Friendship

One bright star in the firmament,
One wild rose in the dew,
And a girl, like the sparkling two,
Following the cows that went
Through roses wet with dew,
Roses, two by two.

Shy she was as the twilight skies
When they hesitate with stars,
As she stood to wait at the pasture bars,
Gazing with far-off eyes
At the slowly coming stars
Over the pasture bars.

She hummed a tune while the cattle passed,
And the bells in the dusk clanged clear;
Then a whistle caught her ear,
And she knew 'twas love at last,
While the bells in the dusk clanged clear,
And his whistle caught her ear.

The smell of the hay came warm and sweet
From the field there where he stood,
The field by the old beech wood,
Where a bird sang, "Sweet! oh, sweet!"<...

A withered shamrock, yet to me 'tis fair
    As the sweet rose to other eyes might be,
Because its leaves spread in my native air,
    And the same land gave birth to it and me.

They were as plentiful as drops of dew
    In our green meadows sprinkled everywhere,
Heedless I wandered o'er them life was new,
    Now as a friend I greet thee shamrock fair

Because I dwelt with my own people then,
    Erin's bright eyes, and kindly hearts and true,
That from my cradle loved me, and again
    We'll never meet--spoken our last adieu

I am a stranger here, I have not seen
    One friendly face of all that I have known,
And my heart mourns for thee my island green,
    Because I am a stranger and alone

So thou art welcome as a friend to me,
...

How breaks my heart to hear you say
You feel the shadows fall about you!
The gods forefend
That fate, O friend!
I would not, I could not live without you!
You gone, what would become of me,
Your shadow, O beloved Maecenas?
We've shared the mirth--
And sweets of earth--
Let's share the pangs of death between us!

I should not dread Chinaera's breath
Nor any threat of ghost infernal;
Nor fear nor pain
Should part us twain--
For so have willed the powers eternal.
No false allegiance have I sworn,
And, whatsoever fate betide you,
Mine be the part
To cheer your heart--
With loving song to fare beside you!

Love snatched you from the claws of death
And gave you to the grateful city;
The falling tree
That threatened me

Two well-assorted travellers use
The highway, Eros and the Muse.
From the twins is nothing hidden,
To the pair is nought forbidden;
Hand in hand the comrades go
Every nook of Nature through:
Each for other they were born,
Each can other best adorn;
They know one only mortal grief
Past all balsam or relief;
When, by false companions crossed,
The pilgrims have each other lost.

Were't not for you, here should my pen have rest
And take a long leave of sweet poesy;
Britannia's swains, and rivers far by west,
Should hear no more mine oaten melody;
Yet shall the song I sung of them awhile
Unperfect lie, and make no further known
The happy loves of this our pleasant Isle;
Till I have left some record of mine own.
You are the subject now, and, writing you,
I well may versify, not poetize:
Here needs no fiction: for the graces true
And virtues clip not with base flatteries.
Here could I write what you deserve of praise,
Others might wear, but I should win the bays.

Dear, had the world in its caprice
Deigned to proclaim “I know you both,
“Have recognized your plighted troth,
Am sponsor for you: live in peace!”
How many precious months and years
Of youth had passed, that speed so fast,
Before we found it out at last,
The world, and what it fears?


How much of priceless life were spent
With men that every virtue decks,
And women models of their sex,
Society’s true ornament,
Ere we dared wander, nights like this,
Thro’ wind and rain, and watch the Seine,
And feel the Boulevart break again
To warmth and light and bliss?


I know! the world proscribes not love;
Allows my finger to caress
Your lips’ contour and downiness,
Provided it supply a glove.
The world’s good word! the Institute!<...

Matlock! amid thy hoary-hanging views,
Thy glens that smile sequestered, and thy nooks
Which yon forsaken crag all dark o'erlooks;
Once more I court the long neglected Muse,
As erst when by the mossy brink and falls
Of solitary Wainsbeck, or the side
Of Clysdale's cliffs, where first her voice she tried,
I strayed a pensive boy. Since then, the thralls
That wait life's upland road have chilled her breast,
And much, as much they might, her wing depressed.
Wan Indolence, resigned, her deadening hand
Laid on her heart, and Fancy her cold wand
Dropped at the frown of fortune; yet once more
I call her, and once more her converse sweet,
'Mid the still limits of this wild retreat,
I woo; if yet delightful as of yore
My heart she may revisit, nor deny
The soothin...

Letter X. A Retrospect.


I.

    I walk again beside the roaring sea,
    And once again I harken to the speech
    Of waves exulting on the madden'd beach.
    A sound of awful joy it seems to me,
    A shuddering sound of God's eternity, -
    Telling of things beyond the sage's reach.


II.

    I walk alone. I see the bounding waves
    Curl'd into foam. I watch them as they leap
    Like wild sea-horses loosen'd from the deep.
    And well I know that they have seen the graves
    Of shipwreck'd sailors; for Disaster paves...

    Great natures live apart; the mountain gray
        May call no comrade to his lonely side;
    The giant ocean, wrapped in storm and spray,
        Has no companion for her endless tide;
        The forest monarch, where his parents died,
    Can find no brother in his lofty sway,
        And mighty rivers chafe their margins wide
    Where infant rills and childish fountains play.

    So heroes live; no raptured blossoms start
        Where rugged heights of human glory end;
        No tender songs of loving beauty blend
    Their chorus in the great man's peerless heart;
    Fate fills their souls with magnitude, and art
        Supplies their lives with no congenial friend.

What do poets want with gold,
Cringing slaves and cushioned ease;
Are not crusts and garments old
Better for their souls than these?

Gold is but the juggling rod
Of a false usurping god,
Graven long ago in hell
With a sombre stony spell,
Working in the world forever.
Hate is not so strong to sever
Beating human heart from heart.
Soul from soul we shrink and part,
And no longer hail each other
With the ancient name of brother
Give the simple poet gold,
And his song will die of cold.
He must walk with men that reel
On the rugged path, and feel
Every sacred soul that is
Beating very near to his.
Simple, human, careless, free,
As God made him, he must be:
For the sweetest song of bird
Is the hidden tenor heard
In the d...

Because I was content with these poor fields,
Low, open meads, slender and sluggish streams,
And found a home in haunts which others scorned,
The partial wood-gods overpaid my love,
And granted me the freedom of their state,
And in their secret senate have prevailed
With the dear, dangerous lords that rule our life,
Made moon and planets parties to their bond,
And through my rock-like, solitary wont
Shot million rays of thought and tenderness.
For me, in showers, in sweeping showers, the Spring
Visits the valley;--break away the clouds,--
I bathe in the morn's soft and silvered air,
And loiter willing by yon loitering stream.
Sparrows far off, and nearer, April's bird,
Blue-coated,--flying before from tree to tree,
Courageous sing a delicate overture
To l...

I.
That was I, you heard last night,
When there rose no moon at all,
Nor, to pierce the strained and tight
Tent of heaven, a planet small:
Life was dead and so was light.

II.
Not a twinkle from the fly,
Not a glimmer from the worm;
When the crickets stopped their cry,
When the owls forbore a term,
You heard music; that was I.

III.
Earth turned in her sleep with pain,
Sultrily suspired for proof:
In at heaven and out again,
Lightning! where it broke the roof,
Bloodlike, some few drops of rain.

IV.
What they could my words expressed,
O my love, my all, my one!
Singing helped the verses best,
And when singing’s best was done,
To my lute I left the rest.

V.
So wore night; the East was gray,
...

Tonight, grave sir, both my poor house and I
Do equally desire your company;
Not that we think us worthy such a guest,
But that your worth will dignify our feast
With those that come, whose grace may make that seem
Something, which else could hope for no esteem.
It is the fair acceptance, sir, creates
The entertainment perfect; not the cates.
Yet shall you have, to rectify your palate,
An olive, capers, or some better salad
Ushering the mutton; with a short-legged hen,
If we can get her, full of eggs, and then
Lemons and wine for sauce; to these, a coney
Is not to be despaired of, for our money;
And though fowl, now, be scarce, yet there are clerks,
The sky not falling, think we may have larks.
I’ll tell you of more, and lie, so you will come:
Of partridg...

What He who, 'mid the kindred throng
Of Heroes that inspired his song,
Doth yet frequent the hill of storms,
The stars dim-twinkling through their forms!
What! Ossian here, a painted Thrall,
Mute fixture on a stuccoed wall;
To serve, an unsuspected screen
For show that must not yet be seen;
And, when the moment comes, to part
And vanish by mysterious art;
Head, harp, and body, split asunder,
For ingress to a world of wonder;
A gay saloon, with waters dancing
Upon the sight wherever glancing;
One loud cascade in front, and lo!
A thousand like it, white as snow
Streams on the walls, and torrent-foam
As active round the hollow dome,
Illusive cataracts! of their terrors
Not stripped, nor voiceless in the mirrors,
That catch the pageant from the...

What matters if some fowk deride,
An point wi' a finger o' scorn?
Th' time wor tha wor lukt on wi' pride,
Befooar mooast o'th' scoffers wor born.
But aw'll ne'er turn mi back on a friend,
Tho' old-fashioned an grey like thisen;
But aw'll try to cling to thi to th' end,
Tho' thart nobbut an old umberel.

Whear wod th' young ens 'at laff be to-day,
But for th' old ens they turn into fun?
Who wor wearm thersen bent an grey,
When their days had hardly begun.
Ther own youth will quickly glide past;
If they live they'll ail grow old thersel;
An they'll long for a true friend at last,
Tho' its nobbut an old umberel.

Tha's grown budgey, an faded, an worn,
Yet thi inside is honest an strong;
But thi coverin's tattered an torn,
An awm feeard 'a...

Alone it stands in Poesy's fair land,
    A temple by the muses set apart;
    A perfect structure of consummate art,
By artists builded and by genius planned,
Beyond the reach of the apprentice hand,
    Beyond the ken of the untutored heart,
    Like a fine carving in a common mart,
Only the favoured few will understand.
A chef d'auvre toiled over with great care,
    Yet which the unseeing careless crowd goes by,
A plainly set, but well-cut solitaire,
An ancient bit of pottery, too rare
    To please or hold aught save the special eye,
These only with the sonnet can compare.

Old elm, that murmured in our chimney top
The sweetest anthem autumn ever made
And into mellow whispering calms would drop
When showers fell on thy many coloured shade
And when dark tempests mimic thunder made--
While darkness came as it would strangle light
With the black tempest of a winter night
That rocked thee like a cradle in thy root--
How did I love to hear the winds upbraid
Thy strength without--while all within was mute.
It seasoned comfort to our hearts' desire,
We felt thy kind protection like a friend
And edged our chairs up closer to the fire,
Enjoying comfort that was never penned.
Old favourite tree, thou'st seen time's changes lower,
Though change till now did never injure thee;
For time beheld thee as her sacred dower
And nature claimed ...

How strange, in some brief interval of rest,
    Backward to look on her far-stretching past.
To see how much is conquered and repressed,
    How much is gained in victory at last!
The shadow is not lifted, - but her faith,
Strong from life's miracles, now turns toward death.


Though much be dark where once rare splendor shone,
    Yet the new light has touched high peaks unguessed
In her gold, mist-bathed dawn, and one by one
    New outlooks loom from many a mountain crest.
She breathes a loftier, purer atmosphere,
And life's entangled paths grow straight and clear.


Nor will Death prove an all-unwelcome guest;
    The struggle has been toilsome to this end,
Sleep will be sweet, and after labor rest,
    And all will be atoned with him to fr...