Heartbreak

"'A little onward lend thy guiding hand
To these dark steps, a little further on!'"
What trick of memory to 'my' voice hath brought
This mournful iteration? For though Time,
The Conqueror, crowns the Conquered, on this brow
Planting his favourite silver diadem,
Nor he, nor minister of his intent
To run before him hath enrolled me yet,
Though not unmenaced, among those who lean
Upon a living staff, with borrowed sight.
O my own Dora, my beloved child!
Should that day come but hark! the birds salute
The cheerful dawn, brightening for me the east;
For me, thy natural leader, once again
Impatient to conduct thee, not as erst
A tottering infant, with compliant stoop
From flower to flower supported; but to curb
Thy nymph-like step swift-bounding o'er the lawn,<...

Before a midnight breaks in storm,
Or herded sea in wrath,
Ye know what wavering gusts inform
The greater tempest's path;
Till the loosed wind
Drive all from mind,
Except Distress, which, so will prophets cry,
O'ercame them, houseless, from the unhinting sky.

Ere rivers league against the land
In piratry of flood,
Ye know what waters steal and stand
Where seldom water stood.
Yet who will note,
Till fields afloat,
And washen carcass and the returning well,
Trumpet what these poor heralds strove to tell?

Ye know who use the Crystal Ball
(To peer by stealth on Doom),
The Shade that, shaping first of all,
Prepares an empty room.
Then doth It pass
Like breath from glass,
But, on the extorted Vision bowed intent,
No man...

PART FOURTH.

WALK ABROAD - VIEWS AROUND, FROM THE SEVERN TO BRISTOL - WRINGTON - "AULD ROBIN GRAY."

The shower is past - the heath-bell, at our feet,
Looks up, as with a smile, though the cold dew
Hangs yet within its cup, like Pity's tear
Upon the eyelids of a village child!
Mark! where a light upon those far-off waves
Gleams, while the passing shower above our head
Sheds its last silent drops, amid the hues
Of the fast-fading rainbow, - such is life!
Let us go forth, the redbreast is abroad,
And, dripping in the sunshine, sings again.    10
No object on the wider sea-line meets
The straining vision, but one distant ship,
Hanging, as motionless and still, far off,
In the pale haze, between the sea and sky.
She seems the ship - the very ship I saw<...

Sunned in the South, and here to-day;
- If all organic things
Be sentient, Flowers, as some men say,
What are your ponderings?

How can you stay, nor vanish quite
From this bleak spot of thorn,
And birch, and fir, and frozen white
Expanse of the forlorn?

Frail luckless exiles hither brought!
Your dust will not regain
Old sunny haunts of Classic thought
When you shall waste and wane;

But mix with alien earth, be lit
With frigid Boreal flame,
And not a sign remain in it
To tell men whence you came.

Come, spread your wings, as I spread mine,
And leave the crowded hall
For where the eyes of twilight shine
O'er evening's western wall.

These are the pleasant Berkshire hills,
Each with its leafy crown;
Hark! from their sides a thousand rills
Come singing sweetly down.

A thousand rills; they leap and shine,
Strained through the shadowy nooks,
Till, clasped in many a gathering twine,
They swell a hundred brooks.

A hundred brooks, and still they run
With ripple, shade, and gleam,
Till, clustering all their braids in one,
They flow a single stream.

A bracelet spun from mountain mist,
A silvery sash unwound,
With ox-bow curve and sinuous twist
It writhes to reach the Sound.

This is my bark, - a pygmy's ship;
B...

On the way to Kew,
By the river old and gray,
Where in the Long Ago
We laughed and loitered so,
I met a ghost to-day,
A ghost that told of you -
A ghost of low replies
And sweet, inscrutable eyes
Coming up from Richmond
As you used to do.

By the river old and gray,
The enchanted Long Ago
Murmured and smiled anew.
On the way to Kew,
March had the laugh of May,
The bare boughs looked aglow,
And old, immortal words
Sang in my breast like birds,
Coming up from Richmond
As I used with you.

With the life of Long Ago
Lived my thought of you.
By the river old and gray
Flowing his appointed way
As I watched I knew
What is so good to know -
Not in vain, not in vain,
Shall I look for you again
Coming...

Under a daisied bank
There stands a rich red ruminating cow,
And hard against her flank
A cotton-hooded milkmaid bends her brow.

The flowery river-ooze
Upheaves and falls; the milk purrs in the pail;
Few pilgrims but would choose
The peace of such a life in such a vale.

The maid breathes words - to vent,
It seems, her sense of Nature's scenery,
Of whose life, sentiment,
And essence, very part itself is she.

She bends a glance of pain,
And, at a moment, lets escape a tear;
Is it that passing train,
Whose alien whirr offends her country ear? -

Nay! Phyllis does not dwell
On visual and familiar things like these;
What moves her is the spell
Of inner themes and inner poetries:

Could but by Sunday morn
Her gay ...

Melpomine put on thy mourning Gaberdine,
And set thy song vnto the dolefull Base,
And with thy sable vayle shadow thy face,
        with weeping verse,
        attend his hearse,
Whose blessed soule the heauens doe now enshrine.

Come Nymphs and with your Rebecks ring his knell,
Warble forth your wamenting harmony,
And at his drery fatall obsequie,
        with Cypres bowes,
        maske your fayre Browes,
And beat your breasts to chyme his burying peale.

Thy birth-day was to all our ioye, the euen,
And on thy death this dolefull song we sing,
Sweet Child of Pan, and the Castalian spring,
        vnto our endless mone,
        from vs why art thou gone,
To fill vp that sweete Angels quier in heauen.

O whylome thou thy lasses dearest...

"Whom seek you here, sweet Mistress Fell?"
"One who loved me passing well.
Dark his eye, wild his face -
Stranger, if in this lonely place
Bide such an one, then, prythee, say
I am come here to-day."

"Many his like, Mistress Fell?"
"I did not look, so cannot tell.
Only this I surely know,
When his voice called me, I must go;
Touched me his fingers, and my heart
Leapt at the sweet pain's smart."

"Why did he leave you, Mistress Fell?"
"Magic laid its dreary spell. -
Stranger, he was fast asleep;
Into his dream I tried to creep;
Called his name, soft was my cry;
He answered - not one sigh.

"The flower and the thorn are here;
Falleth the night-dew, cold and clear;
Out of her bower the bird replies,
Mocking the dark with e...

A Long-Vacation Pastoral


VI

Ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina, ducite Daphnin.

Bright October was come, the misty-bright October,
Bright October was come to burn and glen and cottage;
But the cottage was empty, the matutine deserted.
Who are these that walk by the shore of the salt sea water?
Here in the dusky eve, on the road by the salt sea water?
Who are these? and where? it is no sweet seclusion;
Blank hill-sides slope down to a salt sea loch at their bases,
Scored by runnels, that fringe ere they end with rowan and alder;
Cottages here and there outstanding bare on the mountain,
Peat-roofed, windowless, white; the road underneath by the water.
There on the blank hill-side, looking down through the loch to the ocean,
There with a runne...

My fayre, looke from those turrets of thine eyes,
Into the Ocean of a troubled minde,
Where my poor soule, the Barke of sorrow, lyes,
Left to the mercy of the waues and winde.
See where she flotes, laden with purest loue,
Which those fayre Ilands of thy lookes affoord,
Desiring yet a thousand deaths to proue,
Then so to cast her Ballase ouerboard.
See how her sayles be rent, her tacklings worne,
Her Cable broke, her surest Anchor lost:
Her Marryners doe leaue her all forlorne,
Yet how shee bends towards that blessed Coast!
    Loe! where she drownes in stormes of thy displeasure,
    Whose worthy prize should haue enricht thy treasure.

Here upon the mountain-side
    Till now we met together;
Here I won my woodland bride,
    In flush of summer weather.
Green was then the linden-bough,
    This dear retreat that shaded;
Autumn winds are round me now,
    And the leaves have faded.

She whose heart was all my own,
    In this summer-bower,
With all pleasant things has flown,
    Sunbeam, bird, and flower!
But her memory will stay
    With me, though we're parted--
From the scene I turn away,
    Lone and broken-hearted!

To meet, and part, as we have met and parted,
    One moment cherished and the next forgot,
To wear a smile when almost broken-hearted,
    I know full well is hapless woman's lot;
Yet let me, to thy tenderness appealing,
    Avert this brief but melancholy doom--
Content that close beside the thorn of feeling,
    Grows memory, like a rose, in guarded bloom.

Love's history, dearest, is a sad one ever,
    Yet often with a smile I've heard it told!
Oh, there are records of the heart which never
    Are to the scrutinizing gaze unrolled!
My eyes to thine may scarce again aspire--
    Still in thy memory, dearest let me dwell,
And hush, with this hope, the magnetic wire,
    Wild with our mingled welcome and farewell!

Lady, whom my beloved loves so well!
    When on his clasping arm thy head reclineth,
When on thy lips his ardent kisses dwell,
    And the bright flood of burning light, that shineth
In his dark eyes, is poured into thine;
    When thou shalt lie enfolded to his heart,
In all the trusting helplessness of love;
    If in such joy sorrow can find a part,
    Oh, give one sigh unto a doom like mine!
Which I would have thee pity, but not prove.
One cold, calm, careless, wintry look, that fell
    Haply by chance on me, is all that he
E'er gave my love; round that, my wild thoughts dwell
    In one eternal pang of memory.

I am as weary as a child
That weeps upon its mother's breast
For joy of comforting. But I
Have no such place to rest.

I am as weary as a bird
Blown by wild winds far out to sea
When it regains its nest. But, Oh,
There waits no nest for me.

What think you may sustain the bird
That finds no housing after flight?
And what the little child console
Who weeps alone at night?

"Where is God my Maker, Who giveth songs in the night."--Bible.

The hour of midnight had swept past,
    The city bell tolled three,
The moon had sank behind the clouds,
    No rustling in the tree.
All, all was silent as the grave,
    And memories of the tomb,
Had banished sweet sleep far away,
    All spoke of tears and gloom.

When suddenly upon the air.
    Rang out a sweet bird's song,
No feeble, weak, uncertain note,
    No plaint of grief or wrong,
No "Miserere Domine,"
    No "Dies Irea" sad,
But "Gloria in Excelsis" rang,
    In accents wild and glad.

How could he sing? a birdling caged,
    And in the dark alone,
And then methought that he had seen,
    Some vision from God's throne,
The little birdling's ey...

Piangete, donne, e con voi pianga Amore.

ON THE DEATH OF CINO DA PISTOIA.


    Weep, beauteous damsels, and let Cupid weep,
Of every region weep, ye lover train;
He, who so skilfully attuned his strain
To your fond cause, is sunk in death's cold sleep!
Such limits let not my affliction keep,
As may the solace of soft tears restrain;
And, to relieve my bosom of its pain,
Be all my sighs tumultuous, utter'd deep!
Let song itself, and votaries of verse,
Breathe mournful accents o'er our Cino's bier,
Who late is gone to number with the blest!
Oh! weep, Pistoia, weep your sons perverse;
Its choicest habitant has fled our sphere,
And heaven may glory in its welcome guest!

NOTT.


    Ye damsels, pour your tears! weep with...

[In Memory: 1877.]


What shall I say, my friend, my own heart healing,
When for my love you cannot answer me?
This earth would quake, alas! might I but see
You smile, death's rigorous law repealing!
Pale lips, your mystery so well concealing,
May not the eloquent, varied minstrelsy
Of my inspired ardor potent be
To touch your chords to music's uttered feeling?
Friend, here you cherished flowers: send me now
One ghostly bloom to prove that you are blessed.
No? If denial such as brands my brow
Be in your heavenly regions, too, confessed,
Oh may it prove the truth that your still eyes
Foresee the end of all futurities!