Heartbreak

The world to-day is radiant, as I ne'er
Could picture it in wildest dreaming, when
For long, long hours I lay in flowery glen
Or wooded copse, and tried in vain to tear
The glamour from my eyes, and face the glare
And tumult of the busy world of men.
I staked my all, and won! and ne'er again
Can my blest spirit know a heart's despair.

And yet - and yet - why should it be that now,
When all my heart has longed for is at last
    Within my grasp, and I should be at rest,
A ghostly Something rising in the glow
    Of Love's own fire, an uninvited guest,
Taunts me with just one memory of the past!

Come, Poet, come!
A thousand labourers ply their task,
And what it tends to scarcely ask,
And trembling thinkers on the brink
Shiver, and know not how to think.
To tell the purport of their pain,
And what our silly joys contain;
In lasting lineaments pourtray
The substance of the shadowy day;
Our real and inner deeds rehearse,
And make our meaning clear in verse:
Come, Poet, come! for but in vain
We do the work or feel the pain,
And gather up the seeming gain,
Unless before the end thou come
To take, ere they are lost, their sum.

Come, Poet, come!
To give an utterance to the dumb,
And make vain babblers silent, come;
A thousand dupes point here and there,
Bewildered by the show and glare;
And wise men half have learned to doubt

    Star of my heart, I follow from afar.
    Sweet Love on high, lead on where shepherds are,
    Where Time is not, and only dreamers are.
    Star from of old, the Magi-Kings are dead
    And a foolish Saxon seeks the manger-bed.
    O lead me to Jehovah's child
    Across this dreamland lone and wild,
    Then will I speak this prayer unsaid,
    And kiss his little haloed head -
    "My star and I, we love thee, little child."

    Except the Christ be born again to-night
    In dreams of all men, saints and sons of shame,
    The world will never see his kingdom bright.
    Stars of all hearts, lead onward thro' the night
    Past death-black deserts, doubts without a name,
    Past hills of pain and mountains of new sin
    To that far sky where my...

Kindly and warm and tender,
He nestled each childish palm
So close in his own that his touch was a prayer
And his speech a blessed psalm.

He has turned from the marvelous pages
Of many an alien tome -
Haply come down from Olivet,
Or out from the gates of Rome -

Set sail o'er the seas between him
And each little beckoning hand
That fluttered about in the meadows
And groves of his native land, -

Fluttered and flashed on his vision
As, in the glimmering light
Of the orchard-lands of childhood,
The blossoms of pink and white.

And there have been sobs in his bosom,
As out on the shores he stept,
And many a little welcomer
Has wondered why he wept. -

That was because, O children,
Ye might not always be
The ...

Down in the dear West Country, there's a garden where I know
The Spring is rioting this hour, though I am far away --
Where all the glad flower-faces are old loves of long ago,
And each in its accustomed place is blossoming to-day.

The lilac drops her amethysts upon the mossy wall,
While in her boughs a cheerful thrush is calling to his mate.
Dear breath of mignonette and stocks! I love you, know you all.
And, oh, the fragrant spices from the lad's love by the gate!

Kind wind from the West Country, wet wind, but scented so,
That straight from my dear garden you seem but lately come,
Just tell me of the yellow broom, the guelder rose's snow,
And of the tangled clematis where myriad insects hum.

Oh, is there any heartsease left, or any rosemary?
And in their ...

        (HE EXPLAINS.)

        Oh, just burning up some old papers,
            They do make a good deal of smoke:
        That's right, Dolly, open the window;
            They'll blaze if you give them a poke.
        I've got a lot more in the closet;
            Just look at the dust! What a mess!
        Why, read it, of course, if you want to,
            It's only a letter, I guess.


        (SHE READS.)

        Just me, and my pipe, and the fire-light,
            Whose mystical circles of red
        Protect me alone with the shadows;
            The smoke-wreaths engarland my head;
        And the strains of a waltz, half forgotten,
            The favorite waltz of the year,
        Played softly by fairy musicians,
     ...

When days grow long, and brain and hands grow weary,
    And hot the city street,
Forth to the haunts, by cooling winds made cheery
    We fly with willing feet.

We leave our cares and labours all behind us,
    The city's noise and din,
And, hid securely where they cannot find us,
    We drink the sunshine in.

But when the days grow long with bitter sorrow,
    And hearts grow sick with woe,
Where are the haunts that we may seek to-morrow?
    Where can we hide or go?

Holds earth no nook, where hearts with sorrow breaking,
    May find a summer's rest?
A season's respite from the weary aching
    That gnaws within the breast?

O God! if we could fly and leave behind us
    Our crosses and our grief,
Could hide a season where t...

O do not praise my beauty more,
In such word-wild degree,
And say I am one all eyes adore;
For these things harass me!

But do for ever softly say:
"From now unto the end
Come weal, come wanzing, come what may,
Dear, I will be your friend."

I hate my beauty in the glass:
My beauty is not I:
I wear it: none cares whether, alas,
Its wearer live or die!

The inner I O care for, then,
Yea, me and what I am,
And shall be at the gray hour when
My cheek begins to clam.

    THE ONE

    The dead man's gone, the live man's sad, the dying leaf shakes on the tree,
    The wind constrains the window-panes and moans like moaning of the sea,
    And sour's the taste now culled in haste of lovely things I won too late,
    And loud and loud above the crowd the Voice of One more strong than we.


    THE OTHER

    This Voice you hear, this call you fear, is it unprophesied or new?
    Were you so insolent to think its rope would never circle you?
    Did you then beastlike live and walk with ears and eyes that would not turn?
    Who bade you hope your service 'scape in that eternal retinue?


    THE ONE

    No; for I swear now bare's the tree and loud the moaning of the wind,
    I walked no rut with eyelids shut, ...

A shovel of his ashes took
From the hearth's obscurest nook,
Muttering mysteries as she went.
Helen and Henry knew that Granny
Was as much afraid of Ghosts as any,
And so they followed hard -
But Helen clung to her brother's arm,
And her own spasm made her shake.

The sun is couched, the sea-fowl gone to rest,
And the wild storm hath somewhere found a nest;
Air slumbers—wave with wave no longer strives,
Only a heaving of the deep survives,
A tell-tale motion! soon will it be laid,
And by the tide alone the water swayed.
Stealthy withdrawings, interminglings mild
Of light with shade in beauty reconciled,
Such is the prospect far as sight can range,
The soothing recompence, the welcome change.
Where, now, the ships that drove before the blast,
Threatened by angry breakers as they passed;
And by a train of flying clouds bemocked;
Or, in the hollow surge, at anchor rocked
As on a bed of death? Some lodge in peace,
Saved by His care who bade the tempest cease;
And some, too heedless of past danger, court
Fresh gales to ...

Still when daylight o'er the wave
Bright and soft its farewell gave,
I used to hear, while light was falling,
O'er the wave a sweet voice calling,
    Mournfully at distance calling.

Ah! once how blest that maid would come,
To meet her sea-boy hastening home;
And thro' the night those sounds repeating,
Hail his bark with joyous greeting,
    Joyously his light bark greeting.

But, one sad night, when winds were high,
Nor earth, nor heaven could hear her cry.
She saw his boat come tossing over
Midnight's wave,--but not her lover!
    No, never more her lover.

And still that sad dream loath to leave,
She comes with wandering mind at eve,
And oft we hear, when night is falling,
Faint her voice thro' twilight calling,
    Mournfully...

Rise, O days, from your fathomless deeps, till you loftier, fiercer sweep!
Long for my soul, hungering gymnastic, I devour'd what the earth gave me;
Long I roam'd the woods of the north long I watch'd Niagara pouring;
I travel'd the prairies over, and slept on their breast I cross'd the Nevadas, I cross'd the plateaus;
I ascended the towering rocks along the Pacific, I sail'd out to sea;
I sail'd through the storm, I was refresh'd by the storm;
I watch'd with joy the threatening maws of the waves;
I mark'd the white combs where they career'd so high, curling over;
I heard the wind piping, I saw the black clouds;
Saw from below what arose and mounted, (O superb! O wild as my heart, and powerful!)
Heard the continuous thunder, as it bellow'd after the lightning;
Noted the slender and ja...

(To F. E. D.)



    Come again to the place
Where your presence was as a leaf that skims
Down a drouthy way whose ascent bedims
    The bloom on the farer's face.

    Come again, with the feet
That were light on the green as a thistledown ball,
And those mute ministrations to one and to all
    Beyond a man's saying sweet.

    Until then the faint scent
Of the bordering flowers swam unheeded away,
And I marked not the charm in the changes of day
    As the cloud-colours came and went.

    Through the dark corridors
Your walk was so soundless I did not know
Your form from a phantom's of long ago
    Said to pass on the ancient floors,

    Till you drew from the shade,
And I saw the large luminous living eyes

I busied myself to find a sure
Snug hermitage
That should preserve my Love secure
From the world's rage;
Where no unseemly saturnals,
Or strident traffic-roars,
Or hum of intervolved cabals
Should echo at her doors.

I laboured that the diurnal spin
Of vanities
Should not contrive to suck her in
By dark degrees,
And cunningly operate to blur
Sweet teachings I had begun;
And then I went full-heart to her
To expound the glad deeds done.

She looked at me, and said thereto
With a pitying smile,
"And THIS is what has busied you
So long a while?
O poor exhausted one, I see
You have worn you old and thin
For naught! Those moils you fear for me
I find most pleasure in!"

He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped
Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls;
Aqueous like floating rays of amber light,
Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep, -
Silence and safety; and his mortal shore
Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.

Some one was holding water to his mouth.
He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped
Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot
The opiate throb and ache that was his wound.
Water - calm, sliding green above the weir;
Water - a sky-lit alley for his boat,
Bird-voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers
And shaken hues of summer: drifting down,
He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept.

Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward,
Blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve.

Out of the sunshine and out of the heat,
Out of the dust of the grimy street,
A song fluttered down in the form of a dove,
And it bore me a message, the one word--Love!

Ah, I was toiling, and oh, I was sad:
I had forgotten the way to be glad.
Now, smiles for my sadness and for my toil, rest
Since the dove fluttered down to its home in my breast!

In that dark silent hour
When the wind wants power,
And in the black height
The sky wants light,
Stirless and black
In utter lack,
And not a sound
Escapes from that untroubled round:--

To wake then
In the dark, and ache then
Until the dark is gone--
Lonely, yet not alone;
Hearing another's breath
All the quiet beneath,
Knowing one sleeps near
That day held dear

And dreams held dear; but now
In this sharp moment--how
Share the moment's sweetness,
Forgo its completeness,
Nor be alone
Now the dark is grown
Spiritual and deep
More than in dreams and sleep?

O, it is pain, 'tis need
That so will plead
For a little loneliness.
If it be pain to miss
Loved touch, look and lip,
Companions...