Heartbreak

Singer of songs of the hills
Dreamer, by waters unstirred,
Back in a valley of rills,
Home of the leaf and the bird!
Read in this fall of the year
Just the compassionate phrase,
Faded with traces of tear,
Written in far-away days:

“Gone is the light of my lap
(Lord, at Thy bidding I bow),
Here is my little one’s cap,
He has no need of it now,
Give it to somebody’s boy
Somebody’s darling” she wrote.
Touching was Bob in his joy
Bob without boots or a coat.

Only a cap; but it gave
Capless and comfortless one
Happiness, bright as the brave,
Beautiful light of the sun.
Soft may the sanctified sod
Rest on the father who led
Bob from the gutter, unshod
Covered his cold little head!

Bob from the foot to the cro...

High is our calling, Friend! Creative Art
(Whether the instrument of words she use,
Or pencil pregnant with ethereal hues,)
Demands the service of a mind and heart,
Though sensitive, yet, in their weakest part,
Heroically fashioned, to infuse
Faith in the whispers of the lonely Muse,
While the whole world seems adverse to desert.
And, oh! when Nature sinks, as oft she may,
Through long-lived pressure of obscure distress,
Still to be strenuous for the bright reward,
And in the soul admit of no decay,
Brook no continuance of weak-mindedness
Great is the glory, for the strife is hard!

        To you, dear mother heart, whose hair is gray
        Above this page to-day,
        Whose face, though lined with many a smile and care,
        Grows year by year more fair,

        Be tenderest tribute set in perfect rhyme,
        That haply passing time
        May cull and keep it for strange lips to pay
        When we have gone our way;

        And, to strange men, weary of field and street,
        Should this, my song, seem sweet,
        Yours be the joy, for all that made it so
        You know, dear heart, you know.

Chief of organic Numbers!
Old Scholar of the Spheres!
Thy spirit never slumbers,
But rolls about our ears
For ever and for ever.
O, what a mad endeavour
Worketh he
Who, to thy sacred and ennobled hearse,
Would offer a burnt sacrifice of verse
And Melody!

How heavenward thou soundedst
Live Temple of sweet noise;
And discord unconfoundedst:
Giving delight new joys,
And Pleasure nobler pinions
O where are thy Dominions!
Lend thine ear
To a young delian oath aye, by thy soul,
By all that from thy mortal Lips did roll;
And by the Kernel of thine earthly Love,
Beauty, in things on earth and things above,
When every childish fashion
Has vanish'd from my rhyme
Will I grey-gone in passion
Give to an after-time
Hymning ...

Ov' è la fronte che con picciol cenno.

HE ENUMERATES AND EULOGISES THE GRACES OF LAURA.


    Where is the brow whose gentlest beckonings led
My raptured heart at will, now here, now there?
Where the twin stars, lights of this lower sphere,
Which o'er my darkling path their radiance shed?
Where is true worth, and wit, and wisdom fled?
The courteous phrase, the melting accent, where?
Where, group'd in one rich form, the beauties rare,
Which long their magic influence o'er me shed?
Where is the shade, within whose sweet recess
My wearied spirit still forgot its sighs,
And all my thoughts their constant record found?
Where, where is she, my life's sole arbitress?--
Ah, wretched world! and wretched ye, mine eyes
(Of her pure light bereft) which a...

She left the port in gallant style,
    With sails and streamers full and free!
I watched her course for many a mile
    Far out upon the distant sea!
At dusk she lessened to a speck,
    And then I could not trace her more!
Sad hearts were beating on her deck,
    Sad hearts were beating on the shore.

Two of the outward bound I knew,
    One beautiful, the other brave--
The master worthy, and the crew
    Born to contend with wind and wave:
For travel some, and some for gain,
    And some for health had gone abroad;
Our prayers were with them on the main,
    God-speed the ship and all on board!

That vessel never reached the land!
    No tidings of her ever came!
Those who beheld her leave the strand,
    For years in anguish heard ...

My short and happy day is done,
The long and dreary night comes on;
And at my door the Pale Horse stands,
To carry me to unknown lands.

His whinny shrill, his pawing hoof,
Sound dreadful as a gathering storm;
And I must leave this sheltering roof,
And joys of life so soft and warm.

Tender and warm the joys of life, -
Good friends, the faithful and the true;
My rosy children and my wife,
So sweet to kiss, so fair to view.

So sweet to kiss, so fair to view, -
The night comes down, the lights burn blue;
And at my door the Pale Horse stands,
To bear me forth to unknown lands.

I saw him steal the light away
That haunted in her eye:
It went so gently none could say
More than that it was there one day
And missing by-and-by.

I watched her longer, and he stole
Her lily tincts and rose;
All her young sprightliness of soul
Next fell beneath his cold control,
And disappeared like those.

I asked: "Why do you serve her so?
Do you, for some glad day,
Hoard these her sweets - ?" He said, "O no,
They charm not me; I bid Time throw
Them carelessly away."

Said I: "We call that cruelty -
We, your poor mortal kind."
He mused. "The thought is new to me.
Forsooth, though I men's master be,
Theirs is the teaching mind!"

    Who administers to my needs?

    Is it the dandelion, so ant-encrusted, that
    yellow pollen dangles from a shiny abdomen
    suggestive of some actor's
    smeared and garish make-up?

    Or the cicada's song,
    difficult to describe,
    laundering thick summer heat?

    Perhaps, then, the Red Admiral butterfly
    especially active at the close of day and drawn
    to wooden lawn-furniture or the exposed human limb?

    If none of these
    breathes vigour or tonic
    through my nostrils,
    what of tubs of fresh water?

    Take pea-pods for crude, rudimentary boats
    and children as make-shift sailors,
    then they both shall spy the secrets of seas.
    Bold harbours will be their cues,
    astrola...

Long hosts of sunlight, and the bright wind blows
A tourney-trumpet on the listed hill;
Past is the splendour of the royal rose
And duchess daffodil.

Crowned queen of beauty, in the garden's space,
Strong daughter of a bitter race and bold,
A ragged beggar with a lovely face,
Reigns the sad marigold.

And I have sought June's butterfly for days,
To find it like a coreopsis bloom
Amber and seal, rain-murdered 'neath the blaze
Of this sunflower's plume.

Here drones the bee; and there sky-daring wings
Voyage blue gulfs of heaven; the last song
The red-bird flings me as adieu, still rings
Upon yon pear-tree's prong.

No angry sunset brims with rubier red
The bowl of heaven than the days, indeed,
Pour in each blossom of this salvia-b...

    I will not have roses in my room again,
    Nor listen to sonnets of Michael Angelo
    To-night nor any night, nor fret my brain
    With all the trouble of things that I should know.
    I will be as other women - come and go
    Careless and free, my own self sure and sane,
    As I was once ... then suddenly you were there
    With your old power ... roses were everywhere
    And I was listening to Michael Angelo.

The night lamp is faintly gleaming
    Within my chamber still,
And the heavy shades of midnight
    Each gloomy angle fill,
And my worn and weary watchers
    Scarce dare to move or weep,
For they think that I am buried
    In deep and quiet sleep.

But, hush! what are those voices
    Heard on the midnight air,
Of strange celestial sweetness,
    Breathing of love and prayer?
Nearer they grow and clearer,
    I hear now what they say -
To the Kingdom of God's glory,
    They're calling me away!

See my gentle mother softly
    To me approaches now,
What is the change she readeth
    Upon my pale damp brow?
She clasps her hands in anguish
    Whose depth no words might say?
Has she, too, heard the voices
    That a...

Pain and sorrow shall vanish before us--
    Youth may wither, but feeling will last;
All the shadow that e'er shall fall o'er us
    Love's light summer-cloud only shall cast.
        Oh, if to love thee more
        Each hour I number o'er--
        If this a passion be
        Worthy of thee,
Then be happy, for thus I adore thee.
    Charms may wither, but feeling shall last:
All the shadow that e'er shall fall o'er thee,
    Love's light summer-cloud sweetly shall cast.
Rest, dear bosom, no sorrows shall pain thee,
    Sighs of pleasure alone shalt thou steal;
Beam, bright eyelid, no weeping shall stain thee,
    Tears of rapture alone shalt thou feel.
            Oh, if there be a charm,
            In love, to banish harm--
            If pleas...

When silence flees before the voice of Love,
Of what expression does that god approve?
Is dulcet song or flowing verse his choice,
Or stately prose, made regal by his voice?
Speaks Love in couplets, or in epics grand?
And is Love humble, or does he command?

There is no language that Love does not speak:
To-day commanding and to-morrow meek,
One hour laconic and the next verbose,
With hope triumphant and with doubt morose,
His varying moods all forms of speech employ.
To give expression to his painful joy,

To voice the phases of his joyful pain,
He rings the changes on the poet's strain.
Yet not in epic, epigram or verse
Can Love the passion of his heart rehearse.
All speech, all language, is inadequate,
There are no words with Love commensurat...

Dear Dean, I'm in a sad condition,
    I cannot see to read or write;
Pity the darkness of thy Priscian,
    Whose days are all transform'd to night.

My head, though light, 's a dungeon grown,
    The windows of my soul are closed;
Therefore to sleep I lay me down,
    My verse and I are both composed.

Sleep, did I say? that cannot be;
    For who can sleep, that wants his eyes?
My bed is useless then to me,
    Therefore I lay me down to rise.

Unnumber'd thoughts pass to and fro
    Upon the surface of my brain;
In various maze they come and go,
    And come and go again.

So have you seen in sheet burnt black,
    The fiery sparks at random run;
Now here, now there, some turning back
    Some ending where they just begun...

What sort of man is coming
To lie between your feet?
What matter, we are but women.
Wash; make your body sweet;
I have cupboards of dried fragrance.
I can strew the sheet.
i(The Lord have mercy upon us.)

He shall love my soul as though
Body were not at all,
He shall love your body
Untroubled by the soul,
Love cram love's two divisions
Yet keep his substance whole.
i(The Lord have mercy upon us.)

Soul must learn a love that is
proper to my breast,
Limbs a Love in common
With every noble beast.
If soul may look and body touch,
Which is the more blest?
i(The Lord have mercy upon us.)

    Airy and quick and wise
    In the shed light of the sun,
    You clasp with friendly eyes
    The thoughts from mine that run.

    But something breaks the link;
    I solitary stand
    By a giant gully's brink
    In some vast gloomy land.

    Sole central watcher, I
    With steadfast sadness now
    In that waste place descry
    'Neath the awful heavens how

    Your life doth dizzy drop
    A little foam of flame
    From a peak without a top
    To a pit without a name.

A maiden blush o'er every feature straying,
The Muse her gentle harp now lays down here,
And stands before thee, for thy judgment praying,
She waits with reverence, but not with fear;
Her last farewell for his kind smile delaying.
Whom splendor dazzles not who holds truth dear.
The hand of him alone whose soaring spirit
Worships the beautiful, can crown her merit.

These simple lays are only heard resounding,
While feeling hearts are gladdened by their tone,
With brighter phantasies their path surrounding,
To nobler aims their footsteps guiding on.
Yet coming ages ne'er will hear them sounding,
They live but for the present hour alone;
The passing moment called them into being,
And, as the hours dance on, they, too, are fleeing.

The spring returns, ...