Family

Thought is a garden wide and old
For airy creatures to explore,
Where grow the great fantastic flowers
With truth for honey at the core.

There like a wild marauding bee
Made desperate by hungry fears,
From gorgeous If to dark Perhaps
I blunder down the dusk of years.

A poor owd man wi' tott'ring gait,
Wi' body bent, an snowy pate,
Aw met one day; -
An daan o'th' rooad side grassy banks
He sat to rest his weary shanks;
An aw, to while away mi time,
O'th' neighbourin hillock did recline,
An bade "gooid day."

Said aw, "Owd friend, pray tell me true,
If in your heart yo nivver rue
Th' time 'at's past?
Does envy nivver fill yor breast
When passin fowk wi' riches blest?
An do yo nivver think it wrang
At yo should have to trudge along,
Soa poor to th' last?"

"Young man," he sed, "aw envy nooan;
But ther are times aw pity some,
Wi' all mi heart;
To see what trubbl'd lives they spend,
What cares upon their hands depend;
Then aw in thowtfulness declare
'At 'little cattle little care'
Is...

Under a daisied bank
There stands a rich red ruminating cow,
And hard against her flank
A cotton-hooded milkmaid bends her brow.

The flowery river-ooze
Upheaves and falls; the milk purrs in the pail;
Few pilgrims but would choose
The peace of such a life in such a vale.

The maid breathes words - to vent,
It seems, her sense of Nature's scenery,
Of whose life, sentiment,
And essence, very part itself is she.

She bends a glance of pain,
And, at a moment, lets escape a tear;
Is it that passing train,
Whose alien whirr offends her country ear? -

Nay! Phyllis does not dwell
On visual and familiar things like these;
What moves her is the spell
Of inner themes and inner poetries:

Could but by Sunday morn
Her gay ...

As pearls slip off a silken string and fall into the sea,
These rounded summer days fall back into eternity.

Into the deep from whence they came; into the mystery -
At set of sun each one slips back as pearls into the sea.

They are so sweet - so warm and sweet - Love fain would hold them fast:
He weeps when through his finger tips they slip away at last.

The old days - the far days -
The overdear and fair! -
The old days - the lost days -
How lovely they were!
The old days of Morning,
With the dew-drench on the flowers
And apple-buds and blossoms
Of those old days of ours.

Then was the real gold
Spendthrift Summer flung;
Then was the real song
Bird or Poet sung!
There was never censure then, -
Only honest praise -
And all things were worthy of it
In the old days.

There bide the true friends -
The first and the best;
There clings the green grass
Close where they rest:
Would they were here? No; -
Would we were there!...
The old days - the lost days -
How lovely they were!

Sitting alone, as one forsook,
Close by a silver-shedding brook,
With hands held up to love, I wept;
And after sorrows spent I slept:
Then in a vision I did see
A glorious form appear to me:
A virgin's face she had; her dress
Was like a sprightly Spartaness.
A silver bow, with green silk strung,
Down from her comely shoulders hung:
And as she stood, the wanton air
Dangled the ringlets of her hair.
Her legs were such Diana shows
When, tucked up, she a-hunting goes;
With buskins shortened to descry
The happy dawning of her thigh:
Which when I saw, I made access
To kiss that tempting nakedness:
But she forbade me with a wand
Of myrtle she had in her hand:
And, chiding me, said: Hence, remove,
Herrick, thou art too coarse to love.

An old man planted and dug and tended,
Toiling in joy from dew to dew;
The sun was kind, and the rain befriended;
Fine grew his orchard and fair to view.
Then he said: "I will quiet my thrifty fears,
For here is fruit for my failing years."

But even then the storm-clouds gathered,
Swallowing up the azure sky;
The sweeping winds into white foam lathered
The placid breast of the bay, hard by;
Then the spirits that raged in the darkened air
Swept o'er his orchard and left it bare.

The old man stood in the rain, uncaring,
Viewing the place the storm had swept;
And then with a cry from his soul despairing,
He bowed him down to the earth and wept.
But a voice cried aloud from the driving rain;
"Arise, old man, and plant again!"

THE POET SINGS TO HER POET

O poet of the time to be,
    My conqueror, I began for thee.
Enter into thy poet's pain,
    And take the riches of the rain,
And make the perfect year for me.

Thou unto whom my lyre shall fall,
Whene'er thou comest, hear my call.
    O, keep the promise of my lays,
    Take the sweet parable of my days;
I trust thee with the aim of all.

And if thy thoughts unfold from me,
Know that I too have hints of thee,
    Dim hopes that come across my mind
    In the rare days of warmer wind,
And tones of summer in the sea.

And I have set thy paths, I guide
Thy blossoms on the wild hillside.
    And I, thy bygone poet, share
    The flowers that throng thy feet where
I led thy feet before I died.

A path, old tree, goes by thee crooking on,
And through this little gate that claps and bangs
Against thy rifted trunk, what steps hath gone?
Though but a lonely way, yet mystery hangs
Oer crowds of pastoral scenes recordless here.
The boy might climb the nest in thy young boughs
That's slept half an eternity; in fear
The herdsman may have left his startled cows
For shelter when heaven's thunder voice was near;
Here too the woodman on his wallet laid
For pillow may have slept an hour away;
And poet pastoral, lover of the shade,
Here sat and mused half some long summer day
While some old shepherd listened to the lay.

    'The puir auld folk at home, ye mind,
    Are frail and failing sair;
    And weel I ken they'd miss me, lad,
    Gin I come hame nae mair.
    The grist is out, the times are hard,
    The kine are only three;
    I canna leave the auld folk now.
    We'd better bide a wee.


    'I fear me sair they're failing baith;
    For when I sit apart,
    They talk o' Heaven so earnestly,
    It well nigh breaks my heart.
    So, laddie, dinna urge me now,
    It surely winna be;
    I canna leave the auld folk yet.
    We'd better bide a wee.'

Thy hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright
As in that well-remember’d night
When first thy mystic braid was wove,
And first my Agnes whisper’d love.

Since then how often hast thou prest
The torrid zone of this wild breast,
Whose wrath and hate have sworn to dwell
With the first sin that peopled hell;
A breast whose blood’s a troubled ocean,
Each throb the earthquake’s wild commotion!
O if such clime thou canst endure
Yet keep thy hue unstain’d and pure,
What conquest o’er each erring thought
Of that fierce realm had Agnes wrought!
I had not wander’d far and wide
With such an angel for my guide;
Nor heaven nor earth could then reprove me
If she had lived and lived to love me.

Not then this world’s wild joys had been
To me one savage hun...

I say, as one who never feared
The wrath of a subscriber's bullet,
I pity him who has a beard
But has no little girl to pull it!

When wife and I have finished tea,
Our baby woos me with her prattle,
And, perching proudly on my knee,
She gives my petted whiskers battle.

With both her hands she tugs away,
While scolding at me kind o' spiteful;
You'll not believe me when I say
I find the torture quite delightful!

No other would presume, I ween,
To trifle with this hirsute wonder,
Else would I rise in vengeful mien
And rend his vandal frame asunder!

But when her baby fingers pull
This glossy, sleek, and silky treasure,
My cup of happiness is full -
I fairly glow with pride and pleasure!

And, sweeter still, through ...

O Love! the mischief thou hast done!
Thou god of pleasure and of pain!--
None can escape thee--yes there's one--
All others find the effort vain:
Thou cause of all my smiles and tears!
Thou blight and bloom of all my years!

Love bathes him in the morning dews,
Reclines him in the lily bells,
Reposes in the rainbow hues,
And sparkles in the crystal wells,
Or hies him to the coral-caves,
Where sea-nymphs sport beneath the waves.

Love vibrates in the wind-harp's tune--
With fays and oreads lingers he--
Gleams in th' ring of the watery moon,
Or treads the pebbles of the sea.
Love rules "the court, the camp, the grove"--
Oh, everywhere we meet thee, Love!

And everywhere he welcome finds,
From cottage-door to palace-porch--
Love...

What does our country need? Not armies standing
    With sabres gleaming ready for the fight.
Not increased navies, skillful and commanding,
    To bound the waters with an iron might.
Not haughty men with glutted purses trying
    To purchase souls, and keep the power of place.
Not jeweled dolls with one another vieing
    For palms of beauty, elegance and grace.

But we want women, strong of soul, yet lowly,
    With that rare meekness, born of gentleness,
Women whose lives are pure and clean and holy,
    The women whom all little children bless.
Brave, earnest women, helpful to each other,
    With finest scorn for all things low and mean.
Women who hold the names of wife and mother,
    Far nobler than the title of a Queen.

O these are they who...

Go down where the wavelets are kissing the shore,
And ask of them why do they sigh?
The poets have asked them a thousand times o'er,
But they're kissing the shore as they kissed it before,
And they're sighing to-day, and they'll sigh evermore.
Ask them what ails them:    they will not reply;
But they'll sigh on forever and never tell why!
Why does your poetry sound like a sigh?
The waves will not answer you; neither shall I.

Go stand on the beach of the blue boundless deep,
When the night stars are gleaming on high,
And hear how the billows are moaning in sleep,
On the low lying strand by the surge-beaten steep.
They're moaning forever wherever they sweep.
Ask them what ails them:    they never reply;
They moan, and so sadly, but will not tell why
Why do...

Blessed be this place,
More blessed still this tower;
A bloody, arrogant power
Rose out of the race
Uttering, mastering it,
Rose like these walls from these
Storm-beaten cottages
In mockery I have set
A powerful emblem up,
And sing it rhyme upon rhyme
In mockery of a time
Half dead at the top.
Alexandria's was a beacon tower, and Babylon's
An image of the moving heavens, a log-book of the sun's journey and the moon's;
And Shelley had his towers, thought's crowned powers he called them once.
I declare this tower is my symbol; I declare
This winding, gyring, spiring treadmill of a stair is my ancestral stair;
That Goldsmith and the Dean, Berkeley and Burke have travelled there.
Swift beating on his breast in sibylline frenzy blind
Because the hear...

I think the moon is very kind
To take such trouble just for me.
He came along with me from home
To keep me company.

He went as fast as I could run;
I wonder how he crossed the sky?
I'm sure he hasn't legs and feet
Or any wings to fly.

Yet here he is above their roof;
Perhaps he thinks it isn't right
For me to go so far alone,
Tho' mother said I might.

Friends, whom she look’d at blandly from her couch
And her white wrist above it, gem-bedew’d,
Were arguing with Pentheusa: she had heard
Report of Creon’s death, whom years before
She listen’d to, well-pleas’d; and sighs arose;            
For sighs full often fondle with reproofs
And will be fondled by them. When I came
After the rest to visit her, she said,
"Myrtis! how kind! Who better knows than thou
The pangs of love? and my first love was he!"            
Tell me (if ever, Eros! are reveal’d
Thy secrets to the earth) have they been true
To any love who speak about the first?
What! shall these holier lights, like twinkling stars
In the few hours assign’d them, change their place,            
And, when comes ampler splendor, disappear?
Idler I am, and pard...