Happiness

    J. Thomas Gordon left home one day,
    Left home for good and all -
    A boy has a right to have his own way
    When he's nearly six foot tall;
    At least, this is what J. Thomas thought,
    And in his own young eyes
    There were very few people quite so good,
    And fewer still quite so wise.

    What! tie as clever a lad as he
    Down to commonplace toil?
    Make J. Thomas Gordon a farmer lad,
    A simple son of the soil?
    Not if he knew it - 'twould be a sin;
    He wished to rise and soar.
    For men like himself who would do and dare
    Dame Fortune had much in store.

    The world was in need of brains and brawn,
    J. Thomas said modestly,
    The clever young man was in great demand -
    They would see ...

Spurge and sea-pink, hyssop blue,
Dragonhead of purple hue;
Catnip, frosted green and gray,
With blue butterflies a-sway,
These may point you out the way.

These and Summer's acolytes,
Crickets, singing days and nights,
Tell you the old road again;
And adown the tangled lane
Lead you to her window-pane.

Goldenrod and goldenglow
Crowd the gate in which you go;
To your arm they cling and catch,
Kiss the hand that lifts the latch,
Guide you to her garden-patch.

O'er the fence the hollyhock
Leans to greet you; and the stock
Looks as if it thought, "I knew
You were coming. Gave the cue
To the place to welcome you."

And the crumpled marigold
And the dahlia, big and bold,
With Sweet Williams, white and red,
No...

There was a glorious time
At an epoch of my prime;
Mornings beryl-bespread,
And evenings golden-red;
Nothing gray:
And in my heart I said,
"However this chanced to be,
It is too full for me,
Too rare, too rapturous, rash,
Its spell must close with a crash
Some day!"

The radiance went on
Anon and yet anon,
And sweetness fell around
Like manna on the ground.
"I've no claim,"
Said I, "to be thus crowned:
I am not worthy this:-
Must it not go amiss? -
Well . . . let the end foreseen
Come duly! - I am serene."
- And it came.

Wanderer! that stoop'st so low, and com'st so near
To human life's unsettled atmosphere;
Who lov'st with Night and Silence to partake,
So might it seem, the cares of them that wake;
And, through the cottage-lattice softly peeping,
Dost shield from harm the humblest of the sleeping;
What pleasure once encompassed those sweet names
Which yet in thy behalf the Poet claims,
An idolizing dreamer as of yore!
I slight them all; and, on this sea-beat shore
Sole-sitting, only can to thoughts attend
That bid me hail thee as the Sailor's friend;
So call thee for heaven's grace through thee made known
By confidence supplied and mercy shown,
When not a twinkling star or beacon's light
Abates the perils of a stormy night;
And for less obvious benefits, that find
Their ...

And should she die, her grave should be
Upon the bare top of a sunny hill,
Among the moorlands of her own fair land,
Amid a ring of old and moss-grown stones
In gorse and heather all embosomed.
There should be no tall stone, no marble tomb
Above her gentle corse;--the ponderous pile
Would press too rudely on those fairy limbs.
The turf should lightly he, that marked her home.
A sacred spot it would be--every bird
That came to watch her lone grave should be holy.
The deer should browse around her undisturbed;
The whin bird by, her lonely nest should build
All fearless; for in life she loved to see
Happiness in all things--
And we would come on summer days
When all around was bright, and set us down
And think of all that lay beneath that turf
On which ...

    To-morrow I shall see you come again
        Between the pale trees, through the sullen gate,
    Out of the dark and secret house of pain
        Where lie the unhappy and unfortunate.
    To-morrow you will live with me and love me,
        Spring will go on again, I'll see the flowers
    And little things, ridiculous things, shall move me
        To smiles or tears or verse.    The world is ours
    To-morrow.    Open heaths, tall trees, great skies,
        With massive clouds that fly and come again,
    Sweet fields, delicious rivers and the rise
        And fall of swelling land from the swift train
    We'll see together, knowing that all this
    Is one great room wherein we two may kiss.

Young again!    Young again!
Beating heart!    I deemed that sorrow,
With its torture-rack of pain,
Had eclipsed each bright to-morrow;
And that Love could never rise
Into life's cerulean skies,
Singing the divine refrain -
    "Young again!    Young again!"

Young again!    Young again!
Passion dies as we grow older;
Love that in repose has lain,
Takes a higher flight, and bolder:
Fresh from rest and dewy sleep,
Like the skylark's matin sweep,
Singing the divine refrain -
    "Young again!    Young again!"

Young again!    Young again!
Book of Youth, thy sunny pages
Here and there a tear may stain,
But 'tis Love that makes us sages.
Love, Hope, Youth - blest trinity!
Wanting these, and what were we?
Who would chant the ...

I.

Fallen with autumn's falling leaf
Ere yet his summer's noon was past,
Our friend, our guide, our trusted chief, -
What words can match a woe so vast!

And whose the chartered claim to speak
The sacred grief where all have part,
Where sorrow saddens every cheek
And broods in every aching heart?

Yet Nature prompts the burning phrase
That thrills the hushed and shrouded hall,
The loud lament, the sorrowing praise,
The silent tear that love lets fall.

In loftiest verse, in lowliest rhyme,
Shall strive unblamed the minstrel choir, - -
The singers of the new-born time,
And trembling age with outworn lyre.

No room for pride, no place for blame, -
We fling our blossoms on the grave,
Pale, - scentless, - faded, - all we cl...

The spring may come in her pomp and splendor,
And Summer follow with rain and rose,
Or Fall lead in that old offender,
Winter, close-huddled up in snows:
Ever a-South the Love-wind blows
Into the heart, like a vane a-sway
From face to face of the girls it knows
But which is the fairest it 's hard to say.

If Lydia smile or Maud look tender,
Straight in your bosom the gladness glows;
But scarce at her side are you all surrender,
When Gertrude sings where the garden grows:
And your heart is a-bloom mid the blossoming rows,
For her hand to gather and toss away,
Or wear on her breast, as her fancy goes,
But which is the fairest it 's hard to say.

Let Helen pass, as a sapling slender,
Her cheek a berry, her mouth a rose,
Or Blanche or Laura to ...

Good Kosciusko, thy great name alone
Is a full harvest whence to reap high feeling;
It comes upon us like the glorious pealing
Of the wide spheres, an everlasting tone.
And now it tells me, that in worlds unknown,
The names of heroes, burst from clouds concealing,
And changed to harmonies, for ever stealing
Through cloudless blue, and round each silver throne.
It tells me too, that on a happy day,
When some good spirit walks upon the earth,
Thy name with Alfred's, and the great of yore
Gently commingling, gives tremendous birth
To a loud hymn, that sounds far, far away
To where the great God lives for evermore.

    "O last days of the year!" she whispered low,
    "You fly too swiftly past. Ah, you might stay
    A while, a little while. Do you not know
    What tender things you bear with you away?

    "I'm thinking, sitting in the soft gloom here,
    Of all the riches that were mine the day
    There crept down on the world the soft New Year,
    A rosy thing with promise filled, and gay.

    "But twelve short months ago! a little space
    In which to lose so much - a whole life's wealth
    Of love and faith, youth and youth's tender grace -
    Things that are wont to go from us by stealth.

    "Laughter and blushes, and the rapture strong,
    The clasp of clinging hands, the ling'ring kiss,
    The joy of living, and the glorious song
    That dr...

nulla tuum nobis subducet femina lectum, etc., Lib. iv. Carm. 13.


"Never shall woman's smile have power
    "To win me from those gentle charms!"--
Thus swore I, in that happy hour,
    When Love first gave thee to my arms.

And still alone thou charm'st my sight--
    Still, tho' our city proudly shine
With forms and faces, fair and bright,
    I see none fair or bright but thine.

Would thou wert fair for only me,
    And couldst no heart but mine allure!--
To all men else unpleasing be,
    So shall I feel my prize secure.

Oh, love like mine ne'er wants the zest
    Of others' envy, others' praise;
But, in its silence safely blest,
    Broods o'er a bliss it ne'er betrays.

Charm of my life! by whose sweet power<...

We rovers bold,
To the land of Gold,
Over the bowling billows are gliding:
Eager to toil,
For the golden spoil,
And every hardship biding.
See! See!
Before our prows' resistless dashes
The gold-fish fly in golden flashes!
'Neath a sun of gold,
We rovers bold,
On the golden land are gaining;
And every night,
We steer aright,
By golden stars unwaning!
All fires burn a golden glare:
No locks so bright as golden hair!
All orange groves have golden gushings;
All mornings dawn with golden flushings!
In a shower of gold, say fables old,
A maiden was won by the god of gold!
In golden goblets wine is beaming:
On golden couches kings are dreaming!
The Golden Rule dries many tears!
The Golden Number rules the spheres!
Gold, go...

These are the tales those merry guests
Told to each other, well or ill;
Like summer birds that lift their crests
Above the borders of their nests
And twitter, and again are still.

These are the tales, or new or old,
In idle moments idly told;
Flowers of the field with petals thin,
Lilies that neither toil nor spin,
And tufts of wayside weeds and gorse
Hung in the parlor of the inn
Beneath the sign of the Red Horse.


And still, reluctant to retire,
The friends sat talking by the fire
And watched the smouldering embers burn
To ashes, and flash up again
Into a momentary glow,
Lingering like them when forced to go,
And going when they would remain;
For on the morrow they must turn
Their faces homeward, and the pain
Of part...

Wild-eyed woodlands, here I rest me, underneath the gaunt and ghastly trees;
Underneath fantastic-fronted caverns crammed with many a muffled breeze.
Far away from dusky towns and cities twinkling with the feet of men;
Listening to a sound of mellow music fleeting down the gusty glen;
Sitting by a rapid torrent, with the broken sunset in my face;
By a rapid, roaring torrent, tumbling through a dark and lonely place!
And I hear the bells beyond the forest, and the voice of distant streams;
And a flood of swelling singing, wafting round a world of ruined dreams.

Like to one who watches daylight dying from a lofty mountain spire,
When the autumn splendour scatters like a gust of faintly-gleaming fire;
So the silent spirit looketh through a mist of faded smiles and tears,
While acro...

Scouting the sun
thin clouds threadbare vests
barely to cover the horizon.
the heat or the day, canine,
a hot tongue's intensily
splashing yr face.

The docks are quiet,
prawn trawlers unloading gear
gar fish at the surface of the water
echoing little fins like
tiny waves green
into the shallows.

Bubbles anchor the lagoon    -
changing rivulets into sand
stone walls numbered in shards of glass
trade universal currency
but, beware, the proprietor
cobblestones up to his door,
a candle in the window-stoop,
a creeking gate opened as an afterthought.

Come the picaroon.
Spanish adventurer
lesser known rogue, thief
a smile like piano keys
huevos sent back.

I've seen the parfumerie
the snake pit,...

In youth I dreamed, as other youths have dreamt,
    Of love, and thrummed an amateur guitar
To verses of my own,--a stout attempt
    To hold communion with the Evening Star
I wrote a sonnet, rhymed it, made it scan.
Ah me! how trippingly those last lines ran.--

O Hesperus!    O happy star! to bend
    O'er Helen's bosom in the tranced west,
To match the hours heave by upon her breast,
    And at her parted lip for dreams attend--
If dawn defraud thee, how shall I be deemed,
Who house within that bosom, and am dreamed?

For weeks I thought these lines remarkable;
    For weeks I put on airs and called myself
A bard: till on a day, as it befell,
    I took a small green Moxon from the shelf
At random, opened at a casual place,
And found ...

Tobacco smoke drifts up to the dim ceiling
From half a dozen pipes and cigarettes,
Curling in endless shapes, in blue rings wheeling,
As formless as our talk. Phil, drawling, bets
Cornell will win the relay in a walk,
While Bob and Mac discuss the Giants' chances;
Deep in a morris-chair, Bill scowls at "Falk",
John gives large views about the last few dances.

And so it goes -- an idle speech and aimless,
A few chance phrases; yet I see behind
The empty words the gleam of a beauty tameless,
Friendship and peace and fire to strike men blind,
Till the whole world seems small and bright to hold --
Of all our youth this hour is pure gold.