Heartbreak

They meet to say farewell: Their way
Of saying this is hard to say. -
    He holds her hand an instant, wholly
    Distressed - and she unclasps it slowly.

He bends his gaze evasively
Over the printed page that she
    Recurs to, with a new-moon shoulder
    Glimpsed from the lace-mists that enfold her.

The clock, beneath its crystal cup,
Discreetly clicks - "Quick!    Act!    Speak up!"
    A tension circles both her slender
    Wrists - and her raised eyes flash in splendor,

Even as he feels his dazzled own. -
Then, blindingly, round either thrown,
    They feel a stress of arms that ever
    Strain tremblingly - and "Never!    Never!"

Is whispered brokenly, with half
A sob, like a belated laugh, -
    While cloyingly their ...

Still flowed the music, flowed the wine.
    The youth in silence went;
Through naked streets, in cold moonshine,
    His homeward way he bent,
Where, on the city's seaward line,
    His lattice seaward leant.

He knew not why he left the throng,
    But that he could not rest;
That something pained him in the song,
    And mocked him in the jest;
And a cold moon-glitter lay along
    One lovely lady's breast.

He sat him down with solemn book
    His sadness to beguile;
A skull from off its bracket-nook
    Threw him a lipless smile;
But its awful, laughter-mocking look,
    Was a passing moonbeam's wile.

An hour he sat, and read in vain,
    Nought but mirrors were his eyes;
For to and fro through his helpless brain,
...

    "She gallops night by night through lovers' brains...."

    I see grindstones in the sky,
    pots of tulips overturned
    - big tug of the reins
    and chestnut hair
    is seen before the windowpane
    with chance & more chance lost to
    frost or hungry bees
    this still autumn eve.

    Darling,
    walls that division us
    are envelopes of passion
    bridging trust, seal it
    lest it rust.

    Skeletal scrapings
    make for poor bedding
    (this poor rhinoceros of lies)
    the devil gliding about so disguised
    on his tentacle and toenail chair
    (inviting lair) or is it
    hiccup and bandaged prayer
    yet stalwart wall is a rosary bead
    thick ale and bread to hungry snail

Zefiro torna, e 'l bel tempo rimena.

RETURNING SPRING BRINGS TO HIM ONLY INCREASE OF GRIEF.


    Zephyr returns; and in his jocund train
Brings verdure, flowers, and days serenely clear;
Brings Progne's twitter, Philomel's lorn strain,
With every bloom that paints the vernal year;
Cloudless the skies, and smiling every plain;
With joyance flush'd, Jove views his daughter dear;
Love's genial power pervades earth, air, and main;
All beings join'd in fond accord appear.
But nought to me returns save sorrowing sighs,
Forced from my inmost heart by her who bore
Those keys which govern'd it unto the skies:
The blossom'd meads, the choristers of air,
Sweet courteous damsels can delight no more;
Each face looks savage, and each prospect drear.
...

Now the last, long rays of sunset
To the tree-tops are ascending,
And the ash-gray evening shadows
Weave themselves around the earth.

On the crest of yonder mountain,
Now are seen from out the distance
Slowly fading crimson traces;
Footprints of the dying day.

Blood-stained banners, torn and tattered,
Hanging in the western corner,
Dip their parched and burning edges
In the cooling ocean wave.

Smoothly roll the crystal wavelets
Through the dusky veils of twilight,
That are trembling down from heaven
O'er the bosom of the sea.

Soft a little wind is blowing
O'er the gently rippling waters--
What they whisper, what they murmur,
Who is wise enough to say?

Broad her snow-white sails outspreading
'Gainst the qui...

Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead,
Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
That we descant and yet again descant
Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song:
Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant.

SAILING TO BYZANTIUM

I

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
-- Those dying generations -- at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come ...

Oh! I should ill thy generous cares requite
Thou who didst first inspire my timid Muse,
Could I one tuneful tear to thee refuse,
Now that thine aged eyes are closed in night,
Kind Warton! Thou hast stroked my stripling head,
And sometimes, mingling soft reproof with praise,
My path hast best directed through the maze
Of thorny life: by thee my steps were led
To that romantic valley, high o'erhung
With sable woods, where many a minstrel rung
His bold harp to the sweeping waterfall;
Whilst Fancy loved around each form to call
That fill the poet's dream: to this retreat
Of Fancy, (won by whose enticing lay
I have forgot how sunk the summer's day),
Thou first did guide my not unwilling feet;
Meantime inspiring the gay breast of youth
With love of taste, of sc...

If I could have your arms tonight,
But half the world and the broken sea
Lie between you and me.

The autumn rain reverberates in the courtyard,
Beating all night against the barren stone,
The sound of useless rain in the desolate courtyard
Makes me more alone.

If you were here, if you were only here,
My blood cries out to you all night in vain
As sleepless as the rain.

    Has the last farewell been spoken?
    Have I ta'en the parting token
        From thy lips so sweet?
    Has their last soft word been spoken
        Till again we meet?

    Why is not thy hand extended?
    Is my maiden queen offended?
        Or does she forget?
    No! my queen is not offended,
        She is kindly yet.

    For her eye is softly beaming,
    And with tenderness is teeming,
        Gentle as the dove's:
    With a holy light is beaming -
        Dare I call it love's?

    But the time is fast advancing;
    From the heaven of its glancing
        I must rend my heart:
    Treacherous Time is fast advancing,
        And I must depart.

    Ah! the pain the parting brings me!
    As a serpe...

And said I that all hope was fled,
That sorrow and despair were mine,
That each enthusiast wish was dead,
Had sank beneath pale Misery's shrine. -

Seest thou the sunbeam's yellow glow,
That robes with liquid streams of light;
Yon distant Mountain's craggy brow.
And shows the rocks so fair, - so bright -

Tis thus sweet expectation's ray,
In softer view shows distant hours,
And portrays each succeeding day,
As dressed in fairer, brighter flowers, -

The vermeil tinted flowers that blossom;
Are frozen but to bud anew,
Then sweet deceiver calm my bosom,
Although thy visions be not true, -

Yet true they are, - and I'll believe,
Thy whisperings soft of love and peace,
God never made thee to deceive,
'Tis sin that bade thy empire...

O sweetly wild and 'witching Poesy!
Thou light of this world's hermitage I prove thee;
And surely none helps loving thee that knows thee,
A soul of feeling cannot help but love thee.
I would say how thy secret wonders move me,
Thou spell of loveliness!--but 'tis too much:
Had I the language of the gods above me
I might then venture thy wild harp to touch,
And sing of all thy thrilling pains and pleasures;
The flowers I meet in this world's wilderness;
The comforts rising from thy spell-bound treasures,
Thy cordial balm that softens my distress:
I would say all, but thou art far above me;
Words are too weak, expression can't be had;
I can but say I love, and dearly love thee,
And that thou cheer'st me when my soul is sad.

To Isabel Swinburne.

The far green westward heavens are bland,
The far green Wiltshire downs are clear
As these deep meadows hard at hand:
The sight knows hardly far from near,
Nor morning joy from evening cheer.
In cottage garden-plots their bees
Find many a fervent flower to seize
And strain and drain the heart away
From ripe sweet-williams and sweet-peas
At every turn on every way.
But gladliest seems one flower to expand
Its whole sweet heart all round us here;
’Tis Heartsease Country, Pansy Land.
Nor sounds nor savours harsh and drear
Where engines yell and halt and veer
Can vex the sense of him who sees
One flower-plot midway, that for trees
Has poles, and sheds all grimed or grey
For bowers like those that take the breeze

From the lyrical eclogue "One Day and Another"


Now rests the season in forgetfulness,
Careless in beauty of maturity;
The ripened roses round brown temples, she
Fulfills completion in a dreamy guess.
Now Time grants night the more and day the less:
The gray decides; and brown
Dim golds and drabs in dulling green express
Themselves and redden as the year goes down.
Sadder the fields where, thrusting hoary high
Their tasseled heads, the Lear-like corn-stocks die,
And, Falstaff-like, buff-bellied pumpkins lie. -
Deepening with tenderness,
Sadder the blue of hills that lounge along
The lonesome west; sadder the song
Of the wild redbird in the leafage yellow. -
Deeper and dreamier, aye!
Than woods or waters, leans the languid sky
Above lone or...

A youth unto herself Grief took,
Whom everything of joy forsook,
And men passed with denying head,
Saying: "'T were better he were dead."

Grief took him, and with master-touch
Molded his being. I marveled much
To see her magic with the clay,
So much she gave - and took away.
Daily she wrought, and her design
Grew daily clearer and more fine,
To make the beauty of his shape
Serve for the spirit's free escape.
With liquid fire she filled his eyes.
She graced his lips with swift surmise
Of sympathy for others' woe,
And made his every fibre flow
In fairer curves. On brow and chin
And tinted cheek, drawn clean and thin,
She sculptured records rich, great Grief!
She made him loving, made him lief.

I marveled; for, where others saw

You played and sang a snatch of song,
A song that all-too well we knew;
But whither had flown the ancient wrong;
And was it really I and you?
O since the end of life's to live
And pay in pence the common debt,
What should it cost us to forgive
Whose daily task is to forget?

You babbled in the well-known voice,
Not new, not new, the words you said.
You touched me off that famous poise,
That old effect, of neck and head.
Dear, was it really you and I?
In truth the riddle's ill to read,
So many are the deaths we die
Before we can be dead indeed.

The eve put on her sweetest shroud,
The summer-dress she's often in,
Freck'd with white and purple cloud,
Dappled like a leopard's skin;
The martin, by the cotter's shed,
Had welcom'd eve with twittering song;
The blackbird sang the sun to bed,
Old Oxey's briery dells among:

When o'er the field tript rosy Jane,
Fair as the flowers she treaded on;
But she was gloomy for her swain,
Who long to fight the French had gone;
She milk'd, and sang her mournful song,
As, how an absent maid did moan,
Who for a soldier sorrowed long,
That went and left her, like her own.

Though dreadful drums had ceas'd their noise,
And peace proclaim'd returning Joe,
Delays so lingering dampt her joys,
And expectation nettled woe:
Hope, mix'd with fear and...

1.
The flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
Tempts and then flies.
What is this world's delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.

2.
Virtue, how frail it is!
Friendship how rare!
Love, how it sells poor bliss
For proud despair!
But we, though soon they fall,
Survive their joy, and all
Which ours we call.

3.
Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;
Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou - and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep.