Heartbreak

If all the gentlest-hearted friends I know
Concentred in one heart their gentleness,
That still grew gentler till its pulse was less
For life than pity, I should yet be slow
To bring my own heart nakedly below
The palm of such a friend, that he should press
Motive, condition, means, appliances,

My false ideal joy and fickle woe,
Out full to light and knowledge; I should fear
Some plait between the brows, some rougher chime
In the free voice. O angels, let your flood
Of bitter scorn dash on me! do ye hear
What I say who hear calmly all the time
This everlasting face to face with God?

Hence, loathed Melancholy,
Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born
In Stygian cave forlorn
’Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy!
Find out some uncouth cell,
Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night-raven sings;
There, under Ebon shades and low-browed rocks,
As ragged as thy locks,
In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come, thou Goddess fair and free,
In heav’n yclep’d Euphrosyne,
And by men heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth,
With two sister Graces more,
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore:
Or whether (as some Sager sing)
The frolic Wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr, with Aurora playing,
As he met her once a-Maying,
There, on Beds of Violets blew,
And fresh-blown roses washed in de...

    Whose is the speech
That moves the voices of this lonely beech?
Out of the long West did this wild wind come--
Oh strong and silent! And the tree was dumb,
    Ready and dumb, until
The dumb gale struck it on the darkened hill.

    Two memories,
Two powers, two promises, two silences
Closed in this cry, closed in these thousand leaves
Articulate. This sudden hour retrieves
    The purpose of the past,
Separate, apart--embraced, embraced at last.

    "Whose is the word?
Is it I that spake? Is it thou? Is it I that heard?"
"Thine earth was solitary; yet I found thee!"
"Thy sky was pathless, but I caught, I bound thee,
    Thou visitant divine."
"O thou my Voice, the word was thine."
    "Was thine."

An Ode. 1685.


I.

    Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,
    Made in the last promotion of the blest;
    Whose palms, new pluck'd from Paradise,
    In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
    Rich with immortal green above the rest:
    Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star,
    Thou roll'st above us, in thy wandering race,
        Or, in procession fix'd and regular,
        Mov'st with the heavens' majestic pace;
        Or, call'd to more superior bliss,
    Thou tread'st, with seraphims, the vast abyss:

    Whatever happy region is thy place,
    Cease thy celestial song a little space;
    Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,
        Since Heaven's eternal year is thine.
    Hear then a mortal Muse th...

Amor m' ha posto come segno a strale.

LOVE'S ARMOURY.


    Love makes me as the target for his dart,
As snow in sunshine, or as wax in flame,
Or gale-driven cloud; and, Laura, on thy name
I call, but thou no pity wilt impart.
Thy radiant eyes first caused my bosom's smart;
No time, no place can shield me from their beam;
From thee (but, ah, thou treat'st it as a dream!)
Proceed the torments of my suff'ring heart.
Each thought's an arrow, and thy face a sun,
My passion's flame: and these doth Love employ
To wound my breast, to dazzle, and destroy.
Thy heavenly song, thy speech with which I'm won,
All thy sweet breathings of such strong controul,
Form the dear gale that bears away my soul.

NOTT.


    Me Love has plac...

Spread lightly, virgin shower,
Your winding-sheet of snow;
Winter has lost his power,
But mock not at his woe.

Fall not so cold and bleak,
Nor blow the breath of scorn;
Gently.    Thy sire is weak;
And thou, his latest-born.

Frail type of life thou art:
At first, pure as the snow
We come - abide - depart;
What more, th' Immortals know.

Fall gently, virgin shower,
Though wild the west wind raves;
Watch through this midnight hour
Above the new-made graves!

            -    -    -

Spread gently, virgin shower,
Your winding sheet of snow;
My heart has lost its power,
But mock not at its woe.

Fall not so cold and bleak,
Treat not her corse with scorn;
Gently.    My heart is weak;
She, too, ...

Tell me, ye Zephyrs! that unfold,
While fluttering o'er this gay Recess,
Pinions that fanned the teeming mould
Of Eden's blissful wilderness,
Did only softly-stealing hours
There close the peaceful lives of flowers?

Say, when the 'moving' creatures saw
All kinds commingled without fear,
Prevailed a like indulgent law
For the still growths that prosper here?
Did wanton fawn and kid forbear
The half-blown rose, the lily spare?

Or peeped they often from their beds
And prematurely disappeared,
Devoured like pleasure ere it spreads
A bosom to the sun endeared?
If such their harsh untimely doom,
It falls not 'here' on bud or bloom.

All summer long the happy Eve
Of this fair Spot her flowers may bind,
Nor e'er, with ruffled fancy...

The bed of flowers

Loosens amain,
The beauteous snowdrops

Droop o'er the plain.
The crocus opens

Its glowing bud,
Like emeralds others,

Others, like blood.
With saucy gesture

Primroses flare,
And roguish violets,

Hidden with care;
And whatsoever

There stirs and strives,
The Spring's contented,

If works and thrives.

'Mongst all the blossoms

That fairest are,
My sweetheart's sweetness

Is sweetest far;
Upon me ever

Her glances light,
My song they waken,

My words make bright,
An ever open

And blooming mind,
In sport, unsullied,

In earnest, kind.
Though roses and lilies

By Summer are brought,
Against m...

We're older nor we used to be,
But that's noa reason why
We owt to mope i' misery,
An whine an grooan an sigh.

We've had awr shares o' ups an daans,
I' this world's whirligig;
An for its favors or its fraans
We needn't care a fig.

Let them, at's enterin on life
Be worried wi' its cares;
We've tasted booath its joys an strife,
They're welcome nah to theirs.

To tak things easy owt to be
An old man's futer plan,
Till th' time comes when he has to dee, -
Then dee as weel's he can.

It's foolish nah to brood an freeat,
Abaat what might ha been;
At sixty we dooant see wi' th' een,
We saw wi at sixteen.

Young shoolders worn't meant to bear
Old heeads, an nivver will;
Youth had its fling when we wor thear,

Flora, with wondrous feathers in her hat,
Rain-soaked, and limp, and feeling very flat,
With flowers of sorts in her full basket, sat,
Back to the railings, there by Charing Cross,
And cursed the weather and a blank day's loss.

"Wevver!" she cried, to P.    C.    E.    09,--
"Wevver, you calls it?--Your sort then, not mine!
I calls it blanky 'NO.' So there you are,--
Bit of Old Nick's worstest particular.
Wevver indeed!    Not much, my little son,
It's just old London's nastiest kind of fun.

"Vi'lets, narcissus, primroses and daffs,--
See how they sits up in their beds an' laughs!
Buy, Pretty Ladies--for your next at 'ome!
Gents!--for the gells now--buy a pretty bloom!

"Gosh!--but them 'buses is a fair disgrace,
Squirting their dirty mud into...

People that I meet and pass
In the city's broken roar,
Faces that I lose so soon
And have never found before,

Do you know how much you tell
In the meeting of our eyes,
How ashamed I am, and sad
To have pierced your poor disguise?

Secrets rushing without sound
Crying from your hiding places
Let me go, I cannot bear
The sorrow of the passing faces.

People in the restless street,
Can it be, oh can it be
In the meeting of our eyes
That you know as much of me?

    Most sweet, most powerful,
    Controller of my inmost soul;
    The terrible, yet precious gift
    Of heaven, companion kind
    Of all my days of misery,
    O thought, that ever dost recur to me;

    Of thy mysterious power
    Who speaketh not? Who hath not felt
    Its subtle influence?
    Yet, when one is by feeling deep impelled
    Its secret joys and sorrows to unfold,
    The theme seems ever new however old.

    How isolated is my mind,
    Since thou in it hast come to dwell!
    As by some magic spell,
    My other thoughts have all,
    Like lightning, disappeared;
    And thou, alone, like some huge tower,
    In a deserted plain,
    Gigantic, solitary, dost remain.

    How worthless quite,
    S...

A Gaelic Air.



I.

    Turn again, thou fair Eliza,
        Ae kind blink before we part,
    Rue on thy despairing lover!
        Canst thou break his faithfu' heart?
    Turn again, thou fair Eliza;
        If to love thy heart denies,
    For pity hide the cruel sentence
        Under friendship's kind disguise!

II.

    Thee, dear maid, hae I offended?
        The offence is loving thee:
    Canst thou wreck his peace for ever,
        Wha for time wad gladly die?
    While the life beats in my bosom,
        Thou shalt mix in ilka throe;
    Turn again, thou lovely maiden.
        Ae sweet smile on me bestow.

III.

    Not the bee upon the blossom,
        In the pride o' sunny no...

My mind had almost died.

It had refused a game of tag on a common
with surly children and they steadfastly took revenge.

My fate like Blondin's walk across Niagara
saw cataracts looming large,
hiss & foam,
then visions of serpents,
farawy monsters &
inner tension of rocks opening.

The churned, brown water opened like a basket before me.
Maurading bubbles took on elephantine shapes,
my barrel creeked.
Faraway, the edge & drop yawned in indifferent harmony.
The brown walls of my fortress barrel became like palates
& sutures of my skull imprisoning the brain;
the trickle of invading water ever a reminder.

The close of the story?
Nothing. What is there to record after a river passes?
What remains of things unseen, ...

I am the maid of the lustrous eyes
Of great fruition,
Whom the sons of men that are over-wise
Have called Ambition.

And the world's success is the only goal
I have within me;
The meanest man with the smallest soul
May woo and win me.

For the lust of power and the pride of place
To all I proffer.
Wilt thou take thy part in the crowded race
For what I offer?

The choice is thine, and the world is wide,
Thy path is lonely.
I may not lead and I may not guide,
I urge thee only.

I am just a whip and a spur that smites
To fierce endeavour.
In the restless days and the sleepless nights
I urge thee ever.

Thou shalt wake from sleep with a startled cry,
In fright unleaping
At a rival's step as it passes by
W...

Ah me! in ages far away,
    The good, the heavenly land,
Though unbeheld, quite near them lay,
    And men could understand.

The dead yet find it, who, when here,
    Did love it more than this;
They enter in, are filled with cheer,
    And pain expires in bliss.

Oh, fairly shines the blessed land!
    Ah, God! I weep and pray--
The heart thou holdest in thy hand
    Loves more this sunny day.

I see the hundred thousand wait
    Around the radiant throne:
To me it is a dreary state,
    A crowd of beings lone.

I do not care for singing psalms;
    I tire of good men's talk;
To me there is no joy in palms,
    Or white-robed solemn walk.

I love to hear the wild winds meet,
    The wild old winds at night;<...

A Long-Vacation Pastoral


VII

Vesper adest, juvenes, consurgite: Vesper Olympo
Expectata diu vix tandem lumina tollit.

For she confessed, as they sat in the dusk, and he saw not her blushes,
Elspie confessed at the sports long ago with her father she saw him,
When at the door the old man had told him the name of the bothie;
Then after that at the dance; yet again at a dance in Rannoch
And she was silent, confused. Confused much rather Philip
Buried his face in his hands, his face that with blood was bursting.
Silent, confused, yet by pity she conquered her fear, and continued.
Katie is good and not silly; be comforted, Sir, about her;
Katie is good and not silly; tender, but not, like many,
Carrying off, and at once, for fear of being seen, in t...

Tender and tremulous green of leaves
Turned up by the wind,
Twanging among the vines -
Wind in the grass
Blowing a clear path
For the new-stripped soul to pass...

The naked soul in the sunlight...
Like a wisp of smoke in the sunlight
On the hill-side shimmering.

Dance light on the wind, little soul,
Like a thistle-down floating
Over the butterflies
And the lumbering bees...

Come away from that tree
And its shadow grey as a stone...

Bathe in the pools of light
On the hillside shimmering -
Shining and wetted and warm in the sun-spray falling like golden rain -

But do not linger and look
At that bleak thing under the tree.