Heartbreak

Ill fares the heart, when hope has fled;
    When vanishes each prospect fair,
When the last flickering ray has sped,
    And naught remains but mute despair;
When inky blackness doth enshroud
    The hopes the heart once held in store,
As some tall pine, by great winds bowed,
    Doth snap, and when the tempest's o'er,
Its noble form, magnificent and proud,
    Doth prostrate lie, nor ever riseth more;
    Thus breaks the heart, which sees no hope before.

Ill fares the heart, when hope has fled;
    That heart is as some ruin old,
With ancient arch and wall, o'erspread
    With moss, and desolating mold;
Whose banquet halls, where once the sound
    Of revelry rang unconfined,
Now, with the hoot of owls resound,
    Or echo back the mournful w...

Is any one sad in the world, I wonder?
    Does any one weep on a day like this,
With the sun above, and the green earth under?
    Why, what is life but a dream of bliss?

With the sun, and the skies, and the birds above me,
    Birds that sing as they wheel and fly -
With the winds to follow and say they love me -
    Who could be lonely? O ho, not I!

Somebody said, in the street this morning,
    As I opened my window to let in the light,
That the darkest day of the world was dawning;
    But I looked, and the East was a gorgeous sight.

One who claims that he knows about it
    Tells me the Earth is a vale of sin;
But I and the bees and the birds - we doubt it,
    And think it a world worth living in.

Some one says that hearts are fi...

The sun now sinks behind the woodland green,
And twittering spangles glow the leaves between;
So bright and dazzling on the eye it plays
As if noon's heat had kindled to a blaze,
But soon it dims in red and heavier hues,
And shows wild fancy cheated in her views.
A mist-like moisture rises from the ground,
And deeper blueness stains the distant round.
The eye each moment, as it gazes o'er,
Still loses objects which it mark'd before;
The woods at distance changing like to clouds,
And spire-points croodling under evening's shrouds;
Till forms of things, and hues of leaf and flower,
In deeper shadows, as by magic power,
With light and all, in scarce-perceiv'd decay,
Put on mild evening's sober garb of grey.

Now in the sleepy gloom that blackens round
D...

After the Hazara War

I lie alone beneath the Almond blossoms,
    Where we two lay together in the spring,
And now, as then, the mountain snows are melting,
    This year, as last, the water-courses sing.

That was another spring, and other flowers,
    Hung, pink and fragile, on the leafless tree,
The land rejoiced in other running water,
    And I rejoiced, because you were with me.

You, with your soft eyes, darkly lashed and shaded,
    Your red lips like a living, laughing rose,
Your restless, amber limbs so lithe and slender
    Now lost to me.    Gone whither no man knows.

You lay beside me singing in the sunshine;
    The rough, white fur, unloosened at the neck,
Showed the smooth skin, fair as the Almond blossoms,
    On which th...

No more: the end is sudden and abrupt,
Abrupt, as without preconceived design
Was the beginning; yet the several Lays
Have moved in order, to each other bound
By a continuous and acknowledged tie
Though unapparent, like those Shapes distinct
That yet survive ensculptured on the walls
Of palaces, or temples, 'mid the wreck
Of famed Persepolis; each following each,
As might beseem a stately embassy,
In set array; these bearing in their hands
Ensign of civil power, weapon of war,
Or gift to be presented at the throne
Of the Great King; and others, as they go
In priestly vest, with holy offerings charged,
Or leading victims drest for sacrifice.
Nor will the Power we serve, that sacred Power,
The Spirit of humanity, disdain
A ministration humble but since...

No more: the end is sudden and abrupt,
Abrupt, as without preconceived design
Was the beginning; yet the several Lays
Have moved in order, to each other bound
By a continuous and acknowledged tie
Though unapparent, like those Shapes distinct
That yet survive ensculptured on the walls
Of palaces, or temples, 'mid the wreck
Of famed Persepolis; each following each,
As might beseem a stately embassy,
In set array; these bearing in their hands
Ensign of civil power, weapon of war,
Or gift to be presented at the throne
Of the Great King; and others, as they go
In priestly vest, with holy offerings charged,
Or leading victims drest for sacrifice.
Nor will the Power we serve, that sacred Power,
The Spirit of humanity, disdain
A ministration humble but since...

        I think that the bitterest sorrow or pain
    Of love unrequited, or cold death's woe,
    Is sweet compared to that hour when we know
        That some grand passion is on the wane;

        When we see that the glory and glow and grace
    Which lent a splendor to night and day
    Are surely fading, and showing the gray
        And dull groundwork of the commonplace;

        When fond expressions on dull ears fall,
    When the hands clasp calmly without one thrill,
    When we cannot muster by force of will
        The old emotions that came at call;

        When the dream has vanished we fain would keep,
    When the heart, like a watch, runs out of gear,
    And all the savor goes out of the year,
        Oh, then is the time - if we ...

I ne'er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet.
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete.
My face turned pale as deadly pale,
My legs refused to walk away,
And when she looked "what could I ail?"
My life and all seemed turned to clay.

And then my blood rushed to my face
And took my sight away.
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noonday.
I could not see a single thing,
Words from my eyes did start;
They spoke as chords do from the string
And blood burnt round my heart.

Are flowers the winter's choice?
Is love's bed always snow?
She seemed to hear my silent voice
And love's appeal to know.
I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before:
My hea...

Now is past--the happy now
When we together roved
Beneath the wildwood's oak-tree bough
And Nature said we loved.
Winter's blast
The now since then has crept between,
And left us both apart.
Winters that withered all the green
Have froze the beating heart.
Now is past.

Now is past since last we met
Beneath the hazel bough;
Before the evening sun was set
Her shadow stretched below.
Autumn's blast
Has stained and blighted every bough;
Wild strawberries like her lips
Have left the mosses green below,
Her bloom's upon the hips.
Now is past.

Now is past, is changed agen,
The woods and fields are painted new.
Wild strawberries which both gathered then,
None know now where they grew.
The skys oercast.
Wood stra...

My heart to-day is like a southern wood,
    Through summer months it has been drunk with heat;
    And slumbered on unmindful of the beat
Of life beyond it: sleep alone seemed good.

Now milder Autumn's tints are in the sky;
    The fervid heats of summer noons depart;
    And backward to the old haunts in my heart
The golden robins and the blue birds fly.

I hear the flutter of their airy wings,
    They flock about the Spring's deserted nest,
    And suddenly I feel within my breast
The stirring of sweet half-forgotten things.

Bright sunny mornings -golden growing hours -
    The building of glad birds among the trees;
    Wide open windows and the kindly breeze
Bringing the perfume of half-open flowers.

A blithe face at the window fai...

Fold now thine arms and hang the head,
Like to a lily withered;
Next look thou like a sickly moon,
Or like Jocasta in a swoon;
Then weep and sigh and softly go,
Like to a widow drown'd in woe,
Or like a virgin full of ruth
For the lost sweetheart of her youth;
And all because, fair maid, thou art
Insensible of all my smart,
And of those evil days that be
Now posting on to punish thee.
The gods are easy, and condemn
All such as are not soft like them.

As I lay awake at night-time
In an ancient country barrack known to ancient cannoneers,
And recalled the hopes that heralded each seeming brave and bright time
Of my primal purple years,

Much it haunted me that, nigh there,
I had borne my bitterest loss - when One who went, came not again;
In a joyless hour of discord, in a joyless-hued July there -
A July just such as then.

And as thus I brooded longer,
With my faint eyes on the feeble square of wan-lit window frame,
A quick conviction sprung within me, grew, and grew yet stronger,
That the month-night was the same,

Too, as that which saw her leave me
On the rugged ridge of Waterstone, the peewits plaining round;
And a lapsing twenty years had ruled that - as it were to grieve me -
I should near ...

Softly the feathery Palm-trees fade in the violet Distance,
Faintly the lingering light touches the edge of the sea,
Sadly the Music of Waves, drifts, faint as an Anthem's insistence,
Heard in the aisles of a dream, over the sandhills, to me.

Now that the Lights are reversed, and the Singing changed into sighing,
Now that the wings of our fierce, fugitive passion are furled,
Take I unto myself, all alone in the light that is dying,
Much of the sorrow that lies hid at the Heart of the World.

Sad am I, sad for your loss: for failing the charm of your presence,
Even the sunshine has paled, leaving the Zenith less blue.
Even the ocean lessens the light of its green opalescence,
Since, to my sorrow I loved, loved and grew weary of, you.

Why was our passion so fleetin...

I
FATHER AND CHILD
She hears me strike the board and say
That she is under ban
Of all good men and women,
Being mentioned with a man
That has the worst of all bad names;
And thereupon replies
That his hair is beautiful,
Cold as the March wind his eyes.

II
BEFORE THE WORLD WAS MADE

IF I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity's displayed:
I'm looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.
What if I look upon a man
As though on my beloved,
And my blood be cold the while
And my heart unmoved?
Why should he think me cruel
Or that he is betrayed?
I'd have him love the thing that was
Before the world wa...

I cannot look upon thy grave,
    Though there the rose is sweet:
Better to hear the long wave wash
    These wastes about my feet!

Shall I take comfort? Dost thou live
    A spirit, though afar,
With a deep hush about thee, like
    The stillness round a star?

Oh, thou art cold! In that high sphere
    Thou art a thing apart,
Losing in saner happiness
    This madness of the heart.

And yet, at times, thou still shalt feel
    A passing breath, a pain;
Disturb'd, as though a door in heaven
    Had oped and closed again.

And thou shalt shiver, while the hymns,
    The solemn hymns, shall cease;
A moment half remember me:
    Then turn away to peace.

But oh, for evermore thy look,
    Thy laugh, thy charm, t...

Annie - Oh! what a weary while
It seems since that sad day;
When whispering a fond "good bye,"
I tore myself away.
And yet, 'tis only two short years;
How has it seemed to thee?
To me, those lonesome years appear
Like an eternity.

We loved, - Ah, me! how much we loved;
How happy passed the day
When pouring forth enraptured vows,
The charmed hours passed away.
In every leaf we beauty saw, -
In every song and sound,
Some sweet entrancing melody,
To soothe our hearts we found.

And now it haunts me as a dream, -
A thing that could not be! -
That one so pure and beautiful
Could ever care for me.
But I still have the nut-brown curl,
Which tells me it is true;
And in my fancy I can see
The brow where once it grew.
<...

No protesting, dearest!
Hardly kisses even!
Don’t we both know how it ends?
How the greenest leaf turns serest,
Bluest outbreak, blankest heaven,
Lovers, friends?

You would build a mansion,
I would weave a bower
Want the heart for enterprise.
Walls admit of no expansion:
Trellis-work may haply flower
Twice the size.

What makes glad Life’s Winter?
New buds, old blooms after.
Sad the sighing “How suspect
Reams would ere mid-Autumn splinter,
Rooftree scarce support a rafter,
Walls lie wrecked?”

You are young, my princess!
I am hardly older:
Yet, I steal a glance behind!
Dare I tell you what convinces
Timid me that you, if bolder,
Bold, are blind?

Where we plan our dwelling
Glooms a graveyard sur...

When my arms wrap you round I press
My heart upon the loveliness
That has long faded from the world;
The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled
In shadowy pools, when armies fled;
The love-tales wove with silken thread
By dreaming ladies upon cloth
That has made fat the murderous moth;
The roses that of old time were
Woven by ladies in their hair,
The dew-cold lilies ladies bore
Through many a sacred corridor
Where such gray clouds of incense rose
That only the gods’ eyes did not close:
For that pale breast and lingering hand
Come from a more dream-heavy land,
A more dream-heavy hour than this;
And when you sigh from kiss to kiss
I hear white Beauty sighing, too,
For hours when all must fade like dew
But flame on flame, deep under deep,