Identity

Oh, I want to win me hame
    To my ain countrie,
The land frae whence I came
    Far away across the sea;
Bit I canna find it there, on the atlas anywhere,
And I greet and wonder sair
    Where the deil it can be?

I hae never met a man,
    In a' the warld wide,
Who has trod my native lan'
    Or its distant shores espied;
But they tell me there's a place where my hypothetic race
Its dim origin can trace,
    Tipperary-on-the-Clyde.

But anither answers: "Nae,
    Ye are varra far frae richt;
Glasgow town in Dublin Bay
    Is the spot we saw the licht."
But I dinna find the maps bearing out these pawkie chaps,
And I sometimes think perhaps
    It has vanished out o' sight.

Oh, I fain wad win me hame
    To that u...

HE

When you were mine, in auld lang syne,
And when none else your charms might ogle,
I'll not deny, fair nymph, that I
Was happier than a heathen mogul.

SHE

Before she came, that rival flame
(Had ever mater saucier filia?),
In those good times, bepraised in rhymes,
I was more famed than Mother Ilia.

HE

Chloe of Thrace! With what a grace
Does she at song or harp employ her!
I'd gladly die, if only I
Could live forever to enjoy her!

SHE

My Sybaris so noble is
That, by the gods, I love him madly!
That I might save him from the grave,
I'd give my life, and give it gladly!

HE

What if ma belle from favor fell,
And I made up my mind to shake her;
Would Lydia then co...

Letter VII. Hope.


I.

    O tears of mine! Ye start I know not why,
    Unless, indeed, to prove that I am glad,
    Albeit fast wedded to a thought so sad
    I scarce can deem that my despair will die,
    Or that the sun, careering up the sky,
    Will warm again a world that seem'd so mad.


II.

    And yet, who knows? The world is, to the mind,
    Much as we make it; and the things we tend
    Wear, for the nonce, the liveries that we lend.
    And some such things are fair, though ill-defined,
    And some are scathing, like...

(On Certain of the Bolsheviki "Idealists.")

With half the force and thought you waste in rage
    Over your neighbor's house, or heart of stone,
You might have built your own new heritage,
    O fools, have you no hands, then, of your own?

Where is your pride? Is this your answer still,
    This the red flag that burns above our strife,
This the new cry that rings from Pisgah hill,
    "Our neighbor's money, or our neighbor's life"?

Be prouder. Let us build that nobler state
    With our own hands, with our own muscle and brain!
Your very victories die in hymns of hate;
    And your own envies are your heaviest chain.

Is there no rebel proud enough to say
    "We'll stand on our own feet, and win the day"?

I

Ere-while of Musick, and Ethereal mirth,
Wherwith the stage of Ayr and Earth did ring,
And joyous news of heav'nly Infants birth,
My muse with Angels did divide to sing;
But headlong joy is ever on the wing,
In Wintry solstice like the shortn'd light
Soon swallow'd up in dark and long out-living night.

II

For now to sorrow must I tune my song,
And set my Harpe to notes of saddest wo,
Which on our dearest Lord did sease er'e long,
Dangers, and snares, and wrongs, and worse then so,
Which he for us did freely undergo.
Most perfect Heroe, try'd in heaviest plight
Of labours huge and hard, too hard for human wight.

III

He sov'ran Priest stooping his regall head
That dropt with odorous oil down his fair eyes,
Poor fles...

Within me are two souls that pity each
The other for the ends they seek, yet smile
Forgiveness, as two friends that love the while
The folly against which each feigns to preach.

And while one barters in the market-place,
Or drains the cup before the tavern fire,
The other, winged with a divine desire,
searches the solitary wastes of space.

And if o'ercome with pleasure this one sleeps,
The other steals away to lay its ear
Upon some lip just cold, perchance to hear
Those wondrous secrets which it knows and keeps!

Harmonious Powers with Nature work
On sky, earth, river, lake and sea;
Sunshine and cloud, whirlwind and breeze,
All in one duteous task agree.

Once did I see a slip of earth
(By throbbing waves long undermined)
Loosed from its hold; how, no one knew,
But all might see it float, obedient to the wind;

Might see it, from the mossy shore
Dissevered, float upon the Lake,
Float with its crest of trees adorned
On which the warbling birds their pastime take.

Food, shelter, safety, there they find;
There berries ripen, flowerets bloom;
There insects live their lives, and die;
A peopled world it is; in size a tiny room.

And thus through many seasons' space
This little Island may survive;
But Nature, though we mark her not,
Will ta...

Oh, what shall I do? I am wholly upset;
I am sure I 'll be jailed for a lunatic yet.
I 'll be out of a job--it's the thing to expect
When I 'm letting my duty go by with neglect.
You may judge the extent and degree of my plight
When I 'm thinking all day and a-dreaming all night,
And a-trying my hand at a rhyme on the sly,
All on account of a sparkling eye.

There are those who say men should be strong, well-a-day!
But what constitutes strength in a man? Who shall say?
I am strong as the most when it comes to the arm.
I have aye held my own on the playground or farm.
And when I 've been tempted, I haven't been weak;
But now--why, I tremble to hear a maid speak.
I used to be bold, but now I 've grown shy,
And all on account of a sparkling eye.

There ...

I've quench'd my lamp, I struck it in that start
Which every limb convulsed, I heard it fall,
The crash blent with my sleep, I saw depart
Its light, even as I woke, on yonder wall;
Over against my bed, there shone a gleam
Strange, faint, and mingling also with my dream.

It sank, and I am wrapt in utter gloom;
How far is night advanced, and when will day
Retinge the dusk and livid air with bloom,
And fill this void with warm, creative ray?
Would I could sleep again till, clear and red,
Morning shall on the mountain-tops be spread!

I'd call my women, but to break their sleep,
Because my own is broken, were unjust;
They've wrought all day, and well-earn'd slumbers steep
Their labours in forgetfulness, I trust;
Let me my feverish watch with patience be...

It may be for the world of weeds and tares
And dearth in Nature of sweet Beauty's rose
That oft as Fortune from ten thousand shows
One from the train of Love's true courtiers
Straightway on him who gazes, unawares,
Deep wonder seizes and swift trembling grows,
Reft by that sight of purpose and repose,
Hardly its weight his fainting breast upbears.
Then on the soul from some ancestral place
Floods back remembrance of its heavenly birth,
When, in the light of that serener sphere,
It saw ideal beauty face to face
That through the forms of this our meaner Earth
Shines with a beam less steadfast and less clear.

Rapt CONTEMPLATION, bring thy waking dreams
    To this umbrageous vale at noon-tide hour,
    While full of thee seems every bending flower,
    Whose petals tremble o'er the shadow'd streams!
Give thou HONORA's image, when her beams,
    Youth, beauty, kindness, shone; - what time she wore
    That smile, of gentle, yet resistless power
    To sooth each painful Passion's wild extremes.
Here shall no empty, vain Intruder chase,
    With idle converse, thy enchantment warm,
    That brings, in all its interest, all its grace,
The dear, persuasive, visionary Form.
    Can real Life a rival blessing boast
    When thou canst thus restore HONORA early lost?

Death himself in the rain . . . death himself . . .
Death in the savage sunlight . . . skeletal death . . .
I hear the clack of his feet,
Clearly on stones, softly in dust;
He hurries among the trees
Whirling the leaves, tossing he hands from waves.
Listen! the immortal footsteps beat.
Death himself in the grass, death himself,
Gyrating invisibly in the sun,
Scatters the grass-blades, whips the wind,
Tears at boughs with malignant laughter:
On the long echoing air I hear him run.
Death himself in the dusk, gathering lilacs,
Breaking a white-fleshed bough,
Strewing purple on a cobwebbed lawn,
Dancing, dancing,
The long red sun-rays glancing
On flailing arms, skipping with hideous knees
Cavorting grotesque ecstasies:
I do not see him, but I see th...

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

Memphis.


'Tis true, alas--the mysteries and the lore
I came to study on this, wondrous shore.
Are all forgotten in the new delights.
The strange, wild joys that fill my days and nights.
Instead of dark, dull oracles that speak
From subterranean temples, those I seek
Come from the breathing shrines where Beauty lives,
And Love, her priest, the soft responses gives.
Instead of honoring Isis in those rites
At Coptos held, I hail her when she lights
Her first young crescent on the holy stream--
When wandering youths and maidens watch her beam
And number o'er the nights she hath to run,
Ere she again embrace her bridegroom sun.
While o'er some mystic leaf that dimly lends
A clew into past times the stu...

(For A Fresco.)


Firstly thou, churl son of Janus,
Rough for cold, in drugget clad,
Com'st with rack and rheum to pain us;--
Firstly thou, churl son of Janus.
Caverned now is old Sylvanus;
Numb and chill are maid and lad.

After thee thy dripping brother,
Dank his weeds around him cling;
Fogs his footsteps swathe and smother,--
After thee thy dripping brother.
Hearth-set couples hush each other,
Listening for the cry of Spring.

Hark! for March thereto doth follow,
Blithe,--a herald tabarded;
O'er him flies the shifting swallow,--
Hark! for March thereto doth follow.
Swift his horn, by holt and hollow,
Wakes the flowers in winter dead.

Thou then, April, Iris' daughter,
Born between the storm and sun;
Coy as n...

I.

'Not a child: I call myself a boy,'
Says my king, with accent stern yet mild,
Now nine years have brought him change of joy;
'Not a child.'

How could reason be so far beguiled,
Err so far from sense's safe employ,
Stray so wide of truth, or run so wild?

Seeing his face bent over book or toy,
Child I called him, smiling: but he smiled
Back, as one too high for vain annoy -
Not a child.

II.

Not a child? alack the year!
What should ail an undefiled
Heart, that he would fain appear
Not a child?

Men, with years and memories piled
Each on other, far and near,
Fain again would so be styled:

Fain would cast off hope and fear,
Rest, forget, be reconciled:
Why would you so fain be, dear,
Not...

As some dusk mother shields from all alarms
    The tired child she gathers to her breast,
The brunette Night doth fold me in her arms,
    And hushes me to perfect peace and rest.
Her eyes of stars shine on me, and I hear
Her voice of winds low crooning on my ear.
O Night, O Night, how beautiful thou art!
Come, fold me closer to thy pulsing heart.

The day is full of gladness, and the light
    So beautifies the common outer things,
I only see with my external sight,
    And only hear the great world's voice which rings.
But silently from daylight and from din
The sweet Night draws me - whispers, "Look within!"
And looking, as one wakened from a dream,
I see what IS - no longer what doth seem.

The Night says, "Listen!" and upon my ear
    Reve...

When you consider the radiance, that it does not withhold
itself but pours its abundance without selection into every
nook and cranny not overhung or hidden; when you consider

that birds' bones make no awful noise against the light but
lie low in the light as in a high testimony; when you consider
the radiance, that it will look into the guiltiest

swervings of the weaving heart and bear itself upon them,
not flinching into disguise or darkening; when you consider
the abundance of such resource as illuminates the glow-blue

bodies and gold-skeined wings of flies swarming the dumped
guts of a natural slaughter or the coil of shit and in no
way winces from its storms of generosity; when you consider

that air or vacuum, snow or shale, squid or wolf, rose or lic...

To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that noble pair,
Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morison


It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures, life may perfect be.

Call, noble Lucius, then for wine,
And let thy looks with gladness shine:
Accept this garland, plant it on thy head,
And think—nay, know—thy Morison ’s not dead.
He leap’d the present age,
Possest with holy rage
To see that bright eternal Day
Of which we Priests and Poets say
Such trut...