Heartbreak

Bright wanderer, fair coquette of Heaven,
To whom alone it has been given
To change and be adored for ever,
Envy not this dim world, for never
But once within its shadow grew
One fair as -

Love and Death once ceased their strife
At the Tavern of Man's Life.
Called for wine, and threw, alas!
Each his quiver on the grass.
When the bout was o'er they found
Mingled arrows strewed the ground.
Hastily they gathered then
Each the loves and lives of men.
Ah, the fateful dawn deceived!
Mingled arrows each one sheaved;
Death's dread armoury was stored
With the shafts he most abhorred;
Love's light quiver groaned beneath
Venom-headed darts of Death.

Thus it was they wrought our woe
At the Tavern long ago.
Tell me, do our masters know,
Loosing blindly as they fly,
Old men love while young men die?

Like burnt-out torches by a sick man's bed
Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone;
Here doth the little night-owl make her throne,
And the slight lizard show his jewelled head.
And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red,
In the still chamber of yon pyramid
Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid,
Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead.

Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the womb
Of Earth, great mother of eternal sleep,
But sweeter far for thee a restless tomb
In the blue cavern of an echoing deep,
Or where the tall ships founder in the gloom
Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep.

ROME.

There are two Loves, the poet sings,
    Both born of Beauty at a birth:
The one, akin to heaven, hath wings,
    The other, earthly, walks on earth.
With this thro' bowers below we play,
    With that thro' clouds above we soar;
With both, perchance, may lose our way:--
        Then, tell me which,
    Tell me which shall we adore?

The one, when tempted down from air,
    At Pleasure's fount to lave his lip,
Nor lingers long, nor oft will dare
    His wing within the wave to dip.
While plunging deep and long beneath,
    The other bathes him o'er and o'er
In that sweet current, even to death:--
        Then, tell me which,
    Tell me which shall we adore?

The boy of heaven, even while he lies
    In Beauty's lap, reca...

I saw strange bones to-day in Paris town,
Deep in the quarried dark, while over-head
The roar of glad and busy things went by -
Over our heads -
So many heads -
Deep down, deep down -
Those strange old bones deep down in Paris town:
Heads where no longer dwell -
Yet who shall tell! -
Such thoughts as those
That make a rose
Of a maid's cheek,

Filling it with such bloom -
All fearless of the unsuspected doom -
As flood wild April with such hushing breath
That Death himself believes no more in Death.

Yea! I went down
Out of the chestnuts and the girl-filled town,
Only a yard or two beneath the street,
Haunted a little while by little feet,
Going, did they but know, the self-same way
As all those bones as white as the white May...

The Summer lightning comes and goes
In one pale cloud above the hill,
As if within its soft repose
A burning heart were never still -
As in my bosom pulses beat
Before the coming of his feet.

All drugged with odorous sleep, the rose
Breathes dewy balm about the place,
As if the dreams the garden knows
Took immaterial form and face -
As in my heart sweet thoughts arise
Beneath the ardour of his eyes.

The moon above the darkness shows
An orb of silvery snow and fire,
As if the night would now disclose
To heav'n her one divine desire -
As in the rapture of his kiss
All of my soul is drawn to his.

The cloud, it knows not that it glows;
The rose knows nothing of its scent;
Nor knows the moon that it bestows
Light on...

    Here, on the arid ridge
    Of dead Vesuvius,
    Exterminator terrible,
    That by no other tree or flower is cheered,
    Thou scatterest thy lonely leaves around,
    O fragrant flower,
    With desert wastes content. Thy graceful stems
    I in the solitary paths have found,
    The city that surround,
    That once was mistress of the world;
    And of her fallen power,
    They seemed with silent eloquence to speak
    Unto the thoughtful wanderer.
    And now again I see thee on this soil,
    Of wretched, world-abandoned spots the friend,
    Of ruined fortunes the companion, still.
    These fields with barren ashes strown,
    And lava, hardened into stone,
    Beneath the pilgrim's feet, that hollow sound,
    Where by their nest...

There’s not a nook within this solemn Pass,
But were an apt confessional for one
Taught by his summer spent, his autumn gone,
That Life is but a tale of morning grass
Wither’d at eve. From scenes of art which chase
That thought away, turn, and with watchful eyes
Feed it ’mid Nature’s old felicities,
Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear than glass
Untouch’d, unbreathed upon. Thrice happy quest,
If from a golden perch of aspen spray
(October’s workmanship to rival May)
The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast
That moral sweeten by a heaven-taught lay,
Lulling the year, with all its cares, to rest!

Over the hills and far away,
A little boy steals from his morning play
And under the blossoming apple-tree
He lies and he dreams of the things to be:
Of battles fought and of victories won,
Of wrongs o'erthrown and of great deeds done -
Of the valor that he shall prove some day,
Over the hills and far away -
Over the hills, and far away!

Over the hills and far away
It's, oh, for the toil the livelong day!
But it mattereth not to the soul aflame
With a love for riches and power and fame!
On, 0 man! while the sun is high -
On to the certain joys that lie
Yonder where blazeth the noon of day,
Over the hills and far away -
Over the hills, and far away!

Over the hills and far away,
An old man lingers at close of day;
Now that his jou...

I said I would have my fling,
    And do what a young man may;
And I didn't believe a thing
    That the parsons have to say.
I didn't believe in a God
    That gives us blood like fire,
Then flings us into hell because
    We answer the call of desire.

And I said:    'Religion is rot,
    And the laws of the world are nil;
For the bad man is he who is caught
    And cannot foot his bill.
And there is no place called hell;
    And heaven is only a truth
When a man has his way with a maid,
    In the fresh keen hour of youth.

'And money can buy us grace,
    If it rings on the plate of the church:
And money can neatly erase
    Each sign of a sinful smirch.'
For I saw men everywhere,
    Hotfooting the road of vice;
And...

Sento d' un foco.


Far off with fire I feel a cold face lit,
        That makes me burn, the while itself doth freeze:
        Two fragile arms enchain me, which with ease,
        Unmoved themselves, can move weights infinite.
A soul none knows but I, most exquisite,
        That, deathless, deals me death, my spirit sees:
        I meet with one who, free, my heart doth seize:
        And who alone can cheer, hath tortured it.
How can it be that from one face like thine
        My own should feel effects so contrary,
        Since ill comes not from things devoid of ill?
That loveliness perchance doth make me pine,
        Even as the sun, whose fiery beams we see,
        Inflames the world, while he is temperate still.

I said: “I leave my bit of land,
In khaki they've entwined me,
I go abroad to lend a hand.”
Said she: “My love, I understand.
I will be true, and though we part
A thousand years you hold my heart",
The girl I left behind me.

I went away to fight the Huns,
No coward thought could bind me,
I sizzled n the tropic suns,
I faced the bayonets and the guns.
And when in daring deeds I shone
One little woman spurred me on,
The girl I left behind me.

Out there, in grim Gallipoli.
Hard going they assigned me,
I pricked the Turk up from the sea;
I riddled him, he punctured me;
And, bleeding in my rags, I said:
“She'll meet me somewhere if I'm dead,
The girl I left behind me.

In France we broke the German's face,
They tried w...

Turn the light down, nurse, and leave me, while I hold my last review,
For the Bush is slipping from me, and the town is going too:
Draw the blinds, the streets are lighted, and I hear the tramp of feet,
And I’m weary, very weary, of the Faces in the Street.

In the dens of Grind and Heartbreak, in the streets of Never-Rest,
I have lost the scent and colour and the music of the West:
And I would recall old faces with the memories they bring,
Where are Bill and Jim and Mary and the Songs They used to Sing?

They are coming! They are coming! they are passing through the room
With the smell of gum leaves burning, and the scent of Wattle bloom!
And behind them in the timber, after dust and heat and toil,
Others sit beside the camp fire yarning while the billies boil.

...

Of him I love day and night, I dream'd I heard he was dead;
And I dream'd I went where they had buried him I love - but he was not in that place;
And I dream'd I wander'd, searching among burial-places, to find him;
And I found that every place was a burial-place;
The houses full of life were equally full of death, (this house is now;)
The streets, the shipping, the places of amusement, the Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, the Mannahatta, were as full of the dead as of the living,
And fuller, O vastly fuller, of the dead than of the living;
And what I dream'd I will henceforth tell to every person and age,
And I stand henceforth bound to what I dream'd;
And now I am willing to disregard burial-places, and dispense with them;
And if the memorials of the dead were put up indifferently everywhe...

    O Dorothy, sweet Dorothy,
        You make my heart rejoice;
    Your presence is like Arcady,
        There's music in your voice;
    Heaven's purity is on your brow,
        Its light is in your eyne;
    I love you, and I ask you now
        To be my Valentine.

    Your face is like the lily in
        The morning's ruddy light;
    Your dimpled cheeks and tiny chin
        Are blessings to my sight;
    Your lips are fairer than the rose
        And redder far than wine;
    Your teeth are whiter than the snows:
        You'll be my Valentine!

    You are not quite so old as I,
        You've seen but summers three;
    And that's no doubt the reason why
        You are not coy with me.
    I'll come to you to-morrow,

    Merely on edge,
    the wharf in bad light
    clinging to water's ledge -
    a loon from afar
    the Woods
    closing with each sound.

    Casting rocks toward moon's glare
    lapidations laughing back,
    the treacle of warm night
    coaxing fire's glowing might.

    Sudden, oceanic wilderness
    breathless in barked silence -
    and camphor to keep the flies at distance,
    the anchored boat like a prison ship
    dallying on the waves,
    brambles & underbrush
    sunken wet sand,
    abundant berries rasp in thickets -
    the cottage like a jar
    closing for the night.

Low as a lute, my love, beneath the call
Of storm, I hear a melancholy wind;
The memorably mournful wind of yore
Which is the very brother of the one
That wanders, like a hermit, by the mound
Of Death, in lone Annatanam. A song
Was shaped for this, what time we heard outside
The gentle falling of the faded leaf
In quiet noons: a song whose theme doth turn
On gaps of Ruin and the gay-green clifts
Beneath the summits haunted by the moon.
Yea, much it travels to the dens of dole;
And in the midst of this strange rhyme, my lords,
Our Desolation like a phantom sits
With wasted cheeks and eyes that cannot weep
And fastened lips crampt up in marvellous pain.

A song in whose voice is the voice of the foam
And the rhyme of the wintering wave,
And the to...

With eyes hand-arched he looks into
The morning's face; then turns away
With truant feet, all wet with dew,
Out for a holiday.

The hill brook sings; incessant stars,
Foam-fashioned, on its restless breast;
And where he wades its water-bars
Its song is happiest.

A comrade of the chinquapin,
He looks into its knotty eyes
And sees its heart; and, deep within,
Its soul that makes him wise.

The wood-thrush knows and follows him,
Who whistles up the birds and bees;
And round him all the perfumes swim
Of woodland loam and trees.

Where'er he pass the silvery springs'
Foam-people sing the flowers awake;
And sappy lips of bark-clad things
Laugh ripe each berried brake.

His touch is a companionship;
His word an old a...