Heartbreak

Sad faces came round, and I dreamily said
“Though the harp of my country now slumbers,
Some hand will pass o’er it, in love for the dead,
And attune it to sorrowful numbers!”
But the hopes that I clung to are withering things,
For the days have gone by with a cloud on their wings,
And the touch of a bard is unknown to the strings
Oh, why art thou silent, Australia?

The leaves of the autumn are scattering fast,
The willows look barren and lonely;
But I dream a sad dream of my friend of the past,
And his form I can dwell upon only!
In the strength of his youth I can see him go by.
There is health on the cheek, and a fire in the eye
Oh, who would have thought that such beauty could die!
Ah, mourn for thy noblest, Australia!

A strange shadow broods o’e...

Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!
The tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled
Above the tide of hours, trouble the air,
And God's bell buoyed to be the water's care;
While hushed from fear, or loud with hope, a band
With blown, spray-dabbled hair gather at hand,
i(Turn if you may from battles never done,)
I call, as they go by me one by one,
i(Danger no refuge holds, and war no peace,)
i(For him who hears love sing and never cease,)
i(Beside her clean-swept hearth, her quiet shade:)
i(But gather all for whom no love hath made)
i(A woven silence, or but came to cast)
i(A song into the air, and singing passed)
i(To smile on the pale dawn; and gather you)
i(Who have sought more than is in rain or dew,)
i(Or in the sun and moon, or on the earth,)

Do you know the way that goes
Over fields of rue and rose,
Warm of scent and hot of hue,
Roofed with heaven's bluest blue,
To the Vale of Dreams Come True?

Do you know the path that twines,
Banked with elder-bosks and vines,
Under boughs that shade a stream,
Hurrying, crystal as a gleam,
To the Hills of Love a-Dream?

Tell me, tell me, have you gone
Through the fields and woods of dawn,
Meadowlands and trees that roll,
Great of grass and huge of bole,
To the Land of Hearts Made Whole?

On the way, among the fields,
Poppies lift vermilion shields,
In whose hearts the golden Noon,
Murmuring her drowsy tune,
Rocks the sleepy bees that croon.

On the way, amid the woods,
Mandrakes muster multitudes,
'Mid whose blo...

My wind is turned to bitter north,
That was so soft a south before;
My sky, that shone so sunny bright,
With foggy gloom is clouded o’er
My gay green leaves are yellow-black,
Upon the dank autumnal floor;
For love, departed once, comes back
No more again, no more.
A roofless ruin lies my home,
For winds to blow and rains to pour;
One frosty night befell, and lo,
I find my summer days are o’er:
The heart bereaved, of why and how
Unknowing, knows that yet before
It had what e’en to Memory now
Returns no more, no more.

How sweet the music sounded
That summer long ago,
When you were by my side, love,
To list its gentle flow.

I saw your eyes a-shining,
I felt your rippling hair,
I kissed your pearly cheek, love,
And had no thought of care.

And gay or sad the music,
With subtle charm replete;
I found in after years, love
'Twas you that made it sweet.

For standing where we heard it,
I hear again the strain;
It wakes my heart, but thrills it
With sad, mysterious pain.

It pulses not so joyous
As when you stood with me,
And hand in hand we listened
To that low melody.

Oh, could the years turn back, love!
Oh, could events be changed
To what they were that time, love,
Before we were estranged;

Wert thou once ...

King Eochaid came at sundown to a wood
Westward of Tara. Hurrying to his queen
He had out-ridden his war-wasted men
That with empounded cattle trod the mire;
And where beech trees had mixed a pale the green light
With the ground-ivy’s blue, he saw a stag
Whiter than curds, its eyes the tint of the sea.
Because it stood upon his path and seemed
More hands in height than any stag in the world
He sat with tightened rein and loosened mouth
Upon his trembling horse, then drove the spur;
But the stag stooped and ran at him, and passed,
Rending the horse’s flank. King Eochaid reeled
Then drew his sword to hold its levelled point
Against the stag. When horn and steel were met
The horn resounded as though it had been silver,
A sweet, miraculous, terrifying sound.
...

Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist - slack they may be - these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.
But ah, but O thou terrible, why wouldst thou rude on me
Thy wring-world right foot rock? lay a lionlimb against me? scan
With darksome devouring eyes my bruisèd bones? and fan,
O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?

Why? That my chaff might fly; my grain lie, sheer and clear.
Nay in all that toil, that coil, since (seems) I kissed the rod,
Hand rather, my heart lo! lapped strength, stole joy, would laugh, chéer.
Cheer whom though? the hero whose heaven-handling flung me, fóot tród
Me? or me that fought him? O...

When sinks my heart in hopeless gloom,
And life can shew no joy for me;
And I behold a yawning tomb,
Where bowers and palaces should be;

In vain you talk of morbid dreams;
In vain you gaily smiling say,
That what to me so dreary seems,
The healthy mind deems bright and gay.

I too have smiled, and thought like you,
But madly smiled, and falsely deemed:
Truth led me to the present view,
I'm waking now, 'twas then I dreamed.

I lately saw a sunset sky,
And stood enraptured to behold
Its varied hues of glorious dye:
First, fleecy clouds of shining gold;

These blushing took a rosy hue;
Beneath them shone a flood of green;
Nor less divine, the glorious blue
That smiled above them and between.

I cannot name each lovely...

How lovely the elder brother's
Life all laced in the other's,
Lóve-laced! what once I well
Witnessed; so fortune fell.
When Shrovetide, two years gone,
Our boys' plays brought on
Part was picked for John,
Young Jóhn: then fear, then joy
Ran revel in the elder boy.
Their night was come now; all
Our company thronged the hall;
Henry, by the wall,
Beckoned me beside him:
I came where called, and eyed him
By meanwhiles; making mý play
Turn most on tender byplay.
For, wrung all on love's rack,
My lad, and lost in Jack,
Smiled, blushed, and bit his lip;
Or drove, with a diver's dip,
Clutched hands down through clasped knees -
Truth's tokens tricks like these,
Old telltales, with what stress
He hung on the imp's success.
Now the...

I

If suddenly a clod of earth should rise,
And walk about, and breathe, and speak, and love,
How one would tremble, and in what surprise
Gasp: 'Can you move?'

I see men walking, and I always feel:
'Earth! How have you done this? What can you be?'
I can't learn how to know men, or conceal
How strange they are to me.


II

A flower is looking through the ground,
Blinking at the April weather;
Now a child has seen the flower:
Now they go and play together.

Now it seems the flower will speak,
And will call the child its brother -
But, oh strange forgetfulness! -
They don't recognize each other.

With copious eulogy in prose or rhyme
Graven on the tomb we struggle against Time,
Alas, how feebly! but our feelings rise
And still we struggle when a good man dies:
Such offering Beaumont dreaded and forbade,
A spirit meek in self-abasement clad.
Yet 'here' at least, though few have numbered days
That shunned so modestly the light of praise
His graceful manners, and the temperate ray
Of that arch fancy which would round him play,
Brightening a converse never known to swerve
From courtesy and delicate reserve;
That sense, the bland philosophy of life,
Which checked discussion ere it warmed to strife
Those rare accomplishments, and varied powers,
Might have their record among sylvan bowers.
Oh, fled for ever! vanished like a blast
That shook the leaves in...

I see the starting buds, I catch the gleam
    In the near distance of a sun-kissed pool,
    The blessed April air blows soft and cool,
Small wonder if all sorrow grows a dream,
    And we forget that close around us lie
    A city's poor, a city's misery.

Of every outward vision there is some
    Internal counterpart. To-day I know
    The blessedness of living, and the glow
Of life's dear spring-tide. I can bid thee come
    In thought and wander where the fields are fair
    With bursting life, and I, rejoicing, there.

Yet have I passed, Beloved, through the vale
    Of dark dismay, and felt the dews of death
    Upon my brow, have measured out my breath
Counting my hours of joy, as misers quail
    At every footfall in the quiet night
   ...

    Her ivied towers tall
    Old forests belt and bar,
And oh! the West's dim mountain crests
    That line the blue afar.

    Her gardens face dark cliffs,
    That seeth against a sea
As blue and deep as the eyes of Sleep
    With saddening mystery.

    Red sands roll leagues on leagues
    Ribbed of the wind and wave;
The near warm sky bends from on high
    The pale brow of a slave.

    And when the morning's beams
    Lie crushed on crag and bay,
A wail of flutes and soft-strung lutes
    O'er the lone land swoons away.

    The woods are 'roused from rest,
    A scent of earth and brine,
By brake and lake the wild things wake,
    And torrents leap and shine.

    But she in one gray tower
    White-f...

Pale as a star that shines through rain
Her face was seen at the window-pane,
Her sad, frail face that watched in vain.

The face of a girl whose brow was wan,
To whom the kind sun spoke at dawn,
And a star and the moon when the day was gone.

And oft and often the sun had said
"O fair, white face, O sweet, fair head,
Come talk with me of the love that's dead."

And she would sit in the sun awhile,
Down in the garth by the old stone-dial,
Where never again would he make her smile.

And often the first bright star o'erhead
Had whispered,"Sweet, where the rose blooms red,
Come look with me for the love that's dead."

And she would wait with the star she knew,
Where the fountain splashed and the roses blew,
Where never again would he...

Warm and still is the summer night,
    As here by the river's brink I wander;
White overhead are the stars, and white
    The glimmering lamps on the hillside yonder.

Silent are all the sounds of day;
    Nothing I hear but the chirp of crickets,
And the cry of the herons winging their way
    O'er the poet's house in the Elmwood thickets.

Call to him, herons, as slowly you pass
    To your roosts in the haunts of the exiled thrushes,
Sing him the song of the green morass;
    And the tides that water the reeds and rushes.

Sing him the mystical Song of the Hern,
    And the secret that baffles our utmost seeking;
For only a sound of lament we discern,
    And cannot interpret the words you are speaking.

Sing of the air, and the wild de...

Meek honor, female shame,
O! whither, sweetest offspring of the sky,
From Albion dost thou fly;
Of Albion's daughters once the favorite fame?
O beauty's only friend,
Who giv'st her pleasing reverence to inspire;
Who selfish, bold desire
Dost to esteem and dear affection turn;
Alas, of thee forlorn
What joy, what praise, what hope can life pretend?

Behold; our youths in vain
Concerning nuptial happiness inquire:
Our maids no more aspire
The arts of bashful Hymen to attain;
But with triumphant eyes
And cheeks impassive, as they move along,
Ask homage of the throng.
The lover swears that in a harlot's arms
Are found the self-same charms,
And worthless and deserted lives and dies.
Behold; unbless'd at home,
The father of the cheerles...

        When my blood flows calm as a purling river,
    When my heart is asleep and my brain has sway,
        It is then that I vow we must part forever,
    That I will forget you, and put you away
        Out of my life, as a dream is banished
    Out of the mind when the dreamer awakes;
        That I know it will be, when the spell has vanished,
    Better for both of our sakes.

        When the court of the mind is ruled by Reason,
    I know it is wiser for us to part;
        But Love is a spy who is plotting treason,
    In league with that warm, red rebel, the Heart.
        They whisper to me that the King is cruel,
    That his reign is wicked, his law a sin;
        And every word they utter is fuel
    To the flame that smoulders within.
<...

Soon as the polar light, which never knows
Setting nor rising, nor the shadowy veil
Of other cloud than sin, fair ornament
Of the first heav'n, to duty each one there
Safely convoying, as that lower doth
The steersman to his port, stood firmly fix'd;
Forthwith the saintly tribe, who in the van
Between the Gryphon and its radiance came,
Did turn them to the car, as to their rest:
And one, as if commission'd from above,
In holy chant thrice shorted forth aloud:
"Come, spouse, from Libanus!" and all the rest
Took up the song--At the last audit so
The blest shall rise, from forth his cavern each
Uplifting lightly his new-vested flesh,
As, on the sacred litter, at the voice
Authoritative of that elder, sprang
A hundred ministers and messengers
Of life ete...