Family

    Jack's dead an' buried; it seems odd,
    A deep hole covered up with sod
    Lyin' out there on the hill,
    An' Jack, as never could keep still,
    A sleepin' in it. Jack could race,
    And do it at a good old pace,
    Could sing a song, an' laugh so hard
    That I could hear him in our yard
    When he was half a mile away.
    Why, not another boy could play
    Like him, or run, or jump so high,
    Or swim, no matter how he'd try;
    An' I can't get it through my head
    At all, at all, that Jack is dead.

    Jack's mother didn't use to be
    So awful good to him and me,
    For often when I'd go down there
    On Saturdays, when it was fair,
    To get him out to fish or skate,
    She'd catch me hangin' round the gate

    When things are holding wonted pace
    In wonted paths, without a trace
    Or hint of neighbouring wonder,
    Sometimes, from other realms, a tone,
    A scent, a vision, swift, alone,
    Breaks common life asunder.

    Howe'er it comes, whate'er its door,
    It makes you ponder something more--
    Unseen with seen things linking:
    To neighbours met one festive night,
    Was given a quaint and lovely sight,
    That set some of them thinking.

    They stand, in music's fetters bound
    By a clear brook of warbled sound,
    A canzonet of Haydn,
    When the door slowly comes ajar--
    A little further--just as far
    As shows a tiny maiden.

    Softly she enters, her pink toes
    Daintily peeping, as she goes,...

Whatever I do, and whatever I say,
Aunt Tabitha tells me that is n't the way;
When she was a girl (forty summers ago)
Aunt Tabitha tells me they never did so.

Dear aunt! If I only would take her advice!
But I like my own way, and I find it so nice
And besides, I forget half the things I am told;
But they all will come back to me - when I am old.

If a youth passes by, it may happen, no doubt,
He may chance to look in as I chance to look out;
She would never endure an impertinent stare, -
It is horrid, she says, and I must n't sit there.

A walk in the moonlight has pleasures, I own,
But it is n't quite safe to be walking alone;
So I take a lad's arm, - just for safety, you know, -
But Aunt Tabitha tells me they did n't do so.

How wicked w...

At the silence of twilight's contemplative hour,
I have mused in a sorrowful mood,
On the wind-shaken weeds that embosom the bower,
Where the home of my forefathers stood.
All ruin'd and wild is their roofless abode;
And lonely the dark raven's sheltering tree;
And travell'd by few is the grass-cover'd road,
Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode,
To his hills that encircle the sea.

Yet wandering, I found on my ruinous walk,
By the dial-stone aged and green,
One rose of the wilderness left on its stalk,
To mark where a garden had been.
Like a brotherless hermit, the last of its race,
All wild in the silence of nature, it drew,
From each wandering sun-beam, a lonely embrace,
For the night-weed and thorn overshadow'd the place,
Where the flowe...

You are no longer young,
Nor are you very old.
There are homes where those belong.
You know you do not fit
When you observe the cold
Stares of those who sit

In bath-chairs or the park
(A stick, then, at their side)
Or find yourself in the dark
And see the lovers who,
In love and in their stride,
Don't even notice you.

This is a time to begin
Your life. It could be new.
The sheer not fitting in
With the old who envy you
And the young who want to win,
Not knowing false from true,

Means you have liberty
Denied to their extremes.
At last now you can be
What the old cannot recall
And the young long for in dreams,
Yet still include them all.

The woods of Arcady are dead,
And over is their antique joy;
Of old the world on dreaming fed;
Grey Truth is now her painted toy;
Yet still she turns her restless head:
But O, sick children of the world,
Of all the many changing things
In dreary dancing past us whirled,
To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,
Words alone are certain good.
Where are now the warring kings,
Word be-mockers? -- By the Rood,
Where are now the watering kings?
An idle word is now their glory,
By the stammering schoolboy said,
Reading some entangled story:
The kings of the old time are dead;
The wandering earth herself may be
Only a sudden flaming word,
In clanging space a moment heard,
Troubling the endless reverie.
Then nowise worship dusty deeds,
Nor s...

    When I'm at gran'dad's on the farm,
    I hear along 'bout six o'clock,
    Just when I'm feelin' snug an' warm,
    "Ho, Bobby, come and feed your stock."

    I jump an' get into my clothes;
    It's dark as pitch, an' shivers run
    All up my back. Now, I suppose
    Not many boys would think this fun.

    But when we get out to the barn
    The greedy pigs begin to squeal,
    An' I throw in the yellow corn,
    A bushel basket to the meal.

    Then I begin to warm right up,
    I whistle "Yankee Doodle" through,
    An' wrastle with the collie pup -
    And sometimes gran'dad whistles too.

    The cow-shed door, it makes a din
    Each time we swing it open wide;
    I run an' flash the lantern in,
    There stan...

HALF vex'd, half pleased, thy love will feel,
Shouldst thou her knot or ribbon steal;
To thee they're much I won't conceal;

Such self-deceit may pardon'd be;
A veil, a kerchief, garter, rings,
In truth are no mean trifling things,

But still they're not enough for me.

She who is dearest to my heart,
Gave me, with well dissembled smart,
Of her own life, a living part,

No charm in aught beside I trace;
How do I scorn thy paltry ware!
A lock she gave me of the hair

That wantons o'er her beauteous face.

If, loved one, we must sever'd be,
Wouldst thou not wholly fly from me,
I still possess this legacy,

To look at, and to kiss in play.
My fate is to the hair's allied,
We used to woo her with like pride,
<...

Besides my little son's imagination,
Another thing he has appeals to me
And agitates my envious admiration -
It's his accommodating memory.

An instant after some unlucky stumble
Has floored him and induced a howl of pain,
He's clean forgotten all about his tumble
And violently sets out to romp again.

But if, when I leave home, I say that maybe
I'll get him something nice while I'm away,
It's very safe to bet that Mr. Baby
Will not forget, though I be gone all day.

Ah, would I might lose sight of things unpleasant:
The bills I owe; the work I haven't done.
And only think of future joys and present,
Like the approaching payday, and my son.

Where, under Loughrigg, the stream
Of Rotha sparkles, the fields
Are green, in the house of one
Friendly and gentle, now dead,
Wordsworth’s son-in-law, friend,
Four years since, on a mark’d
Evening, a meeting I saw.

Two friends met there, two fam’d
Gifted women. The one,
Brilliant with recent renown,
Young, unpractis’d, had told
With a Master’s accent her feign’d
Story of passionate life:
The other, maturer in fame,
Earning, she too, her praise
First in Fiction, had since
Widen’d her sweep, and survey’d
History, Politics, Mind.

They met, held converse: they wrote
In a book which of glorious souls
Held memorial: Bard,
Warrior, Statesman, had left
Their names:, chief treasure of all,
Scott had consign’d there his la...

My sister, my child
Imagine how sweet
To live there as lovers do!
To kiss as we choose
To love and to die
In that land resembling you!
The misty suns
Of shifting skies
To my spirit are as dear
As the evasions
Of your eyes
That shine behind their tears.

There, all is order and leisure,
Luxury, beauty, and pleasure.

The tables would glow
With the lustre of years
To ornament our room.
The rarest of blooms
Would mingle their scents
With amber's vague perfume.
The ceilings, rich
The mirrors, deep
The splendour of the East
All whisper there
To the silent soul
Her sweet familiar speech.

There, all is order and leisure,
Luxury, beauty, and pleasure.

And these canals
Bear ships at ...

At night, when Passion's ebbing tide
    Left bare the Sands of Truth,
Yasmini, resting by my side,
    Spoke softly of her youth.

"And one" she said "was tall and slim,
    Two crimson rose leaves made his mouth,
And I was fain to follow him
    Down to his village in the South.

"He was to build a hut hard by
    The stream where palms were growing,
We were to live, and love, and lie,
    And watch the water flowing.

"Ah, dear, delusive, distant shore,
    By dreams of futile fancy gilt!
The riverside we never saw,
    The palm leaf hut was never built!

"One had a Tope of Mangoe trees,
    Where early morning, noon and late,
The Persian wheels, with patient ease,
    Brought up their liquid, silver freight.

"A...

Silently -- shadowly -- some lives go,
And the sound of their voices is all unheard;
Or, if heard at all, 'tis as faint as the flow
Of beautiful waves which no storm hath stirred.
    Deep lives these
    As the pearl-strewn seas.

Softly and noiselessly some feet tread
Lone ways on earth, without leaving a mark;
They move 'mid the living, they pass to the dead,
As still as the gleam of a star thro' the dark.
    Sweet lives those
    In their strange repose.

Calmly and lowly some hearts beat,
And none may know that they beat at all;
They muffle their music whenever they meet
A few in a hut or a crowd in a hall.
    Great hearts those --
    God only knows!

Soundlessly -- shadowly -- such move on,
Dim as the dream of a child asl...

I

She gave up beauty in her tender youth,
    Gave all her hope and joy and pleasant ways;
    She covered up her eyes lest they should gaze
On vanity, and chose the bitter truth.
Harsh towards herself, towards others full of ruth,
    Servant of servants, little known to praise,
    Long prayers and fasts trenched on her nights and days:
She schooled herself to sights and sounds uncouth
That with the poor and stricken she might make
    A home, until the least of all sufficed
Her wants; her own self learned she to forsake,
Counting all earthly gain but hurt and loss.
So with calm will she chose and bore the cross
    And hated all for love of Jesus Christ.

II

They knelt in silent anguish by her bed,
    And could not weep; but calmly th...

YOUTH.

Pilgrim of life! thy hoary head
    Is bent with age, thine eye
Looks downward to the silent dead,
    Wreck of mortality!--
The friends who flourished in thy day
    Have sought their narrow home;
Their spirits whisper, "Come away!"--


AGE.

    My soul replies, I come.--
I tread the path I trod a child,
    The fields I loved of yore;
The flowers that 'neath my footsteps smiled
    Now meet my gaze no more.
I stand beneath this giant oak!
    It was an aged tree,
Hollowed by time's resistless stroke,
    When life was green with me.
Its lofty head it proudly rears
    To greet the summer sky,
Whilst, bending with the weight of years,
    I feebly totter by.
And hushed are all the thousand songs
...

I.

Nature, so far as in her lies,
Imitates God, and turns her face
To every land beneath the skies,
Counts nothing that she meets with base,
But lives and loves in every place;



II.

Fills out the homely quickset-screens,
And makes the purple lilac ripe,
Steps from her airy hill, and greens
The swamp, where humm’d the dropping snipe,
With moss and braided marish-pipe;



III.

And on thy heart a finger lays,
Saying, ‘Beat quicker, for the time
Is pleasant, and the woods and ways
Are pleasant, and the beech and lime
Put forth and feel a gladder clime.’



IV.

And murmurs of a deeper voice,
Going before to some far shrine,
Teach that sick heart the stronger choice,

As a fond mother, when the day is o'er,
    Leads by the hand her little child to bed,
    Half willing, half reluctant to be led,
    And leave his broken playthings on the floor,
Still gazing at them through the open door,
    Nor wholly reassured and comforted
    By promises of others in their stead,
    Which, though more splendid, may not please him more;
So Nature deals with us, and takes away
    Our playthings one by one, and by the hand
    Leads us to rest so gently, that we go
Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,
    Being too full of sleep to understand
    How far the unknown transcends the what we know.

Welcome, my old friend,
Welcome to a foreign fireside,
While the sullen gales of autumn
Shake the windows.

The ungrateful world
Has, it seems, dealt harshly with thee,
Since, beneath the skies of Denmark,
First I met thee.

There are marks of age,
There are thumb-marks on thy margin,
Made by hands that clasped thee rudely,
At the alehouse.

Soiled and dull thou art;
Yellow are thy time-worn pages,
As the russet, rain-molested
Leaves of autumn.

Thou art stained with wine
Scattered from hilarious goblets,
As the leaves with the libations
Of Olympus.

Yet dost thou recall
Days departed, half-forgotten,
When in dreamy youth I wandered
By the Baltic,--

When I paused to hear
The old ballad...