Heartbreak

I mind the days when ladies fair
Helped on my overcoat,
And tucked the silken handkerchief
About my precious throat;
They used to see the poet’s soul
In every song I wrote.

They pleaded hard, but I had work
To do, and could not stay
I used to work the whole night through,
And what have you to say?

’Twas clever, handsome woman then,
And I their rising star;
I could not see they worshipped me,
Because I saw too far.
(’Tis well for one or two, I think,
That things are as they are.)

(I used to write for writing’s sake,
I used to write till day,
I loved my prose and poetry,
And what have you to say?)

I guess if one should meet me now
That she would gasp to think,
She ever knew a thing like me,
As down the s...

Bees make their honey out of coloured flowers,
Through the June day, with all its beam and scent,
Heather of breezy hills, and idle bowers,
Brushing soft doors of every blossoming tent,
Filling gold thighs in drowsy ravishment,
Pillaging vines on the hot garden wall,
Taking of each small bloom its little rent -
Poets must make their honey out of gall.

Singers, not so this craven life of ours,
Our honey out of bitter herbs is blent;
The songs that fall as soft as April showers
Came of the whips and scorns of chastisement,
From smitten lips and hearts in sorrow bent,
Distilled of blood and wormwood are they all -
Idly you heard, indifferent what they meant:
Poets must make their honey out of gall.

You lords and ladies sitting high in towers,
Sca...

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that nestling lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines!, they hold a treasure
Divine, a talisman, an amulet
That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure,
The words, the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor
And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre,
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets, by poets, as the name is a poet's, too,
Its letters, although naturally lying
Like the ...

    We're travelling down a carnival road, are met at intersections by
    varying faces: poets as eyes in collapsed black holes, even the
    universe as extension of the stellar poet. Then, they are transformed,
    become worm-pickers, masons, longshoremen who subsidize their
    poetry with the real task at hand: making waste, laying trestles
    instead of women to prove a point.

    This is necessary. I'm defending it, find it both believable and
    interesting. Meanwhile, troubadours and wandering minstrels eke
    out a living on storybook memories, join Marco Polo if he ever
    lived. Seek out the Great Khan in a box of cookies or within a
    magnum of champagne depending on circumstances.

    The Grand    Lunar is watching. Her pallor commands true poets to

    Were we in May now, while
        Our souls are yearning,
    Sad hearts would bound and smile
        With red blood burning;
    Around the tedious dial
        No slow hands turning.

    Were we in May now, say,
        What joy to know
    Her heart's streams pulse away
        In winds that blow,
    See graceful limbs of May
        Revealed to glow.

    Were we in May now, think
        What wealth she has;
    The dog-tooth violets pink,
        Wind-flowers like glass,
    About the wood brook's brink
        Dark sassafras.

    Nights, which the large stars strew
        Heav'n on heav'n rolled,
    Nights, whose feet flash with dew,
        Whose long locks hold
    Aromas cool and new,
      ...

The uses of sorrow I comprehend
Better and better at each year's end.

Deeper and deeper I seem to see
Why and wherefore it has to be.

Only after the dark, wet days
Do we fully rejoice in the sun's bright rays.

Sweeter the crust tastes after the fast
Than the sated gourmand's finest repast.

The faintest cheer sounds never amiss
To the actor who once has heard a hiss.

To one who the sadness of freedom knows,
Light seem the fetters love may impose.

And he who has dwelt with his heart alone,
Hears all the music in friendship's tone.

So better and better I comprehend,
How sorrow ever would be our friend.

Oh, Masters, you who rule the world,
Will you not wait with me awhile,
When swords are sheathed and sails are furled,
And all the fields with harvest smile?
I would not waste your time for long,
I ask you but, when you are tired,
To read how by the weak, the strong
Are weighed and worshipped and desired.

When weary of the Mart, the Loom,
The Withering-house, the Riffle-blocks,
The Barrack-square, the Engine-room,
The pick-axe, ringing on the rocks,--
When tents are pitched and work is done,
While restful twilight broods above,
By fresh-lit lamp, or dying sun,
See in my songs how women love.

We shared your lonely watch by night,
We knew you faithful at the helm,
Our thoughts went with you through the fight,
That saved a soul,--or wrec...

Sing her a song of the sun:
Fill it with tones of the stream,
Echoes of waters that run
Glad with the gladdening gleam.
Let it be sweeter than rain,
Lit by a tropical moon:
Light in the words of the strain,
Love in the ways of the tune.

Softer than seasons of sleep:
Dearer than life at its best!
Give her a ballad to keep,
Wove of the passionate West:
Give it and say of the hours
“Haunted and hallowed of thee,
Flower-like woman of flowers,
What shall the end of them be?”

You that have loved her so much,
Loved her asleep and awake,
Trembled because of her touch,
What have you said for her sake?
Far in the falls of the day,
Down in the meadows of myrrh,
What has she left you to say
Filled with the beauty of her?

Tune - "Craigie-burn-wood."


Chorus.

    Beyond thee, dearie, beyond thee, dearie,
        And O, to be lying beyond thee;
    O sweetly, soundly, weel may he sleep
        That's laid in the bed beyond thee!

I.

    Sweet closes the evening on Craigie-burn-wood,
        And blithely awaukens the morrow;
    But the pride of the spring in the Craigie-burn-wood
        Can yield to me nothing but sorrow.

II.

    I see the spreading leaves and flowers,
        I hear the wild birds singing;
    But pleasure they hae nane for me,
        While care my heart is wringing.

III.

    I canna tell, I maunna tell,
        I darena for your anger;
    But secret love will break my heart,
     ...

Behold the blossom-bosomed Day again,
With all the star-white Hours in her train,
Laughs out of pearl-lights through a golden ray,
That, leaning on the woodland wildness, blends
A sprinkled amber with the showers that lay
Their oblong emeralds on the leafy ends.
Behold her bend with maiden-braided brows
Above the wildflower, sidewise with its strain
Of dewy happiness, to kiss again
Each drop to death; or, under rainy boughs,
With fingers, fragrant as the woodland rain,
Gather the sparkles from the sycamore,
To set within each core
Of crimson roses girdling her hips,
Where each bud dreams and drips.
Smoothing her blue-black hair, where many a tusk
Of iris flashes, like the falchions' sheen
Of Faery 'round blue banners of its Queen,
Is it a Naiad singi...

Under her dark veil she wrung her hands.
"Why are you so pale today?"
"Because I made him drink of stinging grief
Until he got drunk on it.
How can I forget? He staggered out,
His mouth twisted in agony.
I ran down not touching the bannister

And caught up with him at the gate.
I cried: 'A joke!
That's all it was. If you leave, I'll die.'
He smiled calmly and grimly
And told me: 'Don't stand here in the wind.' "

Madame,

VVhil'st that, for which all vertue now is sold,
And almost every vice, almightie gold,
That which, to boote with hell, is thought worth heaven,
And for it, life, conscience, yea soules are given,
Toyles, by grave custome, up and downe the Court,
To every squire, or groome, that will report
Well, or ill, only, all the following yeere,
Just to the waight their this dayes-presents beare;
While it makes huishers serviceable men,
And some one apteth to be trusted, then,
Though never after; whiles it gaynes the voyce
Of some grand peere, whose ayre-doth make rejoyce
The foole that gave it; who will want, and weepe,
When his proud patrons favours are asleepe;
While thus it buyes great grace, and hunts poore fame;
Runs betweene man, and man, 'tweene, da...

Where the lone creek, chafing nightly in the cold and sad moonshine,
Beats beneath the twisted fern-roots and the drenched and dripping vine;
Where the gum trees, ringed and ragged, from the mazy margins rise,
Staring out against the heavens with their languid gaping eyes;
There I listened there I heard it! Oh, that melancholy sound,
Wandering like a ghostly whisper, through the dreaming darkness round!
Wandering, like a fearful warning, where the withered twilight broke
Through a mass of mournful tresses, drooping down the Native Oak.

And I caught a glimpse of sunset fading from a far-off wild,
As I sat me down to fancy, like a thoughtful, wistful child
Sat me down to fancy what might mean those hollow, hopeless tones,
Sooming round the swooning silence, dying out in smothered ...

        They locked him in a prison cell,
                Murky and mean.
        She kissed him there a wife's farewell
                The bars between.
        And when she turned to go, the crowd,
        Thinking to see her shamed and bowed,
        Saw her pass out as calm and proud
                As any queen.

        She passed a kinsman on the street,
                To whose sad eyes
        She made reply with smile as sweet
                As April skies.
        To one who loved her once and knew
        The sorrow of her life, she threw
        A gay word, ere his tale was due
                Of sympathies.

        She met a playmate, whose red rose
                Had never a thorn,
        Whom fortune guided when she cho...

As a forlorn soul waiting by the Styx
    Dimly expectant of lands yet more dim,
Might peer afraid where shadows change and mix
    Till the dark ferryman shall come for him.

And past all hope a long ray in his sight,
    Fall'n trickling down the steep crag Hades-black
Reveals an upward path to life and light,
    Nor any let but he should mount that track.

As with the sudden shock of joy amazed,
    He might a motionless sweet moment stand,
So doth that mortal lover, silent, dazed,
    For hope had died and loss was near at hand.

'Wilt thou?' his quest. Unready but for 'Nay,'
He stands at fault for joy, she whispering 'Ay.'

It's moughty tiahsome layin' 'roun'
Dis sorrer-laden earfly groun',
An' oftentimes I thinks, thinks I,
'T would be a sweet t'ing des to die,
An' go 'long home.

Home whaih de frien's I loved 'll say,
"We've waited fu' you many a day,
Come hyeah an' res' yo'se'f, an' know
You's done wid sorrer an' wid woe,
Now you's at home."

W'en I gits home some blessid day,
I 'lows to th'ow my caihs erway,
An' up an' down de shinin' street,
Go singin' sof' an' low an' sweet,
W'en I gits home.

I wish de day was neah at han',
I's tiahed of dis grievin' lan',
I's tiahed of de lonely yeahs,
I want to des dry up my teahs,
An' go 'long home.

Oh, Mastah, won't you sen' de call?
My frien's is daih, my hope, my all.
I 's waitin' wh...

Alone in desert dreary,
A bird with folded wings
Beholds the waste about her,
And sweetly, sweetly sings.

So heaven-sweet her singing,
So clear the bird notes flow,
'Twould seem the rocks must waken,
The desert vibrant grow.

Dead rocks and silent mountains
Would'st waken with thy strain,--
But dumb are still the mountains,
And dead the rocks remain.

For whom, O heavenly singer,
Thy song so clear and free?
Who hears or sees or heeds thee,
Who feels or cares for thee?

Thou may'st outpour in music
Thy very soul... 'Twere vain!
In stone thou canst not waken
A throb of joy or pain.

Thy song shall soon be silenced;
I feel it... For I know
Thy heart is near to bursting
With loneliness and woe.

High travelling winds by royal hill
Their awful anthem sing,
And songs exalted flow and fill
The caverns of the spring.

To-night across a wild wet plain
A shadow sobs and strays;
The trees are whispering in the rain
Of long departed days.

I cannot say what forest saith
Its words are strange to me:
I only know that in its breath
Are tones that used to be.

Yea, in these deep dim solitudes
I hear a sound I know
The voice that lived in Penrith woods
Twelve weary years ago.

And while the hymn of other years
Is on a listening land,
The Angel of the Past appears
And leads me by the hand;

And takes me over moaning wave,
And tracts of sleepless change,
To set me by a lonely grave
Within a lonely range.