Heartbreak

        [Song of a little boy while passing his hour of solitude in a corn-field.]

    Awa' birds, away!
    Take a little, and leave a little,
    And do not come again;
    For if you do,
    I will shoot you through,
    And there is an end of you.

When she rises in the morning
I linger to watch her;
She spreads the bath-cloth underneath the window
And the sunbeams catch her
Glistening white on the shoulders,
While down her sides the mellow
Golden shadow glows as
She stoops to the sponge, and her swung breasts
Sway like full-blown yellow
Gloire de Dijon roses.

She drips herself with water, and her shoulders
Glisten as silver, they crumple up
Like wet and falling roses, and I listen
For the sluicing of their rain-dishevelled petals.
In the window full of sunlight
Concentrates her golden shadow
Fold on fold, until it glows as
Mellow as the glory roses.

ICKING

    I saw the moon so broad and bright
    Sailing high on a frosty night:

    And the air swung far and far between
    The silver disc and the orb of green:

    While here and there a wisp of white
    Cloud-film swam on the misty light:

    And crusted thickly on the sky,
    High and higher and yet more high,

    Were golden star-points dusted through
    The great, wide, silent vault of blue:

    Then I said to me, God is good
    And the world is fair, and where I stood

    I knelt me down and bent my head,
    And said my prayers, and went to bed.

“Where are you going with your horse and bike,
And the townsfolk still at rest?
Where are you going, with your swag and pack,
And the night still in the West?
Your clothes are worn, and your cheques are gone,
But your eyes are free from care?”
“We’re bushmen down for a spree in town,
And we’re bound for the Lord-knows-where,
Old chap, we’re bound for the Lord-knows-where.”

(There are great dark scrubs in the Lord-knows-where,
Where they fight it out alone,
There are wide wide plains in the Lord-knows-where,
Where a man’s soul is his own.
There is healthy work, there is healthy rest,
There is peace from self-torture there,
And the glorious freedom from paltriness!
And they’re bound for the Lord-knows-where.)

“Now, where are you going in your Su...

My New-Cut ashlar takes the light
Where crimson-blank the windows flare.
By my own work before the night,
Great Overseer, I make my prayer.

If there be good in that I wrought
Thy Hand compelled it, Master, Thine,
Where I have failed to meet Thy Thought
I know, through Thee, the blame was mine.

The depth and dream of my desire,
The bitter paths wherein I stray,
Thou knowest Who hast made the Fire,
Thou knowest Who hast made the Clay.

Who, lest all thought of Eden fade,
Bring'st Eden to the craftsman's brain,
Godlike to muse o'er his own Trade
And manlike stand with God again!

One stone the more swings into place
In that dread Temple of Thy worth.
It is enough that, through Thy Grace,
I saw nought common on Thy Earth.
...

Dean Bourn, farewell; I never look to see
Dean, or thy watery[1] incivility.
Thy rocky bottom, that doth tear thy streams
And makes them frantic even to all extremes,
To my content I never should behold,
Were thy streams silver, or thy rocks all gold.
Rocky thou art, and rocky we discover
Thy men, and rocky are thy ways all over.
O men, O manners, now and ever known
To be a rocky generation!
A people currish, churlish as the seas,
And rude almost as rudest savages,
With whom I did, and may re-sojourn when
Rocks turn to rivers, rivers turn to men.

There is a field, that leans upon two hills,
Foamed o'er with flowers and twinkling with clear rills;
That in its girdle of wild acres bears
The anodyne of rest that cures all cares;
Wherein soft wind and sun and sound are blent
And fragrance--as in some old instrument
Sweet chords--calm things, that nature's magic spell
Distils from heaven's azure crucible,
And pours on Earth to make the sick mind well.
There lies the path, they say--
Come, away! come, away!

There is a forest, lying 'twixt two streams,
Sung through of birds and haunted of dim dreams;
That in its league-long hand of trunk and leaf
Lifts a green wand that charms away all grief;
Wrought of quaint silence and the stealth of things,
Vague, whispering touches, gleams and twitterings,
Dew...

Oh! mark the withered leaves that fall
In silence to the ground;
Upon the human heart they call,
And preach without a sound.

They say, So passes man's brief year!
To-day, his green leaves wave;
To-morrow, changed by time, and sere,
He drops into the grave.

Let Wisdom be our sole concern,
Since life's green days are brief!
And faith and heavenly hope shall learn
A lesson from the LEAF.

While the yellow constellations shine with pale and tender glory,
In the lilac-scented stillness, let us listen to Earth's story.
All the flow'rs like moths a-flutter glimmer rich with dusky hues,
Everywhere around us seem to fall from nowhere the sweet dews.
Through the drowsy lull, the murmur, stir of leaf and sleep hum
We can feel a gay heart beating, hear a magic singing come.
Ah, I think that as we linger lighting at Earth's olden fire
Fitful gleams in clay that perish, little sparks that soon expire,
So the mother brims her gladness from a life beyond her own,
From whose darkness as a fountain up the fiery days are thrown
Starry worlds which wheel in splendour, sunny systems, histories,
Vast and nebulous traditions told in the eternities:
And our list'ning mother whispers t...

Where are they, that song and tale
Tell of? lands our childhood knew?
Sea-locked Faerylands that trail
Morning summits, dim with dew,
Crimson o'er a crimson sail.

Where in dreams we entered on
Wonders eyes have never seen:
Whither often we have gone,
Sailing a dream-brigantine
On from voyaging dawn to dawn.

Leons seeking lands of song;
Fabled fountains pouring spray;
Where our anchors dropped among
Corals of some tropic bay,
With its swarthy native throng.

Shoulder ax and arquebus! -
We may find it! - past yon range
Of sierras, vaporous,
Rich with gold and wild and strange
That lost region dear to us.

Yet, behold, although our zeal
Darien summits may subdue,
Our Balboa eyes reveal
But a vaster sea come...

Ah! What avails the classic bent
And what the cultured word,
Against the undoctored incident
That actually occurred?


And what is Art whereto we press
Through paint and prose and rhyme,
When Nature in her nakedness
Defeats us every time?


It is not learning, grace nor gear,
Nor easy meat and drink,
But bitter pinch of pain and fear
That makes creation think.


When in this world's unpleasing youth
Our godlike race began,
The longest arm, the sharpest tooth,
Gave man control of man;


Till, bruised and bitten to the bone
And taught by pain and fear,
He learned to deal the far-off stone,
And poke the long, safe spear.


So tooth and nail were obsolete
As means against a foe,
Till, ...

He who wears blacks, and mourns not for the dead,
Does but deride the party buried.

[1]


Whose was the artist hand that spread
Upon this disk the ocean's bed?
And, in a flight of fancy, high
As aught on earthly wing can fly,
Depicted thus, in semblance warm,
The Queen of Love's voluptuous form
Floating along the silvery sea
In beauty's naked majesty!
Oh! he hath given the enamoured sight
A witching banquet of delight,
Where, gleaming through the waters clear,
Glimpses of undreamt charms appear,
And all that mystery loves to screen,
Fancy, like Faith, adores unseen.[2]

Light as a leaf, that on the breeze
Of summer skims the glassy seas,
She floats along the ocean's breast,
Which undulates in sleepy rest;
While stealing on, she gently pillows
Her bosom on the heaving billows.
Her b...

At last I got a letter from the dead,
And out of it there fell a little flower, -
The violet of an unforgotten hour.

[1]

To Monseigneur The Duke De Bourgogne.

Contemporary with a sparrow tame
There lived a cat; from tenderest age,
Of both, the basket and the cage
Had household gods the same.
The bird's sharp beak full oft provoked the cat,
Who play'd in turn, but with a gentle pat,
His wee friend sparing with a merry laugh,
Not punishing his faults by half.
In short, he scrupled much the harm,
Should he with points his ferule arm.
The sparrow, less discreet than he,
With dagger beak made very free.
Sir Cat, a person wise and staid,
Excused the warmth with which he play'd:
For 'tis full half of friendship's art
To take no joke in serious part.
Familiar since they saw the light,
Mere habit kept their friendship good;
Fair play had nev...

(For Aline)



From what old ballad, or from what rich frame
    Did you descend to glorify the earth?
Was it from Chaucer's singing book you came?
    Or did Watteau's small brushes give you birth?

Nothing so exquisite as that slight hand
    Could Raphael or Leonardo trace.
Nor could the poets know in Fairyland
    The changing wonder of your lyric face.

I would possess a host of lovely things,
    But I am poor and such joys may not be.
So God who lifts the poor and humbles kings
    Sent loveliness itself to dwell with me.

[From Arthur Selwyn's Note-book.]

        When Prometheus stole the flame,
        Did he know what with it came?
        Did he look afar and see
        All the blessings that would be?
        Could he view the gentle gloam
        Of the fireside of a home?
        Or the centre-table's blaze,
        Turning evenings into days,
        Where, encamped with quiet zest,
        Happy children toil and rest?
        Did he view the parlor's gleam,
        Or the 'wildering palace dream?
        See the torch's floating glare
        Burn its way through walls of air;
        Or, through under-regions trace
        Earth's remotest hiding-place?
        Did he see the flags of steam
        O'er the cities flash and gleam?
        ...

    Trip upon trenchers, and dance upon dishes,
    My mother sent me for some barm, some barm;
    She bid me tread lightly, and come again quickly,
    For fear the young men should do me some harm.
        Yet didn't you see, yet didn't you see,
        What naughty tricks they put upon me:

        They broke my pitcher,
            And spilt the water,
        And huff'd my mother,
            And chid her daughter,
    And kiss'd my sister instead of me.