Happiness

Begin to charm, and as thou strok'st mine ears
With thine enchantment, melt me into tears.
Then let thy active hand scud o'er thy lyre,
And make my spirits frantic with the fire;
That done, sink down into a silvery strain,
And make me smooth as balm and oil again.

    O life has its seasons joyous and drear,
    Its summer sun and its winter snow,
    But the fairest of all, I tell you, dear,
    Was the sweet old spring of the long ago -
            The ever and ever so long ago -

    When we walked together among the flowers,
    When the world with beauty was all aglow.
    O the rain and dew! O the shine and showers
    Of the sweet old spring of the long ago!
            The ever and ever so long ago.

    A hunger for all of the past delight
    Is stirred by the winds that softly blow.
    Can you spare me a thought from heaven to-night
    For the sweet old spring of the long ago? -
            The ever and ever so long ago.

Welcome children of the Spring,
    In your garbs of green and gold,
Lifting up your sun-crowned heads
    On the verdant plain and wold.

As a bright and joyous troop
    From the breast of earth ye came
Fair and lovely are your cheeks,
    With sun-kisses all aflame.

In the dusty streets and lanes,
    Where the lowly children play,
There as gentle friends ye smile,
    Making brighter life's highway

Dewdrops and the morning sun,
    Weave your garments fair and bright,
And we welcome you to-day
    As the children of the light.

Children of the earth and sun.
    We are slow to understand
All the richness of the gifts
    Flowing from our Father's hand.


Were our vision clearer far,
    In this sin-d...

Madam, Since Anna visited the muse's seat,
(Around her tomb let weeping angels wait)
Hail, thou, the brightest of thy sex, and best,
Most gracious neighbour and most welcome guest:
Not Harley's self, to Cam and Isis dear,
In virtues and in arts great Oxford's heir,
Not he such present honour shall receive
As to his consort we aspire to give.

Writings of men our thought to-day neglects,
To pay due homage to the softer sex:
Plato and Tully we forbear to read,
And their great followers whom this house has bred,
To study lessons from thy morals given,
And shining characters impress'd by Heaven.
Science in books no longer we pursue,
Minerva's self in Harriet's face we view;
For when with Beauty we can Virtue join,
We paint the semblance of a form divine....

After the May time, and after the June time
    Rare with blossoms and perfumes sweet,
Cometh the round world's royal noon time,
    The red midsummer of blazing heat.
When the sun, like an eye that never closes,
    Bends on the earth its fervid gaze,
And the winds are still, and the crimson roses
    Droop and wither and die in its rays.

Unto my heart has come that season,
    O my lady, my worshiped one,
When over the stars of Pride and Reason
    Sails Love's cloudless, noonday sun.
Like a great red ball in my bosom burning
    With fires that nothing can quench or tame.
It glows till my heart itself seems turning
    Into a liquid lake of flame.

The hopes half shy, and the sighs all tender,
    The dreams and fears of an earlier day,

She has laughed as softly as if she sighed,
She has counted six, and over,
Of a purse well filled, and a heart well tried,
Oh, each a worthy lover!
They "give her time"; for her soul must slip
Where the world has set the grooving;
She will lie to none with her fair red lip:
But love seeks truer loving.

She trembles her fan in a sweetness dumb,
As her thoughts were beyond recalling;
With a glance for one, and a glance for some,
From her eyelids rising and falling;
Speaks common words with a blushful air,
Hears bold words, unreproving;
But her silence says, what she never will swear,
And love seeks better loving.

Go, lady! lean to the night-guitar,
And drop a smile to the bringer;
Then smile as sweetly, when he is far,
At the voice of ...

My Polly's varry bonny,
Her een are black an breet;
They shine under her raven locks,
Like stars i'th' dark o'th' neet.

Her little cheeks are like a peach,
'At th' sun has woo'd an missed;
Her lips like cherries, red an sweet,
Seem moulded to be kissed.

Her breast is like a drift o' snow,
Her little waist's soa thin,
To clasp it wi' a careless arm
Wod ommost be a sin.

Her little hands an tiny feet,
Wod mak yo think shoo'd been
Browt up wi' little fairy fowk
To be a fairy queen.

An when shoo laffs, it saands as if
A little crystal spring,
Wor bubblin up throo silver rocks,
Screened by an angel's wing.

It saands soa sweet, an yet soa low,
One feels it forms a part
Ov what yo love, an yo can hear
It...

Dream not, O Soul, that easy is the task
Thus set before thee. If it proves at length,
As well it may, beyond thy natural strength,
Faint not, despair not. As a child may ask
A father, pray the Everlasting Good
For light and guidance midst the subtle snares
Of sin thick planted in life's thoroughfares,
For spiritual strength and moral hardihood;
Still listening, through the noise of time and sense,
To the still whisper of the Inward Word;
Bitter in blame, sweet in approval heard,
Itself its own confirming evidence
To health of soul a voice to cheer and please,
To guilt the wrath of the Eumenides

Methinks that I could trip o'er heaviest soil,
Light as a buoyant bark from wave to wave,
Were mine the trusty staff that Jewel gave
To youthful Hooker, in familiar style
The gift exalting, and with playful smile:
For thus equipped, and bearing on his head
The Donor's farewell blessing, can he dread
Tempest, or length of way, or weight of toil?
More sweet than odours caught by him who sails
Near spicy shores of Araby the blest,
A thousand times more exquisitely sweet,
The freight of holy feeling which we meet,
In thoughtful moments, wafted by the gales
From fields where good men walk, or bowers wherein they rest.

Somewhere the long mellow note of the blackbird
Quickens the unclasping hands of hazel,
Somewhere the wind-flowers fling their heads back,
Stirred by an impetuous wind. Some ways'll
All be sweet with white and blue violet.
(Hush now, hush. Where am I? - Biuret - )

On the green wood's edge a shy girl hovers
From out of the hazel-screen on to the grass,
Where wheeling and screaming the petulant plovers
Wave frighted. Who comes? A labourer, alas!
Oh the sunset swims in her eyes' swift pool.
(Work, work, you fool - !)

Somewhere the lamp hanging low from the ceiling
Lights the soft hair of a girl as she reads,
And the red firelight steadily wheeling
Weaves the hard hands of my friend in sleep.
And the white dog snuffs the warmth, appealing...

Mamua, when our laughter ends,
And hearts and bodies, brown as white,
Are dust about the doors of friends,
Or scent ablowing down the night,
Then, oh! then, the wise agree,
Comes our immortality.
Mamua, there waits a land
Hard for us to understand.
Out of time, beyond the sun,
All are one in Paradise,
You and Pupure are one,
And Tau, and the ungainly wise.
There the Eternals are, and there
The Good, the Lovely, and the True,
And Types, whose earthly copies were
The foolish broken things we knew;
There is the Face, whose ghosts we are;
The real, the never-setting Star;
And the Flower, of which we love
Faint and fading shadows here;
Never a tear, but only Grief;
Dance, but not the limbs that move;
Songs in Song shall disappear;

Three saints, for their salvation jealous,
Pursued, with hearts alike most zealous,
By routes diverse, their common aim.
All highways lead to Rome: the same
Of heaven our rivals deeming true,
Each chose alone his pathway to pursue.
Moved by the cares, delays, and crosses
Attach'd to suits by legal process,
One gave himself as judge, without reward,
For earthly fortune having small regard.
Since there are laws, to legal strife
Man damns himself for half his life.
For half? - Three-fourths! - perhaps the whole!
The hope possess'd our umpire's soul,
That on his plan he should be able
To cure this vice detestable. -
The second chose the hospitals.
I give him praise: to solace pain
Is charity not spent in vain,
While men in part are animals.
The...

Aw'm as rich as a Jew, tho aw havn't a meg,
But awm free as a burd, an aw shak a loise leg;
Aw've noa haase, an noa barns, soa aw nivver pay rent,
But still aw feel rich, for awm bless'd wi content,
Aw live, an awm jolly,
An if it is folly,
Let others be wise, but aw'l follow mi bent.

Mi kitchen aw find amang th' rocks up oth moor,
An at neet under th' edge ov a haystack aw snoor,
An a wide spreeadin branch keeps th' cold rain off mi nop,
Wol aw listen to th' stormcock at pipes up oth top;
Aw live, an awm jolly, &c.

Aw nivver fear thieves, for aw've nowt they can tak,
Unless it's thease tatters at hing o' mi back;
An if they prig them, they'll get suck'd do yo see,
They'll be noa use to them, for they're little to me.
Aw live, an awm jolly, &am...

Let me go where'er I will,
I hear a sky-born music still:
It sounds from all things old,
It sounds from all things young,
From all that's fair, from all that's foul,
Peals out a cheerful song.

It is not only in the rose,
It is not only in the bird,
Not only where the rainbow glows,
Nor in the song of woman heard,
But in the darkest, meanest things
There alway, alway something sings.

'T is not in the high stars alone,
Nor in the cup of budding flowers,
Nor in the redbreast's mellow tone,
Nor in the bow that smiles in showers,
But in the mud and scum of things
There alway, alway something sings.

Come, let's climb into our attic,
In our house that's old and gray!
Life, you're old and I'm rheumatic,
And it's close of day.

Lay aside your rags and tatters,
Shirt and shoes so soiled with clay!
They're no use now. Nothing matters
It is close of day.

Let's to bed. It's cold. No fire.
And no lamp to make a ray.
Where's our servant, young Desire?
Gone at close of day.

Oft she served us with fine glances,
Helped us out at work and play:
She is gone now; better chances;
And it's close of day.

Where is Hope, who flaunted scarlet?
Hope, who led us oft astray?
Has she proved herself a harlot
At the close of day?

What's become of Dream and Vision?
Friends we thought were here to stay?
Has life clapped the t...

Stretch towards the moonless midnight of the trees,
As though that hand could reach to where they stand,
And they but famous old upholsteries
Delightful to the touch; tighten that hand
As though to draw them closer yet.
Rammed full
Of that most sensuous silence of the night
(For since the horizon's bought strange dogs are still)
Climb to your chamber full of books and wait,
No books upon the knee, and no one there
But a Great Dane that cannot bay the moon
And now lies sunk in sleep.
What climbs the stair?
Nothing that common women ponder on
If you are worth my hope! Neither Content
Nor satisfied Conscience, but that great family
Some ancient famous authors misrepresent,
The proud Furies each with her torch on high.

Quella fenestra, ove l' un sol si vede.

RECOLLECTIONS OF LOVE.


    That window where my sun is often seen
Refulgent, and the world's at morning's hours;
And that, where Boreas blows, when winter lowers,
And the short days reveal a clouded scene;
That bench of stone where, with a pensive mien,
My Laura sits, forgetting beauty's powers;
Haunts where her shadow strikes the walls or flowers,
And her feet press the paths or herbage green:
The place where Love assail'd me with success;
And spring, the fatal time that, first observed,
Revives the keen remembrance every year;
With looks and words, that o'er me have preserved
A power no length of time can render less,
Call to my eyes the sadly-soothing tear.

PENN.


    Tha...

    If your thoughts were as clear as your eyes,
    And the whole of your heart were true,
    You were fitter by far for winning,
    But then that would not be you.

    If your pulse beat time to love
    As fast as you think and plan,
    You could kindle a lasting passion
    In the breast of the strongest man.

    If you felt as much as you thought,
    And dreamed what you seem to dream,
    A world of elysian beauty
    Your ruined heart would redeem.

    If you thought in the light of the sun,
    Or the blood in your veins flowed free,
    If you gave your kisses but gladly,
    We two could better agree.

    If you were strong where I counted,
    And weak where yourself were at stake,
    You would have my strength...