Heartbreak

(Built by a Child in a deep Forest.)

How fancy romped and played here,
Building this house of moss!
A faery house, the shade here
And sunlight gleam across;
And how it danced and swayed here,
A child with locks atoss!

I pause to gaze and ponder;
And, whisk! I seem to know
How, in that house and under,
The starry elf-lamps glow,
And pixy dances sunder
The hush when night falls slow.

Oh, that a witch had willed it
That those child-dreams come true!
With which the child-heart filled it
While 'neath glad hands it grew,
And, dim, amort, it builded
Far better than it knew.

For Middleage, that wandered
And found it hidden here,
And, pausing, gazed and pondered
Knowing a mystery near
A dream, its childhood squ...

With careful step to keep his balance up
He reels on warily along the street,
Slabbering at mouth and with a staggering stoop
Mutters an angry look at all he meets.
Bumptious and vain and proud he shoulders up
And would be something if he knew but how;
To any man on earth he will not stoop
But cracks of work, of horses and of plough.
Proud of the foolish talk, the ale he quaffs,
He never heeds the insult loud that laughs:
With rosy maid he tries to joke and play,--
Who shrugs and nettles deep his pomp and pride.
And calls him "drunken beast" and runs away--
King to himself and fool to all beside.

To my Muse give attention, and deem it not a mystery
If I jumble up together music, poetry, and history,
To sing of the vices of wicked Queen Bess, sir,
Whose memory posterity with blushes shall confess, sir,
Detested be the memory of wicked Queen Bess, sir,
Whose memory posterity with blushes shall confess, sir.

In saying she would die a maid, she, England! did amuse ye.
But what she did, and what she died - I hope you will excuse me:
A gallant Earl a miracle of passion for her fed, sir;
She kiss'd him, and she clos'd the scene by striking off his head, sir!
Detested be, &c.

Oh! rude ungrateful Scotland! had thy desolated Queen, sir,
No blue eyes ever known, nor had she beauteous been, sir,
The envy of our old rival hag she might have baffled, sir,
Nor ...

Now wouldn't you expect to find a man an awful crank
That's staked out nigh three hundred claims, and every one a blank;
That's followed every fool stampede, and seen the rise and fall
Of camps where men got gold in chunks and he got none at all;
That's prospected a bit of ground and sold it for a song
To see it yield a fortune to some fool that came along;
That's sunk a dozen bed-rock holes, and not a speck in sight,
Yet sees them take a million from the claims to left and right?
Now aren't things like that enough to drive a man to booze?
But Hard-Luck Smith was hoodoo-proof - he knew the way to lose.

'Twas in the fall of nineteen four - leap-year I've heard them say -
When Hard-Luck came to Hunker Creek and took a hillside lay.
And lo! as if to make amends for all the fut...

Jes' a little bit o' feller - I remember still, -
Ust to almost cry far Christmas, like a youngster will.
Fourth o' July's nothin' to it! - New-Year's ain't a smell:
Easter-Sunday - Circus-day - jes' all dead in the shell!
Lordy, though! at night, you know, to set around and hear
The old folks work the story off about the sledge and deer,
And "Santy" skootin' round the roof, all wrapped in fur and fuzz -
Long afore
            I knowed who
                            "Santy-Claus" wuz!

Ust to wait, and set up late, a week er two ahead:
Couldn't hardly keep awake, ner wouldn't go to bed:
Kittle stewin' on the fire, and Mother settin' here
Darnin' socks, and rockin' in the skreeky rockin'-cheer;
Pap gap', and wunder where it wuz the money went,
And quar'...

Gourgaud, these tears are tears - but look, this laugh,
How hearty and serene - you see a laugh
Which settles to a smile of lips and eyes
Makes tears just drops of water on the leaves
When rain falls from a sun-lit sky, my friend,
Drink to me, clasp my hand, embrace me, call me
Beloved Bertrand. Ha! I sigh for joy.
Look at our Paris, happy, whole, renewed,
Refreshed by youth, new dressed in human leaves,
Shaking its fresh blown blossoms to the world.
And here we sit grown old, of memories
Top-full - your hand - my breast is all afire
With happiness that warms, makes young again.

You see it is not what we saw to-day
That makes me spirit, rids me of the flesh: -
But all that I remember, we remember
Of what the world was, what it is to-day,
Beholding h...

Yet life is not a vision nor a prayer,
    But stubborn work; she may not shun her task.
After the first compassion, none will spare
    Her portion and her work achieved, to ask.
She pleads for respite, - she will come ere long
When, resting by the roadside, she is strong.


Nay, for the hurrying throng of passers-by
    Will crush her with their onward-rolling stream.
Much must be done before the brief light die;
    She may not loiter, rapt in the vain dream.
With unused trembling hands, and faltering feet,
She staggers forth, her lot assigned to meet.


But when she fills her days with duties done,
    Strange vigor comes, she is restored to health.
New aims, new interests rise with each new sun,
    And life still holds for her unbounded we...

Plain men have fitful moods and so have Kings,
For Kings are only men, and often made
Of clay as common as e'er stained a spade.
But when the great are moody, then, the strings
Of gilded harps are smitten, and their strains
Are soft and soothing as the Summer rains.

And Saul was taken by an evil mood,
He felt within himself his spirit faint:
In vain he tossed upon his couch and wooed
Refreshing slumbers. Sleep knows no constraint!
Then David came: his physic and advice
All in a harp, and cleared the mind of Saul -
And Saul thereafter launched his javelin twice
To nail the harper to the palace wall!

Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
And having climb’d the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage:
But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, ’fore duteous, now converted are
From his low tract, and look another way:
So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon:
Unlook’d, on diest unless thou get a son.

Hear now a curious dream I dreamed last night
Each word whereof is weighed and sifted truth.

    I stood beside Euphrates while it swelled
Like overflowing Jordan in its youth:
It waxed and coloured sensibly to sight;
Till out of myriad pregnant waves there welled
Young crocodiles, a gaunt blunt-featured crew,
Fresh-hatched perhaps and daubed with birthday dew.
The rest if I should tell, I fear my friend
My closest friend would deem the facts untrue;
And therefore it were wisely left untold;
Yet if you will, why, hear it to the end.

    Each crocodile was girt with massive gold
And polished stones that with their wearers grew:
But one there was who waxed beyond the rest,
Wore kinglier girdle and a kingly crown,
Whilst crowns and orbs and sceptres s...

Morning and evening are mine,
And the bright noon-day;
But night to no man doth belong
When the sad ghosts play.

From Kelso town I took the road
By the full-flood Tweed;
The black clouds swept across the moon
With devouring greed.

Seek ye no peace who tread the night;
I felt above my head
Blowing the cloud's edge, faces wry
In pale fury spread.

Twelve surly elves were digging graves
Beside black Eden brook;
Eleven dug and stared at me,
But one read in a book.

In Birgham trees and hedges rocked,
The moon was drowned in black;
At Hirsel woods I shrieked to find
A fiend astride my back.

His legs he closed about my breast,
His hands upon my head,
Till Coldstream lights beamed in the trees
And he wail...

(Aetat Six)


Now every night we light the grate
And I sit up till really late;
My Father sits upon the right,
My Mother on the left, and I
Between them on an ancient chair,
That once belonged to my Great-Gran,
Before my Father was a man.
We sit without another light;
I really, truly never tire
Watching that space, as black as night,
That hangs behind the fire;
For there sometimes, you know,
The dearest, queerest little sparks,
Without a sound creep to and fro;
Sometimes they form in rings
Or lines that look like many things,
Like skipping ropes, or hoops, or swings:
Before you know what you're about,
They all go out!

My Father says that they are gnomes,
Beyond the grate they have their homes,
In a tall, bla...

I.

    I murder hate by field or flood,
        Tho' glory's name may screen us:
    In wars at hame I'll spend my blood,
        Life-giving wars of Venus.

II.

    The deities that I adore
        Are social Peace and Plenty,
    I'm better pleas'd to make one more,
        Than be the death of twenty.

All the golden air is full of balm and bloom
Where the hawthorns line the shelving dyke with flowers.
Joyous children born of April's happiest hours,
High and low they laugh and lighten, knowing their doom
Bright as brief, to bless and cheer they know not whom,
Heed not how, but washed and warmed with suns and showers
Smile, and bid the sweet soft gradual banks and bowers
Thrill with love of sunlit fire or starry gloom.
All our moors and lawns all round rejoice; but here
All the rapturous resurrection of the year
Finds the radiant utterance perfect, sees the word
Spoken, hears the light that speaks it. Far and near,
All the world is heaven: and man and flower and bird
Here are one at heart with all things seen and heard.

When, long sequester’d from his throne,
George took his seat again,
By right of worth, not blood alone,
Entitled here to reign,


Then loyalty, with all his lamps
New trimm’d, a gallant show!
Chasing the darkness and the damps,
Set London in a glow.


‘Twas hard to tell, of streets or squares
Which form’d the chief display,
These most resembling cluster’d stars,
Those the long milky way.


Bright shone the roofs, the domes, the spires,
And rockets flew, self-driven,
To hang their momentary fires
Amid the vault of heaven.


So, fire with water to compare,
The ocean serves, on high
Up-spouted by a whale in air,
To express unwieldy joy.


Had all the pageants of the world
In one procession...

Inscribed to S.F.S.

I, strengthened, left him. Next in a close place,
Mid houses crowded, dingy, barred, and high,
Where men live not except to sell and buy,
To me, leaving a doorway, came a grace.
(Surely from heaven she came, though all that race
Walketh on human feet beneath the sky.)
I, going on, beheld not who was nigh,
When a sweet girl looked up into my face
With earnest eyes, most maidenly sedate--
Looked up to me, as I to him did look:
'Twas much to me whom sometimes men mistook.
She asked me where we dwelt, that she might wait
Upon us there. I told her, and elate,
Went on my way to seek another nook.

As one who, long by wasting sickness worn,
Weary has watched the lingering night, and heard
Unmoved the carol of the matin bird
Salute his lonely porch; now first at morn
Goes forth, leaving his melancholy bed;
He the green slope and level meadow views,
Delightful bathed with slow-ascending dews;
Or marks the clouds, that o'er the mountain's head
In varying forms fantastic wander white;
Or turns his ear to every random song,
Heard the green river's winding marge along,
The whilst each sense is steeped in still delight.
So o'er my breast young Summer's breath I feel,
Sweet Hope! thy fragrance pure and healing incense steal!

What call may draw thee back again,
Lost dove, what art, what charm may please?
The tender touch, the kiss, are vain,
For thou wert lured away by these.

Oh, must we use the iron hand,
And mask with hate the holy breath,
With alien voice give love's command,
As they through love the call of death?