Heartbreak

Roughest roads, we often find,
Lead us on to th' nicest places;
Kindest hearts oft hide behind
Some o'th' plainest-lukkin faces.

Flaars whose colors breetest are,
Oft delight awr wond'ring seet;
But ther's others, humbler far,
Smell a thaasand times as sweet.

Burds o' monny color'd feather,
Please us as they skim along,
But ther charms all put together,
Connot equal th' skylark's song.

Bonny women - angels seemin, -
Set awr hearts an brains o' fire;
But its net ther beauties; beamin,
Its ther gooidness we admire.

Th' bravest man 'at's in a battle,
Isn't allus th' furst i'th' fray;
He best proves his might an' mettle,
Who remains to win the day.

Monkey's an vain magpies chatter,
But it doesn't prove 'em wis...

    High on the hill, with moss o'ergrown,
    A hermit chapel stood;
    It spoke the tale of seasons gone,
    And half-revealed its ivied stone.
    Amid the beechen wood.

    Here often, when the mountain trees
    A leafy murmur made,
    Now still, now swaying to the breeze,
    (Sounds that the musing fancy please),
    The widowed mourner strayed.

    And many a morn she climbed the steep,
    From whence she might behold,
    Where, 'neath the clouds, in shining sweep,
    And mingling with the mighty deep,
    The sea-broad Severn rolled.

    Her little boy beside her played,
    With sea-shells in his hand;
    And sometimes, 'mid the bents delayed,
    And sometimes running onward, said,
    Oh, where is Holy Land!<...

Hark! from the battlements of yonder tower
The solemn bell has tolled the midnight hour!
Roused from drear visions of distempered sleep,
Poor Broderick wakes—in solitude to weep!

"Cease, Memory; cease (the friendless mourner cried)
To probe the bosom too severely tried!
Oh! ever cease, my pensive thoughts, to stray
Through tie bright fields of Fortune's better day,
When youthful Hope, the music of the mind,
Tuned all its charms, and Errington was kind!

Yet, can I cease, while glows this trembling    frame,
In sighs to speak thy melancholy name!
I hear thy spirit wail in every storm!
In midniglit shades I view thy passing form!
Pale as in that sad hour when doomed to feel!
Deep in thy perjured heart, the bloody steel!

Demons of Vengeance! ye, ...

Was it the double of my dream
The woman that by me lay
Dreamed, or did we halve a dream
Under the first cold gleam of day?
I thought: "There is a waterfall
Upon Ben Bulben side
That all my childhood counted dear;
Were I to travel far and wide
I could not find a thing so dear.'
My memories had magnified
So many times childish delight.
I would have touched it like a child
But knew my finger could but have touched
Cold stone and water. I grew wild.
Even accusing Heaven because
It had set down among its laws:
Nothing that we love over-much
Is ponderable to our touch.
I dreamed towards break of day,
The cold blown spray in my nostril.
But she that beside me lay
Had watched in bitterer sleep
The marvelous stag of Arthur,
That lofty...

There was a time, when love's young flowers
With many a joy my bosom prest:
Sweet hours of bliss!--but short are hours,
Those hours are fled--and I'm distrest.
I would not wish, in reason's spite;
I would not wish new joy to gain;
I only wish for one delight,--
To see those hours of bliss again.

There was a day, when love was young,
And nought but bliss did there belong;
When blackbirds nestling o'er us sung,
Ah me! what sweetness wak'd his song.
I wish not springs for ever fled;
I wish not birds' forgotten strain;
I only wish for feelings dead
To warm, and wake, and feel again.

But ah! what once was joy is past:
The time's gone by; the day and hour
Are whirring fled on trouble's blast,
As winter nips the summer flower.
A shadow...

Found - as I rushed through the great world's mart,
    In a race for gold and a pleasure quest,
A passionate, throbbing human heart
    Suddenly found in my breast.

I had always laughed at the foolish word;
    I had said aloud in my boasting glee,
That never a heart in my bosom stirred,
    That my brain governed me.

I was proud with the sense of my might and power
    'It is will, not heart that wins,' I said.
But I suddenly found one sad, strange hour
    That the strength of my will had fled.

For up in my breast there rose supreme
    A strong man's heart, and all on fire:
Drunk with the wine of a wild, sweet dream,
    And tortured with desire.

It is tossed with hope, and fear, and doubt,
    It is mad with the fever o...

    Good Folke, for Gold or Hyre,
    But helpe me to a Cryer;
For my poore Heart is runne astray
After two Eyes, that pass'd this way.
        O yes, O yes, O yes,
        If there be any Man,
        In Towne or Countrey, can
        Bring me my Heart againe,
        Ile please him for his paine;
And by these Marks I will you show,
That onely I this Heart doe owe.
        It is a wounded Heart,
        Wherein yet sticks the Dart,
    Eu'ry piece sore hurt throughout it,
    Faith, and Troth, writ round about it:
It was a tame Heart, and a deare,
        And neuer vs'd to roame;
But hauing got this Haunt, I feare
        'Twill hardly stay at home.
For Gods sake, walking by the way,
        If you my Heart doe see,
Either impound it ...

Why do we lie

’Why do we lie,’ she questioned, her warm eyes
on the grey Autumn wind and its coursing,
’all afternoon wasted in bed like this?’
’Because we cannot lie all night together.’
’Yes,’ she said, satisfied at my reasoning,
but going on to search her cruel mind
for better excuses to leave my narrow bed.

Too many flesh suppers

Abstracted in art,
in architecture,
in scholars’ detail;

absorbed by music,
by minutiae,
by sad trivia;

all to efface her,
whom I can forget
no more than breathing.

Theatregoer

Somewhere some nights she sees
curtains rise on those rites
we also knew and felt

I sit here desolate
in spite of company

Love is between people

And sho...

The sunlight fell with a golden gleam
    On the waves of the rippling rill;
The pansies nodded their purple heads;
    But the proud queen-rose stood still.
She loved the light and she loved the sun,
And the peaceful night when the day was done,
But the faithless sun in his careless way
Had broken her heart on that summer's day.

She had bathed her soul in his warm sweet, rays,
    She had given her life to him;
And her crimson heart--it was his alone--
    Of love it was full to the brim.
But a fairer bud in the garden of love
Had conquered the heart of the king above;
And the proud queen-rose on that summer's day
Had given a love that was thrown away.

The pansies laughed in the summer breeze,
    For they were so happy and free;
And the...

When Ruth was left half desolate,
Her Father took another Mate;
And Ruth, not seven years old,
A slighted child, at her own will
Went wandering over dale and hill,
In thoughtless freedom, bold.

And she had made a pipe of straw,
And music from that pipe could draw
Like sounds of winds and floods;
Had built a bower upon the green,
As if she from her birth had been
An infant of the woods.

Beneath her father's roof, alone
She seemed to live; her thoughts her own;
Herself her own delight;
Pleased with herself, nor sad, nor gay;
And, passing thus the live-long day,
She grew to woman's height.

There came a Youth from Georgia's shore
A military casque he wore,
With splendid feathers drest;
He brought them from the Cherokees;<...

Vast was the wealth I carried in life's pack -
    Youth, health, ambition, hope and trust; but Time
    And Fate, those robbers fit for any crime,
Stole all, and left me but the empty sack.
Before me lay a long and lonely track
    Of darkling hills and barren steeps to climb;
    Behind me lay in shadows the sublime
Lost lands of Love's delight.    Alack!    Alack!

Unwearied, and with springing steps elate,
    I had conveyed my wealth along the road.
    The empty sack proved now a heavier load:
I was borne down beneath its worthless weight.
I stumbled on, and knocked at Death's dark gate.
    There was no answer.    Stung by sorrow's goad
    I forced my way into that grim abode,
And laughed, and flung Life's empty sack to Fate.

Unknown ...

The rain is due to fall,
The wind blows softly.

The branches of the cinnamon are moving,
The begonias stir on the green mounds.

Bright are the flying leaves,
The falling flowers are many.

The wind lifted the dry dust,
And he is lifting the wet dust;
Here and there the wind moves everything

He passes under light gauze
And touches me.

I am alone with the beating of my heart.

There are leagues of sky,
And the water is flowing very fast.

Why do the birds let their feathers
Fall among the clouds?

I would have them carry my letters,
But the sky is long.

The stream flows east
And not one wave comes back with news.

The scented magnolias are shining still,
But always a few are falling....

1.
How stern are the woes of the desolate mourner,
As he bends in still grief o'er the hallowed bier,
As enanguished he turns from the laugh of the scorner,
And drops, to Perfection's remembrance, a tear;
When floods of despair down his pale cheek are streaming,
When no blissful hope on his bosom is beaming,
Or, if lulled for awhile, soon he starts from his dreaming,
And finds torn the soft ties to affection so dear.

2.
Ah! when shall day dawn on the night of the grave,
Or summer succeed to the winter of death?
Rest awhile, hapless victim, and Heaven will save
The spirit, that faded away with the breath.
Eternity points in its amaranth bower,
Where no clouds of fate o'er the sweet prospect lower,
Unspeakable pleasure, of goodness the dower,
When woe...

I.
All June I bound the rose in sheaves.
Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves
And strew them where Pauline may pass.
She will not turn aside? Alas!
Let them lie. Suppose they die?
The chance was they might take her eye.

II.
How many a month I strove to suit
These stubborn fingers to the lute!
To-day I venture all I know.
She will not hear my music? So!
Break the string; fold music’s wing:
Suppose Pauline had bade me sing!

III.
My whole life long I learned to love.
This hour my utmost art I prove
And speak my passion, Heaven or hell?
She will not give me heaven? ’Tis well!
Lose who may, I still can say,
Those who win heaven, blest are they!

Never enlivened with the liveliest ray
That fosters growth or checks or cheers decay,
Nor by the heaviest rain-drops more deprest,
This Flower, that first appeared as summer's guest,
Preserves her beauty 'mid autumnal leaves
And to her mournful habits fondly cleaves.
When files of stateliest plants have ceased to bloom,
One after one submitting to their doom,
When her coevals each and all are fled,
What keeps her thus reclined upon her lonesome bed?

The old mythologists, more impressed than we
Of this late day by character in tree
Or herb, that claimed peculiar sympathy,
Or by the silent lapse of fountain clear,
Or with the language of the viewless air
By bird or beast made vocal, sought a cause
To solve the mystery, not in Nature's laws
But in Man'...

What can I say? What Arguments can prove
My Truth? What Colors can describe my Love?
If it's Excess and Fury be not known,
In what Thy Celia has already done?

Thy Infant Flames, whilst yet they were conceal'd
In tim'rous Doubts, with Pity I beheld;
With easie Smiles dispell'd the silent Fear,
That durst not tell Me, what I dy'd to hear:
In vain I strove to check my growing Flame,
Or shelter Passion under Friendship's Name:
You saw my Heart, how it my Tongue bely'd;
And when You press'd, how faintly I deny'd
E'er Guardian Thought could bring it's scatter'd Aid;
E'er Reason could support the doubting Maid;
My Soul surpriz'd, and from her self disjoin'd,
Left all Reserve, and all the Sex behind:
From your Command her Motions She receiv'd;
And not for M...

Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air

That crossed me from sweet things,
The flow of was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Downhill at dusk?

I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they're gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle.

I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.

Now no joy but lacks salt,
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain

Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.

When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it har...

You bid me hold my peace
And dry my fruitless tears,
Forgetting that I bear
A pain beyond my years.

You say that I should smile
And drive the gloom away;
I would, but sun and smiles
Have left my life's dark day.

All time seems cold and void,
And naught but tears remain;
Life's music beats for me
A melancholy strain.

I used at first to hope,
But hope is past and, gone;
And now without a ray
My cheerless life drags on.

Like to an ash-stained hearth
When all its fires are spent;
Like to an autumn wood
By storm winds rudely shent,--

So sadly goes my heart,
Unclothed of hope and peace;
It asks not joy again,
But only seeks release.