Heartbreak

When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,
And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,
"He was a man who used to notice such things"?

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink,
The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight
Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,
"To him this must have been a familiar sight."

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,
When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,
One may say, "He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,
But he could do little for them; and now he is gone"?

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door,
Watch...

1.
Bear witness, Erin! when thine injured isle
Sees summer on its verdant pastures smile,
Its cornfields waving in the winds that sweep
The billowy surface of thy circling deep!
Thou tree whose shadow o'er the Atlantic gave
Peace, wealth and beauty, to its friendly wave, its blossoms fade,
And blighted are the leaves that cast its shade;
Whilst the cold hand gathers its scanty fruit,
Whose chillness struck a canker to its root.

2.
I could stand
Upon thy shores, O Erin, and could count
The billows that, in their unceasing swell,
Dash on thy beach, and every wave might seem
An instrument in Time the giant's grasp,
To burst the barriers of Eternity.
Proceed, thou giant, conquering and to conquer;
March on thy lonely way! The nations fall
Bene...

My morn was all dewy rose and pearl,
Peace brimmed the skies, a cool and fragrant air
Caressed my going forth, and everywhere
The radiant webs, by hope and fancy spun,
Stretched shining in the sun.

Then came a noon, hot, breathless, still,--
No wind to visit the dew-thirsty flowers,
Only the dust, the road, the urging hours;
And, pressing on, I never guessed or knew
That day was half-way through.

And when the pomp of purple lit the sky,
And sheaves of golden lances tipped with red
Danced in the west, wondering I gazed, and said,
"Lo, a new morning comes, my hopes to crown!"
Sudden the sun dropped down

Like a great golden ball into the sea,
Which made room, laughing, and the serried rank
Of yellow lances flashed, and, turning, sank
A...

Sweet Chance, that led my steps abroad,
Beyond the town, where wild flowers grow -
A rainbow and a cuckoo, Lord,
How rich and great the times are now!
    Know, all ye sheep
    And cows, that keep
On staring that I stand so long
In grass that's wet from heavy rain -
A rainbow and a cuckoo's song
May never come together again;
    May never come
    This side the tomb.

And did you think my heart
Could keep its love unchanging,
Fresh as the buds that start
In spring, nor know estranging?
Listen! The buds depart:
I loved you once, but now -
I love you more than ever.

'T is not the early love;
With day and night it alters,
And onward still must move
Like earth, that never falters
For storm or star above.
I loved you once; but now -
I love you more than ever.

With gifts in those glad days
How eagerly I sought you!
Youth, shining hope, and praise:
These were the gifts I brought you.
In this world little stays:
I loved you once, but now -
I love you more than ever.

A child with glorious eyes
Here in our arms half sleeping -
So passion wakeful lies;
Then grows to manhood, ke...

Hou, O my Grief, be wise and tranquil still,
The eve is thine which even now drops down,
To carry peace or care to human will,
And in a misty veil enfolds the town.

While the vile mortals of the multitude,
By pleasure, cruel tormentor, goaded on,
Gather remorseful blossoms in light mood
Grief, place thy hand in mine, let us be gone

Far from them. Lo, see how the vanished years,
In robes outworn lean over heaven's rim;
And from the water, smiling through her tears,

Remorse arises, and the sun grows dim;
And in the east, her long shroud trailing light,
List, O my grief, the gentle steps of Night.

There is no rhyme that is half so sweet
As the song of the wind in the rippling wheat;
There is no metre that's half so fine
As the lilt of the brook under rock and vine;
And the loveliest lyric I ever heard
Was the wildwood strain of a forest bird.--
If the wind and the brook and the bird would teach
My heart their beautiful parts of speech.
And the natural art that they say these with,
My soul would sing of beauty and myth
In a rhyme and a metre that none before
Have sung in their love, or dreamed in their lore,
And the world would be richer one poet the more.

Will she spring with a blush from the arms of Dawn,
When the sleepy songsters prune
Their dewy vestments on bush and thorn,
And the jovial magpie winds his horn
In sweet réveil to the lazy morn
And the sun comes all too soon?
Will she come with him from the farthest rim
Of the blue Pacific sea?
But how shall I know my lady? and by
What token will she know me?

Will she come to me in the noonday hush,
When the flowers are fast asleep
'Neath their counterpane of emerald plush
In the fragrant warmth of the under-brush,
Where Spring still lingers on moist and lush
While naught but the shadows creep,
And all is rest but the eager quest
And the buzz of the tireless bee?
But how shall I know my lady then?
And how will my love know me?

O...

    Gregory Wenner's wife was by the sea
    When Gregory Wenner killed himself, half sick
    And half malingering, and otiose.
    She wept, sent for a doctor to be braced,
    Induced a friend to travel with her west
    To bury Gregory Wenner; did not know
    That Gregory Wenner was in money straits
    Until she read the paper, or had lost
    His building in the loop. The man had kept
    His worries from her ailing ears, was glad
    To keep her traveling, or taking cures.

    She came and buried Gregory Wenner; found
    His fortune just a shell, the building lost,
    A little money in the bank, a store
    Far out on Lake Street, forty worthless acres
    In northern Indiana, twenty lots
    In some Montana village. Here she was,
    A wi...

Down the broad Ha-Ha Wák-pa[BS]
the band took their way to the Games at Keóza[8]
While the swift-footed hunters by land
ran the shores for the elk and the bison.
Like magás[BT] ride the birchen canoes
on the breast of the dark, winding river,
By the willow-fringed island they cruise,
by the grassy hills green to their summits;
By the lofty bluffs hooded with oaks
that darken the deep with their shadows;
And bright in the sun gleam the strokes
of the oars in the hands of the women.
With the band went Winona.
The oar plied the maid with the skill of a hunter.
They tarried a time on the shore of Remníca
the Lake of the Mountains.[BU]
There the fleet hunters followed the deer,
and the tho...

Somebody said, in the crowd, last eve,
    That you were married, or soon to be.
I have not thought of you, I believe,
    Since last we parted. Let me see:
Five long Summers have passed since then -
    Each has been pleasant in its own way -
And you are but one of a dozen men
    Who have played the suitor a Summer day.

But, nevertheless, when I heard your name,
    Coupled with some one's, not my own,
There burned in my bosom a sudden flame,
    That carried me back to the day that is flown.
I was sitting again by the laughing brook,
    With you at my feet, and the sky above,
And my heart was fluttering under your look -
    The unmistakable look of Love.

Again your breath, like a South wind, fanned
    My cheek, where the blushes came and...

What shall we do for Love these days?
How shall we make an altar-blaze
To smite the horny eyes of men
With the renown of our Heaven,
And to the unbelievers prove
Our service to our dear god, Love?
What torches shall we lift above
The crowd that pushes through the mire,
To amaze the dark heads with strange fire?
I should think I were much to blame,
If never I held some fragrant flame
Above the noises of the world,
And openly 'mid men's hurrying stares,
Worshipt before the sacred fears
That are like flashing curtains furl'd
Across the presence of our lord Love.
Nay, would that I could fill the gaze
Of the whole earth with some great praise
Made in a marvel for men's eyes,
Some tower of glittering masonries,
Therein such a spirit flourishing

A Rock there is whose homely front
The passing traveller slights;
Yet there the glow-worms hang their lamps,
Like stars, at various heights;
And one coy Primrose to that Rock
The vernal breeze invites.

What hideous warfare hath been waged,
What kingdoms overthrown,
Since first I spied that Primrose-tuft
And marked it for my own;
A lasting link in Nature’s chain
From highest heaven let down!

The flowers, still faithful to the stems,
Their fellowship renew;
The stems are faithful to the root,
That worketh out of view;
And to the rock the root adheres
In every fibre true.

Close clings to earth the living rock,
Though threatening still to fall:
The earth is constant to her sphere;
And God upholds them all:
So blooms ...

"Never shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair.'
"But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair.'
"I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair."

O say, dear sister, are you coming
    Forth to the fields with me?
The very air is gaily ringing
    With hum of bird and bee,
And crowds of swallows now are chirping
    Up in our ancient thorn,
And earth and air are both rejoicing,
    On this gay summer morn.

Shall we hie unto the streamlet's side
    To seek our little boat,
And, plying our oars with right good will,
    Over its bright waves float?
Or shall we loll on the grassy bank
    For hours dreamy, still,
To draw from its depths some silv'ry prize,
    Reward of angler's skill?

I do not talk of the tempting game
    The forest covers hide,
So dear to the sportsman - plovers shy,
    Pheasants with eye of pride,
For I know your timid nature shrinks
    From flas...

Old poets foster’d under friendlier skies,
Old Virgil who would write ten lines, they say,
At dawn, and lavish all the golden day
To make them wealthier in his readers’ eyes;
And you, old popular Horace, you the wise
Adviser of the nine-years-ponder'd lay,
And you, that wear a wreath of sweeter bay,
Catullus, whose dead songster never dies;
If, glancing downward on the kindly sphere
That once had roll’d you round and round the sun,
You see your Art still shrined in human shelves,
You should be jubilant that you flourish’d here
Before the Love of Letters, overdone,
Had swampt the sacred poets with themselves.

The clouds are pushing in grey reluctance slowly northward to you,
While north of them all, at the farthest ends, stands one bright-bosomed, aglance
With fire as it guards the wild north cloud-coasts, red-fire seas running through
The rocks where ravens flying to windward melt as a well-shot lance.

You should be out by the orchard, where violets secretly darken the earth,
Or there in the woods of the twilight, with northern wind-flowers shaken astir.
Think of me here in the library, trying and trying a song that is worth
Tears and swords to my heart, arrows no armour will turn or deter.

You tell me the lambs have come, they lie like daisies white in the grass
Of the dark-green hills; new calves in shed; peewits turn after the plough -
It is well for you. For me the navvies work...

    Trillium breath, an ounce
    of feathered growth unravels
    in the cloves of the silent forest.
    The rain is heavy with the stamp
    of perfumed trees realizing
    slight restraint on bursting seed.

    Cloaked in fragrance, tufts
    of mossy step kiss the opening earth,
    a basement horizon presumes
    the darling test of flower
    across dale & rustling nook,
    then undresses moist greenery
    with sumptuous eye.

    The last is hardest -
    cat crimson, a fire weed sunset lotion,
    the rain erased away;
    nobody special harangues the leaves
    but birds steal in quietly with
    tenderness clothed of verdure
    to pinch a leafy oasis about
    their forest haunt.