Freedom

Easter Monday in the city,
Rattle, rattle, rumble, rush;
Tom and Jerry, Nell and Kitty,
All the down-the-harbour “push,”
Little thought have they, or pity,
For a wanderer from the bush.

Shuffle, feet, a merry measure,
Hurry, Jack and find your Jill,
Let her,if it give her pleasure,
Flaunt her furbelow and frill,
Kiss her while you have the leisure,
For tomorrow brings the mill.

Go ye down the harbour, winding
’Mid the eucalypts and fern,
Respite from your troubles finding,
Kiss her, till her pale cheeks burn,
For to-morrow will the grinding
Mill-stones of the city turn.

Stunted figures, sallow faces,
Sad girls striving to be gay
In their cheap sateens and laces.
Ah! how different ’tis to-day
Where they’re going t...

Ay, thou has found thy kingdom, Yasin Khan,
Thy fathers' pomp and power are thine, at last.
No more the rugged roads of Khorasan,
The scanty food and tentage of the past!

Wouldst thou make war? thy followers know no fear.
Where shouldst thou lead them but to victory?
Wouldst thou have love? thy soft-eyed slaves draw near,
Eager to drain thy strength away from thee.

My thoughts drag backwards to forgotten days,
To scenes etched deeply on my heart by pain;
The thirsty marches, ambuscades, and frays,
The hostile hills, the burnt and barren plain.

Hast thou forgotten how one night was spent,
Crouched in a camel's carcase by the road,
Along which Akbar's soldiers, scouting, went,
And he himself, all unsuspecting, rode?

Did we not waken one d...

Letter III. Regrets.


I.

    When I did wake, to-day, a bird of Heaven,
    A wanton, woeless thing, a wandering sprite,
    Did seem to sing a song for my delight;
    And, far away, did make its holy steven
    Sweeter to hear than lute-strings that are seven;
    And I did weep thereat in my despite.


II.

    O glorious sun! I thought, O gracious king,
    Of all this splendour that we call the earth!
    For thee the lark distils his morning mirth,
    But who will hear the matins that I sing?
    Who will be glad to greet ...

We were schooner-rigged and rakish, with a long and lissome hull,
And we flew the pretty colours of the cross-bones and the skull;
We'd a big black Jolly Roger flapping grimly at the fore,
And we sailed the Spanish Water in the happy days of yore.

We'd a long brass gun amidships, like a well-conducted ship,
We had each a brace of pistols and a cutlass at the hip;
It's a point which tells against us, and a fact to be deplored,
But we chased the goodly merchant-men and laid their ships aboard.

Then the dead men fouled the scuppers and the wounded filled the chains,
And the paint-work all was spatter-dashed with other people's brains,
She was boarded, she was looted, she was scuttled till she sank,
And the pale survivors left us by the medium of the plank.

O! then ...

Still glides the stream, slow drops the boat
Under the rustling poplars’ shade;
Silent the swans beside us float
None speaks, none heeds ah, turn thy head.

Let those arch eyes now softly shine,
That mocking mouth grow sweetly bland:
Ah, let them rest, those eyes, on mine;
On mine let rest that lovely hand.

My pent-up tears oppress my brain,
My heart is swoln with love unsaid:
Ah, let me weep, and tell my pain,
And on thy shoulder rest my head.

Before I die, before the soul,
Which now is mine, must re-attain
Immunity from my control,
And wander round the world again:

Before this teas’d o’erlabour’d heart
For ever leaves its vain employ,
Dead to its deep habitual smart,
And dead to hopes of future joy.

An Incident Of The French Revolution And Reign Of Robespierre.


Day dawned above a city's mart,
Yet not 'mid peace and prayer:
The shouts of frenzied multitudes
Were on the thrilling air.

A guiltless man to death was led,
Through crowded streets and wide,
And a fairy child, with waving curls,
Was clinging to his side.

The father's brow with pride was calm,
But, trusting and serene,
The child's was like the Holy One's
In Raphael's paintings seen.

She shrank not from the heartless throng,
Nor from the scaffold high;
But now and then, with beaming smile,
Addressed her parent's eye.

Athwart the golden flood of morn
Was poised the wing of Death,
As 'neath the fearful guillotine
The doomed one drew his breath.

Night of Mid-June, in heavy vapours dying,
Like priestly hands thy holy touch is lying
Upon the world's wide brow;
God-like and grand all nature is commanding
The "peace that passes human understanding";
I, also, feel it now.

What matters it to-night, if one life treasure
I covet, is not mine! Am I to measure
The gifts of Heaven's decree
By my desires? O! life for ever longing
For some far gift, where many gifts are thronging,
God wills, it may not be.

Am I to learn that longing, lifted higher,
Perhaps will catch the gleam of sacred fire
That shows my cross is gold?
That underneath this cross - however lowly,
A jewel rests, white, beautiful and holy,
Whose worth can not be told.

Like to a scene I watched one day in wonder: -
A ...

I asked of my Muse, had she any objection
    To laughing with me,--not a word for reply!
You see, it is Sfere, our time for dejection,--
    And can a Jew laugh when the rule is to cry?

You laughed then, you say? 'tis a sound to affright one!
    In Jewish delight, what is worthy the name?
The laugh of a Jew! It is never a right one,
    For laughing and groaning with him are the same.

You thought there was zest in a Jewish existence?
    You deemd that the star of a Jew could be kind?
The Spring calls and beckons with gracious insistence,--
    Jew,--sit down in sackcloth and weep yourself blind!

The garden is green and the woodland rejoices:
    How cool are the breezes, with fragrance how blent!
But Spring calls not you with her thousand swe...

Lift up thy torch, O Year, and let us see
        What Destiny
Hath made thee heir to at nativity!

Doubt, some call Faith; and ancient Wrong and Might,
        Whom some name Right;
And Darkness, that the purblind world calls Light.

Despair, with Hope's brave form; and Hate, who goes
        In Friendship's clothes;
And Happiness, the mask of many woes.

Neglect, whom Merit serves; Lust, to whom, see,
        Love bends the knee;
And Selfishness, who preacheth charity.

Vice, in whose dungeon Virtue lies in chains;
        And Cares and Pains,
That on the throne of Pleasure hold their reigns.

Corruption, known as Honesty; and Fame
        That's but a name;
And Innocence, the outward guise of Shame.

And Folly, men ca...

I dream again I 'm in the lane
That leads me home through night and rain;
Again the fence I see and, dense,
The garden, wet and sweet of sense;
Then mother's window, with its starry line
Of light, o'ergrown with rose and trumpetvine.

What was 't I heard? Her voice? A bird?
Singing? Or was 't the rain that stirred
The dripping leaves and draining eaves
Of shed and barn, one scarce perceives
Past garden-beds where oldtime flowers hang wet
Pale phlox and candytuft and mignonette.

The hour is late. I can not wait.
Quick. Let me hurry to the gate!
Upon the roof the rain is proof
Against my horse's galloping hoof;
And if the old gate, with its weight and chain,
Should creak, she 'll think it just the wind and rain.

Along I 'll steal, with...

Oh in the deep blue night
The fountain sang alone;
It sang to the drowsy heart
Of a satyr carved in stone.
The fountain sang and sang
But the satyr never stirred
Only the great white moon
In the empty heaven heard.
The fountain sang and sang
And on the marble rim
The milk-white peacocks slept,
Their dreams were strange and dim.
Bright dew was on the grass,
And on the ilex dew,
The dreamy milk-white birds
Were all a-glisten too.
The fountain sang and sang
The things one cannot tell,
The dreaming peacocks stirred
And the gleaming dew-drops fell.

"It is the voice of years, that are gone! they roll before me, with all their deeds."

Ossian.



1.

NEWSTEAD! fast-falling, once-resplendent dome!
Religion's shrine! repentant HENRY'S [2] pride!
Of Warriors, Monks, and Dames the cloister'd tomb,
Whose pensive shades around thy ruins glide,


2.

Hail to thy pile! more honour'd in thy fall,
Than modern mansions, in their pillar'd state;
Proudly majestic frowns thy vaulted hall,
Scowling defiance on the blasts of fate.


3.

No mail-clad Serfs, [3] obedient to their Lord,
In grim array, the crimson cross [4] demand;
Or gay assemble round the festive board,
Their chief's retainers, an immortal band.


4.
...

The spring is coming by a many signs;
The trays are up, the hedges broken down,
That fenced the haystack, and the remnant shines
Like some old antique fragment weathered brown.
And where suns peep, in every sheltered place,
The little early buttercups unfold
A glittering star or two--till many trace
The edges of the blackthorn clumps in gold.
And then a little lamb bolts up behind
The hill and wags his tail to meet the yoe,
And then another, sheltered from the wind,
Lies all his length as dead--and lets me go
Close bye and never stirs but baking lies,
With legs stretched out as though he could not rise.

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honour comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair
To dwell a weeping hermit there!

They brought to the little Princess, from her earliest hour of birth,
The lovely things, the beautiful things, the soft things of earth.

They covered her floor with crimson, they wrapped her in eiderdown;
They hung the windows with cloth of gold, lest her eyes look down;
(Lest the highway show an unlovely thing
And her eyes look down.)

They brought rare toys to her cradle, rich gems to her maidenhood;
All that she saw was beautiful, all that she heard was good.

When tumult rose in the city they bade her minstrels sing;
They drowned with the sound of music a people's clamouring;
(Lest she turn and hark to the highway,
And hear an unlovely thing.)

But there came a day of terror, when a cry too sharp and long
Tore through the streets of the city, through...

O plump head-waiter at The Cock,
To which I most resort,
How goes the time? ’Tis five o’clock.
Go fetch a pint of port:
But let it not be such as that
You set before chance-comers,
But such whose father-grape grew fat
On Lusitanian summers.

No vain libation to the Muse,
But may she still be kind,
And whisper lovely words, and use
Her influence on the mind,
To make me write my random rhymes,
Ere they be half-forgotten;
Nor add and alter, many times,
Till all be ripe and rotten.

I pledge her, and she comes and dips
Her laurel in the wine,
And lays it thrice upon my lips,
These favour’d lips of mine;
Until the charm have power to make
New life-blood warm the bosom,
And barren commonplaces break
In full and kindly blo...

raise me more love... raise me
my prettiest fits of madness
O’ dagger’s journey... in my flesh
and knife’s plunge...
sink me further my lady...
the sea calls me
add to me more death ...
perhaps as death slays me... I’m revived
your body is my map...
the world's map no longer concerns me...
I am the oldest capital of sadness...
and my wound a Pharaonic engraving
my pain.... extends like an oil patch
from Beirut... to China...
my pain... a caravan...dispatched
by the Caliphs of "A’Chaam"... to China...
in the seventh century of the "Birth"...
and lost in a dragon’s mouth...
bird of my heart... "naysani"
O’ sand of the sea, and forests of olives
O’ taste of snow, and taste of fire...
my heathen flavor, and insight
I feel scared of th...

Deep in the hush of a mighty wood
I came to a place of dread and dream,
And forms of shadows, whose shapes elude
The searching swords of the sun's dim gleam,
Builders of silence and solitude.
And there where a glimmering water crept
From rock to rock with a slumberous sound,
Tired to tears, on the mossy ground,
Under a tree I lay and slept.
Was it the heart of an olden oak?
Was it the soul of a flower that died?
Or was it the wildrose there that spoke,
The wilding lily that palely sighed?
For all on a sudden it seemed I awoke:
And the leaves and the flowers were all intent
On a visible something of light and bloom
A presence, felt as a wild perfume
Or beautiful music, that came and went.
And all the grief, I had known, was gone;
And all the angu...