Heartbreak

High on a broad unfertile tract of forest-skirted Down,
Nor kept by Nature for herself, nor made by man his own,
From home and company remote and every playful joy,
Served, tending a few sheep and goats, a ragged Norman Boy.

Him never saw I, nor the spot; but from an English Dame,
Stranger to me and yet my friend, a simple notice came,
With suit that I would speak in verse of that sequestered child
Whom, one bleak winter's day, she met upon the dreary Wild.

His flock, along the woodland's edge with relics sprinkled o'er
Of last night's snow, beneath a sky threatening the fall of more,
Where tufts of herbage tempted each, were busy at their feed,
And the poor Boy was busier still, with work of anxious heed.

There 'was' he, where of branches rent and withered and ...

With the thirty pieces of silver,
They bought the Potter's Field;
For none would have the blood-money
And the interest it might yield.

The Place of Blood for the Price of Blood,
And that was meet, I ween,
For there they would bury the dead who died
In frowardness and sin.

And the first man they would bury there
Was Judas Iscariot;
And that was as dreadful a burying
As ever was, I wot.

For the sick earth would not keep him;
Each time it thrust him out,
And they that would have buried him
Stood shuddering round about.

And others they would bury
In that unhallowed spot,
But honest earth would none of them,
Because of Iscariot.

And oh, it was a fell, fell place,
With dead black trees all round,
And a quag...

I had not known before
Forever was so long a word.
The slow stroke of the clock of time
I had not heard.

'Tis hard to learn so late;
It seems no sad heart really learns,
But hopes and trusts and doubts and fears,
And bleeds and burns.

The night is not all dark,
Nor is the day all it seems,
But each may bring me this relief--
My dreams and dreams.

I had not known before
That Never was so sad a word,
So wrap me in forgetfulness--
I have not heard.

"Hey, rose, just born
Twin to a thorn;
Was't so with you, O Love and Scorn?

"Sweet eyes that smiled,
Now wet and wild;
O Eye and Tear - mother and child.

"Well: Love and Pain
Be kinsfolk twain:
Yet would, Oh would I could love again."

So you are lost to me!
Ah you, you ear of corn straight lying,
What food is this for the darkly flying
Fowls of the Afterwards!

White bread afloat on the waters,
Cast out by the hand that scatters
Food untowards,

Will you come back when the tide turns?
After many days? My heart yearns
To know.

Will you return after many days
To say your say as a traveller says,
More marvel than woe?

Drift then, for the sightless birds
And the fish in shadow-waved herds
To approach you.

Drift then, bread cast out;
Drift, lest I fall in doubt,
And reproach you.

For you are lost to me!

It was on such a night as this,
Some long unreal years ago,
When all within were wrapp'd in sleep,
And all without was wrapp'd in snow,
The full moon rising in the east,
The old church standing like a ghost,
That, shivering in the wintry mist,
And breathless with the silent frost,
A little lad, I ran to seek my fortune on the main;
I marvel now with how much hope and with how little pain!

It is of such a night as this,
In all the lands where I have been,
That memory too faithfully
Has painted the familiar scene.
By all the shores, on every sea,
In luck or loss, by night or day,
My highest hope has been to see
That home from which I ran away.
For this I toil'd, to this I look'd through many a weary year,
I marvel now with how much hope, and...

1.

LESBIA! since far from you I've rang'd,
Our souls with fond affection glow not;
You say, 'tis I, not you, have chang'd,
I'd tell you why, -but yet I know not.


2.

Your polish'd brow no cares have crost;
And Lesbia! we are not much older,
Since, trembling, first my heart I lost,
Or told my love, with hope grown bolder.


3.

Sixteen was then our utmost age,
Two years have lingering pass'd away, love!
And now new thoughts our minds engage,
At least, I feel disposed to stray, love!


4.

"Tis I that am alone to blame,
I, that am guilty of love's treason;
Since your sweet breast is still the same,
Caprice must be my only reason.


5.

I do not, love! suspect your truth,...

I would not be a king - enough
Of woe it is to love;
The path to power is steep and rough,
And tempests reign above.
I would not climb the imperial throne;
'Tis built on ice which fortune's sun
Thaws in the height of noon.
Then farewell, king, yet were I one,
Care would not come so soon.
Would he and I were far away
Keeping flocks on Himalay!

Like April morning clouds, that pass,
With varying shadow, o'er the grass,
And imitate, on field and furrow,
Life's chequered scene of joy and sorrow;
Like streamlet of the mountain North,
Now in a torrent racing forth,
Now winding slow its silver train,
And almost slumbering on the plain;
Like breezes of the Autumn day,
Whose voice inconstant dies away,
And ever swells again as fast,
When the ear deems its murmur past;
Thus various, my romantic theme
Flits, winds, or sinks, a morning dream.
Yet pleased, our eye pursues the trace
Of light and shade's inconstant race;
Pleased, views the rivulet afar,
Weaving its maze irregular;
And pleased, we listen as the breeze
Heaves its wild sigh through Autumn trees;
Then, wild as cloud, or stream, or ...

You that were
Half my life ere life was mine;
You that on my shape the sign
Set of yours;
You that my young lips did kiss
When your kiss summed up my bliss....
Ah, once more
You to kiss were all my bliss!

You whom I
Could forget--strange, could forget
Even for days (ah, now the fret
Of my grief!);
You who loved me though forgot;
Welcomed still, reproaching not....
Ah, that now
That forgetting were forgot!

You that now
On my shoulder as I go
Put your hand that wounds me so;
You that brush
Yet my lips with that one last
Kiss that bitters all things past....
How shall I
Yet endure that kiss the last?

You that are
Where the feet of my blind grief
Find you not, nor find relief;
You that are

The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.

And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.

‘I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .’
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,

Different Attitudes in which Authors compose.--Bayes, Henry Stevens, Herodotus, etc.--Writing in Bed--in the Fields.--Plato and Sir Richard Blackmore.--Fiddling with Gloves and Twigs.--Madame de Staël.--Rhyming on the Road, in an old Calêche.


What various attitudes and ways
    And tricks we authors have in writing!
While some write sitting, some like BAYES
    Usually stand while they're inditing,
Poets there are who wear the floor out,
    Measuring a line at every stride;
While some like HENRY STEPHENS pour out
    Rhymes by the dozen while they ride.
HERODOTUS wrote most in bed;
    And RICHERAND, a French physician,
Declares the clock-work of the head
    Goes best in that reclined position.
If you consult MONTAIGNE and PLINY on
The subject, 'tis...

    It was long and long ago our love began;
    It is something all unmeasured by time's span:
In an era and a spot, by the Modern World forgot,
    We were lovers, ere God named us, Maid and Man.

    Like the memory of music made by streams,
    All the beauty of that other love life seems;
But I always thought it so, and at last I know, I know,
    We were lovers in the Land of Silver Dreams.

    When the moon was at the full, I found the place;
    Out and out, across the seas of shining space,
On a quest that could not fail, I unfurled my memory's sail
    And cast anchor in the Bay of Love's First Grace.

    At the foot of Aristarchus lies this bay,
    (Oh! the wonder of that mountain far away!)
And the Land of Silver Dreams all about it shines ...

    Beauteous rose-bud, young and gay,
    Blooming in thy early May,
    Never may'st thou, lovely flow'r,
    Chilly shrink in sleety show'r!
    Never Boreas' hoary path,
    Never Eurus' poisonous breath,
    Never baleful stellar lights,
    Taint thee with untimely blights!
    Never, never reptile thief
    Riot on thy virgin leaf!
    Nor even Sol too fiercely view
    Thy bosom blushing still with dew!

    May'st thou long, sweet crimson gem,
    Richly deck thy native stem:
    'Till some evening, sober, calm,
    Dropping dews and breathing balm,
    While all around the woodland rings,
    And ev'ry bird thy requiem sings;
    Thou, amid the dirgeful sound,
    Shed thy dying honours round,
    And resign to parent earth

The gyres! the gyres! Old Rocky Face, look forth;
Things thought too long can be no longer thought,
For beauty dies of beauty, worth of worth,
And ancient lineaments are blotted out.
Irrational streams of blood are staining earth;
Empedocles has thrown all things about;
Hector is dead and there's a light in Troy;
We that look on but laugh in tragic joy.
What matter though numb nightmare ride on top,
And blood and mire the sensitive body stain?
What matter? Heave no sigh, let no tear drop,
A-greater, a more gracious time has gone;
For painted forms or boxes of make-up
In ancient tombs I sighed, but not again;
What matter? Out of cavern comes a voice,
And all it knows is that one word "Rejoice!'
Conduct and work grow coarse, and coarse the soul,
What matter...

"The plaint of the wailing Whip-poor-will,
    Who mourns unseen and ceaseless sings
Ever a note of wail and wo,
    Till Morning spreads her rosy wings,
And earth and sky in her glances glow."

                                J. R. Drake.


Why dost thou come at set of sun,
Those pensive words to say?
Why whip poor Will?--What has he done?
And who is Will, I pray?

Why come from yon leaf-shaded hill,
A suppliant at my door?--
Why ask of me to whip poor Will?
And is Will really poor?

If poverty's his crime, let mirth
From his heart be driven:
That is the deadliest sin on earth,
And never is forgiven!

Art Will himself?--It must be so--
I learn it from thy moan,
For none can feel another's wo
As deeply as ...

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

List, the winds of March are blowing;
Her ground-flowers shrink, afraid of showing
Their meek heads to the nipping air,
Which ye feel not, happy pair!
Sunk into a kindly sleep.
We, meanwhile, our hope will keep;
And if Time leagued with adverse Change
(Too busy fear!) shall cross its range,
Whatsoever check they bring,
Anxious duty hindering,
To like hope our prayers will cling.

Thus, while the ruminating spirit feeds
Upon the events of home as life proceeds,
Affections pure and holy in their source
Gain a fresh impulse, run a livelier course;
Hopes that within the Father's heart prevail,
Are in the experienced Grandsire's slow to fail;
And if the harp pleased his gay youth, it rings
To his grave touch with no unready strings,
While though...