Family

Sitting alone by the window,
    Watching the moonlit street,
Bending my head to listen
    To the well-known sound of your feet,
I have been wondering, darling,
    How I can bear the pain,
When I watch, with sighs and tear-wet eyes,
    And wait for your coming in vain.

For I know that a day approaches
    When your heart will tire of me;
When by door and gate I may watch and wait
    For a form I shall not see;
When the love that is now my heaven,
    The kisses that make my life,
You will bestow on another,
    And that other will be - your wife.

You will grow weary of sinning
    (Though you do not call it so),
You will long for a love that is purer
    Than the love that we two know.
God knows I have loved you dearly,

I would not ask thee back, fair May,
    With all your bright-eyed flowers;
Nor would I welcome April days
    With all their laughing showers;
For each bright season of the year
    Can claim its own sweet pleasures;
And we must take them as they come--
    These gladly-given treasures.

There's music in the rain that falls
    In bright October weather;
And we must learn to love them both--
    The sun and rain together.
A mist is 'round the mountain-tops
    Of gold-encircled splendor;
A dreamy spell is in the air
    Of beauty sad and tender.

The winter hath not wooed her yet,
    This fair October maiden;
And she is free to wander still
    With fruits and flowers laden.
She shakes the dew-drops from her hair
    In one...

Streams ever limpid, fresh, and clear,
Where Delia's charms renew'd appear,
Ye flow'rs that touch'd her snowy breast,
Ye trees whereon she lov'd to rest,
Ye scenes adorn'd where'er she flies,
If grief shall close these woe-worn eyes,
May some kind form, with hand benign,
My body with this earth enshrine,
That, when the fairest nymph shall deign
To visit this delightful plain,
That, when she views my silent shade,
And marks the change her love has made,
The tear may tremble down her face,
As show'rs the lily's leaves embrace;
Then, like the infant at the breast,
That feels a sorrow unexprest,
That pang shall gentle Delia know,
And silent treasure up her woe.

In sky and wave the white clouds swam,
And the blue hills of Nottingham
Through gaps of leafy green
Across the lake were seen,

When, in the shadow of the ash
That dreams its dream in Attitash,
In the warm summer weather,
Two maidens sat together.

They sat and watched in idle mood
The gleam and shade of lake and wood;
The beach the keen light smote,
The white sail of a boat;

Swan flocks of lilies shoreward lying,
In sweetness, not in music, dying;
Hardback, and virgin's-bower,
And white-spiked clethra-flower.

With careless ears they heard the plash
And breezy wash of Attitash,
The wood-bird's plaintive cry,
The locust's sharp reply.

And teased the while, with playful band,
The shaggy dog of Newfoundland,

Hope smiled when your nativity was cast,
Children of Summer! Ye fresh Flowers that brave
What Summer here escapes not, the fierce wave,
And whole artillery of the western blast,
Battering the Temple's front, its long-drawn nave
Smiting, as if each moment were their last.
But ye, bright Flowers on frieze and architrave
Survive, and once again the Pile stands fast:
Calm as the Universe, from specular towers
Of heaven contemplated by Spirits pure
With mute astonishment, it stands sustained
Through every part in symmetry, to endure,
Unhurt, the assault of Time with all his hours,
As the supreme Artificer ordained.

'Whose heart was breaking for a little love.'


Downstairs I laugh, I sport and jest with all;
    But in my solitary room above
I turn my face in silence to the wall;
    My heart is breaking for a little love.
    Though winter frosts are done,
    And birds pair every one,
And leaves peep out, for springtide is begun.

I feel no spring, while spring is wellnigh blown,
    I find no nest, while nests are in the grove:
Woe's me for mine own heart that dwells alone,
    My heart that breaketh for a little love.
    While golden in the sun
    Rivulets rise and run,
While lilies bud, for springtide is begun.

All love, are loved, save only I; their hearts
    Beat warm with love and joy, beat full thereof:
They cannot guess, who play th...

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)

    He coveted her portrait.
    He toiled as she grew gay.
    She loved to see him labor
    In that devoted way.

    And in the end it pleased her,
    But bowed him more with care.
    Her rose-smile showed so plainly,
    Her soul-smile was not there.

    That night he groped without a lamp
    To find a cloak, a book,
    And on the vexing portrait
    By moonrise chanced to look.

    The color-scheme was out of key,
    The maiden rose-smile faint,
    But through the blessed darkness
    She gleamed, his friendly saint.

    The comrade, white, immortal,
    His bride, and more than bride -
    The citizen, the sage of mind,
    For whom he lived...

High on a point of rugged ground
Among the wastes of Rylstone Fell
Above the loftiest ridge or mound
Where foresters or shepherds dwell,
An edifice of warlike frame
Stands single Norton Tower its name
It fronts all quarters, and looks round
O'er path and road, and plain and dell,
Dark moor, and gleam of pool and stream,
Upon a prospect without bound.
The summit of this bold ascent
Though bleak and bare, and seldom free
As Pendle-hill or Pennygent
From wind, or frost, or vapours wet
Had often heard the sound of glee
When there the youthful Nortons met,
To practise games and archery:
How proud and happy they! the crowd
Of Lookers-on how pleased and proud!
And from the scorching noon-tide sun,
From showers, or when the prize was won,
They...

He listened at the porch that day,
To hear the wheel go on, and on;
And then it stopped, ran back away,
While through the door he brought the sun:
But now my spinning is all done.

He sat beside me, with an oath
That love ne'er ended, once begun;
I smiled, believing for us both,
What was the truth for only one:
And now my spinning is all done.

My mother cursed me that I heard
A young man's wooing as I spun:
Thanks, cruel mother, for that word,
For I have, since, a harder known!
And now my spinning is all done.

I thought, O God! my first-born's cry
Both voices to mine ear would drown:
I listened in mine agony,
It was the silence made me groan!
And now my spinning is all done.

Bury me 'twixt my mother's grave,
(Who...

Tune - "O'er the hills," &c.


I.

    How can my poor heart be glad,
    When absent from my sailor lad?
    How can I the thought forego,
    He's on the seas to meet the foe?
    Let me wander, let me rove,
    Still my heart is with my love:
    Nightly dreams, and thoughts by day,
    Are with him that's far away.
            On the seas and far away,
            On stormy seas and far away;
            Nightly dreams, and thoughts by day,
            Are ay with him that's far away.

II.

    When in summer's noon I faint,
    As weary flocks around me pant,
    Haply in this scorching sun
    My sailor's thund'ring at his gun:
    Bullets, spare my only joy!
    Bullets, spare my darling boy!
...

It may be, yes, it must be, Time that brings
An end to mortal things,
That sends the beggar Winter in the train
Of Autumn's burdened wain, -
Time, that is heir of all our earthly state,
And knoweth well to wait
Till sea hath turned to shore and shore to sea,
If so it need must be,
Ere he make good his claim and call his own
Old empires overthrown, -
Time, who can find no heavenly orb too large
To hold its fee in charge,
Nor any motes that fill its beam so small,
But he shall care for all, -
It may be, must be, - yes, he soon shall tire
This hand that holds the lyre.

Then ye who listened in that earlier day
When to my careless lay
I matched its chords and stole their first-born thrill,
With untaught rudest skill
Vexing a treble from th...

1.
Thy country's curse is on thee, darkest crest
Of that foul, knotted, many-headed worm
Which rends our Mother's bosom - Priestly Pest!
Masked Resurrection of a buried Form!

2.
Thy country's curse is on thee! Justice sold,
Truth trampled, Nature's landmarks overthrown,
And heaps of fraud-accumulated gold,
Plead, loud as thunder, at Destruction's throne.

3.
And whilst that sure slow Angel which aye stands
Watching the beck of Mutability
Delays to execute her high commands,
And, though a nation weeps, spares thine and thee,

4.
Oh, let a father's curse be on thy soul,
And let a daughter's hope be on thy tomb;
Be both, on thy gray head, a leaden cowl
To weigh thee down to thine approaching doom.

5.
I curse thee by ...

To E. B. B.


I
There they are, my fifty men and women
Naming me the fifty poems finished!
Take them, Love, the book and me together:
Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.

II
Rafael made a century of sonnets,
Made and wrote them in a certain volume
Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil
Else he only used to draw Madonnas:
These, the world might view, but one, the volume.
Who that one, you ask? Your heart instructs you.
Did she live and love it all her lifetime
Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets,
Die, and let it drop beside her pillow
Where it lay in place of Rafael’s glory,
Rafael’s cheek so duteous and so loving,
Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painter’s,
Rafael?s cheek, her love had turned a poet’s?

Ye love, and sonnets write! Fate's strange behest!

The heart, its hidden meaning to declare,

Must seek for rhymes, uniting pair with pair:
Learn, children, that the will is weak, at best.

Scarcely with freedom the o'erflowing breast

As yet can speak, and well may it beware;

Tempestuous passions sweep each chord that's there,
Then once more sink to night and gentle rest.

Why vex yourselves and us, the heavy stone

Up the steep path but step by step to roll?

It falls again, and ye ne'er cease to strive.

THE LOVERS.

But we are on the proper road alone!

If gladly is to thaw the frozen soul,

The fire of love must aye be kept alive.

'Oh, sad thy lot before I came,
    But sadder when I go;
My presence but a flash of flame,
    A transitory glow
    Between two barren wastes like snow.
What wilt thou do when I am gone,
    Where wilt thou rest, my dear?
For cold thy bed to rest upon,
    And cold the falling year
    Whose withered leaves are lost and sere.'

She hushed the baby at her breast,
    She rocked it on her knee:
'And I will rest my lonely rest,
    Warmed with the thought of thee,
    Rest lulled to rest by memory.'
She hushed the baby with her kiss,
    She hushed it with her breast:
'Is death so sadder much than this -
    Sure death that builds a nest
    For those who elsewhere cannot rest?'

'Oh, sad thy note, my mateless dove,
    With t...

"'A little onward lend thy guiding hand
To these dark steps, a little further on!'"
What trick of memory to 'my' voice hath brought
This mournful iteration? For though Time,
The Conqueror, crowns the Conquered, on this brow
Planting his favourite silver diadem,
Nor he, nor minister of his intent
To run before him hath enrolled me yet,
Though not unmenaced, among those who lean
Upon a living staff, with borrowed sight.
O my own Dora, my beloved child!
Should that day come but hark! the birds salute
The cheerful dawn, brightening for me the east;
For me, thy natural leader, once again
Impatient to conduct thee, not as erst
A tottering infant, with compliant stoop
From flower to flower supported; but to curb
Thy nymph-like step swift-bounding o'er the lawn,<...

The bells chime clear,
Soon will the sun behind the hills sink down;
Come, little Ann, your baby brother dear
Lies in his christening-gown.

His godparents
Are all across the fields stepped on before,
And wait beneath the crumbling monuments,
This side the old church door.

Your mammie dear
Leans frail and lovely on your daddie's arm;
Watching her chick, 'twixt happiness and fear,
Lest he should come to harm.

All to be blest
Full soon in the clear heavenly water, he
Sleeps on unwitting of't, his little breast
Heaving so tenderly.

I carried you,
My little Ann, long since on this same quest,
And from the painted windows a pale hue
Lit golden on your breast;

And then you woke,
Chill as the holy water trickled d...

Friend of the Wise! and Teacher of the Good!
Into my heart have I received that Lay
More than historic, that prophetic Lay
Wherein (high theme by thee first sung aright)
Of the foundations and the building up
Of a Human Spirit thou hast dared to tell
What may be told, to the understanding mind
Revealable; and what within the mind
By vital breathings secret as the soul
Of vernal growth, oft quickens in the heart
Thoughts all too deep for words!
                        Theme hard as high!
Of smiles spontaneous, and mysterious fears
(The first-born they of Reason and twin-birth),
Of tides obedient to external force,
And currents self-determined, as might seem,
Or by some inner Power; of moments awful,
Now in thy inner life, and now abroad,
When power st...