Heartbreak

    Her thought that, like a brook beside the way,
        Sang to my steps through all the wandering year,
    Has ceased from melody--O Love, allay
                My sudden fear!

    She cannot fail--the beauty of that brow
        Could never flower above a desert heart--
    Somewhere beneath, the well-spring even now
                Lives, though apart.

    Some day, when winter has renewed her fount
        With cold, white-folded snows and quiet rain,
    O Love, O Love, her stream again will mount
                And sing again!

Pretty swallow, once again
Come and pass me in the rain.
Pretty swallow, why so shy?
Pass again my window by.

The horsepond where he dips his wings,
The wet day prints it full of rings.
The raindrops on his [        ] track
Lodge like pearls upon his back.

Then again he dips his wing
In the wrinkles of the spring,
Then oer the rushes flies again,
And pearls roll off his back like rain.

Pretty little swallow, fly
Village doors and windows by,
Whisking oer the garden pales
Where the blackbird finds the snails;

Whewing by the ladslove tree
For something only seen by thee;
Pearls that on the red rose hing
Fall off shaken by thy wing.

On that low thatched cottage stop,
In the sooty chimney pop,
Where thy w...

1.
A pale Dream came to a Lady fair,
And said, A boon, a boon, I pray!
I know the secrets of the air,
And things are lost in the glare of day,
Which I can make the sleeping see,
If they will put their trust in me.

2.
And thou shalt know of things unknown,
If thou wilt let me rest between
The veiny lids, whose fringe is thrown
Over thine eyes so dark and sheen:
And half in hope, and half in fright,
The Lady closed her eyes so bright.

3.
At first all deadly shapes were driven
Tumultuously across her sleep,
And o'er the vast cope of bending heaven
All ghastly-visaged clouds did sweep;
And the Lady ever looked to spy
If the golden sun shone forth on high.

4.
And as towards the east she turned,
She saw aloft in t...

One man lights you with his ardour
one decks you in mourning, Nature!
What says to the first: ‘A Sepulchre!’
To the other cries: ‘Life and splendour!’


Unknown Hermes, who assists,
yet intimidates me as well,
you make me Midas’ equal,
the saddest of alchemists:


You help me change gold to iron,
paradise to hell’s kingdom:
in the shrouded atmosphere


I find a dear corpse, and on
the celestial shores, it’s there,
I build a mighty sepulcher.

A fine and subtle spirit dwells
In every little flower,
Each one its own sweet feeling breathes
With more or less of power.

There is a silent eloquence
In every wild bluebell
That fills my softened heart with bliss
That words could never tell.

Yet I recall not long ago
A bright and sunny day,
'Twas when I led a toilsome life
So many leagues away;

That day along a sunny road
All carelessly I strayed,
Between two banks where smiling flowers
Their varied hues displayed.

Before me rose a lofty hill,
Behind me lay the sea,
My heart was not so heavy then
As it was wont to be.

Less harassed than at other times
I saw the scene was fair,
And spoke and laughed to those around,
As if I knew no care.

I. Franconia from the Pemigewasset

Once more, O Mountains of the North, unveil
Your brows, and lay your cloudy mantles by
And once more, ere the eyes that seek ye fail,
Uplift against the blue walls of the sky
Your mighty shapes, and let the sunshine weave
Its golden net-work in your belting woods,
Smile down in rainbows from your falling floods,
And on your kingly brows at morn and eve
Set crowns of fire! So shall my soul receive
Haply the secret of your calm and strength,
Your unforgotten beauty interfuse
My common life, your glorious shapes and hues
And sun-dropped splendors at my bidding come,
Loom vast through dreams, and stretch in billowy length
From the sea-level of my lowland home!

They rise before me! Last night’s thunder-gust
Roared...

I rose at night, and visited
The Cave of the Unborn:
And crowding shapes surrounded me
For tidings of the life to be,
Who long had prayed the silent Head
To haste its advent morn.

Their eyes were lit with artless trust,
Hope thrilled their every tone;
"A scene the loveliest, is it not?
A pure delight, a beauty-spot
Where all is gentle, true and just,
And darkness is unknown?"

My heart was anguished for their sake,
I could not frame a word;
And they descried my sunken face,
And seemed to read therein, and trace
The news that pity would not break,
Nor truth leave unaverred.

And as I silently retired
I turned and watched them still,
And they came helter-skelter out,
Driven forward like a rabble rout
Into the world t...

I can no longer find a place for my eyes.
I cannot hold my legs together.
My heart is hollow.    My head is going to burst.
Mushiness all around.    Nothing wants to take shape.
My tongue breaks.    And my mouth twists.
In my skull there is neither pleasure nor goal.
The sun, a buttercup, rocks itself
On a chimney, its slender stalk.

(E. L. H. H. C. H.)


Since every sound moves memories,
How can I play you
Just as I might if you raised no scene,
By your ivory rows, of a form between
My vision and your time-worn sheen,
As when each day you
Answered our fingers with ecstasy?
So it's hushed, hushed, hushed, you are for me!

And as I am doomed to counterchord
Her notes no more
In those old things I used to know,
In a fashion, when we practised so,
"Good-night! Good-bye!" to your pleated show
Of silk, now hoar,
Each nodding hammer, and pedal and key,
For dead, dead, dead, you are to me!

I fain would second her, strike to her stroke,
As when she was by,
Aye, even from the ancient clamorous "Fall
Of Paris," or "Battle of Prague" withal,
To the "Rovin...

A wondrous city, that had temples there
More rich than that one built by David's son,
Which called forth Ophir's gold, when Israel
Made Lebanon half naked for her sake.
I saw white towers where so-called traitors died,
True men whose tongues were bells to honest hearts,
And rang out boldly in false monarch's ears.
Saw old black gateways, on whose arches crouched
Stone lions with their bodies gnawed by age.
I looked with awe on iron gates that could
Tell bloody stones if they had our tongues.
I saw tall mounted spires shine in the sun,
That stood amidst their army of low streets.
I saw in buildings pictures, statues rare,
Made in those days when Rome was young, and new
In marble quarried from Carrara's hills;
Statues by sculptors that could almost make
Fin...

As one who, walking in the twilight gloom,
    Hears round about him voices as it darkens,
And seeing not the forms from which they come,
    Pauses from time to time, and turns and hearkens;

So walking here in twilight, O my friends!
    I hear your voices, softened by the distance,
And pause, and turn to listen, as each sends
    His words of friendship, comfort, and assistance.

If any thought of mine, or sung or told,
    Has ever given delight or consolation,
Ye have repaid me back a thousand-fold,
    By every friendly sign and salutation.

Thanks for the sympathies that ye have shown!
    Thanks for each kindly word, each silent token,
That teaches me, when seeming most alone,
    Friends are around us, though no word be spoken.

Ki...

Some kind angel, gently flying,
Moved with pity at my pain,
Tell Corinna I am dying
Till with joy we meet again.

Tell Corinna, since we parted
I have never known delight,
And shall soon be broken-hearted
If I longer want her sight.

Tell her how her lover, mourning,
Thinks each lazy day a year,
Cursing every morn returning,
Since Corinna is not here.

Tell her, too, not distant places,
Will she be but true and kind,
Join'd with time and change of faces,
E'er shall shake my constant mind.

When Love was born of heavenly line,
What dire intrigues disturbed Cythera's joy!
Till Venus cried, "A mother's heart is mine;
None but myself shall nurse my boy,"

But, infant as he was, the child
In that divine embrace enchanted lay;
And, by the beauty of the vase beguiled,
Forgot the beverage--and pined away.

"And must my offspring languish in my sight?"
(Alive to all a mother's pain,
The Queen of Beauty thus her court addressed)
"No: Let the most discreet of all my train
Receive him to her breast:
Think all, he is the God of young delight."

Then TENDERNESS with CANDOUR joined,
And GAIETY the charming office sought;
Nor even DELICACY stayed behind:
But none of those fair Graces brought

Wherewith to nurse the child--and still...

We see the sky, - we love it day by day;
We feel the wind of Spring, from blossoms winging;
We meet with souls tender as tints in May:
For these large ecstasies what are we bringing?

There is no price, best friend, for greatest meed.
Laid on the altar of our true affection,
Wild flowers of love for me must intercede:
And lo! I win your unexcelled protection.

No life in earth, or air, or sky;
The sunbeams, broken silently,
On the bared rocks around me lie,

Cold rocks with half-warmed lichens scarred,
And scales of moss; and scarce a yard
Away, one long strip, yellow-barred.

Lost in a cleft! ’Tis but a stride
To reach it, thrust its roots aside,
And lift it on thy stick astride!

Yet stay! That moment is thy grace!
For round thee, thrilling air and space,
A chattering terror fills the place!

A sound as of dry bones that stir
In the dead Valley! By yon fir
The locust stops its noonday whir!

The wild bird hears; smote with the sound,
As if by bullet brought to ground,
On broken wing, dips, wheeling round!

The hare, transfixed, with trembling lip,
Halts, breathless, on ...

'Tis the terror of tempest. The rags of the sail
Are flickering in ribbons within the fierce gale:
From the stark night of vapours the dim rain is driven,
And when lightning is loosed, like a deluge from Heaven,
She sees the black trunks of the waterspouts spin
And bend, as if Heaven was ruining in,
Which they seemed to sustain with their terrible mass
As if ocean had sunk from beneath them: they pass
To their graves in the deep with an earthquake of sound,
And the waves and the thunders, made silent around,
Leave the wind to its echo. The vessel, now tossed
Through the low-trailing rack of the tempest, is lost
In the skirts of the thunder-cloud: now down the sweep
Of the wind-cloven wave to the chasm of the deep
It sinks, and the walls of the watery vale
Whose dep...

Come round me, little childer;
There, don't fling stones at me
Because I mutter as I go;
But pity Moll Magee.
My man was a poor fisher
With shore lines in the say;
My work was saltin' herrings
The whole of the long day.
And sometimes from the Saltin' shed
I scarce could drag my feet,
Under the blessed moonlight,
Along thc pebbly street.
I'd always been but weakly,
And my baby was just born;
A neighbour minded her by day,
I minded her till morn.
I lay upon my baby;
Ye little childer dear,
I looked on my cold baby
When the morn grew frosty and clear.
A weary woman sleeps so hard!
My man grew red and pale,
And gave me money, and bade me go
To my own place, Kinsale.
He drove me out and shut the door.
And gave his curse ...

I


The lights are out, and gone are all the guests
That thronging came with merriment and jests
    To celebrate the Hanging of the Crane
In the new house,--into the night are gone;
But still the fire upon the hearth burns on,
    And I alone remain.

    O fortunate, O happy day,
    When a new household finds its place
    Among the myriad homes of earth,
    Like a new star just sprung to birth,
    And rolled on its harmonious way
    Into the boundless realms of space!

So said the guests in speech and song,
As in the chimney, burning bright,
We hung the iron crane to-night,
And merry was the feast and long.


II

And now I sit and muse on what may be,
And in my vision see, or seem to see,
    Throug...