Friendship

Out of the melancholy that is made
Of ebbing sorrow that too slowly ebbs,
Comes back a sighing whisper of the reed,
A note in new love-pipings on the bough,
Grieving with grief till all the full-fed air
And shaken milky corn doth wot of it,
The pity of it trembling in the talk
Of the beforetime merrymaking brook -
Out of that melancholy will the soul,
In proof that life is not forsaken quite
Of the old trick and glamour which made glad;
Be cheated some good day and not perceive
How sorrow ebbing out is gone from view,
How tired trouble fall'n for once on sleep,
How keen self-mockery that youth's eager dream
Interpreted to mean so much is found
To mean and give so little - frets no more,
Floating apart as on a cloud - O then
Not e'en so much as murmur...

To fair Fidele’s grassy tomb
Soft maids and village hinds shall bring
Each op’ning sweet, of earliest bloom,
And rifle all the breathing spring.


No wailing ghost shall dare appear,
To vex with shrieks this quiet grove:
But shepherd lads assemble here,
And melting virgins own their love.


No wither’d witch shall here be seen,
No goblins lead their nightly crew:
The female fays shall haunt the green,
And dress thy grave with pearly dew!


The redbreast oft at ev’ning hours
Shall kindly lend his little aid:
With hoary moss, and gather’d flow’rs,
To deck the ground where thou art laid.


When howling winds, and beating rain,
In tempests shake the sylvan cell,
Or midst the chase on ev’ry plain,
The tender th...

"Is it safe to lie so lonely when the summer twilight closes
No companion maidens, only you asleep among the roses?

"Thirteen, fourteen years you number, and your hair is soft and scented,
Perilous is such a slumber in the twilight all untented.

"Lonely loveliness means danger, lying in your rose-leaf nest,
What if some young passing stranger broke into your careless rest?"

But she would not heed the warning, lay alone serene and slight,
Till the rosy spears of morning slew the darkness of the night.

Young love, walking softly, found her, in the scented, shady closes,
Threw his ardent arms around her, kissed her lips beneath the roses.

And she said, with smiles and blushes, "Would that I had sooner known!
Never now the morning thrushes wake and find me al...

They tell me new methods now govern the Muses,
    The modes of expression have changed with the times;
That low is the rank of the poet who uses
    The old-fashioned verse with intentional rhymes.
And quite out of date, too, is rhythmical metre;
    The critics declare it an insult to art.
But oh! the sweet swing of it, oh! the clear ring of it,
    Oh the great pulse of it, right from the heart,
        Art or no art.

I sat by the side of that old poet, Ocean,
    And counted the billows that broke on the rocks;
The tide lilted in with a rhythmical motion;
    The sea-gulls dipped downward in time-keeping flocks.
I watched while a giant wave gathered its forces,
    And then on the gray granite precipice burst;
And I knew as I counted, while other waves mo...

I.

The sweetest dreams, it seems to me, that we can ever know,
Are those the fancy brings to us of days of long-ago,
When rainbow-tinted pictures all are like a mirage flung
Upon the canvas memory weaves--of days when we were young.


II.

The step may falter, eye be dim--the brow may wrinkles wear,
And underneath the crumbling mould our friends be sleeping there--
But oh, these visions come to us as to the rose the dew,
And while with raptured gaze we look the heart seems ever new.


III.

Oh, when perhaps at last we're left a laggard on life's stage,
This is the mellowed draught we quaff our longings to assuage--
As sweet as that from Paradise the smiling Houris hand
The Prophet's faithful followers when at its gates they stand!

Who could describe you, child of mystery
And silence, born among these solitudes?
Within whose look there is a secrecy,
Old as these wanderingwoods,
And knowledge, cousin to the morning-star,
Beyond the things that mar,
And earth itself that on the soul intrudes.

How many eons what antiquity
Went to your making? When the world was young
You yet were old. What mighty company
Of cosmic forces swung
About you! On what wonders have you gazed
Since first your head was raised
To greet the Power that here your seed-spore flung!

The butterfly that woos you, and the bee
That quits the mandrakes' cups to whisper you,
Are in your confidence and sympathy,
As sunlight is and dew,
And the soft music of this woodland stream,
Telling the trees its d...

When you and I were younger the world was passing fair;
Our days were sped with laughter, our steps were free as air;
Life lightly lured us onward, and ceased not to unroll
In endless shining vistas a playground for the soul.
But now no glory fires us; we linger in the cold,
And both of us are weary, and both are growing old;
Come, Postumus, and face it, and, facing it, confess
Your years are half a hundred, and mine are nothing less.

When you and I were twenty, my Postumus, we kept
In tidy rooms in College, and there we snugly slept.
And still, when I am dreaming, the bells I can recall
That ordered us to chapel or welcomed us to hall.
The towers repeat our voices, the grey and ancient Courts
Are filled with mirth and movement, and echo to our sports;
Then riverw...

‘Courage!’ he said, and pointed toward the land,
‘This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.’
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro’ wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset-flush’d: and, dew’d with sho...

The bird flies home to its young;
The flower folds its leaves about an opening bud;
And in my neighbour's house there is the cry of a child.
I close my window that I need not hear.

She is mine, and she is very beautiful:
And in her heart there is no evil thought.
There is even love in her heart -
Love of life, love of joy, love of this fair world,
And love of me (or love of my love for her);
Yet she will never consent to bear me a child.
And when I speak of it she weeps,
Always she weeps, saying:
'Do I not bring joy enough into your life?
Are you not satisfied with me and my love,
As I am satisfied with you?
Never would I urge you to some great peril
To please my whim; yet ever so you urge me,
Urge me to risk my happiness - yea, life itself -
S...

Within a town where parity
According to old form we see,
That is to say, where Catholic
And Protestant no quarrels pick,
And where, as in his father's day,
Each worships God in his own way,
We Luth'ran children used to dwell,
By songs and sermons taught as well.
The Catholic clingclang in truth
Sounded more pleasing to our youth,
For all that we encounter'd there,
To us seem'd varied, joyous, fair.
As children, monkeys, and mankind
To ape each other are inclin'd,
We soon, the time to while away,
A game at priests resolved to play.
Their aprons all our sisters lent
For copes, which gave us great content;
And handkerchiefs, embroider'd o'er,
Instead of stoles we also wore;
Gold paper, whereon beasts were traced,
The bishop's brow as mitr...

    The mind is Beauty's thief, the poet takes
    The golden spendthrift's trail among the blooms
    Where she stands tossing silver in the lakes,
    And twisting bright swift threads on airy looms.
    Her ring the poppy snatches, and the rose
    With laughter plunders all her gusty plumes.
    He steals behind her, gathering, as she goes
    Heedless of summer's end certain and soon, -
    Of winter rattling at the door of June.

    When Beauty lies hand-folded, pale and still,
    Forsaken of her lovers and her lords,
    And winter keeps cold watch upon the hill
    Then he lets fall his bale of coloured words.
    At frosty midnight June shall rise in flame,
    Move at his magic with her bells and birds;
    The rose will redden as he speaks her nam...

I.

She should never have looked at me
If she meant I should not love her!
There are plenty . . . men, you call such,
I suppose . . . she may discover
All her soul to, if she pleases,
And yet leave much as she found them:
But I’m not so, and she knew it
When she fixed me, glancing round them,

II.

What? To fix me thus meant nothing?
But I can’t tell . . . there’s my weakness . . .
What her look said! no vile cant, sure,
About “need to strew the bleakness
“Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed.
“That the sea feels” no “strange yearning
“That such souls have, most to lavish
“Where there’s chance of least returning.”

III.

Oh, we’re sunk enough here, God knows!
But not quite so sunk that moments,
Sure tho’ seld...

Not we who daily walk the City's street;
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 stayed 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 dear
Stands forth - revealed unto the some-time guest.

Sweet Summer, breathe your softest gales
To charm my lover's ear:
Ye zephyrs, tell your choicest tales
Where'er she shall appear;
And gently wave the meadow grass
Where soft she sets her feet,
For my love is a country lass,
And bonny as she's sweet.

The hedges only seem to mourn,
The willow boughs to sigh,
Though sunshine o'er the meads sojourn,
To cheer me where I lie:
The blackbird in the hedgerow thorn
Sings loud his Summer lay;
He seems to sing, both eve and morn,
"She wanders here to-day."

The skylark in the summer cloud
One cheering anthem sings,
And Mary often wanders out
To watch his trembling wings.

* * * * *

I'll wander down the river way,
And wild flower posies make,
For Nature whispers all ...

Love, when the present is become the past,
    And dust has covered all that now is new,
    When many a fame has faded out of view,
And many a later fame is fading fast--

If then these songs of mine might hope to last,
    Which sing most sweetly when they sing of you,
    Though queen and empress wore oblivion's hue,
Your loveliness would not be overcast.

Now, while the present stays with you and me,
    In love's copartnery our hearts combine,
            Life's loss and gain in equal shares to take.
Partners in fame our memories then would be:
    Your name remembered for my songs; and mine
            Still unforgotten for your sweetness' sake.

    Do not be distant with me, do not be
        Angry because I drank deep of your wine,
    But treat that laughing matter laughingly
        Because I am a poet, and incline
    By nature and by art to jollity.

    Always I loved to see, I will aver,
        The good red tide lip at the flagon's brim,
    Sitting half fool and half philosopher,
        Chatting with every kind of her and him,
    And shrugged at sneer of money-gatherer.

    Often enough I trudge by hedge and wall,
        Too often there's no money in my purse,
    Nor malice in my mind ever at all,
        And for my songs no person is the worse
    But I who give all of my store to all.

    If busybody spoke to you of it,
        Say, kindly man, if kindly man do live:

Bright Flower! whose home is everywhere,
Bold in maternal Nature's care,
And all the long year through the heir
Of joy or sorrow;
Methinks that there abides in thee
Some concord with humanity,
Given to no other flower I see
The forest thorough!

Is it that Man is soon deprest?
A thoughtless Thing! who, once unblest,
Does little on his memory rest,
Or on his reason,
And Thou would'st teach him how to find
A shelter under every wind,
A hope for times that are unkind
And every season?

Thou wander'st the wide world about,
Unchecked by pride or scrupulous doubt,
With friends to greet thee, or without,
Yet pleased and willing;
Meek, yielding to the occasion's call,
And all things suffering from all
Thy function apostolical

I who am dead a thousand years,
And wrote this sweet archaic song,
Send you my words for messengers
The way I shall not pass along.

I care not if you bridge the seas,
Or ride secure the cruel sky,
Or build consummate palaces
Of metal or of masonry.

But have you wine and music still,
And statues and a bright-eyed love,
And foolish thoughts of good and ill,
And prayers to them who sit above?

How shall we conquer?    Like a wind
That falls at eve our fancies blow,
And old Moeonides the blind
Said it three thousand years ago.

O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,
Student of our sweet English tongue,
Read out my words at night, alone:
I was a poet, I was young.

Since I can never see your face,
And never shake you b...