Heartbreak

A little lad, - bare wor his feet,
His 'een wor swell'd an red,
Wor sleepin, one wild New Year's neet, -
A cold doorstep his bed.
His little curls wor drippin weet,
His clooas wor thin an old,
His face, tho' pinched, wor smilin sweet, -
His limbs wor numb wi' cold.

Th' wind whistled throo th' deserted street,
An snowflakes whirled abaat, -
It wor a sorry sooart o' neet,
For poor souls to be aght.
'Twor varry dark, noa stars or mooin,
Could shine throo sich a storm; -
Unless some succour turns up sooin,
God help that freezin form!

A carriage stops at th' varry haase, -
A sarvent oppens th' door;
A lady wi' a pale sad face,
Steps aght o'th' cooach to th' floor.
Her 'een fell on that huddled form,
Shoo gives a startled cry;

I have been dreaming all a summer day
Of rare and dainty poems I would write;
Love-lyrics delicate as lilac-scent,
Soft idylls woven of wind, and flower, and stream,
And songs and sonnets carven in fine gold.

The day is fading and the dusk is cold;
Out of the skies has gone the opal gleam,
Out of my heart has passed the high intent
Into the shadow of the falling night,
Must all my dreams in darkness pass away?

I have been dreaming all a summer day:
Shall I go dreaming so until Life’s light
Fades in Death’s dusk, and all my days are spent?
Ah, what am I the dreamer but a dream!
The day is fading and the dusk is cold.

My songs and sonnets carven in fine gold
Have faded from me with the last day -beam
That purple lustre to the sea-line lent...

With sombre mien, the Evening gray
Comes nagging at the heels of Day,
And driven faster and still faster
Before the dusky-mantled Master,
The light fades from her fearful eyes,
She hastens, stumbles, falls, and dies.

Beside me Amaryllis weeps;
The swelling tears obscure the deeps
Of her dark eyes, as, mistily,
The rushing rain conceals the sea.
Here, lay my tuneless reed away,--
I have no heart to tempt a lay.

I scent the perfume of the rose
Which by my crystal fountain grows.
In this sad time, are roses blowing?
And thou, my fountain, art thou flowing,

While I who watched thy waters spring
Am all too sad to smile or sing?
Nay, give me back my pipe again,
It yet shall breathe this single strain:
Farewell to Arcady!

How comes it, Flora, that, whenever we
Play cards together, you invariably,
    However the pack parts,
    Still hold the Queen of Hearts?

I've scanned you with a scrutinizing gaze,
Resolved to fathom these your secret ways:
    But, sift them as I will,
    Your ways are secret still.

I cut and shuffle; shuffle, cut, again;
But all my cutting, shuffling, proves in vain:
    Vain hope, vain forethought too;
    The Queen still falls to you.

I dropped her once, prepense; but, ere the deal
Was dealt, your instinct seemed her loss to feel:
    'There should be one card more,'
    You said, and searched the floor.

I cheated once; I made a private notch
In Heart-Queen's back, and kept a lynx-eyed watch;
    Yet such another back

I. - Red.

Would that my songs might be
What roses make by day and night -
Distillments of my clod of misery
Into delight.

Soul, could'st thou bare thy breast
As yon red rose, and dare the day,
All clean, and large, and calm with velvet rest?
Say yea - say yea!

Ah, dear my Rose, good-bye;
The wind is up; so; drift away.
That songs from me as leaves from thee may fly,
I strive, I pray.


II. - White.

Soul, get thee to the heart
Of yonder tuberose: hide thee there -
There breathe the meditations of thine art
Suffused with prayer.

Of spirit grave yet light,
How fervent fragrances uprise
Pure-born from these most rich and yet most white
Virginities!

Mulched with unsavory death,
Grow, S...

Roses ruddy and roses white,
What are the joys that my heart discloses?
Sitting alone in the fading light
Memories come to me here tonight
With the wonderful scent of the big red roses.

Memories come as the daylight fades
Down on the hearth where the firelight dozes;
Flicker and flutter the lights and shades,
And I see the face of a queen of maids
Whose memory comes with the scent of roses.

Visions arise of a scent of mirth,
And a ball-room belle who superbly poses,
A queenly woman of queenly worth,
And I am the happiest man on earth
With a single flower from a bunch of roses.

Only her memory lives tonight,
God in his wisdom her young life closes;
Over her grave may the turf be light,
Cover her coffin with roses white
She was a...

Absent from thee I languish still;
Then ask me not, when I return?
The straying fool 'twill plainly kill
To wish all day, all night to mourn.

Dear! from thine arms then let me fly,
That my fantastic mind may prove
The torments it deserves to try
That tears my fixed heart from my love.

When, wearied with a world of woe,
To thy safe bosom I retire
where love and peace and truth does flow,
May I contented there expire,

Lest, once more wandering from that heaven,
I fall on some base heart unblest,
Faithless to thee, false, unforgiven,
And lose my everlasting rest.

Not only men of stormy minds,
    The storms of trouble know,
All creatures of this earth must find
    A share of earthly woe!

Ye whose pure hearts with pity swell,
    For pain by all incurr'd;
Hear how affliction once befell,
    Serenity's sweet bird.

Ye fair, who in your carols praise
    The Halcyon's happy state;
Hear in compassionate amaze,
    One Halcyon's hapless fate.

A nymph, Selina is her name,
    Lovely in mind and mien,
When spring, however early, came,
    Was fond of walks marine.

Between a woman and a child,
    In tender charms she grew,
And lov'd with fancy sweetly wild,
    The lonely shore to view.

Nature she studied, every spring,
    To all her offspring kind,
And taught the ...

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust,
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks archi...

O'er the wide heath now moon-tide horrors hung,
And night's dark pencil dimm'd the tints of spring;
The boding minstrel now harsh omens sung,
And the bat spread his dark nocturnal wing.

At that still hour, pale Cynthia oft had seen
The fair Eliza (joyous once and gay),
With pensive step, and melancholy mien,
O'er the broad plain in love-born anguish stray.

Long had her heart with Henry's been entwined,
And love's soft voice had waked the sacred blaze
Of Hymen's altar; while, with him combined,
His cherub train prepared the torch to raise:

When, lo! his standard raging war uprear'd,
And honour call'd her Henry from her charms.
He fought, but ah! torn, mangled, blood-besmear'd,
Fell, nobly fell, amid his conquering arms!

In her sad bosom,...

I was reading a letter of yours to-day,
The date - O a thousand years ago!
The postmark is there - the month was May:
How, in God's name, did I let you go?
What wonderful things for a girl to say!
And to think that I hadn't the sense to know -
What wonderful things for a man to hear!
O still beloved, O still most dear.

"Duty" I called it, and hugged the word
Close to my side, like a shirt of hair;
You laughed, I remember, laughed like a bird,
And somehow I thought that you didn't care.
Duty! - and Love, with her bosom bare!
No wonder you laughed, as we parted there -
Then your letter came with this last good-by -
And I sat splendidly down to die.

Nor Duty, nor Death, would have aught of me:
"He is Love's," they said, "he cannot be ours;"
...

The image of the moon at night
All trembling in the ocean lies,
But she, with calm and steadfast light,
Moves proudly through the radiant skies,

How like the tranquil moon thou art--
Thou fairest flower of womankind!
And, look, within my fluttering heart
Thy image trembling is enshrined!

Louing in trueth, and fayne in verse my loue to show,
That she, deare Shee, might take som pleasure of my paine,
Pleasure might cause her reade, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pittie winne, and pity grace obtaine,
I sought fit wordes to paint the blackest face of woe;
Studying inuentions fine, her wits to entertaine,
Oft turning others leaues, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitfull showers vpon my sun-burnd brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting Inuentions stay;
Inuention, Natures childe, fledde step-dame Studies blowes;
And others feet still seemde but strangers in my way.
Thus, great with childe to speak, and helplesse in my throwes,
Biting my trewand pen, beating myselfe for spite,
Fool, said my Muse to me, looke in thy heart, and write.

Quel rosignuol che sì soave piagne.

THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE REMINDS HIM OF HIS UNHAPPY LOT.


    Yon nightingale, whose bursts of thrilling tone,
Pour'd in soft sorrow from her tuneful throat,
Haply her mate or infant brood bemoan,
Filling the fields and skies with pity's note;
Here lingering till the long long night is gone,
Awakes the memory of my cruel lot--
But I my wretched self must wail alone:
Fool, who secure from death an angel thought!
O easy duped, who thus on hope relies!
Who would have deem'd the darkness, which appears,
From orbs more brilliant than the sun should rise?
Now know I, made by sad experience wise,
That Fate would teach me by a life of tears,
On wings how fleeting fast all earthly rapture flies!

WRANG...

    We gentler grow by sorrow; not the breast
        That never crouches in the nights of tears,
        That never bends beneath the loads of years,
    Has sympathies that are the kindliest.
    There is a strength in agony that best
        Can link the careless heart with human fears,
        And teach it that fond kindness which endears
    The millions that with sadness are oppressed.

    Grief softens while it saddens; pleasure smites
        The timid soul with harshness, till it knows
        Small earnest of the great world's grievous woes
    And little of its struggles; sorrow plights
    Her troth with sorrow, and in tears unites
        Man unto man and hatred overthrows.

So light we were, so right we were, so fair faith shone,
And the way was laid so certainly, that, when I'd gone,
What dumb thing looked up at you? Was it something heard,
Or a sudden cry, that meekly and without a word
You broke the faith, and strangely, weakly, slipped apart.
You gave in, you, the proud of heart, unbowed of heart!
Was this, friend, the end of all that we could do?
And have you found the best for you, the rest for you?
Did you learn so suddenly (and I not by!)
Some whispered story, that stole the glory from the sky,
And ended all the splendid dream, and made you go
So dully from the fight we know, the light we know?

O faithless! the faith remains, and I must pass
Gay down the way, and on alone. Under the grass
You wait; the breeze moves in the tre...

It keeps eternal whisperings around
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell
Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell
Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.
Often 'tis in such gentle temper found
That scarcely will the very smallest shell
Be mov'd for days from whence it sometime fell,
When last the winds of heaven were unbound.
Oh ye! who have your eye-balls vex'd and tir'd,
Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;
Oh ye! whose ears are dinn'd with uproar rude,
Or fed too much with cloying melody,
Sit ye near some old cavern's mouth, and brood
Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quir'd!

“ Ceste insigne fable et tragicque comedie.”
- RABELAIS.

I.

The sun was down, and twilight grey
Filled half the air; but in the room,
Whose curtain had been drawn all day,
The twilight was a dusky gloom:
Which seemed at first as still as death,
And void; but was indeed all rife
With subtle thrills, the pulse and breath
Of multitudinous lower life.



II.

In their abrupt and headlong way
Bewildered flies for light had dashed
Against the curtain all the day,
And now slept wintrily abashed;
And nimble mice slept, wearied out
With such a double night’s uproar;
But solid beetles crawled about
The chilly hearth and naked floor.



III.

And so throughout the twilight hour
That ...