Heartbreak

Love, that is first and last of all things made,
The light that has the living world for shade,
The spirit that for temporal veil has on
The souls of all men woven in unison,
One fiery raiment with all lives inwrought
And lights of sunny and starry deed and thought,
And alway through new act and passion new
Shines the divine same body and beauty through,
The body spiritual of fire and light
That is to worldly noon as noon to night;
Love, that is flesh upon the spirit of man
And spirit within the flesh whence breath began;
Love, that keeps all the choir of lives in chime;
Love, that is blood within the veins of time;
That wrought the whole world without stroke of hand,
Shaping the breadth of sea, the length of land,
And with the pulse and motion of his breath

Hills where once my love and I
Let the hours go laughing by!
All your woods and dales are sad,--
You have lost your Oread.
Falling leaves! Silent woodlands!
Half your loveliness is fled.
Golden-rod, wither now!
Winter winds, come hither now!
All the summer joy is dead.

There's a sense of something gone
In the grass I linger on.
There's an under-voice that grieves
In the rustling of the leaves.
Pine-clad peaks! Rushing waters!
Glens where we were once so glad!
There's a light passed from you,
There's a joy outcast from you,--
You have lost your Oread.

Death takes her hand and leads her through the waste
Of her own soul, wherein she hears the voice
Of lost Love's tears, and, famishing, can but taste
The dead-sea fruit of Life's remembered joys.

Farther and farther away, alas! at each moment the vessel

Hastens, as onward it glides, cleaving the foam-cover'd flood!
Long is the track plough'd up by the keel where dolphins are sporting,

Following fast in its rear, while it seems flying pursuit.
All forebodes a prosperous voyage; the sailor with calmness

Leans 'gainst the sail, which alone all that is needed performs.
Forward presses the heart of each seamen, like colours and streamers;

Backward one only is seen, mournfully fix'd near the mast,
While on the blue tinged mountains, which fast are receding, he gazeth,

And as they sink in the sea, joy from his bosom departs.
Vanish'd from thee, too, oh Dora, is now the vessel that robs thee

Of thine Alexis, thy friend, ah, thy betrothed as well!

The Desert is parched in the burning sun
And the grass is scorched and white.
But the sand is passed, and the march is done,
We are camping here to-night.
    I sit in the shade of the Temple walls,
    While the cadenced water evenly falls,
    And a peacock out of the Jungle calls
    To another, on yonder tomb.
    Above, half seen, in the lofty gloom,
    Strange works of a long dead people loom,
Obscene and savage and half effaced -
An elephant hunt, a musicians' feast -
And curious matings of man and beast;
What did they mean to the men who are long since dust?
    Whose fingers traced,
    In this arid waste,
These rioting, twisted, figures of love and lust.

Strange, weird things that no man may say,
Things Humanity hides away; -
  ...

I determined to find out whose it was -
The portrait he looked at so, and sighed;
Bitterly have I rued my meanness
    And wept for it since he died!

I searched his desk when he was away,
And there was the likeness - yes, my own!
Taken when I was the season's fairest,
    And time-lines all unknown.

I smiled at my image, and put it back,
And he went on cherishing it, until
I was chafed that he loved not the me then living,
    But that past woman still.

Well, such was my jealousy at last,
I destroyed that face of the former me;
Could you ever have dreamed the heart of woman
    Would work so foolishly!

With one black shadow at its feet,
The house thro' all the level shines,
Close-latticed to the brooding heat,
And silent in its dusty vines:
A faint-blue ridge upon the right,
An empty river-bed before,
And shallows on a distant shore,
In glaring sand and inlets bright.
But "Aye Mary," made she moan,
And "Aye Mary," night and morn,
And "Ah," she sang, "to be all alone,
To live forgotten, and love forlorn."

She, as her carol sadder grew,
From brow and bosom slowly down
Thro' rosy taper fingers drew
Her streaming curls of deepest brown
To left and right, and made appear,
Still-lighted in a secret shrine,
Her melancholy eyes divine,
The home of woe without a tear.
And "Aye Mary," was her moan,
"Madonna, sad is night and morn;"
...

The sword slew one in deadly strife;
One perish’d by the bowl;
The third lies self-slain by the knife;
For three the bells may toll,
I loved her better than my life,
And better than my soul.

Aye, father! hast thou come at last?
’Tis somewhat late to pray;
Life’s crimson tides are ebbing fast,
They drain my soul away;
Mine eyes with film are overcast,
The lights are waning grey.

This curl from her bright head I shore,
And this her hands gave mine;
See, one is stained with purple gore,
And one with poison’d wine;
Give these to her when all is o’er,
How serpent-like they twine!

We three were brethren in arms,
And sworn companions we;
We held this motto, “Whoso harms
The one shall harm the three!”
Till, matchless for...

I know not, Time and Space so intervene,
Whether, still waiting with a trust serene,
Thou bearest up thy fourscore years and ten,
Or, called at last, art now Heaven’s citizen;
But, here or there, a pleasant thought of thee,
Like an old friend, all day has been with me.
The shy, still boy, for whom thy kindly hand
Smoothed his hard pathway to the wonder-land
Of thought and fancy, in gray manhood yet
Keeps green the memory of his early debt.
To-day, when truth and falsehood speak their words
Through hot-lipped cannon and the teeth of swords,
Listening with quickened heart and ear intent
To each sharp clause of that stern argument,
I still can hear at times a softer note
Of the old pastoral music round me float,
While through the hot gleam of our civil strife

What's in a 'Name'?
. . . . .
Brutus will start a Spirit as soon as Caesar!

PROLOGUE

There's something in a flying horse,
There's something in a huge balloon;
But through the clouds I'll never float
Until I have a little Boat,
Shaped like the crescent-moon.

And now I 'have' a little Boat,
In shape a very crescent-moon
Fast through the clouds my boat can sail;
But if perchance your faith should fail,
Look up and you shall see me soon!

The woods, my Friends, are round you roaring,
Rocking and roaring like a sea;
The noise of danger's in your ears,
And ye have all a thousand fears
Both for my little Boat and me!

Meanwhile untroubled I admire
The pointed horns of my canoe;
And, did not pity touch my breast,

    The    time shall be, old Wisdom says, when you
        Shall grow awrinkled and I, indifferent,
    Shall no more follow the light steps I knew
        Or trace you, finding out the way you went,
    By swinging branches and the displaced flowers
        Among the thickets.    I no more shall stand,
    With careful pencil through the adoring hours
        Scratching your grace on paper.    My still hand
    No more shall tremble at the touch of yours
        And I'll write no more songs and you'll not sing.
    But this is all a lie, for love endures
        And we shall closer kiss, remembering
    How budding trees turned barren in the sun
    Through this long week, whereof one day's now done.

Ben mi credea passar mio tempo omai.

HE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT SEEING HER, BUT WOULD NOT DIE THAT HE MAY STILL LOVE HER.


    As pass'd the years which I have left behind,
To pass my future years I fondly thought,
Amid old studies, with desires the same;
But, from my lady since I fail to find
The accustom'd aid, the work himself has wrought
Let Love regard my tempter who became;
Yet scarce I feel the shame
That, at my age, he makes me thus a thief
Of that bewitching light
For which my life is steep'd in cureless grief;
In youth I better might
Have ta'en the part which now I needs must take,
For less dishonour boyish errors make.

Those sweet eyes whence alone my life had health
Were ever of their high and heavenly charms
So kind ...

It is not blasphemy to hope that Heaven
More perfectly will give those nameless joys
Which throb within the pulses of the blood
And sweeten all that bitterness which Earth
Infuses in the heaven-born soul. O thou
Whose dear love gleamed upon the gloomy path
Which this lone spirit travelled, drear and cold,
Yet swiftly leading to those awful limits
Which mark the bounds of Time and of the space
When Time shall be no more; wilt thou not turn
Those spirit-beaming eyes and look on me,
Until I be assured that Earth is Heaven,
And Heaven is Earth? - will not thy glowing cheek,
Glowing with soft suffusion, rest on mine,
And breathe magnetic sweetness through the frame
Of my corporeal nature, through the soul
Now knit with these fine fibres? I would give
The longe...

I’ve sung of Honor’s golden hair
And Hero’s auburn tresses,
Of Bella’s back abundance, where
The sun throws his caresses;
I’ve sung of curl, and coil, and braid;
On meshes I’ve dilated,
Until at last I’m sore afraid
There’s nothing re the hair of maid
That I have left unstated.

‘Twill much relieve the constant strain
Of rhyming to extol her
When on the roof of Sophie’s brain
Appears a bright cupola.
The poet’s verse will freshly run,
Effects will come much faster,
If he may tell the darling one
Her skull is glowing like the sun
And smooth as alabaster.

New stimulus the singer nerves,
When beauty, scorning switches,
Adds to her many swelling curves
A baldness that bewitches.
We’ve sung too many wigs, I swear,
And n...

I.

His eyes found nothing beautiful and bright,
Nor wealth nor, honour, glory nor delight,
Which he could grasp and keep with might and right.

Flowers bloomed for maidens, swords outflashed for boys,
The world’s big children had their various toys;
He could not feel their sorrows and their joys.

Hills held a secret they would not unfold,
In careless scorn of him the ocean rolled,
The stars were alien splendours high and cold.

He felt himself a king bereft of crown,
Defrauded from his birthright of renown,
Bred up in littleness with churl and clown.



II.

How could he vindicate himself? His eyes,
That found not anywhere their proper prize,
Looked through and through the specious earth and skies,

They prob...

Raymond.

Dearest, that sit'st in dreams,
Through the window look, this way.
How changed and desolate seems
The world, Ida, to-day!
Heavy and low the sky is glooming:
Winter is coming!

Ida.

My dreaming heart is stirr'd:
Sadly the winter comes!
The wind is loud: how weird,
Heard in these darken'd rooms!
Speak to me, Raymond; ease this dread:
I am afraid, afraid.

Raymond.

Love, what is this? Like snow
Thy cheeks feel, snow they wear.
What ails my darling so?
What is it thou dost hear?
Close, close, thy soft arms cling to mine:
Tears on thy lashes shine.

Ida.

Hark! love, the wind wails by
The wet October trees,
Swaying them mournfully:
The wet leaves ...

I.
I dream of a red-rose tree.
And which of its roses three
Is the dearest rose to me?

II.
Round and round, like a dance of snow
In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go
Floating the women faded for ages,
Sculptured in stone, on the poet’s pages.
Then follow women fresh and gay,
Living and loving and loved to-day.
Last, in the rear, flee the multitude of maidens,
Beauties yet unborn. And all, to one cadence,
They circle their rose on my rose tree.

III.
Dear rose, thy term is reached,
Thy leaf hangs loose and bleached:
Bees pass it unimpeached.

IV.
Stay then, stoop, since I cannot climb,
You, great shapes of the antique time!
How shall I fix you, fire you, freeze you,
Break my heart at your feet to please you?

Then up the orient heights to the zenith that balanced a crescent, -
Up and far up and over, - a warm erubescence liquescent
Rioted roses and rubies; eruptions of opaline gems,
Flung and wide sown, blushed crushed, and crumbled from diadems
Wealth of the kings of the Sylphs; whence, old alchemist, Earth -
Dewed down - by chemistry occult fashions petrified waters of worth. -
Then out of the stain and rash furor, the passionate pulver of stone,
The trembling suffusion that dazzled and awfully shone,
Chamelion-convulsion of color, hilarious ranges of glare -
Like a god who for vengeance ires, nodding battle from every hair,
Fares forth with majesty girdled and clangs with hot heroes for life,
Till the brazen gates boom bursten hells and the walls roar bristling strife, -
Athwart wi...