Heartbreak

The pale blue gloom of evening comes
Among the phantom forests and walls
With a mournful and rythmic sound of drums.
My heart is disturbed with a sound of myriad throbbing,
Persuasive and sinister, near and far:
In the blue evening of my heart
I hear the thrum of the evening star.
My work is uncompleted; and yet I hurry,
Hearing the whispered pulsing of those drums,
To enter the luminous walls and woods of night.
It is the eternal mistress of the world
Who shakes these drums for my delight.
Listen! the drums of the leaves, the drums of the dust,
The delicious quivering of this air!
I will leave my work unfinished, and I will go
With ringing and certain step through the laughter of chaos
To the one small room in the void I know.
Yesterday it was there,

Corn-colored clouds upon a sky of gold,
And 'mid their sheaves, - where, like a daisy-bloom
Left by the reapers to the gathering gloom,
The star of twilight glows, - as Ruth, 'tis told,
Dreamed homesick 'mid the harvest fields of old,
The Dusk goes gleaning color and perfume
From Bible slopes of heaven, that illume
Her pensive beauty deep in shadows stoled.
Hushed is the forest; and blue vale and hill
Are still, save for the brooklet, sleepily
Stumbling the stone with one foam-fluttering foot:
Save for the note of one far whippoorwill,
And in my heart her name, - like some sweet bee
Within a rose, - blowing a faery flute.

With blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the pear to the gable-wall.
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

Her tears fell with the dews at even;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,
When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He come...

The moonlight is without; and I could lose
An hour to gaze, though Taste and Splendour here,
As in a lustrous fairy palace, reign!
Regardless of the lights that blaze within,
I look upon the wide and silent sea,
That in the shadowy moonbeam sleeps:
    How still,
Nor heard to murmur, or to move, it lies;
Shining in Fancy's eye, like the soft gleam,
The eve of pleasant yesterdays!
    The clouds
Have all sunk westward, and the host of stars
Seem in their watches set, as gazing on;
While night's fair empress, sole and beautiful,
Holds her illustrious course through the mid heavens
Supreme, the spectacle, for such she looks,
Of gazing worlds!
    How different is the scene
That lies beneath this arched window's height!
The town, that murmured throu...

“Me too, perchance, in future days,
The sculptured stone shall show,
With Paphian myrtle or with bays
Parnassian on my brow.


“But I, or ere that season come,
Escaped from every care,
Shall reach my refuge in the tomb,
And sleep securely there.”


So sang, in Roman tone and style,
The youthful bard, ere long
Ordain’d to grace his native isle
With her sublimest song.


Who then but must conceive disdain,
Hearing the deed unblest
Of wretches who have dared profane
His dread sepulchral rest?


Ill fare the hands that heaved the stones
Where Milton’s ashes lay,
That trembled not to grasp his bones
And steal his dust away!


O ill requited bard! neglect
Thy living worth repaid,
And bli...

My friend went to the piano; spun the stool
A little higher; left his pipe to cool;
Picked up a fat green volume from the chest;
And propped it open.
Whitely without rest,
His fingers swept the keys that flashed like swords,
... And to the brute drums of barbarian hordes,
Roaring and thunderous and weapon-bare,
An army stormed the bastions of the air!
Dreadful with banners, fire to slay and parch,
Marching together as the lightnings march,
And swift as storm-clouds. Brazen helms and cars
Clanged to a fierce resurgence of old wars
Above the screaming horns. In state they passed,
Trampling and splendid on and sought the vast --
Rending the darkness like a leaping knife,
The flame, the noble pageant of our life!
The burning seal that stamps man's high indent...

The wind blew words along the skies,
And these it blew to me
Through the wide dusk: "Lift up your eyes,
Behold this troubled tree,
Complaining as it sways and plies;
It is a limb of thee.

"Yea, too, the creatures sheltering round -
Dumb figures, wild and tame,
Yea, too, thy fellows who abound -
Either of speech the same
Or far and strange - black, dwarfed, and browned,
They are stuff of thy own frame."

I moved on in a surging awe
Of inarticulateness
At the pathetic Me I saw
In all his huge distress,
Making self-slaughter of the law
To kill, break, or suppress.

"Glenara, Glenara, now read me my dream."
Campbell.

Father, I have dreamed a dream,
    When the rosy morning hour
Poured its light on field and stream,
    Kindling nature with its pow'r; -

O'er the meadow's dewy breast,
    I had chased a butterfly,
Tempted by its gaudy vest,
    Still my vain pursuit to ply, -

Till my limbs were weary grown,
    With the distance I had strayed,
Then to rest I laid me down,
    Where a beech tree cast its shade,

Soon a heaviness came o'er me,
    And a deep sleep sealed my eyes;
And a vision past before me,
    Full of changing phantasies.

First I stood beside a bower,
    Green as summer bow'r could be;
Vine and fruit, and leaf and flower,
    Mixed to weave its canopy....

From the idyll "Wild Thorn and Lily"


O Maytime woods! O Maytime lanes and hours!
And stars, that knew how often there at night
Beside the path, where woodbine odors blew
Between the drowsy eyelids of the dusk,
When, like a great, white, pearly moth, the moon
Hung silvering long windows of your room,
I stood among the shrubs! The dark house slept.
I watched and waited for I know not what!
Some tremor of your gown: a velvet leaf's
Unfolding to caresses of the Spring:
The rustle of your footsteps: or the dew
Syllabling avowal on a tulip's lips
Of odorous scarlet: or the whispered word
Of something lovelier than new leaf or rose
The word young lips half murmur in a dream:
Serene with sleep, light visions weigh her eyes:
And underneath her window b...

These, to you now, O, more than ever now -
Now that the Ancient Enemy
Has passed, and we, we two that are one, have seen
A piece of perfect Life
Turn to so ravishing a shape of Death
The Arch-Discomforter might well have smiled
In pity and pride,
Even as he bore his lovely and innocent spoil
From those home-kingdoms he left desolate!

Poor windlestraws
On the great, sullen, roaring pool of Time
And Chance and Change, I know!
But they are yours, as I am, till we attain
That end for which me make, we two that are one:
A little, exquisite Ghost
Between us, smiling with the serenest eyes
Seen in this world, and calling, calling still
In that clear voice whose infinite subtleties
Of sweetness, thrilling back across the grave,
Break the poor hear...

From the idyll "Wild Thorn and Lily"

O Maytime woods! O Maytime lanes and hours!
And stars, that knew how often there at night
Beside the path, where woodbine odors blew
Between the drowsy eyelids of the dusk, -
When, like a great, white, pearly moth, the moon
Hung silvering long windows of your room, -
I stood among the shrubs! The dark house slept.
I watched and waited for - I know not what! -
Some tremor of your gown: a velvet leaf's
Unfolding to caresses of the Spring:
The rustle of your footsteps: or the dew
Syllabling avowal on a tulip's lips
Of odorous scarlet: or the whispered word
Of something lovelier than new leaf or rose -
The word young lips half murmur in a dream:

Serene with sleep, light visions weigh her eyes:
And underneath he...

Fear death? to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle ’s to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes and forbore,
And bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life’s arrears
Of pain, darkness and cold.
For sudden the worst turns th...

Define my weal, and tell the joys of heaven;
Express my woes and show the pains of hell;
Declare what fate unlucky stars have given,
And ask a world upon my life to dwell;
    Make known the faith that fortune could no move,
Compare my worth with others' base desert,
Let virtue be the touchstone of my love,
So may the heavens read wonders in my heart;
    Behold the clouds which have eclipsed my sun,
And view the crosses which my course do let;
Tell me, if ever since the world begun
So fair a rising had so foul a set?
    And see if time, if he would strive to prove,
    Can show a second to so pure a love.

Th' sun shone breet at early morn,
Burds sang sweetly on the trees;
Larks wor springin from the corn,
Tender blossoms sowt the breeze.
Jockey whistled as he went
O'er rich meadows wet wi' dew;
In his breast wor sweet content,
For his wants an cares were few.
Dolly passed him on his way,
Fresh an sweet an fair wor she;
Jockey lost his heart that day,
To the maid ov Salterlee.
Jockey an Dolly
Had allus been jolly,
Till Love shot his arrow an wounded the twain;
Their days then pass sadly,
Yet man an maid madly,
In spite ov the torture, they nursed the sweet pain.

Since that day did jockey pine,
Dolly shyly kept apart;
Still shoo milk'd her willin kine,
Tho' shoo nursed a braikin heart,
But one neet they met i'th' fold,
Whe...

Dozens of damp little curls;
One little short upper lip;
Two rows of teeth like diminutive pearls;
Eyes clear and grey as the creek where it swirls
Over the ledges that's Tip!
With a skip!
A perfectly hopeless young nip!

Smudge on the tip of his nose;
Mischievous glance of a Puck;
Heart just as big as the rents in his clothes;
Lungs like a locust and cheeks like a rose;
Total it! there you have Tuck!
And bad luck
To the man who would question his pluck!

School is all over at last,
School with its pothooks and strokes:
Homeward they toddle, but who could go fast?
So many wonderful things to be passed
Froggie, for instance, who croaks
'Neath the oaks
By the creek where the watercress soaks.

Sandpipers dance on the bars;...

    O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
        Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
        Thy mists, that roll and rise!
    Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
    And all but cry with colour!    That gaunt crag
    To crush!    To lift the lean of that black bluff!
    World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!


    Long have I known a glory in it all,
            But never knew I this;
            Here such a passion is
    As stretcheth me apart,--Lord, I do fear
    Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year;
    My soul is all but out of me,--let fall
    No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

Yellow, mellow, ripened days,
Sheltered in a golden coating;
O'er the dreamy, listless haze,
White and dainty cloudlets floating;
Winking at the blushing trees,
And the sombre, furrowed fallow;
Smiling at the airy ease
Of the southward-flying swallow.
Sweet and smiling are thy ways,
Beauteous, golden, Autumn days!

Shivering, quivering, tearful days,
Fretfully and sadly weeping;
Dreading still, with anxious gaze,
Icy fetters round thee creeping;
O'er the cheerless, withered plain,
Woefully and hoarsely calling;
Pelting hail and drenching rain
On thy scanty vestments falling.
Sad and mournful are thy ways,
Grieving, wailing, Autumn days!

It is not the tear at this moment shed,
    When the cold turf has just been laid o'er him,
That can tell how beloved was the friend that's fled,
    Or how deep in our hearts we deplore him.
'Tis the tear, thro' many a long day wept,
    'Tis life's whole path o'ershaded;
'Tis the one remembrance, fondly kept,
    When all lighter griefs have faded.

Thus his memory, like some holy light,
    Kept alive in our hearts, will improve them,
For worth shall look fairer, and truth more bright,
    When we think how we lived but to love them.
And, as fresher flowers the sod perfume
    Where buried saints are lying,
So our hearts shall borrow a sweetening bloom
    From the image he left there in dying!