Friendship

I tell my secret? No indeed, not I:
Perhaps some day, who knows?
But not to-day; it froze, and blows, and snows,
And you're too curious: fie!
You want to hear it? well:
Only, my secret's mine, and I won't tell.

Or, after all, perhaps there's none:
Suppose there is no secret after all,
But only just my fun.
To-day's a nipping day, a biting day;
In which one wants a shawl,
A veil, a cloak, and other wraps:
I cannot ope to every one who taps,
And let the draughts come whistling through my hall;
Come bounding and surrounding me,
Come buffeting, astounding me,
Nipping and clipping through my wraps and all.
I wear my mask for warmth: who ever shows
His nose to Russian snows
To be pecked at by every wind that blows?
You would not peck? I tha...

Our altar is the dewy sod
Our temple yon blue throne of God:
No priestly rite our souls to bind
We bow before the Almighty Mind.

Oh, Thou whose realm is wide as air
Thou wilt not spurn the Gipsies' prayer:
Though banned and barred by all beside,
Be Thou the Outcast's guard and guide.

Poor fragments of a Nation wrecked
Its story whelmed in Time's neglect
We drift unheeded on the wave,
If God refuse the lost to save.

Yet though we name no Fatherland
And though we clasp no kindred hand
Though houseless, homeless wanderers we
Oh give us Hope, and Heaven with Thee!

(See Note 54)

May Seventeenth in Eidsvold's church united,
To hallow after fifty years the day
When they who there our charter free indited,
Together for our land were met to pray, -
We both were there with thanks to those great men,
With thanks to God, who to our people then
In days of danger courage gave unbounded.

And when so mighty through the church now sounded
"Praise ye the Lord!" lifting our pallid prayer
To fellowship with all her sons, our brothers,
I saw you, child-like, weep in secret there
Upon the breast we love, our common mother's.

Then I remembered that from boyhood's hour
With all your strength to serve her you have striven,
Your youthful fire, your counsel cool have given,
And till it waned, your manhood's wealth of power.<...

Again I see my bliss at hand;
The town, the lake are here.
My Marguerite smiles upon the strand
Unalter’d with the year.

I know that graceful figure fair,
That cheek of languid hue;
I know that soft enkerchief’d hair,
And those sweet eyes of blue.

Again I spring to make my choice;
Again in tones of ire
I hear a God’s tremendous voice
‘Be counsell’d, and retire!’

Ye guiding Powers, who join and part,
What would ye have with me?
Ah, warn some more ambitious heart,
And let the peaceful be!

Carry me out
Into the wind and the sunshine,
Into the beautiful world.

O, the wonder, the spell of the streets!
The stature and strength of the horses,
The rustle and echo of footfalls,
The flat roar and rattle of wheels!
A swift tram floats huge on us . . .
It's a dream?
The smell of the mud in my nostrils
Blows brave - like a breath of the sea!

As of old,
Ambulant, undulant drapery,
Vaguery and strangely provocative,
Fluttersd and beckons.    O, yonder -
Is it? - the gleam of a stocking!
Sudden, a spire
Wedged in the mist!    O, the houses,
The long lines of lofty, grey houses,
Cross-hatched with shadow and light!
These are the streets . . .
Each is an avenue leading
Whither I will!

Free . . . !
Dizzy...

A month ago Lysander pray'd
    To Jove, to Cupid, and to Venus,
That he might die if he betray'd
    A single vow that pass'd between us.

Ah, careless gods, to hear so ill
    And cheat a maid on you relying!
For false Lysander's thriving still,
    And 'tis Corinna lies a-dying.

Far in the ways of the hyaline wastes in the face of the splendid
Six of the sisters the star-dowered sisters ineffably bright,
Merope sitteth, the shadow-like wife of a monarch unfriended
Of Ades of Orcus, the fierce, the implacable god of the night.
Merope fugitive Merope! lost to thyself and thy lover,
Cast, like a dream, out of thought, with the moons which have passed into sleep,
What shall avail thee? Alcyone’s tears, or the sight to discover
Of Sisyphus pallid for thee by the blue, bitter lights of the deep
Pallid, but patient for sorrow? Oh, thou of the fire and the water,
Half with the flame of the sunset, and kin to the streams of the sea,
Hast thou the songs of old times for desire of thy dark-featured daughter,
Sweet with the lips of thy yearning, O Aethra! with tokens of ...

The trees took on fantastic shapes
That night when I came to the grange;
The very bushes seemed to change;
This seemed a hag's head, that an ape's:
The road itself seemed darkly strange
That night when I came to the grange.

The storm had passed, but still the night
Cloaked with deep clouds its true intent,
And moody on its way now went
With muttered thunder and the light,
Torch-like, of lightning that was spent
Flickering the mask of its intent.

Like some hurt thing that bleeds to death,
Yet never moves nor heaves a sigh,
Some last drops shuddered from the sky:
The darkness seemed to hold its breath
To see the sullen tempest die,
That never moved nor heaved a sigh.

Within my path, among the weeds,
The glow-worm, like an evil ey...

It is over. What is over?
    Nay, now much is over truly! -
Harvest days we toiled to sow for;
    Now the sheaves are gathered newly,
    Now the wheat is garnered duly.

It is finished. What is finished?
    Much is finished known or unknown:
Lives are finished; time diminished;
    Was the fallow field left unsown?
    Will these buds be always unblown?

It suffices. What suffices?
    All suffices reckoned rightly:
Spring shall bloom where now the ice is,
    Roses make the bramble sightly,
    And the quickening sun shine brightly,
    And the latter wind blow lightly,
And my garden teem with spices.

At the outset I may mention it's my sovereign intention
To revive the classic memories of Athens at its best,
For my company possesses all the necessary dresses,
And a course of quiet cramming will supply us with the rest.
We've a choir hyporchematic (that is, ballet-operatic)
Who respond to the CHOREUTAE of that cultivated age,
And our clever chorus-master, all but captious criticaster,
Would accept as the CHOREGUS of the early Attic stage.
This return to classic ages is considered in their wages,
Which are always calculated by the day or by the week -
And I'll pay 'em (if they'll back me) all in OBOLOI and DRACHMAE,
Which they'll get (if they prefer it) at the Kalends that are Greek!

(At this juncture I may mention
That this erudition sham
Is but classical prete...

No one was with me there -
Happy I was - alone;
Yet from the sunshine suddenly
A joy was gone.

A bird in an empty house
Sad echoes makes to ring,
Flitting from room to room
On restless wing:

Till from its shades he flies,
And leaves forlorn and dim
The narrow solitudes
So strange to him.

So, when with fickle heart
I joyed in the passing day,
A presence my mood estranged
Went grieved away.

As the birds come in the Spring,
    We know not from where;
As the stars come at evening
    From depths of the air;

As the rain comes from the cloud,
    And the brook from the ground;
As suddenly, low or loud,
    Out of silence a sound;

As the grape comes to the vine,
    The fruit to the tree;
As the wind comes to the pine,
    And the tide to the sea;

As come the white sails of ships
    O'er the ocean's verge;
As comes the smile to the lips,
    The foam to the surge;

So come to the Poet his songs,
    All hitherward blown
From the misty realm, that belongs
    To the vast unknown.

His, and not his, are the lays
    He sings; and their fame
Is his, and not his; and the praise
    And the p...

Two or three Posies
With two or three simples,
Two or three Noses
With two or three pimples,
Two or three wise men
And two or three ninny's,
Two or three guineas,
Two or three raps
At two or three doors,
Two or three naps
Of two or three hours,
Two or three Cats
And two or three mice,
Two or three sprats
At a very great price,
Two or three sandies
And two or three tabbies,
Two or three dandies
And two Mrs. ---
Two or three Smiles
And two or three frowns,
Two or three Miles
To two or three towns,
Two or three pegs
For two or three bonnets,
Two or three dove eggs
To hatch into sonnets.

Ecstasy.


    I cannot sing to thee as I would sing
    If I were quickened like the holy lark
    With fire from Heaven and sunlight on his wing,
    Who wakes the world with witcheries of the dark
    Renewed in rapture in the reddening air.
    A thing of splendour do I deem him then,
    A feather'd frenzy with an angel's throat,
    A something sweet that somewhere seems to float
    'Twixt earth and sky, to be a sign to men.
    He fills me with such wonder and despair!
    I long to kiss thy locks, so golden bright,
    As he doth kiss the ...

From Clee to heaven the beacon burns,
The shires have seen it plain,
From north and south the sign returns
And beacons burn again.

Look left, look right, the hills are bright,
The dales are light between,
Because 'tis fifty years to-night
That God has saved the Queen.

Now, when the flame they watch not towers
About the soil they trod,
Lads, we'll remember friends of ours
Who shared the work with God.

To skies that knit their heartstrings right,
To fields that bred them brave,
The saviours come not home to-night:
Themselves they could not save.

It dawns in Asia, tombstones show
And Shropshire names are read;
And the Nile spills his overflow
Beside the Severn's dead.

We pledge in peace by farm and town
The Q...

Sweet dreams, form a shade
O'er my lovely infant's head!
Sweet dreams of pleasant streams
By happy, silent, moony beams!

Sweet Sleep, with soft down
Weave thy brows an infant crown
Sweet Sleep, angel mild,
Hover o'er my happy child!

Sweet smiles, in the night
Hover over my delight!
Sweet smiles, mother's smile,
All the livelong night beguile.

Sweet moans, dovelike sighs,
Chase not slumber from thine eyes!
Sweet moan, sweeter smile,
All the dovelike moans beguile.

Sleep, sleep, happy child!
All creation slept and smiled.
Sleep, sleep, happy sleep,
While o'er thee doth mother weep.

Sweet babe, in thy face
Holy image I can trace;
Sweet babe, once like thee
Thy Maker lay, and wept for me:

...

"Be with us by day, by night,
    O lover, O friend;
Hold before us thy light
    Unto the end!

"See, all these children of ours
    Starved and ill-clad.
Speak to thy heart's lily-flowers,
    And make them glad!

"Our wives and daughters are here,
    Knowing wrong and shame's touch
Bid them be of good cheer
    Who have loved much.

"And we, we are robbed and oppressed,
    Even as thine were.
Tell us of comfort and rest,
    Banish despair!

"Be with us by day, by night,
    O lover, O friend;
Hold before us thy light
    Unto the end!"

Let down the bars, O Death!
The tired flocks come in
Whose bleating ceases to repeat,
Whose wandering is done.

Thine is the stillest night,
Thine the securest fold;
Too near thou art for seeking thee,
Too tender to be told.