Friendship

What heavenly smiles! O Lady mine
Through my very heart they shine;
And, if my brow gives back their light,
Do thou look gladly on the sight;
As the clear Moon with modest pride
Beholds her own bright beams
Reflected from the mountain's side
And from the headlong streams.

    Here and there on the wings of night
    A fleck of blue and purple light,
    A scrap of cloud, a bird, a star,
    A comet hurrying afar
    On the abyss, and the moon
    Standing in her silver shoon.

    On the summit of the sky,
    Delicate and proud and high,
    The silver moon on a silver sea
    Spins her silver broidery
    While the stars send down a light
    Here and there on the wings of night.

Before the statue of a giant Hun,
There stood a dwarf, misshapen and uncouth.
His lifted eyes seemed asking:    'Why, in sooth,
Was I not fashioned like this mighty one?
Would God show favour to an older son
    Like earthly kings, and beggar without ruth
    Another, who sinned only by his youth?
Why should two lives in such divergence run?'

Strange, as he gazed, that from a vanished past
    No memories revived of war and strife,
    Of misused prowess, and of broken law.
That old Hun's spirit, in the dwarf re-cast,
    Lived out the sequence of an earthly life.
    IT WAS THE STATUE OF HIMSELF HE SAW!

If that be yet a living soul which here
Seemed brighter for the growth of numbered springs
And clothed by Time and Pain with goodlier things
Each year it saw fulfilled a fresh fleet year,
Death can have changed not aught that made it dear;
Half humorous goodness, grave-eyed mirth on wings
Bright-balanced, blither-voiced than quiring strings;
Most radiant patience, crowned with conquering cheer;
A spirit inviolable that smiled and sang
By might of nature and heroic need
More sweet and strong than loftiest dream or deed;
A song that shone, a light whence music rang
High as the sunniest heights of kindliest thought;
All these must be, or all she was be nought

Now is the time when swallows twitter round,
And robin redbreasts carol in the trees,
When the grass grows very green on lower ground,
And opening buds embalm the buxom breeze,
When orchards murmur with the half-blind bees,
Freed till th' uncellared hives again be full,
The time when old men smile and maidens please,
Loose-zoned in summer dresses light and cool,
And laughing urchins shirk the lessons of the school.

Perchance it is the hour when dawn unveils
The visage of the day; when o'er the bar
The radiant morning rides with saffron sails,
Streamers of light on each resplendent spar,
Fraught with rich gifts. Now, sunk, each faded star.
The Sun, the Sun, - the glorious Lord of Day!
Behold, he comes! before his orbèd car,
Caparisoned with gold, in dazzl...

Across the brook of Time man leaping goes
On stepping-stones of epochs, that uprise
Fixed, memorable, midst broad shallow flows
Of neutrals, kill-times, sleeps, indifferencies.
So twixt each morn and night rise salient heaps:
Some cross with but a zigzag, jaded pace
From meal to meal: some with convulsive leaps
Shake the green tussocks of malign disgrace:
And some advance by system and deep art
O'er vantages of wealth, place, learning, tact.
But thou within thyself, dear manifold heart,
Dost bind all epochs in one dainty Fact.
Oh, sweet, my pretty sum of history,
I leapt the breadth of Time in loving thee!


Baltimore, 1874-5.

Wearily stretches the sand to the surge, and the surge to the cloudland;
Wearily onward I ride, watching the water alone.
Not as of old, like Homeric Achilles, ??de? ya???,
Joyous knight-errant of God, thirsting for labour and strife;
No more on magical steed borne free through the regions of ether,
But, like the hack which I ride, selling my sinew for gold.
Fruit-bearing autumn is gone; let the sad quiet winter hang o'er me -
What were the spring to a soul laden with sorrow and shame?
Blossoms would fret me with beauty; my heart has no time to bepraise them;
Gray rock, bough, surge, cloud, waken no yearning within.
Sing not, thou sky-lark above! even angels pass hushed by the weeper.
Scream on, ye sea-fowl! my heart echoes your desolate cry.
Sweep the dry sand on, thou wild wind...

MY GOOD, OLD, WISE, SECLUDED, AND QUIET FRIEND,

I write to you in the fulness of my heart, for I have been grossly insulted by the Magpie, in a letter received this morning; in which I am abused for what my forefathers did long before I was born. I know of nothing more base, or more unjust, than thus raking up old quarrels [4] and reproaching those who had nothing to do with them. The letter must have come through your office, but I know you have not the authority to break open and examine letters passing between those who should be friends; I therefore do not accuse you; but sometimes the heart is relieved by stating its troubles even when no redress can be expected. I know that you cannot bring to punishment that slanderer, that babbler of the woods, any more than I can; but I wish you would give me a word of comfort, if it i...

Why should I call Thee Lord, Who art my God?
Why should I call Thee Friend, Who art my Love?
Or King, Who art my very Spouse above?
Or call Thy Sceptre on my heart Thy rod?
Lo, now Thy banner over me is love,
All heaven flies open to me at Thy nod:
For Thou hast lit Thy flame in me a clod,
Made me a nest for dwelling of Thy Dove.
What wilt Thou call me in our home above,
Who now hast called me friend? how will it be
When Thou for good wine settest forth the best?
Now Thou dost bid me come and sup with Thee,
Now Thou dost make me lean upon Thy breast:
How will it be with me in time of love?

I play my sweet old airs -
    The airs he knew
    When our love was true -
    But he does not balk
    His determined walk,
And passes up the stairs.

I sing my songs once more,
    And presently hear
    His footstep near
    As if it would stay;
    But he goes his way,
And shuts a distant door.

So I wait for another morn
    And another night
    In this soul-sick blight;
    And I wonder much
    As I sit, why such
A woman as I was born!

    "Cada puta hile."--Don Quixote, i. 46.


    Without my dinner here I lie,
                And all because that proctor
    With her stout bull-dogs passed, and I
                                        Mocked her.

    For Clara is at Girton too,
                That dragon is her tutor,
    I threatened once what I would do,
                                        Shoot her.

    Her life by Clara's tears was saved,
                Wherefore she doth detest me,
    And hither hungry and unshaved
                                        Pressed me.

    I would that I could have commenced
                An action 'gainst that devil,
    Like that once brought by Kemp against
                                        Neville.[H]

While one sere leaf, that parting Autumn gilds,
    Trembles upon the thin, and naked spray,
    November, dragging on his sunless day,
    Lours, cold and fallen, on the watry fields;
And Nature to the waste dominion yields,
    Stript her last robes, with gold and purple gay. -
    So droops my life, of your soft beams despoil'd,
    Youth, Health, and Hope, that long exulting smil'd;
And the wild carols, and the bloomy hues
    Of merry Spring-time, spruce on every plain
    Her half-blown bushes, moist with sunny rain,
More pensive thoughts in my sunk heart infuse
    Than Winter's grey, and desolate domain,
    Faded, like my lost Youth, that no bright Spring renews.

Blessings on yu, little man!
Barefoot boy, ay tenk yu can
Getting all yu lak, by yee!
Yu ban gude enuff for me.
Yu ant got so many clo'es,
Dar ban freckles on yure nose,
And ay guess yu're purty tuff,
'Cause yu ask for chew of snuff.
But, by yinks, ay lak yure face,
Yu can passing any place.

Barefoot boy, ef ay could du
Yenuine po'try lak the kind
Maester Vittier wrote for yu,
Ay vould write; but never mind,
Ay can tal yu vat ay know,
Even ef dese vords ant flow
Half so slick sum poet's song.
Anyhow, ay don't mean wrong.
Ven ay see yu, little kid,
Ay skol taking off my lid.
Oder little boys ay see
Ant look half so gude to me.

Some of dem ban rich men's boys,
Who ban having planty toys,
Vearing nicest clo'es i...

There is nothing that eases my heart so much
As the wind that blows from the purple hills;
'Tis a hand of balsam whose healing touch
Unburdens my bosom of ills.

There is nothing that causes my soul to rejoice
Like the sunset flaming without a flaw:
'Tis a burning bush whence God's own voice
Addresses my spirit with awe.

There is nothing that hallows my mind, meseems,
Like the night with its moon and its stars above;
'Tis a mystical lily whose golden gleams
Fulfill my being with love.

There is nothing, no, nothing, we see and feel,
That speaks to our souls some beautiful thought,
That was not created to help us, and heal
Our lives that are overwrought.

Just whistle a bit, if the day be dark,
And the sky be overcast:
If mute be the voice of the piping lark,
Why, pipe your own small blast.

And it's wonderful how o'er the gray sky-track
The truant warbler comes stealing back.
But why need he come? for your soul's at rest,
And the song in the heart,--ah, that is best.

Just whistle a bit, if the night be drear
And the stars refuse to shine:
And a gleam that mocks the starlight clear
Within you glows benign.

Till the dearth of light in the glooming skies
Is lost to the sight of your soul-lit eyes.
What matters the absence of moon or star?
The light within is the best by far.

Just whistle a bit, if there 's work to do,
With the mind or in the soil.
And your note will turn out a tal...

The night cold as nuggets, dark as acorn,
against your chest; snow falling
like abandoned echoes releasing energy
into the spyglass, umbrella moon.

A solitary figure trapping hapless sparrows
not in a net but with his footprints
doubling as dungeons against the sun    -
here & there rusting eavestroughs ballooning
into avenging shadows their harpsichord voices
spun on dreams Dick Whittington once used to buy a cat.

And once Tom Thumb Upstaged Peter Pan by appearing
under a petunia but this is not likely to happen soon.

The dawn, forlorn & grey, is a court muffin's handkerchief
waved at a sailor far out at sea.

"She never looked so kind before--
    "Yet why the wanton's smile recall?
"I've seen this witchery o'er and o'er,
    "'Tis hollow, vain, and heartless all!"

Thus I said and, sighing drained
    The cup which she so late had tasted;
Upon whose rim still fresh remained
    The breath, so oft in falsehood wasted.

I took the harp and would have sung
    As if 'twere not of her I sang;
But still the notes on Lamia hung--
    On whom but Lamia could they hang?

Those eyes of hers, that floating shine,
    Like diamonds in some eastern river;
That kiss, for which, if worlds were mine,
    A world for every kiss I'd give her.

That frame so delicate, yet warmed
    With flushes of love's genial hue;
A mould transparent, as if f...

When grace is given us ever to behold
A child some sweet months old,
Love, laying across our lips his finger, saith,
Smiling, with bated breath,
Hush! for the holiest thing that lives is here,
And heaven’s own heart how near!
How dare we, that may gaze not on the sun,
Gaze on this verier one?
Heart, hold thy peace; eyes, be cast down for shame;
Lips, breathe not yet its name.
In heaven they know what name to call it; we,
How should we know? For, see!
The adorable sweet living marvellous
Strange light that lightens us
Who gaze, desertless of such glorious grace,
Full in a babe’s warm face!
All roses that the morning rears are nought,
All stars not worth a thought,
Set this one star against them, or suppose
As rival this one rose.
What price ...