Heartbreak

Speak and tell us, our Ximena, looking northward far away,
O'er the camp of the invaders, o'er the Mexican array,
Who is losing? who is winning? are they far or come they near?
Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither rolls the storm we hear.

Down the hills of Angostura still the storm of battle rolls;
Blood is flowing, men are dying; God have mercy on their souls!
"Who is losing? who is winning?" Over hill and over plain,
I see but smoke of cannon clouding through the mountain rain."

Holy Mother! keep our brothers! Look, Ximena, look once more.
"Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling darkly as before,
Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend and foeman, foot and horse,
Like some wild and troubled torrent sweeping down its mountain course."

Look forth once m...

Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;
All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,
Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.
Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown’d;
But those same tongues, that give thee so thine own,
In other accents do this praise confound
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
They look into the beauty of thy mind,
And that in guess they measure by thy deeds;
Then, churls, their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:
But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.

The waterfall is calling me
    With its merry gleesome flow,
And the green boughs are beckoning me,
    To where the wild flowers grow:

I may not go, I may not go,
To where the sunny waters flow,
To where the wild wood flowers blow;
        I must stay here
        In prison drear,
Oh, heavy life, wear on, wear on,
Would God that thou wert done!

The busy mill-wheel round and round
Goes turning, with its reckless sound,
And o'er the dam the wafers flow
Into the foaming stream below,
And deep and dark away they glide,
To meet the broad, bright river's tide;
And all the way
They murmuring say:
"Oh, child! why art thou far away?
Come back into the sun, and stray
Upon our mossy side!"

I may not go, I may not go,

Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awakening, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow.
Yes! tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
'Twere better than the cold reality
Of waking life, to him whose heart must be,
And hath been still, upon the lovely earth,
A chaos of deep passion, from his birth.
But should it be, that dream eternally
Continuing, as dreams have been to me
In my young boyhood, should it thus be given,
'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven.
For I have revell'd, when the sun was bright
I' the summer sky, in dreams of living light
And loveliness, have left my very heart
In climes of my imagining, apart
From mine own home, with beings that have been
Of mine own thought, what more could I have se...

To-day a bird on wings as white as foam
    That crests the blue-gray wave,
With the vesper light upon its breast, flew home
    Seaward. The God who gave
To the birds the virgin-wings of snow
Somehow telleth them the ways they go.

Unto the Evening went the white-winged bird --
    Gray clouds hung round the West --
And far away the tempest's tramp was heard.
    The bird flew for a rest
Away from the grove, out to the sea --
Is it only a bird's mystery?

Nay! nay! lone bird! I watched thy wings of white
    That cleft thy waveward way --
Past the evening and swift into the night,
    Out of the calm, bright day --
And thou didst teach me, bird of the sea,
More than one human heart's history.

Only men's hearts -- tho' God shows each ...

In these fair vales hath many a Tree
At Wordsworth's suit been spared;
And from the builder's hand this Stone,
For some rude beauty of its own,
Was rescued by the Bard:
So let it rest; and time will come
When here the tender-hearted
May heave a gentle sigh for him,
As one of the departed.

    I.

    Fair spirit of the plaining sea,
        Thou heard'st Apollo's lyre! -
    Now folded are thy silver wings
                Thee sunward bore,
        A dream and a desire.

    Ranging the upper azure deeps,
        The sunlight on thy wings,
    How blanched thy purpose as there fell
                The lightning's stroke,
        And darkness on all things!


    In agony of rain and hail,
        And phantom dance of snow,
    The chastening angels of the air
                To mountain bleak
        Consigned thee far below.

    There in the arms of heartless frost,
        And burdened with thy train,
    The keen stars watched thy ageful way,
                Till breast of earth
        Warmed th...

I

You will not love me, sweet.
When this fair year is past;
Or love now at my feet
At others' feet be cast.
You will not love me, sweet,
When this fair year is past.


II

Now 'tis the Springtide, dear,
The crocus cups hold flame
Brimmed to the pregnant year.
Who crimsons as with shame.
Now 'tis the Springtide, dear,
The crocus cups hold flame.


III

Ah, heart, the Summer's queen,
At her brown throat one rose;
The poppies now are seen
With seed-pods thrust in rows.
Dear heart, the Summer's queen,
At her brown throat one rose.


IV

Now Autumn reigns, a prince
Fierce, gipsy-dark; live gold
Weighs down the fruited quince,
The last chilled violet's told.
The Autu...

    Look! look there!
Send your eyes across the gray
By my finger-point away
Through the vaporous, fumy air.
Beyond the air, you see the dark?
Beyond the dark, the dawning day?
On its horizon, pray you, mark
Something like a ruined heap
Of worlds half-uncreated, that go back:
Down all the grades through which they rose
Up to harmonious life and law's repose,
Back, slow, to the awful deep
Of nothingness, mere being's lack:
On its surface, lone and bare,
Shapeless as a dumb despair,
Formless, nameless, something lies:
Can the vision in your eyes
Its idea recognize?

    'Tis a poor lost soul, alack!--
Half he lived some ages back;
But, with hardly opened eyes,
Thinking him already wise,
Down he sat and wrote a book;
Drew h...

My thoughts arise and fade in solitude,
The verse that would invest them melts away
Like moonlight in the heaven of spreading day:
How beautiful they were, how firm they stood,
Flecking the starry sky like woven pearl!

You must mean more than just this hour,
    You perfect thing so subtly fair,
Simple and complex as a flower,
    Wrought with such planetary care;
How patient the eternal power
    That wove the marvel of your hair.

How long the sunlight and the sea
    Wove and re-wove this rippling gold
To rhythms of eternity;
    And many a flashing thing grew old,
Waiting this miracle to be;
    And painted marvels manifold,

Still with his work unsatisfied,
    Eager each new effect to try,
The solemn artist cast aside,
    Rainbow and shell and butterfly,
As some stern blacksmith scatters wide
    The sparks that from his anvil fly.

How many shells, whorl within whorl,
    Litter the marges of the sphere
With wrack of unregarded pear...

Sirs, when you pity us, I say
You waste your pity.    Let it stay,
Well corked and stored upon your shelves,
Until you need it for yourselves.

We do appreciate God's thought
In forming you, before He brought
Us into life.    His art was crude,
But oh! so virile in its rude,

Large, elemental strength; and then
He learned His trade in making men,
Learned how to mix and mould the clay
And fashion in a finer way.

How fine that skilful way can be
You need but lift your eyes to see;
And we are glad God placed you there
To lift your eyes and find us fair.

Apprentice labour though you were,
He made you great enough to stir
The best and deepest depths of us,
And we are glad He made you thus.

Aye! we are glad of many thi...

The grass of fifty Aprils hath waved green
    Above the spent heart, the Olympian head,
The hands crost idly, the shut eyes unseen,
    Unseeing, the locked lips whose song hath fled;
Yet mystic-lived, like some rich, tropic flower,
His fame puts forth fresh blossoms hour by hour;
Wide spread the laden branches dropping dew
    On the low, laureled brow misunderstood,
    That bent not, neither bowed, until subdued
By the last foe who crowned while he o'erthrew.


Fair was the Easter Sabbath morn when first
    Men heard he had not wakened to its light:
The end had come, and time had done its worst,
    For the black cloud had fallen of endless night.
Then in the town, as Greek accosted Greek,
'T was not the wonted festal words to speak,
"Christ is ...

When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd

When lilacs last in the door-yard bloom'd,
And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,
I mourn'd and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring;
Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.

O powerful, western, fallen star!
O shades of night! O moody, tearful night!
O great star disappear'd! O the black murk that hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless! O helpless soul of me!
O harsh surrounding cloud, that will not free my soul!

In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the white-wash'd palings,
Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,

These are the tales those merry guests
Told to each other, well or ill;
Like summer birds that lift their crests
Above the borders of their nests
And twitter, and again are still.

These are the tales, or new or old,
In idle moments idly told;
Flowers of the field with petals thin,
Lilies that neither toil nor spin,
And tufts of wayside weeds and gorse
Hung in the parlor of the inn
Beneath the sign of the Red Horse.


And still, reluctant to retire,
The friends sat talking by the fire
And watched the smouldering embers burn
To ashes, and flash up again
Into a momentary glow,
Lingering like them when forced to go,
And going when they would remain;
For on the morrow they must turn
Their faces homeward, and the pain
Of part...

The morn arrived; his footstep quickly scared

The gentle sleep that round my senses clung,
And I, awak'ning, from my cottage fared,

And up the mountain side with light heart sprung;
At every step I felt my gaze ensnared

By new-born flow'rs that full of dew-drops hung;
The youthful day awoke with ecstacy,
And all things quicken'd were, to quicken me.

And as I mounted, from the valley rose

A streaky mist, that upward slowly spread,
Then bent, as though my form it would enclose,

Then, as on pinions, soar'd above my head:
My gaze could now on no fair view repose,

in mournful veil conceal'd, the world seem'd dead;
The clouds soon closed around me, as a tomb,
And I was left alone in twilight gloom.

At once the sun his ...

To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which can winds can play,
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom and austere control?
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday
With idle songs for pipe and virelay,
Which do but mar the secret of the whole.
Surely there was a time I might have trod
The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance
Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God:
Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod
I did but touch the honey of romance -
And must I lose a soul's inheritance?

    I

    When I was a boy there was a friend of mine:
    We thought ourselves warriors and grown folk swine,
    Stupid old animals who never understood
    And never had an impulse and said "you must be good."

    We slank like stoats and fled like foxes,
    We put cigarettes in the pillar-boxes,
    Lighted cigarettes and letters all aflame,
    O the surprise when the postman came!

    We stole eggs and apples and made fine hay
    In people's houses when people were away,
    We broke street lamps and away we ran,
    Then I was a boy but now I am a man.

    Now I am a man and don't have any fun,
    I hardly ever shout and I never, never run,
    And I don't care if he's dead that friend of mine,
    For then I was a boy and now...