Friendship

        1.

        REMEMBER, Lord, thou hast not made me good.
        Or if thou didst, it was so long ago
        I have forgotten--and never understood,
        I humbly think. At best it was a crude,
        A rough-hewn goodness, that did need this woe,
        This sin, these harms of all kinds fierce and rude,
        To shape it out, making it live and grow.

        2.

        But thou art making me, I thank thee, sire.
        What thou hast done and doest thou know'st well,
        And I will help thee:--gently in thy fire
        I will lie burning; on thy potter's-wheel
        I will whirl patient, though my brain should reel;
        Thy grace shall be enough the grief to quell,
        And growing strength perfect through weakness d...

Stand by the magic of my powerful rhymes
'Gainst all the indignation of the times.
Age shall not wrong thee; or one jot abate
Of thy both great and everlasting fate.
While others perish, here's thy life decreed,
Because begot of my immortal seed.

Th' swallows are buildin ther nests, Jenny,
Th' springtime has come with its flowers;
Th' fields in ther greenest are drest, Jenny,
An th' songsters mak music ith' bowers.
Daisies an buttercups smile, Jenny,
Laughingly th' brook flows along; -
An awm havin a smook set oth' stile, Jenny,
But this bacca's uncommonly strong.

Aw wonder if thy heart like mine, Jenny,
Finds its love-burden hard to be borne;
Do thi een wi' breet tears ov joy shine, Jenny,
As they glistened an shone yestermorn?
Ther's noa treasure wi' thee can compare, Jenny,
Aw'd net change thi for wealth or estate; -
But aw'll goa nah some braikfast to share, Jenny,
For aw can't live baght summat to ait.

Like a nightingale if aw could sing, Jenny,
Aw'd pearch near thy winder at neet...

I will go out to grass with that old King,
For I am weary of clothes and cooks.
I long to lie along the banks of brooks,
And watch the boughs above me sway and swing.
Come, I will pluck off custom's livery,
Nor longer be a lackey to old Time.
Time shall serve me, and at my feet shall fling
The spoil of listless minutes. I shall climb
The wild trees for my food, and run
Through dale and upland as a fox runs free,
Laugh for cool joy and sleep i' the warm sun,
And men will call me mad, like that old King.

For I am woodland-natured, and have made
Dryads my bedfellows,
And I have played
With the sleek Naiads in the splash of pools
And made a mock of gowned and trousered fools.
Helen, none knows
Better than thou how like a Faun I strayed.
And I ...

Lords, knights, and squires, the numerous band
That wear the fair Miss Mary's fetters,
Were summoned by her high command
To show their passions by their letters.

My pen amongst the rest I took,
Lest those bright eyes, that cannot read,
Should dart their kindling fire, and look
The power they have to be obey'd.

Nor quality, nor reputation,
Forbid me yet my flame to tell;
Dear Five-years-old befriends my passion,
And I may write till she can spell.

For, while she makes her silkworms beds
With all the tender things I swear;
Whilst all the house my passion reads,
In papers round her baby's hair;

She may receive and own my flame;
For, though the strictest prudes should know it,
She'll pass for a most virtuous dame,
And I for a...

'T is eight miles out and eight miles in,
    Just at the break of morn.
'T is ice without and flame within,
    To gain a kiss at dawn!

Far, where the Lilac Hills arise
    Soft from the misty plain,
A lone enchanted hollow lies
    Where I at last drew rein.

Midwinter grips this lonely land,
    This stony, treeless waste,
Where East, due East, across the sand,
    We fly in fevered haste.

Pull up! the East will soon be red,
    The wild duck westward fly,
And make above my anxious head,
    Triangles in the sky.

Like wind we go; we both are still
    So young; all thanks to Fate!
(It cuts like knives, this air so chill,)
    Dear God! if I am late!

Behind us, wrapped in mist and sleep
    The Ruined Cit...

Lonely wonder, delight past hoping!
Sky-line broken by stirring trees,
Grey rocks hither and shoreward sloping,
Silent bracken about my knees.

Dusky scrub where the sunlight splashes,
Glimmer of waters barely seen
Here the hope that was dust and ashes
Leaps and flashes in flames of green.

Through the boughs that are still before me,
Misty blue of the harbour hills;
Mighty Spirit of Earth who bore me,
Here the peace of thy love distils.

Fools have harried me; hell has driven,
Bidding me toil for its fading shows:
Back I spring to your arms, forgiven,
Back to the truth that a dreamer knows.

Gold and glory and fleeting pleasure
Pass in dust or as melting cloud:
You can dower with eternal treasure
Heart uplifted and head unbo...

Quel vago impallidir che 'l dolce riso.

LEAVE-TAKING.


    That witching paleness, which with cloud of love
Veil'd her sweet smile, majestically bright,
So thrill'd my heart, that from the bosom's night
Midway to meet it on her face it strove.
Then learnt I how, 'mid realms of joy above,
The blest behold the blest: in such pure light
I scann'd her tender thought, to others' sight
Viewless!--but my fond glances would not rove.
Each angel grace, each lowly courtesy,
E'er traced in dame by Love's soft power inspired,
Would seem but foils to those which prompt my lay:
Upon the ground was cast her gentle eye,
And still methought, though silent, she inquired,
"What bears my faithful friend so soon, so far away?"

WRANGHAM.

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are bright'ning.
Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of Heaven,
In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,

Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear
Until we ha...

Under an oak-tree in a woodland, where
The dreaming Spring had dropped it from her hair,
I found a flower, through which I seemed to gaze
Beyond the world and see what no man dare
Behold and live the myths of bygone days
Diana and Endymion, and the bare
Slim beauty of the boy whom Echo wooed;
And Hyacinthus whom Apollo dewed
With love and death: and Daphne, ever fair;
And that reed-slender girl whom Pan pursued.

I stood and gazed and through it seemed to see
The Dryad dancing by the forest tree,
Her hair wild blown: the Faun with listening ear,
Deep in the boscage, kneeling on one knee,
Watching the wandered Oread draw near,
Her wild heart beating like a honey-bee
Within a rose. All, all the myths of old,
All, all the bright shapes of the Age of Gol...

I

Who has not felt his heart leap up, and glow
What time the Tulips first begin to blow,
Has one sweet joy still left for him to know.

It is like early love's imagining,
That fragile pleasure which the Tulips bring,
When suddenly we see them, in the Spring.

Not all the garden's later royal train,
Not great triumphant Roses, when they reign,
Can bring that delicate delight again.

II

One of the sweetest hours is this;
(Of all I think we like it best);
A little restful oasis,
Between the breakfast and the post.
Just south of coffee and of toast,
Just north of daily task and duty;
Just west of dreams, this island gleams,
A fertile spot of peace and beauty.

We wander out across the lawn;
We idle by a bush in b...

I wish I were as in the years of old
While yet the blessed daylight made itself
Ruddy thro’ both the roofs of sight, and woke
These eyes, now dull, but then so keen to seek
The meanings ambush’d under all they saw,
The flight of birds, the flame of sacrifice,
What omens may foreshadow fate to man
And woman, and the secret of the Gods.
My son, the Gods, despite of human prayer,
Are slower to forgive than human kings.
The great God, Arês, burns in anger still
Against the guiltless heirs of him from Tyre
Our Cadmus, out of whom thou art, who found
Beside the springs of Dircê, smote, and still’d
Thro’ all its folds the multitudinous beast
The dragon, which our trembling fathers call’d
The God’s own son.
A tale, that told to me,
When but thine age, by age...

Far down the lane
A window pane
Gleams 'mid the trees through night and rain.
The weeds are dense
Through which a fence
Of pickets rambles, none sees whence,
Before a porch, all indistinct of line,
O'er-grown and matted with wistaria-vine.

No thing is heard,
No beast or bird,
Only the rain by which are stirred
The draining leaves,
And trickling eaves
Of crib and barn one scarce perceives;
And garden-beds where old-time flow'rs hang wet
The phlox, the candytuft, and mignonette.

The hour is late
At any rate
She has not heard him at the gate:
Upon the roof
The rain was proof
Against his horse's galloping hoof:
And when the old gate with its weight and chain
Creaked, she imagined 't was the wind and rain.

A...

        All night a fountain pleads,
                Telling her beads,
Her tinkling beads monotonous 'neath the moon;
        And where she springs atween,
                Two statues lean--
Two Kings, their marble beards with moonlight
        strewn.

        Till hate had frozen speech,
                Each hated each,
Hated and died, and went unto his place:
        And still inveterate
                They lean and hate
With glare of stone implacable, face to face.

One, who bade set them here
                In stone austere,
To both was dear, and did not guess at all:
        Yet with her new-wed lord
                Walking the sward
Paused, and for two dead friends a tear let fall.

        She turn'd and went her way.

I

Within the mind strong fancies work.
A deep delight the bosom thrills
Oft as I pass along the fork
Of these fraternal hills:
Where, save the rugged road, we find
No appanage of human kind,
Nor hint of man; if stone or rock
Seem not his handywork to mock
By something cognizably shaped;
Mockery or model roughly hewn,
And left as if by earthquake strewn,
Or from the Flood escaped:
Altars for Druid service fit;
(But where no fire was ever lit,
Unless the glow-worm to the skies
Thence offer nightly sacrifice)
Wrinkled Egyptian monument;
Green moss-grown tower; or hoary tent;
Tents of a camp that never shall be razed
On which four thousand years have gazed!

II

Ye plough-shares sparkling on the slopes!
Ye snow-wh...

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 a-light;
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 fairy cities are strung like beads,
Each city a twinkling star:
And I live a life of valorous deeds,
And march with the Fairy 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 starlight lit,...

We were apart; yet, day by day,
I bade my heart more constant be.
I bade it keep the world away,
And grow a home for only thee;
Nor fear'd but thy love likewise grew,
Like mine, each day, more tried, more true.

The fault was grave! I might have known,
What far too soon, alas! I learn'd
The heart can bind itself alone,
And faith may oft be unreturn'd.
Self-sway'd our feelings ebb and swell
Thou lov'st no more; Farewell! Farewell!

Farewell! and thou, thou lonely heart,
Which never yet without remorse
Even for a moment didst depart
From thy remote and spherèd course
To haunt the place where passions reign
Back to thy solitude again!

Back! with the conscious thrill of shame
Which Luna felt, that summer-night,
Flash through her...

    We are the smirched.    Queen Honor is the spotless.
    We slept thro' wars where Honor could not sleep.
    We were faint-hearted.    Honor was full-valiant.
    We kept a silence Honor could not keep.

    Yet this late day we make a song to praise her.
    We, codeless, will yet vindicate her code.
    She who was mighty, walks with us, the beggars.
    The merchants drive her out upon the road.

    She makes a throne of sod beside our campfire.
    We give the maiden-queen our rags and tears.
    A battered, rascal guard have rallied round her,
    To keep her safe until the better years.