Heartbreak

One Autumn evening, wandering, when the sun was hanging low,
Through a woodland where the music of a streamlet's gentle flow
Commingled with the rustling of the yellow golden leaves,
And the idling breeze's sighing as it floated through the trees,
I heard sweet voices whispering in accents soft and low,
That lulled to rest the troubled soul, like those of long ago.

Enchanted thus I lingered, by unseen hands fast bound,
My willing fancy captive to the magic of sweet sound,
And eagerly I listened to the whispering voices tell
Of happy days of childhood, and the tear unbidden fell,
As were pictured to the mind again the halcyon scenes of yore,
And loved ones that no more I'll meet till on the silent shore!

And as the slanting shadows fell athwart the scattered leaves

I.

She comes, the dreamy daughter
Of day and night, a girl,
Who o'er the western water
Lifts up her moon of pearl:
Like some Rebecca at the well,
Who fills her jar of crystal shell,
Down ways of dew, o'er dale and dell,
Dusk comes with dreams of you,
Of you,
Dusk comes with dreams of you.

II.

She comes, the serious sister
Of all the stars that strew
The deeps of God, and glister
Bright on the darkling blue:
Like some loved Ruth, who heaps her arm
With golden gleanings of the farm,
Down fields of stars, where shadows swarm,
Dusk comes with thoughts of you,
Of you,
Dusk comes with thoughts of you.

III.

She comes, and soft winds greet her,
And whispering odors woo;
She is the words and met...

Since there 's no helpe, Come let vs kisse and part,
Nay, I haue done: You get no more of Me,
And I am glad, yea glad withall my heart,
That thus so cleanly, I my Selfe can free,
Shake hands for euer, Cancell all our Vowes,
And when we meet at any time againe,
Be it not scene in either of our Browes,
That We one iot of former Loue reteyne;
Now at the last gaspe of Loues latest Breath,
When his Pulse fayling, Passion speechlesse lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of Death,
And Innocence is closing vp his Eyes,
    Now if thou would'st, when all haue giuen him ouer,
    From Death to Life, thou might'st him yet recouer.

In front the awful Alpine track
Crawls up its rocky stair;
The autumn storm-winds drive the rack
Close o’er it, in the air.

Behind are the abandon’d baths
Mute in their meadows lone;
The leaves are on the valley paths;
The mists are on the Rhone,

The white mists rolling like a sea.
I hear the torrents roar.
Yes, Obermann, all speaks of thee!
I feel thee near once more.

I turn thy leaves: I feel their breath
Once more upon me roll;
That air of languor, cold, and death,
Which brooded o’er thy soul.

Fly hence, poor Wretch, whoe’er thou art,
Condemn’d to cast about,
All shipwreck in thy own weak heart,
For comfort from without:

A fever in these pages burns
Beneath the calm they feign;
A wounded human spir...

Written among the ruins of the Sonnenberg.


Thou who within thyself dost not behold
Ruins as great as these, though not as old,
Can'st scarce through life have travelled many a year,
Or lack'st the spirit of a pilgrim here.
Youth hath its walls of strength, its towers of pride;
Love, its warm hearth-stones; Hope, its prospects wide;
Life's fortress in thee, held these one, and all,
And they have fallen to ruin, or shall fall.

A faithless shepherd courted me,
He stole away my liberty.
When my poor heart was strange to men,
He came and smiled and stole it then.

When my apron would hang low,
Me he sought through frost and snow.
When it puckered up with shame,
And I sought him, he never came.


When summer brought no fears to fright,
He came to guard me every night.
When winter nights did darkly prove,
None came to guard me or to love.

I wish, I wish, but all in vain,
I wish I was a maid again.
A maid again I cannot be,
O when will green grass cover me?

Yes; I write verses now and then,
But blunt and flaccid is my pen,
No longer talkt of by young men
As rather clever:

In the last quarter are my eyes,
You see it by their form and size;
Is it not time then to be wise?
Or now or never.

Fairest that ever sprang from Eve!
While Time allows the short reprieve,
Just look at me! would you believe
'Twas once a lover?

I cannot clear the five-bar gate,
But, trying first its timber's state,
Climb stiffly up, take breath, and wait
To trundle over.

Thro' gallopade I cannot swing
The entangling blooms of Beauty's spring:
I cannot say the tender thing,
Be 't true or false,

And am beginning to opine
Those girls are only half-divine
Whose waists yon wicked boys entwin...

As evening shaped I found me on a moor
Which sight could scarce sustain:
The black lean land, of featureless contour,
Was like a tract in pain.

"This scene, like my own life," I said, "is one
Where many glooms abide;
Toned by its fortune to a deadly dun -
Lightless on every side.

I glanced aloft and halted, pleasure-caught
To see the contrast there:
The ray-lit clouds gleamed glory; and I thought,
"There's solace everywhere!"

Then bitter self-reproaches as I stood
I dealt me silently
As one perverse misrepresenting Good
In graceless mutiny.

Against the horizon's dim-discerned wheel
A form rose, strange of mould:
That he was hideous, hopeless, I could feel
Rather than could behold.

"'Tis a dead spot, where even ...

La ragion meco si lamenta.


Reason laments and grieves full sore with me,
        The while I hope by loving to be blest;
        With precepts sound and true philosophy
        My shame she quickens thus within my breast:
'What else but death will that sun deal to thee--
        Nor like the phoenix in her flaming nest?'
        Yet nought avails this wise morality;
        No hand can save a suicide confessed.
I know my doom; the truth I apprehend:
        But on the other side my traitorous heart
        Slays me whene'er to wisdom's words I bend.
Between two deaths my lady stands apart:
        This death I dread; that none can comprehend.
        In this suspense body and soul must part.

Long time beside the squatter's gate
A great grey Box-Tree, early, late,
Or shine or rain, in silence there
Had stood and watched the seasons fare:
Had seen the wind upon the plain
Caress the amber ears of grain;
The river burst its banks and come
Far past its belt of mighty gum:
Had seen the scarlet months of drought
Scourging the land with fiery knout;
And seasons ill and seasons good
Had alternated as they would.
The years were born, had grown and gone,
While suns had set and suns had shone;
Fierce flames had swept; chill waters drenched;
That sturdy yeoman never blenched.

The Tree had watched the station grow,
The buildings rising row on row;
And from that point of vantage green,
Peering athwart its leafy screen,
The wondering sol...

A Canzonet

I pray thee leaue, loue me no more,
    Call home the Heart you gaue me,
I but in vaine that Saint adore,
    That can, but will not saue me:
These poore halfe Kisses kill me quite;
    Was euer man thus serued?
Amidst an Ocean of Delight,
    For Pleasure to be sterued.

Shew me no more those Snowie Brests,
    With Azure Riuerets branched,
Where whilst mine Eye with Plentie feasts,
    Yet is my Thirst not stanched.
O TANTALVS, thy Paines n'er tell,
    By me thou art preuented;
'Tis nothing to be plagu'd in Hell,
    But thus in Heauen tormented.

Clip me no more in those deare Armes,
    Nor thy Life's Comfort call me;
O, these are but too pow'rfull Charmes,
    And doe but more inthrall me.
But see, how ...

What though the sun had left my sky;
To save me from despair
The blessed moon arose on high,
And shone serenely there.

I watched her, with a tearful gaze,
Rise slowly o'er the hill,
While through the dim horizon's haze
Her light gleamed faint and chill.

I thought such wan and lifeless beams
Could ne'er my heart repay,
For the bright sun's most transient gleams
That cheered me through the day:

But as above that mist's control
She rose, and brighter shone,
I felt her light upon my soul;
But now, that light is gone!

Thick vapours snatched her from my sight,
And I was darkling left,
All in the cold and gloomy night,
Of light and hope bereft:

Until, methought, a little star
Shone forth with trembling ray,
...

O beautiful woman, too well we know
The terrible weight of thy woman's woe,
So great that the world, in its careless way,
Remembered thy beauty for more than a day.
In the name of the truth from thy brow is torn
The crown of redemption thou long hast worn,
And into the valley of sin thou art hurled
To be trampled anew by the feet of the world.

The beautiful picture is thine no more
That hangs in the palace on Italy's shore;
The tear-stained eyes where the shadow lies,
Like a darksome cloud in the summer skies,
Will tell thy story to men no more,
For all untrue is the tale of yore;
And the far-famed picture that hangs on the wall
Is a painter's fancy--that is all.

Italia's shore is a land of light
Where the sunlight of day drowns the shadows of...

Thou bidst me sing the lay I sung to thee
    In other days ere joy had left this brow;
But think, tho' still unchanged the notes may be,
    How different feels the heart that breathes them now!
The rose thou wearst to-night is still the same
    We saw this morning on its stem so gay;
But, ah! that dew of dawn, that breath which came
    Like life o'er all its leaves, hath past away.

Since first that music touched thy heart and mine,
    How many a joy and pain o'er both have past,--
The joy, a light too precious long to shine,--
    The pain, a cloud whose shadows always last.
And tho' that lay would like the voice of home
    Breathe o'er our ear, 'twould waken now a sigh--
Ah! not, as then, for fancied woes to come,
    But, sadder far, for real bliss go...

The morning shone on Tagus' rocky side,
And airs of summer swelled the yellow tide,
When, rising from his melancholy bed,
And faint, and feebly by Antonio[2] led,
Poor Camoens, subdued by want and woe,
Along the winding margin wandered slow,
His harp, that once could each warm feeling move
Of patriot glory or of tenderest love,
His sole and sable friend[3] (while a faint tone
Rose from the wires) placed by a mossy stone.
How beautiful the sun ascending shines
From ridge to ridge, along the purple vines!
How pure the azure of the opening skies!
How resonant the nearer rock replies
To call of early mariners! and, hark!
The distant whistle from yon parting bark,
That down the channel as serene she strays,
Her gray sail mingles with the ...

Dear Heart, what thing may symbolise for us
A love like ours, what gift, whate'er it be,
Hold more significance 'twixt thee and me
Than paltry words a truth miraculous;
Or the poor signs that in astronomy
Tell giant splendours in their gleaming might:
Yet love would still give such, as in delight
To mock their impotence - so this for thee.

This song for thee! our sweetest honeycomb
Of lovesome thought and passion-hearted rhyme,
Builded of gold and kisses and desire,
By that wild poet who so many a time
Our hungering lips have blessed, until a fire
Burnt speech up and the wordless hour had come.

"Dying?    I am not dying?    Are you mad?
    You think I need to ask for heavenly grace?
I think you are a fiend, who would be glad
    To see me struggle in death's cold embrace.

"But, man, you lie! for I am strong - in truth
    Stronger than I have been in years; and soon
I shall feel young again as in my youth,
    My glorious youth - life's one great priceless boon.

"O youth, youth, youth!    O God! that golden time,
    When proud and glad I laughed the hours away.
Why, there's no sacrifice (perhaps no crime)
    I'd pause at, could it make me young to-day.

"But I'm not old!    I grew - just ill, somehow;
    Grew stiff of limb, and weak, and dim of sight.
It was but sickness.    I am better now,
    Oh, vastly better,...

    I sat by the fire and watched it blaze,
        And dreamed that she wrote me a letter,
    And for that dream to the end of my days
        To Fancy I owe myself debtor.

    Next day there came the postman's knock,
        The morning was bright and sunny,
    And showed me a sheaf of circulars, stock
        Attempts to get hold of my money.

    'Mid correspondence of this dull kind
        A dainty notelet lay hidden,
    It seemed as though it had half a mind
        To consider itself forbidden.

    The writing was like herself, complete,
        With a touch of her queenly bearing,
    So Venus wrote when she ordered in Crete
        Her doves to take her an airing.

    Inside it was just as promising,
        'Twas a pre...