Friendship

It wor dark an mi way wor across a wild mooar,
An noa signs could aw find ov a track,
'Twor a place whear aw nivver had rambled befooar;
An aw eearnestly wished misen back.
As aw went on an on mooar uneven it grew,
An farther mi feet seem'd to stray,
When a chap made me start, as he shaated "Halloa!
Maister, yor missin yor way!"

Wi' his help aw contrived to land safely back hooam,
An aw thowt as o'th' hearthstun aw set,
What a blessin 'twod be if when other fowk rooam,
They should meet sich a friend as aw'd met.
An aw sat daan to write just theas words ov advice,
Soa read 'em young Yorksher fowk, pray;
An aw'st think for mi trubble aw'm paid a rare price,
If aw've saved one throo missin ther way.

Yo lads 'at's but latly begun to wear hats,
An ...

PART FOURTH.

WALK ABROAD - VIEWS AROUND, FROM THE SEVERN TO BRISTOL - WRINGTON - "AULD ROBIN GRAY."

The shower is past - the heath-bell, at our feet,
Looks up, as with a smile, though the cold dew
Hangs yet within its cup, like Pity's tear
Upon the eyelids of a village child!
Mark! where a light upon those far-off waves
Gleams, while the passing shower above our head
Sheds its last silent drops, amid the hues
Of the fast-fading rainbow, - such is life!
Let us go forth, the redbreast is abroad,
And, dripping in the sunshine, sings again.    10
No object on the wider sea-line meets
The straining vision, but one distant ship,
Hanging, as motionless and still, far off,
In the pale haze, between the sea and sky.
She seems the ship - the very ship I saw<...

Of all the days in memory's list,
Those motley banish'd days;
Some overhung with sorrow's mist,
Some gilt with hopeful rays;
There is a day 'bove all the rest
That has a lovely sound,
There is a day I love the best--
When Patty first was found.

When first I look'd upon her eye,
And all her charms I met,
There's many a day gone heedless by,
But that I'll ne'er forget;
I met my love beneath the tree,
I help'd her o'er the stile,
The very shade is dear to me
That blest me with her smile.

Strange to the world my artless fair,
But artless as she be,
She found the witching art when there
To win my heart from me;
And all the days the year can bring,
As sweet as they may prove,
There'll ne'er come one like that I sing,
Wh...

My father was a scholar and knew Greek.
When I was five years old, I asked him once
“What do you read about?”
“The siege of Troy.”
“What is a siege, and what is Troy?”
Whereat
He piled up chairs and tables for a town,
Set me a-top for Priam, called our cat
Helen, enticed away from home (he said)
By wicked Paris, who couched somewhere close
Under the footstool, being cowardly,
But whom, since she was worth the pains, poor puss,
Towzer and Tray, our dogs, the Atreidai, sought
By taking Troy to get possession of
Always when great Achilles ceased to sulk,
(My pony in the stable), forth would prance
And put to flight Hector, our page-boy’s self.
This taught me who was who and what was what:
So far I rightly understood the case
At five years old; a hu...

The indications, and tally of time;
Perfect sanity shows the master among philosophs;
Time, always without flaw, indicates itself in parts;
What always indicates the poet, is the crowd of the pleasant company of singers, and their words;
The words of the singers are the hours or minutes of the light or dark but the words of the maker of poems are the general light and dark;
The maker of poems settles justice, reality, immortality,
His insight and power encircle things and the human race,
He is the glory and extract thus far, of things, and of the human race.

The singers do not beget only the POET begets;
The singers are welcom'd, understood, appear often enough but rare has the day been, likewise the spot, of the birth of the maker of poems, the Answerer,
(Not every century, or every...

Although I'm in prison
Thy song is uprisen,
Thou'rt singing away to the feathery cloud,
In the blueness of morn,
Over fields of green corn,
With a song sweet and trilling, and rural and loud.

When the day is serenest,
When the corn is the greenest,
Thy bosom mounts up and floats in the light,
And sings in the sun,
Like a vision begun
Of pleasure, of love, and of lonely delight.

The daisies they whiten
Plains the sunbeams now brighten,
And warm thy snug nest where thy russet eggs lie,
From whence thou'rt now springing,
And the air is now ringing,
To show that the minstrel of Spring is on high.

The cornflower is blooming,
The cowslip is coming,
And many new buds on the silken grass lie:
On the earth's shelt'ring breast<...

The patient Pan,
Drunken with nectar,
Sleeps or feigns slumber,
Drowsily humming
Music to the march of time.
This poor tooting, creaking cricket,
Pan, half asleep, rolling over
His great body in the grass,
Tooting, creaking,
Feigns to sleep, sleeping never;
'T is his manner,
Well he knows his own affair,
Piling mountain chains of phlegm
On the nervous brain of man,
As he holds down central fires
Under Alps and Andes cold;
Haply else we could not live,
Life would be too wild an ode.



Come search the wood for flowers,--
Wild tea and wild pea,
Grapevine and succory,
Coreopsis
And liatris,
Flaunting in their bowers;
Grass with green flag half-mast high,
Succory to match the sky,
Columbine with horn...

Be void of feeling!
A heart that soon is stirr'd,
Is a possession sad
Upon this changing earth.

Behrisch, let spring's sweet smile
Never gladden thy brow!
Then winter's gloomy tempests
Never will shadow it o'er.

Lean thyself ne'er on a maiden's
Sorrow-engendering breast.
Ne'er on the arm,
Misery-fraught, of a friend.

Already envy
From out his rocky ambush
Upon thee turns
The force of his lynx-like eyes,

Stretches his talons,
On thee falls,
In thy shoulders
Cunningly plants them.

Strong are his skinny arms,
As panther-claws;
He shaketh thee,
And rends thy frame.

Death 'tis to part,
'Tis threefold death
To part, not hoping
Ever to meet again.

Thou wouldst rejoic...

Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I crossed the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.

No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor,
The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!

You yet may spy the fawn at play,
The hare upon the green;
But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
Will never more be seen.

"To-night will be a stormy night
You to the town must go;
And take a lantern, Child, to light
Your mother through the snow."

"That, Father! will I gladly do:
'Tis scarcely afternoon
The minster-clock has just struck two,
And yonder is the moon!"

At this the Father raised his hook,
And snapped a faggot-band;
He plied his work; and Lucy took
The lantern in her han...

HOW weak is man! how changeable his mind!
His promises are naught, too oft we find;
I vowed (I hope in tolerable verse,)
Again no idle story to rehearse.
And whence this promise? - Not two days ago;
I'm quite confounded; better I should know:
A rhymer hear then, who himself can boast,
Quite steady for - a minute at the most.
The pow'rs above could PRUDENCE ne'er design;
For those who fondly court the SISTERS NINE.
Some means to please they've got, you will confess;
But none with certainty the charm possess.
If, howsoever, I were doomed to find
Such lines as fully would content the mind:
Though I should fail in matter, still in art;
I might contrive some pleasure to impart.

LET'S see what we are able to obtain: -
A bachelor resided in Touraine.
...

1.
The serpent is shut out from Paradise.
The wounded deer must seek the herb no more
In which its heart-cure lies:
The widowed dove must cease to haunt a bower
Like that from which its mate with feigned sighs
Fled in the April hour.
I too must seldom seek again
Near happy friends a mitigated pain.

2.
Of hatred I am proud, - with scorn content;
Indifference, that once hurt me, now is grown
Itself indifferent;
But, not to speak of love, pity alone
Can break a spirit already more than bent.
The miserable one
Turns the mind's poison into food, -
Its medicine is tears, - its evil good.

3.
Therefore, if now I see you seldomer,
Dear friends, dear FRIEND! know that I only fly
Your looks, because they stir
Griefs that should s...

You see that porcelain ranged there in the window,
Platters and soup-plates done with pale pink rosebuds,
And tiny violets, and wreaths of ivy?
See how the pattern clings to the gleaming edges!
They’re works of art, minutely seen and felt,
Each petal done devoutly. Is it failure
To spend your blood like this?

Study them . . . you will see there, in the porcelain,
If you stare hard enough, a sort of swimming
Of lights and shadows, ghosts within a crystal,
My brain unfolding! There you’ll see me sitting
Day after day, close to a certain window,
Looking down, sometimes, to see the people . . .

Sometimes my wife comes there to speak to me . . .
Sometimes the grey cat waves his tail around me . . .
Goldfish swim in a bowl, glisten in sunlight,
Dilate to...

The evening came; the golden vane
A moment in the sunset glanced,
Then darkened, and then gleamed again,
As from the east the moon advanced
And touched it with a softer light;
While underneath, with flowing mane,
Upon the sign the Red Horse pranced,
And galloped forth into the night.

But brighter than the afternoon
That followed the dark day of rain,
And brighter than the golden vane
That glistened in the rising moon,
Within the ruddy fire-light gleamed;
And every separate window-pane,
Backed by the outer darkness, showed
A mirror, where the flamelets gleamed
And flickered to and fro, and seemed
A bonfire lighted in the road.

Amid the hospitable glow,
Like an old actor on the stage,
With the uncertain voice of age,
The sing...

I

But yesterday
I looked away
O'er happy lands, where sunshine lay
In golden blots
Inlaid with spots
Of shade and wild forget-me-nots.

My head was fair
With flaxen hair,
And fragrant breezes, faint and rare,
And warm with drouth
From out the south,
Blew all my curls across my mouth.

And, cool and sweet,
My naked feet
Found dewy pathways through the wheat;
And out again
Where, down the lane,
The dust was dimpled with the rain.


II

But yesterday: -
Adream, astray,
From morning's red to evening's gray,
O'er dales and hills
Of daffodils
And lorn sweet-fluting whippoorwills.

I knew nor cares
Nor tears nor prayers -
A mortal god, crowned unawares
With sunset - a...

There is a path that leads
Through purple iron-weeds,
By button-bush and mallow
Along a creek;
A path that wildflowers hallow,
That wild birds seek;
Roofed thick with eglantine
And grape and trumpet-vine.

This side, blackberries sweet
Glow cobalt in the heat;
That side, a creamy yellow,
In summertime
The pawpaws slowly mellow;
And autumn's prime
Strews red the Chickasaw,
Persimmon brown and haw.

The glittering dragon-fly,
A wingéd flash, goes by;
And tawny wasp and hornet
Seem gleams that drone;
The beetle, like a garnet,
Slips from the stone;
And butterflies float there,
Spangling with gold the air.

Here the brown thrashers hide,
The chat and cat-bird chide;
The blue kingfisher houses
Ab...

'Tis gone, with old belief and dream
That round it clung, and tempting scheme
Released from fear and doubt;
And the bright landscape too must lie,
By this blank wall, from every eye,
Relentlessly shut out.

Bear witness ye who seldom passed
That opening, but a look ye cast
Upon the lake below,
What spirit-stirring power it gained
From faith which here was entertained,
Though reason might say no.

Blest is that ground, where, o'er the springs
Of history, Glory claps her wings,
Fame sheds the exulting tear;
Yet earth is wide, and many a nook
Unheard of is, like this, a book
For modest meanings dear.

It was in sooth a happy thought
That grafted, on so fair a spot,
So confident a token
Of coming good; the charm is fled,

Thirty years have come and gone,
Melting away like Southern Snows,
Since, in the light of a summer's night,
I went to the garden to seek my Rose.

Mine! Do you hear it, silver moon,
Flooding my heart with your mellow shine?
Mine! Be witness, ye distant stars,
Looking on me with eyes divine!

Tell me, tell me, wandering winds,
Whisper it, if you may not speak--
Did you ever, in all your round,
Fan a lovelier brow or cheek?

Long I nursed in my heart the love,
Love which felt, but dared not tell,
Till, I scarcely know how or when--
It found wild words,- and all was well!

I can hear her sweet voice even now--
It makes my pulses leap and thrill--
"I owe you more than I well can pay;
You may take me, Robert, if you will!"

Her gown was simple woven wool,
But, in repayment,
Her body sweet made beautiful
The simplest raiment:

For all its fine, melodious curves
With life a-quiver
Were graceful as the bends and swerves
Of her own river.

Her round arms, from the shoulders down
To sweet hands slender,
The sun had kissed them amber-brown
With kisses tender.

For though she loved the secret shades
Where ferns grow stilly,
And wild vines droop their glossy braids,
And gleams the lily,

And Nature, with soft eyes that glow
In gloom that glistens,
Unto her own heart, beating slow,
In silence listens:

She loved no less the meadows fair,
And green, and spacious;
The river, and the azure air,
And sunlight gracious.

I sa...