Identity

Tho' Artemisia talks, by fits,
Of councils, classics, fathers, wits;
Reads Malbranche, Boyle, and Locke;
Yet in some things methinks she fails,
'Twere well if she would pare her nails,
And wear a cleaner smock.

Haughty and huge as High-Dutch bride,
Such nastiness, and so much pride
Are oddly join'd by fate:
On her large squab you find her spread,
Like a fat corpse upon a bed,
That lies and stinks in state.

She wears no colours (sign of grace)
On any part except her face;
All white and black beside:
Dauntless her look, her gesture proud,
Her voice theatrically loud,
And masculine her stride.

So have I seen, in black and white
A prating thing, a Magpye hight,
Majestically stalk;
A stately, worthless animal,
That pl...

Thy verdant scenes, O Goulder's hill,
Once more I seek, a languid guest:
With throbbing temples and with burden'd breast
Once more I climb thy steep aerial way.
O faithful cure of oft-returning ill,
Now call thy sprightly breezes round,
Dissolve this rigid cough profound,
And bid the springs of life with gentler movement play.
How gladly 'mid the dews of dawn
My weary lungs thy healing gale,
The balmy west or the fresh north, inhale!
How gladly, while my musing footsteps rove
Round the cool orchard or the sunny lawn,
Awak'd I stop, and look to find
What shrub perfumes the pleasant wind,
Or what wild songster charms the Dryads of the grove.

Now, ere the morning walk is done,
The distant voice of health I hear
Welcome as beauty's to the lover's e...

    Youth has no fear of ill, by no cloudy days annoyed,
    But the old man's all hath fled, and his hopes have met their doom:
    The bud hath burst to flower, and the flower been long destroyed,
    The root also is withered; I no more can look for bloom.
    So I have said my say, and I have had my day,
    And sorrow, like a young storm, creeps dark upon my brow;
    Hopes, like to summer clouds, have all blown far away,
    And the world's sunny side is turned over with me now,
    And I am left a lame bird upon a withered bough.

    I look upon the past: 't is as black as winter days,
    But the worst is not yet over; there are blacker, days to come.
    O, I would I had but known of the wide world's many ways,
    But youth is ever blind, so I e'en must meet my do...

    I was among multitudes of children
    Dancing at the foot of a mountain.
    A breeze blew out of the east and swept them as leaves,
    Driving some up the slopes. . . .
    All was changed.
    Here were flying lights, and mystic moons, and dream-music.
    A cloud fell upon us.
    When it lifted all was changed.
    I was now amid multitudes who were wrangling.
    Then a figure in shimmering gold, and one with a trumpet,
    And one with a sceptre stood before me.
    They mocked me and danced a rigadoon and vanished. . . .
    All was changed again.
    Out of a bower of poppies
    A woman bared her breasts and lifted her open mouth to mine.
    I kissed her.
    The taste of her lips was like salt.
    She left blood on my lips.
    I fe...

The silent shepherdess,
    She of my vows,
Here with me exchanging love
    Under dim boughs.

Shines on our mysteries
    A sudden spark,
"Dout the candle, glow-worm,
    Let all be dark.

"The birds have sung their last notes,
    The Sun's to bed,
Glow-worm, dout your candle."
    The glow-worm said:

"I also am a lover;
    The lamp I display
Is beacon for my true love
    Wandering astray.

"Through the thick bushes
    And the grass comes she
With a heartload of longing
    And love for me.

"Sir, enjoy your fancy,
    But spare me harm,
A lover is a lover,
    Though but a worm."

I read your name when you were strange to me,
Where it stood blazoned bold with many more;
I passed it vacantly, and did not see
Any great glory in the shape it wore.

O cruelty, the insight barred me then!
Why did I not possess me with its sound,
And in its cadence catch and catch again
Your nature's essence floating therearound?

Could THAT man be this I, unknowing you,
When now the knowing you is all of me,
And the old world of then is now a new,
And purpose no more what it used to be -
A thing of formal journeywork, but due
To springs that then were sealed up utterly?

1867.

THE FIRST VOICE


He trilled a carol fresh and free,
He laughed aloud for very glee:
There came a breeze from off the sea:

It passed athwart the glooming flat,
It fanned his forehead as he sat,
It lightly bore away his hat,

All to the feet of one who stood
Like maid enchanted in a wood,
Frowning as darkly as she could.

With huge umbrella, lank and brown,
Unerringly she pinned it down,
Right through the centre of the crown.

Then, with an aspect cold and grim,
Regardless of its battered rim,
She took it up and gave it him.

A while like one in dreams he stood,
Then faltered forth his gratitude
In words just short of being rude:

For it had lost its shape and shine,
And it had cost him four-and-nine,...

    "She gallops night by night through lovers' brains...."

    I see grindstones in the sky,
    pots of tulips overturned
    - big tug of the reins
    and chestnut hair
    is seen before the windowpane
    with chance & more chance lost to
    frost or hungry bees
    this still autumn eve.

    Darling,
    walls that division us
    are envelopes of passion
    bridging trust, seal it
    lest it rust.

    Skeletal scrapings
    make for poor bedding
    (this poor rhinoceros of lies)
    the devil gliding about so disguised
    on his tentacle and toenail chair
    (inviting lair) or is it
    hiccup and bandaged prayer
    yet stalwart wall is a rosary bead
    thick ale and bread to hungry snail

'The Dream'

    All round the knoll, on days of quietest air,
    Secrets are being told; and if the trees
    Speak out - let them make uproar loud as drums -
    'Tis secrets still, shouted instead of whisper'd.

        There must have been a warning given once:
    No tree, on pain of withering and sawfly,
    To reach the slimmest of his snaky toes
    Into this mounded sward and rumple it;
    All trees stand back: taboo is on this soil. -

        The trees have always scrupulously obeyed.
    The grass, that elsewhere grows as best it may
    Under the larches, countable long nesh blades,
    Here in clear sky pads the ground thick and close
    As wool upon a Southdown wether's back;
    And as in Southdown wool, your hand must sink
  ...

Pigmy seraphs gone astray,
Velvet people from Vevay,
Belles from some lost summer day,
Bees' exclusive coterie.
Paris could not lay the fold
Belted down with emerald;
Venice could not show a cheek
Of a tint so lustrous meek.
Never such an ambuscade
As of brier and leaf displayed
For my little damask maid.
I had rather wear her grace
Than an earl's distinguished face;
I had rather dwell like her
Than be Duke of Exeter
Royalty enough for me
To subdue the bumble-bee!

I don't believe in 'ristercrats
An' never did, you see;
The plain ol' homelike sorter folks
Is good enough fur me.
O' course, I don't desire a man
To be too tarnal rough,
But then, I think all folks should know
When they air nice enough.

Now there is folks in this here world,
From peasant up to king,
Who want to be so awful nice
They overdo the thing.
That's jest the thing that makes me sick,
An' quicker 'n a wink
I set it down that them same folks
Ain't half so good 's you think.

I like to see a man dress nice,
In clothes becomin' too;
I like to see a woman fix
As women orter to do;
An' boys an' gals I like to see
Look fresh an' young an' spry.--
We all must have our vanity
An' pride before we die.

But...

The circle is broken, one seat is forsaken,
One bud from the tree of our friendship is shaken;
One heart from among us no longer shall thrill
With joy in our gladness, or grief in our ill.

Weep! lonely and lowly are slumbering now
The light of her glances, the pride of her brow;
Weep! sadly and long shall we listen in vain
To hear the soft tones of her welcome again.

Give our tears to the dead! For humanity's claim
From its silence and darkness is ever the same;
The hope of that world whose existence is bliss
May not stifle the tears of the mourners of this.

For, oh! if one glance the freed spirit can throw
On the scene of its troubled probation below,
Than the pride of the marble, the pomp of the dead,
To that glance will be dearer the tears whic...

Here, in mine old-time harbourage installed,
Lulled by the murmurous hum of London's traffic
To that full calm which may be justly called
Seraphic,

I praise the gods; and vow, for my escape
From the hard grip of premature Jehannun,
One golden-tissued bottle of the grape
Per annum.

For on this day, from Orient toils enlarged,
Kneeling, I kissed the parent soil at Dover,
Where a huge porter in his orbit charged
Me over;

Flashed in the train by Shorncliffe's draughty camp;
Gazed on the hurrying landscape's pastoral graces,
Old farms, and happy fields (a trifle damp
In places);

Passed the grim suburbs, indigent and bare
Of natural foliage, but bravely flying
Frank garlandry of last week's underwear
Out drying;

And ...

Take hands and part with laughter;
Touch lips and part with tears;
Once more and no more after,
Whatever comes with years.
We twain shall not remeasure
The ways that left us twain;
Nor crush the lees of pleasure
From sanguine grapes of pain.

We twain once well in sunder,
What will the mad gods do
For hate with me, I wonder,
Or what for love with you?
Forget them till November,
And dream there’s April yet;
Forget that I remember,
And dream that I forget.

Time found our tired love sleeping,
And kissed away his breath;
But what should we do weeping,
Though light love sleep to death?
We have drained his lips at leisure,
Till there’s not left to drain
A single sob of pleasure,
A single pulse of pain.

Dream t...

Hark where the bells toll, chiming, dull and steady,
The clock's slow hand hath reached the appointed time.
Well, be it so prepare, my soul is ready,
Companions of the grave the rest for crime!
Now take, O world! my last farewell receiving
My parting kisses in these tears they dwell!
Sweet are thy poisons while we taste believing,
Now we are quits heart-poisoner, fare-thee-well!

Farewell, ye suns that once to joy invited,
Changed for the mould beneath the funeral shade;
Farewell, farewell, thou rosy time delighted,
Luring to soft desire the careless maid,
Pale gossamers of gold, farewell, sweet dreaming
Fancies the children that an Eden bore!
Blossoms that died while dawn itself was gleaming,
Opening in happy sunlight never more.

Swanlike the robe ...

Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!

A prisoner in a dungeon deep
Sat musing silently;
His head was rested on his hand,
His elbow on his knee.

Turned he his thoughts to future times
Or are they backward cast?
For freedom is he pining now
Or mourning for the past?

No, he has lived so long enthralled
Alone in dungeon gloom
That he has lost regret and hope,
Has ceased to mourn his doom.

He pines not for the light of day
Nor sighs for freedom now;
Such weary thoughts have ceased at length
To rack his burning brow.

Lost in a maze of wandering thoughts
He sits unmoving there;
That posture and that look proclaim
The stupor of despair.

Yet not for ever did that mood
Of sullen calm prevail;
There was a something in his eye
That told another ...

Two fairies it was
On a still summer day
Came forth in the woods
With the flowers to play.
The flowers they plucked
They cast on the ground
For others, and those
For still others they found.
Flower-guided it was
That they came as they ran
On something that lay
In the shape of a man.
The snow must have made
The feathery bed
When this one fell
On the sleep of the dead.
But the snow was gone
A long time ago,
And the body he wore
Nigh gone with the snow.
The fairies drew near
And keenly espied
A ring on his hand
And a chain at his side.
They knelt in the leaves
And eerily played
With the glittering things,
And were not afraid.
And when they went home
To hide in their burrow,
They took them along...