Family

This morning is the morning of the day,
When I and Eustace from the city went
To see the Gardener’s Daughter; I and he,
Brothers in Art; a friendship so complete
Portion’d in halves between us, that we grew
The fable of the city where we dwelt.
My Eustace might have sat for Hercules;
So muscular he spread, so broad of breast.
He, by some law that holds in love, and draws
The greater to the lesser, long desired
A certain miracle of symmetry,
A miniature of loveliness, all grace
Summ’d up and closed in little;—Juliet, she
So light of foot, so light of spirit—oh, she
To me myself, for some three careless moons,
The summer pilot of an empty heart
Unto the shores of nothing! Know you not
Such touches are but embassies of love,
To tamper with the feelings,...

I hear a merry noise indeed:
Is it the geese and ducks that take
Their first plunge in a quiet pond
That into scores of ripples break,
Or children make this merry sound?

I see an oak tree, its strong back
Could not be bent an inch though all
Its leaves were stone, or iron even:
A boy, with many a lusty call,
Rides on a bough bareback through Heaven.

I see two children dig a hole
And plant in it a cherry-stone:
"We'll come to-morrow," one child said,
"And then the tree will be full grown,
And all its boughs have cherries red."

Ah, children, what a life to lead:
You love the flowers, but when they're past
No flowers are missed by your bright eyes;
And when cold winter comes at last,
Snowflakes shall be your butterflies.

MUSE.
Give me a kiss, my poet, take thy lyre;
The buds are bursting on the wild sweet-briar.
To-night the Spring is born - the breeze takes fire.
Expectant of the dawn behold the thrush,
Perched on the fresh branch of the first green bush;
Give me a kiss, my poet, take thy lyre.


POET.
How black it looks within the vale!
I thought a muffled form did sail
Above the tree-tops, through the air.
It seemed from yonder field to pass,
Its foot just grazed the tender grass;
A vision strange and fair it was.
It melts and is no longer there.


MUSE.
My poet, take thy lyre; upon the lawn
Night rocks the zephyr on her veiled, soft breast.
The rose, still virgin, holds herself withdrawn
From the winged, irised wasp with love possessed.

I put by the half-written poem,
While the pen, idly trailed in my hand,
Writes on, "Had I words to complete it,
Who'd read it, or who'd understand?"
But the little bare feet on the stairway,
And the faint, smothered laugh in the hall,
And the eerie-low lisp on the silence,
Cry up to me over it all.

So I gather it up - where was broken
The tear-faded thread of my theme,
Telling how, as one night I sat writing,
A fairy broke in on my dream,
A little inquisitive fairy -
My own little girl, with the gold
Of the sun in her hair, and the dewy
Blue eyes of the fairies of old.

'Twas the dear little girl that I scolded -
"For was it a moment like this,"
I said, "when she knew I was busy,
To come romping in for a kiss?
Come rowdying up fr...

He sat by me in school. His face is now
Vividly in my mind, as if he went
From me but yesterday - its pleasant smile
And the rich, joyous laughter of his eye,
And the free play of his unhaughty lip,
So redolent of his heart! He was not fair,
Nor singular, nor over-fond of books,
And never melancholy when alone.
He was the heartiest in the ring, the last
Home from the summer's wanderings, and the first
Over the threshold when the school was done.
All of us loved him. We shall speak his name
In the far years to come, and think of him
When we have lost life's simplest passages,
And pray for him - forgetting he is dead -
Life was in him so passing beautiful!

His childhood had been wasted in the close
And airless city. He had never thought
That the ...

Home furthest off grows dearer from the way;
And when the army in the Indias lay
Friends' letters coming from his native place
Were like old neighbours with their country face.
And every opportunity that came
Opened the sheet to gaze upon the name
Of that loved village where he left his sheep
For more contented peaceful folk to keep;
And friendly faces absent many a year
Would from such letters in his mind appear.
And when his pockets, chafing through the case,
Wore it quite out ere others took the place,
Right loath to be of company bereft
He kept the fragments while a bit was left.

While I, from that reed-throated whisperer
Who comes at need, although not now as once
A clear articulation in the air
But inwardly, surmise companions
Beyond the fling of the dull ass’s hoof,
Ben Jonson’s phrase, and find when June is come
At Kyle-na-no under that ancient roof
A sterner conscience and a friendlier home,
I can forgive even that wrong of wrongs,
Those undreamt accidents that have made me
Seeing that Fame has perished this long while
Being but a part of ancient ceremony,
Notorious, till all my priceless things
Are but a post the passing dogs defile.

Nay, more than violets
These thoughts of thine, friend!
Rather thy reedy brook--
Taw's tributary--
At midnight murmuring,
Descried them, the delicate
Dark-eyed goddesses,
There by his cressy bed
Dissolved and dreaming
Dreams that distilled into dew
All the purple of night,
All the shine of a planet.

Whereat he whispered;
And they arising--

Of day's forget-me-nots
The duskier sisters--
Descended, relinquished
The orchard, the trout-pool,
Torridge and Tamar,
The Druid circles,
Sheepfolds of Dartmoor,
Granite and sandstone;
By Roughtor, Dozmare,
Down the vale of the Fowey
Moving in silence,
Brushing the nightshade
By bridges cyclopean,
By Trevenna, Treverbyn,
Lawharne and Largin,
By Glyn...

LONELINESS
(Her Word)

One ought not to have to care
So much as you and I
Care when the birds come round the house
To seem to say good-bye;
Or care so much when they come back
With whatever it is they sing;
The truth being we are as much
Too glad for the one thing
As we are too sad for the other here
With birds that fill their breasts
But with each other and themselves
And their built or driven nests.

HOUSE FEAR

Always I tell you this they learned
Always at night when they returned
To the lonely house from far away
To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray,
They learned to rattle the lock and key
To give whatever might chance to be
Warning and time to be off in flight:
And preferring the out- to the in-door night,

She has gone, - she has left us in passion and pride, -
Our stormy-browed sister, so long at our side!
She has torn her own star from our firmament's glow,
And turned on her brother the face of a foe!

Oh, Caroline, Caroline, child of the sun,
We can never forget that our hearts have been one, -
Our foreheads both sprinkled in Liberty's name,
From the fountain of blood with the finger of flame!

You were always too ready to fire at a touch;
But we said, "She is hasty, - she does not mean much."
We have scowled, when you uttered some turbulent threat;
But Friendship still whispered, "Forgive and forget!"

Has our love all died out? Have its altars grown cold?
Has the curse come at last which the fathers foretold?
Then Nature must teach us the strength of t...

Aw wander'd aght one summer's morn,
Across a meadow newly shorn;
Th' sun wor shinin breet and clear,
An fragrant scents rose up i'th' air,
An all wor still.
When, as my steps wor idly rovin,
Aw coom upon a seet soa lovin!
It fill'd mi heart wi' tender feelin,
As daan aw sank beside it, kneelin
O'th' edge o'th' hill.

It wor a little skylark's nest,
An two young babby burds, undrest,
Wor gapin wi' ther beaks soa wide,
Callin for mammy to provide
Ther mornin's meal;
An high aboon ther little hooam,
Th' saand o' daddy's warblin coom;
Ringin soa sweetly o' mi ear,
Like breathins throo a purer sphere,
He sang soa weel.

Ther mammy, a few yards away,
Wor hoppin on a bit o' hay;
Too feeard to coom, too bold to flee;
An wat...

Father is quite the greatest poet
That ever lived anywhere.
You say you're going to write great music,
I chose that first: it's unfair.
Besides, now I can't be the greatest painter and
    do Christ and angels, or lovely pears
    and apples and grapes on a green dish,
    or storms at sea, or anything lovely,
Because that's been taken by Claire.

It's stupid to be an engine-driver,
And soldiers are horrible men.
I won't be a tailor, I won't be a sailor,
And gardener's taken by Ben.
It's unfair if you say that you'll write great
    music, you horrid, you unkind (I simply
    loathe you, though you are my
    sister), you beast, cad, coward, cheat,
    bully, liar!
Well? Say what's left for me then!
But we won't go to your ugly music...

This winter air is keen and cold,
And keen and cold this winter sun,
But round my chair the children run
Like little things of dancing gold.

Sometimes about the painted kiosk
The mimic soldiers strut and stride,
Sometimes the blue-eyed brigands hide
In the bleak tangles of the bosk.

And sometimes, while the old nurse cons
Her book, they steal across the square,
And launch their paper navies where
Huge Triton writhes in greenish bronze.

And now in mimic flight they flee,
And now they rush, a boisterous band
And, tiny hand on tiny hand,
Climb up the black and leafless tree.

Ah! cruel tree! if I were you,
And children climbed me, for their sake
Though it be winter I would break
Into spring blossoms white and blue!

Let mirth and joy a season reign
    And sorrow flee away
Sadness were perfect sin it is
    My Anne's natal day

And now a birthday rhyme for her
    This sister of my own
Accept the song then for my sake
    Sister and only one

So long we've lived together here
    Our hopes and fears the same
Like two of autumn's last grown leaves
    Last of our race and name

The past we know its grief and joy
    Its pleasure and its pain
But know not what may happen ere
    Your birthday comes again

Shall we be cradled in the deep
    Beneath the briny wave?
Or shall the white deer lightly bound
    Over my forest grave?

Or living yet divided far
    With lands and seas between
And sorrow reigning in the hearts

Fair Lady! can I sing of flowers
That in Madeira bloom and fade,
I who ne'er sate within their bowers,
Nor through their sunny lawns have strayed?
How they in sprightly dance are worn
By Shepherd-groom or May-day queen,
Or holy festal pomps adorn,
These eyes have never seen.

Yet tho' to me the pencil's art
No like remembrances can give,
Your portraits still may reach the heart
And there for gentle pleasure live;
While Fancy ranging with free scope
Shall on some lovely Alien set
A name with us endeared to hope,
To peace, or fond regret.

Still as we look with nicer care,
Some new resemblance we may trace:
A 'Heart's-ease' will perhaps be there,
A 'Speedwell' may not want its place.
And so may we, with charmed mind
Beholding w...

My thoughts are all in yonder town,
Where, wept by many tears,
To-day my mother's friend lays down
The burden of her years.

True as in life, no poor disguise
Of death with her is seen,
And on her simple casket lies
No wreath of bloom and green.

Oh, not for her the florist's art,
The mocking weeds of woe;
Dear memories in each mourner's heart
Like heaven's white lilies blow.

And all about the softening air
Of new-born sweetness tells,
And the ungathered May-flowers wear
The tints of ocean shells.

The old, assuring miracle
Is fresh as heretofore;
And earth takes up its parable
Of life from death once more.

Here organ-swell and church-bell toll
Methinks but discord were;
The prayerful silence of the soul...

It was in the early morning
    Of life, and of hope to me,
I sat on a grassy hillside
    Of the Isle beyond the sea,
Erin's skies of changeful beauty
    Were bending over me.

The landscape, emerald tinted,
    Lying smiling in the sun,
The grass with daisies sprinkled,
    And with shamrocks over run,
The Maine water flashed and dimpled,
    Still flowing softly on.

The lark in the blue above me,
    A tiny speck in the sky,
Rained down from its bosom's fulness
    A shower of melody,
Dropping through the golden sunlight,
    And sweetly rippling by

Afar in the sunny distance,
    O'er the river's further brim,
Like a stern old Norman warder,
    Stood the castle tall and grim,
And, nearer a grassy ruin,
...

The eve put on her sweetest shroud,
The summer-dress she's often in,
Freck'd with white and purple cloud,
Dappled like a leopard's skin;
The martin, by the cotter's shed,
Had welcom'd eve with twittering song;
The blackbird sang the sun to bed,
Old Oxey's briery dells among:

When o'er the field tript rosy Jane,
Fair as the flowers she treaded on;
But she was gloomy for her swain,
Who long to fight the French had gone;
She milk'd, and sang her mournful song,
As, how an absent maid did moan,
Who for a soldier sorrowed long,
That went and left her, like her own.

Though dreadful drums had ceas'd their noise,
And peace proclaim'd returning Joe,
Delays so lingering dampt her joys,
And expectation nettled woe:
Hope, mix'd with fear and...