Heartbreak

O! were I one of the Olympian twelve,
Their godships should pass this into law,
That when a man doth set himself in toil
After some beauty veiled far away,
Each step he took should make his lady's hand
More soft, more white, and her fair cheek more fair;
And for each briar-berry he might eat,
A kiss should bud upon the tree of love,
And pulp and ripen richer every hour,
To melt away upon the traveller's lips.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

1.
The sun, with his great eye,
Sees not so much as I;
And the moon, all silve-proud,
Might as well be in a cloud.

2.
And O the spring the spring!
I lead the life of a king!
Couch'd in the teeming grass,
I spy each pretty lass.

3.
I look where no one dares,
And I st...

There was no sound in earth or air,
    And soft the moonbeams smiled
On stately tower and temple fair,
    Like mother o'er her child;
And all was hushed in the deep repose
That welcomes the summer evening's close.

Many an eye that day had wept,
    And many a cheek with joy grew bright,
Which now, alike unconscious, slept
    Beneath the wan moonlight;
And mandolin and gay guitar
Had ceased to woo the evening star.

The lover has sought his couch again,
    And the maiden's eyes no longer glisten,
As she comes to the lattice to catch his strain,
    And sighs while she bends to smile and listen.
She sleeps, but her rosy lips still move,
And in dreams she answers the voice of love.

Sleep on, ye thoughtless and giddy train,
    ...

O heart of mine, we shouldn't
        Worry so!
What we've missed of calm we couldn't
        Have, you know!
What we've met of stormy pain,
And of sorrow's driving rain,
We can better meet again,
        If it blow!

We have erred in that dark hour
        We have known,
When our tears fell with the shower,
        All alone! -
Were not shine and shadow blent
As the gracious Master meant? -
Let us temper our content
        With His own.

For, we know, not every morrow
        Can be sad;
So, forgetting all the sorrow
        We have had,
Let us fold away our fears,
And put by our foolish tears,
And through all the coming years
    Just be glad.

In the gruesome night and the wintry weather,
    I watched two dear friends die,
And I buried them both in one grave together.
    Oh! who is so sad as I?
For the old love, and the old year,
    They both have passed away;
And I never can find the old cheer
    Come what will or may.

I heard the bell in the tall church steeple
    Clang out a joyful strain.
And I thought, 'Of all the great world's people,
    I have the bitterest pain.'
For the old year was a good year,
    And the old love was sweet;
And how could my heart hold any cheer
    When both lay dead at my feet.

Life may smile and the skies may brighten,
    Winter will pass with its snows;
Grief will wane and the burden lighten -
    And June will come with the rose.

Now, while thy rounded cheek is fresh and fair,
    While beauty lingers, laughing, in thine eyes,
Ere thy young heart shall meet the stranger, "Care,"
    Or thy blithe soul become the home of sighs,
Were it not kindness should I give thee rest
By plunging this sharp dagger in thy breast?
Dying so young, with all thy wealth of youth,
What part of life wouldst thou not claim, in sooth?
        Only the woe,
        Sweetheart, that sad souls know.

Now, in this sacred hour of supreme trust,
    Of pure delight and palpitating joy,
Ere change can come, as come it surely must,
    With jarring doubts and discords, to destroy
Our far too perfect peace, I pray thee, Sweet,
Were it not best for both of us, and meet,
If I should bring swift death to seal our bl...

Waileth a woman, "O my God!"
A breaking heart in a broken breath,
A hopeless cry o'er her heart-hope's death!
Can words catch the chords of the winds that wail,
When love's last lily lies dead in the vale!
    Let her alone,
        Under the rod
    With the infinite moan
        Of her soul for God.
Ah! song! you may echo the sound of pain,
    But you never may shrine,
    In verse or line,
The pang of the heart that breaks in twain.

Waileth a woman, "O my God!"
Wind-driven waves with no hearts that ache,
Why do your passionate pulses throb?
No lips that speak -- have ye souls that sob?
We carry the cross -- ye wear the crest,
We have our God -- and ye, your shore,
Whither ye rush in the storm to rest;
We have the havens of holy pr...

I.

Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags were they purple, his heart had been proud!
We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us, they watch from their graves!
He alone breaks from the van and the free-men,
He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

II.

W...

The full-orbed Paschal moon; dark shadows flung
On the brown Lenten earth; tall spectral trees
Stand in their huge and naked strength erect,
And stretch wild arms towards the gleaming sky.
A motionless girl-figure, face upraised
In the strong moonlight, cold and passionless.

    *    *    *    *    *

A proud spring sunset; opal-tinted sky,
Save where the western purple, pale and faint
With longing for her fickle Love, - content
Had merged herself into his burning red.
A fair young maiden, clad in velvet robe
Of sombre green, stands in the golden glow,
One hand held up to shade her dazzled eyes,
A bunch of white Narcissus at her throat.

    *    *    *    *    *

November's day, dark, leaden, lowering, -
Grey purple shadows fading on...

At a point where the old road crosses
The river, and turns to the right,
I’d camped with the team; and the hosses
Was all fixed up for the night.
I’d been to the town to carry
A load to the Cudgegong;
And I’d taken the youngster, Harry,
On a trip as I’d promis’d him long.

I had seven more, and another
That died at the age of three;
But they all took arter the mother,
And Harry took arter me.
And from the tiniest laddie
’Twas always his fondest dream
To go on the roads with his daddy,
And help him to drive the team.

He was bright at the school and clever,
The best of the youngsters there;
And the teacher said there was never
A lad that promised so fair.
And I half forgot life’s battle,
An’ its long, hard-beaten road,
In...

When the sad word, "Adieu," from my lip is nigh falling,
    And with it, Hope passes away,
Ere the tongue hath half breathed it, my fond heart recalling
    That fatal farewell, bids me stay,
For oh! 'tis a penance so weary
    One hour from thy presence to be,
That death to this soul were less dreary,
    Less dark than long absence from thee.

Thy beauty, like Day, o'er the dull world breaking.
    Brings life to the heart it shines o'er,
And, in mine, a new feeling of happiness waking,
    Made light what was darkness before.
But mute is the Day's sunny glory,
While thine hath a voice, on whose breath,
    More sweet than the Syren's sweet story,
My hopes hang, through life and through death!

Troy Town is covered up with weeds,
The rabbits and the pismires brood
On broken gold, and shards, and beads
Where Priam's ancient palace stood.

The floors of many a gallant house
Are matted with the roots of grass;
The glow-worm and the nimble mouse
Among her ruins flit and pass.

And there, in orts of blackened bone,
The widowed Trojan beauties lie,
And Simois babbles over stone
And waps and gurgles to the sky.

Once there were merry days in Troy,
Her chimneys smoked with cooking meals,
The passing chariots did annoy
The sunning housewives at their wheels.

And many a lovely Trojan maid
Set Trojan lads to lovely things;
The game of life was nobly played,
They played the game like Queens and Kings.

So that, when ...

    This morn thy gallant bark
    Sailed on a sunny sea:
    'Tis noon, and tempests dark
    Have wrecked it on the lee.
    Ah woe! ah woe!
    By Spirits of the deep
    Thou'rt cradled on the billow
    To thy eternal sleep.

    Thou sleep'st upon the shore
    Beside the knelling surge,
    And Sea-nymphs evermore
    Shall sadly chant thy dirge.
    They come, they come,
    The Spirits of the deep, -
    While near thy seaweed pillow
    My lonely watch I keep.

    From far across the sea
    I hear a loud lament,
    By Echo's voice for thee
    From Ocean's caverns sent.
    O list! O list!
    The Spirits of the deep!
    They raise a wail of sorrow,
    While I forever weep.

O for that sweet, untroubled rest
That poets oft have sung!--
The babe upon its mother's breast,
The bird upon its young,
The heart asleep without a pain--
When shall I know that sleep again?

When shall I be as I have been
Upon my mother's breast
Sweet Nature's garb of verdant green
To woo to perfect rest--
Love in the meadow, field, and glen,
And in my native wilds again?

The sheep within the fallow field,
The herd upon the green,
The larks that in the thistle shield,
And pipe from morn to e'en--
O for the pasture, fields, and fen!
When shall I see such rest again?

I love the weeds along the fen,
More sweet than garden flowers,
For freedom haunts the humble glen
That blest my happiest hours.
Here prison injures ...

1.
Now the last day of many days,
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead,
Rise, Memory, and write its praise!
Up, - to thy wonted work! come, trace
The epitaph of glory fled, -
For now the Earth has changed its face,
A frown is on the Heaven's brow.

2.
We wandered to the Pine Forest
That skirts the Ocean's foam,
The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.
The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the bosom of the deep
The smile of Heaven lay;
It seemed as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which scattered from above the sun
A light of Paradise.

3.
We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,
Tor...

I step across the mystic border-land,
And look upon the wonder-world of Art.
How beautiful, how beautiful its hills!
And all its valleys, how surpassing fair!

The winding paths that lead up to the heights
Are polished by the footsteps of the great.
The mountain-peaks stand very near to God:
The chosen few whose feet have trod thereon
Have talked with Him, and with the angels walked.

Here are no sounds of discord - no profane
Or senseless gossip of unworthy things -
Only the songs of chisels and of pens,
Of busy brushes, and ecstatic strains
Of souls surcharged with music most divine.
Here is no idle sorrow, no poor grief
For any day or object left behind -
For time is counted precious, and herein
Is such complete abandonment of Self
That ...

Where to-day would a dainty buyer
Imbibe your scented juice,
Pale ruin with a heart of fire;
Drain your succulence with her lips,
Grown sapless from much use...
Make minister of her desire
A chalice cup where no bee sips -
        Where no wasp wanders in?

Close to her white flesh housed an hour,
        One held you... her spent form
Drew on yours for its wasted dower -
What favour could she do you more?
        Yet, of all who drink therein,
        None know it is the warm
Odorous heart of a ravished flower
Tingles so in her mouth's red core...

I.

What precious thing are you making fast
In all these silken lines?
And where and to whom will it go at last?
Such subtle knots and twines!

I am tying up all my love in this,
With all its hopes and fears,
With all its anguish and all its bliss,
And its hours as heavy as years.

I am going to send it afar, afar,
To I know not where above;
To that sphere beyond the highest star
Where dwells the soul of my Love.

But in vain, in vain, would I make it fast
With countless subtle twines;
For ever its fire breaks out at last,
And shrivels all the lines.



II.

If you have a carrier-dove
That can fly over land and sea;
And a message for your Love,
“Lady, I love but thee!”

And this dove wi...

If I could put my woods in song
And tell what's there enjoyed,
All men would to my gardens throng,
And leave the cities void.

In my plot no tulips blow,--
Snow-loving pines and oaks instead;
And rank the savage maples grow
From Spring's faint flush to Autumn red.

My garden is a forest ledge
Which older forests bound;
The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge,
Then plunge to depths profound.

Here once the Deluge ploughed,
Laid the terraces, one by one;
Ebbing later whence it flowed,
They bleach and dry in the sun.

The sowers made haste to depart,--
The wind and the birds which sowed it;
Not for fame, nor by rules of art,
Planted these, and tempests flowed it.

Waters that wash my garden-side
Play not in Nat...