Heartbreak

(To Ellen Terry)

As one who poring on a Grecian urn
Scans the fair shapes some Attic hand hath made,
God with slim goddess, goodly man with maid,
And for their beauty's sake is loth to turn
And face the obvious day, must I not yearn
For many a secret moon of indolent bliss,
When in midmost shrine of Artemis
I see thee standing, antique-limbed, and stern?

And yet methinks I'd rather see thee play
That serpent of old Nile, whose witchery
Made Emperors drunken, come, great Egypt, shake
Our stage with all thy mimic pageants! Nay,
I am grown sick of unreal passions, make
The world thine Actium, me thine Anthony!

They stood like men that hear immortal speech
Moving among their branches, and like trees
We stood and watched them, and in our still branches
Echoes of that immortal music stirred.
October days had touched their breasts with light,
With yellow light and red light and wan green;
And the gray cloud that grew from low to high
Made the warm light more warm, the green more wan.
We stood and watched them and in our still branches
We felt the warm light glow, though now the rain
Was loud upon the leaves.
And standing there
You cried, "O, that sweet smell, where is the fire?
Where is the fire?" For sharp upon the rain
The smell came of a wood fire and clung round
Hanging upon our branches, till we saw
No more those lighted trees nor heard the rain--
Knew only th...

Hurrah! the Season's past at last;
At length we've "done" our pleasure.
Dear "Pater," if you only knew
How much I've longed for home and you,--
Our own green lawn and leisure!

And then the pets! One half forgets
The dear dumb friends--in Babel.
I hope my special fish is fed;--
I long to see poor Nigra's head
Pushed at me from the stable!

I long to see the cob and "Rob,"--
Old Bevis and the Collie;
And won't we read in "Traveller's Rest"!
Home readings after all are best;--
None else seem half so "jolly!"

One misses your dear kindly store
Of fancies quaint and funny;
One misses, too, your kind bon-mot;--
The Mayfair wit I mostly know
Has more of gall than honey!

How tired one grows of "calls and balls!"
This "tou...

Why fades a dream?
An iridescent ray
Flecked in between the tryst
Of night and day.
Why fades a dream?--
Of consciousness the shade
Wrought out by lack of light and made
Upon life's stream.
Why fades a dream?

That thought may thrive,
So fades the fleshless dream;
Lest men should learn to trust
The things that seem.
So fades a dream,
That living thought may grow
And like a waxing star-beam glow
Upon life's stream--
So fades a dream.

Lord, I have laid my heart upon thy altar
    But cannot get the wood to burn;
It hardly flares ere it begins to falter
    And to the dark return.

Old sap, or night-fallen dew, makes damp the fuel;
    In vain my breath would flame provoke;
Yet see--at every poor attempt's renewal
    To thee ascends the smoke!

'Tis all I have--smoke, failure, foiled endeavour,
    Coldness and doubt and palsied lack:
Such as I have I send thee!--perfect Giver,
    Send thou thy lightning back.

The town of Pleurs, situated among the Alps and containing about two thousand five hundred inhabitants, was overwhelmed in 1618 by the falling of Mount Conto. The avalanche occurred in the night, and no trace of the village or any of its inhabitants could ever after be discovered.


'T was eve; and Mount Conto
Reflected in night
The sunbeams that fled
With the monarch of light;
As great souls and noble
Reflect evermore
The sunshine that gleams
From Eternity's shore.

A slight crimson veil
Robed the snow-wreath on high,
The shadow an angel
In passing threw by;
And city and valley,
In mantle of gray,
Seemed bowed like a mourner
In silence to pray.

And the sweet vesper bell,
With a clear, measured chime,
Like the falling of min...

Believe me, Edwards, to restrain
The license of a railer's tongue
Is what but seldom men obtain
By sense or wit, by prose or song:
A task for more Herculean powers,
Nor suited to the sacred hours
Of leisure in the Muse's bowers.
In bowers where laurel weds with palm,
The Muse, the blameless queen, resides:
Fair fame attends, and wisdom calm
Her eloquence harmonious guides:
While, shut for ever from her gate,
Oft trying, still repining, wait
Fierce envy and calumnious hate.

Who then from her delightful bounds
Would step one moment forth to heed
What impotent and savage sounds
From their unhappy mouths proceed?
No: rather Spenser's lyre again
Prepare, and let thy pious strain
For Pope's dishonor'd shade complain.
Tell how displeas'...

The Eternal Female groand! it was heard over all the Earth:
Albions coast is sick silent; the American meadows faint!
Shadows of Prophecy shiver along by the lakes and the rivers and mutter across the ocean! France rend down thy dungeon;
Golden Spain burst the barriers of old Rome;
Cast thy keys O Rome into the deep down falling, even to eternity down falling,
And weep!
In her trembling hands she took the new, born terror howling;
On those infinite mountains of light now barr'd out by the atlantic sea, the new born fire stood before the starry king!
Flag'd with grey brow'd snows and thunderous visages the jealous wings wav'd over the deep.
The speary hand burned aloft, unbuckled was the shield, forth went the hand of jealousy among the flaming hair, and
[PL 26]hurl'd the new born wonder th...

Tune - "Green grow the rashes."


Chorus.

    Green grow the rashes, O!
        Green grow the rashes, O!
    The sweetest hours that e'er I spend
        Are spent amang the lasses, O.

I.

    There's nought but care on ev'ry han',
        In every hour that passes, O:
    What signifies the life o' man,
        An' 'twere na for the lasses, O.

II.

    The warly race may riches chase,
        An' riches still may fly them, O;
    An' tho' at last they catch them fast,
        Their hearts can ne'er enjoy them, O.

III.

    But gie me a canny hour at e'en,
        My arms about my dearie, O;
    An' warly cares, an' warly men,
        May a' gae tapsalteerie, O.

IV.

And when Goll knew Finn to be watching for his life he made no attempt to escape but stopped where he was, without food, without drink, and he blinded with the sand that was blowing into his eyes.

And his wife came to a rock where she could speak with him, and she called to him to come to her. "Come over to me," she said; "and it is a pity you to be blinded where you are, on the rocks of the waste sea, with no drink but the salt water, a man that was first in every fight. And come now to be sleeping beside me," she said; "and in place of the hard sea-water I will nourish you from my own breast, and it is I will do your healing," she said; "for it is seven years since you wedded with me, and from that night to this night I never got a hard word from you. And the gold of your hair is my desire for ever," she said, "and do not sto...

I never shall forget thee - 'tis a word
    Thou oft must hear, for surely there be none
    On whom thy wond'rous eyes have ever shone
But for a moment, or who e'er have heard
Thy voice's deep impassioned melody,
    Can lose the memory of that look or tone.
But, not as these, do I say unto thee,
    I never shall forget thee: - in thine eyes,
Whose light, like sunshine, makes the world rejoice,
    A stream of sad and solemn splendour lies;
And there is sorrow in thy gentle voice.
Thou art not like the scenes in which I found thee,
Thou art not like the beings that surround thee;
    To me, thou art a dream of hope and fear;
Yet why of fear? - oh sure! the Power that lent
Such gifts, to make thee fair, and excellent;
Still watches one whom it has deigned to ...

MADAM,

I read your letter with all that allowance which critical candour could require, but after all find so much to object to, and so much to raise my indignation, that I cannot help giving it a serious answer.

I am not so ignorant, Madam, as not to see there are many sarcasms contained in it, and solecisms also. (Solecism is a word that comes from the town of Soleis in Attica, among the Greeks, built by Solon, and applied as we use the word Kidderminster for curtains, from a town also of that name; but this is learning you have no taste for!) I say, Madam, there are sarcasms in it, and solecisms also. But not to seem an ill-natured critic, I'll take leave to quote your own words, and give you my remarks upon them as they occur. You begin as follows:

'I hope, my good Doctor, you soon will be here,
A...

Here in this gold-green evening end,
While air is soft and sky is clear,
What tender message shall I send
To her I hold so dear?
What rose of song with breath like myrrh,
And leaf of dew and fair pure beams
Shall I select and give to her
The lady of my dreams?

Alas! the blossom I would take,
The song as sweet as Persian speech,
And carry for my lady’s sake,
Is not within my reach.
I have no perfect gift of words,
Or I would hasten now to send
A ballad full of tunes of birds
To please my lovely friend.

But this pure pleasure is my own,
That I have power to waft away
A hope as bright as heaven’s zone
On this her natal day.
May all her life be like the light
That softens down in spheres divine,
“As lovely as a Lapland nig...

As beats the sun from mountain crest,
With "pretty, pretty",
Cometh the partridge from her nest;
The flowers threw kisses sweet to her
(For all the flowers that bloomed knew her);
Yet hasteneth she to mine and me--
        Ah! pretty, pretty;
        Ah! dear little partridge!

And when I hear the partridge cry
So pretty, pretty,
Upon the house-top, breakfast I;
She comes a-chirping far and wide,
And swinging from the mountain side--
I see and hear the dainty dear!
        Ah! pretty, pretty;
        Ah! dear little partridge!

Thy nest's inlaid with posies rare.
And pretty, pretty
Bloom violet, rose, and lily there;
The place is full of balmy dew
(The tears of flowers in love with you!)
And one and all impassioned call;

We are what suns and winds and waters make us;
The mountains are our sponsors, and the rills
Fashion and win their nursling with their smiles.
But where the land is dim from tyranny,
There tiny pleasures occupy the place
Of glories and of duties; as the feet
Of fabled faeries when the sun goes down
Trip o’er the grass where wrestlers strove by day.
Then Justice, call’d the Eternal One above,
Is more inconstant than the buoyant form
That burst into existence from the froth
Of ever-varying ocean: what is best
Then becomes worst; what loveliest, most deform’d.
The heart is hardest in the softest climes,
The passions flourish, the affections die.
O thou vast tablet of these awful truths,
That fillest all the space between the seas,
Spreading from Venice’s des...

REVIVED FOR OUR AUTHOR'S BENEFIT, ANNO 1700.


    How wretched is the fate of those who write!
    Brought muzzled to the stage, for fear they bite.
    Where, like Tom Dove, they stand the common foe;
    Lugg'd by the critic, baited by the beau.
    Yet worse, their brother poets damn the play,
    And roar the loudest, though they never pay.
    The fops are proud of scandal, for they cry,
    At every lewd, low character,--That's I.
    He who writes letters to himself would swear,
    The world forgot him, if he was not there.
    What should a poet do? 'Tis hard for one
    To pleasure all the fools that would be shown:
    And yet not two in ten will pass the town.
    Most coxcombs are not of the laughing kind;
    More goes to make a fop, than f...

How different, in the middle of snows, the great school rises red!
    A red rock silent and shadowless, clung round with clusters of shouting lads,
Some few dark-cleaving the doorway, souls that cling as the souls of the dead
    In stupor persist at the gates of life, obstinate dark monads.

This new red rock in a waste of white rises against the day
    With shelter now, and with blandishment, since the winds have had their way
And laid the desert horrific of silence and snow on the world of mankind,
    School now is the rock in this weary land the winter burns and makes blind.

Ah! who is he by Cynthia's gleam
Discern'd, the statue of distress;
Weeping beside the willow'd stream
That laves the woodland wilderness?

Why talks he to the idle air?
Why, listless, at his length reclined,
Heaves he the groan of deep despair,
Responsive of the midnight wind?

Speak, gentle shepherd! tell me why?
--Sir! he has lost his wife, they say:--
Of what disorder did, she die?
--Lord, sir! of none--she ran away.