Family

Come in the evening, or come in the morning;
Come when you ’re look’d for, or come without warning:
Kisses and welcome you ’ll find here before you,
And the oftener you come here the more I ’ll adore you!
Light is my heart since the day we were plighted;
Red is my cheek that they told me was blighted;
The green of the trees looks far greener than ever,
And the linnets are singing, “True lovers don’t sever!”

I ’ll pull you sweet flowers, to wear if you choose them,
Or, after you’ve kiss’d them, they ’ll lie on my bosom;
I ’ll fetch from the mountain its breeze to inspire you;
I ’ll fetch from my fancy a tale that won’t tire you.
Oh! your step’s like the rain to the summer-vex’d farmer,
Or sabre and shield to a knight without armor;
I ’ll sing you sweet songs till t...

One summer morn, while yet the thrilling lay,
Of the dew-loving lark was full and strong,
Trampling the wild flowers in my careless way,
Up the steep mountain-side I strode along
My only guide, a brook whose joyous song,
Seemed like a boy's light-hearted roundelay,
As down it rushed, the leafy bowers among,
Scattering o'er bud and bloom its pearly spray
A beauteous semblance of life's opening day.

And looking back to that all-gladdening morn,
When I was free and sportive as the stream
When roses blushed with no suspected thorn,
And fancy's sunlight gilded every dream
While hope yet shed its sweet delusive beam,
And disappointment still delayed to warn
With fond regret, I still pursued the theme
With clambering step still up the steep was borne,
Too ...

The King's son walks in the garden fair -
Oh, the maiden's heart is merry!
He little knows for his toil and care,
That the bride is gone and the bower is bare.
Put on garments of white, my maidens!

The sun shines bright through the casement high -
Oh, the maiden's heart is merry!
The little handmaid, with a laughing eye,
Looks down on the king's son, strolling by.
Put on garments of white, my maidens!

"He little knows that the bride is gone,
And the Earl knows little as he;
She is fled with her lover afar last night,
And the King's son is left to me."

And back to her chamber with velvety step
The little handmaid did glide,
And a gold key took from her bosom sweet,
And opened the great chests wide.

S...

God has kept me, dearest mother.
    Kindly, safely, through the day:
Let me thank Him for His goodness,
    Ere the twilight fades away.

For my home and friends I thank Him,
    For my father, mother dear;
For the hills, the trees, the flowers,
    And the sky so bright and clear.

If I have been kind and gentle,
    If I've spoken what was true,
Or if I've been cross and selfish,
    He has seen and known it, too.

Those I love He will watch over,
    Though they may be far away,
For he loves good little children,
    And will hear the words they say.

Now hath the summer reached her golden close,
And, lost amid her corn-fields, bright of soul,
Scarcely perceives from her divine repose
How near, how swift, the inevitable goal:
Still, still, she smiles, though from her careless feet
The bounty and the fruitful strength are gone,
And through the soft long wondering days goes on
The silent sere decadence sad and sweet.

The kingbird and the pensive thrush are fled,
Children of light, too fearful of the gloom;
The sun falls low, the secret word is said,
The mouldering woods grow silent as the tomb;
Even the fields have lost their sovereign grace,
The cone-flower and the marguerite; and no more,
Across the river's shadow-haunted floor,
The paths of skimming swallows interlace.

Already in the outland wi...

IX

“My lips do need thy breath,
My lips do need thy smile,
And my pallid eyne, that light in thine
Which met the stars erewhile:
Yet go with light and life
If that thou lovest one
In all the earth who loveth thee
As truly as the sun.
Margret, Margret.”


XIV

“But better loveth he
Thy chaliced wine than thy chanted song,
And better both than thee,
Margret, Margret.”



XVII

“But better loveth she
Thy golden comb than thy gathered flowers,
And better both than thee,
Margret, Margret.”


XXII

“We brake no gold, a sign
Of stronger faith to be,
But I wear his last look in my soul,
Which said, I love but thee!”
Margret, Margret.


XXVI

A ...

1

Friends
The old word is dead.
The old books are dead.
Our speech with holes like worn-out shoes is dead.
Dead is the mind that led to defeat.

2

Our poetry has gone sour.
Women's hair, nights, curtains and sofas
Have gone sour.
Everything has gone sour.

3

My grieved country,
In a flash
You changed me from a poet who wrote love poems
To a poet who writes with a knife

4

What we feel is beyond words:
We should be ashamed of our poems.

5

Stirred by Oriental bombast,
By boastful swaggering that never killed a fly,
By the fiddle and the drum,
We went to war,
And lost.

6

Our shouting is louder than out actions,
Our swords are taller than us,
...

Fair flower! that fall'n beneath the angry blast,
Which marks with wither'd sweets its fearful way,
I grieve to see thee on the low earth cast,
While beauty's trembling tints fade fast away.
But who is she, that from the mountain's head
Comes gaily on, cheering the child of earth;
The walks of woe bloom bright beneath her tread,
And nature smiles with renovated mirth?
'Tis Health! she comes, and hark! the vallies ring.
And hark! the echoing hills repeat the sound;
She sheds the new-blown blossoms of the spring,
And all their fragrance floats her footsteps round.
And hark! she whispers in the zephyr's voice,
Lift up thy head, fair flower! rejoice! rejoice!

Frowns are on every Muse's face,
Reproaches from their lips are sent,
That mimicry should thus disgrace
The noble Instrument.

A very Harp in all but size!
Needles for strings in apt gradation!
Minerva's self would stigmatize
The unclassic profanation.

Even her 'own' needle that subdued
Arachne's rival spirit,
Though wrought in Vulcan's happiest mood,
Such honour could not merit.

And this, too, from the Laureate's Child,
A living lord of melody!
How will her Sire be reconciled
To the refined indignity?

I spake, when whispered a low voice,
"Bard! moderate your ire;
Spirits of all degrees rejoice
In presence of the lyre.

The Minstrels of Pygmean bands,
Dwarf Genii, moonlight-loving Fays,
Have shells to f...

Crazy Jane And The Bishop


Bring me to the blasted oak
That I, midnight upon the stroke,
i(All find safety in the tomb.)
May call down curses on his head
Because of my dear Jack that's dead.
Coxcomb was the least he said:
i(The solid man and the coxcomb.)
Nor was he Bishop when his ban
Banished Jack the Journeyman,
i(All find safety in the tomb.)
Nor so much as parish priest,
Yet he, an old book in his fist,
Cried that we lived like beast and beast:
i(The solid man and the coxcomb.)
The Bishop has a skin, God knows,
Wrinkled like the foot of a goose,
i(All find safety in the tomb.)
Nor can he hide in holy black
The heron's hunch upon his back,
But a birch-tree stood my Jack:
i(The solid man and the coxcomb.)
Jack had my...

I shall never forget you, never.    Never escape
Your memory woven about the beautiful things of life.

The sudden Thought of your Face is like a Wound
    When it comes unsought
On some scent of Jasmin, Lilies, or pale Tuberose.
Any one of the sweet white fragrant flowers,
Flowers I used to love and lay in your hair.

Sunset is terribly sad. I saw you stand
Tall against the red and the gold like a slender palm;
The light wind stirred your hair as you waved your hand,
Waved farewell, as ever, serene and calm,
To me, the passion-wearied and tost and torn,
Riding down the road in the gathering grey.
    Since that day
The sunset red is empty, the gold forlorn.

Often across the Banqueting board at nights
Men linger about your name in careless prai...

Beside me, in the golden light
That slants upon the floor,
She twines the many-colored silks
Her dimpled fingers o'er;
Uplifting now and then her eye,
Or praise or blame in mine to spy.

For her sweet sake I've cast aside
The books I've loved so well,
And given up my being to
Affection's mighty spell;
Ambition's visions vanish all,
Before the music of her call.

The fancy of the past, that lent
To jewels bright and rare
Ascendency at every birth
In this our planet's air,
Hath to October's children given
The opal with its hues of Heaven.

The golden sunlight in the sky,
The red leaf on the plain;
Beneath the opal's changeful light
Hope and Misfortune reign;
And mid gay leaves of wondrous dyes,
My darling first u...

1856

You 'll believe me, dear boys, 't is a pleasure to rise,
With a welcome like this in your darling old eyes;
To meet the same smiles and to hear the same tone
Which have greeted me oft in the years that have flown.

Were I gray as the grayest old rat in the wall,
My locks would turn brown at the sight of you all;
If my heart were as dry as the shell on the sand,
It would fill like the goblet I hold in my hand.

There are noontides of autumn when summer returns.
Though the leaves are all garnered and sealed in their urns,
And the bird on his perch, that was silent so long,
Believes the sweet sunshine and breaks into song.

We have caged the young birds of our beautiful June;
Their plumes are still bright and their voices in tune;
One moment ...

Rambling I looked for an old abode
Where, years back, one had lived I knew;
Its site a dwelling duly showed,
But it was new.

I went where, not so long ago,
The sod had riven two breasts asunder;
Daisies throve gaily there, as though
No grave were under.

I walked along a terrace where
Loud children gambolled in the sun;
The figure that had once sat there
Was missed by none.

Life laughed and moved on unsubdued,
I saw that Old succumbed to Young:
'Twas well. My too regretful mood
Died on my tongue.

        Like fruit that's large and ripe and mellow,
        Sweet and luscious is Longfellow,
        Melodious songs he oft did pour
        And high was his Excelsior.
        He shows in his Psalm of Life
        The folly of our selfish strife,
        With Hiawatha we bewail
        His suffering in great Indian tale.
        Indian nation was forlorn
        Till great spirit planted corn;
        His story of Evangeline
        It is a tale of love divine.

I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like Silence, listening
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;
Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright
With tangled gossamer that fell by night,
Pearling his coronet of golden corn.

Where are the songs of Summer? - With the sun,
Opening the dusky eyelids of the south,
Till shade and silence waken up as one,
And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.
Where are the merry birds? - Away, away,
On panting wings through the inclement skies,
        Lest owls should prey
        Undazzled at noon-day,
And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.

Where are the blooms of Summer? - In the west,
Blushing their last ...

(HORACE'S ODES, III, I)

I hate the common, vulgar herd!
Away they scamper when I "booh" 'em!
But pretty girls and nice young men
Observe a proper silence when
I chose to sing my lyrics to 'em.

The kings of earth, whose fleeting pow'r
Excites our homage and our wonder,
Are precious small beside old Jove,
The father of us all, who drove
The giants out of sight, by thunder!

This man loves farming, that man law,
While this one follows pathways martial--
What moots it whither mortals turn?
Grim fate from her mysterious urn
Doles out the lots with hand impartial.

Nor sumptuous feasts nor studied sports
Delight the heart by care tormented;
The mightiest monarch knoweth not
The peace that to the lowly cot
Sleep bringeth to t...

Your love taught me to grieve
and I have been in need, for centuries
a woman to make me grieve
for a woman, to cry upon her arms
like a sparrow
for a woman to gather my pieces
like shards of broken crystal

Your love has taught me, my lady, the worst habits
it has taught me to read my coffee cups
thousands of times a night
to experiment with alchemy,
to visit fortune tellers

It has taught me to leave my house
to comb the sidewalks
and search your face in raindrops
and in car lights
and to peruse your clothes
in the clothes of unknowns
and to search foryour image
even.... even....
even in the posters of advertisements
your love has taught me
to wander around, for hours
searching for a gypsies hair
that all gyps...