Heartbreak

It was beneath a waning moon when all the woods were sear,
And winds made eddies of the leaves that whispered far and near,
I met her on the old mill-bridge we parted at last year.

At first I deemed it but a mist that faltered in that place,
An autumn mist beneath the trees that sentineled the race;
Until I neared and in the moon beheld her face to face.

The waver of the summer-heat upon the drouth-dry leas;
The shimmer of the thistle-drift a down the silences;
The gliding of the fairy-fire between the swamp and trees;

They qualified her presence as a sorrow may a dream
The vague suggestion of a self; the glimmer of a gleam;
The actual unreal of the things that only seem.

Where once she came with welcome and glad eyes all loving-wise,
She passed and g...

My heart is torn by the tyranny of women very quietly;
Day and night my tears are wearing away my cheeks very quietly.

Life is a red thing like the sun setting very quietly;
Setting quickly and heavily and very quietly.

If you are to buy heaven by a good deed, to-day the market is open;
To-morrow is a day when no man buys,
And the caravan is broken up very quietly.

The kings are laughing and the slaves are laughing; but for your sake
Sayyid Ahmad is walking and mourning very quietly.

From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).

The typewriter ticketh no more in the twilight;
The mother of poets is sitting alone;
Only the katydid teases the noonday;
Where are the good-for-naught wanderbirds flown?

Tom's in the North with his purple impressions;
Dickon's in London a-building his fame;
Fred's in the mountains a-minding his cattle;
Kavanagh's teaching and preaching and game.

Over in Kingscroft a toiler is writing,
The boyish Old Man whom no fate ever floored;
Karl's in New York with his briefs and his logic,
That subtile mind like a velvet-sheathed sword.

Blomidon welcomes his brother in silence;
Grand Pré is luring him back to her breast;
Faint and far off are the cries of the city,
There in the country of infinite rest.

All of them turn in their wide vagabondage...

It was an April morning: fresh and clear
The Rivulet, delighting in its strength,
Ran with a young man's speed; and yet the voice
Of waters which the winter had supplied
Was softened down into a vernal tone.
The spirit of enjoyment and desire,
And hopes and wishes, from all living things
Went circling, like a multitude of sounds.
The budding groves seemed eager to urge on
The steps of June; as if their various hues
Were only hindrances that stood between
Them and their object: but, meanwhile, prevailed
Such an entire contentment in the air
That every naked ash, and tardy tree
Yet leafless, showed as if the countenance
With which it looked on this delightful day
Were native to the summer.—Up the brook
I roamed in the confusion of my heart,
Alive to al...

Last night I saw Helena.    She whose praise
    Of late all men have sounded.    She for whom
    Young Angus rashly sought a silent tomb
Rather than live without her all his days.

Wise men go mad who look upon her long,
    She is so ripe with dangers.    Yet meanwhile
    I find no fascination in her smile,
Although I make her theme of this poor song.

"Her golden tresses?" yes, they may be fair,
    And yet to me each shining silken tress
    Seems robbed of beauty and all lustreless -
Too many hands have stroked Helena's hair.

(I know a little maiden so demure
    She will not let her one true lover's hands
    In playful fondness touch her soft brown bands
So dainty-minded is she, and so pure.)

"Her great dark eyes that flash like ...

Aw like fowrk to succeed i' life if they've an honest aim,
An even if they chonce to trip awm varry loath to blame;
Its sich a simple thing sometimes maks failure or success,
Th' prize oft slips by strugglin men to them 'at's striven less.
Aw envy nubdy Fortun's smiles, aw lang for 'em misen, -
But them at win her favors should dispense 'em nah an then.
An them 'at's blest wi' sunshine let 'em think o' those i'th' dark,
An nivver grudge a helpin hand to him 'at's missed his mark.

We connot allus hit it, - an ther's monny a toilin brain,
Has struggled for a lifetime, but its efforts proved in vain;
An monny a hardy son ov toil has worn his life away,
An all his efforts proved in vain to keep poverty at bay;
Wol others, bi a lucky stroke, have carved ther way to fame,
An...

Her breast is cold; her hands how faint and wan!
And the deep wonder of her starry eyes
Seemingly lost in cloudless Paradise,
And all earth's sorrow out of memory gone.
Yet sings her clear voice unrelenting on
Of loveliest impossibilities;
Though echo only answer her with sighs
Of effort wasted and delights foregone.

Spent, baffled, 'wildered, hated and despised,
Her straggling warriors hasten to defeat;
By wounds distracted, and by night surprised,
Fall where death's darkness and oblivion meet:
Yet, yet: O breast how cold! O hope how far!
Grant my son's ashes lie where these men's are!

When the long day leans to the twilight,
    When the Evening star climbs to the moon,
With a heart that is silently breaking,
    I sit in the gloaming and croon.
I croon a low song for my darling,
    My wee one, my baby, my own;
Who, cradled in rosewood and velvet,
    Sleeps out in the churchyard alone.

Alone with no arms to enfold her,
    Alone with no pillowing breast,
Alone with no hand on her cradle,
    To rock her to soundlier rest.
But each day in the hush of the twilight,
    Is silenced my broken heart's cry;
And I sit where I sat with my darling,
    And sing her the old lullaby.

Oh! the dreams that come back to me mocking,
    The sorrow that makes the days long;
As I sit in the twilight there rocking,
    And singing...

To Jenny came a gentle youth
From inland leazes lone,
His love was fresh as apple-blooth
By Parrett, Yeo, or Tone.
And duly he entreated her
To be his tender minister,
And call him aye her own.

Fair Jenny's life had hardly been
A life of modesty;
At Casterbridge experience keen
Of many loves had she
From scarcely sixteen years above;
Among them sundry troopers of
The King's-Own Cavalry.

But each with charger, sword, and gun,
Had bluffed the Biscay wave;
And Jenny prized her gentle one
For all the love he gave.
She vowed to be, if they were wed,
His honest wife in heart and head
From bride-ale hour to grave.

Wedded they were. Her husband's trust
In Jenny knew no bound,
And Jenny kept her pure and just,
T...

A new year gleams on us, tearful
And troubled and smiling dim
As the smile on a lip still fearful,
As glances of eyes that swim:
But the bird of my heart makes cheerful
The days that are bright for him.
Child, how may a man’s love merit
The grace you shed as you stand,
The gift that is yours to inherit?
Through you are the bleak days bland;
Your voice is a light to my spirit;
You bring the sun in your hand.
The year’s wing shows not a feather
As yet of the plumes to be;
Yet here in the shrill grey weather
The spring’s self stands at my knee,
And laughs as we commune together,
And lightens the world we see.
The rains are as dews for the christening
Of dawns that the nights benumb:
The spring’s voice answers me listening
For speech of a ...

A writer wrote of the hearts of men, and he followed their tracks afar;
For his was a spirit that forced his pen to write of the things that are.
His heart grew tired of the truths he told, for his life was hard and grim;
His land seemed barren, its people cold, yet the world was dear to him;,
So he sailed away from the Streets of Strife, he travelled by land and sea,
In search of a people who lived a life as life in the world should be.

And he reached a spot where the scene was fair, with forest and field and wood,
And all things came with the seasons there, and each of its kind was good;
There were mountain-rivers and peaks of snow, there were lights of green and gold,
And echoing caves in the cliffs below, where a world-wide ocean rolled.
The lives of men from the wear of Change a...

Why doe I speake of ioy, or write of loue,
When my hart is the very Den of horror,
And in my soule the paynes of hell I proue,
With all his torments and infernall terror?
Myne eyes want teares thus to bewayle my woe,
My brayne is dry with weeping all too long;
My sighes be spent with griefe and sighing so,
And I want words for to expresse my wrong.
But still, distracted in loues lunacy,
And Bedlam like thus rauing in my griefe,
Now rayle vpon her hayre, now on her eye,
Now call her Goddesse, then I call her thiefe;
    Now I deny her, then I doe confesse her,
    Now I doe curse her, then againe I blesse her.

        "Delicta juventutis et ignorantius ejus,
            quoesumus ne memineris, Domine."



        I left, to earth, a little maiden fair,
        With locks of gold, and eyes that shamed the light;
        I prayed that God might have her in His care
            And sight.

        Earth's love was false; her voice, a siren's song;
        (Sweet mother-earth was but a lying name)
        The path she showed was but the path of wrong
            And shame.

        "Cast her not out!" I cry.    God's kind words come --
        "Her future is with Me, as was her past;
        It shall be My good will to bring her home
            At last."

GUIDO CAVALCANTI TO DANTE ALIGHIERI:


Returning from its daily quest, my Spirit
Changed thoughts and vile in thee doth weep to find:
It grieves me that thy mild and gentle mind
Those ample virtues which it did inherit
Has lost. Once thou didst loathe the multitude
Of blind and madding men - I then loved thee -
I loved thy lofty songs and that sweet mood
When thou wert faithful to thyself and me
I dare not now through thy degraded state
Own the delight thy strains inspire - in vain
I seek what once thou wert - we cannot meet
And we were wont. Again and yet again
Ponder my words: so the false Spirit shall fly
And leave to thee thy true integrity.

Just for a space that I met her--
Just for a day in the train!
It began when she feared it would wet her,
That tiniest spurtle of rain:
So we tucked a great rug in the sashes,
And carefully padded the pane;
And I sorrow in sackcloth and ashes,
Longing to do it again!

Then it grew when she begged me to reach her
A dressing-case under the seat;
She was "really so tiny a creature,
That she needed a stool for her feet!"
Which was promptly arranged to her order
With a care that was even minute,
And a glimpse--of an open-work border,
And a glance--of the fairyest boot.

Then it drooped, and revived at some hovels--
"Were they houses for men or for pigs?"
Then it shifted to muscular novels,
With a little digression on prigs:
She thought...

There never was a mood of mine,
Gay or heart-broken, luminous or dull,
But you could ease me of its fever
And give it back to me more beautiful.
In many another soul I broke the bread,
And drank the wine and played the happy guest,
But I was lonely, I remembered you;
The heart belong to him who knew it best.

The stars may dissolve, and the fountain of light
May sink into ne'er ending chaos and night,
Our mansions must fall, and earth vanish away,
But thy courage O Erin! may never decay.

See! the wide wasting ruin extends all around,
Our ancestors' dwellings lie sunk on the ground,
Our foes ride in triumph throughout our domains,
And our mightiest heroes lie stretched on the plains.

Ah! dead is the harp which was wont to give pleasure,
Ah! sunk is our sweet country's rapturous measure,
But the war note is waked, and the clangour of spears,
The dread yell of Sloghan yet sounds in our ears.

Ah! where are the heroes! triumphant in death,
Convulsed they recline on the blood sprinkled heath,
Or the yelling ghosts ride on the blast that sweeps by,
And 'my co...

Hark! upon the east-wind, piping, creeping,
Comes a voice all clamorous with despair;
It is April, crying sore and weeping,
O'er the chilly earth, so brown and bare.

"When I went away," she murmurs, sobbing,
"All my violet-banks were starred with blue;
Who, O, who has been here, basely robbing
Bloom and odor from the fragrant crew?

"Who has reft the robin's hidden treasure,--
All the speckled spheres he loved so well?
And the buds which danced in merry measure
To the chiming of the hyacinth's bell?

"Where are all my hedge-rows, flushed with Maying?
And the leafy rain, that tossed so fair,
Like the spray from silver fountains playing,
Where the elm-tree's column rose in air?

"All are vanished, and my heart is breaking;
And my tears ...