Heartbreak

Long have I longed, till I am tired
Of longing and desire;
Farewell my points in vain desired,
My dying fire;
Farewell all things that die and fail and tire.

Springtide and youth and useless pleasure
And all my useless scheming,
My hopes of unattainable treasure,
Dreams not worth dreaming,
Glow-worms that gleam but yield no warmth in gleaming,

Farewell all shows that fade in showing:
My wish and joy stand over
Until to-morrow; Heaven is glowing
Through cloudy cover,
Beyond all clouds loves me my Heavenly Lover.

Only a little more
I have to write:
Then I'll give o'er,
And bid the world good-night.

'Tis but a flying minute,
That I must stay,
Or linger in it:
And then I must away.

O Time, that cut'st down all,
And scarce leav'st here
Memorial
Of any men that were;

How many lie forgot
In vaults beneath,
And piece-meal rot
Without a fame in death?

Behold this living stone
I rear for me,
Ne'er to be thrown
Down, envious Time, by thee.

Pillars let some set up
If so they please;
Here is my hope,
And my Pyramides.

Let no man pray that he know not sorrow,
    Let no soul ask to be free from pain,
For the gall of to-day is the sweet of to-morrow,
    And the moment's loss is the lifetime's gain.

Through want of a thing does its worth redouble,
    Through hunger's pangs does the feast content,
And only the heart that has harboured trouble
    Can fully rejoice when joy is sent.

Let no man shrink from the bitter tonics
    Of grief, and yearning, and need, and strife,
For the rarest chords in the soul's harmonics
    Are found in the minor strains of life.

    We must get home - for we have been away
    So long it seems forever and a day!
    And O so very homesick we have grown,
    The laughter of the world is like a moan
    In our tired hearing, and its songs as vain, -
    We must get home - we must get home again!

    We must get home: It hurts so, staying here,
    Where fond hearts must be wept out tear by tear,
    And where to wear wet lashes means, at best,
    When most our lack, the least our hope of rest
    When most our need of joy, the more our pain -
    We must get home - we must get home again!

    We must get home: All is so quiet there:
    The touch of loving hands on brow and hair -
    Dim rooms, wherein the sunshine is made mild - -
    The lost love of the mother and the child<...

I see thee still in doublet wide,
And hose well kept, a world too slack,
So long and lean thou wert allied,
It struck me, with that curious back,
The Zoo giraffe.    Thy brow was black,
Thy speech was awkward, action slow.
I whispered at thy first attack:
“And wherefore art thou Romeo?”

Thou wert then fifty and cross-eyed;
For acting never hadst the knack.
With stilted bow and Irving stride
Thou tookst the stage, and Jill and Jack
Both sniggered, when with damned clack
Thou talkedst of moons, and wrecked the show.
And here by Heaven, thou art back.
Oh, wherefore art thou Romeo?

This fellow was a lad of pride,
No prinked-out fool, with just a snack
Of bounder, and by Fate allied
To pale effeminates who smack
The rouge about.    T...

Low was our pretty Cot: our tallest Rose
Peep'd at the chamber-window. We could hear
At silent noon, and eve, and early morn,
The Sea's faint murmur. In the open air
Our Myrtles blossom'd; and across the porch
Thick Jasmins twined: the little landscape round
Was green and woody, and refresh'd the eye.
It was a spot which you might aptly call
The Valley of Seclusion! Once I saw
(Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quiteness)
A wealthy son of Commerce saunter by,
Bristowa's citizen: methought, it calm'd
His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse
With wiser feelings: for he paus'd, and look'd
With a pleas'd sadness, and gaz'd all around,
Then eyed our Cottage, and gaz'd round again,
And sigh'd, and said, it was a Blesséd Place.
And we were bless'd. Oft with patient...

Storm and strife and stress,
Lost in a wilderness,
Groping to find a way,
Forth to the haunts of day

Sudden a vista peeps,
Out of the tangled deeps,
Only a point--the ray
But at the end is day.

Dark is the dawn and chill,
Daylight is on the hill,
Night is the flitting breath,
Day rides the hills of death.

The wind it blew cold, and the ice was thick,
Deeper and deeper the snowdrifts grew;
A young mother lay in her cottage, sick, -
Her needs were many, her comforts few.
Clasped to her breast was a newborn child,
Unknowing, unmindful of weal or woe;
And away, far away, in the tempest wild,
Was a husband and father, kneedeep in the snow.
All on a Christmas morning, long ago.

The lamp burned low, and the fire was dead,
And the snow sifted in through each crevice and crack:
As she tossed and turned in her lowly bed,
And murmured, "Good Lord, bring my husband back."
The clocks in the city had told the hour
With a single stroke, for young was the day
But no swelling note from the loftiest tower,
Could reach that lone cot where a mother lay.
All on a Christm...

(It is supposed that Shadow-of-a-Leaf uses the word "clear" in a more ancient sense of "beautiful.")


As along a dark pine-bough, in slender white mystery
    The moon lay to listen, above the thick fern,
In a deep dreaming wood that is older than history
    I heard a lad sing, and I stilled me to learn;
So rarely he lilted his long-forgot litany,--
    Fall, April; fall, April, in dew on our dearth!
Bring balm, and bring poppy, bring deep sleepy dittany
    For Marian, our clear May, so long laid in earth.

Then I drew back the branches. I saw him that chanted it.
    I saw his fool's bauble. I knew his old grief.
I knew that old greenwood and the shadow that haunted it,--
    My fool, my lost jester, my Shadow-of-a-Leaf!
And "why," I said, "w...

Bonny burd! aw'm fain to see thee,
For tha tells ov breeter weather;
But aw connot quite forgie thee, -
Connot love thee altogether.

'Tisn't thee aw fondly welcome -
'Tis the cheerin news tha brings,
Tellin us fine weather will come,
When we see thi dappled wings.

But aw'd rayther have a sparrow, -
Rayther hear a robin twitter; -
Tho' they may net be thi marrow,
May net fly wi' sich a glitter;

But they nivver leeav us, nivver -
Storms may come, but still they stay;
But th' first wind 'at ma's thee shivver,
Up tha mounts an flies away.

Ther's too monny like thee, swallow,
'At when fortun's sun shines breet,
Like a silly buzzard follow,
Doncin raand a bit o' leet.

But ther's few like Robin redbreast,
Cling t...

1.
Dares the lama, most fleet of the sons of the wind,
The lion to rouse from his skull-covered lair?
When the tiger approaches can the fast-fleeting hind
Repose trust in his footsteps of air?
No! Abandoned he sinks in a trance of despair,
The monster transfixes his prey,
On the sand flows his life-blood away;
Whilst India's rocks to his death-yells reply,
Protracting the horrible harmony.

2.
Yet the fowl of the desert, when danger encroaches,
Dares fearless to perish defending her brood,
Though the fiercest of cloud-piercing tyrants approaches
Thirsting - ay, thirsting for blood;
And demands, like mankind, his brother for food;
Yet more lenient, more gentle than they;
For hunger, not glory, the prey
Must perish. Revenge does not howl in the de...

O Dearer far than light and life are dear,
Full oft our human foresight I deplore;
Trembling, through my unworthiness, with fear
That friends, by death disjoined, may meet no more!
Misgivings, hard to vanquish or control,
Mix with the day, and cross the hour of rest;
While all the future, for thy purer soul,
With "sober certainties" of love is blest.

That sigh of thine, not meant for human ear,
Tells that these words thy humbleness offend;
Yet bear me up, else faltering in the rear
Of a steep march: support me to the end.

Peace settles where the intellect is meek,
And Love is dutiful in thought and deed;
Through Thee communion with that Love I seek:
The faith Heaven strengthens where 'he' moulds the Creed.

The song of Kilvani:    fairest she
In all the land of Savatthi.
She had one child, as sweet and gay
And dear to her as the light of day.
She was so young, and he so fair,
The same bright eyes and the same dark hair;
To see them by the blossomy way,
They seemed two children at their play.

There came a death-dart from the sky,
Kilvani saw her darling die.
The glimmering shade his eyes invades,
Out of his cheek the red bloom fades;
His warm heart feels the icy chill,
The round limbs shudder, and are still.
And yet Kilvani held him fast
Long after life's last pulse was past,
As if her kisses could restore
The smile gone out for evermore.

But when she saw her child was dead,
She scattered ashes on her head,
And seized the small corp...

    The friend whom wild from wisdom's way,
        The fumes of wine infuriate send;
    (Not moony madness more astray;)
        Who but deplores that hapless friend?

    Mine was th' insensate frenzied part,
        Ah, why should I such scenes outlive
    Scenes so abhorrent to my heart!
        'Tis thine to pity and forgive.

Last night - how deep the darkness was!
And well I knew its depths, because
I waded it from shore to shore,
Thinking to reach the light no more.

She would not even touch my hand.
The winds rose and the cedars fanned
The moon out, and the stars fled back
In heaven and hid - and all was black!

But ah! To-night a summons came,
Signed with a tear-drop for a name,
For as I wondering kissed it, lo
A line beneath it told me so.

And now - the moon hangs over me
A disk of dazzling brilliancy,
And every star-tip stabs my sights
With splintered glitterings of light!

At noon, upon the mountain's purple height,
Above the pine-woods and the clouds it shone
No larger than the small white dome of shell
Left by the fledgling wren when wings are born.
By night it joined the company of heaven,
And, with its constant light, became a star.
A needle-point of light, minute, remote,
It sent a subtler message through the abyss,
Held more significance for the seeing eye
Than all the darkness that would blot it out,
Yet could not dwarf it.
                        High in heaven it shone,
Alive with all the thoughts, and hopes, and dreams
Of man's adventurous mind.
                            Up there, I knew
The explorers of the sky, the pioneers
Of science, now made ready to attack
That darkness once again, and win new worlds.

O The South Wind and the Sun!
How each loved the other one
Full of fancy - full folly -
Full of jollity and fun!
How they romped and ran about,
Like two boys when school is out,
With glowing face, and lisping lip,
Low laugh, and lifted shout!

And the South Wind - he was dressed
With a ribbon round his breast
That floated, flapped and fluttered
In a riotous unrest,
And a drapery of mist
From the shoulder and the wrist
Flowing backward with the motion
Of the waving hand he kissed.

And the Sun had on a crown
Wrought of gilded thistle-down,
And a scarf of velvet vapor,
And a ravelled-rainbow gown;
And his tinsel-tangled hair,
Tossed and lost upon the air,
Was glossier and flossier
Than any anywhere.

And the...

Here, it is here, the close of the year,
And with it a spiteful letter.
My name in song has done him much wrong,
For himself has done much better.

O little bard, is your lot so hard,
If men neglect your pages?
I think not much of yours or of mine,
I hear the roll of the ages.

Rhymes and rhymes in the range of the times!
Are mine for the moment stronger?
Yet hate me not, but abide your lot;
I last but a moment longer.

This faded leaf, our names are as brief;
What room is left for a hater?
Yet the yellow leaf hates the greener leaf,
For it hangs one moment later.

Greater than I–is that your cry?
And men will live to see it.
Well–if it be so–so it is, you know;
And if it be so, so be it.

Brief, brief is a summer l...