Identity

The little hedgerow birds,
That peck along the road, regard him not.
He travels on, and in his face, his step,
His gait, is one expression; every limb,
His look and bending figure, all bespeak
A man who does not move with pain, but moves
With thought. He is insensibly subdued
To settled quiet: he is one by whom
All effort seems forgotten; one to whom
Long patience hath such mild composure given
That patience now doth seem a thing of which
He hath no need. He is by nature led
To peace so perfect, that the young behold
With envy what the Old Man hardly feels.

We mix from many lands,
We march for very far;
In hearts and lips and hands
Our staffs and weapons are;
The light we walk in darkens sun and moon and star.

It doth not flame and wane
With years and spheres that roll,
Storm cannot shake nor stain
The strength that makes it whole,
The fire that moulds and moves it of the sovereign soul.

We are they that have to cope
With time till time retire;
We live on hopeless hope,
We feed on tears and fire;
Time, foot by foot, gives back before our sheer desire.

From the edge of harsh derision,
From discord and defeat,
From doubt and lame division,
We pluck the fruit and eat;
And the mouth finds it bitter, and the spirit sweet.

We strive with time at wrestling
Till time be on...

We two in the fever and fervour and glow
    Of life's high tide have rejoiced together;
We have looked out over the glittering snow,
    And known we were dwelling in Summer weather,
For the seasons are made by the heart I hold,
And not by outdoor heat or cold.

We two, in the shadows of pain and woe,
    Have journeyed together in dim, dark places,
Where black-robed Sorrow walked to and fro,
    And Fear and Trouble, with phantom faces,
Peered out upon us and froze our blood,
Though June's fair roses were all in bud.

We two have measured all depths, all heights,
    We have bathed in tears, we have sunned in laughter!
We have known all sorrows and delights -
    They never could keep us apart hereafter.
Whether your spirit went high or low,
M...

    It's snowing and all I can think of
    are leaves to wrap your memory,
    leaves pungent as tea,
    green curls alive
    with the promise of fire,
    shutes like fingers
    to play a tap on your skin.

    The snow is wet like your eyes at parting,
    cold as the promise of a winter dawn
    wet again as city-streets
    I must tread to make a living,
    the flask of wine
    pressed to my lips.

    On the winter landscape all
    I see is the ghost white of sheets,
    our sheets wrapped to keep breath warm
    the log cannisters of our bed
    a heady raft upon which to travel
    to burn up an ocean of delight.

Ye in the age gone by,
Who ruled the world a world how lovely then!
And guided still the steps of happy men
In the light leading-strings of careless joy!
Ah, flourished then your service of delight!
How different, oh, how different, in the day
When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright,
O Venus Amathusia!

Then, through a veil of dreams
Woven by song, truth's youthful beauty glowed,
And life's redundant and rejoicing streams
Gave to the soulless, soul where'r they flowed
Man gifted nature with divinity
To lift and link her to the breast of love;
All things betrayed to the initiate eye
The track of gods above!

Where lifeless fixed afar,
A flaming ball to our dull sense is given,
Phoebus Apollo, in his golden car,
In silent glo...

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn:
Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn.

'T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call,
Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall;

Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts,
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest,
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West.

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid.

Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime
With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;

When the centuries beh...

'Twas the height of the fete when we quitted the riot,
    And quietly stole to the terrace alone,
Where, pale as the lovers that ever swear by it,
    The moon it 
We stood there enchanted. - And O the delight of
    The sight of the stars and the moon and the sea,
And the infinite skies of that opulent night of
    Purple and gold and ivory!

The lisp of the lip of the ripple just under -
    The half-awake nightingale's dream in the yews -
Came up from the water, and down from the wonder
    Of shadowy foliage, drowsed with the dews, -
Unsteady the firefly's taper - unsteady
    The poise of the stars, and their light in the tide,
As it struggled and writhed in caress of the eddy,
    As love in the billowy breast of a ...

I have a dream
to fill the golden sheath
of a remembered day....
(Air
heavy and massed and blue
as the vapor of opium...
domes
fired in sulphurous mist...
sea
quiescent as a gray seal...
and the emerging sun
spurting up gold
over Sydney, smoke-pale, rising out of the bay....)
But the day is an up-turned cup
and its sun a junk of red iron
guttering in sluggish-green water -
where shall I pour my dream?

Fade off the ridges, rosy light,
Fade slowly from the last gray height,
And leave no gloomy cloud to grieve
The heart of this enchanted eve!

All things beneath the still sky seem
Bound by the spell of a sweet dream;
In the dusk forest, dreamingly,
Droops slowly down each plumèd head;
The river flowing softly by
Dreams of the sea; the quiet sea
Dreams of the unseen stars; and I
Am dreaming of the dreamless dead.

The river has a silken sheen,
But red rays of the sunset stain
Its pictures, from the steep shore caught,
Till shades of rock, and fern, and tree
Glow like the figures on a pane
Of some old church by twilight seen,
Or like the rich devices wrought
In mediaeval tapestry.

All lonely in a drifting boat
Through shi...

        The Spring has grown to Summer;
            The sun is fierce and high;
        The city shrinks, and withers
            Beneath the burning sky.
        Ailantus trees are fragrant,
            And thicker shadows cast,
        Where berry-girls, with voices shrill,
            And watering carts go past.

        In offices like ovens
            We sit without our coats;
        Our cuffs are moist and shapeless,
            No collars binds our throats.
        We carry huge umbrellas
            On Broad Street and on Wall,
        Oh, how thermometers go up!
            And, oh, how stocks do fall!

        The nights are full of music,
            Melodious Teuton troops
        Beguile us, calmly smoking,
      ...

Here, where the great hills fall away
To bays of silver sea,
I hold within my hand to-day
A wild thing, strange to me.

Behind me is the deep green dell
Where lives familiar light;
The leaves and flowers I know so well
Are gleaming in my sight.

And yonder is the mountain glen,
Where sings in trees unstirred
By breath of breeze or axe of men
The shining satin-bird.

The old weird cry of plover comes
Across the marshy ways,
And here the hermit hornet hums,
And here the wild bee strays.

No novel life or light I see,
On hill, in dale beneath:
All things around are known to me
Except this bit of heath.

This touching growth hath made me dream
It sends my soul afar
To where the Scottish mountains gleam
Ag...

She failed me at the tryst:
All the long afternoon
The golden day went by,
Until the rising moon;
But, as I waited on,
Turning my eyes about,
Aching for sight of her,
Until the stars came out, -
Maybe 'twas but a dream -
There close against my face,
"Beauty am I," said one,
"I come to take her place."

And then I understood
Why, all the waiting through,
The green had seemed so green,
The blue had seemed so blue,
The song of bird and stream
Had been so passing sweet,
For all the coming not
Of her forgetful feet;
And how my heart was tranced,
For all its lonely ache,
Gazing on mirrored rushes
Sky-deep in the lake.
Said Beauty: "Me you love,
You love her for my sake."

(Moon Poems for the Children/Fairy-tales for the Children)

    No man should stand before the moon
    To make sweet song thereon,
    With dandified importance,
    His sense of humor gone.

    Nay, let us don the motley cap,
    The jester's chastened mien,
    If we would woo that looking-glass
    And see what should be seen.

    O mirror on fair Heaven's wall,
    We find there what we bring.
    So, let us smile in honest part
    And deck our souls and sing.

    Yea, by the chastened jest alone
    Will ghosts and terrors pass,
    And fays, or suchlike friendly things,
    Throw kisses through the glass.

I lately fri'd, but now behold
I freeze as fast, and shake for cold.
And in good faith I'd thought it strange
T' have found in me this sudden change;
But that I understood by dreams
These only were but Love's extremes;
Who fires with hope the lover's heart,
And starves with cold the self-same part.

My son places his paint box in front of me
and asks me to draw a bird for him.
Into the color gray I dip the brush
and draw a square with locks and bars.
Astonishment fills his eyes:
"... But this is a prison, Father,
Don't you know, how to draw a bird?"
And I tell him: "Son, forgive me.
I've forgotten the shapes of birds."

My son puts the drawing book in front of me
and asks me to draw a wheatstalk.
I hold the pen
and draw a gun.
My son mocks my ignorance,
demanding,
"Don't you know, Father, the difference between a
wheatstalk and a gun?"
I tell him, "Son,
once I used to know the shapes of wheatstalks
the shape of the loaf
the shape of the rose
But in this hardened time
the trees of the forest have joined
the militia m...

So here are you, and here am I,
Where we may thank our gods to be;
Above the earth, beneath the sky,
Naked souls alive and free.
The autumn wind goes rustling by
And stirs the stubble at our feet;
Out of the west it whispering blows,
Stops to caress and onward goes,
Bringing its earthy odours sweet.
See with what pride the the setting sun
Kinglike in gold and purple dies,
And like a robe of rainbow spun
Tinges the earth with shades divine.
That mystic light is in your eyes
And ever in your heart will shine.

For some forty years, and over,
Poets had with me their way;
And they made me think that Sorrow
Owned the Night and owned the Day;
And the corpse beneath the clover
Had a hopeful word to say.

And they made me think that Sorrow
Was the Shadow in the Sun;
And they made me think To-morrow
Was a gift to everyone:
And the days I used to borrow,
Till my credit now is done.

And they told me softly, sweetly,
That, when Life had lost its glee,
I could be consoled completely

By the Forest or the Sea;
And they wrote their rhymes so neatly
That they quite deluded me.

But when Sorrow is at sorest,
And the heart weeps silently,
Is there healing in the Forest?
Is there solace in the Sea?
And the God whom thou adorest

To a good Man of most dear memory
This Stone is sacred. Here he lies apart
From the great city where he first drew breath,
Was reared and taught; and humbly earned his bread,
To the strict labours of the merchant's desk
By duty chained. Not seldom did those tasks
Tease, and the thought of time so spent depress,
His spirit, but the recompense was high;
Firm Independence, Bounty's rightful sire;
Affections, warm as sunshine, free as air;
And when the precious hours of leisure came,
Knowledge and wisdom, gained from converse sweet
With books, or while he ranged the crowded streets
With a keen eye, and overflowing heart:
So genius triumphed over seeming wrong,
And poured out truth in works by thoughtful love
Inspired works potent over smiles and tears.
And as...