Heartbreak

O thou son of the dark locks and eloquent tongue,
With the brain of a statesman sagacious, and strong,
And the heart of a poet, half love, and half fire,
Thou hast many to love thee and more to admire;
But I bore thee, and nursed thee, and joyed at the fame
Which the sons of the stranger have spread round thy
I am Erin, green Erin, the "Gem of the sea."    [name.
Listen, then, to thy mother's voice, D'Arcy McGee.

Since the crown from my head, and the sceptre are gone
To the hand of the stranger, who held what he won,
I have borne much of sorrow, of wrong and of shame,
I've been spoken against with scorning and blame;
But still have my daughters been spotless and fair,
And my sons have been dauntless to do and to dare;
For as great as thou art and most precious to ...

Morpheus, the liuely sonne of deadly Sleepe,
Witnesse of life to them that liuing die,
A prophet oft, and oft an historie,
A poet eke, as humours fly or creepe;
Since thou in me so sure a pow'r dost keepe,
That neuer I with clos'd-vp sense do lie,
But by thy worke my Stella I descrie,
Teaching blind eyes both how to smile and weepe;
Vouchsafe, of all acquaintance, this to tell,
Whence hast thou ivory, rubies, pearl, and gold,
To shew her skin, lips, teeth, and head so well?
Foole! answers he; no Indes such treasures hold;
But from thy heart, while my sire charmeth thee,
Sweet Stellas image I do steal to mee.

We meet in joy, though we part in sorrow;
We part to-night, but we meet to-morrow.
Be it flood or blood the path that's trod,
All the same it leads home to God:
Be it furnace-fire voluminous,
One like God's Son will walk with us.

What are these that glow from afar,
These that lean over the golden bar,
Strong as the lion, pure as the dove,
With open arms and hearts of love?
They the blessed ones gone before,
They the blessed for evermore.
Out of great tribulation they went
Home to their home of Heaven-content;
Through flood, or blood, or furnace-fire,
To the rest that fulfils desire.

What are these that fly as a cloud,
With flashing heads and faces bowed,
In their mouths a victorious psalm,
In their hands a robe and palm?
Welcomi...

Exiled afar from youth and happy love,
If Death should ravish my fond spirit hence
I have no doubt but, like a homing dove,
It would return to its dear residence,
And through a thousand stars find out the road
Back into earthly flesh that was its loved abode.

There was a time when I thought much of Fame,
And laid the golden edifice to be
That in the clear light of eternity
Should fitly house the glory of my name.

But swifter than my fingers pushed their plan,
Over the fair foundation scarce begun,
While I with lovers dallied in the sun,
The ivy clambered and the rose-vine ran.

And now, too late to see my vision, rise,
In place of golden pinnacles and towers,
Only some sunny mounds of leaves and flowers,
Only beloved of birds and butterflies.

My friends were duped, my favorers deceived;
But sometimes, musing sorrowfully there,
That flowered wreck has seemed to me so fair
I scarce regret the temple unachieved.

Over the camp-fires
Drank I with heroes,
Under the Donau bank,
Warm in the snow trench:
Sagamen heard I there,
Men of the Longbeards,
Cunning and ancient,
Honey-sweet-voiced.
Scaring the wolf cub,
Scaring the horn-owl,
Shaking the snow-wreaths
Down from the pine-boughs,
Up to the star roof
Rang out their song.
Singing how Winil men,
Over the ice-floes
Sledging from Scanland
Came unto Scoring;
Singing of Gambara,
Freya's beloved,
Mother of Ayo,
Mother of Ibor.
Singing of Wendel men,
Ambri and Assi;
How to the Winilfolk
Went they with war-words, -
'Few are ye, strangers,
And many are we:
Pay us now toll and fee,
Cloth-yarn, and rings, and beeves:
Else at the raven's meal
Bide the sharp bi...

Flowers of France in the Spring,
Your growth is a beautiful thing;
But give us your fragrance and bloom -
Yea, give us your lives in truth,
Give us your sweetness and grace
To brighten the resting-place
Of the flower of manhood and youth,
Gone into the dust of the tomb.

This is the vast stupendous hour of Time,
When nothing counts but sacrifice and faith,
Service and self-forgetfulness.    Sublime
And awful are these moments charged with death
And red with slaughter.    Yet God's purpose thrives
In all this holocaust of human lives.

I say God's purpose thrives.    Just in the measure
That men have flung away their lust for gain,
Stopped in their mad pursuit of worldly pleasure,
And boldly faced unprecedented pain
And dangers, without thin...

(Southampton Docks: October, 1899)



While the far farewell music thins and fails,
And the broad bottoms rip the bearing brine -
All smalling slowly to the gray sea line -
And each significant red smoke-shaft pales,

Keen sense of severance everywhere prevails,
Which shapes the late long tramp of mounting men
To seeming words that ask and ask again:
"How long, O striving Teutons, Slavs, and Gaels

Must your wroth reasonings trade on lives like these,
That are as puppets in a playing hand? -
When shall the saner softer polities
Whereof we dream, have play in each proud land,
And patriotism, grown Godlike, scorn to stand
Bondslave to realms, but circle earth and seas?"

    The day is thine, the night also is thine; thou hast prepared the light and the sun.

    Thou hast set all the borders of the earth; thou hast made summer and winter.

PSALM lxxiv. 16, 17.

My God! all nature owns thy sway,
Thou giv'st the night, and thou the day!
When all thy lov'd creation wakes,
When morning, rich in lustre breaks,
And bathes in dew the op'ning flower,
To thee we owe her fragrant hour;
And when she pours her choral song,
Her melodies to thee belong!

Or when, in paler tints array'd,
The evening slowly spreads her shade;
That soothing shade, that grateful gloom,
Can more than day's enliv'ning bloom
Still every fond, and vain desire,
And calmer, purer, thoughts inspire;
From earth the pensive spirit...

The day was o'er, and in their tent the weaned victors met,
In wine and social gaiety the carnage to forget.
The merry laugh and sparkling jest, the pleasant tale were there -
Each heart was free and gladsome then, each brow devoid of care.

Yet one was absent from the board who ever was the first
In every joyous, festive scene, in every mirthful burst;
He also was the first to dare each perilous command,
To rush on danger - yet was he the youngest of the band.

Upon the battle-field he lay a damp and fearful grave;
His right hand grasped the cherished flag - the flag he died to save;
While the cold stars shone calmly down on heaps of fallen dead,
And their pale light a halo cast round that fair sleeper's head.

Say, was there none o'er that young chief to shed one...

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.

The golden harvest-tide is here, the corn
Bows its proud tops beneath the reaper's hand.
Ripe orchards' plenteous yields enrich the land;
Bring the first fruits and offer them this morn,
With the stored sweetness of all summer hours,
The amber honey sucked from myriad flowers,
And sacrifice your best first fruits to-day,
With fainting hearts and hands forespent with toil,
Offer the mellow harvest's splendid spoil,
To Him who gives and Him who takes away.


Bring timbrels, bring the harp of sweet accord,
And in a pleasant psalm your voice attune,
And blow the cornet greeting the new moon.
Sing, holy, holy, holy, is the Lord,
Who killeth and who quickeneth again,
Who woundeth and who healeth mortal pain,
Whose hand afflicts us, and who sends us peace.<...

“Vides igitur, Collega carissime, visitationem canonicam esse rem haud ita periculosam, sed valde amoenam, si modo vinum, groggio et cibi praesto sunt.”
- Novissimae Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum, Berolini F. Berggold, 1869. Epistola xxiii., p. 63.



D’vas near de state of Nashfille,
In de town of Tennessee,
Der Breitmann vonce vas quarderd
Mit all his cavallrie.
Der Sheneral kept him glose in gamp,
He vouldn’t let dem go;
Dey couldn’t shdeal de first plack hen,
Or make de red cock crow.

Und virst der Breitmann vildly shmiled,
Und denn he madly shvore;
“Crate h—l, mit shpoons und shinsherbread,
Can dis pe makin war?
Verdammt pe all der discipline!
Verdammt der Shenerál!
Vere I vonce on de road, his will,
Vere wurst mir und egâl.
...

From dewy dreams, my soul, arise,
From love’s deep slumber and from death,
For lo! the treees are full of sighs
Whose leaves the morn admonisheth.

Eastward the gradual dawn prevails
Where softly-burning fires appear,
Making to tremble all those veils
Of grey and golden gossamer.

While sweetly, gently, secretly,
The flowery bells of morn are stirred
And the wise choirs of faery
Begin (innumerous!) to be heard.

    Far, far away, over land and sea,
When Winter comes with his cold, cold breath,
And chills the flowers to the sleep of death,
    Far, far away over land and sea,
Like a band of spirits the Passage-birds flee.

Round the old grey spire in the evening calm,
    No more they circle in sportive glee,
Hearing the hum of the vesper psalm,
And the swell of the organ so far below;
    But far, far away, over land and sea,
In the still mid-air the swift Passage-birds go.

    Over the earth that is scarcely seen
    Through the curtain of vapour that waves between,
O'er city and hamlet, o'er hill and plain,
    O'er forest green, and o'er mountain hoar,
    They flit like shadows, and pass the shore,
And wing their way o'er the pathless main.

...

Thee, whose refulgent staff and summons clear,
Minerva's flock longtime was wont t'obey,
Although thyself an herald, famous here,
The last of heralds, Death, has snatch'd away.
He calls on all alike, nor even deigns
To spare the office that himself sustains.

Thy locks were whiter than the plumes display'd
By Leda's paramour2 in ancient time,
But thou wast worthy ne'er to have decay'd,
Or, Aeson-like,3 to know a second prime,
Worthy for whom some Goddess should have won
New life, oft kneeling to Apollo's son.4

Commission'd to convene with hasty call
The gowned tribes, how graceful wouldst thou stand!
So stood Cyllenius5 erst in Priam's hall,
Wing-footed messenger of Jove's command,
And so, Eurybates6<...

Do the dancing leaves of summer
    To the time of buds look back? -
Does the river moan regretful
    For the brooklet's mountain-track?
Does the ripened sheaf of summer,
    Heavy with precious grain,
Ask for its hour of blossom,
    And the breath of Spring again?

Does the golden goblet, brimming
    With the precious, ruby wine,
Look back with weary longing
    To the damp and dusky mine?
Is the sparkling coin, that beareth
    A monarch's image, fain
To seek the glowing furnace,
    Where they purged its dross again?

Would the chiselled marble gather
    Its rubbish back once more.
And lie down, undistinguished,
    In the rough rock as before?
Does the costly diamond, blazing
    On that crowned and queenly one,
...

Hier, l'Amour touche du son
Que rendoit ma lire qu'il aime,
Me promit pour une chanson,
Deux baisers de sa mere mesme.

Non, luy dis-je, tu scals mes voeux,
Tu connois quel penchant m'entraine,
Au lieu d'un j'en offre deux,
Pour un seul baiser de Climene.

Il me promit ce deux retour,
Ma lire en eut plus de tendresse;
Mais vous, Climene, de l'amour
Aquiterez-vous la promesse?
Protogenes And Apelles
by Matthew Prior

When poets wrote and painters drew
As Nature pointed out the view,
Ere Gothic forms were known in Greece
To spoil the well-proportion'd piece;
And in our verse ere Monkish rhymes
Had jangled their fantastic chimes;
Ere on the flowery lands of Rhodes
Those knights had fix'd their dull abodes,
Who knew not...