Happiness

I

Sinking down by the gate I discern the thin moon,
And a blackbird tries over old airs in the pine,
But the moon is a sorry one, sad the bird's tune,
For this spot is unknown to that Heartmate of mine.

II

Did my Heartmate but haunt here at times such as now,
The song would be joyous and cheerful the moon;
But she will see never this gate, path, or bough,
Nor I find a joy in the scene or the tune.

Down the green slope he bounded. Raven curls
From his white shoulders by the winds were swept,
And the clear color of his sunny cheek
Was bright with motion. Through his open lips
Shone visibly a delicate line of pearl,
Like a white vein within a rosy shell,
And his dark eye's clear brilliance, as it lay
Beneath his lashes, like a drop of dew
Hid in the moss, stole out as covertly
As starlight from the edging of a cloud.
I never saw a boy so beautiful.
His step was like the stooping of a bird,
And his limbs melted into grace like things
Shaped by the wind of summer. He was like
A painter's fine conception - such an one
As he would have of Ganymede, and weep
Upon his pallet that he could not win
The vision to his easel. Who could paint
The young and s...

I think I never passed so sad an hour,
    Dear friend, as that one at the church to-night.
The edifice from basement to the tower
    Was one resplendent blaze of colored light.
Up through broad aisles the stylish crowd was thronging,
    Each richly robed like some king's bidden guest.
"Here will I bring my sorrow and my longing,"
    I said, "and here find rest."

I heard the heavenly organ's voice of thunder,
    It seemed to give me infinite relief.
I wept. Strange eyes looked on in well-bred wonder.
    I dried my tears: their gaze profaned my grief.
Wrapt in the costly furs, and silks and laces
    Beat alien hearts, that had no part with me.
I could not read, in all those proud cold faces,
    One thought of sympathy.

I watched them bowing a...

S' io avessi pensato che sì care.

HIS POEMS WERE WRITTEN ONLY TO SOOTHE HIS OWN GRIEF: OTHERWISE HE WOULD HAVE LABOURED TO MAKE THEM MORE DESERVING OF THE FAME THEY HAVE ACQUIRED.


    Had I e'er thought that to the world so dear
The echo of my sighs would be in rhyme,
I would have made them in my sorrow's prime
Rarer in style, in number more appear.
Since she is dead my muse who prompted here,
First in my thoughts and feelings at all time,
All power is lost of tender or sublime
My rough dark verse to render soft and clear.
And certes, my sole study and desire
Was but--I knew not how--in those long years
To unburthen my sad heart, not fame acquire.
I wept, but wish'd no honour in my tears.
Fain would I now taste joy; but that high fair,
Sile...

The moon shone down on fair Eliza's face,
And made it beautiful. No fitter place
Could she have chosen for her gracious smile;
For as she sat there in the languid light,
Methought I'd found a soul as free from guile
As ever came from God. Oh, favored Night!
Oh, mild, impassioned moon and starry spheres!
To gaze upon her through the silent years
Without rebuke. But I have looked within,
And found the truest beauty; have laid bare
A spiritual excellence as rare
As ever mortal being hoped to win.
Heart, mind, and soul, I analysed them all,
And saw where heaven kept divinest carnival.

Among the dwellers in the silent fields
The natural heart is touched, and public way
And crowded street resound with ballad strains,
Inspired by one whose very name bespeaks
Favour divine, exalting human love;
Whom, since her birth on bleak Northumbria's coast,
Known unto few but prized as far as known,
A single Act endears to high and low
Through the whole land to Manhood, moved in spite
Of the world's freezing cares, to generous Youth,
To Infancy, that lisps her praise to Age
Whose eye reflects it, glistening through a tear
Of tremulous admiration. Such true fame
Awaits her 'now'; but, verily, good deeds
Do not imperishable record find
Save in the rolls of heaven, where hers may live
A theme for angels, when they celebrate
The high-souled virtues which ...

On Yell'Ham Hill


In my loamy nook
As I dig my hole
I observe men look
At a stone, and sigh
As they pass it by
To some far goal.

Something it says
To their glancing eyes
That must distress
The frail and lame,
And the strong of frame
Gladden or surprise.

Do signs on its face
Declare how far
Feet have to trace
Before they gain
Some blest champaign
Where no gins are?

My heart was heavy, for its trust had been
Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong;
So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men,
One summer Sabbath day I strolled among
The green mounds of the village burial-place;
Where, pondering how all human love and hate
Find one sad level; and how, soon or late,
Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face,
And cold hands folded over a still heart,
Pass the green threshold of our common grave,
Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,
Awed for myself, and pitying my race,
Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave,
Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave

There is a chillness in the air -
A coldness in the smile of day;
And e'en the sunbeam's crimson glare
Seems shaded with a tinge of gray.

Weary of journeys to and fro,
The sun low creeps adown the sky;
And on the shivering earth below,
The long, cold shadows grimly lie.

But there will fall a deeper shade,
More chilling than the Autumn's breath:
There is a flower that yet must fade,
And yield its sweetness up to death.

She sits upon the window-seat,
Musing in mournful silence there,
While on her brow the sunbeams meet,
And dally with her golden hair.

She gazes on the sea of light
That overflows the western skies,
Till her great soul seems plumed for flight
From out the window of her eyes.

Hopes unfulfilled have ...

It nobbut luks like tother day,
Sin Jane an me first met;
Yet fifty years have rolled away,
But still aw dooant forget.
Th' Sundy schooil wor ovver,
An th' rain wor teemin daan
An shoo had nowt to cover
Her Sundy hat an gaan.
Aw had an umberella,
Quite big enuff for two,
Soa aw made bold to tell her,
Shoo'd be sewer to get weet throo,
Unless shoo'd share it wi' me.
Shoo blushed an sed, "Nay, Ben,
If they should see me wi' thi,
What wod yo're fowk say then?"
"Ne'er heed," says aw, "Tha need'nt care
What other fowk may say;
Ther's room for me an some to spare,
Soa let's start on us way."
Shoo tuk mi arm wi' modest grace,
We booath felt rayther shy;
But then aw'm sewer 'twor noa disgrace,
To keep her new clooas dry.
Aw trie...

My maiden she proved false to me;

To hate all joys I soon began,

Then to a flowing stream I ran,
The stream ran past me hastily.

There stood I fix'd, in mute despair;

My head swam round as in a dream;

I well-nigh fell into the stream,
And earth seem'd with me whirling there.

Sudden I heard a voice that cried

I had just turn'd my face from thence

It was a voice to charm each sense:
"Beware, for deep is yonder tide!"

A thrill my blood pervaded now,

I look'd and saw a beauteous maid

I asked her name twas Kate, she said
"Oh lovely Kate! how kind art thou!

"From death I have been sav'd by thee,

'Tis through thee only that I live;

Little 'twere life alone to give,
My j...

The world to-day is radiant, as I ne'er
Could picture it in wildest dreaming, when
For long, long hours I lay in flowery glen
Or wooded copse, and tried in vain to tear
The glamour from my eyes, and face the glare
And tumult of the busy world of men.
I staked my all, and won! and ne'er again
Can my blest spirit know a heart's despair.

And yet - and yet - why should it be that now,
When all my heart has longed for is at last
    Within my grasp, and I should be at rest,
A ghostly Something rising in the glow
    Of Love's own fire, an uninvited guest,
Taunts me with just one memory of the past!

Was never form and never face
So sweet to SEYD as only grace
Which did not slumber like a stone,
But hovered gleaming and was gone.
Beauty chased he everywhere,
In flame, in storm, in clouds of air.
He smote the lake to feed his eye
With the beryl beam of the broken wave;
He flung in pebbles well to hear
The moment's music which they gave.
Oft pealed for him a lofty tone
From nodding pole and belting zone.
He heard a voice none else could hear
From centred and from errant sphere.
The quaking earth did quake in rhyme,
Seas ebbed and flowed in epic chime.
In dens of passion, and pits of woe,
He saw strong Eros struggling through,
To sun the dark and solve the curse,
And beam to the bounds of the universe.
While thus to love he gave his days

From brightening fields of ether fair-disclos'd,
Child of the sun, refulgent Summer comes,
In pride of youth, and felt through nature's depth:
He comes, attended by the sultry Hours
And ever-fanning Breezes, on his way;
While, from his ardent look, the turning Spring
Averts her blushful face; and earth and skies,
All-smiling, to his hot dominion leaves.

Hence, let me haste into the mid-wood shade,
Where scarce a sunbeam wanders through the gloom
And on the dark-green grass, beside the brink
Of haunted stream, that by the roots of oak
Rolls o'er the rocky channel, lie at large,
And sing the glories of the circling year.

Come, Inspiration! from thy hermit-seat,
By mortal seldom found: may Fancy dare,
From thy fix'd serious eye, and raptur'd glance

A Phantasy.


I know not how I found you
With your wild hair a-blow,
Nor why the world around you
Would never let me know:
Perhaps 't was Heaven relented,
Perhaps 't was Hell resented
My dream, and grimly vented
Its hate upon me so.

In Shadowland I met you
Where all dim shadows meet;
Within my heart I set you,
A phantom bitter-sweet:
No hope for me to win you,
Though I with soul and sinew
Strive on and on, when in you
There is no heart or heat!

Yet ever, aye, and ever,
Although I knew you lied,
I followed on, but never
Would your white form abide:
With loving arms stretched meward,
As Sirens beckon seaward
To some fair vessel leeward,
Before me you would glide.

But like an evil fairy,

Give a rouse, then, in the Maytime
For a life that knows no fear!
Turn night-time into daytime
With the sunlight of good cheer!
For it's always fair weather
When good fellows get together,
With a stein on the table and a good song ringing clear.

When the wind comes up from Cuba
And the birds are on the wing,
And our hearts are patting juba
To the banjo of the spring,
Then it's no wonder whether
The boys will get together,
With a stein on the table and a cheer for everything.

For we're all frank-and-twenty
When the spring is in the air;
And we've faith and hope a-plenty,
And we've life and love to spare;
And it's birds of a feather
When we all get together,
With a stein on the table and a heart without a care.

For we k...

One silent night of late,
When every creature rested,
Came one unto my gate,
And knocking, me molested.

Who's that, said I, beats there,
And troubles thus the sleepy?
Cast off; said he, all fear,
And let not locks thus keep ye.

For I a boy am, who
By moonless nights have swerved;
And all with showers wet through,
And e'en with cold half starved.

I pitiful arose,
And soon a taper lighted;
And did myself disclose
Unto the lad benighted.

I saw he had a bow,
And wings too, which did shiver;
And looking down below,
I spied he had a quiver.

I to my chimney's shine
Brought him, as Love professes,
And chafed his hands with mine,
And dried his dropping tresses.

But when he felt him warm'd,

Thus they, with freaks of proud delight,
Beguile the remnant of the night;
And many a snatch of jovial song
Regales them as they wind along;
While to the music, from on high,
The echoes make a glad reply.
But the sage Muse the revel heeds
No farther than her story needs;
Nor will she servilely attend
The loitering journey to its end.
Blithe spirits of her own impel
The Muse, who scents the morning air,
To take of this transported pair
A brief and unreproved farewell;
To quit the slow-paced waggon's side,
And wander down yon hawthorn dell,
With murmuring Greta for her guide.
There doth she ken the awful form
Of Raven-crag black as a storm
Glimmering through the twilight pale;
And Ghimmer-crag, his tall twin brother,
Each peering forth t...