Heartbreak

Repeat that, repeat,
Cuckoo, bird, and open ear wells, heart-springs, delight- fully sweet,
With a ballad, with a ballad, a rebound
Off trundled timber and scoops of the hillside ground, hollow hollow hollow ground:
The whole landscape flushes on a sudden at a sound.

This was her home; one mossy gable thrust
Above the cedars and the locust trees:
This was her home, whose beauty now is dust,
A lonely memory for melodies
The wild birds sing, the wild birds and the bees.

Here every evening is a prayer: no boast
Or ruin of sunset makes the wan world wroth;
Here, through the twilight, like a pale flower's ghost,
A drowsy flutter, flies the tiger-moth;
And dusk spreads darkness like a dewy cloth.

In vagabond velvet, on the placid day,
A stain of crimson, lolls the butterfly;
The south wind sows with ripple and with ray
The pleasant waters; and the gentle sky
Looks on the homestead like a quiet eye.

Their melancholy quaver, lone and low,
When day is done, the gray tree-toads repeat:
The whippoorwills, far i...

Do you remember that glorious June
    When we were lovers, you and I?
Something there was in the robin's tune,
    Something there was in earth and sky,
That was never before, and never since then.
        I wonder why.

Do you remember the bridge we crossed,
    And lingered to see the ships go by,
With snowy sails to the free winds tossed?
    I never pass that bridge but I sigh
With a sense at my heart as of something lost.
        I wonder why.

Do you remember the song we sung,
    Under the beautiful starlit sky?
The world was bright, and our hearts were young -
    I cannot forget though I try and try.
How you smiled in my eyes while the echoes rung.
        I wonder why.

Do you remember how debonair
    The new moon shon...

I came from the sunny valleys
And sought for the open sea,
For I thought in its gray expanses
My peace would come to me.

I came at last to the ocean
And found it wild and black,
And I cried to the windless valleys,
"Be kind and take me back!"

But the thirsty tide ran inland,
And the salt waves drank of me,
And I who was fresh as the rainfall
Am bitter as the sea.

O! how I faint when I of you do write,
Knowing a better spirit doth use your name,
And in the praise thereof spends all his might,
To make me tongue-tied speaking of your fame!
But since your worth, wide as the ocean is,
The humble as the proudest sail doth bear,
My saucy bark, inferior far to his,
On your broad main doth wilfully appear.
Your shallowest help will hold me up afloat,
Whilst he upon your soundless deep doth ride;
Or, being wrack’d, I am a worthless boat,
He of tall building, and of goodly pride:
Then if he thrive and I be cast away,
The worst was this, my love was my decay.

How sweet it us'd to be, when April first
Unclos'd the arum-leaves, and into view
Its ear-like spindling flowers their cases burst,
Beting'd with yellowish white or lushy hue:
Though manhood now with such has small to do,
Yet I remember what delight was mine
When on my Sunday walks I us'd to go,
Flower-gathering tribes in childish bliss to join;
Peeping and searching hedge-row side or woods,
When thorns stain green with slow unclosing buds.
Ah, how delighted, humming on the time
Some nameless song or tale, I sought the flowers;
Some rushy dyke to jump, or brink to climb,
Ere I obtain'd them; while from hasty showers
Oft under trees we nestled in a ring,
Culling our "lords and ladies."--O ye hours!
I never see the broad-leav'd arum spring
Stained with spot...

Violets and leaves of vine,
Into a frail, fair wreath
We gather and entwine:
A wreath for Love to wear,
Fragrant as his own breath,
To crown his brow divine,
All day till night is near.
Violets and leaves of vine
We gather and entwine.

Violets and leaves of vine
For Love that lives a day,
We gather and entwine.
All day till Love is dead,
Till eve falls, cold and gray,
These blossoms, yours and mine,
Love wears upon his head,
Violets and leaves of vine
We gather and entwine.

Violets and leaves of vine,
For Love when poor Love dies
We gather and entwine.
This wreath that lives a day
Over his pale, cold eyes,
Kissed shut by Proserpine,
At set of sun we lay:
Violets and leaves of vine
We gather and entw...

Where are the songs I used to know,
Where are the notes I used to sing?
I have forgotten everything
I used to know so long ago;
Summer has followed after Spring;
Now Autumn is so shrunk and sere,
I scarcely think a sadder thing
Can be the Winter of my year.

Yet Robin sings through Winter's rest,
When bushes put their berries on;
While they their ruddy jewels don,
He sings out of a ruddy breast;
The hips and haws and ruddy breast
Make one spot warm where snowflakes lie
They break and cheer the unlovely rest
Of Winter's pause - and why not I?

Farewell: how should not such as thou fare well,
Though we fare ill that love thee, and that live,
And know, whate'er the days wherein we dwell
May give us, thee again they will not give?
Peace, rest, and sleep are all we know of death,
And all we dream of comfort: yet for thee,
Whose breath of life was bright and strenuous breath,
We think the change is other than we see.
The seal of sleep set on thine eyes to-day
Surely can seal not up the keen swift light
That lit them once for ever. Night can slay
None save the children of the womb of night.
The fire that burns up dawn to bring forth noon
Was father of thy spirit: how shouldst thou
Die as they die for whom the sun and moon
Are silent? Thee the darkness holds not now:
Them, while they looked upon the light,...

Thou arrant robber, Death!
Couldst thou not find
Some lesser one than he
To rob of breath,--
Some poorer mind
Thy prey to be?

His mind was like the sky,--
As pure and free;
His heart was broad and open
As the sea.
His soul shone purely through his face,
And Love made him her dwelling place.

Not less the scholar than the friend,
Not less a friend than man;
The manly life did shorter end
Because so broad it ran.

Weep not for him, unhappy Muse!
His merits found a grander use
Some other-where. God wisely sees
The place that needs his qualities.
Weep not for him, for when Death lowers
O'er youth's ambrosia-scented bowers
He only plucks the choicest flowers.

Who swerves from innocence, who makes divorce
Of that serene companion, a good name,
Recovers not his loss; but walks with shame,
With doubt, with fear, and haply with remorse:
And oft-times he who, yielding to the force
Of chance-temptation, ere his journey end,
From chosen comrade turns, or faithful friend
In vain shall rue the broken intercourse.
Not so with such as loosely wear the chain
That binds them, pleasant River! to thy side:
Through the rough copse wheel thou with hasty stride;
I choose to saunter o'er the grassy plain,
Sure, when the separation has been tried,
That we, who part in love, shall meet again.

I.

The leaves are shivering on the thorn,
Drearily;
And sighing wakes the lean-eyed morn,
Wearily.

I press my thin face to the pane,
Drearily;
But never will he come again.
(Wearily.)

The rain hath sicklied day with haze,
Drearily;
My tears run downward as I gaze,
Wearily.

The mist and morn spake unto me,
Drearily:
"What is this thing God gives to thee?"
(Wearily.)

I said unto the morn and mist,
Drearily:
"The babe unborn whom sin hath kissed."
(Wearily.)

The morn and mist spake unto me,
Drearily:
"What is this thing which thou dost see?"
(Wearily.)

I said unto the mist and morn,
Drearily:
"The shame of man and woman's scorn."
(Wearily.)

"He loved t...

"O Thou!" her words she thus without delay
Resuming, turn'd their point on me, to whom
They but with lateral edge seem'd harsh before,
"Say thou, who stand'st beyond the holy stream,
If this be true. A charge so grievous needs
Thine own avowal." On my faculty
Such strange amazement hung, the voice expir'd
Imperfect, ere its organs gave it birth.

A little space refraining, then she spake:
"What dost thou muse on? Answer me. The wave
On thy remembrances of evil yet
Hath done no injury." A mingled sense
Of fear and of confusion, from my lips
Did such a "Yea" produce, as needed help
Of vision to interpret. As when breaks
In act to be discharg'd, a cross-bow bent
Beyond its pitch, both nerve and bow o'erstretch'd,
The flagging weapon feebly hits the mark...

Why should this flower delay so long
To show its tremulous plumes?
Now is the time of plaintive robin-song,
When flowers are in their tombs.

Through the slow summer, when the sun
Called to each frond and whorl
That all he could for flowers was being done,
Why did it not uncurl?

It must have felt that fervid call
Although it took no heed,
Waking but now, when leaves like corpses fall,
And saps all retrocede.

Too late its beauty, lonely thing,
The season's shine is spent,
Nothing remains for it but shivering
In tempests turbulent.

Had it a reason for delay,
Dreaming in witlessness
That for a bloom so delicately gay
Winter would stay its stress?

- I talk as if the thing were born
With sense to work its mind;<...

Long ago and long ago,
    And long ago still,
There dwelt three merry maidens
    Upon a distant hill.
One was tall Meggan,
    And one was dainty May,
But one was fair Margaret,
    More fair than I can say,
Long ago and long ago.

When Meggan plucked the thorny rose,
    And when May pulled the brier,
Half the birds would swoop to see,
    Half the beasts draw nigher;
Half the fishes of the streams
    Would dart up to admire:
But when Margaret plucked a flag-flower,
    Or poppy hot aflame,
All the beasts and all the birds
    And all the fishes came
To her hand more soft than snow.

Strawberry leaves and May-dew
    In brisk morning air,
Strawberry leaves and May-dew
    Make maidens fair.
'I go for strawb...

    I

    The sea moans and the stars are bright,
    The leaves lisp 'neath a rolling moon.
    I shut my eyes against the night
    And make believe the time is June,
    The June that left us over-soon.

    This is the path and this the place
    We sat and watched the moving sea,
    And I the moonlight on your face.
    We were not happy, woe is me,
    Happiness is but memory!

    It seemeth, now that you are gone,
    My heart a measured pain doth keep:
    Are you now, as I am, alone?
    Do you make merry, do you weep?
    In whose arms are you now asleep?

A long, low waste of yellow sand
Lay shining northward far as eye could reach,
Southward a rocky bluff rose high
Broken in wild, fantastic shapes.
Near by, one jagged rock towered high,
And o'er the waters leaned, like giant grim,
Striving to peer into the mysteries
The ocean whispers of continually,
And covers with her soft, treacherous face.
For the rest, the sun was sinking low
Like a great golden globe, into the sea;
Above the rock a bird was flying
In dizzy circles, with shrill cries,
And on a plank floated from some wreck,
With shreds of musty seaweed
Clinging to it yet, a woman sat
Holding a child within her arms;
A sweet-faced woman - looking out to sea
With dark, patient eyes, and singing to the child,
And this the song she in the sunse...

    In my childhood, "Verdun," meant madness.
    Bars on the windows, cages around the intellect.
    Time was a poor keeper of souls, it seems, wore out all but
    a fragment of my memories. Musical, poetic. The sounds of clay china
    being dropped on the floor. Fierce Celts with a gift for the muse in
    keeping with their love of lyricism and war.

    Driving by 999 Queen in Toronto accompanies a lot of the above.
    A cuckoo bin by any calculation and a reference not meant to be
    pejorative. A subject so clothed in solemnity only irreverent
    "kidding," can hope to disarm its grasp. Still, the truth must be told.
    In university, no one shrinked from whispering the ultimate fate -
    a stint in Sydenham or a trip down the road to Cedar Springs.
    Delight...