Identity

Lais, when old and all her beauty gone,
Lais, the erstwhile courted pleasure queen,
Walked homeless through Corinth.
    One mocked her mien -
One tossed her coins; she took them and passed on.
Down by the harbour sloped a terraced lawn,
    Where fountains played; she paused to view the scene.
    A marble palace stood in bowers of green
'Twas here of old she revelled till the dawn.

Through yonder portico her lovers came -
    Hero and statesman, athlete, merchant, sage;
    They flung the whole world's treasures at her feet
To buy her favour and exalt her shame.

* * *

She spat upon her dole of coins in rage
    And faded like a phantom down the street.

1.
The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon's transparent might,
The breath of the moist earth is light,
Around its unexpanded buds;
Like many a voice of one delight,
The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,
The City's voice itself, is soft like Solitude's.

2.
I see the Deep's untrampled floor
With green and purple seaweeds strown;
I see the waves upon the shore,
Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:
I sit upon the sands alone, -
The lightning of the noontide ocean
Is flashing round me, and a tone
Arises from its measured motion,
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

3.
Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
Nor peace wit...

At the time when the stars are grey,
And the gold of the molten moon
Fades, and the twilight is thinned,
And the sun leaps up, and the wind,
A light rose, not of the day,
A stronger light than of noon.

As the light of a face much loved
Was the face of the light that clomb;
As a mother’s whitened with woes
Her adorable head that arose;
As the sound of a God that is moved,
Her voice went forth upon Rome.

At her lips it fluttered and failed
Twice, and sobbed into song,
And sank as a flame sinks under;
Then spake, and the speech was thunder,
And the cheek as he heard it paled
Of the wrongdoer grown grey with the wrong.

“Is it time, is it time appointed,
Angel of time, is it near?
For the spent night aches into day
When th...

SEVEN YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH

I shiver, Spirit fierce and bold,
At thought of what I now behold:
As vapours breathed from dungeons cold,
Strike pleasure dead,
So sadness comes from out the mould
Where Burns is laid.

And have I then thy bones so near,
And thou forbidden to appear?
As if it were thyself that's here
I shrink with pain;
And both my wishes and my fear
Alike are vain.

Off weight, nor press on weight! away
Dark thoughts! they came, but not to stay;
With chastened feelings would I pay
The tribute due
To him, and aught that hides his clay
From mortal view.

Fresh as the flower, whose modest worth
He sang, his genius "glinted" forth,
Rose like a star that touching earth,
For so it seems,
Doth glori...

I think and think: yet still I fail -
Why must this lady wear a veil?
Why thus elect to mask her face
Beneath that dainty web of lace?
The tip of a small nose I see,
And two red lips, set curiously
Like twin-born berries on one stem,
And yet, she has netted even them.
Her eyes, 'tis plain, survey with ease
Whate'er to glance upon they please.
Yet, whether hazel, gray, or blue,
Or that even lovelier lilac hue,
I cannot guess: why - why deny
Such beauty to the passer-by?
Out of a bush a nightingale
May expound his song; from 'neath that veil
A happy mouth no doubt can make
English sound sweeter for its sake.
But then, why muffle in like this
What every blossomy wind would kiss?
Why in that little night disguise
A daybreak face, those sta...

"It was not you I came to please,
Only myself," flipped she;
"I like this spot of phantasies,
And thought you far from me."
But O, he was the secret spell
That led her to the lea!

"It was not she who shaped my ways,
Or works, or thoughts," he said.
"I scarcely marked her living days,
Or missed her much when dead."
But O, his joyance knew its knell
When daisies hid her head!

    Their spirits beat upon mine
    Like the wings of a thousand butterflies.
    I closed my eyes and felt their spirits vibrating.
    I closed my eyes, yet I knew when their lashes
    Fringed their cheeks from downcast eyes,
    And when they turned their heads;
    And when their garments clung to them,
    Or fell from them, in exquisite draperies.
    Their spirits watched my ecstasy
    With wide looks of starry unconcern.
    Their spirits looked upon my torture;
    They drank it as it were the water of life;
    With reddened cheeks, brightened eyes,
    The rising flame of my soul made their spirits gilt,
    Like the wings of a butterfly drifting suddenly into sunlight.
    And they cried to me for life, life, life.
    But in taking life for mys...

The massy Ways, carried across these heights
By Roman perseverance, are destroyed,
Or hidden under ground, like sleeping worms.
How venture then to hope that Time will spare
This humble Walk? Yet on the mountain's side
A Poet's hand first shaped it; and the steps
Of that same Bard, repeated to and fro
At morn, at noon, and under moonlight skies
Through the vicissitudes of many a year
Forbade the weeds to creep o'er its grey line.
No longer, scattering to the heedless winds
The vocal raptures of fresh poesy,
Shall he frequent these precincts; locked no more
In earnest converse with beloved Friends,
Here will he gather stores of ready bliss,
As from the beds and borders of a garden
Choice flowers are gathered! But, if Power may spring
Out of a farewell year...

Shuffle-shoon and Amber-Locks
Sit together, building blocks;
Shuffle-Shoon is old and gray,
Amber-Locks a little child,
But together at their play
Age and Youth are reconciled,
And with sympathetic glee
Build their castles fair to see.

"When I grow to be a man"
(So the wee one's prattle ran),
"I shall build a castle so -
With a gateway broad and grand;
Here a pretty vine shall grow,
There a soldier guard shall stand;
And the tower shall be so high,
Folks will wonder, by and by!"

Shuffle-Shoon quoth: "Yes, I know;
Thus I builded long ago!
Here a gate and there a wall,
Here a window, there a door;
Here a steeple wondrous tall
Riseth ever more and more!
But the years have leveled low
What I builded long ago!"

I'm pardoned out.    Again the stars
    Shine on me with their myriad eyes.
So long I've peered 'twixt iron bars,
    I'm awed by this expanse of skies.
The world is wider than I thought,
    And yet 'tis not so wide, I know,
But into its remotest spot
    My tale of shame can go.

I'm pardoned out.    Old Father Time
    Who seemed to halt in horror, when
I stained my manhood by a crime,
    With steady step moves on again,
And through the black appalling night,
    That walled me in a gloom accurst,
The wonder of the morning light
    In sudden glory burst.

I'm pardoned out.    I shall be known
    No more by number, but by name.
And yet each whispering wind has blown
    Abroad the story of my shame.
I dread to see men shrink...

"Cornel, cornel, green and white,
Spreading on the forest floor,
Whither went my lost delight
Through the silent door?"

"Mortal, mortal, overfond,
How come you at all to know
There be any joys beyond
Blisses here and now?"

"Cornel, cornel, white and cool,
Many a mortal, I've heard tell,
Who is only Fancy's fool
Knows that secret well."

"Mortal, mortal, what would you
With that beauty once was yours?
Perishable is the dew,
And the dust endures."

"Cornel, cornel, pierce me not
With your sweet, reserved disdain!
Whisper me of things forgot
That shall be again."

"Mortal, we are kinsmen, led
By a hope beyond our reach.
Know you not the word unsaid
Is the flower of speech?"

All the snowy blo...

I
Queen born of the sea, that hast borne her
The mightiest of seamen on earth,
Bright England, whose glories adorn her
And bid her rejoice in thy birth
As others made mothers
Rejoice in births sublime,
She names thee, she claims thee,
The lordliest child of time.

II
All hers is the praise of thy story,
All thine is the love of her choice
The light of her waves is thy glory,
The sound of thy soul is her voice.
They fear it who hear it
And love not truth nor thee:
They sicken, heart-stricken,
Who see and would not see.

III
The lords of thy fate, and thy keepers
Whose charge is the strength of thy ships,
If now they be dreamers and sleepers,
Or sluggards with lies at their lips,
Thy haters and traitors,
False fr...

I am the maid of the lustrous eyes
Of great fruition,
Whom the sons of men that are over-wise
Have called Ambition.

And the world's success is the only goal
I have within me;
The meanest man with the smallest soul
May woo and win me.

For the lust of power and the pride of place
To all I proffer.
Wilt thou take thy part in the crowded race
For what I offer?

The choice is thine, and the world is wide,
Thy path is lonely.
I may not lead and I may not guide,
I urge thee only.

I am just a whip and a spur that smites
To fierce endeavour.
In the restless days and the sleepless nights
I urge thee ever.

Thou shalt wake from sleep with a startled cry,
In fright unleaping
At a rival's step as it passes by
W...

O, why should nature niggardly restrain
That foreign nations relish not our tongue?
Else should my lines glide on the waves of Rhine,
And crown the Pyren's with my living song.
    But bounded thus, to Scotland get you forth!
Thence take you wing unto the Orcades!
There let my verse get glory in the north,
Making my sighs to thaw the frozen seas.
    And let the bards within that Irish isle,
To whom my Muse with fiery wings shall pass,
Call back the stiff-necked rebels from exile,
And mollify the slaughtering gallowglass;
    And when my flowing numbers they rehearse,
    Let wolves and bears be charmèd with my verse.

I

There were Faëries two or three,
And a high moon white as wool,
Or a bloom in Faëry,
Where the star-thick blossoms be
Star-like beautiful.


II

There were Faëries two or three,
And a wind as fragrant as
Spicy wafts from Arcady
Rocked the sleeping honey bee
In the clover grass.


III

There were Faëries two or three,
Wee white caps and red wee shoon,
Buckles at each dainty knee,
"We are come to comfort thee,
With the silver moon."


IV

There were Faëries two or three,
Buttercups brimmed up with dew,
Winning faces sweet to see,
Then mine eyes closed heavily:
"Faëries, what would you?"


V

There were Faëries two or three,
And my babe was dreami...

Of him I love day and night, I dream'd I heard he was dead;
And I dream'd I went where they had buried him I love - but he was not in that place;
And I dream'd I wander'd, searching among burial-places, to find him;
And I found that every place was a burial-place;
The houses full of life were equally full of death, (this house is now;)
The streets, the shipping, the places of amusement, the Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, the Mannahatta, were as full of the dead as of the living,
And fuller, O vastly fuller, of the dead than of the living;
And what I dream'd I will henceforth tell to every person and age,
And I stand henceforth bound to what I dream'd;
And now I am willing to disregard burial-places, and dispense with them;
And if the memorials of the dead were put up indifferently everywhe...

1.
Arethusa arose
From her couch of snows
In the Acroceraunian mountains, -
From cloud and from crag,
With many a jag,
Shepherding her bright fountains.
She leapt down the rocks,
With her rainbow locks
Streaming among the streams; -
Her steps paved with green
The downward ravine
Which slopes to the western gleams;
And gliding and springing
She went, ever singing,
In murmurs as soft as sleep;
The Earth seemed to love her,
And Heaven smiled above her,
As she lingered towards the deep.

2.
Then Alpheus bold,
On his glacier cold,
With his trident the mountains strook;
And opened a chasm
In the rocks - with the spasm
All Erymanthus shook.
And the black south wind
It unsealed behind
The urns of the sil...

I.

All desolate she sate her down
Upon the marble of the temple's stair.
You would have thought her, with her eyes of brown,
Flushed cheeks and hazel hair,
A dryad dreaming there.

II.

A priest of Bacchus passed, nor stopped
To chide her; deeming her whose chiton hid
But half her bosom, and whose girdle dropped
Some grief-drowned Bassarid,
The god of wine had chid.

III.

With wreaths of woodland cyclamen
For Dian's shrine, a shepherdess drew near,
All her young thoughts on vestal beauty, when
She dare not look for fear
Behold the goddess here!

IV.

Fierce lights on shields of bossy brass
And helms of gold, next from the hills deploy
Tall youths of Argos. And she sees him pass,
Flushed with he...