Friendship

        "Harry, where have you been all morning?"
            "Down at the pool in the meadow-brook."
        "Fishing?" "Yes, but the trout were wary,
            Couldn't induce them to take a hook."
        "Why, look at your coat! You must have fallen,
            Your back's just covered with leaves and moss."
        How he laughs! Good-natured fellow!
            Fisherman's luck makes most men cross.

        "Nellie, the Wrights have called. Where were you?"
            "Under the tree, by the meadow-brook
        Reading, and oh, it was too lovely;
            I never saw such a charming book."
        The charming book must have pleased her, truly,
            There's a happy light in her bright young eyes
        And she hugs the cat with unusual fervor...

Poets are strange -- not always understood
By many is their gift,
Which is for evil or for mighty good --
To lower or to lift.

Upon their spirits there hath come a breath;
Who reads their verse
Will rise to higher life, or taste of death
In blessing or in curse.

The Poet is great Nature's own high priest,
Ordained from very birth
To keep for hearts an everlasting feast --
To bless or curse the earth.

They cannot help but sing; they know not why
Their thoughts rush into song,
And float above the world, beneath the sky,
For right or for the wrong.

They are like angels -- but some angels fell,
While some did keep their place;
Their poems are the gates of heav'n or hell,
And God's or Satan's face

Looks thro' their ...

'Twixt a smile and a tear,
'Twixt a song and a sigh,
'Twixt the day and the dark,
When the night draweth nigh.

Ah, sunshine may fade
From the heavens above,
No twilight have we
To the day of our love.

I.
Friends of faces unknown and a land
Unvisited over the sea,
Who tell me how lonely you stand
With a single gold curl in the hand
Held up to be looked at by me,

II.
While you ask me to ponder and say
What a father and mother can do,
With the bright fellow-locks put away
Out of reach, beyond kiss, in the clay
Where the violets press nearer than you.

III.
Shall I speak like a poet, or run
Into weak woman's tears for relief?
Oh, children! I never lost one,
Yet my arm 's round my own little son,
And Love knows the secret of Grief.

IV.
And I feel what it must be and is,
When God draws a new angel so
Through the house of a man up to His,
With a murmur of music, you miss,
And a rapture of light, you forgo.
<...

Through Alpine meadows soft-suffused
With rain, where thick the crocus blows,
Past the dark forges long disused,
The mule-track from Saint Laurent goes.
The bridge is cross'd, and slow we ride,
Through forest, up the mountain-side.
The autumnal evening darkens round,
The wind is up, and drives the rain;
While, hark! far down, with strangled sound
Doth the Dead Guier's stream complain,
Where that wet smoke, among the woods,
Over his boiling cauldron broods.
Swift rush the spectral vapours white
Past limestone scars with ragged pines,
Showing then blotting from our sight!
Halt through the cloud-drift something shines!
High in the valley, wet and drear,
The huts of Courrerie appear.
Strike leftward! cries our guide; and higher
Mounts up the stony f...

1.

Oh! had my Fate been join'd with thine, [1]
As once this pledge appear'd a token,
These follies had not, then, been mine,
For, then, my peace had not been broken.


2.

To thee, these early faults I owe,
To thee, the wise and old reproving:
They know my sins, but do not know
'Twas thine to break the bonds of loving.


3.

For once my soul, like thine, was pure,
And all its rising fires could smother;
But, now, thy vows no more endure,
Bestow'd by thee upon another. [1]


4.

Perhaps, his peace I could destroy,
And spoil the blisses that await him;
Yet let my Rival smile in joy,
For thy dear sake, I cannot hate him.


5.

Ah! since thy angel form ...

By a void and soundless river
On the outer edge of space,
Where the body comes not ever,
But the absent dream hath place,
Stands a city, tall and quiet,
And its air is sweet and dim;
Never sound of grief or riot
Makes it mad, or makes it grim.

And the tender skies thereover
Neither sun, nor star, behold -
Only dusk it hath for cover, -
But a glamour soft with gold,
Through a mist of dreamier essence
Than the dew of twilight, smiles
On strange shafts and domes and crescents,
Lifting into eerie piles.

In its courts and hallowed places
Dreams of distant worlds arise,
Shadows of transfigured faces,
Glimpses of immortal eyes,
Echoes of serenest pleasure,
Notes of perfect speech that fall,
Through an air of endless leisure,<...

Laugh, and the world laughs with you:
Weep, and you weep alone;
    For the sad old earth
    Must borrow its mirth,
It has trouble enough of its own.

Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
    The echoes bound
    To a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
    They want full measure
    Of all your pleasure,
But they do not want your woe.

Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all;
    There are none to decline
    Your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by;
    Succeed and give,
    And it helps you live,
B...

I have been so great a lover: filled my days
So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise,
The pain, the calm, and the astonishment,
Desire illimitable, and still content,
And all dear names men use, to cheat despair,
For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear
Our hearts at random down the dark of life.
Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife
Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,
My night shall be remembered for a star
That outshone all the suns of all men's days.
Shall I not crown them with immortal praise
Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me
High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see
The inenarrable godhead of delight?
Love is a flame; we have beaconed the world's night.
A city: and we have built it, these and I.
...

(TO MRS. PERCY DEARMER)

A poet hungered, as well he might -
Not a morsel since yesternight!
And sad he grew - good reason why -
For the poet had nought wherewith to buy.

'Are not two sparrows sold,' he cried,
'Sold for a farthing? and,' he sighed,
As he pushed his morning post away,
'Are not two sonnets more than they?'

Yet store of gold, great store had he, -
Of the gold that is known as 'faery.'
He had the gold of his burning dreams,
He had his golden rhymes - in reams,
He had the strings of his golden lyre,
And his own was that golden west on fire.

But the poet knew his world too well
To dream that such would buy or sell.
He had his poets, 'pure gold,' he said,
But the man at the bookstall shook his head,
And offered a...

Last Sunday night I read the saddening story
    Of the unanswered love of fair Elaine,
The 'faith unfaithful' and the joyless glory
    Of Lancelot, 'groaning in remorseful pain.'

I thought of all those nights in wintry weather,
    Those Sunday nights that seem not long ago,
When we two read our Poet's words together,
    Till summer warmth within our hearts did glow.

Ah, when shall we renew that bygone pleasure,
    Sit down together at our Merlin's feet,
Drink from one cup the overflowing measure,
    And find, in sharing it, the draught more sweet?

That time perchance is far, beyond divining.
    Till then we drain the 'magic cup' apart;
Yet not apart, for hope and memory twining
    Smile upon each, uniting heart to heart.

Early within his workshop here,
On Sundays stands our master dear;
His dirty apron he puts away,
And wears a cleanly doublet to-day;
Lets wax'd thread, hammer, and pincers rest,
And lays his awl within his chest;
The seventh day he takes repose
From many pulls and many blows.

Soon as the spring-sun meets his view,
Repose begets him labour anew;
He feels that he holds within his brain
A little world, that broods there amain,
And that begins to act and to live,
Which he to others would gladly give.

He had a skilful eye and true,
And was full kind and loving too.
For contemplation, clear and pure,
For making all his own again, sure;
He had a tongue that charm'd when 'twas heard,
And graceful and light flow'd ev'ry word;
Which made ...

    O far is fled the winter wind,
    And far is fled the frost and snow,
    But the cold scorn on my love's brow
    Hath never yet prepared to go.

    More lasting than ten winters' wind,
    More cutting than ten weeks of frost,
    Is the chill frowning of thy mind,
    Where my poor heart was pledged and lost.

    I see thee taunting down the street,
    And by the frowning that I see
    I might have known it long ere now,
    Thy love was never meant for me.

    And had I known ere I began
    That love had been so hard to win,
    I would have filled my heart with pride,
    Nor left one hope to let love in.

    I would have wrapped it in my breast,
    And pinned it with a silver pin,
    Safe as a bird within its n...

What needs complaints,
When she a place
Has with the race
Of saints?
In endless mirth,
She thinks not on
What's said or done
In earth:
She sees no tears,
Or any tone
Of thy deep groan
She hears;
Nor does she mind,
Or think on't now,
That ever thou
Wast kind:
But changed above,
She likes not there,
As she did here,
Thy love.
Forbear, therefore,
And lull asleep
Thy woes, and weep
No more.

    Walking to-day in your garden, O gracious lady,
    Little you thought as you turned in that alley remote and shady,
    And gave me a rose and asked if I knew its savour--
    The old-world scent of the mossrose, flower of a bygone favour--

    Little you thought as you waited the word of appraisement,
    Laughing at first and then amazed at my amazement,
    That the rose you gave was a gift already cherished,
    And the garden whence you plucked it a garden long perished.

    But I--I saw that garden, with its one treasure
    The tiny mossrose, tiny even by childhood's measure,
    And the long morning shadow of the dusty laurel,
    And a boy and a girl beneath it, flushed with a childish quarrel.

    She wept for her one little bud: but he, outreachi...

The wasting thistle whitens on my crest,
The barren grasses blow upon my spear,
A green, pale pennon: blazon of wild faith
And love of fruitless things: yea, of my love,
Among the golden loves of all the knights,
Alone: most hopeless, sweet, and blasphemous,
The love of God:
I hear the crumbling creeds
Like cliffs washed down by water, change, and pass;
I hear a noise of words, age after age,
A new cold wind that blows across the plains,
And all the shrines stand empty; and to me
All these are nothing: priests and schools may doubt
Who never have believed; but I have loved.
Ah friends, I know it passing well, the love
Wherewith I love; it shall not bring to me
Return or hire or any pleasant thing--
Ay, I have tried it: Ay, I know its roots.
Earthquak...

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...

Farewell! the beauteous sun is sinking fast,
The moon lifts up her head;
Farewell! mute night o'er earth's wide round at last
Her darksome raven-wing has spread.

Across the wintry plain no echoes float,
Save, from the rock's deep womb,
The murmuring streamlet, and the screech-owl's note,
Arising from the forest's gloom.

The fish repose within the watery deeps,
The snail draws in his head;
The dog beneath the table calmly sleeps,
My wife is slumbering in her bed.

A hearty welcome to ye, brethren mine!
Friends of my life's young spring!
Perchance around a flask of Rhenish wine
Ye're gathered now, in joyous ring.

The brimming goblet's bright and purple beams
Mirror the world with joy,
And pleasure from the golden grape-juice glea...