Heartbreak

I watch, and long have watched, with calm regret
Yon slowly-sinking star, immortal Sire
(So might he seem) of all the glittering quire!
Blue ether still surrounds him, yet, and yet;
But now the horizon's rocky parapet
Is reached, where, forfeiting his bright attire,
He burns, transmuted to a dusky fire,
Then pays submissively the appointed debt
To the flying moments, and is seen no more.
Angels and gods! We struggle with our fate,
While health, power, glory, from their height decline,
Depressed; and then extinguished; and our state,
In this, how different, lost Star, from thine,
That no to-morrow shall our beams restore!

Once a stranger youth to Corinth came,

Who in Athens lived, but hoped that he
From a certain townsman there might claim,

As his father's friend, kind courtesy.

Son and daughter, they

Had been wont to say

Should thereafter bride and bridegroom be.

But can he that boon so highly prized,

Save tis dearly bought, now hope to get?
They are Christians and have been baptized,

He and all of his are heathens yet.

For a newborn creed,

Like some loathsome weed,

Love and truth to root out oft will threat.

Father, daughter, all had gone to rest,

And the mother only watches late;
She receives with courtesy the guest,

And conducts him to the room of state.

Wine and food are bro...

This man has taken my Husband's life
    And laid my Brethren low,
No sister indeed, were I, no wife,
    To pardon and let him go.

Yet why does he look so young and slim
    As he weak and wounded lies?
How hard for me to be harsh to him
    With his soft, appealing eyes.

His hair is ruffled upon the stone
    And the slender wrists are bound,
So young! and yet he has overthrown
    His scores on the battle ground.

Would I were only a slave to-day,
    To whom it were right and meet
To wash the stains of the War away,
    The dust from the weary feet.

Were I but one of my serving girls
    To solace his pain to rest!
Shake out the sand from the soft loose curls,
    And hold him against my breast!

Have we such...

So many were there talking that I heard
Nothing at first quite plain, as I sat down;
Until from this man's gibe and that keen word,
Another's chilly smile or peevish frown,
I caught their talk--but added none of mine.
They said how she still fumbled with her fate,
How she had banished visitants divine,
How long her sleep had been, her sloth how great,
How others had drawn near and passed her by,
While she luxuriously had dreamed, dreamed on,
She, she her own eternal enemy,
And wanting brain, brain, brain would be undone.
The glasses tinkled as they talked and laughed,
And if the door a moment hung ajar
The noises of the street, remotely soft,
Crept in as from a world sunken afar.
And still they talked, and then well pleased were pleased
To talk of other t...

Air - "Hughie Graham."



I.

    O were my love yon lilac fair,
        Wi' purple blossoms to the spring;
    And I, a bird to shelter there,
        When wearied on my little wing!
    How I wad mourn, when it was torn
        By autumn wild, and winter rude!
    But I wad sing on wanton wing,
        When youthfu' May its bloom renewed.

II.

    O gin my love were yon red rose,
        That grows upon the castle wa';
    And I mysel' a drap o' dew,
        Into her bonnie breast to fa'!
    Oh, there beyond expression blest,
        I'd feast on beauty a' the night;
    Seal'd on her silk-saft faulds to rest,
        Till fley'd awa by Phoebus' light.

The massy Ways, carried across these heights
By Roman perseverance, are destroyed,
Or hidden under ground, like sleeping worms.
How venture then to hope that Time will spare
This humble Walk? Yet on the mountain's side
A Poet's hand first shaped it; and the steps
Of that same Bard, repeated to and fro
At morn, at noon, and under moonlight skies
Through the vicissitudes of many a year
Forbade the weeds to creep o'er its grey line.
No longer, scattering to the heedless winds
The vocal raptures of fresh poesy,
Shall he frequent these precincts; locked no more
In earnest converse with beloved Friends,
Here will he gather stores of ready bliss,
As from the beds and borders of a garden
Choice flowers are gathered! But, if Power may spring
Out of a farewell year...

Long years ago, within a distant clime,
Ere Love had touched me with his wand sublime,
I dreamed of one to make my life's calm May
The panting passion of a summer's day.
And ever since, in almost sad suspense,
I have been waiting with a soul intense
To greet and take unto myself the beams,
Of her, my star, the lady of my dreams.

O Love, still longed and looked for, come to me,
Be thy far home by mountain, vale, or sea.
My yearning heart may never find its rest
Until thou liest rapt upon my breast.
The wind may bring its perfume from the south,
Is it so sweet as breath from my love's mouth?
Oh, naught that surely is, and naught that seems
May turn me from the lady of my dreams.

The ceaseless rain is falling fast,
    And yonder gilded vane,
Immovable for three days past,
    Points to the misty main,

It drives me in upon myself
    And to the fireside gleams,
To pleasant books that crowd my shelf,
    And still more pleasant dreams,

I read whatever bards have sung
    Of lands beyond the sea,
And the bright days when I was young
    Come thronging back to me.

In fancy I can hear again
    The Alpine torrent's roar,
The mule-bells on the hills of Spain,
    The sea at Elsinore.

I see the convent's gleaming wall
    Rise from its groves of pine,
And towers of old cathedrals tall,
    And castles by the Rhine.

I journey on by park and spire,
    Beneath centennial trees,
Throug...

Farewell to one now silenced quite,
Sent out of hearing, out of sight,-
    My friend of friends, whom I shall miss.
    He is not banished, though, for this,-
Nor he, nor sadness, nor delight.

Though I shall walk with him no more,
A low voice sounds upon the shore.
    He must not watch my resting-place
    But who shall drive a mournful face
From the sad winds about my door?

I shall not hear his voice complain,
But who shall stop the patient rain?
    His tears must not disturb my heart,
    But who shall change the years, and part
The world from every thought of pain?

Although my life is left so dim,
The morning crowns the mountain-rim;
    Joy is not gone from summer skies,
    Nor innocence from children's eyes,
And all th...

I have come the selfsame path
To the selfsame door,
Years have left the roses there
Burning as before

While I watch them in the wind
Quick the hot tears start,
Strange so frail a flame outlasts
Fire in the heart.

Lift up your heads: in life, in death,
God knoweth his head was high.
Quit we the coward's broken breath
Who watched a strong man die.

If we must say, 'No more his peer
Cometh; the flag is furled.'
Stand not too near him, lest he hear
That slander on the world.

The good green earth he loved and trod
Is still, with many a scar,
Writ in the chronicles of God,
A giant-bearing star.

He fell: but Britain's banner swings
Above his sunken crown.
Black death shall have his toll of kings
Before that cross goes down.

Once more shall move with mighty things
His house of ancient tale,
Where kings whose hands were kissed of kings
Went in: and came out pale.

O young ones of a darker day,
In art's wan colours clad,
...

She was fair as a Passion-flower,
(But little of love he knew.)
Her lucent eyes were like amber wine,
And her eyelids stained with blue.

He called them the Gates of Fair Desire,
And the Lakes where Beauty lay,
But I looked into them once, and saw
The eyes of Beasts of Prey.

He praised her teeth, that were small and white
As lilies upon his lawn,
While I remembered a tiger's fangs
That met in a speckled fawn.

She had her way; a lover the more,
And I had a friend the less.
For long there was nothing to do but wait
And suffer his happiness.

But now I shall choose the sharpest Kriss
And nestle it in her breast,
For dead, he is drifting down to sea,
And his own hand wrought his rest

The rain had fallen, the Poet arose,
He pass’d by the town and out of the street;
A light wind blew from the gates of the sun,
And waves of shadow went over the wheat;
And he sat him down in a lonely place,
And chanted a melody loud and sweet,
That made the wild-swan pause in her cloud,
And the lark drop down at his feet.


The swallow stopt as he hunted the fly,
The snake slipt under a spray,
The wild hawk stood with the down on his beak,
And stared, with his foot on the prey;
And the nightingale thought, ‘I have sung many songs,
But never a one so gay,
For he sings of what the world will be
When the years have died away.’

I heard a voice upon the window beat
And then grow dim, grow still.
Opening I saw the snowy sill
Marked with the robin's feet.
Chill was the air and chill
The thoughts that in my bosom beat.

I thought of all that wide and hopeless snow
Crusting the frozen lands.
Of small birds that in famished bands
A-chill and silent grow.
And how Earth's myriad hands
Clutched only hills of frosted snow.

And then I thought of Love that beat and cried
Famishing at my breast;
How I, by chilling care distrest,
Denied him, and Love died....
O, with what sore unrest
Love's ghost woke with the bird that cried!

They hail me as one living,
But don't they know
That I have died of late years,
Untombed although?

I am but a shape that stands here,
A pulseless mould,
A pale past picture, screening
Ashes gone cold.

Not at a minute's warning,
Not in a loud hour,
For me ceased Time's enchantments
In hall and bower.

There was no tragic transit,
No catch of breath,
When silent seasons inched me
On to this death . . .

- A Troubadour-youth I rambled
With Life for lyre,
The beats of being raging
In me like fire.

But when I practised eyeing
The goal of men,
It iced me, and I perished
A little then.

When passed my friend, my kinsfolk
Through the Last Door,
And left me standing bleakly,
I died ...

Now I leave this cottage lowly,

Where my love hath made her home,
And with silent footstep slowly

Through the darksome forest roam,
Luna breaks through oaks and bushes,

Zephyr hastes her steps to meet,
And the waving birch-tree blushes,

Scattering round her incense sweet.

Grateful are the cooling breezes

Of this beauteous summer night,
Here is felt the charm that pleases,

And that gives the soul delight.
Boundless is my joy; yet, Heaven,

Willingly I'd leave to thee
Thousand such nights, were one given

By my maiden loved to me!

Nature's imperfect child, to whom
The world is wrapt in viewless gloom,
Can unresisted still impart
The fondest wishes of his heart.

And he, to whose impervious ear
The sweetest sounds no charms dispense,
Can bid his inmost soul appear
In clear, tho' silent, eloquence.

But we, my Julia, not so blest,
Are doom'd a diff'rent fate to prove, -
To feel each joy and hope supprest
That flow from pure, but hidden, love.

How long ago it is since we went Maying!
Since she and I went Maying long ago! -
The years have left my forehead lined, I know,
Have thinned my hair around the temples graying.
Ah, time will change us: yea, I hear it saying -
"She too grows old: the face of rose and snow
Has lost its freshness: in the hair's brown glow
Some strands of silver sadly, too, are straying.
The form you knew, whose beauty so enspelled,
Has lost the litheness of its loveliness:
And all the gladness that her blue eyes held
Tears and the world have hardened with distress." -
"True! true!" I answer, "O ye years that part!
These things are chaned - but is her heart, her heart?"