Heartbreak

Naught are all women: I say no,
Since for one bad, one good I know:
For Clytemnestra most unkind,
Loving Alcestis there we find:
For one Medea that was bad,
A good Penelope was had:
For wanton Lais, then we have
Chaste Lucrece, a wife as grave:
And thus through womankind we see
A good and bad. Sirs, credit me.

I.

There is no flower of wood or lea,
No April flower, as fair as she:
O white anemone, who hast
The wind's wild grace,
Know her a cousin of thy race,
Into whose face
A presence like the wind's hath passed.


II.

There is no flower of wood or lea,
No Maytime flower, as fair as she:
O bluebell, tender with the blue
Of limpid skies,
Thy lineage hath kindred ties
In her, whose eyes
The heav'n's own qualities imbue.


III.

There is no flower of wood or lea,
No Juneday flower, as fair as she:
Rose, odorous with beauty of
Life's first and best,
Behold thy sister here confessed!
Whose maiden breast
Is fragrant with the dreams of love.

As thro' the hedge-row shade the violet steals,
And the sweet air its modest leaf reveals;
Her softer charms, but by their influence known,
Surprise all hearts, and mould them to her own.

Good night, good night! - the day
Slowly has borne away,
                Music and light;
Once more the starry train
Sweeps over vale and plain,
Soft falls the dews again -
                Good night-good night!

Day's weary toils are done,
Set is the glorious sun,
                Faded the light; -
Now, to the weary breast
Ever a welcome guest, -
Comes the sweet hour of rest -
                Good night - good night!

Evening's cool shadows lie
Calmly o'er earth and sky;
                And, from the height
Of the far, wooded hill,
Sends the lone whip-poor-will,
Softer and sweeter still,
                Plaintive good night.

Gently let slumber lie
On every weary eye
                Tired of the light!
E'...

When, with a pain he desires to explain to the multitude, Baby
Howls himself black in the face, toothlessly striving to curse;
And the six-months-old Mother begins to enquire of the Gods if it may be
Tummy, or Temper, or Pins, what does the adequate Nurse?

See! At one turn of her head the trouble is guessed; and, thereafter,
She juggles (unscared by his throes) with drops of hot water and spoons,
Till the hiccoughs are broken by smiles, and the smiles pucker up into laughter,
And he lies o’er her shoulder and crows, and she, as she nurses him, croons!

When, at the head of the grade, tumultuous out of the cutting,
Pours the belated Express, roars at the night, and draws dear,
Redly obscured or displayed by her fire-door’s opening and shutting,
Symbol of strength under stres...

What lovelier home could gentle Fancy choose?
Is this the stream, whose cities, heights, and plains,
War's favourite playground, are with crimson stains
Familiar, as the Morn with pearly dews?
The Morn, that now, along the silver Meuse,
Spreading her peaceful ensigns, calls the swains
To tend their silent boats and ringing wains,
Or strip the bough whose mellow fruit bestrews
The ripening corn beneath it. As mine eyes
Turn from the fortified and threatening hill,
How sweet the prospect of yon watery glade,
With its grey rocks clustering in pensive shade
That, shaped like old monastic turrets, rise
From the smooth meadow-ground, serene and still!

I call on those that call me son,
Grandson, or great-grandson,
On uncles, aunts, great-uncles or great-aunts,
To judge what I have done.
Have I, that put it into words,
Spoilt what old loins have sent?
Eyes spiritualised by death can judge,
I cannot, but I am not content.
He that in Sligo at Drumcliff
Set up the old stone Cross,
That red-headed rector in County Down,
A good man on a horse,
Sandymount Corbets, that notable man
Old William Pollexfen,
The smuggler Middleton, Butlers far back,
Half legendary men.
Infirm and aged I might stay
In some good company,
I who have always hated work,
Smiling at the sea,
Or demonstrate in my own life
What Robert Browning meant
By an old hunter talking with Gods;
But I am not content.

What think you I take my pen in hand to record?
The battle-ship, perfect-model'd, majestic, that I saw pass the offing to-day under full sail?
The splendors of the past day? Or the splendor of the night that envelopes me?
Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me?, No;
But I record of two simple men I saw to-day, on the pier, in the midst of the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends;
The one to remain hung on the other's neck, and passionately kiss'd him,
While the one to depart, tightly prest the one to remain in his arms.

In ages dead, a troglodyte,
At the hollow roots of a monster height, -
That grew from the heart of the world to light, -
I dwelt in caverns: over me
Were mountains older than the moon;
And forests vaster than the sea,
And gulfs, that the earthquake's hand had hewn,
Hung under me. And late and soon
I heard the dæmon of change that sighed
A cosmic language of mystery;
While life sat silent, primeval-eyed,
With the infant spirit of prophecy.

Gaunt stars glared down on the Titan peaks;
And the gaunter glare of the cratered streaks
Of the sunset's ruin heard condor shrieks.
The roar of cataracts hurled in air,
And the hurricane laying his thunders bare,
And rush of battling beasts, - whose lair
Was the antechamber of nadir-gloom, -
Were my outw...

Temples he built and palaces of air,
And, with the artist's parent-pride aglow,
His fancy saw his vague ideals grow
Into creations marvellously fair;

He set his foot upon Fame's nether stair.
But ah, his dream,--it had entranced him so
He could not move. He could no farther go;
But paused in joy that he was even there!

He did not wake until one day there gleamed
Thro' his dark consciousness a light that racked
His being till he rose, alert to act.
But lo! what he had dreamed, the while he dreamed,
Another, wedding action unto thought,
Into the living, pulsing world had brought.

He touched me, so I live to know
That such a day, permitted so,
I groped upon his breast.
It was a boundless place to me,
And silenced, as the awful sea
Puts minor streams to rest.

And now, I'm different from before,
As if I breathed superior air,
Or brushed a royal gown;
My feet, too, that had wandered so,
My gypsy face transfigured now
To tenderer renown.

Stop rowing! This one of our bye-canals
O’er a certain bridge you have to cross
That’s named, “Of the Angel:” listen why!
The name “Of the Devil” too much appalls
Venetian acquaintance, so, his the loss,
While the gain goes . . . look on high!

An angel visibly guards yon house:
Above each scutcheon, a pair, stands he,
Enfolds them with droop of either wing:
The family’s fortune were perilous
Did he thence depart, you will soon agree,
If I hitch into verse the thing.

For, once on a time, this house belonged
To a lawyer of note, with law and to spare,
But also with overmuch lust of gain:
In the matter of law you were nowise wronged,
But alas for the lucre! He picked you bare
To the bone. Did folk complain?

“I exact,” growled he, “work...

To * * Esq. of * * with a Life of the late Ingenious Mr. W M. Hogarth.


Dear Cosmopolitan,--I know
I should address you a Rondeau,
Or else announce what I've to say
At least en Ballade fratrisée;
But No: for once I leave Gymnasticks,
And take to simple Hudibrasticks;
Why should I choose another Way,
When this was good enough for GAY?

You love, my FRIEND, with me, I think,
That Age of Lustre and of Link;
Of Chelsea China and long "s"es,
Of Bag-wigs and of flowered Dresses;
That Age of Folly and of Cards,
Of Hackney Chairs and Hackney Bards;
--No H--LTS, no K--G--N P--LS were then
Dispensing Competence to Men;
The gentle Trade was left to Churls,
Your frowsy TONSONS and your CURLLS;
Mere Wolves in Ambush to attack
The AUTHOR ...

(A BALLAD IN THE ANGLO-SAXON TONGUE)

When to the dreary greenwood gloam
Winfreda's husband strode that day,
The fair Winfreda bode at home
To toil the weary time away;
"While thou art gone to hunt," said she,
"I'll brew a goodly sop for thee."

Lo, from a further, gloomy wood,
A hungry wolf all bristling hied
And on the cottage threshold stood
And saw the dame at work inside;
And, as he saw the pleasing sight,
He licked his fangs so sharp and white.

Now when Winfreda saw the beast,
Straight at the grinning wolf she ran,
And, not affrighted in the least,
She hit him with her cooking pan,
And as she thwacked him on the head--
"Scat! scat!" the fair Winfreda said.

The hills gave answer to their din--
The brook in fear be...

    A chaplain in the army,
    A chaplain in the prisons,
    An exhorter in Spoon River,
    Drunk with divinity, Spoon River -
    Yet bringing poor Eliza Johnson to shame,
    And myself to scorn and wretchedness.
    But why will you never see that love of women,
    And even love of wine,
    Are the stimulants by which the soul, hungering for divinity,
    Reaches the ecstatic vision
    And sees the celestial outposts?
    Only after many trials for strength,
    Only when all stimulants fail,
    Does the aspiring soul
    By its own sheer power
    Find the divine
    By resting upon itself.

The larks are loud above our leagues of whin
Now the sun’s perfume fills their glorious gold
With odour like the colour: all the wold
Is only light and song and wind wherein
These twain are blent in one with shining din.
And now your gift, a giver’s kingly-souled,
Dear old fast friend whose honours grow not old,
Bids memory’s note as loud and sweet begin.
Though all but we from life be now gone forth
Of that bright household in our joyous north
Where I, scarce clear of boyhood just at end,
First met your hand; yet under life’s clear dome,
Now seventy strenuous years have crowned my friend,
Shines no less bright his full-sheaved harvest-home.

In times when madcap Nature in her verve
Conceived each day a hatch of monstrous spawn,
I might have lived near some young giantess,
Like a voluptuous cat before a queen

To watch her body tlower with her soul,
And grow up freely in her dreadful play;
To guess about a passion's sombre tlame
Bom in the mists that swim within her eyes.

At leisure to explore her mighty forms;
To climb the slopes of her enormous knees,
And sometimes, when the summer's tainted suns

Had lain her out across the countryside,
To drowse in nonchalance below her breast,
Like a calm village in the mountain's shade.

When Kneller's works, of various grace,
Were to fair Venus shown,
The Goddess spied in every face
Some features of her own.

Just so, (and pointing with her hand)
So shone, says she, my eyes,
When from two goddesses I gain'd
An apple for a prize.

When in the glass and river too
My face I lately view'd,
Such was I, if the glass be true,
If true the crystal flood.

In colours of this glorious kind
Apelles painted me;
My hair, thus flowing with the wind
Sprung from my native sea.

Like this disorder'd, wild, forlorn,
Big with ten thousand fears,
Thee, my Adonis, did I mourn
E'en beautiful in tears.

But viewing Myra placed apart,
I fear, says she, I fear,
Appelles, that Sir Godfrey's art
Has far surpass...