or ax him his creed, -
Nor despise him becoss yo may think he's nooan reight,
For, maybe, some daat whether yo're walkin straight.
Dooant set up as judge, - it's a dangerous plan,
Luk ovver his failins, - he's nobbut a man;
Suppooas at he's one at yo'd call 'a hard case,'
Wha...

Yes; since she knows not need,
Nor walks in blindness,
I may without unkindness
A true thing tell:

Which would be truth, indeed,
Though worse in speaking,
Were her poor footsteps seeking
A pauper's cell.

I judge, then, better far
She now have sorrow,
Than gladness that to-morrow
Might know its knell. -

It may be men there are
Could make of union
A lifelong sweet communion -
A passioned spell;

But I, to save her name
And bring salvation
By altar-affirmation
And bridal bell;

I, by whose rash unshame
These tears come to her:-
My faith would more undo her
Than my farewell!

Chained to me, year by year
My moody madness
Would wither her old gladness
Like famine fell.

I 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 upon its beauty, and its dyes
Of Oriental splendor, 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 somber shades commingle, yet the gleam
Of golden warp shall shoot it through and through,
While over all a fadeless luster lies,
And starred with gems made out of crystalled tears,
My new robe shall be richer than the old.

I slept upon the Rice-boat
That, reef protected, lay
At anchor, where the palm-trees
Infringe upon the bay.
The windless air was heavy
With cinnamon and rose,
The midnight calm seemed waiting,
Too fateful for repose.

One joined me on the Rice-boat
With wild and waving hair,
Whose vivid words and laughter
Awoke the silent air.
Oh, beauty, bare and shining,
Fresh washen in the bay,
One well may love by moonlight
What one would not love by day!

Above among the cordage
The night wind hardly stirred,
The lapping of the ripples
Was all the sound we heard.
Love reigned upon the Rice-boat,
And Peace controlled the sea,
The spirit's consolation,
The senses' ecstasy.

Though many things and mighty
Are further...

Through many a fragrant cedar grove
A darkened water moans;
And there pale Memory stood with Love
Amongst the moss-green stones.

The shimmering sunlight fell and kissed
The grasstree’s golden sheaves;
But we were troubled with a mist
Of music in the leaves.

One passed us, like a sudden gleam;
Her face was deadly fair.
“Oh, go,” we said, “you homeless Dream
Of Ella’s shining hair!

“We halt, like one with tired wings,
And we would fain forget
That there are tempting, maddening things
Too high to clutch at yet!

“Though seven Springs have filled the Wood
With pleasant hints and signs,
Since faltering feet went forth and stood
With Death amongst the pines.”

From point to point unwittingly
We wish to clamber sti...

I

How thick the grass,
    How green the shade -
All for love
    And lovers made.

Wood-lilies white
    As hidden lace -
Open your bodice,
    That's their place.

See how the sun-god
    Overpowers
The summer lying
    Deep in flowers;

With burning kisses
    Of bright gold
Fills her young womb
    With joy untold;

And all the world
    Is lad and lass,
A blue sky
    And a couch of grass.

Summer is here -
    let us drain
It all! it may
    Not come again.


II

How the leaves thicken
    On the boughs,
And the birds make
Their lyric vows.

O the beating, breaking
    Heart of things,
The pulse and passion -
    How it ...

Today I have been happy. All the day
I held the memory of you, and wove
Its laughter with the dancing light o' the spray,
And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love,
And sent you following the white waves of sea,
And crowned your head with fancies, nothing worth,
Stray buds from that old dust of misery,
Being glad with a new foolish quiet mirth.

So lightly I played with those dark memories,
Just as a child, beneath the summer skies,
Plays hour by hour with a strange shining stone,
For which (he knows not) towns were fire of old,
And love has been betrayed, and murder done,
And great kings turned to a little bitter mould.