Heartbreak

When the rose is brightest,
Its bloom will soonest die;
When burns the meteor brightest,
’T will vanish from the sky.
If Death but wait until delight
O’errun the heart like wine,
And break the cup when brimming quite,
I die, for thou hast poured to-night
The last drop into mine

Oh, will the footsteps never be done?
            The insolent feet
            Thronging the street,
Forsaken now of the only one.

The only one out of all the throng,
            Whose footfall I knew,
            And could tell it so true,
That I leapt to see as she passed along,

As she passed along with her beautiful face,
            Which knew full well
            Though it did not tell,
That I was there in the window-space.

Now my sense is never so clear.
            It cheats my heart,
            Making me start
A thousand times, when she is not near.

When she is not near, but so far away,
            I could not come
            To the place of her home,
Though I travelled and sought for a month and a day.
...

Love! inform thy faithful creature
How to keep his fair one's heart;
Must it be by truth of nature,
Or by poor dissembling art?
Tell the secret, show the wonder,
How we both may gain our ends;
I am lost if we're asunder,
Ever tortured if we're friends.

Frowned the Laird on the Lord: “So, red-handed I catch thee?
Death-doomed by our Law of the Border!
We’ve a gallows outside and a chiel to dispatch thee:
Who trespasses, hangs: all’s in order.”

He met frown with smile, did the young English gallant:
Then the Laird’s dame: “Nay, Husband, I beg!
He’s comely: be merciful! Grace for the callant
If he marries our Muckle-mouth Meg!

“No mile-wide-mouthed monster of yours do I marry:
Grant rather the gallows!” laughed he.
“Foul fare kith and kin of you, why do you tarry?”
“To tame your fierce temper!” quoth she.

“Shove him quick in the Hole, shut him fast for a week:
Cold, darkness, and hunger work wonders:
Who lion-like roars now, mouse-fashion will squeak,
And ‘it rains’ soon succeed to ‘it thunders.”’<...

To Alice and Hypatia Bradlaugh

Who was Lilah? I am sure
She was young and sweet and pure;
With the forehead wise men love,
Here a lucid dawn above
Broad curved brows, and twilight there,
Under the deep dusk of hair.

And her eyes? I cannot say
Whether brown, or blue, or grey:
I have seen them brown, and blue,
And a soft green grey, the hue
Shakespeare loved (and he was wise);
'Grey as glass' were Silvia's eyes.

So to Lilah's name above
I will add two names I love,
Linking with the bracket curls
Three sweet names of three sweet girls:-
Sunday of Saint Valentine,
Eighteen hundred sixty-nine.

Not for thyself, but for the sake of Song,
Strive to succeed as others have, who gave
Their lives unto her; shaping sure and strong
Her lovely limbs that made them god and slave.

Not for thyself, but for the sake of Art,
Strive to advance beyond the others' best;
Winning a deeper secret from her heart
To hang it moonlike 'mid the starry rest.

Deep desire, that pierces heart and spirit to the root,
Finds reluctant voice in verse that yearns like soaring fire,
Takes exultant voice when music holds in high pursuit
Deep desire.

Keen as burns the passion of the rose whose buds respire,
Strong as grows the yearning of the blossom toward the fruit,
Sounds the secret half unspoken ere the deep tones tire.

Slow subsides the rapture that possessed love's flower-soft lute,
Slow the palpitation of the triumph of the lyre:
Still the soul feels burn, a flame unslaked though these be mute,
Deep desire.

South of the Line, inland from far Durban,
A mouldering soldier lies - your countryman.
Awry and doubled up are his gray bones,
And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans
Nightly to clear Canopus: "I would know
By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law
Of Peace, brought in by that Man Crucified,
Was ruled to be inept, and set aside?

And what of logic or of truth appears
In tacking 'Anno Domini' to the years?
Near twenty-hundred livened thus have hied,
But tarries yet the Cause for which He died."

Christmas-eve, 1899.

"A little child shall lead them."


I trod an arduous way, but came at last
To where the city walls rose fair and white
Above the darkening plain,--a goodly sight.
And eagerly, while yet a great way off,
My eyes did seek the Gates--the Great White Gates
That close not ever, day or night, but stand
Wide as the love of Christ that opened them.
But nought could I discern of gate or breach,
The wall stood flawless far as eye could reach.

"But when I drew in closer to the wall,
I saw a lowly portal, strait and small;
So small, a man might hardly enter there,
Low-browed and shadowed, and close-pressed to earth--
A very needle's eye--scarce visible.
I looked and wondered. Could this trivial way
Be the sole entrance to the light of day?
And as I s...

I
Was it light that spake from the darkness, or music that shone from the word,
When the night was enkindled with sound of the sun or the first-born bird?
Souls enthralled and entrammelled in bondage of seasons that fall and rise,
Bound fast round with the fetters of flesh, and blinded with light that dies,
Lived not surely till music spake, and the spirit of life was heard.

II
Music, sister of sunrise, and herald of life to be,
Smiled as dawn on the spirit of man, and the thrall was free.
Slave of nature and serf of time, the bondman of life and death,
Dumb with passionless patience that breathed but forlorn and reluctant breath,
Heard, beheld, and his soul made answer, and communed aloud with the sea.

III
Morning spake, and he heard: and the passionate silent n...

I heard the rumbling guns. I saw the smoke,
The unintelligible shock of hosts that still,
Far off, unseeing, strove and strove again:
And Beauty flying naked down the hill.

From morn to eve: and then stern night cried Peace!
And shut the strife in darkness; all was still.
Then slowly crept a triumph on the dark--
And I heard Beauty singing up the hill.

FIRST CUPBEARER.

Drink of this cup--Osiris sips
    The same in his halls below;
And the same he gives, to cool the lips
    Of the dead, who downward go.

Drink of this cup--the water within
    Is fresh from Lethe's stream;
'Twill make the past, with all its sin,
    And all its pain and sorrows, seem
    Like a long forgotten dream;
The pleasure, whose charms
    Are steeped in woe;
The knowledge, that harms
    The soul to know;

The hope, that bright
    As the lake of the waste,
Allures the sight
    And mocks the taste;

The love, that binds
    Its innocent wreath,
Where the serpent winds
    In venom beneath!--

All that of evil or false, by thee
    Hath ever been known or seen,
Shalt ...

Like a grey shadow lurking in the light,
He ventures forth along the edge of night;
With silent foot he scouts the coulie's rim
And scents the carrion awaiting him.
His savage eyeballs lurid with a flare
Seen but in unfed beasts which leave their lair
To wrangle with their fellows for a meal
Of bones ill-covered. Sets he forth to steal,
To search and snarl and forage hungrily;
A worthless prairie vagabond is he.
Luckless the settler's heifer which astray
Falls to his fangs and violence a prey;
Useless her blatant calling when his teeth
Are fast upon her quivering flank - beneath
His fell voracity she falls and dies
With inarticulate and piteous cries,
Unheard, unheeded in the barren waste,
To be devoured with savage greed and haste.
Up the horizon on...

Being your slave what should I do but tend,
Upon the hours, and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend;
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour,
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour,
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are, how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love, that in your will,
Though you do anything, he thinks no ill.

“I was with Grant” the stranger said;
Said the farmer, “Say no more,
But rest thee here at my cottage porch,
For thy feet are weary and sore.”

“I was with Grant” the stranger said;
Said the farmer, “Nay, no more,
I prithee sit at my frugal board,
And eat of my humble store.

“How fares my boy, my soldier boy,
Of the old Ninth Army Corps?
I warrant he bore him gallantly
In the smoke and the battle’s roar!”

“I know him not,” said the aged man,
“And, as I remarked before,
I was with Grant” “Nay, nay, I know,”
Said the farmer, “say no more:

“He fell in battle, I see, alas!
Thou’dst smooth these tidings o’er,
Nay, speak the truth, whatever it be,
Though it rend my bosom’s core.

“How fell he?        With his face to t...

Wide are the meadows of night,
And daisies are shining there,
Tossing their lovely dews,
Lustrous and fair;
And through these sweet fields go,
Wanderers amid the stars -
Venus, Mercury, Uranus, Neptune,
Saturn, Jupiter, Mars.

'Tired in their silver, they move,
And circling, whisper and say,
Fair are the blossoming meads of delight
Through which we stray.

After the Sea-Ship--after the whistling winds;
After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes,
Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks,
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship:
Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,
Waves, undulating waves--liquid, uneven, emulous waves,
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,
Where the great Vessel, sailing and tacking, displaced the surface;
Larger and smaller waves, in the spread of the ocean, yearnfully flowing;
The wake of the Sea-Ship, after she passes--flashing and frolicsome, under the sun,
A motley procession, with many a fleck of foam, and many fragments,
Following the stately and rapid Ship--in the wake following.

    It's a mighty good world, so it is, dear lass,
    When even the worst is said.
    There's a smile and a tear, a sigh and a cheer,
    But better be living than dead;
    A joy and a pain, a loss and a gain;
    There's honey and may be some gall:
    Yet still I declare, foul weather or fair,
    It's a mighty good world after all.

    For look, lass! at night when I break from the fight,
    My Kingdom's awaiting for me;
    There's comfort and rest, and the warmth of your breast,
    And little ones climbing my knee.
    There's fire-light and song - Oh, the world may be wrong!
    Its empires may topple and fall:
    My home is my care - if gladness be there,
    It's a mighty good world after all.

    O heart of pure gold! I have made you...