Freedom

Within the dwindling glow of light from languid lamps,
Sunk in the softest cushions soaked with heady scent,
Hippolyta lay dreaming of the thrilling touch
That spread apart the veil of her young innocence.

She searched with troubled eye, afflicted by the storm,
For the once-distant sky of her naivety,
A voyager who turns and looks beyond the wake
To blue horizons which had once been overhead.

The heavy tears that fell from dull and weary eyes,
The broken look, the stupor, the voluptuousness,
Her conquered arms thrown down, surrendered in the field,
All strangely served her still, to show her fragile charm.

Stretched calmly at her feet, joyfully satisfied,
Delphine looked up at her with those compelling eyes
Like a strong animal that oversees her prey,<...

        When the warm sun, that brings
Seed-time and harvest, has returned again,
'T is sweet to visit the still wood, where springs
        The first flower of the plain.

        I love the season well,
When forest glades are teeming with bright forms,
Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell
        The coming-on of storms.

        From the earth's loosened mould
The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives;
Though stricken to the heart with winter's cold,
        The drooping tree revives.

        The softly-warbled song
Comes from the pleasant woods, and colored wings
Glance quick in the bright sun, that moves along
        The forest openings.

        When the bright sunset fills
The silver woods with light, the green slope t...

After venting all my spite,
Tell me, what have I to write?
Every error I could find
Through the mazes of your mind,
Have my busy Muse employ'd,
Till the company was cloy'd.
Are you positive and fretful,
Heedless, ignorant, forgetful?
Those, and twenty follies more,
I have often told before.
    Hearken what my lady says:
Have I nothing then to praise?
Ill it fits you to be witty,
Where a fault should move your pity.
If you think me too conceited,
Or to passion quickly heated;
If my wandering head be less
Set on reading than on dress;
If I always seem too dull t'ye;
I can solve the diffi - culty.
    You would teach me to be wise:
Truth and honour how to prize;
How to shine in conversation,
And with credit fill my station;

1

Hangs stormed with stars the night,
Deep over deep,
A majesty, a might,
To feel and keep.


2

Ah! what is such and such,
Love, canst thou tell?
That shrinks - though 'tis not much -
To weep farewell.


3

That hates the dawn and lark;
Would have the wail, -
Sobbed through the ceaseless dark, -
O' the nightingale.


4

Yes, earth, thy life were worth
Not much to me,
Were there not after earth
Eternity.


5

God gave thee life to keep -
And what hath life? -
Love, faith, and care, and sleep
Where dreams are rife.


6

Death's sleep, whose shadows start
The tears in eyes
Of love, that fill the heart
That breaks and d...

‘What have I earned for all that work,’ I said,
‘For all that I have done at my own charge?
The daily spite of this unmannerly town,
Where who has served the most is most defamed,
The reputation of his lifetime lost
Between the night and morning. I might have lived,
And you know well how great the longing has been,
Where every day my footfall should have lit
In the green shadow of Ferrara wall;
Or climbed among the images of the past—
The unperturbed and courtly images—
Evening and morning, the steep street of Urbino
To where the duchess and her people talked
The stately midnight through until they stood
In their great window looking at the dawn;
I might have had no friend that could not mix
Courtesy and passion into one like those
That saw the wicks grow...

Angel of gaiety, have you tasted grief?
Shame and remorse and sobs and weary spite,
And the vague terrors of the fearful night
That crush the heart up like a crumpled leaf?
Angel of gaiety, have you tasted grief?

Angel of kindness, have you tasted hate?
With hands clenched in the shade and tears of gall,
When Vengeance beats her hellish battle-call,
And makes herself the captain of our fate,
Angel of kindness, have you tasted hate?

Angel of health, did you ever know pain,
Which like an exile trails his tired footfalls
The cold length of the white infirmary walls,
With lips compressed, seeking the sun in vain?
Angel of health, did ever you know pain?

Angel of beauty, do you wrinkles know?
Know you the fear of age, the torment vile
Of read...

All day between high-curded clouds the sun
Shone down like summer on the steaming planks.
The long, bright icicles in dwindling ranks
Dripped from the murmuring eaves till one by one
They fell. As if the spring had now begun,
The quilted snow, sun-softened to the core,
Loosened and shunted with a sudden roar
From downward roofs. Not even with day done
Had ceased the sound of waters, but all night
I heard it. In my dreams forgetfully bright
Methought I wandered in the April woods,
Where many a silver-piping sparrow was,
By gurgling brooks and spouting solitudes,
And stooped, and laughed, and plucked hepaticas.

            If Love were king,
    That sacred Love which knows not selfish pleasure,
    But for its children spends its fondest treasure,
            Sad hearts would sing,
    And all the hosts of misery and wrong
    Forget their anguish in the happy song
            That joy would bring.

            If Love were king,
    Gaunt wickedness would hide his loathsome features,
    And virtue would to all the world's sad creatures
            Her treasures fling;
    Till drooping souls would rise above their fate,
    And find sweet flowers for all the desolate
            And sorrowing.

            If Love were king,
    Before the scepter of his might should vanish
    Toil's curse and care, and happiness should banish
            Want's aw...

(For A Drawing By E. A. Abbey.)


How weary 'twas to wait! The year
Went dragging slowly on;
The red leaf to the running brook
Dropped sadly, and was gone;
December came, and locked in ice
The plashing of the mill;
The white snow filled the orchard up;
But she was waiting still.

Spring stirred and broke. The rooks once more
'Gan cawing in the loft;
The young lambs' new awakened cries
Came trembling from the croft;
The clumps of primrose filled again
The hollows by the way;
The pale wind-flowers blew; but she
Grew paler still than they.

How weary 'twas to wait! With June,
Through all the drowsy street,
Came distant murmurs of the war,
And rumours of the fleet;
The gossips, from the market-stalls,
Cried news of...

When, to the attractions of the busy world,
Preferring studious leisure, I had chosen
A habitation in this peaceful Vale,
Sharp season followed of continual storm
In deepest winter; and, from week to week,
Pathway, and lane, and public road, were clogged
With frequent showers of snow. Upon a hill
At a short distance from my cottage, stands
A stately Fir-grove, whither I was wont
To hasten, for I found, beneath the roof
Of that perennial shade, a cloistral place
Of refuge, with an unincumbered floor.
Here, in safe covert, on the shallow snow,
And, sometimes, on a speck of visible earth,
The redbreast near me hopped; nor was I loth
To sympathise with vulgar coppice birds
That, for protection from the nipping blast,
Hither repaired. A single beech-tree grew<...

            "Whenever, amid bow'rs of myrtle,
                Love, summer-tressed and vernal-eyed,
            At morn or eve is seen to wander,
                A dark-haired girl is at his side."
            De La Hogue.

One morn, just as day in the far east was breaking,
    Young Love, who all night had been roving about,
A charming siesta was quietly taking,
    His strength, by his rambles, completely worn out.

Round his brow a wreath, woven of every flower
    That springs from the hillside, or valley, was bound;
In his hand was a rose he had stol'n from some bower,
    While his bow and his quiver lay near on the ground.

Wild Fancy just came from her kingdom of dreams,
    The breath of the opening day to enjoy,
And to catch the warm kiss ...

I.


At anchor in that harbour of the island,
    The Chinese gate,
We lay where, terraced under green-clad highland,
    The sea-town sate.

Ships, steamers, sailors, many a flag and nation,
    A motley crew,
Junks, sampans, all East's swarming jubilation,
    I watched and knew.

Then, as I stood, sweet sudden sounds out-swelling
    On the boon breeze,
The church-bells' chiming echoes rang out, telling
    Of inland peace.

O English chimes, your music rising and falling
    I cannot praise,
Although to me it come sweet-sad recalling
    Dear childish days.

Yet, English chimes, - last links of chains that sever,
    Worn out and done,
That land and creed that I have left for ever, -
    Ring on, ring on!

The wind makes moan, the water runneth chill;
I hear the nymphs go crying through the brake;
And roaming mournfully from hill to hill
The maenads all are silent for his sake!

He loved thy pipe, O wreathed and piping Pan!
So play'st thou sadly, lone within thine hollow;
He was thy blood, if ever mortal man,
Therefore thou weepest - even thou, Apollo!

But O, the grieving of the Little Things,
Above the pipe and lyre, throughout the woods!
The beating of a thousand airy wings,
The cry of all the fragile multitudes!

The moth flits desolate, the tree-toad calls,
Telling the sorrow of the elf and fay;
The cricket, little harper of the walls,
Puts up his harp - hath quite forgot to play!

And risen on these winter paths anew,
The wilding b...

Light human nature is too lightly tost
And ruffled without cause, complaining on
Restless with rest, until, being overthrown,
It learneth to lie quiet. Let a frost
Or a small wasp have crept to the inner-most
Of our ripe peach, or let the wilful sun
Shine westward of our window, straight we run
A furlong's sigh as if the world were lost.
But what time through the heart and through the brain
God hath transfixed us, we, so moved before,
Attain to a calm. Ay, shouldering weights of pain,
We anchor in deep waters, safe from shore,
And hear submissive o'er the stormy main
God's chartered judgments walk for evermore.

    I

    He kneeled among a waste of sands
        Before the Mother-Maid,
    But on the far green forest-lands
        His steadfast eyes were stayed,
    And like a knight of stone his hands
        He straightened while he prayed.

    "Lady, beyond all women fair,
        Beyond all saints benign,
    Whose living heart through life I bear
        In mystery divine,
    Hear thou and grant me this my prayer,
        Or grant no prayer of mine.

    "The fever of my spirit's pain
        Heal thou with heavenly scorn;
    The dust that but of dust is fain
        Leave thou in dust forlorn;
    Yea! bury love to rise again
        Meet for eternal morn.

    "So by thy grace my inward eyes
        Thy beauty still ...

In the pull of the wind I stand, lonely,
On the deck of a ship, rising, falling,
Wild night around me, wild water under me,
Whipped by the storm, screaming and calling.

Earth is hostile and the sea hostile,
Why do I look for a place to rest?
I must fight always and die fighting
With fear an unhealing wound in my breast.

Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shone,
Fared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence only the sun was gone:
Soft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade man welcome: a dim sweet hour
Gleamed and whispered in wind and sea, and heaven was fair as a field in flower.
Stars fulfilled the desire of the darkling world as with music: the starbright air
Made the face of the sea, if aught may make the face of the sea, more fair.
Whence came change? Was the sweet night weary of rest? What anguish awoke in the dark?
Sudden, sublime, the strong storm spake: we heard the thunders as hounds that bark.
Lovelier if aught may be lovelier than stars, we saw the lightnings exalt the sky,
Living and lustrous and rapturous as love that is born but to quicken and lighten an...

This world's made up ov leet an shade,
But some things strange aw mark;
One class live all on th' sunny side,
Wol others dwell i'th' dark.
Wor it intended some should grooap,
Battlin with th' world o' care,
Wol others full ov joy an hooap
Have happiness to spare?

It may be soa, - aw'll net contend,
Opinions should be free; -
Aw'm nobbut spaikin as a friend, -
But it seems that way to me.

Should one class wear ther lives away,
To mak another great;
Wol all their share will hardly pay,
For grub enuff to ait?
An is it reight at some should dress
I' clooas bedeckt wi' gold,
Wol others havn't rags enuff,
To keep ther limbs throo th' cold?

It may be soa, - aw'll net contend, &c,

When gazin at th' fine palaces,