Heartbreak

Thou who wert born of Psyche and of Love
And fondly nurst on Poesy's warm breast
                    Painting, oh, power adored!
                    My country's sons have poured
To thee their orisons; and thou hast blest
Their votive sighs, nor vainly have they strove.

Thou who art wont to soothe the varied pain
That ceaseless throbs at absent lover's heart,
                    Who first bestowed thine aid
                    On the young Rhodian maid [FN#19]
When doomed, from him whose love was life, to part,
From a lone bard accept an humble heartfelt strain.


[FN#19]    I do not positively recollect whether the incident, here described is supposed to have transpired at Rhodes, Corinth, or some other place, and have not, at present, the means for ascertaining....

Thee, dear friend, a brother soothes,
Not with flatteries, but truths,
Which tarnish not, but purify
To light which dims the morning's eye.
I have come from the spring-woods,
From the fragrant solitudes;--
Listen what the poplar-tree
And murmuring waters counselled me.

If with love thy heart has burned;
If thy love is unreturned;
Hide thy grief within thy breast,
Though it tear thee unexpressed;
For when love has once departed
From the eyes of the false-hearted,
And one by one has torn off quite
The bandages of purple light;
Though thou wert the loveliest
Form the soul had ever dressed,
Thou shalt seem, in each reply,
A vixen to his altered eye;
Thy softest pleadings seem too bold,
Thy praying lute will seem to scold;
Though...

I

Phantasmal fears,
And the flap of the flame,
And the throb of the clock,
And a loosened slate,
And the blind night's drone,
Which tiredly the spectral pines intone!

II

And the blood in my ears
Strumming always the same,
And the gable-cock
With its fitful grate,
And myself, alone.

III

The twelfth hour nears
Hand-hid, as in shame;
I undo the lock,
And listen, and wait
For the Young Unknown.

IV

In the dark there careers -
As if Death astride came
To numb all with his knock -
A horse at mad rate
Over rut and stone.

V

No figure appears,
No call of my name,
No sound but "Tic-toc"
Without check. Past the gate
It clatters - is gone.

...

Love on the earth alit,
Come to be Lord of it;
Looked round and laughed with glee,
Noble my empery!
Straight ere that laugh was done
Sprang forth the royal sun,
Pouring out golden shine
Over the realm divine.

Came then a lovely may,
Dazzling the new-born day,
Wreathing her golden hair
With the red roses there,
Laughing with sunny eyes
Up to the sunny skies,
Moving so light and free
To her own minstrelsy.

Love with swift rapture cried,
Dear Life, thou art my bride!
Whereto, with fearless pride,
Dear Love, indeed thy bride!
All the earth’s fruit and flowers,
All the world’s wealth are ours;
Sun, moon, and stars gem
Our marriage diadem.

So they together fare,
Lovely and joyous pair;
So hand in ha...

Nè per sereno cielo ir vaghe stelle.

NOTHING THAT NATURE OFFERS CAN AFFORD HIM CONSOLATION.


    Not skies serene, with glittering stars inlaid,
Nor gallant ships o'er tranquil ocean dancing,
Nor gay careering knights in arms advancing,
Nor wild herds bounding through the forest glade,
Nor tidings new of happiness delay'd,
Nor poesie, Love's witchery enhancing,
Nor lady's song beside clear fountain glancing,
In beauty's pride, with chastity array'd;
Nor aught of lovely, aught of gay in show,
Shall touch my heart, now cold within her tomb
Who was erewhile my life and light below!
So heavy--tedious--sad--my days unblest,
That I, with strong desire, invoke Death's gloom,
Her to behold, whom ne'er to have seen were best!

DACRE.
<...

Dear mother, dry those flowing tears,
    They grieve me much to see;
And calm, oh! calm thine anxious fears -
    What dost thou dread for me?
'Tis true that tempests wild oft ride
    Above the stormy main,
But, then, in Him I will confide
    Who doth their bounds ordain.

I go to win renown and fame
    Upon the glorious sea;
But still my heart will be the same -
    I'll ever turn to thee!
See, yonder wait our gallant crew,
    So, weep not, mother dear;
My father was a sailor too -
    What hast thou then to fear?

Is it not better I should seek
    To win the name he bore,
Than waste my youth in pastimes weak
    Upon the tiresome shore?
Then, look not thus so sad and wan,
For yet your son you'll see
Return with w...

I

Fragoletta, blessed one,
What think you of the light of the sun?
Do you think the dark was best,
Lying snug in mother's breast?
Ah! I knew that sweetness, too,
Fragoletta, before you!
But, Fragoletta, now you're born,
You must learn to love the morn,
Love the lovely working light,
Love the miracle of sight,
Love the thousand things to do -
Little girl, I envy you! -
Love the thousand things to see,
Love your mother, and - love me!
And some night, Fragoletta, soon,
I'll take you out to see the moon;
And for the first time, child of ours,
You shall - think of it! - look on flowers,
And smell them, too, if you are good,
And hear the green leaves in the wood
Talking, talking, all together
In the happy windy weather;
And i...

Over the silent sea of sleep,
    Far away! far away!
Over a strange and starlit deep
    Where the beautiful shadows sway;
    Dim in the dark,
    Glideth a bark,
Where never the waves of a tempest roll --
Bearing the very "soul of a soul",
    Alone, all alone --
Far away -- far away
    To shores all unknown
In the wakings of the day;
To the lovely land of dreams,
Where what is meets with what seems
Brightly dim, dimly bright;
Where the suns meet stars at night,
Where the darkness meets the light
    Heart to heart, face to face,
    In an infinite embrace.

    *    *    *    *    *

    Mornings break,
    And we wake,
And we wonder where we went
    In the bark
    Thro' the dark,
But our wonder is ...

The drowsy day, with half-closed eyes,
Dreams in this quaint forgotten street,
That, like some old-world wreckage, lies,
Left by the sea's receding beat,
Far from the city's restless feet.

Abandoned pavements, that the trees'
Huge roots have wrecked, whose flagstones feel
No more the sweep of draperies;
And sunken curbs, whereon no wheel
Grinds, nor the gallant's spur-bound heel.

Old houses, walled with rotting brick,
Thick-creepered, dormered, weather-vaned,
Like withered faces, sad and sick,
Stare from each side, all broken paned,
With battered doors the rain has stained.

And though the day be white with heat,
Their ancient yards are dim and cold;
Where now the toad makes its retreat,
'Mid flower-pots green-caked with mold,
A...

I.

In some glad way I know thereof:
A garden glows down in my heart,
Wherein I meet and often part
With many an ancient tale of love
A Romeo garden, banked with bloom,
And trellised with the eglantine;
In which a rose climbs to a room,
A balcony one mass of vine,
Dim, haunted of perfume
A balcony, whereon she gleams,
The soft Desire of all Dreams,
And smiles and bends like Juliet,
Year after year.
While to her side, all dewy wet,
A rose stuck in his ear,
Love climbs to draw her near.

II.

And in another way I know:
Down in my soul a graveyard lies,
Wherein I meet, in ghostly wise,
With many an ancient tale of woe
A graveyard of the Capulets,
Deep-vaulted with ancestral gloom,
Through whose dark yews the ...

“Did she care as much as I did
When our paths of Fate divided?
Was the love, then, all onesided,
Did she understand or care?”
Slowly fall the moments leaden,
And the silence seems to deaden,
And a voice from over yonder answers sadly: “I’ve been there.”


“Have you tramped the streets of cities
Poor? And do you know what it is,
While no mortal cares or pities,
To have drifted past ambition;
To have sunk below despair?
Doomed to slave and stint and borrow;
Ever haunted in your sorrow
By the spectre of To-morrow?”
And the voice from over yonder answers sadly: “I’ve been there.”

“Surely in the wide Hereafter
There’s a land of love and laughter?
Say: Is this life all we live for,
Say it! think it, if you dare!
Have you ever thou...

The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere
Each vapour that obscured the sunset's ray;
And pallid Evening twines its beaming hair
In duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day:
Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men,
Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.

They breathe their spells towards the departing day,
Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea;
Light, sound, and motion own the potent sway,
Responding to the charm with its own mystery.
The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass
Knows not their gentle motions as they pass.

Thou too, aereal Pile! whose pinnacles
Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire,
Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells,
Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire,
Around whose lessening ...

I.

There's the rose and the lily, the daisy and pink,
And many rare flowers which others may think
Are the fairest and best, the sweetest that blow,
With delicious perfume, and colors that glow--
But go to the orchard and sniff the delight
Of the incense that's shed by the pink and the white,
And let the soul float away in a swoon
On the ambient air where the apple trees bloom!


II.

There's the cowslip, narcissus, and sweet mignonette,
The asters, verbenas, the fuschias; and yet,
As much as I love them in Summer array,
It's the white and the pink I dream of to-day,
And I walk 'neath the branches that just interlace
And shower their blossoms right down in my face
When the breeze that is laden with rarest perfume
Is wafted along where...

Suggested By Hearing Her Voice During Services At Church.

At night, in visions, when my soul drew near
    The shadowy confines of the spirit land,
Wild, wondrous notes of song have met my ear,
    Wrung from their harps by many a seraph's hand;
And forms of light, too, more divinely fair
    Than Mercy's messenger to hearts that mourn,
On wings that made sweet music in the air,
    Have round me, in those hours of bliss, been borne,
And, filled with joy unutterable, I
Have deemed myself a born child of the sky.

And often, too, at sunset's magic hour,
    When musing by some solitary stream,
While thought awoke in its resistless pow'r,
    And restless Fancy wove her brightest dream:
Mysterious tongues, that were not of the earth,
    Have whispere...

Behold an emblem of our human mind
Crowded with thoughts that need a settled home,
Yet, like to eddying balls of foam
Within this whirlpool, they each other chase
Round and round, and neither find
An outlet nor a resting-place!
Stranger, if such disquietude be thine,
Fall on thy knees and sue for help divine.

Admire, exult, despise, laugh, weep, for here
There is such matter for all feeling.
- Childe Harold.


I
Unwelcome shroud of the forgotten dead,
Oblivion’s dreary fountain, where art thou:
Why speed’st thou not thy deathlike wave to shed
O’er humbled pride, and self-reproaching woe:
Or time’s stern hand, why blots it not away
The saddening tale that tells of sorrow and decay?

II
There are, whose glory passeth not away—
Even in the grave their fragrance cannot fade:
Others there are as deathless full as they,
Who for themselves a monument have made
By their own cringes—a lesson to all eyes—
Of wonder to the fool—of warning to the wise.

III
Yes, there are stories registered on high,
Yes, there are stains time’s fingers...

I went by the Druid stone
That broods in the garden white and lone,
And I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows
That at some moments fall thereon
From the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing,
And they shaped in my imagining
To the shade that a well-known head and shoulders
Threw there when she was gardening.

I thought her behind my back,
Yea, her I long had learned to lack,
And I said: "I am sure you are standing behind me,
Though how do you get into this old track?"
And there was no sound but the fall of a leaf
As a sad response; and to keep down grief
I would not turn my head to discover
That there was nothing in my belief.

Yet I wanted to look and see
That nobody stood at the back of me;
But I thought once more: "Nay, I'll not unvi...

The laurel withers on your brow,
victor, weary of the race!
And you, who sit in mighty place,
How heavy is your scepter now!

Flushed with the kiss your lips have known,
"Woman, this is your hour to wake.
And know that flesh and heart may break
When love hath entered on its own.

And you, who knew where angels trod.
And marked the path for duller eyes.
In this lone hour are you still wise?
Do you not quail before your God?

God, to whom the dark is day.
Forget not these, the strong, the right.
The happy souls, for. Lord, at night
They tremble in their tents of clay!