Family

I think I never passed so sad an hour,
    Dear friend, as that one at the church to-night.
The edifice from basement to the tower
    Was one resplendent blaze of colored light.
Up through broad aisles the stylish crowd was thronging,
    Each richly robed like some king's bidden guest.
"Here will I bring my sorrow and my longing,"
    I said, "and here find rest."

I heard the heavenly organ's voice of thunder,
    It seemed to give me infinite relief.
I wept. Strange eyes looked on in well-bred wonder.
    I dried my tears: their gaze profaned my grief.
Wrapt in the costly furs, and silks and laces
    Beat alien hearts, that had no part with me.
I could not read, in all those proud cold faces,
    One thought of sympathy.

I watched them bowing a...

Praised be the Rivers, from their mountain springs
Shouting to Freedom, "Plant thy banners here!"
To harassed Piety, "Dismiss thy fear,
And in our caverns smooth thy ruffled wings!"
Nor be unthanked their final lingerings
Silent, but not to high-souled Passion's ear
'Mid reedy fens wide-spread and marshes drear,
Their own creation. Such glad welcomings
As Po was heard to give where Venice rose
Hailed from aloft those Heirs of truth divine
Who near his fountains sought obscure repose,
Yet came prepared as glorious lights to shine,
Should that be needed for their sacred Charge;
Blest Prisoners They, whose spirits were at large!

Some starlit garden grey with dew,
Some chamber flushed with wine and fire,
What matters where, so I and you
Are worthy our desire?

Behind, a past that scolds and jeers
For ungirt loins and lamps unlit;
In front, the unmanageable years,
The trap upon the Pit;

Think on the shame of dreams for deeds,
The scandal of unnatural strife,
The slur upon immortal needs,
The treason done to life:

Arise! no more a living lie,
And with me quicken and control
Some memory that shall magnify
The universal Soul.

    Life ne'er exulted in so rich a prize
    As Burnet, lovely from her native skies;
    Nor envious death so triumph'd in a blow,
    As that which laid th' accomplish'd Burnet low.

    Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget?
    In richest ore the brightest jewel set!
    In thee, high Heaven above was truest shown,
    As by his noblest work, the Godhead best is known.

    In vain ye flaunt in summer's pride, ye groves;
        Thou crystal streamlet with thy flowery shore,
    Ye woodland choir that chant your idle loves,
        Ye cease to charm, Eliza is no more!

    Ye heathy wastes, immix'd with reedy fens;
        Ye mossy streams, with sedge and rushes stor'd;
    Ye rugged cliffs, o'erhanging dreary glens,
        To you I fly, ...

I.
What am I doing, you say to me, ‘wasting the sweet summer hours’?
Haven’t you eyes? I am dressing the grave of a woman with flowers.

II.
For a woman ruin’d the world, as God’s own scriptures tell,
And a man ruin’d mine, but a woman, God bless her, kept me from Hell.

III.
Love me? O yes, no doubt—how long—till you threw me aside!
Dresses and laces and jewels and never a ring for the bride.

IV.
All very well just now to be calling me darling and sweet,
And after a while would it matter so much if I came on the street?

V.
You when I met you first—when he brought you!—I turn’d away
And the hard blue eyes have it still, that stare of a beast of prey.

VI.
You were his friend—you—you—when he promised to make me his bride,
And you...

O Norah, lay your basket down,
And rest your weary hand,
And come and hear me sing a song
Of our old Ireland.

There was a lord of Galaway,
A mighty lord was he;
And he did wed a second wife,
A maid of low degree.

But he was old, and she was young,
And so, in evil spite,
She baked the black bread for his kin,
And fed her own with white.

She whipped the maids and starved the kern,
And drove away the poor;
"Ah, woe is me!" the old lord said,
"I rue my bargain sore!"

This lord he had a daughter fair,
Beloved of old and young,
And nightly round the shealing-fires
Of her the gleeman sung.

"As sweet and good is young Kathleen
As Eve before her fall;"
So sang the harper at the fair,
So harped he in the h...

Come, sit we under yonder tree,
Where merry as the maids we'll be;
And as on primroses we sit,
We'll venture, if we can, at wit;
If not, at draw-gloves we will play,
So spend some minutes of the day;
Or else spin out the thread of sands,
Playing at questions and commands:
Or tell what strange tricks Love can do,
By quickly making one of two.
Thus we will sit and talk, but tell
No cruel truths of Philomel,
Or Phillis, whom hard fate forced on
To kill herself for Demophon;
But fables we'll relate; how Jove
Put on all shapes to get a Love;
As now a satyr, then a swan,
A bull but then, and now a man.
Next, we will act how young men woo,
And sigh and kiss as lovers do;
And talk of brides; and who shall make
That wedding-smock, this bridal-c...

        White with daisies and red with sorrel
            And empty, empty under the sky!--
        Life is a quest and love a quarrel--
            Here is a place for me to lie.

        Daisies spring from damned seeds,
            And this red fire that here I see
        Is a worthless crop of crimson weeds,
            Cursed by farmers thriftily.

        But here, unhated for an hour,
            The sorrel runs in ragged flame,
        The daisy stands, a bastard flower,
            Like flowers that bear an honest name.

        And here a while, where no wind brings
            The baying of a pack athirst,
        May sleep the sleep of blessed things,
            The blood too bright, the brow accurst.

This "sentiment" was read on the same occasion as the "Family Record," which immediately follows it. The latter poem is the dutiful tribute of a son to his father and his father's ancestors, residents of Woodstock from its first settlement.

The Ship of State! above her skies are blue,
But still she rocks a little, it is true,
And there are passengers whose faces white
Show they don't feel as happy as they might;
Yet on the whole her crew are quite content,
Since its wild fury the typhoon has spent,
And willing, if her pilot thinks it best,
To head a little nearer south by west.
And this they feel: the ship came too near wreck,
In the long quarrel for the quarter-deck,
Now when she glides serenely on her way, -
The shallows past where dread explosives lay, -
The stiff o...

I.

It is not early spring and yet
Of bloodroot blooms along the stream,
And blotted banks of violet,
My heart will dream.
Is it because the windflower apes
The beauty that was once her brow,
That the white memory of it shapes
The April now?
Because the wild-rose wears the blush
That once made sweet her maidenhood,
Its thought makes June of barren bush
And empty wood?
And then I think how young she died
Straight, barren Death stalks down the trees,
The hard-eyed Hours by his side,
That kill and freeze.

II.

When orchards are in bloom again
My heart will bound, my blood will beat,
To hear the redbird so repeat,
On boughs of rosy stain,
His blithe, loud song, like some far strain
From out the past, among the blo...

Pleasures newly found are sweet
When they lie about our feet:
February last, my heart
First at sight of thee was glad;
All unheard of as thou art,
Thou must needs, I think, have had,
Celandine! and long ago,
Praise of which I nothing know.

I have not a doubt but he,
Whosoe'er the man might be,
Who the first with pointed rays
(Workman worthy to be sainted)
Set the sign-board in a blaze,
When the rising sun he painted,
Took the fancy from a glance
At thy glittering countenance.

Soon as gentle breezes bring
News of winter's vanishing,
And the children build their bowers,
Sticking 'kerchief-plots of mould
All about with full-blown flowers,
Thick as sheep in shepherd's fold!
With the proudest thou art there,
Mantling i...

The pleasant isle of Rugen looks the Baltic water o'er,
To the silver-sanded beaches of the Pomeranian shore;

And in the town of Rambin a little boy and maid
Plucked the meadow-flowers together and in the sea-surf played.

Alike were they in beauty if not in their degree
He was the Amptman's first-born, the miller's child was she.

Now of old the isle of Rugen was full of Dwarfs and Trolls,
The brown-faced little Earth-men, the people without souls;

And for every man and woman in Rugen's island found
Walking in air and sunshine, a Troll was underground.

It chanced the little maiden, one morning, strolled away
Among the haunted Nine Hills, where the elves and goblins play.

That day, in barley-fields below, the harvesters had known
Of evil voi...

Good fellows are laughing and drinking
(To-night no heart should grieve),
But I am of old days thinking,
Alone, on Christmas Eve.
Old memories fast are springing
To life again; old rhymes
Once more in my brain are ringing,
Ah, God be with old times!

There never was man so lonely
But ghosts walked him beside,
For Death our spirits can only
By veils of sense divide.
Numberless as the blades of
Grass in the fields that grow,
Around us hover the shades of
The dead of long ago.

Friends living a word estranges;
We smile, and we say “Adieu!”
But, whatsoever else changes,
Dead friends are faithful and true.
An old-time tune, or a flower,
The simplest thing held dear
In bygone days has the power
Once more to bring them nea...

To-night I'll have my friar, let me think
About my room, I'll have it in the pink;
It should be rich and sombre, and the moon,
Just in its mid-life in the midst of June,
Should look thro' four large windows and display
Clear, but for gold-fish vases in the way,
Their glassy diamonding on Turkish floor;
The tapers keep aside, an hour and more,
To see what else the moon alone can show;
While the night-breeze doth softly let us know
My terrace is well bower'd with oranges.
Upon the floor the dullest spirit sees
A guitar-ribband and a lady's glove
Beside a crumple-leaved tale of love;
A tambour-frame, with Venus sleeping there,
All finish'd but some ringlets of her hair;
A viol, bow-strings torn, cross-wise upon
A glorious folio of Anacreon;
A skull upon...

My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but oh my soul is white!
White as an angel is the English child,
But I am black, as if bereaved of light.

My mother taught me underneath a tree,
And, sitting down before the heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissed me,
And, pointed to the east, began to say:

"Look on the rising sun: there God does live,
And gives His light, and gives His heat away,
And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.

"And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love
And these black bodies and this sunburnt face
Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.

"For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear,
The cloud will va...

Thou hast made all the house an empty thing,
Dear Ursula, by this thy vanishing.
Though we are here, 'tis yet a vacant place,
One little soul had filled so great a space.
For thou didst sing thy joyousness to all,
Running through every nook of house and hall.
Thou wouldst not have thy mother grieve, nor let
Thy father with too solemn thinking fret
His head, but thou must kiss them, daughter mine,
And all with that entrancing laugh of thine!
Now on the house has fallen a dumb blight:
Thou wilt not come with archness and delight,

But every corner lodges lurking grief
And all in vain the heart would seek relief.

    Kiss me and comfort my heart
    Maiden honest and fine.
    I am the pilgrim boy
    Lame, but hunting the shrine;

    Fleeing away from the sweets,
    Seeking the dust and rain,
    Sworn to the staff and road,
    Scorning pleasure and pain;

    Nevertheless my mouth
    Would rest like a bird an hour
    And find in your curls a nest
    And find in your breast a bower:

    Nevertheless my eyes
    Would lose themselves in your own,
    Rivers that seek the sea,
    Angels before the throne:

    Kiss me and comfort my heart,
    For love can never be mine:
    Passion, hunger and pain,
    These are the only wine

    Of the pilgrim bound to the road.
    He would rob no man of his own.
    Yo...

In this wise the Duke of Gloucester took upon himself the order and governance of the young King, whom, with much honour and humble reverence, he conveyed towards London. But the tidings of this matter came hastily to the Queen, a little before the midnight following; and that, in secret wise, her son was taken, her brother and other friends arrested, and sent no man wist whither, to be done with God wot what. With which tidings the Queen, with great heaviness, bewailed her child's reign, her friend's mischance, and her own misfortune, damning the time that ever she dissuaded the gathering of powers about the King; got herself, in all haste possible, with her young son and her daughter, out of the palace of Westminster, in which they then lay, into the Sanctuary; lodging herself and company there in the Abbott's place. - Speed's "History ...