Identity

Hear you r o music in the creaks
    Made by the sallow grasshopper,
Who in the hot weeds sharply breaks
    The mellow dryness with his cheer?
    Or did you by the hearthstones hear
The cricket's kind, shrill strain when frost
    Worked mysteries of silver near
Upon the casement's panes, and lost
Without the gate-post seemed a sheeted ghost?

Or through the dank, dim Springtide's night
    Green minstrels of the marshlands tune
Their hoarse lyres in the pale twilight,
    Hailing the sickle of the moon
    From flag-thronged pools that glassed her lune?
Or in the Summer, dry and loud,
    The hard cicada whirr aboon
His long lay in a poplar's cloud,
When the thin heat rose wraith-like in a shroud?

The cloud that lids the naked moon,

The wind was on the forest,
And silence on the wold;
And darkness on the waters,
And heaven was starry cold;
When Sleep, with mystic magic,
Bade me this thing behold:

This side, an iron woodland;
That side, an iron waste;
And heaven, a tower of iron,
Wherein the wan moon paced,
Still as a phantom woman,
Ice-eyed and icy-faced.

And through the haunted tower
Of silence and of night,
My Soul and I went only,
My Soul, whose face was white,
Whose one hand signed me listen,
One bore a taper-light.

For, lo! a voice behind me
Kept sighing in my ear
The dreams my flesh accepted,
My mind refused to hear -
Of one I loved and loved not,
Whose spirit now spake near.

And, lo! a voice before me
Kept calling...

    I, too, saw God through mud--
        The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled.
        War brought more glory to their eyes than blood,
        And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.

    Merry it was to laugh there--
        Where death becomes absurd and life absurder.
        For power was on us as we slashed bones bare
        Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder.

    I, too, have dropped off fear--
        Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon,
        And sailed my spirit surging, light and clear
        Past the entanglement where hopes lay strewn;

    And witnessed exultation--
        Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl,
        Shine and lift up with passion of oblation,
        Seraphic for an...

How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics?
Yet here's a travelled man that knows
What he talks about,
And there's a politician
That has read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war's alarms,
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms!

Some poets sing of sweethearts dead,
    Some sing of true loves far away;
Some sing of those that others wed,
    And some of idols turned to clay.
    I sing a pensive roundelay
To sweethearts of a doubtful lot,
    The passions vanished in a day,
The little loves that I've forgot.

For, as the happy years have sped,
    And golden dreams have changed to gray,
How oft the flame of love was fed
    By glance, or smile, from Maud or May,
    When wayward Cupid was at play;
Mere fancies, formed of who knows what,
    But still my debt I ne'er can pay,
The little loves that I've forgot.

O joyous hours forever fled!
    O sudden hopes that would not stay!
Held only by the slender thread
    Of memory that's all astray.
    Their ver...

'Twere sweet to have a comrade here,
Who'd vow to love this garreteer,
By city people's snap and sneer
Tried oft and hard!

We'd rove a truant cock and hen
To some snug solitary glen,
And never be seen to haunt again
This teeming yard.

Within a cot of thatch and clay
We'd list the flitting pipers play,
Our lives a twine of good and gay
Enwreathed discreetly;

Our blithest deeds so neighbouring wise
That doves should coo in soft surprise,
"These must belong to Paradise
Who live so sweetly."

Our clock should be the closing flowers,
Our sprinkle-bath the passing showers,
Our church the alleyed willow bowers,
The truth our theme;

And infant shapes might soon abound:
Their shining heads would dot us round
Li...

And they were stronger hands than mine
That digged the Ruby from the earth,
More cunning brains that made it worth
The large desire of a king,
And stouter hearts that through the brine
Went down the perfect Pearl to bring.

Lo, I have wrought in common clay
Rude figures of a rough-hewn race,
Since pearls strew not the market-place
In this my town of banishment,
Where with the shifting dust I play,
And eat the bread of discontent.

Yet is there life in that I make.
0 thou who knowest, turn and see,
As thou hast power over me
So have I power over these,
Because I wrought them for thy sake,
And breathed in them mine agonies.

Small mirth was in the making now
I lift the cloth that cloaks the clay,
And, wearied, at thy feet I lay...

Pensive and faltering,
The words, the dead, I write;
For living are the Dead;
(Haply the only living, only real,
And I the apparition - I the spectre.)

I am jet black, as you may see,
    The son of pitch and gloomy night:
Yet all that know me will agree,
    I'm dead except I live in light.

Sometimes in panegyric high,
    Like lofty Pindar, I can soar;
And raise a virgin to the sky,
    Or sink her to a pocky whore.

My blood this day is very sweet,
    To-morrow of a bitter juice;
Like milk, 'tis cried about the street,
    And so applied to different use.

Most wondrous is my magic power:
    For with one colour I can paint;
I'll make the devil a saint this hour,
    Next make a devil of a saint.

Through distant regions I can fly,
    Provide me but with paper wings;
And fairly show a reason why
    There should be quarrels among kings:

And, after all, you'l...

(With apologies to the singer of the "Song of the Banjo".)


I'm a homely little bit of tin and bone;
I'm beloved by the Legion of the Lost;
I haven't got a "vox humana" tone,
And a dime or two will satisfy my cost.
I don't attempt your high-falutin' flights;
I am more or less uncertain on the key;
But I tell you, boys, there's lots and lots of nights
When you've taken mighty comfort out of me.

I weigh an ounce or two, and I'm so small
You can pack me in the pocket of your vest;
And when at night so wearily you crawl
Into your bunk and stretch your limbs to rest,
You take me out and play me soft and low,
The simple songs that trouble your heartstrings;
The tunes you used to fancy long ago,
Before you made a rotten mess of things.

The...

My friend the Sun--like all my friends
Inconstant, lovely, far away -
Is out, and bright, and condescends
To glory in our holiday.

A furious march with him I'll go
And race him in the Western train,
And wake the hills of long ago
And swim the Devon sea again.

I have done foolishly to head
The footway of the false moonbeams,
To light my lamp and call the dead
And read their long black printed dreams.

I have done foolishly to dwell
With Fear upon her desert isle,
To take my shadowgraph to Hell,
And then to hope the shades would smile.

And since the light must fail me soon
(But faster, faster, Western train!)
Proud meadows of the afternoon,
I have remembered you again.

And I'll go seek through moor and dale
A...

Dolci ire, dolci sdegni e dolci paci.

HE CONSOLES HIMSELF WITH THE THOUGHT THAT HE WILL BE ENVIED BY POSTERITY.


    Sweet scorn, sweet anger, and sweet misery,
Forgiveness sweet, sweet burden, and sweet ill;
Sweet accents that mine ear so sweetly thrill,
That sweetly bland, now sweetly fierce can be.
Mourn not, my soul, but suffer silently;
And those embitter'd sweets thy cup that fill
With the sweet honour blend of loving still
Her whom I told: "Thou only pleasest me."
Hereafter, moved with envy, some may say:
"For that high-boasted beauty of his day
Enough the bard has borne!" then heave a sigh.
Others: "Oh! why, most hostile Fortune, why
Could not these eyes that lovely form survey?
Why was she early born, or wherefore late was I?"
...

    I'd rather sit here, Mr. Sheriff - up near to the end of the car;
    We won't do so much advertising if we stay in the seat where we are.
    That sweet little dude saw the bracelets that you on my wrists have bestowed,
    And tells the new passengers promptly you're "taking me over the road."
    I've had a well-patronized trial - the neighbors all know of my fall;
    But when I get out among strangers I'm sensitive-like, after all.

    For I was a lad of good prospects, some three or four summers ago -
    There wasn't any boy in our township who made a more promising show!
    I learned all of Solomon's proverbs, and took in their goodness and worth,
    Till I felt like a virtue-hooped barrel, chock-full of the salt of the earth.
    And this precious picnic of sorrow woul...

Oh, roses, roses everywhere but only one for me!
But one wild-rose for me, my boy, your face that's like the morn's;
My rose of roses, dear my lad, my dark-eyed Romany;
The world may keep its roses now, that gave me only thorns.

Oh, song and singing everywhere; the woods are wild with song:
One simple song I knew, my lad, you crooned it in my ears;
It cheered my way by night and day; but, oh, the way was long!
And all the hard world gave to me was evil words and sneers.

Oh, song and blossoms everywhere and nature full of love:
But one sweet look of love was mine, and that you gave, my joy:
A look of love, a look of trust they helped my heart enough;
They helped me bear the look of scorn, the world's black look, my boy.

Oh, spring and love are everywhere; soft br...

HE.

Canst thou give, oh fair and matchless maiden,

'Neath the shadow of the lindens yonder,

Where I'd fain one moment cease to wander,
Food and drink to one so heavy laden?

SHE.

Wouldst thou find refreshment, traveller weary,

Bread, ripe fruit and cream to meet thy wishes,

None but Nature's plain and homely dishes,
Near the spring may soothe thy wanderings dreary.

HE.

Dreams of old acquaintance now pass through me,

Ne'er-forgotten queen of hours of blisses.

Likenesses I've often found, but this is
One that quite a marvel seemeth to me!

SHE.

Travellers often wonder beyond measure,

But their wonder soon see cause to smother;

Fair and dark are often like each other...

The miracle of our land's speech so known
And long received, none marvel when 'tis shown!

We have such wealth as Rome at her most pride
Had not or (having) scattered not so wide;
Nor with such arrant prodigality,
Beneath her any pagan's foot let lie...
Lo! Diamond that cost some half their days
To find and t'other half to bring to blaze:
Rubies of every heat, wherethrough we scan
The fiercer and more fiery heart of man:
Emerald that with the uplifted billow vies,
And Sapphires evening remembered skies:
Pearl perfect, as immortal tears must show,
Bred, in deep waters, of a piercing woe;
And tender Turkis, so with charms y-writ,
Of woven gold, Time dares not bite on it.
Thereafter, in all manners worked and set,
Jade, coral, amber, crystal ivories, je...

Were I an artist, Lydia, I
Would paint you as you merit,
Not as my eyes, but dreams, descry;
Not in the flesh, but spirit.

The canvas I would paint you on
Should be a bit of heaven;
My brush, a sunbeam; pigments, dawn
And night and starry even.

Your form and features to express,
Likewise your soul's chaste whiteness,
I'd take the primal essences
Of darkness and of brightness.

I'd take pure night to paint your hair;
Stars for your eyes; and morning
To paint your skin--the rosy air
That is your limbs' adorning.

To paint the love-bows of your lips,
I'd mix, for colors, kisses;
And for your breasts and finger-tips,
Sweet odors and soft blisses.

And to complete the picture well,
I'd temper all with woman,--

Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand,
For I am drowning in a stormier sea
Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee:
The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,
My heart is as some famine-murdered land
Whence all good things have perished utterly,
And well I know my soul in Hell must lie
If I this night before God's throne should stand.
'He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,
Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name
From morn to noon on Carmel's smitten height.'
Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,
The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,
The wounded hands, the weary human face.