Friendship

Letter IV. Yearnings.


I.

    The earth is glad, I know, when night is spent,
    For then she wakes the birdlings in the bowers;
    And, one by one, the rosy-footed hours
    Start for the race; and from his crimson tent
    The soldier-sun looks o'er the firmament;
    And all his path is strewn with festal flowers.


II.

    But what his mission? What the happy quest
    Of all this toil? He journeys on his way
    As Cæsar did, unbiass'd by the sway
    Of maid or man. His goal is in the west.
    Will he unbuckle there, a...

Dear Heart, this is my book of boyish song,
The changing story of the wandering quest
That found at last its ending in thy breast -
The love it sought and sang astray so long
With wild young heart and happy eager tongue.
Much meant it all to me to seek and sing,
Ah, Love, but how much more to-day to bring
This 'rhyme that first of all he made when young.'

Take it and love it, 'tis the prophecy
For whose poor silver thou hast given me gold;
Yea! those old faces for an hour seemed fair
Only because some hints of Thee they were:
Judge then, if I so loved weak types of old,
How good, dear Heart, the perfect gift of Thee.

TO MY FRIEND, JOHN FOX, JR.


You remember, the deep mist, -
Climbing to the Devil's Den -
Blue beneath us in the glen
And above us amethyst,
Throbbed and circled and away
Thro' the wild-woods opposite,
Torn and shattered, morning-lit,
Scurried up a dewy gray.
Vague as in Romance we saw
From the fog one riven trunk,
Its huge horny talons shrunk,
Thrust a hungry dragon's claw.
And we climbed two hours thro'
The dawn-dripping Jellicoes,
To that wooded rock that shows
Undulating peaks of blue:
The vast Cumberlands that sleep,
Weighed with soaring forests, far
To the concave welkin's bar,
Leagues on leagues of purple sweep.
Range exalted over range
Billowed their enormous spines,
And we heard the priestly pines
Hum...

The noon was shady, and soft airs
Swept Ouse’s silent tide,
When, ‘scaped from literary cares,
I wander’d on his side.


My spaniel, prettiest of his race,
And high in pedigree
(Two nymphs[1] adorn’d with every grace
That spaniel found for me),


Now wanton’d lost in flags and reeds,
Now starting into sight,
Pursued the swallow o’er the meads
With scarce a slower flight.


It was the time when Ouse display’d
His lilies newly blown;
Their beauties I intent survey’d,
And one I wish’d my own.


With cane extended far I sought
To steer it close to land;
But still the prize, though nearly caught,
Escaped my eager hand.


Beau mark’d my unsuccessful pains
With fix’d considerate fac...

        One time in Arcadie's fair bowers
    There met a bright immortal band,
        To choose their emblems from the flowers
    That made an Eden of that land.

        Sweet Constancy, with eyes of hope,
    Strayed down the garden path alone
        And gathered sprays of heliotrope,
    To place in clusters at her zone.

        True Friendship plucked the ivy green,
    Forever fresh, forever fair.
        Inconstancy with flippant mien
    The fading primrose chose to wear.

        One moment Love the rose paused by;
    But Beauty picked it for her hair.
        Love paced the garden with a sigh
    He found no fitting emblem there.

        Then suddenly he saw a flame,
    A conflagration turned to bloom;
        It ...

There are mem'ries glad of the old school-house,
Which throng around me still;
And voices spoke in my youthful days,
My ears with music fill.

Those youthful voices I seem to hear,
With their gladsome, joyous tone,
And joy and hope they bring to me,
When I am all alone.

I think of the joys of that time long past,
Of its boyish hopes and fears,
And 'tis partly joy, and partly pain,
That wets my eyes with tears.

For 'tis joy I feel, when I seem to stand,
Where I stood long years ago,
And when I think that cannot be,
My heart is fill'd with woe.

My old school mates are scatter'd far,
And some are with the dead,
And my old class mates have wander'd, too,
To seek for fame, or bread.

And those who still are near my ho...

Not we who daily walk the city's
Not those who have been cradled in its heart,
Best understand its architectural art
Or realise its grandeur.    Oft we meet
Some stranger who has staid his passing feet
And lingered with us for a single hour,
And learned more of cathedral, and of tower,
Than we who deem our knowledge quite complete.

Not always those we hold most loved and dear,
Not always those who dwell with us, know best
Our greater selves.    Because they stand so near
They cannot see the lofty mountain crest,
The gleaming sun-kissed height, which fair and clear
Stands forth - revealed unto the some-time guest.

'There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only Poets know'; 'twas rightly said;
Whom could the Muses else allure to tread
Their smoothest paths, to wear their lightest chains?
When happiest Fancy has inspired the strains,
How oft the malice of one luckless word
Pursues the Enthusiast to the social board,
Haunts him belated on the silent plains!
Yet he repines not, if his thought stand clear,
At last, of hindrance and obscurity,
Fresh as the star that crowns the brow of morn;
Bright, speckless, as a softly-moulded tear
The moment it has left the virgin's eye,
Or rain-drop lingering on the pointed thorn.

It may be, yes, it must be, Time that brings
An end to mortal things,
That sends the beggar Winter in the train
Of Autumn's burdened wain, -
Time, that is heir of all our earthly state,
And knoweth well to wait
Till sea hath turned to shore and shore to sea,
If so it need must be,
Ere he make good his claim and call his own
Old empires overthrown, -
Time, who can find no heavenly orb too large
To hold its fee in charge,
Nor any motes that fill its beam so small,
But he shall care for all, -
It may be, must be, - yes, he soon shall tire
This hand that holds the lyre.

Then ye who listened in that earlier day
When to my careless lay
I matched its chords and stole their first-born thrill,
With untaught rudest skill
Vexing a treble from th...

    Do what I will, I cannot chant so well
    As other men; and yet my soul is true.
    My hopes are bold; my thoughts are hard to tell,
    But thou can'st read them, and accept them, too,
    Though, half-abash'd, they seem to hide from view.
    I strike the lyre, I sound the hollow shell;
    And why? For comfort, when my thoughts rebel,
    And when I count the woes that must ensue.
    But for this reason, and no other one,
    I dare to look thy way, and bow my head
    To thy sweet name, as sunflower to the sun,
    Though, peradventure, not so wisely fed
    With garden fancies. Tears must now be shed,
    Unnumber'd tears, till life or love be done!

Then its O! for a wife, sich a wife as aw know!
Who's thowts an desires are pure as the snow,
Who nivver thinks virtue a reason for praise,
An who shudders when tell'd ov this world's wicked ways.

Shoo isn't a gossip, shoo keeps to her hooam,
Shoo's a welcome for friends if they happen to come;
Shoo's tidy an cleean, let yo call when yo may,
Shoo's nivver upset or put aght ov her way.

At morn when her husband sets off to his wark,
Shoo starts him off whistlin, as gay as a lark;
An at neet if he's weary he hurries straight back,
An if worried forgets all his cares in a crack.

If onny naybor is sick or distressed,
Shoe sends what shoo can an allus her best;
An if onny young fowk chonce to fall i' disgrace,
They fly straight to her and they tell her ...

I.

    I'll tell you a Fairy Tale that's new:
How the merry Elves o'er the ocean flew
From the Emerald isle to this far-off shore,
As they were wont in the days of yore;
And played their pranks one moonlit night,
Where the zephyrs alone could see the sight.


II.

    Ere the Old world yet had found the New,
The fairies oft in their frolics flew
To the fragrant isles of the Caribbee--
Bright bosom-gems of a golden sea.
Too dark was the film of the Indian's eye,
These gossamer sprites to suspect or spy,--
So they danced 'mid the spicy groves unseen,
And mad were their merry pranks, I ween;
For the fairies, like other discreet little elves,
Are freest and fondest when all by themselves.
No thought had they that in after time,
...

1

There is a mystic thread of life
So dearly wreath'd with mine alone,
That Destiny's relentless knife
At once must sever both, or none.


2

There is a Form on which these eyes
Have fondly gazed with such delight -
By day, that Form their joy supplies,
And Dreams restore it, through the night.


3

There is a Voice whose tones inspire
Such softened feelings in my breast,    -
I would not hear a Seraph Choir,
Unless that voice could join the rest.


4

There is a Face whose Blushes tell
Affection's tale upon the cheek,
But pallid at our fond farewell,
Proclaims more love than words can speak.


5

There is a Lip, which mine has prest,
But none had ever prest before;...

As I lie at rest on a patch of clover
In the Western Park when the day is done,
I watch as the wild black swans fly over
With their phalanx turned to the sinking sun;
And I hear the clang of their leader crying
To a lagging mate in the rearward flying,
And they fade away in the darkness dying,
Where the stars are mustering one by one.

O ye wild black swans, 'twere a world of wonder
For a while to join in your westward flight,
With the stars above and the dim earth under,
Through the cooling air of the glorious night.
As we swept along on our pinions winging,
We should catch the chime of a church-bell ringing,
Or the distant note of a torrent singing,
Or the far-off flash of a station light.

From the northern lakes with the reeds and rushes,
Wh...

I

Love is the light of the world, my dear,
Heigho, but the world is gloomy;
The light has failed and the lamp down hurled,
Leaves only darkness to me.

Love is the light of the world, my dear,
Ah me, but the world is dreary;
The night is down, and my curtain furled
But I cannot sleep, though weary.

Love is the light of the world, my dear,
Alas for a hopeless hoping,
When the flame went out in the breeze that swirled,
And a soul went blindly groping.


II

The light was on the golden sands,
A glimmer on the sea;
My soul spoke clearly to thy soul,
Thy spirit answered me.

Since then the light that gilds the sands,
And glimmers on the sea,
But vainly struggles to reflect
The radiant soul of thee.
...

Too frail to keep the lofty vow
That must have followed when his brow
Was wreathed, "The Vision" tells us how
With holly spray,
He faltered, drifted to and fro,
And passed away.

Well might such thoughts, dear Sister, throng
Our minds when, lingering all too long,
Over the grave of Burns we hung
In social grief
Indulged as if it were a wrong
To seek relief.

But, leaving each unquiet theme
Where gentlest judgments may misdeem,
And prompt to welcome every gleam
Of good and fair,
Let us beside this limpid Stream
Breathe hopeful air.

Enough of sorrow, wreck, and blight;
Think rather of those moments bright
When to the consciousness of right
His course was true,
When Wisdom prospered in his sight
And virtue grew.<...

To a Lady who wrote under my likeness as Juliet, "Lieti giorni e felice."

Whence should they come, lady! those happy days
That thy fair hand and gentle heart invoke
Upon my head?    Alas! such do not rise
On any, of the many, who with sighs
Bear through this journey-land of wo, life's yoke.
The light of such lives not in thine own lays;
Such were not hers, that girl, so fond, so fair,
Beneath whose image thou hast traced thy pray'r.
Evil, and few, upon this darksome earth,
Must be the days of all of mortal birth;
Then why not mine?    Sweet lady! wish again,
Not more of joy to me, but less of pain;
Calm slumber, when life's troubled hours are past,
And with thy friendship cheer them while they last.

Here's to the floor,
Our best friend of all,
Who sticks to us close
In the time of our fall.
When benches are fickle
And tables betray
And rugs are revolving,
He meets us half-way.
Our stay and support,
When we can't stand alone,
With the floor for a backer,
We'll never be thrown.
Here's to our friend,
In life's every stage!
Dry nurse of infancy,
Wet nurse of age!
A health to our floor!
Supporter and stay;
Though he often be full,
May he never give way!