Identity

High in the midst, surrounded by his peers,
Magnus [1] his ample front sublime uprears:
Plac'd on his chair of state, he seems a God,
While Sophs [2] and Freshmen tremble at his nod;
As all around sit wrapt in speechless gloom,
His voice, in thunder, shakes the sounding dome;
Denouncing dire reproach to luckless fools,
Unskill'd to plod in mathematic rules.

Happy the youth! in Euclid's axioms tried,
Though little vers'd in any art beside;
Who, scarcely skill'd an English line to pen,
Scans Attic metres with a critic's ken.

What! though he knows not how his fathers bled,
When civil discord pil'd the fields with dead,
When Edward bade his conquering bands advance,
Or Henry trampled on the crest of France:
Though marvellin...

    Walking to-day in your garden, O gracious lady,
    Little you thought as you turned in that alley remote and shady,
    And gave me a rose and asked if I knew its savour--
    The old-world scent of the mossrose, flower of a bygone favour--

    Little you thought as you waited the word of appraisement,
    Laughing at first and then amazed at my amazement,
    That the rose you gave was a gift already cherished,
    And the garden whence you plucked it a garden long perished.

    But I--I saw that garden, with its one treasure
    The tiny mossrose, tiny even by childhood's measure,
    And the long morning shadow of the dusty laurel,
    And a boy and a girl beneath it, flushed with a childish quarrel.

    She wept for her one little bud: but he, outreachi...

There's something strange, I know not what,
                Come o'er me,
Some phantom I've for ever got
                Before me.
I look on high and in the sky
                'Tis shining;
On earth, its light with all things bright
                Seems twining.
In vain I try this goblin's spells
                To sever;
Go where I will, it round me dwells
                For ever.

And then what tricks by day and night
                It plays me;
In every shape the wicked sprite
                Waylays me.
Sometimes like two bright eyes of blue
                'Tis glancing;
Sometimes like feet, in slippers neat,
                Comes dancing.
By whispers round of every sort
                I'm taunted.
Never was mortal...

Who will hear me? Whom shall I lament to?
Who would pity me that heard my sorrows?
Ah, the lip that erst so many raptures
Used to taste, and used to give responsive,
Now is cloven, and it pains me sorely;
And it is not thus severely wounded
By my mistress having caught me fiercely,
And then gently bitten me, intending
To secure her friend more firmly to her:
No, my tender lip is crack'd thus, only
By the winds, o'er rime and frost proceeding,
Pointed, sharp, unloving, having met me.
Now the noble grape's bright juice commingled
With the bee's sweet juice, upon the fire
Of my hearth, shall ease me of my torment.
Ah, what use will all this be, if with it
Love adds not a drop of his own balsam?

    I dreamed my toenails
    were ivory
    and elephants came to trade for tusks
    ... Then went conveniently off to die
    ("shed this mortal coil") in a
    cutter-shed stacked high
    like firewood.

    II
    I dreamed Landover, Maryland
    was the site near the
    Pentagon. People got wind of
    the scheme and grew intrigued.
    Twigs shattered in the moonlight
    as curious onlookers tried
    to peek-a-boo into the shed.

    III
    Raisins were left out
    to dry as
    token offerings.

    IV
    Mafioso members and other hardcases
    wanted to elbow in
    but stiff military types
    eminently incorruptible, said
    "no dice" made, naturally,
    of ivory turned a
    ...

PART I. PRESTO FURIOSO.


Spontaneous Us!
O my Camarados! I have no delicatesse as a diplomat, but I go blind on Libertad!
Give me the flap-flap of the soaring Eagle's pinions!
Give me the tail of the British lion tied in a knot inextricable, not to be solved anyhow!
Give me a standing army (I say 'give me,' because just at present we want one badly, armies being often useful in time of war).

I see our superb fleet (I take it that we are to have a superb fleet built almost immediately);
I observe the crews prospectively; they are constituted of various nationalities, not necessarily American;
I see them sling the slug and chew the plug;
I hear the drum begin to hum;

Both the above rhymes are purely accidental and contrary to my principles.
We shall wipe the floor...

They're shifting old North Sydney,
Perhaps ’tis just as well,
They’re carting off the houses
Where the old folks used to dwell.
Where only ghosts inhabit
They lay the old shops low;
But the Spirit of North Sydney,
It vanished long ago.

The Spirit of North Sydney,
The good old time and style,
It camped, maybe, at Crow’s Nest,
But only for a while.
It left about the season,
Or at the time, perhaps,
When old Inspector Cotter
Transferred his jokes and traps.

A brand new crowd is thronging
The brand new streets aglow
Where the Spirit of North Sydney
Would gossip long ago.
They will not know to-morrow,
Tho’ ’twere but yesterday,
Exactly how McMahon’s Point
And its ferry used to lay.

The good old friendly spir...

The lily-bells ring underground,
    Their music small I hear
When globes of dew that shine pearl round
    Hang in the cowslip's ear
And all the summer blooms and sprays
    Are sheathed from the sun,
And yet I feel in many ways
    Their living pulses run.

The crowning rose of summer time
    Lies folded on its stem,
Its bright urn holds no honey-wine,
    Its brow no diadem,
And yet my soul is inly thrilled,
    As if I stood anear
Some legal presence unrevealed,
    The queen of all the year.

Oh Rose, dear Rose! the mist and dew
    Uprising from the lake,
And sunshine glancing warmly through,
    Have kissed the flowers awake--
The orchard blooms are dropping balm,
    The tulip's gorgeous cup
More slender than a ...

I heard such a curious story
    Of Santa Claus: once, so they say,
He set out to see what people were kind,
    Before he took presents their way.
'This year I will give but to givers,
    To those who make presents themselves,'
With a nod of his head old Santa Claus said
    To his band of bright officer-elves.

'Go into the homes of the happy
    Where pleasure stands page at the door.
Watch well how they live, and report what they give
    To the hordes of God's suffering poor.
Keep track of each cent and each moment;
    Yes, tell me each word, too, they use:
To silver line clouds for earth's suffering crowds,
    And tell me, too, when they refuse.'

So into our homes flew the fairies,
    Though never a soul of us knew,
And with penc...

Now comes the fierce north-easter, bound
About with clouds and racks of rain,
And dry, dead leaves go whirling round
In rings of dust, and sigh like pain
Across the plain.

Now twilight, with a shadowy hand
Of wild dominionship, doth keep
Strong hold of hollow straits of land,
And watery sounds are loud and deep
By gap and steep.

Keen, fitful gusts, that fly before
The wings of storm when day hath shut
Its eyes on mountains, flaw by flaw,
Fleet down by whistling box-tree butt,
Against the hut.

And, ringed and girt with lurid pomp,
Far eastern cliffs start up, and take
Thick steaming vapours from a swamp
That lieth like a great blind lake,
Of face opaque.

The moss that, like a tender grief,
About an English ruin c...

    Soldier going to the war -
        Will you take my heart with you,
    So that I may share a little
        In the famous things you do?

    Soldier going to the war -
        If in battle you must fall,
    Will you, among all the faces,
        See my face the last of all?

    Soldier coming from the war -
        Who shall bind your sunburnt brow
    With the laurel of the hero,
        Soldier, soldier - vow for vow!

    Soldier coming from the war -
        When the street is one wide sea,
    Flags and streaming eyes and glory -
        Soldier, will you look for me?

I

Can freckled August, - drowsing warm and blond
Beside a wheat-shock in the white-topped mead,
In her hot hair the yellow daisies wound, -
O bird of rain, lend aught but sleepy heed
To thee? when no plumed weed, no feathered seed
Blows by her; and no ripple breaks the pond,
That gleams like flint within its rim of grasses,
Through which the dragonfly forever passes
Like splintered diamond.

II

Drouth weights the trees; and from the farmhouse eaves
The locust, pulse-beat of the summer day,
Throbs; and the lane, that shambles under leaves
Limp with the heat - a league of rutty way -
Is lost in dust; and sultry scents of hay
Breathe from the panting meadows heaped with sheaves -
Now, now, O bird, what hint is there of rain,
In thirsty ...

The flame crept up the portrait line by line
As it lay on the coals in the silence of night's profound,
And over the arm's incline,
And along the marge of the silkwork superfine,
And gnawed at the delicate bosom's defenceless round.

Then I vented a cry of hurt, and averted my eyes;
The spectacle was one that I could not bear,
To my deep and sad surprise;
But, compelled to heed, I again looked furtive-wise
Till the flame had eaten her breasts, and mouth, and hair.

"Thank God, she is out of it now!" I said at last,
In a great relief of heart when the thing was done
That had set my soul aghast,
And nothing was left of the picture unsheathed from the past
But the ashen ghost of the card it had figured on.

She was a woman long hid amid packs of years,<...

I sent my love two roses, - one
    As white as driven snow,
And one a blushing royal red,
    A flaming Jacqueminot.

I meant to touch and test my fate;
    That night I should divine,
The moment I should see my love,
    If her true heart were mine.

For if she holds me dear, I said,
    She'll wear my blushing rose;
If not, she'll wear my cold Lamarque
    As white as winter's snows.

My heart sank when I met her:    sure
    I had been over bold,
For on her breast my pale rose lay
    In virgin whiteness cold.

Yet with low words she greeted me,
    With smiles divinely tender;
Upon her cheek the red rose dawned. -
    The white rose meant surrender.

Against that time, if ever that time come,
When I shall see thee frown on my defects,
When as thy love hath cast his utmost sum,
Call’d to that audit by advis’d respects;
Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass,
And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye,
When love, converted from the thing it was,
Shall reasons find of settled gravity;
Against that time do I ensconce me here,
Within the knowledge of mine own desert,
And this my hand, against my self uprear,
To guard the lawful reasons on thy part:
To leave poor me thou hast the strength of laws,
Since why to love I can allege no cause.

Some have won a wild delight,
By daring wilder sorrow;
Could I gain thy love to-night,
I'd hazard death to-morrow.

Could the battle-struggle earn
One kind glance from thine eye,
How this withering heart would burn,
The heady fight to try!

Welcome nights of broken sleep,
And days of carnage cold,
Could I deem that thou wouldst weep
To hear my perils told.

Tell me, if with wandering bands
I roam full far away,
Wilt thou to those distant lands
In spirit ever stray?

Wild, long, a trumpet sounds afar;
Bid me, bid me go
Where Seik and Briton meet in war,
On Indian Sutlej's flow.

Blood has dyed the Sutlej's waves
With scarlet stain, I know;
Indus' borders yawn with graves,
Yet, command me go!

(See Note 28)

My boyish heart in thee confided,
For to the great by thee 't was guided.
As man, my waiting is for thee, -
The Northern cause with thee, with thee!

Rich lands and talents are thy dower,
But fallow lie thy wealth and power.
Thou must the North in concord bind,
Or never shalt thy true self find.

There's longing in thy folk arisen,
Poetic hope - but yet in prison.
Though forces great within thee dwell,
Thou art not wholly sound and well.

Too many things are undertaken,
Too oft the task is soon forsaken.
Though rich in promptings of the heart,
In faith and duty faint thou art.

In danger only hast thou thriven,
When something great to guard was given.
When every breast with warmth shall glow<...

I've been sittin' starin', starin' at 'is muddy pair of boots,
And tryin' to convince meself it's 'im.
(Look out there, lad! That sniper - 'e's a dysey when 'e shoots;
'E'll be layin' of you out the same as Jim.)
Jim as lies there in the dug-out wiv 'is blanket round 'is 'ead,
To keep 'is brains from mixin' wiv the mud;
And 'is face as white as putty, and 'is overcoat all red,
Like 'e's spilt a bloomin' paint-pot - but it's blood.

And I'm tryin' to remember of a time we wasn't pals.
'Ow often we've played 'ookey, 'im and me;
And sometimes it was music-'alls, and sometimes it was gals,
And even there we 'ad no disagree.
For when 'e copped Mariar Jones, the one I liked the best,
I shook 'is 'and and loaned 'im 'arf a quid;
I saw 'im through the parson's job, I 'elpe...