Heartbreak

Darkly falls the autumn twilight, rustles by the crisp leaf sere,
Sadly wail the lonely night-winds, sweeping sea-ward, chill and drear,
Sullen dash the restless waters 'gainst a bleak and rock-bound shore,
While the sea-birds' weird voices mingle with their surging roar.

Vainly seeks the eye a flow'ret 'mid the desolation drear,
Or a spray of pleasant verdure which the gloomy scene might cheer;
Nought but frowning crags and boulders, and long sea-weeds, ghastly, dank,
With the mosses and pale lichens, to the wet rocks clinging rank.

See, the fog clouds thickly rolling o'er the landscape far and wide,
Till the tall cliffs look like phantoms, seeking 'mid their shrouds to hide;
On they come, the misty masses of the wreathing vapour white,
Filling hill and mead and valley, b...

        In the dark night, from sweet refreshing sleep
    I wake to hear outside my window-pane
    The uncurbed fury of the wild spring rain,
        And weird winds lashing the defiant deep,
        And roar of floods that gather strength and leap
    Down dizzy, wreck-strewn channels to the main.
    I turn upon my pillow and again
        Compose myself for slumber.
    Let them sweep;
    I once survived great floods, and do not fear,
        Though ominous planets congregate, and seem
        To foretell strange disasters.
    From a dream -
    Ah! dear God! such a dream! - I woke to hear,
        Through the dense shadows lit by no star's gleam,
    The rush of mighty waters on my ear.
        Helpless, afraid, and all alone, I lay;
    The flood...

Judge we of coming, by the by-past, years,
And still can Hope, the siren, soothe our fears?
Cheated, deceived, our cherished day-dreams o'er,
We cling the closer, and we trust the more.
Oh, who can say there's bliss in the review
Of hours, when Hope with fairy fingers drew
A magic sketch of "rapture yet to be,"
A rainbow horizon, a life of glee!
The world all bright before us vivid scene
Of cloudless sunshine and of fadeless green;
A treacherous picture of our coming years,
Bright in prospective welcomed but with tears.

How false the view, a backward glance will tell!
A tale of visions wrecked, of broken spell,
Of valued hearts estranged or careless grown,
Affection's links dissevered or unknown;
Of joys, deemed fadeless, gone to swift decay,
And lo...

Thou wast hard pressed, yet God concealed this thing
From me; and thou wast wounded very sore,
And beaten down, O son of Israel’s king,
Like wheat on threshing-flour.

Thou, that from courtly and from wise for friend
Didst choose me, and in spite of ban and sneer,
Rebuke and ridicule, until the end
Didst ever hold me dear!

All night thy body on the mountain lay:
At morn the heathen nailed thee to their wall.
Surely their deaf gods hear the songs to-day
O’er the slain House of Saul!

Oh! if that witch were here thy father sought,
Methinks I e’en could call thee from thy place,
To shift thy mangled image from my thought,
Seeing thy soul’s calm face.

I sorrowed for the words the prophet spoke,
That set me rival to thy father’s line;

The cockchafer hums down the rut-rifted lane
Where the wild roses hang and the woodbines entwine,
And the shrill squeaking bat makes his circles again
Round the side of the tavern close by the sign.
The sun is gone down like a wearisome queen,
In curtains the richest that ever were seen.

The dew falls on flowers in a mist of small rain,
And, beating the hedges, low fly the barn owls;
The moon with her horns is just peeping again,
And deep in the forest the dog-badger howls;
In best bib and tucker then wanders my Jane
By the side of the woodbines which grow in the lane.

On a sweet eventide I walk by her side;
In green hoods the daisies have shut up their eyes.
Young Jenny is handsome without any pride;
Her eyes (O how bright!) have the hue of the skies.<...

Love, strong as Death, is dead.
Come, let us make his bed
Among the dying flowers:
A green turf at his head;
And a stone at his feet,
Whereon we may sit
In the quiet evening hours.

He was born in the Spring,
And died before the harvesting:
On the last warm summer day
He left us; he would not stay
For Autumn twilight cold and grey.
Sit we by his grave, and sing
He is gone away.

To few chords and sad and low
Sing we so:
Be our eyes fixed on the grass
Shadow-veiled as the years pass
While we think of all that was
In the long ago.

Like boys that run behind the loaded wain
For the mere joy of riding back again,
When summer from the meadow carts the hay
And school hours leave them half a day to play;
So I with leisure on three sides a sheet
Of foolscap dance with poesy's measured feet,
Just to ride post upon the wings of time
And kill a care, to friendship turned in rhyme.
The muse's gallop hurries me in sport
With much to read and little to divert,
And I, amused, with less of wit than will,
Run till I tire.--And so to cheat her still.
Like children running races who shall be
First in to touch the orchard wall or tree,
The last half way behind, by distance vext,
Turns short, determined to be first the next;
So now the muse has run me hard and long--
I'll leave at once her races and h...

The Autumn's come again,
And the clouds descend in rain,
And the leaves are fast falling in the wood;
The Summer's voice is still,
Save the clacking of the mill
And the lowly-muttered thunder of the flood.

There's nothing in the mead
But the river's muddy speed,
And the willow leaves all littered by its side.
Sweet voices are all still
In the vale and on the hill,
And the Summer's blooms are withered in their pride.

Fled is the cuckoo's note
To countries far remote,
And the nightingale is vanished from the woods;
If you search the lordship round
There is not a blossom found,
And where the hay-cock scented is the flood.

My true love's fled away
Since we walked 'mid cocks of hay,
On the Sabbath in the Summer of the year;

        The saddest hour of anguish and of loss
    Is not that season of supreme despair
    When we can find no least light anywhere
        To gild the dread, black shadow of the Cross;
        Not in that luxury of sorrow when
    We sup on salt of tears, and drink the gall
    Of memories of days beyond recall -
        Of lost delights that cannot come again.

    But when, with eyes that are no longer wet,
        We look out on the great, wide world of men,
        And, smiling, lean toward a bright to-morrow,
    Then backward shrink, with sudden keen regret,
    To find that we are learning to forget:
        Ah! then we face the saddest hour of sorrow.

High o'er the clouds a Sunbeam shone,
    And far down under him,
With a subtle grace that was all her own,
    The Mist gleamed, fair and dim.

He looked at her with his burning eyes
    And longed to fall at her feet;
Of all sweet things there under the skies,
    He thought her the thing most sweet.

He had wooed oft, as a Sunbeam may,
    Wave, and blossom, and flower;
But never before had he felt the sway
    Of a great love's mighty power.

Tall cloud-mountains and vast space-seas,
    Wind, and tempest, and fire -
What are obstacles such as these
    To a heart that is filled with desire?

Boldly he trod over cloud and star,
    Boldly he swam through space,
She caught the glow of his eyes afar
    And veiled her delic...

!Severed and gone, so many years!
And art thou still so dear to me,
That throbbing heart and burning tears
Can witness how I cling to thee?

I know that in the narrow tomb
The form I loved was buried deep,
And left, in silence and in gloom,
To slumber out its dreamless sleep.

I know the corner where it lies,
Is but a dreary place of rest:
The charnel moisture never dries
From the dark flagstones o'er its breast,

For there the sunbeams never shine,
Nor ever breathes the freshening air,
But not for this do I repine;
For my beloved is not there.

O, no! I do not think of thee
As festering there in slow decay:
'Tis this sole thought oppresses me,
That thou art gone so far away.

For ever gone; for I, by night,
Ha...

1.

Oh! when shall the grave hide for ever my sorrow?
Oh! when shall my soul wing her flight from this clay?
The present is hell! and the coming to-morrow
But brings, with new torture, the curse of to-day.


2.

From my eye flows no tear, from my lips flow no curses,
I blast not the fiends who have hurl'd me from bliss;
For poor is the soul which, bewailing, rehearses
Its querulous grief, when in anguish like this -


3.

Was my eye, 'stead of tears, with red fury flakes bright'ning,
Would my lips breathe a flame which no stream could assuage,
On our foes should my glance launch in vengeance its lightning,
With transport my tongue give a loose to its rage.


4.

But now tears and curses, alike unavailing,
...

I let myself in at the kitchen door.
"It's you," she said. "I can't get up. Forgive me
Not answering your knock. I can no more
Let people in than I can keep them out.
I'm getting too old for my size, I tell them.
My fingers are about all I've the use of
So's to take any comfort. I can sew:
I help out with this beadwork what I can."
"That's a smart pair of pumps you're beading there.
Who are they for?"
"You mean? oh, for some miss.
I can't keep track of other people's daughters.
Lord, if I were to dream of everyone
Whose shoes I primped to dance in!"
"And where's John?"
"Haven't you seen him? Strange what set you off
To come to his house when he's gone to yours.
You can't have passed each other. I know what:
He must have changed his mind and gone to G...

There was a man, it was said one time,
Who went astray in his youthful prime.
Can the brain keep cool and the heart keep quiet
When the blood is a river that's running riot?
And boys will be boys, the old folks say,
And a man is the better who's had his day

The sinner reformed; and the preacher told
Of the prodigal son who came back to the fold.
And Christian people threw open the door,
With a warmer welcome than ever before.
Wealth and honour were his to command,
And a spotless woman gave him her hand.
And the world strewed their pathway with blossoms abloom,
Crying, "God bless ladye, and God bless groom!"

There was a maiden who went astray,
In the golden dawn of her life's young day.
She had more passion and heart than head,
And she followed...

Amid the flowers of a garden glade
    A lovely rose tree smiled,
And the sunbeams shone, the zephyrs played,
    'Round the gardens favorite child;
And the diamond dew-drops glistening fell
    On each rose's silken vest,
Whilst light winged bee and butterfly gay
    On the soft leaves loved to rest.

But one morn while a sunbeam bright
    Lit up its delicate bloom,
And a zephyr lightly hovered 'round,
    On wings of sweet perfume,
A strong hand came, and ruthlessly
    Tore up the parent tree,
And bore it off, with each fair young rose,
    From butterfly, zephyr and bee.

What mattered it that an antique vase
    Of Sèvres costly and old,
Was destined, henceforth, in royal State,
    Its fair young form to hold?
What m...

I paused to read a letter of hers
By the moon's cold shine,
Eyeing it in the tenderest way,
And edging it up to catch each ray
Upon her light-penned line.
I did not know what years would flow
Of her life's span and mine
Ere I read another letter of hers
By the moon's cold shine!

I chance now on the last of hers,
By the moon's cold shine;
It is the one remaining page
Out of the many shallow and sage
Whereto she set her sign.
Who could foresee there were to be
Such letters of pain and pine
Ere I should read this last of hers
By the moon's cold shine!

Within the precincts of a hospital,
    I wandered in a sympathetic mood;
Where face to face with wormwood and with gall,
    With wrecks of pain and stern vicissitude,
The eye unused to human misery
Might view life's undercurrent vividly.

My gaze soon rested on the stricken form
    Of one succumbing to the fever's drouth,
With throbbing brow intolerably warm,
    With wasted lips and mute appealing mouth;
And when I watched that prostrate figure there
I thought that fate must be the worst to bear.

I next beheld a thin but patient face,
    Aged by the constant twinge of hopeless pain,
Wheeled in an easy chair from place to place,
    A form which ne'er might stand erect again;
I viewed that human shipwreck in his chair,
And thought a fate li...

Nevermore at doorways that are barken
Shall the madcap wind knock and the moonlight;
Nor the circle which thou once didst darken,
Shine with footsteps of the neighbouring moonlight,
Visitors for whom thou oft didst hearken.

Nevermore, gallooned with cloudy laces,
Shall the morning, like a fair freebooter,
Make thy leaves his richest treasure-places;
Nor the sunset, like a royal suitor,
Clothe thy limbs with his imperial graces.

And no more, between the savage wonder
Of the sunset and the moon's up-coming,
Shall the storm, with boisterous hoof-beats, under
Thy dark roof dance, Faun-like, to the humming
Of the Pan-pipes of the rain and thunder.

Oft the Satyr-spirit, beauty-drunken,
Of the Spring called; and the music measure
Of thy sap mad...