Heartbreak

But now the Summer hastens to its close,
And soon will Song a different aspect wear,
Sweeping terrific, clad in ghostly snows,
And lit by the flash of the Boreal glare,
Or, but a poet in his easy chair;
And her most pleasing aspect now beguiles
What time is hers with deft, endearing air:
With gorgeous gold she decks her garments, whiles
Her melancholy face with Indian Summer smiles.

Thy very smile sends sadness to my heart.
Farewell! sweet love, the happy hour is o'er:
Too well I knew that we again must part.
Her garments trail the fond, reluctant floor.
But I shall ne'er forget the dress she wore,
Her looks, her words, the pleasing song she sung -
'Tis melody will charm me more and more,
'Tis music that will keep my spirit young,
'Tis joyance in my...

Your spoken words are roses fine and sweet,
The songs you sing are perfect pearls of sound.
How lavish nature is about your feet,
To scatter flowers and jewels both around.

Blushing the stream of petal beauty flows,
Softly the white strings trickle down and shine.
Oh! speak to me, my love, I crave a rose.
Sing me a song, for I would pearls were mine.

You were here at his young beginning,
You are not here at his aged end;
Off he coaxed you from Life's mad spinning,
Lest you should see his form extend
Shivering, sighing,
Slowly dying,
And a tear on him expend.

So it comes that we stand lonely
In the star-lit avenue,
Dropping broken lipwords only,
For we hear no songs from you,
Such as flew here
For the new year
Once, while six bells swung thereto.

Like pensive cattle, lying on the sands,
they turn their eyes towards the sea’s far hills,
and, feet searching each other’s, touching hands,
know sweet languor and the bitterest thrills.


Some, where the stream babbles, deep in the woods,
their hearts enamoured of long intimacies,
go spelling out the loves of their own girlhoods,
and carving the green bark of young trees.


Others, like Sisters, walk, gravely and slow,
among the rocks, full of apparitions,
where Saint Anthony saw, like lava flows,
the bared crimson breasts of his temptations.


There are those, in the melting candle’s glimmer,
who in mute hollows of caves still pagan,
call on you to relieve their groaning fever,
O Bacchus, to soothe the remorse of the ancients!
<...

"Oh! Love," they said, "is King of Kings,
And Triumph is his crown.
Earth fades in flame before his wings,
And Sun and Moon bow down."
But that, I knew, would never do;
And Heaven is all too high.
So whenever I meet a Queen, I said,
I will not catch her eye.

"Oh! Love," they said, and "Love," they said,
"The gift of Love is this;
A crown of thorns about thy head,
And vinegar to thy kiss!"
But Tragedy is not for me;
And I'm content to be gay.
So whenever I spied a Tragic Lady,
I went another way.

And so I never feared to see
You wander down the street,
Or come across the fields to me
On ordinary feet.
For what they'd never told me of,
And what I never knew;
It was that all the time, my love,
Love would be merely yo...

I wonder if with you, as it is with me,
If under your slipping words, that easily flow
About you as a garment, easily,
Your violent heart beats to and fro!

Long have I waited, never once confessed,
Even to myself, how bitter the separation;
Now, being come again, how make the best
Reparation?

If I could cast this clothing off from me,
If I could lift my naked self to you,
Or if only you would repulse me, a wound would be
Good; it would let the ache come through.

But that you hold me still so kindly cold
Aloof my flaming heart will not allow;
Yea, but I loathe you that you should withhold
Your pleasure now.

The gray of the sea, and the gray of the sky,
A glimpse of the moon like a half-closed eye.
The gleam on the waves and the light on the land,
A thrill in my heart,--and--my sweetheart's hand.

She turned from the sea with a woman's grace,
And the light fell soft on her upturned face,
And I thought of the flood-tide of infinite bliss
That would flow to my heart from a single kiss.

But my sweetheart was shy, so I dared not ask
For the boon, so bravely I wore the mask.
But into her face there came a flame:--
I wonder could she have been thinking the same?

'The oppression of the tumult, wrath and scorn
The tribulation and the gleaming blades'
Such is the impetuous spirit that pervades
The song of Taliesin; Ours shall mourn
The 'unarmed' Host who by their prayers would turn
The sword from Bangor's walls, and guard the store
Of Aboriginal and Roman lore,
And Christian monuments, that now must burn
To senseless ashes. Mark! how all things swerve
From their known course, or vanish like a dream;
Another language spreads from coast to coast;
Only perchance some melancholy Stream
And some indignant Hills old names preserve,
When laws, and creeds, and people all are lost!

Lo! where she stands fixed in a saint-like trance,
One upward hand, as if she needed rest
From rapture, lying softly on her breast!
Nor wants her eyeball an ethereal glance;
But not the less, nay more, that countenance,
While thus illumined, tells of painful strife
For a sick heart made weary of this life
By love, long crossed with adverse circumstance.
Would She were now as when she hoped to pass
At God's appointed hour to them who tread
Heaven's sapphire pavement, yet breathed well content,
Well pleased, her foot should print earth's common grass,
Lived thankful for day's light, for daily bread,
For health, and time in obvious duty spent.

“The Indians speak of a beautiful river, far to the south,
which they call Merrimac.” - SIEUR. DE MONTS, 1604.


Stream of my fathers! sweetly still
The sunset rays thy valley fill;
Poured slantwise down the long defile,
Wave, wood, and spire beneath them smile.
I see the winding Powow fold
The green hill in its belt of gold,
And following down its wavy line,
Its sparkling waters blend with thine.
There ’s not a tree upon thy side,
Nor rock, which thy returning tide
As yet hath left abrupt and stark
Above thy evening water-mark;
No calm cove with its rocky hem,
No isle whose emerald swells begin
Thy broad, smooth current; not a sail
Bowed to the freshening ocean gale;
No small boat with its busy oars,
Nor gray wall sloping to th...

The night is long
    And there are no stars, -
        Let me but dream
        That the long fields gleam
With sunlight and song,
Then I shall not long
    For the light of stars.

Let me but dream, -
    For there are no stars, -
        Dream that the ache
        And the wild heart-break
Are but things that seem.
Ah! let me dream
    For there are no stars.

        The Spring has grown to Summer;
            The sun is fierce and high;
        The city shrinks, and withers
            Beneath the burning sky.
        Ailantus trees are fragrant,
            And thicker shadows cast,
        Where berry-girls, with voices shrill,
            And watering carts go past.

        In offices like ovens
            We sit without our coats;
        Our cuffs are moist and shapeless,
            No collars binds our throats.
        We carry huge umbrellas
            On Broad Street and on Wall,
        Oh, how thermometers go up!
            And, oh, how stocks do fall!

        The nights are full of music,
            Melodious Teuton troops
        Beguile us, calmly smoking,
      ...

The moon has left the sky, love,
The stars are hiding now,
And frowning on the world, love,
Night bares her sable brow.
The snow is on the ground, love,
And cold and keen the air is.
I 'm singing here to you, love;
You 're dreaming there in Paris.

But this is Nature's law, love,
Though just it may not seem,
That men should wake to sing, love,
While maidens sleep and dream.
Them care may not molest, love,
Nor stir them from their slumbers,
Though midnight find the swain, love,
Still halting o'er his numbers.

I watch the rosy dawn, love,
Come stealing up the east,
While all things round rejoice, love,
That Night her reign has ceased.
The lark will soon be heard, love,
And on his way be winging;
When Nature's poets wake, ...

What time the mighty moon was gathering light
Love paced the thymy plots of Paradise,
And all about him roll’d his lustrous eyes;
When, turning round a cassia, full in view,
Death, walking all alone beneath a yew,
And talking to himself, first met his sight.
‘You must begone,’ said Death, ‘these walks are mine.’
Love wept and spread his sheeny vans for flight;
Yet ere he parted said, ‘This hour is thine:
Thou art the shadow of life, and as the tree
Stands in the sun and shadows all beneath,
So in the light of great eternity
Life eminent creates the shade of death.
The shadow passeth when the tree shall fall,
But I shall reign for ever over all.’

Farewell, Aziz, it was not mine to fold you
    Against my heart for any length of days.
I had no loveliness, alas, to hold you,
    No siren voice, no charm that lovers praise.

Yet, in the midst of grief and desolation,
    Solace I my despairing soul with this:
Once, for my life's eternal consolation,
    You lent my lips your loveliness to kiss.

Ah, that one night!    I think Love's very essence
    Distilled itself from out my joy and pain,
Like tropical trees, whose fervid inflorescence
    Glows, gleams, and dies, never to bloom again.

Often I marvel how I met the morning
    With living eyes after that night with you,
Ah, how I cursed the wan, white light for dawning,
    And mourned the paling stars, as each withdrew!

Yet I, eve...

DEATH:
For my dagger is bathed in the blood of the brave,
I come, care-worn tenant of life, from the grave,
Where Innocence sleeps 'neath the peace-giving sod,
And the good cease to tremble at Tyranny's nod;
I offer a calm habitation to thee, -
Say, victim of grief, wilt thou slumber with me?
My mansion is damp, cold silence is there,
But it lulls in oblivion the fiends of despair;
Not a groan of regret, not a sigh, not a breath,
Dares dispute with grim Silence the empire of Death.
I offer a calm habitation to thee, -
Say, victim of grief, wilt thou slumber with me?

MORTAL:
Mine eyelids are heavy; my soul seeks repose,
It longs in thy cells to embosom its woes,
It longs in thy cells to deposit its load,
Where no longer the scorpions of Perfidy goad,...

When Death, or adverse Fortune's ruthless gale,
    Tears our best hopes away, the wounded Heart
    Exhausted, leans on all that can impart
    The charm of Sympathy; her mutual wail
How soothing! never can her warm tears fail
    To balm our bleeding grief's severest smart;
    Nor wholly vain feign'd Pity's solemn art,
    Tho' we should penetrate her sable veil.
Concern, e'en known to be assum'd, our pains
    Respecting, kinder welcome far acquires
    Than cold Neglect, or Mirth that Grief profanes.
Thus each faint Glow-worm of the Night conspires,
    Gleaming along the moss'd and darken'd lanes,
    To cheer the Gloom with her unreal fires.

June 1780.

("Puisqu'ici-bas tout âme.")

[XL, May 19, 1836.]

Since everything below,
Doth, in this mortal state,
Its tone, its fragrance, or its glow
Communicate;

Since all that lives and moves
Upon the earth, bestows
On what it seeks and what it loves
Its thorn or rose;

Since April to the trees
Gives a bewitching sound,
And sombre night to grief gives ease,
And peace profound;

Since day-spring on the flower
A fresh'ning drop confers,
And the fresh air on branch and bower
Its choristers;

Since the dark wave bestows
A soft caress, imprest
On the green bank to which it goes
Seeking its rest;

I give thee at this hour,
Thus fondly bent o'er thee,
The best of all the things in dow'r
T...