Heartbreak

The morning mists still haunt the stony street;
The northern summer air is shrill and cold;
And lo, the Hospital, grey, quiet, old,
Where Life and Death like friendly chafferers meet.
Thro' the loud spaciousness and draughty gloom
A small, strange child - so aged yet so young! -
Her little arm besplinted and beslung,
Precedes me gravely to the waiting-room.
I limp behind, my confidence all gone.
The grey-haired soldier-porter waves me on,
And on I crawl, and still my spirits fail:
A tragic meanness seems so to environ
These corridors and stairs of stone and iron,
Cold, naked, clean - half-workhouse and half-jail.

Oh, would that working I might shun,
    From labour my connection sever,
That I might do a bit - or none
    Whatever!

That I might wander over hills,
    Establish friendship with a daisy,
O'er pretty things like daffodils
    Go crazy!

That I might at the heavens gaze,
    Concern myself with nothing weighty,
Loaf, at a stretch, for seven days -
    Or eighty.

Why can't I cease a slave to be,
    And taste existence beatific
On some fair island, hid in the
    Pacific?

Instead of sitting at a desk
    'Mid undone labours, grimly lurking -
Oh, say, what is there picturesque
    In working?

But no! - to loaf were misery! -
    I love to work! Hang isles of coral!
(To end this otherwise would be
...

Ben posson gli occhi.


Well may these eyes of mine both near and far
        Behold the beams that from thy beauty flow;
        But, lady, feet must halt where sight may go:
        We see, but cannot climb to clasp a star.
The pure ethereal soul surmounts that bar
        Of flesh, and soars to where thy splendours glow,
        Free through the eyes; while prisoned here below,
        Though fired with fervent love, our bodies are.
Clogged with mortality and wingless, we
        Cannot pursue an angel in her flight:
        Only to gaze exhausts our utmost might.
Yet, if but heaven like earth incline to thee,
        Let my whole body be one eye to see,
        That not one part of me may miss thy sight!

Qual maraviglia è.


If being near the fire I burned with it,
        Now that its flame is quenched and doth not show,
        What wonder if I waste within and glow,
        Dwindling away to cinders bit by bit?

While still it burned, I saw so brightly lit
        That splendour whence I drew my grievous woe,
        That from its sight alone could pleasure flow,
        And death and torment both seemed exquisite.

But now that heaven hath robbed me of the blaze
        Of that great fire which burned and nourished me,
        A coal that smoulders 'neath the ash am I.

Unless Love furnish wood fresh flames to raise,
        I shall expire with not one spark to see,
        So quickly into embers do I die!

I LATELY vowed to leave the nuns alone,
So oft their freaks have in my page been shown.
The subject may at length fatigue the mind;
My Muse the veil howe'er is still inclined,
Conspicuously to hold to publick view,
And, 'mong the sisters, scene and scene pursue.
Is this too much? - the nicest tricks they play;
Through soft amours oft artfully they stray,
And these in full I'd readily detail,
If I were sure the subject would not fail;
And that's impossible I must admit,
'Twould endless be, the tales appear so fit;
There's not a clerk so expeditious found,
Who could record the stories known around.
The sisters to forget, were I to try,
Suspicions might arise that, by and by,
I should return: some case might tempt my pen;
So oft I've overrun the convent-den,...

The Text is taken almost entirely from a copy which was sent in 1780 to Bishop Percy by a Miss Fisher of Carlisle; in the last half of the first stanza her version gives, unintelligibly:

    'But little knew he that his bloody hounds
        Were bound in iron bands':

and I have therefore substituted lines from a later text. The correction in 20.1 and 21.1 is also essential.


The Story will be familiar to many as Johnie of Breadislee, a title given by Sir Walter Scott to his version, the first that was published, in the Minstrelsy (1802). In the present version, however, Johnny certainly belongs to Cockley's Well, Bradyslee being only the name of his hunting-ground. In other variants, his name is Johnny Cock, Johnny Cox, Johnny o' Cockis, o' Cockerslee, of Cockielaw, of Cocklesmuir,...

As Julia once a-slumb'ring lay,
It chanced a bee did fly that way,
After a dew, or dew-like shower,
To tipple freely in a flower;
For some rich flower, he took the lip
Of Julia, and began to sip;
But when he felt he suck'd from thence
Honey, and in the quintessence,
He drank so much he scarce could stir;
So Julia took the pilferer.
And thus surprised, as filchers use,
He thus began himself t'excuse:
'Sweet lady-flower, I never brought
Hither the least one thieving thought;
But taking those rare lips of yours
For some fresh, fragrant, luscious flowers,
I thought I might there take a taste,
Where so much sirup ran at waste.
Besides, know this, I never sting
The flower that gives me nourishing;
But with a kiss, or thanks, do pay
For honey...

Some folks t'inks hit's right an' p'opah,
Soon ez bedtime come erroun',
Fu' to scramble to de kiver,
Lak dey 'd hyeahed de trumpet soun'.
But dese people dey all misses
Whut I mos'ly does desiah;
Dat 's de settin' roun' an' dozin',
An' a-noddin' by de fiah.

When you 's tiahed out a-hoein',
Er a-followin' de plough,
Whut's de use of des a-fallin'
On yo' pallet lak a cow?
W'y, de fun is all in waitin'
In de face of all de tiah,
An' a-dozin' and a-drowsin'
By a good ol' hick'ry fiah.

Oh, you grunts an' groans an' mumbles
Case yo' bones is full o' col',
Dough you feels de joy a-tricklin'
Roun' de co'nahs of yo' soul.
An' you 'low anothah minute
'S sho to git you wa'm an' dryah,
W'en you set up pas' yo' bedtime,
Case y...

Weep not for Scio's children slain;
Their blood, by Turkish falchions shed,
Sends not its cry to Heaven in vain
For vengeance on the murderer's head.

Though high the warm red torrent ran
Between the flames that lit the sky,
Yet, for each drop, an armed man
Shall rise, to free the land, or die.

And for each corpse, that in the sea
Was thrown, to feast the scaly herds,
A hundred of the foe shall be
A banquet for the mountain birds.

Stern rites and sad, shall Greece ordain
To keep that day, along her shore,
Till the last link of slavery's chain
Is shivered, to be worn no more.

Within my heart a worm had long been hid.
I knew it not when I went down and chid
Because some servants of my inner house
Had not, I found, of late been doing well,
But then I spied the horror hideous
Dwelling defiant in the inmost cell--
No, not the inmost, for there God did dwell!
But the small monster, softly burrowing,
Near by God's chamber had made itself a den,
And lay in it and grew, the noisome thing!
Aghast I prayed--'twas time I did pray then!
But as I prayed it seemed the loathsome shape
Grew livelier, and did so gnaw and scrape
That I grew faint. Whereon to me he said--
Some one, that is, who held my swimming head,
"Lo, I am with thee: let him do his worst;
The creature is, but not his work, accurst;
Thou hating him, he is as a thing dead."

Day goeth bold in cloth of gold,
A royal bridegroom he;
But Night in jewelled purple walks,
A Queen of Mystery.

Day filleth up his loving-cup
With vintage golden-clear;
But Night her ebon chalice crowns
With wine as pale as Fear.

Day drinks to Life, to ruddy Life,
And holds a kingly feast.
Night drinks to Death; and while she drinks,
Day rises in the East!

They may not meet; they may not greet;
Each keeps a separate way:
Day knoweth not the stars of Night,
Nor Night the Star of Day.

So runs the reign of Other Twain.
Behold! the Preacher saith
Death knoweth not the Light of Life,
Nor Life the Light of Death!

Here is a tale for any man or woman:
A fool sought Death; and braved him with his bauble
Among the graves. At last he heard a hobble,
And something passed him, monstrous, super-human.
And by a tomb, that reared a broken column,
He heard it stop. And then Gargantuan laughter
Shattered the hush. Deep silence followed after,
Filled with the stir of bones, cadaverous, solemn.
Then said the fool:"Come! show thyself, old prancer!
I'll have a bout with thee. I, too, can clatter
My wand and motley. Come now! Death and Folly,
See who's the better man." There was no answer;
Only his bauble broke; a serious matter
To the poor fool who died of melancholy.

--[St. John, i. 1-33]


In the mighty Mother's bosom was the Wise
With the mystic Father in aeonian night;
Aye, for ever one with them though it arise
    Going forth to sound its hymn of light.

At its incantation rose the starry fane;
At its magic thronged the myriad race of men;
Life awoke that in the womb so long had lain
    To its cyclic labours once again.

'Tis the soul of fire within the heart of life;
From its fiery fountain spring the will and thought;
All the strength of man for deeds of love or strife,
    Though the darkness comprehend it not.

In the mystery written here
John is but the life, the seer;
Outcast from the life of light,
Inly with reverted sight
Still he scans with eager eyes
The celestial mysterie...

Come, come to me, love!
    Come, love!--Arise
And shame the bright stars
    With the light of thine eyes;
Look out from thy lattice--
    Oh, lady-bird, hear!
A swan on the water--
    My gondola's near!

Come, come to me, love!
    Come, love!--My bride!
O'er crystal in moonbeams
    We'll tranquilly glide:
In the dip of the oar
    A melody flows
Sweet as the nightingale
    Sings to the rose.

Come, come to me, love!
    Come, love!--The day
Brings warder and cloister!
    Away, then--away!
Oh, haste to thy lover!
    Not yon star above
Is more true to heaven
    Then he to his love!

There was a little man,
And he had a little gun,
And his bullets were made of lead, lead, lead;
He went to the brook
And saw a little duck,
And he shot it right through the head, head, head.





He carried it home
To his old wife Joan,
And bid her a fire for to make, make, make;
To roast the little duck
He had shot in the brook,
And he'd go and fetch her the drake, drake, drake.

    When Reuben Pantier ran away and threw me
    I went to Springfield. There I met a lush,
    Whose father just deceased left him a fortune.
    He married me when drunk.
    My life was wretched.
    A year passed and one day they found him dead.
    That made me rich. I moved on to Chicago.
    After a time met Tyler Rountree, villain.
    I moved on to New York. A gray-haired magnate
    Went mad about me - so another fortune.
    He died one night right in my arms, you know.
    (I saw his purple face for years thereafter. )
    There was almost a scandal.
    I moved on, This time to Paris. I was now a woman,
    Insidious, subtle, versed in the world and rich.
    My sweet apartment near the Champs Elysees
    Became a center for all sorts of people,<...

The wind tapped like a tired man,
And like a host, "Come in,"
I boldly answered; entered then
My residence within

A rapid, footless guest,
To offer whom a chair
Were as impossible as hand
A sofa to the air.

No bone had he to bind him,
His speech was like the push
Of numerous humming-birds at once
From a superior bush.

His countenance a billow,
His fingers, if he pass,
Let go a music, as of tunes
Blown tremulous in glass.

He visited, still flitting;
Then, like a timid man,
Again he tapped -- 't was flurriedly --
And I became alone.

"At the Sign of the Lyre,"
Good Folk, we present you
With the pick of our quire,
And we hope to content you!

Here be Ballad and Song,
The fruits of our leisure,
Some short and some long--
May they all give you pleasure!

But if, when you read,
They should fail to restore you,
Farewell, and God-speed--
The world is before you!