Family

    There was a time that's gone
    And will not come again,
    We knew it was a pleasant time,
    How good we never dreamed.

    When, for a whimsy's sake,
    We'd even play with pain,
    For everything awaited us
    And life immortal seemed.

    It seemed unending then
    To forward-looking eyes,
    No thought of what postponement meant
    Hung dark across our mirth;

    We had years and strength enough
    For any enterprise,
    Our numerous companionship
    Were heirs to all the earth.

    But now all memory
    Is one ironic truth,
    We look like strangers at the boys
    We were so long ago;

    For half of us are dead,
    And half have lost their youth,
    And our hearts are scar...

I here engage
Upon this page
    A picture to portray,
Of two of an age
Yet neither a sage,
    But right honest hearts have they.
Each loves to play
And have his own way,
Yet I'm happy to say
    They quarrel, if ever, but seldom.
Though competent quite
To maintain their own right,
And even to fight,
    Yet peace to their bosom is welcome.
Both go to school,
And learn by rule
    That in neither a dunce we may find;
Both read and spell
And like it well;
    Thus with pleasure is profit combined.
One's eyes are black,
The other's blue;
    They both have honest hearts and true,
    And love each other dearly:
One's father, is brother
To the other one's mother,
    So cousins german are they most clearly;
...

(Song of the uncommunicated Ideal.)

I.

I opened the eyes of my soul.
    And behold,
A white river-lily: a lily awake, and aware, -
For she set her face upward, - aware how in scarlet and gold
A long wrinkled cloud, left behind of the wandering air,
    Lay over with fold upon fold,
    With fold upon fold.

And the blushing sweet shame of the cloud made her also ashamed,
The white river-lily, that suddenly knew she was fair;
And over the far-away mountains that no man hath named,
    And that no foot hath trod,
Flung down out of heavenly places, there fell, as it were,
A rose-bloom, a token of love, that should make them endure,
Withdrawn in snow silence forever, who keep themselves pure,
    And look up to God.
Then I said, "In r...

Troy Town is covered up with weeds,
The rabbits and the pismires brood
On broken gold, and shards, and beads
Where Priam's ancient palace stood.

The floors of many a gallant house
Are matted with the roots of grass;
The glow-worm and the nimble mouse
Among her ruins flit and pass.

And there, in orts of blackened bone,
The widowed Trojan beauties lie,
And Simois babbles over stone
And waps and gurgles to the sky.

Once there were merry days in Troy,
Her chimneys smoked with cooking meals,
The passing chariots did annoy
The sunning housewives at their wheels.

And many a lovely Trojan maid
Set Trojan lads to lovely things;
The game of life was nobly played,
They played the game like Queens and Kings.

So that, when ...

And I told the boy next door
What Jack Frost had done; and he
Said, "Ah shucks! that's nothing; see?
I have seen all that before.
You just come along with me;
I will show you something more."
And he took me to a lot
Where there was a shallow pool;
And this pool was frozen; full
Of the slickest ice. I got
On it, but he said, "You fool!
It will break. You'd better not."
And right then it broke. O my!
In I went above my knees.
Thought that I would surely freeze.
Old Jack Frost just caught me by
Both my legs; began to squeeze;
And then I began to cry.
I just helloed, and the boy
Helloed too; until a man,
With a dinner-pail or can,
Heard us, and cried out, "Ahoy!
What 've you run into?" Then ran
Till he got there, to our joy.

The day that YOUTH had died,
There came to his grave-side,
In decent mourning, from the country's ends,
Those scatter'd friends
Who had lived the boon companions of his prime,
And laughed with him and sung with him and wasted,
In feast and wine and many-crown'd carouse,
The days and nights and dawnings of the time
When YOUTH kept open house,
Nor left untasted
Aught of his high emprise and ventures dear,
No quest of his unshar'd,
All these, with loitering feet and sad head bar'd,
Followed their old friend's bier.
FOLLY went first,
With muffled bells and coxcomb still revers'd;
And after trod the bearers, hat in hand,
LAUGHTER, most hoarse, and Captain PRIDE with tanned
And martial face all grim, and fussy JOY,
Who had to catch a train, and LUST, ...

"Can mothers of our English isle,
    The pride of all the earth,
From any tribe of tender brutes,
    A mother's duly learn?"
So to a shepherd of the Alps,
    A guest of noble birth,
A traveller of English race
    Said on the swain's return;

When bringing to his simple cot
    A Goat of signal grace,
He, to his foreign guest, display'd
    The ornament she wore;
It was a splendid silver toy,
    It's folds her neck embrace,
And it's rich centre, highly wrought,
    This grateful motto bore:

    _Dear animal! This trinket wear,
    Mark of thy mental beauty!
    For teaching to an English fair,
    A mother's highest duty_!

"Good shepherd thou hast much to tell,
    Some curious tender tale,
Thy kindness I with...

VII.

Fairies.


    Glory endures when calumny hath fled;
    And fairies show themselves, in friendly guise,
    To all who hold a trust beyond the dead,
    And all who pray, albeit so worldly-wise,
    With cheerful hearts or wildly-weeping eyes.
    They come and go when children are in bed
    To gladden them with dreams from out the skies
    And sanctify all tears that they have shed!
    Fairies are wing'd for wandering to and fro.
    They live in legends; they survive the Greeks.
    Wisdom is theirs; they live for us and grow,
    Like...

(To a Man who maintained that the Mausoleum is the Stateliest Possible Manner of Interment)



    I would be one with the dark, dark earth: -
    Follow the plough with a yokel tread.
    I would be part of the Indian corn,
    Walking the rows with the plumes o'erhead.

    I would be one with the lavish earth,
    Eating the bee-stung apples red:
    Walking where lambs walk on the hills;
    By oak-grove paths to the pools be led.

    I would be one with the dark-bright night
    When sparkling skies and the lightning wed -
    Walking on with the vicious wind
    By roads whence even the dogs have fled.

    I would be one with the sacred earth
    On to the end, till I sleep with the dead.
    Terror shall put no spears through ...

I am stirred by the dream of an afternoon
Of a perfect day - though it was not June;
The lilt of winds, and the droning tune
    That a busy city was humming.

And a bronze-brown head, and lips like wine
Leaning out through the window-vine
A-list for steps that were maybe mine -
    Eager steps that were coming.

I can see it all, as a dreamer may -
The tender smile on your lips that day,
And the glow on your cheek as we rode away
    Into the golden weather.

And a love-light shone in your eyes of brown -
I swear there did! - as we drove down
The crowded avenue out of the town,
    Through shadowy lanes, together:

Drove out into the sunset-skies
That glowed with wonderful crimson dyes;
And with soul and spirit, and heart and eye...

    A voice missed by the dear home-hearth -
A voice of music and gentle mirth -
A voice whose lingering sweetness long
Will float through many a Sabbath song,
And many a hallowed, evening hymn,
Tenderly breathed in the twilight dim!
- But that missing voice, with a richer tone,
Is heard in the anthems before the throne;
And another voice and another lyre,
Are added now to the angel-choir!

    There's a missing face when the board is spread -
There's a vacant seat at the table's head, -
A watchful eye and a helpful hand
That will come no more to that broken band.
- But she sits to-day at the board above,
In the tender light of a holier love;
And the kindling eye and the beaming face
At the feast on high hold a nobler place!

    A form is ...

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!
One mellow smile through the soft vapoury air,
Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds run,
Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare.
One smile on the brown hills and naked trees,
And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast,
And the blue gentian flower, that, in the breeze,
Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.
Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee
Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way,
The cricket chirp upon the russet lea,
And man delight to linger in thy ray.
Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear
The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air.

Wine and woman and song,
Three things garnish our way:
Yet is day over long.

Lest we do our youth wrong,
Gather them while we may:
Wine and woman and song.

Three things render us strong,
Vine leaves, kisses and bay;
Yet is day over long.

Unto us they belong,
Us the bitter and gay,
Wine and woman and song.

We, as we pass along,
Are sad that they will not stay;
Yet is day over long.

Fruits and flowers among,
What is better than they:
Wine and woman and song?
Yet is day over long.

Is it thy will that I should wax and wane,
Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey,
And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain
Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day?

Is it thy will Love that I love so well
That my Soul's House should be a tortured spot
Wherein, like evil paramours, must dwell
The quenchless flame, the worm that dieth not?

Nay, if it be thy will I shall endure,
And sell ambition at the common mart,
And let dull failure be my vestiture,
And sorrow dig its grave within my heart.

Perchance it may be better so at least
I have not made my heart a heart of stone,
Nor starved my boyhood of its goodly feast,
Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown.

Many a man hath done so; sought to fence
In straitened bonds the ...

Where art thou Muse that thou forget’st so long,
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend’st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?
Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,
In gentle numbers time so idly spent;
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
Rise, resty Muse, my love’s sweet face survey,
If Time have any wrinkle graven there;
If any, be a satire to decay,
And make time’s spoils despised every where.
Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,
So thou prevent’st his scythe and crooked knife.

'T was just this time last year I died.
I know I heard the corn,
When I was carried by the farms, --
It had the tassels on.

I thought how yellow it would look
When Richard went to mill;
And then I wanted to get out,
But something held my will.

I thought just how red apples wedged
The stubble's joints between;
And carts went stooping round the fields
To take the pumpkins in.

I wondered which would miss me least,
And when Thanksgiving came,
If father'd multiply the plates
To make an even sum.

And if my stocking hung too high,
Would it blur the Christmas glee,
That not a Santa Claus could reach
The altitude of me?

But this sort grieved myself, and so
I thought how it would be
When just this time, some pe...

When Art goes bounding, lean,
Up hill-tops fired green
To pluck a rose for life.

Life like a broody hen
Cluck-clucks him back again.

But when Art, imbecile,
Sits old and chill
On sidings shaven clean,
And counts his clustering
Dead daisies on a string
With witless laughter....

Then like a new Jill
Toiling up a hill
Life scrambles after.

Tune - "Afton Water."


I.

    Flow gently, sweet Afton! among thy green braes,
    Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise;
    My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
    Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.

II.

    Thou stock-dove, whose echo resounds thro' the glen;
    Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den;
    Thou green-crested lapwing, thy screaming forbear,
    I charge you disturb not my slumbering fair.

III.

    How lofty, sweet Afton! thy neighbouring hills,
    Far mark'd with the courses of clear, winding rills;
    There daily I wander as noon rises high,
    My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye.

IV.

    How pleasant thy banks and green valleys...