Heartbreak

How wildly blows the wintry wind, deep lies the drifting snow
On the hillside, and the roadside, and the valleys down below;
And up the gorge all through last night the rushing storm flew fast,
And there old walls and casements were rattling in the blast.
Lady, I had a dream last night, born of the storm and pain,
I dreamed it was the time of spring; but the clouds were black with rain.
I thought that I was on the bay, a good way out from shore
Alone, and feeling much afraid at the wild tempest's roar,
I tried to reach the distant land, but could not find the way,
And suddenly my boat capsized far out upon the bay.
I shrieked in wildest agony amid the thunder shock,
When I heard you saying unto me, "Beneath us is a Rock,
Trust not to me, these waves are strong, but lift your tear...

Vallombrosa! I longed in thy shadiest wood
To slumber, reclined on the moss-covered floor,
To listen to Anio's precipitous flood,
When the stillness of evening hath deepened its roar;
To range through the Temples of Paestum, to muse
In Pompeii preserved by her burial in earth;
On pictures to gaze where they drank in their hues;
And murmur sweet songs on the ground of their birth.

The beauty of Florence, the grandeur of Rome,
Could I leave them unseen, and not yield to regret?
With a hope (and no more) for a season to come,
Which ne'er may discharge the magnificent debt?
Thou fortunate Region! whose Greatness inurned
Awoke to new life from its ashes and dust;
Twice-glorified fields! if in sadness I turned
From your infinite marvels, the sadness was just.
...

O little feet! that such long years
Must wander on through hopes and fears,
    Must ache and bleed beneath your load;
I, nearer to the wayside inn
Where toil shall cease and rest begin,
    Am weary, thinking of your road!

O little hands! that, weak or strong,
Have still to serve or rule so long,
    Have still so long to give or ask;
I, who so much with book and pen
Have toiled among my fellow-men,
    Am weary, thinking of your task.

O little hearts! that throb and beat
With such impatient, feverish heat,
    Such limitless and strong desires;
Mine that so long has glowed and burned,
With passions into ashes turned
    Now covers and conceals its fires.

O little souls! as pure and white
And crystalline as rays of light
...

I.

The spirits of the forest,
That to the winds give voice -
I lie the livelong April day
And wonder what it is they say
That makes the leaves rejoice.

The spirits of the forest,
That breathe in bud and bloom -
I walk within the black-haw brake
And wonder how it is they make
The bubbles of perfume.

The spirits of the forest,
That live in every spring -
I lean above the brook's bright blue
And wonder what it is they do
That makes the water sing.

The spirits of the forest.
That haunt the sun's green glow -
Down fungus ways of fern I steal
And wonder what they can conceal,
In dews, that twinkles so.

The spirits of the forest,
They hold me, heart and hand -
And, oh! the bird they send by light,
...

Let us go hence, my songs; she will not hear.
Let us go hence together without fear;
Keep silence now, for singing-time is over,
And over all old things and all things dear.
She loves not you nor me as all we love her.
Yea, though we sang as angels in her ear,
She would not hear.

Let us rise up and part; she will not know.
Let us go seaward as the great winds go,
Full of blown sand and foam; what help is here?
There is no help, for all these things are so,
And all the world is bitter as a tear.
And how these things are, though ye strove to show,
She would not know.

Let us go home and hence; she will not weep.
We gave love many dreams and days to keep,
Flowers without scent, and fruits that would not grow,
Saying ‘If thou wilt, thrust in thy si...

If one could have that little head of hers
Painted upon a background of pale gold,
Such as the Tuscan’s early art prefers!
No shade encroaching on the matchless mould
Of those two lips, which should be opening soft
In the pure profile; not as when she laughs,
For that spoils all: but rather as if aloft
Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff’s
Burthen of honey-coloured buds to kiss
And capture ’twist the lips apart for this.
Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround,
How it should waver on the, pale gold ground
Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts!
I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts
Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb
Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb:
But these are only massed there, I should think,
Waiting to se...

    "Curse thee, Life, I will live with thee no more!
    Thou hast mocked me, starved me, beat my body sore!
    And all for a pledge that was not pledged by me,
    I have kissed thy crust and eaten sparingly
    That I might eat again, and met thy sneers
    With deprecations, and thy blows with tears,--
    Aye, from thy glutted lash, glad, crawled away,
    As if spent passion were a holiday!
    And now I go.    Nor threat, nor easy vow
    Of tardy kindness can avail thee now
    With me, whence fear and faith alike are flown;
    Lonely I came, and I depart alone,
    And know not where nor unto whom I go;
    But that thou canst not follow me I know."

    Thus I to Life, and ceased; but through my brain
    My thought ran still, until I spake again:<...

O differing human heart,
Why is it that I tremble when thine eyes,
Thy human eyes and beautiful human speech,
Draw me, and stir within my soul
That subtle ineradicable longing
For tender comradeship?
It is because I cannot all at once,
Through the half-lights and phantom-haunted mists
That separate and enshroud us life from life,
Discern the nearness or the strangeness of thy paths
Nor plumb thy depths.
I am like one that comes alone at night
To a strange stream, and by an unknown ford
Stands, and for a moment yearns and shrinks,
Being ignorant of the water, though so quiet it is,
So softly murmurous,
So silvered by the familiar moon.

This pleasant tale is like a little copse:
The honied lines do freshly interlace,
To keep the reader in so sweet a place,
So that he here and there full hearted stops;
And oftentimes he feels the dewy drops
Come cool and suddenly against his face,
And by the wandering melody may trace
Which way the tender-legged linnet hops.
Oh! What a power hath white simplicity!
What mighty power has this gentle story!
I, that for ever feel athirst for glory,
Could at this moment be content to lie
Meekly upon the grass, as those whose sobbings
Were heard of none beside the mournful robbins.

O Time and Change, they range and range
From sunshine round to thunder!
They glance and go as the great winds blow,
And the best of our dreams drive under:
For Time and Change estrange, estrange,
And, now they have looked and seen us,
O we that were dear we are all-too near
With the thick of the world between us.

O Death and Time, they chime and chime
Like bells at sunset falling!
They end the song, they right the wrong,
They set the old echoes calling:
For Death and Time bring on the prime
Of God's own chosen weather,
And we lie in the peace of the Great Release
As once in the grass together.

Although your wayward brows
Give you a curious air
Angelic not at all,
Witch of the tempting stare,

I love you with a passion
Terrible and odd,
With the obeisance
Of priest to golden god.

The desert and the woods
Embalm your heavy hair;
Your head takes attitudes
Mysterious and rare.

A censer's faint perfume
Prowls along your skin;
You charm as evening charms,
Warm and shadowy Nymph.

Ah! strongest potions stir me
Less than your idleness,
And you can make the dead
Revive with your caress!

Your hips are amorous
Of back and breasts and thighs,
And ravished by your pose
Are cushions where you lie.

Sometimes to appease
A rage that comes in fits,
Serious one, you squander
Bites...

Raise the light, my page! that I may see her.
Thou art come at last, then, haughty Queen!
Long I’ve waited, long I’ve fought my fever;
Late thou comest, cruel thou hast been.

Iseult

Blame me not, poor sufferer! that I tarried;
Bound I was, I could not break the band.
Chide not with the past, but feel the present!
I am here we meet I hold thy hand.

Tristram

Thou art come, indeed thou hast rejoin’d me;
Thou hast dared it but too late to save.
Fear not now that men should tax thine honour!
I am dying: build (thou may’st) my grave!

Iseult

Tristram, ah, for love of Heaven, speak kindly!
What, I hear these bitter words from thee?
Sick with grief I am, and faint with travel
Take my hand dear Tristram, look on me!

There! See the line of lights,
A chain of stars down either side the street,
Why can't you lift the chain and give it to me,
A necklace for my throat? I'd twist it round
And you could play with it. You smile at me
As though I were a little dreamy child
Behind whose eyes the fairies live.... And see,
The people on the street look up at us
All envious. We are a king and queen,
Our royal carriage is a motor bus,
We watch our subjects with a haughty joy....
How still you are! Have you been hard at work
And are you tired to-night? It is so long
Since I have seen you, four whole days, I think.
My heart is crowded full of foolish thoughts
Like early flowers in an April meadow,
And I must give them to you, all of them,
Before they fade. The people I have met,

Ripensando a quel ch' oggi il ciel onora.

HE WOULD DIE OF GRIEF WERE SHE NOT SOMETIMES TO CONSOLE HIM BY HER PRESENCE.


    To that soft look which now adorns the skies,
The graceful bending of the radiant head,
The face, the sweet angelic accents fled,
That soothed me once, but now awake my sighs
Oh! when to these imagination flies,
I wonder that I am not long since dead!
'Tis she supports me, for her heavenly tread
Is round my couch when morning visions rise!
In every attitude how holy, chaste!
How tenderly she seems to hear the tale
Of my long woes, and their relief to seek!
But when day breaks she then appears in haste
The well-known heavenward path again to scale,
With moisten'd eye, and soft expressive cheek!

MOREHEAD.
...

October 1, 1913

    I
    I left thee in the crowds and in the light,
    And if I laughed or sorrowed none could tell.
    They could not know our true and deep farewell
    Was spoken in the long preceding night.

    Thy mighty shadow in the garden's dip!
    To others dormant, but to me awake;
    I saw a window in the moonlight shake,
    And traced the angle of the gable's lip,

    And knew thy soul, benign and grave and mild,
    Towards me, morsel of morality,
    And grieving at the parting soon to be,
    A patriarch about to lose a child.

    For many come and soon their tale is told,
    And thou remainest, dimly feeling pain,
    Aware the time draws near to don again
    The sober mourning of the very old.

 ...

Motions and Means, on land and sea at war
With old poetic feeling, not for this,
Shall ye, by Poets even, be judged amiss!
Nor shall your presence, howsoe'er it mar
The loveliness of Nature, prove a bar
To the Mind's gaining that prophetic sense
Of future change, that point of vision, whence
May be discovered what in soul ye are.
In spite of all that beauty may disown
In your harsh features, Nature doth embrace
Her lawful offspring in Man's art; and Time,
Pleased with your triumphs o'er his brother Space,
Accepts from your bold hands the proffered crown
Of hope, and smiles on you with cheer sublime.

Men make them fires on the hearth
Each under his roof-tree,
And the Four Winds that rule the earth
They blow the smoke to me.

Across the high hills and the sea
And all the changeful skies,
The Four Winds blow the smoke to me
Till the tears are in my eyes.

Until the tears are in my eyes
And my heart is well nigh broke
For thinking on old memories
That gather in the smoke.

With every shift of every wind
The homesick memories come,
From every quarter of mankind
Where I have made me a home.

Four times a fire against the cold
And a roof against the rain,
Sorrow fourfold and joy fourfold
The Four Winds bring again!

How can I answer which is best
Of all the fires that burn?
I have been too often host or gues...

Autumn is gone: through the blue woodlands bare
Shatters the rainy wind. A myriad leaves,
Like birds that fly the mournful Northern air.
Flutter away from the old forest's eaves.

Autumn is gone: as yonder silent rill,
Slow eddying o'er thick leaf-heaps lately shed,
My spirit, as I walk, moves awed and still,
By thronging fancies wild and wistful led.

Autumn is gone: alas, how long ago
The grapes were plucked, and garnered was the grain!
How soon death settles on us, and the snow
Wraps with its white alike our graves, our gain!

Yea, autumn's gone! Yet it robs not my mood
Of that which makes moods dear, - some shoot of spring
Still sweet within me; or thoughts of yonder wood
We walked in, - memory's rare environing.

And, though they die, ...