Heartbreak

The days have slain the days,
and the seasons have gone by
And brought me the summer again;
and here on the grass I lie
As erst I lay and was glad
ere I meddled with right and with wrong.
Wide lies the mead as of old,
and the river is creeping along
By the side of the elm-clad bank
that turns its weedy stream;
And grey o'er its hither lip
the quivering rushes gleam.
There is work in the mead as of old;
they are eager at winning the hay,
While every sun sets bright
and begets a fairer day.
The forks shine white in the sun
round the yellow red-wheeled wain,
Where the mountain of hay grows fast;
and now from out of the lane
Comes the ox-team drawing another,
comes the bailiff and the beer,
And thump, thump, goes the farmer's nag

Her gown was simple woven wool,
But, in repayment,
Her body sweet made beautiful
The simplest raiment:

For all its fine, melodious curves
With life a-quiver
Were graceful as the bends and swerves
Of her own river.

Her round arms, from the shoulders down
To sweet hands slender,
The sun had kissed them amber-brown
With kisses tender.

For though she loved the secret shades
Where ferns grow stilly,
And wild vines droop their glossy braids,
And gleams the lily,

And Nature, with soft eyes that glow
In gloom that glistens,
Unto her own heart, beating slow,
In silence listens:

She loved no less the meadows fair,
And green, and spacious;
The river, and the azure air,
And sunlight gracious.

I sa...

I knew by the smoke, that so gracefully curled
    Above the green elms, that a cottage was near.
And I said, "If there's peace to be found in the world,
    "A heart that was humble might hope for it here!"
It was noon, and on flowers that languished around
    In silence reposed the voluptuous bee;
Every leaf was at rest, and I heard not a sound
    But the woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree.

And, "Here in this lone little wood," I exclaimed,
    "With a maid who was lovely to soul and to eye,
"Who would blush when I praised her, and weep if I blamed,
    How blest could I live, and how calm could I die!

"By the shade of yon sumach, whose red berry dips
    "In the gush of the fountain, how sweet to recline,
"And to know that I sighed upon innocent l...

Wild Redbreast! hadst thou at Jemima's lip
Pecked, as at mine, thus boldly, Love might say,
A half-blown rose had tempted thee to sip
Its glistening dews; but hallowed is the clay
Which the Muse warms; and I, whose head is grey,
Am not unworthy of thy fellowship;
Nor could I let one thought, one notion slip
That might thy sylvan confidence betray.
For are we not all His without whose care
Vouchsafed no sparrow falleth to the ground?
Who gives his Angels wings to speed through air,
And rolls the planets through the blue profound;
Then peck or perch, fond Flutterer! nor forbear
To trust a Poet in still musings bound.

What can I do in poetry
Now the good spirit's gone from me?
Why, nothing now but lonely sit
And over-read what I have writ.

Come list, while I tell of the heart-wounded Stranger
    Who sleeps her last slumber in this haunted ground;
Where often, at midnight, the lonely wood-ranger
    Hears soft fairy music re-echo around.

None e'er knew the name of that heart-stricken lady,
    Her language, tho' sweet, none could e'er understand;
But her features so sunned, and her eyelash so shady,
    Bespoke her a child of some far Eastern land.

'Twas one summer night, when the village lay sleeping,
    A soft strain of melody came o'er our ears;
So sweet, but so mournful, half song and half weeping,
    Like music that Sorrow had steeped in her tears.

We thought 'twas an anthem some angel had sung us;--
    But, soon as the day-beams had gushed from on high,
With wonder we saw this b...

See him quake and see him tremble,
    See him gasp for breath.
Nay, dear, he does not dissemble,
    This is really Death.
He is weak, and worn, and wasted,
    Bear him to his bier.
All there is of life he's tasted -
    He has lived a year.

He has passed his day of glory,
    All his blood is cold,
He is wrinkled, thin, and hoary,
    He is very old.
Just a leaf's life in the wild wood,
    Is a love's life, dear.
He has reached his second childhood
    When he's lived a year.

Long ago he lost his reason,
    Lost his trust and faith -
Better far in his first season
    Had he met with death.
Let us have no pomp or splendour,
    No vain pretence here.
As we bury, grave, yet tender,
    Love that's lived a year...

Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle,
Earth and high heaven are fixt of old and founded strong.
Think rather,-call to thought, if now you grieve a little,
The days when we had rest, O soul, for they were long.

Men loved unkindness then, but lightless in the quarry
I slept and saw not; tears fell down, I did not mourn;
Sweat ran and blood sprang out and I was never sorry:
Then it was well with me, in days ere I was born.

Now, and I muse for why and never find the reason,
I pace the earth, and drink the air, and feel the sun.
Be still, be still, my soul; it is but for a season:
Let us endure an hour and see injustice done.

Ay, look: high heaven and earth ail from the prime foundation;
All thoughts to rive the heart are here, and all are ...

Who says I wrong thee, my half-opened rose?
Little he knows of thee or me, or love. -
I am so tender of thy fragile youth,
Yea, in my hours of wildest ecstasy,
Keeping close-bitted each careering sense.
Only I give mine eyes unmeasured law
To feed them where they will, and their delight
Was curbed at first, until thy tender shame
Died in the bearing of thy first born joy.

I am not cruel, my half-opened rose,
Though in the sunshine of my own desire
I have uncurled thy petals to the light
And fed the tendrils of thy dawning sense
With delicate caresses, till they leave
Thee tremulous with the newness of thy joy,
Sharing thy lover's fire with innocent flame.

Others will wrong thee, that I well foresee,
Being a man, knowing my fellow men,

That crazed girl improvising her music.
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,

Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling She knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship,
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.

No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound,
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, "O sea-starved, hungry sea.'

"I love the Lady of Merle," he said.
"She is not for thee!" her suitor cried.
And in the valley the lovers fought
By the salt river's tide.

The braver fell on the dewy sward:
The unloved lover returned once more;
In yellow satin the lady came
And met him at the door.

"Hast thou heard, dark Edith," laughed he grim,
"Poor Hugh hath craved thee many a day?
Soon would it have been too late for him
His low-born will to say.

"I struck a blade where lay his heart's love,
And voice for thee have I left him none,
To brag he still seeks thee over the hills
When thou and I are one!"

Fearless across the wide country
Rode the dark Lady Edith of Merle;
She looked at the headlands soft with haze,
And the moor's mists of pearl.

Why smile high stars the happier after rain?
Why is strong love the stronger after pain?
Ai me! ai me! thou wotest not nor I!

Why sings the wild swan heavenliest when it dies?
Why spake the dumb lips sweetest that we prize
For maddening memories? O why! O why!

Why are dead kisses dearer when they're dead?
Why are dead faces lovelier vanished?
And why this heart-ache? None can answer why!

All night through Daisy's sleep, it seems,
Have ceaseless "rat-tats" thundered;
All night through Daisy's rosy dreams
Have devious Postmen blundered,
Delivering letters round her bed,--
Mysterious missives, sealed with red,
And franked of course with due Queen's-head,--
While Daisy lay and wondered.

But now, when chirping birds begin,
And Day puts off the Quaker,--
When Cook renews her morning din,
And rates the cheerful baker,--
She dreams her dream no dream at all,
For, just as pigeons come at call,
Winged letters flutter down, and fall
Around her head, and wake her.

Yes, there they are! With quirk and twist,
And fraudful arts directed;
(Save Grandpapa's dear stiff old "fist,"
Through all disguise detected;)
But which is his,-...

Oh many a duel the world has seen
    That was bitter with hate, that was red with gore,
But I sing of a duel by far more cruel
    Than ever by poet was sung before.
It was waged by night, yea by day and by night,
    With never a pause or halt or rest,
And the curious spot where this battle was fought
    Was the throbbing heart in a woman's breast.

There met two rivals in deadly strife,
    And they fought for this woman so pale and proud.
One was a man in the prime of life,
    And one was a corpse in a moldy shroud;
One wrapped in a sheet from his head to his feet,
    The other one clothed in worldly fashion;
But a rival to dread is a man who is dead,
    If he has been loved in life with passion.

The living lover he battled with sighs,
...

        When I do sit apart
        And commune with my heart,
She brings me forth the treasures once my own;
        Shows me a happy place
        Where leaf-buds swelled apace,
And wasting rims of snow in sunlight shone.

        Rock, in a mossy glade,
        The larch-trees lend thee shade,
That just begin to feather with their leaves;
        From out thy crevice deep
        White tufts of snowdrops peep,
And melted rime drips softly from thine eaves.

        Ah, rock, I know, I know
        That yet thy snowdrops grow,
And yet doth sunshine fleck them through the tree,
        Whose sheltering branches hide
        The cottage at its side,
That nevermore will shade or shelter me.

        I know the stockdoves' note
    ...

The heart is hard that cannot feel
The bruising of a light appeal.

The heart is deaf that cannot hear
The splashing of a tiny tear.

The heart is dumb that cannot say
“God speed you, comrades,” night and day.

The heart is blind that cannot see
The beckoning soul of mystery.

The heart is lame that cannot rise
From clamouring earth to silent skies.

And O that heart were better dead
That truckles to the prudent head.

Long had she knelt at the Madonna's shrine,
With the empty chapel, cold and grey,
Telling her beads, while grief with marring line
And bitter tear stole all her youth away.

Outcast was she from what Life holdeth dear;
Banished from joy that other souls might win;
And from the dark beyond she turned with fear,
Being so branded by the mark of sin.

Yet when at last she raised her troubled face,
Haunted by sorrow, whitened by alarms,
Mary leaned down from out the pictured place,
And laid the little Christ within her arms.

Rosy and warm she held Him to her heart,
She - the abandoned one - the thing apart.

(She, alone)



I rose and went to Rou'tor Town
With gaiety and good heart,
And ardour for the start,
That morning ere the moon was down
That lit me off to Rou'tor Town
With gaiety and good heart.

When sojourn soon at Rou'tor Town
Wrote sorrows on my face,
I strove that none should trace
The pale and gray, once pink and brown,
When sojourn soon at Rou'tor Town
Wrote sorrows on my face.

The evil wrought at Rou'tor Town
On him I'd loved so true
I cannot tell anew:
But nought can quench, but nought can drown
The evil wrought at Rou'tor Town
On him I'd loved so true!