Heartbreak

All that could never be said,
All that could never be done,
Wait for us at last
Somewhere back of the sun;

All the heart broke to forego
Shall be ours without pain,
We shall take them as lightly as girls
Pluck flowers after rain.

And when they are ours in the end
Perhaps after all
The skies will not open for us
Nor heaven be there at our call.

Yes! had I leisure to sigh and mourn,
    Fanny dearest, for thee I'd sigh;
And every smile on my cheek should turn
    To tears when thou art nigh.
But between love and wine and sleep,
    So busy a life I live,
That even the time it would take to weep
    Is more than my heart can give.
Then wish me not to despair and pine,
    Fanny, dearest of all the dears!
The Love that's ordered to bathe in wine,
    Would be sure to take cold in tears.

Reflected bright in this heart of mine,
    Fanny dearest, thy image lies;
But ah! the mirror would cease to shine,
    If dimmed too often with sighs.
They lose the half of beauty's light,
    Who view it thro' sorrow's tear;
And 'tis but to see thee truly bright
    That I keep my eye-beams clear.<...

(CLARISSA HARLOW)


Seek not to calm my grief,
    To stay the falling tear;
Have pity on me, ye my friends,
    The hand of God is here.

She was my only one,
    Oh, then my love how great!
Now she is gone, my heart and home
    Are empty desolate

I thought not, in my love
    That we were doomed to part,
Now I am childless, and my fate
    Falls heavy on my heart

O Thou who gave the gift,
    Who took the gift away,
Who only can heal up the wound,
    Give answer while I pray!

Do Thou send comfort down,
    All goodness as Thou art,
Even in Thy last passion, Thou
    Didst soothe a mother's heart.

I would not take her back,
    From Thee, from Heaven and bliss,
Though yearning for her...

I.

Oh, when I was a tiny boy,
My days and nights were full of joy,
My mates were blithe and kind! -
No wonder that I sometimes sigh,
And dash the tear-drop from my eye,
To cast a look behind!


II.

A hoop was an eternal round
Of pleasure. In those days I found
A top a joyous thing; -
But now those past delights I drop,
My head, alas! is all my top,
And careful thoughts the string!


III.

My marbles - once my bag was stored, -
Now I must play with Elgin's lord,
With Theseus for a taw!
My playful horse has slipt his string,
Forgotten all his capering,
And harness'd to the law!


IV.

My kite - how fast and far it flew!
Whilst I, a sort of Franklin, drew
My pleasure from ...

Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,
And it but mimic all we would believe
With colours idly spread, - behind, lurk Fear
And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave
Their shadows, o'er the chasm, sightless and drear.
I knew one who had lifted it - he sought,
For his lost heart was tender, things to love
But found them not, alas! nor was there aught
The world contains, the which he could approve.
Through the unheeding many he did move,
A splendour among shadows, a bright blot
Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove
For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.

Carelessly over the plain away,
Where by the boldest man no path
Cut before thee thou canst discern,
Make for thyself a path!

Silence, loved one, my heart!
Cracking, let it not break!
Breaking, break not with thee!

        God had called us, and we came;
            Our loved Earth to ashes left;
        Heaven was a neighbor's house,
            Open to us, bereft.

        Gay the lights of Heaven showed,
            And 'twas God who walked ahead;
        Yet I wept along the road,
            Wanting my own house instead.

        Wept unseen, unheeded cried,
            "All you things my eyes have kissed,
        Fare you well!    We meet no more,
            Lovely, lovely tattered mist!

        Weary wings that rise and fall
            All day long above the fire!"--
        Red with heat was every wall,
            Rough with heat was every wire--

        "Fare you well, you little winds
            That the flying embers chase!
...

Soleasi nel mio cor star bella e viva.

SINCE HER DEATH, NOTHING IS LEFT TO HIM BUT GRIEF.


    She stood within my heart, warm, young, alone,
As in a humble home a lady bright;
By her last flight not merely am I grown
Mortal, but dead, and she an angel quite.
A soul whence every bliss and hope is flown,
Love shorn and naked of its own glad light,
Might melt with pity e'en a heart of stone:
But none there is to tell their grief or write;
These plead within, where deaf is every ear
Except mine own, whose power its griefs so mar
That nought is left me save to suffer here.
Verily we but dust and shadows are!
Verily blind and evil is our will!
Verily human hopes deceive us still!

MACGREGOR.


    'Mid life's bright glow ...

        I

    Happy are men who yet before they are killed
    Can let their veins run cold.
    Whom no compassion fleers
    Or makes their feet
    Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers.
    The front line withers,
    But they are troops who fade, not flowers
    For poets' tearful fooling:
    Men, gaps for filling
    Losses who might have fought
    Longer; but no one bothers.


        II

    And some cease feeling
    Even themselves or for themselves.
    Dullness best solves
    The tease and doubt of shelling,
    And Chance's strange arithmetic
    Comes simpler than the reckoning of their shilling.
    They keep no check on Armies' decimation.


        III

    Happy are thes...

"Is it safe to lie so lonely when the summer twilight closes
No companion maidens, only you asleep among the roses?

"Thirteen, fourteen years you number, and your hair is soft and scented,
Perilous is such a slumber in the twilight all untented.

"Lonely loveliness means danger, lying in your rose-leaf nest,
What if some young passing stranger broke into your careless rest?"

But she would not heed the warning, lay alone serene and slight,
Till the rosy spears of morning slew the darkness of the night.

Young love, walking softly, found her, in the scented, shady closes,
Threw his ardent arms around her, kissed her lips beneath the roses.

And she said, with smiles and blushes, "Would that I had sooner known!
Never now the morning thrushes wake and find me al...

        One time in Arcadie's fair bowers
    There met a bright immortal band,
        To choose their emblems from the flowers
    That made an Eden of that land.

        Sweet Constancy, with eyes of hope,
    Strayed down the garden path alone
        And gathered sprays of heliotrope,
    To place in clusters at her zone.

        True Friendship plucked the ivy green,
    Forever fresh, forever fair.
        Inconstancy with flippant mien
    The fading primrose chose to wear.

        One moment Love the rose paused by;
    But Beauty picked it for her hair.
        Love paced the garden with a sigh
    He found no fitting emblem there.

        Then suddenly he saw a flame,
    A conflagration turned to bloom;
        It ...

Now must I these three praise,
Three women that have wrought
What joy is in my days;
One that no passing thought,
Nor those unpassing cares,
No, not in these fifteen
Many times troubled years,
Could ever come between
Heart and delighted heart;
And one because her hand
Had strength that could unbind
What none can understand,
What none can have and thrive,
Youth’s dreamy load, till she
So changed me that I live
Labouring in ecstasy.
And what of her that took
All till my youth was gone
With scarce a pitying look?
How could I praise that one?
When day begins to break
I count my good and bad,
Being wakeful for her sake,
Remembering what she had,
What eagle look still shows,
While up from my heart’s root
So great a s...

Here in the silent doorway let me linger
One moment, for the porch is still and lonely;
That shadow's but the rose vine in the moonlight;
All are asleep in peace, I waken only,
And he I wait, by my own heart's beating
I know how slow to him the tide creeps by,
Nor life, nor death, could bar our hearts from meeting;
Were worlds between, his soul to mine would fly.

Oh, shame! to think a heap of paltry metal
Should overbalance manhood's noblest graces;
A film of gold had gilt his worth and honor,
Warming to smiles the coldness of their faces;
Gentle to me, they rise in condemnation,
And plead with me than words more powerfully.
Oh! well I love them - but they have wealth and station
To fill their hearts, and he has only me.

But oh, my roses, how their...

'Tis May morning,
All-adorning,
No cloud warning
Of rain to-day.
Where shall I go to,
Go to, go to? -
Can I say No to
Lyonnesse-way?

Well what reason
Now at this season
Is there for treason
To other shrines?
Tristram is not there,
Isolt forgot there,
New eras blot there
Sought-for signs!

Stratford-on-Avon -
Poesy-paven -
I'll find a haven
There, somehow! -
Nay I'm but caught of
Dreams long thought of,
The Swan knows nought of
His Avon now!

What shall it be, then,
I go to see, then,
Under the plea, then,
Of votary?
I'll go to Lakeland,
Lakeland, Lakeland,
Certainly Lakeland
Let it be.

But why to that place,
That place, that place,
Such a hard come-a...

One musician is sure,
His wisdom will not fail,
He has not tasted wine impure,
Nor bent to passion frail.
Age cannot cloud his memory,
Nor grief untune his voice,
Ranging down the ruled scale
From tone of joy to inward wail,
Tempering the pitch of all
In his windy cave.
He all the fables knows,
And in their causes tells,--
Knows Nature's rarest moods,
Ever on her secret broods.
The Muse of men is coy,
Oft courted will not come;
In palaces and market squares
Entreated, she is dumb;
But my minstrel knows and tells
The counsel of the gods,
Knows of Holy Book the spells,
Knows the law of Night and Day,
And the heart of girl and boy,
The tragic and the gay,
And what is writ on Table Round
Of Arthur and his peers;
Wh...

Tune - "My love is lost to me."


I.

    O, were I on Parnassus' hill!
    Or had of Helicon my fill;
    That I might catch poetic skill,
        To sing how dear I love thee.
    But Nith maun be my Muse's well;
    My Muse maun be thy bonnie sel':
    On Corsincon I'll glow'r and spell,
        And write how dear I love thee.

II.

    Then come, sweet Muse, inspire my lay!
    For a' the lee-lang simmer's day
    I coudna sing, I coudna say,
        How much, how dear, I love thee.
    I see thee dancing o'er the green,
    Thy waist sae jimp, thy limbs sae clean,
    Thy tempting lips, thy roguish een,
        By heaven and earth I love thee!

III.

    By night, by day, a-field, at hame,

The willows stand by Fringford brook,
    From Fringford up to Hethe,
Sun on their cloudy silver heads,
    And shadow underneath.

They ripple to the silent airs
    That stir the lazy day,
Now whitened by their passing hands,
    Now turned again to grey.

The slim marsh-thistle's purple plume
    Droops tasselled on the stem,
The golden hawkweeds pierce like flame
    The grass that harbours them;

Long drowning tresses of the weeds
    Trail where the stream is slow,
The vapoured mauves of water-mint
    Melt in the pools below;

Serenely soft September sheds
    On earth her slumberous look,
The heartbreak of an anguished world
    Throbs not by Fringford brook.

All peace is here. Beyond our range,
    Ye...

We two in the fever and fervour and glow
    Of life's high tide have rejoiced together;
We have looked out over the glittering snow,
    And known we were dwelling in Summer weather,
For the seasons are made by the heart I hold,
And not by outdoor heat or cold.

We two, in the shadows of pain and woe,
    Have journeyed together in dim, dark places,
Where black-robed Sorrow walked to and fro,
    And Fear and Trouble, with phantom faces,
Peered out upon us and froze our blood,
Though June's fair roses were all in bud.

We two have measured all depths, all heights,
    We have bathed in tears, we have sunned in laughter!
We have known all sorrows and delights -
    They never could keep us apart hereafter.
Whether your spirit went high or low,
M...