Heartbreak

There was one Mrs. Cameron of 50 years of age and the fattest woman in all Inverness-shire who got up this Mountain some few years ago, true she had her servants, but then she had her self.    She ought to have hired Sisyphus,, "Up the high hill he heaves a huge round, Mrs. Cameron." 'Tis said a little conversation took place between the mountain and the Lady. After taking a glass of Whiskey as she was tolerably seated at ease she thus began,


Mrs. C.
Upon my Life Sir Nevis I am pique'd
That I have so far panted tugg'd and reek'd
To do an honour to your old bald pate
And now am sitting on you just to bate,
Without your paying me one compliment.
Alas 'tis so with all, when our intent
Is plain, and in the eye of all Mankind
We fair ones show a preference, too blind!
You Gen...

Lean down, and kiss me, O my love, my own;
    The day is near when thy fond heart will miss me;
And o'er my low green bed, with bitter moan,
    Thou wilt lean down, but cannot clasp or kiss me.

How strange it is, that I, so loving thee,
    And knowing we must part, perchance to-morrow,
Do comfort find, thinking how great will be
    Thy lonely desolation, and thy sorrow.

And stranger -sadder, O mine own other part,
    That I should grudge thee some surcease of weeping;
Why do I not rejoice, that in thy heart,
    Sweet love will bloom again when I am sleeping?

Nay, make no promise.    I would place no bar
    Upon thy future, even wouldst thou let me.
Thou hast, thou dost, well love me, like a man:
    And, like a man, in time thou wilt forget...

If you have revisited the town, thin Shade,
Whether to look upon your monument
(I wonder if the builder has been paid)
Or happier thoughted when the day is spent
To drink of that salt breath out of the sea
When grey gulls flit about instead of men,
And the gaunt houses put on majesty:
Let these content you and be gone again;
For they are at their old tricks yet.
A man
Of your own passionate serving kind who had brought
In his full hands what, had they only known,
Had given their children’s children loftier thought,
Sweeter emotion, working in their veins
Like gentle blood, has been driven from the place,
And insult heaped upon him for his pains
And for his open-handedness, disgrace;
An old foul mouth that slandered you had set
The pack upon him.

No windy white of wind-blown clouds is thine,
No windy white but low and sodden gray,
That holds the melancholy skies and kills
The wild song and the wild bird; yet, ai me!
Thy melancholy skies and mournful woods,
Brown, sighing forests dying that I love!
Thy long thick leaves deep, deep about my feet,
Slow, weary feet that halt or falter on;
Thy long, sweet, reddened leaves that burn and die
With silent fever of the sickened wold.

I love to hear in all thy windy coigns,
Rain-wet and choked with bleached and rotting weeds,
The baby-babble of the many leaves,
That, fallen on barren ways, like fallen hopes
Once held so high on all the Summer's heart
Of strong majestic trees, now come to such,
Would fainly gossip in hushed undertones, -
Sad weak yet sw...

He was a boy, sun-burned and brown,
And she a girl from a neighboring town:
Dark were her eyes and dark her hair,
And her cheeks as red as the ripe peach there:
Dainty and sweet, with a far-away
Look in her eyes like the skies of May.
And it came to pass one afternoon
She walked in the fields; and the month was June:
In the hay-heaped fields and the meadowland
With trees and hills on either hand.
And the lad, who worked on her father's farm,
Had laid him down all tired and warm.
He had been toiling day after day
Mowing and raking and hilling the hay.
And now at last, with his work well done,
He slept by a stack away from the sun.
And she, who came with her young head full
Of thoughts that never are learned in school,
Young dreams and fancies no girl ...

Joust First.


I.

Bright shone the lists, blue bent the skies,
And the knights still hurried amain
To the tournament under the ladies' eyes,
Where the jousters were Heart and Brain.

II.

Flourished the trumpets: entered Heart,
A youth in crimson and gold.
Flourished again: Brain stood apart,
Steel-armored, dark and cold.

III.

Heart's palfrey caracoled gayly round,
Heart tra-li-ra'd merrily;
But Brain sat still, with never a sound,
So cynical-calm was he.

IV.

Heart's helmet-crest bore favors three
From his lady's white hand caught;
While Brain wore a plumeless casque; not he
Or favor gave or sought.

V.

The herald blew; Heart shot a glance
To find his lady's eye,

From the rainy hill-heads, where, in starts and in spasms,
Leaps wild the white torrent from chasms to chasms
From the home of bold echoes, whose voices of wonder
Fly out of blind caverns struck black by high thunder
Through gorges august, in whose nether recesses
Is heard the far psalm of unseen wildernesses
Like a dominant spirit, a strong-handed sharer
Of spoil with the tempest, comes down the Narrara.

Yea, where the great sword of the hurricane cleaveth
The forested fells that the dark never leaveth
By fierce-featured crags, in whose evil abysses
The clammy snake coils, and the flat adder hisses
Past lordly rock temples, where Silence is riven
By the anthems supreme of the four winds of heaven
It speeds, with the cry of the streams of the fountains
It cha...

"Ah, with torn heart I see them still,
    Wee unused clothes and empty cot.
Though glad my love has missed the ill
    That falls to woman's lot.

"No tangled paths for her to tread
    Throughout the coming changeful years;
No desperate weird to dree and dread;
    No bitter lonely tears!

"No woman's piercing crown of thorns
    Will press my aching baby's brow;
No starless nights, no sunless morns,
    Will ever greet her now.

"The clothes that I had wrought with care
    Through weary hours for love's sweet sake
Are laid aside, and with them there
    A heart that seemed to break."

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day,
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o’ertake me in my way,
Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?
’Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
For no man well of such a salve can speak,
That heals the wound, and cures not the disgrace:
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:
The offender’s sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence’s cross.
Ah! but those tears are pearl which thy love sheds,
And they are rich and ransom all ill deeds.

I.
Who hath known the ways of time
Or trodden behind his feet?
There is no such man among men.
For chance overcomes him, or crime
Changes; for all things sweet
In time wax bitter again.
Who shall give sorrow enough,
Or who the abundance of tears?
Mine eyes are heavy with love
And a sword gone thorough mine ears,
A sound like a sword and fire,
For pity, for great desire;
Who shall ensure me thereof,
Lest I die, being full of my fears?

Who hath known the ways and the wrath,
The sleepless spirit, the root
And blossom of evil will,
The divine device of a god?
Who shall behold it or hath?
The twice-tongued prophets are mute,
The many speakers are still;
No foot has travelled or trod,
No hand has meted, his path.
Man’s f...

I

Her violin! - Again begin
The dream-notes of her violin;
And dim and fair, with gold-brown hair,
I seem to see her standing there,
Soft-eyed and sweetly slender:
The room again, with strain on strain,
Vibrates to LOVE's melodious pain,
As, sloping slow, is poised her bow,
While round her form the golden glow
Of sunset spills its splendour.


II

Her violin! - now deep, now thin,
Again I hear her violin;
And, dream by dream, again I seem
To see the love-light's tender gleam
Beneath her eyes' long lashes:
While to my heart she seems a part
Of her pure song's inspirèd art;
And, as she plays, the rosy grays
Of twilight halo hair and face,
While sunset burns to ashes.


III

O violin! - Cease,...

When your soft welcomings were said,
This curl was waving on your head,
And when we walked where breakers dinned
It sported in the sun and wind,
And when I had won your words of grace
It brushed and clung about my face.
Then, to abate the misery
Of absentness, you gave it me.

Where are its fellows now? Ah, they
For brightest brown have donned a gray,
And gone into a caverned ark,
Ever unopened, always dark!

Yet this one curl, untouched of time,
Beams with live brown as in its prime,
So that it seems I even could now
Restore it to the living brow
By bearing down the western road
Till I had reached your old abode.

February 1913.

One of a hundred little rills--
Born in the hills,
Nourished with dews by the earth, and with tears by the sky,
Sang--"Who so mighty as I?
The farther I flow
The bigger I grow.
I, who was born but a little rill,
Now turn the big wheel of the mill,
Though the surly slave would rather stand still.
Old, and weed-hung, and grim,
I am not afraid of him;
For when I come running and dance on his toes,
With a creak and a groan the monster goes.
And turns faster and faster,
As he learns who is master,
Round and round,
Till the corn is ground,
And the miller smiles as he stands on the bank,
And knows he has me to thank.
Then when he swings the fine sacks of flour,
I feel my power;
But when the children enjoy their food,
I know I'm not only ...

Between the green bud and the red
Youth sat and sang by Time, and shed
From eyes and tresses flowers and tears,
From heart and spirit hopes and fears,
Upon the hollow stream whose bed
Is channelled by the foamless years;
And with the white the gold-haired head
Mixed running locks, and in Time’s ears
Youth’s dreams hung singing, and Time’s truth
Was half not harsh in the ears of Youth.

Between the bud and the blown flower
Youth talked with joy and grief an hour,
With footless joy and wingless grief
And twin-born faith and disbelief
Who share the seasons to devour;
And long ere these made up their sheaf
Felt the winds round him shake and shower
The rose-red and the blood-red leaf,
Delight whose germ grew never grain,
And passion dyed in its ...

Simple was I and was young;
Kept no gallant tryst, I;
Even from good words held my tongue,
Quoniam Tu fecisti!

Through my youth I stirred me not,
High adventure missed I,
Left the shining shrines unsought;
Yet me deduxisti!

At my start by Helicon
Love-lore little wist I,
Worldly less; but footed on;
Why? Me suscepisti!

When I failed at fervid rhymes,
"Shall," I said, "persist I?"
"Dies" (I would add at times)
"Meos posuisti!"

So I have fared through many suns;
Sadly little grist I
Bring my mill, or any one's,
Domine, Tu scisti!

And at dead of night I call:
"Though to prophets list I,
Which hath understood at all?
Yea: Quem elegisti?"

Thou wast that all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine,
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
But to be overcast!
A voice from out the Future cries,
"On! on!", but o'er the Past
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, motionless, aghast!

For, alas! alas! with me
The light of Life is o'er!
"No more, no more, no more",
(Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy foo...

Sweet type of innocence, snow-clothed blossom,
Seemly, though vainly, bowing down to shun
The storm hard-beating on thy wan white bosom,
Left in the swail, and little cheer'd by sun;
Resembling that frail jewel, just begun
To ope on vice's eye its witcheries blooming,
Midst all its storms, with little room to shun--
Ah, thou art winter's snowdrop, lovely Woman!
In this world dropt, where every evil's glooming
With killing tempests o'er its tender prey,
Watching the opening of thy beauties coming,
Its every infant charm to snatch away:
Then come the sorrows thou'rt too weak to brave,
And then thy beauty-cheek digs ruin's early grave.

I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house,
Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.
I said, ‘O Soul, make merry and carouse,
Dear soul, for all is well.’

A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish’d brass
I chose. The ranged ramparts bright
From level meadow-bases of deep grass
Suddenly scaled the light.

Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf
The rock rose clear, or winding stair.
My soul would live alone unto herself
In her high palace there.

And ‘while the world runs round and round,’ I said,
‘Reign thou apart, a quiet king,
Still as, while Saturn whirls, his steadfast shade
Sleeps on his luminous ring.’

To which my soul made answer readily:
‘Trust me, in bliss I shall abide
In this great mansion, that is built for me,
So royal...