Friendship

Who is this who gently slips
Through my door, and stands and sighs,
Hovering in a soft eclipse,
With a finger on her lips
And a meaning in her eyes?

Once she came to visit me
In white robes with festal airs,
Glad surprises, songs of glee;
Now in silence cometh she,
And a sombre garb she wears.

Once I waited and was tired,
Chid her visits as too few;
Crownless now and undesired,
She to seek me is inspired
Oftener than she used to do.

Grave her coming is and still,
Sober her appealing mien,
Tender thoughts her glances fill;
But I shudder, as one will
When an open grave is seen.

Wherefore, friend,--for friend thou art,--
Should I wrong thee thus and grieve?
Wherefore push thee from my heart?
Of my morning...

O for that sweet, untroubled rest
That poets oft have sung!--
The babe upon its mother's breast,
The bird upon its young,
The heart asleep without a pain--
When shall I know that sleep again?

When shall I be as I have been
Upon my mother's breast
Sweet Nature's garb of verdant green
To woo to perfect rest--
Love in the meadow, field, and glen,
And in my native wilds again?

The sheep within the fallow field,
The herd upon the green,
The larks that in the thistle shield,
And pipe from morn to e'en--
O for the pasture, fields, and fen!
When shall I see such rest again?

I love the weeds along the fen,
More sweet than garden flowers,
For freedom haunts the humble glen
That blest my happiest hours.
Here prison injures ...

With a copy of "The Supernaturalism Of New England."


Dear Sister! while the wise and sage
Turn coldly from my playful page,
And count it strange that ripened age
Should stoop to boyhood's folly;
I know that thou wilt judge aright
Of all which makes the heart more light,
Or lends one star-gleam to the night
Of clouded Melancholy.

Away with weary cares and themes!
Swing wide the moonlit gate of dreams!
Leave free once more the land which teems
With wonders and romances
Where thou, with clear discerning eyes,
Shalt rightly read the truth which lies
Beneath the quaintly masking guise
Of wild and wizard fancies.

Lo! once again our feet we set
On still green wood-paths, twilight wet,
By lonely brooks, whose waters fret

The moonlight is without; and I could lose
An hour to gaze, though Taste and Splendour here,
As in a lustrous fairy palace, reign!
Regardless of the lights that blaze within,
I look upon the wide and silent sea,
That in the shadowy moonbeam sleeps:
    How still,
Nor heard to murmur, or to move, it lies;
Shining in Fancy's eye, like the soft gleam,
The eve of pleasant yesterdays!
    The clouds
Have all sunk westward, and the host of stars
Seem in their watches set, as gazing on;
While night's fair empress, sole and beautiful,
Holds her illustrious course through the mid heavens
Supreme, the spectacle, for such she looks,
Of gazing worlds!
    How different is the scene
That lies beneath this arched window's height!
The town, that murmured throu...

I

When dusk falls cool as a rained-on rose,
And a tawny tower the twilight shows,
With the crescent moon, the silver moon, the curved
new moon in a space that glows,
A turret window that grows alight;
There is a path that my Fancy knows,
A glimmering, shimmering path of night,
That far as the Land of Faery goes.

II

And I follow the path, as Fancy leads,
Over the mountains, into the meads,
Where the firefly cities, the glowworm cities, the faery
cities are strung like beads,
Each city a twinkling star:
And I live a life of valorous deeds,
And march with the Faery King to war,
And ride with his knights on milk-white steeds.

III

Or it's there in the whirl of their life I sit,
Or dance in their houses with starligh...

STRANGER.
        Old friend! why you seem bent on parish duty,
        Breaking the highway stones,--and 'tis a task
        Somewhat too hard methinks for age like yours.


OLD MAN.
        Why yes! for one with such a weight of years
        Upon his back. I've lived here, man and boy,
        In this same parish, near the age of man
        For I am hard upon threescore and ten.
        I can remember sixty years ago
        The beautifying of this mansion here
        When my late Lady's father, the old Squire
        Came to the estate.


STRANGER.
            Why then you have outlasted
        All his improvements, for you see they're making
        Great alterations here.


OLD MAN.
            Aye-great indeed!...

When fairer faces turn from me,
And gayer friends grow cold,
And I have lost through poverty
The friendship bought with gold;
When I have served the selfish turn
Of some all-worldly few,
And Folly’s lamps have ceased to burn,
Then I’ll come back to you.

When my admirers find I’m not
The rising star they thought,
And praise or blame is all forgot
My early promise brought;
When brighter rivals lead a host
Where once I led a few,
And kinder times reward their boast,
Then I’ll come back to you.

You loved me, not for what I had
Or what I might have been,
You saw the good, but not the bad,
Was kind, for that between.
I know that you’ll forgive again,
That you will judge me true;
I’ll be too tired to explain
When I come ...

Dearest, best and brightest,
Come away,
To the woods and to the fields!
Dearer than this fairest day
Which, like thee to those in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough Year just awake
In its cradle in the brake.
The eldest of the Hours of Spring,
Into the Winter wandering,
Looks upon the leafless wood,
And the banks all bare and rude;
Found, it seems, this halcyon Morn
In February's bosom born,
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
Kissed the cold forehead of the Earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free;
And waked to music all the fountains,
And breathed upon the rigid mountains,
And made the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, Dear.

Radiant Sister of the Day,

I.

Oh for a field, my friend; oh for a field!
    I ask no more
    Than one plain field, shut in by hedgerows four,
Contentment sweet to yield.
For I am not fastidious,
    And, with a proud demeanour, I
Will not affect invidious
    Distinctions about scenery.
I sigh not for the fir trees where they rise
Against Italian skies,
    Swiss lakes, or Scottish heather,
    Set off with glorious weather;
            Such sights as these
            The most exacting please;
But I, lone wanderer in London streets,
Where every face one meets
            Is full of care,
            And seems to wear
            A troubled air,
            Of being late for some affair
    Of life or death:--thus I, ev'n I,
Long for a field of gras...

To every gentle Muse in vain allied,
In youth's full early morning HEADLEY died!
Too long had sickness left her pining trace,
With slow, still touch, on each decaying grace:
Untimely sorrow marked his thoughtful mien!
Despair upon his languid smile was seen!
Yet Resignation, musing on the grave,
(When now no hope could cheer, no pity save),
And Virtue, that scarce felt its fate severe,
And pale Affection, dropping soft a tear
For friends beloved, from whom she soon must part,
Breathed a sad solace on his aching heart.
Nor ceased he yet to stray, where, winding wild,
The Muse's path his drooping steps beguiled,
Intent to rescue some neglected rhyme,
Lone-blooming, from the mournful waste of time;
And cull each scattered sweet, that seemed to smile
Like flo...

FROM BERMUDA.[1]


"The daylight is gone--but, before we depart,
"One cup shall go round to the friend of my heart,
"The kindest, the dearest--oh! judge by the tear
"I now shed while I name him, how kind and how dear."

    'Twas thus in the shade of the Calabash-Tree,
With a few, who could feel and remember like me,
The charm that, to sweeten my goblet, I threw
Was a sigh to the past and a blessing on you.

    Oh! say, is it thus, in the mirth-bringing hour,
When friends are assembled, when wit, in full flower,
Shoots forth from the lip, under Bacchus's dew,
In blossoms of thought ever springing and new--
Do you sometimes remember, and hallow the brim
Of your cup with a sigh, as you crown it to him
Who is lonely and sad in these val...

    Yesterday I thought to roam
    Idly through the fields of home,
    And I came at morning's end
    To our brook's familiar bend.
    There I raised my eyes, and there,
    Shining through an ampler air,
    Folded in by hills of blue
    Such as Wessex never knew,
    Changed as in a waking dream
    Flowed the well-remembered stream.

    Now a line of wattled pale
    Fenced the downland from the vale,
    Now the sedge was set with reeds
    Fitter for Arcadian meads,
    And where I was wont to find
    Only things of timid kind,
    Now the Genius of the pool
    Mocked me from his corner cool.
    Eyes he had with malice quick,
    Tufted hair and ears a-prick,
    And, above a tiny chin,
    Lips with laughter wide a-...

Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies,
Let them live upon their praises;
Long as there's a sun that sets,
Primroses will have their glory;
Long as there are violets,
They will have a place in story:
There's a flower that shall be mine,
'Tis the little Celandine.

Eyes of some men travel far
For the finding of a star;
Up and down the heavens they go,
Men that keep a mighty rout!
I'm as great as they, I trow,
Since the day I found thee out,
Little Flower! I'll make a stir,
Like a sage astronomer.

Modest, yet withal an Elf
Bold, and lavish of thyself;
Since we needs must first have met
I have seen thee, high and low,
Thirty years or more, and yet
'Twas a face I did not know;
Thou hast now, go where I may,
Fifty greetings...

O that those lips had language! Life has pass’d
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
Those lips are thine—thy own sweet smile I see,
The same that oft in childhood solaced me;
Voice only fails, else how distinct they say,
“Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!”
The meek intelligence of those dear eyes
(Blest be the art that can immortalize,
The art that baffles Time’s tyrannic claim
To quench it) here shines on me still the same.
Faithful remembrancer of one so dear,
O welcome guest, though unexpected here:
Who bidst me honour with an artless song,
Affectionate, a mother lost so long.
I will obey, not willingly alone,
But gladly, as the precept were her own:
And, while that face renews my filial grief,
Fancy shall weave a charm for my re...

I push on through the shaggy wood,
I round the hill: 't is here it stood;
And there, beyond the crumbled walls,
The shining Concord slowly crawls,

Yet seems to make a passing stay,
And gently spreads its lilied bay,
Curbed by this green and reedy shore,
Up toward the ancient homestead's door.

But dumbly sits the shattered house,
And makes no answer: man and mouse
Long since forsook it, and decay
Chokes its deep heart with ashes gray.

On what was once a garden-ground
Dull red-bloomed sorrels now abound;
And boldly whistles the shy quail
Within the vacant pasture's pale.

Ah, strange and savage, where he shines,
The sun seems staring through those pines
That once the vanished home could bless
With intimate, sweet loneliness....

When breezes are soft and skies are fair,
I steal an hour from study and care,
And hie me away to the woodland scene,
Where wanders the stream with waters of green,
As if the bright fringe of herbs on its brink
Had given their stain to the wave they drink;
And they, whose meadows it murmurs through,
Have named the stream from its own fair hue.

Yet pure its waters, its shallows are bright
With coloured pebbles and sparkles of light,
And clear the depths where its eddies play,
And dimples deepen and whirl away,
And the plane-tree's speckled arms o'ershoot
The swifter current that mines its root,
Through whose shifting leaves, as you walk the hill,
The quivering glimmer of sun and rill
With a sudden flash on the eye is thrown,
Like the ray that streams...

Urn and sarcophagus erst were with life adorn'd by the heathen

Fauns are dancing around, while with the Bacchanal troop
Chequerd circles they trace; and the goat-footed, puffy-cheekd player

Wildly produceth hoarse tones out of the clamorous horn.
Cymbals and drums resound; we see and we hear, too, the marble.

Fluttering bird! oh how sweet tastes the ripe fruit to thy bill!
Noise there is none to disturb thee, still less to scare away Amor,

Who, in the midst of the throng, learns to delight in his torch.
Thus doth fullness overcome death; and the ashes there cover'd

Seem, in that silent domain, still to be gladdend with life.
Thus may the minstrel's sarcophagus be hereafter surrounded

With such a scroll, which himself richly with life has adorn'd.

        I wonder can this be the world it was
        At sunset? I remember the sky fell
        Green as pale meadows, at the long street-ends,
        But overhead the smoke-wrack hugged the roofs
        As if to shut the city from God's eyes
        Till dawn should quench the laughter and the lights.
        Beneath the gas flare stolid faces passed,
        Too dull for sin; old loosened lips set hard
        To drain the stale lees from the cup of sense;
        Or if a young face yearned from out the mist
        Made by its own bright hair, the eyes were wan
        With desolate fore-knowledge of the end.
        My life lay waste about me: as I walked,
        From the gross dark of unfrequented streets
        The face of my own youth peered forth at me,