Family

She looked like a bird from a cloud
On the clammy lawn,
Moving alone, bare-browed
In the dim of dawn.
The candles alight in the room
For my parting meal
Made all things withoutdoors loom
Strange, ghostly, unreal.

The hour itself was a ghost,
And it seemed to me then
As of chances the chance furthermost
I should see her again.
I beheld not where all was so fleet
That a Plan of the past
Which had ruled us from birthtime to meet
Was in working at last:

No prelude did I there perceive
To a drama at all,
Or foreshadow what fortune might weave
From beginnings so small;
But I rose as if quicked by a spur
I was bound to obey,
And stepped through the casement to her
Still alone in the gray.

"I am leaving you . ....

O sister, God is very good--
    Thou art a woman now:
O sister, be thy womanhood
    A baptism on thy brow!

For what?--Do ancient stories lie
    Of Titans long ago,
The children of the lofty sky
    And mother earth below?

Nay, walk not now upon the ground
    Some sons of heavenly mould?
Some daughters of the Holy, found
    In earthly garments' fold?

He said, who did and spoke the truth:
    "Gods are the sons of God."
And so the world's Titanic youth
    Strives homeward by one road.

Then live thou, sister, day and night,
    An earth-child of the sky,
For ever climbing up the height
    Of thy divinity.

Still in thy mother's heart-embrace,
    Waiting thy hour of birth,
Thou growest by the genia...

[1]

(WRITTEN MAY, 1832.)


All, as he left it!--even the pen,
    So lately at that mind's command,
Carelessly lying, as if then
    Just fallen from his gifted hand.

Have we then lost him? scarce an hour,
    A little hour, seems to have past,
Since Life and Inspiration's power
    Around that relic breathed their last.

Ah, powerless now--like talisman
    Found in some vanished wizard's halls,
Whose mighty charm with him began,
    Whose charm with him extinguisht falls.

Yet, tho', alas! the gifts that shone
    Around that pen's exploring track,
Be now, with its great master, gone,
    Nor living hand can call them back;

Who does not feel, while thus his eyes
    Rest on the enchanter's broke...

When the path of my life
Lay through trouble and strife,
    And temptation encompassed me round,
As a light in the shade
Thou wast sent to mine aid;
    And a harbour of refuge was found.

I beheld in thine eye,
As a beam from on high,
    The ray of compassion revealed;
And I turned in relief
From the Valley of Grief;
    I turned to be strengthened and healed.

In the words that you breathed
All my sorrow was sheathed,
    And peace, like a dove, settled down.
And the calm of your presence,
Like mercy's pure essence,
    Recaptured the faith that had flown.

Since then, if perplexed,
If harassed or vexed,
    If tempted, afflicted or tried,
I have sought thee to cheer,
Thou hast ever been near
    To comfort...

From time to time, lifting his eyes, he sees
The soft blue starlight through the one small window,
The moon above black trees, and clouds, and Venus,
And turns to write . . . The clock, behind ticks softly.

It is so long, indeed, since I have written,
Two years, almost, your last is turning yellow,
That these first words I write seem cold and strange.
Are you the man I knew, or have you altered?
Altered, of course, just as I too have altered,
And whether towards each other, or more apart,
We cannot say . . . I’ve just re-read your letter,
Not through forgetfulness, but more for pleasure.

Pondering much on all you say in it
Of mystic consciousness, divine conversion,
The sense of oneness with the infinite,
Faith in the world, its beauty, and its purpose ...

Di pensier in pensier, di monte in monte.

DISTANCE AND SOLITUDE.


    From hill to hill I roam, from thought to thought,
With Love my guide; the beaten path I fly,
For there in vain the tranquil life is sought:
If 'mid the waste well forth a lonely rill,
Or deep embosom'd a low valley lie,
In its calm shade my trembling heart's still;
And there, if Love so will,
I smile, or weep, or fondly hope, or fear.
While on my varying brow, that speaks the soul,
The wild emotions roll,
Now dark, now bright, as shifting skies appear;
That whosoe'er has proved the lover's state
Would say, He feels the flame, nor knows his future fate.

On mountains high, in forests drear and wide,
I find repose, and from the throng'd resort
Of man turn fea...

(For Aline)



Because the road was steep and long
    And through a dark and lonely land,
God set upon my lips a song
    And put a lantern in my hand.

Through miles on weary miles of night
    That stretch relentless in my way
My lantern burns serene and white,
    An unexhausted cup of day.

O golden lights and lights like wine,
    How dim your boasted splendors are.
Behold this little lamp of mine;
    It is more starlike than a star!

Can I forget how, when you stood
'Mid orchards whence spring bloom had fled,
Stars made the orchards seem a-bud,
And weighed the sighing boughs o'erhead
With shining ghosts of blossoms dead!

Or when you bowed, a lily tall,
Above your August lilies slim,
Transparent pale, that by the wall
Like softest moonlight seemed to swim,
Brimmed with faint fragrance to the brim.

And in the cloud that lingered low -
A silent pallor in the West -
There stirred and beat a golden glow
Of some great heart that could not rest,
A heart of gold within its breast.

Your heart, your life was in the wild,
Your joy to hear the whip-poor-will
Lament its love, when wafted mild
The harvest drifted from the hill:
The deep, deep wildwood where had trod

When I tell a tale of virtue and of injured innocence,
Then my publishers and lawyers are the densest of the dense:
With the blank face of an image and the nod of keep-it-dark
And a wink of mighty meaning at their confidential clerk.

(When, Oh! tell me when shall poets cease to be misunderstood?
When, Oh! When? shall people reckon rhymers can be any good?
Do their work and pay their debts and drink their pint of beer, and then,
Look in woman’s eyes and leave them, just like ordinary men?)

“Is there literary friendship ’twix the sexes? don’t you think?”
And they wink their idiotic and exasperating wink.
“Can’t we kiss a clever woman without wanting any more?”
And their clock-work nod is only more decided than before.

But if I should hint that there’s a little wom...

As we look back at our lost Used-to-Be,
'The light that never was on land or sea'
    Touches the distant mountain peaks with gold,
    And through the glass of memory we behold
Such blossoms as grow not on any lea.

The double leaf upon the poplar tree
Turns up its silver side to you and me,
And glow-worm lanterns light the lonely wold
    As we look back.

No sounds we hear but echoes of young glee;
No winds we feel but west winds blowing free,
    From those fair isles that seem a thousandfold
    More beautiful than in the days of old;
And all the clouds that hang above them flee,
        As we look back.

'Twas morning, and the pleasant light
Shone on the hills, the trees, the flowers,
And made a far-off country bright,
A lovely land, but not like ours.

A mother led her little child
Forth from his father's door away;
And with the flowers he played, and smiled
As beautiful and bright as they.

But when, at noon, the warm sun beat
Upon the sweet boy's forehead fair,
Tired and thirsty from the heat,
He asked in vain for water there.

The bottle, filled with water clear
At early day, was empty now;
The mother laid her child so dear
Beneath an old tree's spreading bough.

She turned away, and heard the sound
Of water, gushing like the rain;
She raised her boy from off the ground,
He drank, and played and smiled again.

T...

TRAVELLER
Why dost thou wildly rush and roar,
    Mad River, O Mad River?
Wilt thou not pause and cease to pour
Thy hurrying, headlong waters o'er
    This rocky shelf forever?

What secret trouble stirs thy breast?
    Why all this fret and flurry?
Dost thou not know that what is best
In this too restless world is rest
    From over-work and worry?

THE RIVER
What wouldst thou in these mountains seek,
    O stranger from the city?
Is it perhaps some foolish freak
Of thine, to put the words I speak
    Into a plaintive ditty?

TRAVELLER
Yes; I would learn of thee thy song,
    With all its flowing number;
And in a voice as fresh and strong
As thine is, sing it all day long,
    And hear it in my slumbers.

Yet sighes, deare sighs, indeede true friends you are,
That do not leaue your best friend at the wurst,
But, as you with my breast I oft haue nurst,
So, gratefull now, you waite vpon my care.
Faint coward Ioy no longer tarry dare,
Seeing Hope yeeld when this wo strake him furst;
Delight exclaims he is for my fault curst,
Though oft himselfe my mate in Armes he sware;
Nay, Sorrow comes with such maine rage, that he
Kils his owne children (teares) finding that they
By Loue were made apt to consort with me.
Only, true Sighs, you do not goe away:
Thanke may you haue for such a thankfull part,
Thank-worthiest yet when you shall break my hart.

As some contented bird doth coo
    She trilled a song of fond delight,
    The while she spread the cloth of white,
And set the cups and plates for two.

She leaned beyond the window sill,
    And looked along the busy street,
    And listened for his coming feet.
The skies were calm, the winds were still.

'O love, my love, why art thou late?
    The kettle boils, the cloth is spread,
    The clock points close to noon,' she said.
O clock of time!    O clock of fate!

She heard the moon's glad sound of cheer;
    (The hiss, the whirl, the crash, the creak,
    Of maddened wheels, the awful shriek
Of awestruck men -she did not hear.)

She lightly tripped about the room,
    And near the window, where his eyes
    Might greet it w...

    The day is thine, the night also is thine; thou hast prepared the light and the sun.

    Thou hast set all the borders of the earth; thou hast made summer and winter.

PSALM lxxiv. 16, 17.

My God! all nature owns thy sway,
Thou giv'st the night, and thou the day!
When all thy lov'd creation wakes,
When morning, rich in lustre breaks,
And bathes in dew the op'ning flower,
To thee we owe her fragrant hour;
And when she pours her choral song,
Her melodies to thee belong!

Or when, in paler tints array'd,
The evening slowly spreads her shade;
That soothing shade, that grateful gloom,
Can more than day's enliv'ning bloom
Still every fond, and vain desire,
And calmer, purer, thoughts inspire;
From earth the pensive spirit...

Word over all, beautiful as the sky!
Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost;
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly softly wash again, and ever again, this soil'd world:
For my enemy is dead a man divine as myself is dead;
I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin I draw near;
I bend down, and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.

Between the green bud and the red
Youth sat and sang by Time, and shed
From eyes and tresses flowers and tears,
From heart and spirit hopes and fears,
Upon the hollow stream whose bed
Is channelled by the foamless years;
And with the white the gold-haired head
Mixed running locks, and in Time’s ears
Youth’s dreams hung singing, and Time’s truth
Was half not harsh in the ears of Youth.

Between the bud and the blown flower
Youth talked with joy and grief an hour,
With footless joy and wingless grief
And twin-born faith and disbelief
Who share the seasons to devour;
And long ere these made up their sheaf
Felt the winds round him shake and shower
The rose-red and the blood-red leaf,
Delight whose germ grew never grain,
And passion dyed in its ...

        Green moss will creep
        Along the shady graves where we shall sleep.

        Each year will bring
        Another brood of birds to nest and sing.

        At dawn will go
        New ploughmen to the fields we used to know.

        Night will call home
        The hunter from the hills we loved to roam.

        She will not ask,
        The milkmaid, singing softly at her task,

        Nor will she care
        To know if I were brave or you were fair.

        No one will think
        What chalice life had offered us to drink,

        When from our clay
        The sun comes back to kiss the snow away.