Happiness

A patch of meadow upland
Reached by a mile of road,
Soothed by the voice of waters,
With birds and flowers bestowed.

Hither I come for strength
Which well it can supply,
For Love draws might from terrene force
And potencies of sky.

The tremulous battery Earth
Responds to the touch of man;
It thrills to the antipodes,
From Boston to Japan.

The planets' child the planet knows
And to his joy replies;
To the lark's trill unfolds the rose,
Clouds flush their gayest dyes.

When Ali prayed and loved
Where Syrian waters roll,
Upward the ninth heaven thrilled and moved;
At the tread of the jubilant soul.

Between wheatfield and corn,
Between hedgerow and thorn,
Between pasture and tree,
Where's my sweetheart
Tell it me!

Sweetheart caught I

Not at home;
She's then, thought I.

Gone to roam.
Fair and loving

Blooms sweet May;
Sweetheart's roving,

Free and gay.

By the rock near the wave,
Where her first kiss she gave,
On the greensward, to me,
Something I see!
Is it she?

It sifts from leaden sieves,
It powders all the wood,
It fills with alabaster wool
The wrinkles of the road.

It makes an even face
Of mountain and of plain, --
Unbroken forehead from the east
Unto the east again.

It reaches to the fence,
It wraps it, rail by rail,
Till it is lost in fleeces;
It flings a crystal veil

On stump and stack and stem, --
The summer's empty room,
Acres of seams where harvests were,
Recordless, but for them.

It ruffles wrists of posts,
As ankles of a queen, --
Then stills its artisans like ghosts,
Denying they have been.

Should some great angel say to me to-morrow,
    "Thou must re-tread thy pathway from the start,
But God will grant, in pity, for thy sorrow,
    Some one dear wish, the nearest to thy heart."

This were my wish! from my life's dim beginning
    Let be what has been! wisdom planned the whole;
My want, my woe, my errors, and my sinning,
    All, all were needed lessons for my soul.

What cares the rose if the buds which are its pride
Be plucked for the breast of the dead or the hands of a bride?

The mother-drift if its pebbles be dull inglorious things,
Or diamonds fit to shine from the diadems of kings?

Sing, O poet, the moods of thy moments each
Perfect to thee whatever the meaning it reach.

Let the years find if it be as a soulless stone,
Or under the words which hide there be a glory alone.

Oh! the days are gone, when Beauty bright
        My heart's chain wove;
When my dream of life, from morn till night,
        Was love, still love.
        New hope may bloom,
        And days may come,

    Of milder, calmer beam,
But there's nothing half so sweet in life
    As love's young dream;
No, there's nothing half so sweet in life
    As love's young dream.

Tho' the bard to purer fame may soar,
            When wild youth's past;
Tho' he win the wise, who frowned before,
            To smile at last;
            He'll never meet
            A joy so sweet,
    In all his noon of fame,
As when first he sung to woman's ear
    His soul-felt flame,
And, at every close, she blushed to hear
    The one lov'd name.
...

Pallas, observing Stella's wit
Was more than for her sex was fit,
And that her beauty, soon or late,
Might breed confusion in the state,
In high concern for human kind,
Fix'd honour in her infant mind.
    But (not in wrangling to engage
With such a stupid, vicious age)
If honour I would here define,
It answers faith in things divine.
As natural life the body warms,
And, scholars teach, the soul informs,
So honour animates the whole,
And is the spirit of the soul.
    Those numerous virtues which the tribe
Of tedious moralists describe,
And by such various titles call,
True honour comprehends them all.
Let melancholy rule supreme,
Choler preside, or blood, or phlegm,
It makes no difference in the case,
Nor is complexion honour's place....

There is a change and I am poor;
Your love hath been, nor long ago,
A fountain at my fond heart's door,
Whose only business was to flow;
And flow it did; not taking heed
Of its own bounty, or my need.
What happy moments did I count!
Blest was I then all bliss above!
Now, for that consecrated fount
Of murmuring, sparkling, living love,
What have I? shall I dare to tell?
A comfortless and hidden well.

A well of love it may be deep
I trust it is, and never dry:
What matter? if the waters sleep
In silence and obscurity.
Such change, and at the very door
Of my fond heart, hath made me poor.

I have sought and followed you, drunk with your sacred wine;
Led out by a laughing wind on a tumbling sea,
On crags amid clouds, in cups that allure the bee,
And deep in the gem-lit gloom of the tortuous mine,
And on widespread wings where the great worlds dance and shine
I have sought by the golden light; but have bent the knee
At last where you lie, a humble goddess and free,
Naked and flushed in the warmth of a crimson shrine.
The hordes of hate have trampled your blooms in mire,
And cackle and roar as their mockery priests blaspheme,
And sing the marching hymn of a wingless might.
They forge their god in the heat of unholy fire
The squat strong incubus born of an evil dream;
And it shrinks and crumbles away in the golden light.

Grow up in beauty, as thou dost begin,
And be of all admired, Tomasin.

    Am I kin to Sorrow,
        That so oft
    Falls the knocker of my door--
        Neither loud nor soft,
    But as long accustomed,
        Under Sorrow's hand?
    Marigolds around the step
        And rosemary stand,
    And then comes Sorrow--
        And what does Sorrow care
    For the rosemary
        Or the marigolds there?
    Am I kin to Sorrow?
        Are we kin?
    That so oft upon my door--
        *Oh, come in*!

Dreaming of love, the ardent mind of youth
    Conceives it one with passion's brief delights,
With keen desire and rapture.    But, in truth,
    These are but milestones to sublime heights
After the highways, swept by strong emotions,
    Where wild winds blow and blazing sun rays beat,
After the billows of tempestuous oceans,
    Fair mountain summits wait the lover's feet.

The path is narrow, but the view is wide,
    And beauteous the outlook towards the west
Happy are they who walk there side by side,
    Leaving below the valleys of unrest,
And on the radiant altitudes above
Know the serene intensity of love.

The fields were bleak and sodden. Not a wing
Or note enlivened the depressing wood,
A soiled and sullen, stubborn snowdrift stood
Beside the roadway. Winds came muttering
Of storms to be, and brought the chilly sting
Of icebergs in their breath. Stalled cattle mooed
Forth plaintive pleadings for the earth's green food.
No gleam, no hint of hope in anything.

The sky was blank and ashen, like the face
Of some poor wretch who drains life's cup too fast.
Yet, swaying to and fro, as if to fling
About chilled Nature its lithe arms of grace,
Smiling with promise in the wintry blast,
The optimistic Willow spoke of spring.

The silent shepherdess,
    She of my vows,
Here with me exchanging love
    Under dim boughs.

Shines on our mysteries
    A sudden spark,
"Dout the candle, glow-worm,
    Let all be dark.

"The birds have sung their last notes,
    The Sun's to bed,
Glow-worm, dout your candle."
    The glow-worm said:

"I also am a lover;
    The lamp I display
Is beacon for my true love
    Wandering astray.

"Through the thick bushes
    And the grass comes she
With a heartload of longing
    And love for me.

"Sir, enjoy your fancy,
    But spare me harm,
A lover is a lover,
    Though but a worm."

Riches I hold in light esteem,
And Love I laugh to scorn;
And lust of fame was but a dream,
That vanished with the morn:

And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is, "Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!"

Yes, as my swift days near their goal:
'Tis all that I implore;
In life and death a chainless soul,
With courage to endure.

They say that fair Romance is dead, and in her cold grave lying low,
The green grass waving o'er her head, the mould upon her breasts of snow;
Her voice, they say, is dumb for aye, that once was clarion-clear and high,
But in their hearts, their frozen hearts, they know that bitterly they lie.

Her brow of white, that was with bright rose-garland in the old days crowned,
Is now, they say, all shorn of light, and with a fatal fillet bound.
Her eyes divine no more shall shine to lead the hardy knight and good
Unto the Castle Perilous, beyond the dark Enchanted Wood.

And do they deem, these fools supreme, whose iron wheels unceasing whirr,
That, in this rushing Age of Steam, there is no longer room for her?
That, as they hold the Key of Gold that shuts or opens Mammon's Den,
R...

Spirit girl to whom 'twas given
To revisit scenes of pain,
From the hell I thought was Heaven
You have lifted me again;
Through the world that I inherit,
Where I loved her ere she died,
I am walking with the spirit
Of a dead girl by my side.

Through my old possessions only
For a very little while,
And they say that I am lonely,
And they pity, but I smile:
For the brighter side has won me
By the calmness that it brings,
And the peace that is upon me
Does not come of earthly things.

Spirit girl, the good is in me,
But the flesh you know is weak,
And with no pure soul to win me
I might miss the path I seek;
Lead me by the love you bore me
When you trod the earth with me,
Till the light is clear before me
And my spiri...

I

The hills are full of prophecies
And ancient voices of the dead;
Of hidden shapes that no man sees,
Pale, visionary presences,
That speak the things no tongue hath said,
No mind hath thought, no eye hath read.

The streams are full of oracles,
And momentary whisperings;
An immaterial beauty swells
Its breezy silver o'er the shells
With wordless speech that sings and sings
The message of diviner things.

No indeterminable thought is theirs,
The stars', the sunsets' and the flowers';
Whose inexpressible speech declares
Th' immortal Beautiful, who shares
This mortal riddle which is ours,
Beyond the forward-flying hours.

II

It holds and beckons in the streams;
It lures and touches us in all
The flowers of...