Heartbreak

Where olive leaves were twinkling in every wind that blew,
There sat beneath the pleasant shade a damsel of Peru.
Betwixt the slender boughs, as they opened to the air,
Came glimpses of her ivory neck and of her glossy hair;
And sweetly rang her silver voice, within that shady nook,
As from the shrubby glen is heard the sound of hidden brook.

'Tis a song of love and valour, in the noble Spanish tongue,
That once upon the sunny plains of old Castile was sung;
When, from their mountain holds, on the Moorish rout below,
Had rushed the Christians like a flood, and swept away the foe.
A while that melody is still, and then breaks forth anew
A wilder rhyme, a livelier note, of freedom and Peru.

For she has bound the sword to a youthful lover's side,
And sent him to the...

1.
Thy country's curse is on thee, darkest crest
Of that foul, knotted, many-headed worm
Which rends our Mother's bosom - Priestly Pest!
Masked Resurrection of a buried Form!

2.
Thy country's curse is on thee! Justice sold,
Truth trampled, Nature's landmarks overthrown,
And heaps of fraud-accumulated gold,
Plead, loud as thunder, at Destruction's throne.

3.
And whilst that sure slow Angel which aye stands
Watching the beck of Mutability
Delays to execute her high commands,
And, though a nation weeps, spares thine and thee,

4.
Oh, let a father's curse be on thy soul,
And let a daughter's hope be on thy tomb;
Be both, on thy gray head, a leaden cowl
To weigh thee down to thine approaching doom.

5.
I curse thee by ...

"Who knocks?" "I, who was beautiful,
Beyond all dreams to restore,
I, from the roots of the dark thorn am hither.
And knock on the door."

"Who speaks?" "I - once was my speech
Sweet as the bird's on the air,
When echo lurks by the waters to heed;
'Tis I speak thee fair."

"Dark is the hour!" "Ay, and cold."
"Lone is my house." "Ah, but mine?"
"Sight, touch, lips, eyes yearned in vain."
"Long dead these to thine ..."

Silence. Still faint on the porch
Brake the flames of the stars.
In gloom groped a hope-wearied hand
Over keys, bolts, and bars.

A face peered. All the grey night
In chaos of vacancy shone;
Nought but vast sorrow was there -
The sweet cheat gone.

What bashful wildness in those crystal eyes,
    Fair Zillia! - Ah! more dear to LOVE the gaze
    That dwells upon its object, than the rays
    Of that vague glance, quick, as in summer skies
The lightning's lambent flash, when neither rise
    Thunder, nor storm. - I mark, while transport plays
    Warm in thy Lover's eye, what dread betrays
    Thy throbbing heart: - yet why from his soft sighs
Fleet'st thou so swift away? - like the young Hind[1],
    That bending stands the fountain's brim beside,
    When, with a sudden gust, the western wind
Rustles among the boughs that shade the tide:
    See, from the stream, innoxious and benign,
    Starting she bounds, with terror vain as thine!

1: "Vitas hinnuleo me similis Chloe." HORACE.

IX

“My lips do need thy breath,
My lips do need thy smile,
And my pallid eyne, that light in thine
Which met the stars erewhile:
Yet go with light and life
If that thou lovest one
In all the earth who loveth thee
As truly as the sun.
Margret, Margret.”


XIV

“But better loveth he
Thy chaliced wine than thy chanted song,
And better both than thee,
Margret, Margret.”



XVII

“But better loveth she
Thy golden comb than thy gathered flowers,
And better both than thee,
Margret, Margret.”


XXII

“We brake no gold, a sign
Of stronger faith to be,
But I wear his last look in my soul,
Which said, I love but thee!”
Margret, Margret.


XXVI

A ...

By a wall the stranger now calls his,
Was born of old a particular kiss,
Without forethought in its genesis;
Which in a trice took wing on the air.
And where that spot is nothing shows:
There ivy calmly grows,
And no one knows
What a birth was there!

That kiss is gone where none can tell -
Not even those who felt its spell:
It cannot have died; that know we well.
Somewhere it pursues its flight,
One of a long procession of sounds
Travelling aethereal rounds
Far from earth's bounds
In the infinite.

Being asked by an intimate party,
Which the same I would term as a friend,
Though his health it were vain to call hearty,
Since the mind to deceit it might lend;
For his arm it was broken quite recent,
And there’s something gone wrong with his lung,
Which is why it is proper and decent
I should write what he runs off his tongue.

First, he says, Miss, he’s read through your letter
To the end,    and “the end came too soon;”
That a “slight illness kept him your debtor,”
(Which for weeks he was wild as a loon);
That “his spirits are buoyant as yours is;”
That with you, Miss, he “challenges Fate,”
(Which the language that invalid uses
At times it were vain to relate).

And he says “that the mountains are fairer
For once being held in your thought;”...

This is a valentine for you.
    Mother made it. She's real smart,
I told her that I loved you true
    And you were my sweetheart.

And then she smiled, and then she winked,
    And then she said to father,
"Beginning young!" and then he thinked,
    And then he said, "Well, rather."

Then mother's eyes began to shine,
And then she made this valentine:
"If you love me as I love you,
No knife shall cut our love in two,"
And father laughed and said, "How new!"
And then he said, "It's time for bed."

So, when I'd said my prayers,
Mother came running up the stairs
And told me I might send the rhymes,
And then she kissed me lots of times.
Then I turned over to the wall
And cried about you, and - that's all.

Hush! She is dead! Tread gently as the light
Foots dim the weary room. Thou shalt behold.
Look: - In death's ermine pomp of awful white,
Pale passion of pulseless slumber virgin cold:
Bold, beautiful youth proud as heroic Might -
Death! and how death hath made it vastly old.

Old earth she is now: energy of birth
Glad wings hath fledged and tried them suddenly;
The eyes that held have freed their narrow mirth;
Their sparks of spirit, which made this to be,
Shine fixed in rarer jewels not of earth,
Far Fairylands beyond some silent sea.

A sod is this whence what were once those eyes
Will grow blue wild-flowers in what happy air;
Some weed with flossy blossoms will surprise,
Haply, what summer with her affluent hair;
Blush roses bask those cheeks; and...

Year that trembled and reel'd beneath me!
Your summer wind was warm enough, yet the air I breathed froze me;
A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken'd me;
Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself;
Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled?
And sullen hymns of defeat?

The world had chafed his spirit proud
    By its wearing, crushing strife,
The censure of the thoughtless crowd
    Had touched a blameless life;
Like the dove of old, from the water's foam,
He wearily turned to the ark of home.

Hopes he had cherished with joyous heart,
    Had toiled for many a day,
With body and spirit, and patient art,
    Like mists had melted away;
And o'er day-dreams vanished, o'er fond hopes flown,
He sat him down to mourn alone.

No, not alone, for soft fingers rest
    On his hot and aching brow,
Back the damp hair is tenderly pressed
    While a sweet voice whispers low:
"Thy joys have I shared, O my husband true,
And shall I not share thy sorrows too?"

Vain task to resist the loving gaze
    That so f...

(FROM TYLNEY HALL.)

Still glides the gentle streamlet on,
With shifting current new and strange;
The water that was here is gone,
But those green shadows do not change.

Serene, or ruffled by the storm,
On present waves as on the past,
The mirrored grave retains its form,
The self-same trees their semblance cast.

The hue each fleeting globule wears,
That drop bequeaths it to the next,
One picture still the surface bears,
To illustrate the murmured text.

So, love, however time may flow,
Fresh hours pursuing those that flee
One constant image still shall show
My tide of life is true to thee!

Fancy and Reality.--Rain-drops and Lakes.--Plan of a Story.--Where to place the Scene of it.--In some unknown Region.--Psalmanazar's Imposture with respect to the Island of Formosa.


The more I've viewed this world the more I've found,
    That, filled as 'tis with scenes and creatures rare.
Fancy commands within her own bright round
    A world of scenes and creatures far more fair.
Nor is it that her power can call up there
    A single charm, that's not from Nature won,
No more than rainbows in their pride can wear
    A single hue unborrowed from the sun--
But 'tis the mental medium it shines thro'
That lends to Beauty all its charm and hue;
As the same light that o'er the level lake
    One dull monotony of lustre flings,
Will, entering in the rounded ...

(As revised by Mr. C.D. Locock.)

Melodious Arethusa, o'er my verse
Shed thou once more the spirit of thy stream:

(Two lines missing.)

Who denies verse to Gallus? So, when thou
Glidest beneath the green and purple gleam
Of Syracusan waters, mayest thou flow
Unmingled with the bitter Dorian dew!
Begin, and whilst the goats are browsing now
The soft leaves, in our song let us pursue
The melancholy loves of Gallus. List!
We sing not to the deaf: the wild woods knew
His sufferings, and their echoes answer...
Young Naiades, in what far woodlands wild
Wandered ye, when unworthy love possessed
Our Gallus? Nor where Pindus is up-piled,
Nor where Parnassus' sacred mount, nor where
Aonian Aganippe spreads its...

(Three lines missing.)

From publick Noise and factious Strife,
From all the busie Ills of Life,
Take me, My Celia, to Thy Breast;
And lull my wearied Soul to Rest:
For ever, in this humble Cell,
Let Thee and I, my Fair One, dwell;
None enter else, but Love and He
Shall bar the Door, and keep the Key.

To painted Roofs, and shining Spires
(Uneasie Seats of high Desires)
Let the unthinking Many croud,
That dare be Covetous and Proud:
In golden Bondage let Them wait,
And barter Happiness for State:
But Oh! My Celia, when Thy Swain
Desires to see a Court again;
May Heav'n around This destin'd Head
The choicest of it's Curses shed:
To sum up all the Rage of Fate,
In the Two Things I dread and hate;
May'st Thou be False, and I be Great.

Thus, on his Cel...

Greta, what fearful listening! when huge stones
Rumble along thy bed, block after block:
Or, whirling with reiterated shock,
Combat, while darkness aggravates the groans:
But if thou (like Cocytus from the moans
Heard on his rueful margin) thence wert named
The Mourner, thy true nature was defamed,
And the habitual murmur that atones
For thy worst rage, forgotten. Oft as Spring
Decks, on thy sinuous banks, her thousand thrones
Seats of glad instinct and love's caroling,
The concert, for the happy, then may vie
With liveliest peals of birth-day harmony:
To a grieved heart, the notes are benisons.

Life is bitter. All the faces of the years,
Young and old, are grey with travail and with tears.
Must we only wake to toil, to tire, to weep?
In the sun, among the leaves, upon the flowers,
Slumber stills to dreamy death the heavy hours . . .
Let me sleep.

Riches won but mock the old, unable years;
Fame's a pearl that hides beneath a sea of tears;
Love must wither, or must live alone and weep.
In the sunshine, through the leaves, across the flowers,
While we slumber, death approaches though the hours! . . .
Let me sleep.

1872

It was deep night, and over Jerusalem's low roofs
The moon floated, drifting through high vaporous woofs.
The moonlight crept and glistened silent, solemn, sweet,
Over dome and column, up empty, endless street;
In the closed, scented gardens the rose loosed from the stem
Her white showery petals; none regarded them;
The starry thicket breathed odours to the sentinel palm;
Silence possessed the city like a soul possessed by calm.

Not a spark in the warren under the giant night,
Save where in a turret's lantern beamed a grave, still light:
There in the topmost chamber a gold-eyed lamp was lit -
Marvellous lamp in darkness, informing, redeeming it!
For, set in that tiny chamber, Jesus, the blessed and doomed,
Spoke to the lone apostles as light to men en-tombed;
And ...