Identity

Dear child! how radiant on thy mother's knee,
With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles,
Thou gazest at the painted tiles,
Whose figures grace,
With many a grotesque form and face.
The ancient chimney of thy nursery!
The lady with the gay macaw,
The dancing girl, the grave bashaw
With bearded lip and chin;
And, leaning idly o'er his gate,
Beneath the imperial fan of state,
The Chinese mandarin.

With what a look of proud command
Thou shakest in thy little hand
The coral rattle with its silver bells,
Making a merry tune!
Thousands of years in Indian seas
That coral grew, by slow degrees,
Until some deadly and wild monsoon
Dashed it on Coromandel's sand!
Those silver bells
Reposed of yore,
As shapeless ore,
Far down in the ...

O d' ardente virtute ornata e calda.

HE CELEBRATES LAURA'S BEAUTY AND VIRTUE.


    O mind, by ardent virtue graced and warm'd.
To whom my pen so oft pours forth my heart;
Mansion of noble probity, who art
A tower of strength 'gainst all assault full arm'd.
O rose effulgent, in whose foldings, charm'd,
We view with fresh carnation snow take part!
O pleasure whence my wing'd ideas start
To that bless'd vision which no eye, unharm'd,
Created, may approach--thy name, if rhyme
Could bear to Bactra and to Thule's coast,
Nile, Tanaïs, and Calpe should resound,
And dread Olympus.--But a narrower bound
Confines my flight: and thee, our native clime
Between the Alps and Apennine must boast.

CAPEL LOFFT.


    With glowing vir...

"Le notte e madre dipensien."

I tumble and toss on my pillow,
As a ship without rudder or spars
Is tumbled and tossed on the billow,
'Neath the glint and the glory of stars.
'Tis midnight and moonlight, and slumber
Has hushed every heart but my own;
O why are these thoughts without number
Sent to me by the man in the moon?

Thoughts of the Here and Hereafter,
Thoughts all unbidden to come,
Thoughts that are echoes of laughter
Thoughts that are ghosts from the tomb,
Thoughts that are sweet as wild honey,
Thoughts that are bitter as gall,
Thoughts to be coined into money,
Thoughts of no value at all.

Dreams that are tangled like wild-wood,
A hint creeping in like a hare;
Visions of innocent childhood,
Glimpses of pleas...

Dear native brook! wild streamlet of the West!
How many various-fated years have passed,
What happy and what mournful hours, since last
I skimmed the smooth thin stone along thy breast,
Numbering its light leaps! Yet so deep impressed
Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes
I never shut amid the sunny ray,
But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,
Thy crossing plank, thy marge with willows grey,
And bedded sand that, veined with various dyes,
Gleamed through thy bright transparence! On my way,
Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled
Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs:
Ah! that once more I were a careless child!

Golden Apollo, that thro' heaven wide
Scatter'st the rays of light, and truth's beams,
In lucent words my darkling verses dight,
And wash my earthy mind in thy clear streams,
That wisdom may descend in fairy dreams,
All while the jocund hours in thy train
Scatter their fancies at thy poet's feet;
And when thou yields to night thy wide domain,
Let rays of truth enlight his sleeping brain.
For brutish Pan in vain might thee assay
With tinkling sounds to dash thy nervous verse,
Sound without sense; yet in his rude affray,
(For ignorance is Folly's leasing nurse
And love of Folly needs none other's curse)
Midas the praise hath gain'd of lengthen'd ears,
For which himself might deem him ne'er the worse
To sit in council with his modern peers,
And judge of tink...

I

Sinking down by the gate I discern the thin moon,
And a blackbird tries over old airs in the pine,
But the moon is a sorry one, sad the bird's tune,
For this spot is unknown to that Heartmate of mine.

II

Did my Heartmate but haunt here at times such as now,
The song would be joyous and cheerful the moon;
But she will see never this gate, path, or bough,
Nor I find a joy in the scene or the tune.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

But yesterday the earth drank like a child
With eager thirst the autumn rain.
Or like a wistful bride who waits the hour
Of love's mysterious bliss and pain.
And now the Spring is here with yearning eyes;
Midst shimmering golden flower-beds,
On meadows carpeted with varied hues,
In richest raiment clad, she treads.
She weaves a tapestry of bloom o'er all,
And myriad eyed young plants upspring,
White, green, or red like lips that to the mouth
Of the beloved one sweetly cling.
Whence come these radiant tints, these blended beams?
Here's such a dazzle, such a blaze,
As though each stole the splendor of the stars,
Fain to eclipse them with her rays.
Come! go we to the garden with our wine,
Which scatters sparks of hot desire,
Within our hand 't is cold, ...

My worthiness is all my doubt,
His merit all my fear,
Contrasting which, my qualities
Do lowlier appear;

Lest I should insufficient prove
For his beloved need,
The chiefest apprehension
Within my loving creed.

So I, the undivine abode
Of his elect content,
Conform my soul as 't were a church
Unto her sacrament.

I have sought Happiness, but it has been
A lovely rainbow, baffling all pursuit,
And tasted Pleasure, but it was a fruit
More fair of outward hue than sweet within.
Renouncing both, a flake in the ferment
Of battling hosts that conquer or recoil,
There only, chastened by fatigue and toil,
I knew what came the nearest to content.
For there at least my troubled flesh was free
From the gadfly Desire that plagued it so;
Discord and Strife were what I used to know,
Heartaches, deception, murderous jealousy;
By War transported far from all of these,
Amid the clash of arms I was at peace.

I.

Pessimist

There is never a thing we dream or do
But was dreamed and done in the ages gone;
Everything's old; there is nothing that's new,
And so it will be while the world goes on.

The thoughts we think have been thought before;
The deeds we do have long been done;
We pride ourselves on our love and lore
And both are as old as the moon and sun.

We strive and struggle and swink and sweat,
And the end for each is one and the same;
Time and the sun and the frost and wet
Will wear from its pillar the greatest name.

No answer comes for our prayer or curse,
No word replies though we shriek in air;
Ever the taciturn universe
Stretches unchanged for our curse or prayer.

With our mind's small light in the dark we crawl,<...

I sat on cushioned otter-skin:
My word was law from Ith to Emain,
And shook at Inver Amergin
The hearts of the world-troubling seamen,
And drove tumult and war away
From girl and boy and man and beast;
The fields grew fatter day by day,
The wild fowl of the air increased;
And every ancient Ollave said,
While he bent down his fading head.
"He drives away the Northern cold.'
i[They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech leaves old.]
I sat and mused and drank sweet wine;
A herdsman came from inland valleys,
Crying, the pirates drove his swine
To fill their dark-beaked hollow galleys.
I called my battle-breaking men
And my loud brazen battle-cars
From rolling vale and rivery glen;
And under the blinking of the stars
Fell on the...

I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the
foam of the sea!
We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade
and flee;
And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low
on the rim of the sky,
Has awaken in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that
may not die.
A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled,
the lily and rose;
Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the
meteor that goes,
Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in
the fall of the dew:
For I would we were changed to white birds on the
wandering foam: I and you!
I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a
Danaan shore,
Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come
near us no more;
Soon far from the rose and the lily and fret of th...

I
I wonder do you feel to-day
As I have felt since, hand in hand,
We sat down on the grass, to stray
In spirit better through the land,
This morn of Rome and May?

II
For me, I touched a thought, I know,
Has tantalized me many times,
(Like turns of thread the spiders throw
Mocking across our path) for rhymes
To catch at and let go.

III
Help me to hold it! First it left
The yellowing fennel, run to seed
There, branching from the brickwork’s cleft,
Some old tomb’s ruin: yonder weed
Took up the floating weft,

IV
Where one small orange cup amassed
Five beetles, blind and green they grope
Among the honey-meal: and last,
Everywhere on the grassy slope
I traced it. Hold it fast!

V
The champaign with ...

What phantom is this that appears
Through the purple mist of the years,
    Itself but a mist like these?
A woman of cloud and of fire;
It is she; it is Helen of Tyre,
    The town in the midst of the seas.

O Tyre! in thy crowded streets
The phantom appears and retreats,
    And the Israelites that sell
Thy lilies and lions of brass,
Look up as they see her pass,
    And murmur "Jezebel!"

Then another phantom is seen
At her side, in a gray gabardine,
    With beard that floats to his waist;
It is Simon Magus, the Seer;
He speaks, and she pauses to hear
    The words he utters in haste.

He says: "From this evil fame,
From this life of sorrow and shame,
    I will lift thee and make thee mine;
Thou hast been Queen Canda...

In midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish,
Of the look at first of the mortally wounded - of that indescribable look;
Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide,
I dream, I dream, I dream.


Of scenes of nature, fields and mountains;
Of skies, so beauteous after a storm - and at night the moon so unearthly bright,
Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches and gather the heaps,
I dream, I dream, I dream.


Long, long have they pass'd - faces and trenches and fields;
Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure - or away from the fallen,
Onward I sped at the time - But now of their forms at night,
I dream, I dream, I dream.

My maiden she proved false to me;

To hate all joys I soon began,

Then to a flowing stream I ran,
The stream ran past me hastily.

There stood I fix'd, in mute despair;

My head swam round as in a dream;

I well-nigh fell into the stream,
And earth seem'd with me whirling there.

Sudden I heard a voice that cried

I had just turn'd my face from thence

It was a voice to charm each sense:
"Beware, for deep is yonder tide!"

A thrill my blood pervaded now,

I look'd and saw a beauteous maid

I asked her name twas Kate, she said
"Oh lovely Kate! how kind art thou!

"From death I have been sav'd by thee,

'Tis through thee only that I live;

Little 'twere life alone to give,
My j...

In those dark mornings, deep in June,
    When brooding birds stir in the nest,
And heavy dews slip down the leaves,
    And drop into the rose's breast,
I woke and looked into the east,
    And saw no sign of coming day,
The pale cold morning rolled in mist,
    Slept on the hill-tops far away.

My window looked into the dawn,
    The slumbering dawn that was so nigh,
The shadow of the hills was drawn
    In waving lines against the sky.
But warmer hues began to tip
    The edges of the mountain cloud
And morning's rosy cheek and lip
    Glowed softly through her snow-pale shroud.

I turned and gazed into the west,
    The river murmured in my ear
'Gone night, and silence, dreams and rest,
    Another day of toil is here.'

...