Identity

Your trail runs to the westward,
And mine to my own place;
There is water between our lodges,
And I have not seen your face.

But since I have read your verses
'Tis easy to guess the rest,
Because in the hearts of the children
There is neither East nor West.

Born to a thousand fortunes
Of good or evil hap,
Once they were kings together,
Throned in a mother's lap.

Surely they know that secret,
Yellow and black and white,
When they meet as kings together
In innocent dreams at night.

By a moon they all can play with,
Grubby and grimed and unshod,
Very happy together,
And very near to God.

Your trail runs to the westward,
And mine to my own place:
There is water between our lodges,
And you cannot see ...

Lyre! though such power do in thy magic live
As might from India's farthest plain
Recall the not unwilling Maid,
Assist me to detain
The lovely Fugitive:
Check with thy notes the impulse which, betrayed
By her sweet farewell looks, I longed to aid.
Here let me gaze enrapt upon that eye,
The impregnable and awe-inspiring fort
Of contemplation, the calm port
By reason fenced from winds that sigh
Among the restless sails of vanity.
But if no wish be hers that we should part,
A humbler bliss would satisfy my heart.
Where all things are so fair,
Enough by her dear side to breathe the air
Of this Elysian weather;
And, on or in, or near, the brook, espy
Shade upon the sunshine lying
Faint and somewhat pensively;
And downward Image gaily vying

Evening comes with moonshine and silky darkness.
The roads become weary.    The narrow world widens.
Winds of opium move in and out of the field.
I widen my eyes like silver wings.
I feel as though my body were the whole earth.
The city lights up: thousands of street lamps sway.
Now the sky also piously enkindles its candlelight.
...    Huge above everything my human face wanders -

        An uphill path, sun-gleams between the showers,
        Where every beam that broke the leaden sky
        Lit other hills with fairer ways than ours;
        Some clustered graves where half our memories lie;
        And one grim Shadow creeping ever nigh:
            And this was Life.

        Wherein we did another's burden seek,
        The tired feet we helped upon the road,
        The hand we gave the weary and the weak,
        The miles we lightened one another's load,
        When, faint to falling, onward yet we strode:
            This too was Life.

        Till, at the upland, as we turned to go
        Amid fair meadows, dusky in the night,
        The mists fell back upon the road below;
        Broke on our tired eyes the western...

You say that your nature is double; that life
    Seems more and more intricate, complex, and dual,
Because in your bosom there wages the strife
    'Twixt an angel of light and a beast that is cruel -
An angel who whispers your spirit has wings,
And a beast who would chain you to temporal things.

I listen with interest to all you have told,
    And now let me give you my view of your trouble:
You are to be envied, not pitied; I hold
    THAT EVERY STRONG NATURE IS ALWAYS MADE DOUBLE.
The beast has his purpose; he need not be slain:
He should serve the good angel in harness and chain.

The body that never knows carnal desires,
    The heart that to passion is always a stranger,
Is merely a furnace with unlighted fires;
    It sends forth no warmth while ...

WANDERER.

Young woman, may God bless thee,
Thee, and the sucking infant
Upon thy breast!
Let me, 'gainst this rocky wall,
Neath the elm-tree's shadow,
Lay aside my burden,
Near thee take my rest.

WOMAN.

What vocation leads thee,
While the day is burning,
Up this dusty path?
Bring'st thou goods from out the town
Round the country?
Smil'st thou, stranger,
At my question?

WANDERER.

From the town no goods I bring.
Cool is now the evening;
Show to me the fountain
'Whence thou drinkest,
Woman young and kind!

WOMAN.

Up the rocky pathway mount;
Go thou first! Across the thicket
Leads the pathway tow'rd the cottage
That I live in,
To the fountain
Whence I drink.
<...

The soul of love is harmony; as such
All melodies, that with wide pinions beat
Elastic bars, which mew it in the flesh,
Till 'twould away to kiss their throats and cling,
Are kindred to the soul, and while they sway,
Lords of its action molding all at will.

Ah! neither was I I, nor knew the clay,
For all my soul lay on full waves of song
Reverberating 'twixt the earth and moon.

O soft complaints, that haunted all the heart
With dreams of love long cherished, love dreams found
On sunset mountains gorgeous toward the West:
Kisses - soft kisses bartered 'mid pale buds
Of bursting Springs; and vows of fondest faith
Kept evermore; and eyes whose witchery
Might lure old saints down to the lowest hell
For one swift glance, - sweet, melancholy eyes
Ye...

"And wept to see the paths of life divide." - Shenstone.

Here the companions of our careless prime,
Whom fortune's various ways have severed long,
Since that fair dawn when Hope her vernal song
Sang blithe, with features marked by stealing time
At these restoring springs are met again!
We, young adventurers on life's opening road,
Set out together; to their last abode
Some have sunk silent, some a while remain,
Some are dispersed; of many, growing old
In life's obscurer bourne, no tale is told.
Here, ere the shades of the long night descend,
And all our wanderings in oblivion end,
The parted meet once more, and pensive trace
(Marked by that hand unseen, whose iron pen
Writes "mortal change" upon the fronts of men)
The creeping furrows in each other's fac...

When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv'd with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that follow'd;
And else, when I carous'd, or when my plans were accomplish'd, still I was not happy;
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health, refresh'd, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the morning light,
When I wander'd alone over the beach, and undressing, bathed, laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,
And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover, was on his way coming, O then I was happy;
O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food nourish'd me more, and the beautiful day pass'd well,
And the next came with equal joy, and with the next, at...

I.

He was not learned in any art;
But Nature led him by the hand;
And spoke her language to his heart
So he could hear and understand:
He loved her simply as a child;
And in his love forgot the heat
Of conflict, and sat reconciled
In patience of defeat.

II.

Before me now I see him rise
A face, that seventy years had snowed
With winter, where the kind blue eyes
Like hospitable fires glowed:
A small gray man whose heart was large,
And big with knowledge learned of need;
A heart, the hard world made its targe,
That never ceased to bleed.

III.

He knew all Nature. Yea, he knew
What virtue lay within each flower,
What tonic in the dawn and dew,
And in each root what magic power:
What in the wild witch-...

    1
    A thick hole in the dark
    from which
    stars pour silver
    as in pails
    their runny divide
    ink-strewn scalps
    torn from the roof of the sky.

    2
    Padded footprints
    giant ferns blooming
    constellation prints,
    the wind an athlete
    pacing about a track
    drying thru fingerprints
    thin, nectarine light.

    3
    Sand down whitest skin
    moving past your hand
    a gown, mauve to green,
    iceberg lettuce,
    the black festering
    across a ribcage;
    while night arranges
    moths to dusting powder
    pucker-lipped
    fronds from afar

    4
    Afar, the word a gypsy
    tangled in the waves,
    foam from a medicine ...

In covert of a leafy porch,
Where woodbine clings,
And roses drop their crimson leaves,
He sits and sings;
With soft brown crest erect to hear,
And drooping wings.

Shut in a narrow cage, which bars
His eager flight,
Shut in the darker prison-house
Of blinded sight,
Alike to him are sun and stars,
The day, the night.

But all the fervor of high noon,
Hushed, fragrant, strong,
And all the peace of moonlit nights
When nights are long,
And all the bliss of summer eves,
Breathe in his song.

The rustle of the fresh green woods,
The hum of bee,
The joy of flight, the perfumed waft
Of blossoming tree,
The half-forgotten, rapturous thrill
Of liberty,--

All blend and mix, while evermore,
Now and again,<...

Tune - "The winter of life."



I.

    But lately seen in gladsome green,
        The woods rejoiced the day;
    Thro' gentle showers and laughing flowers,
        In double pride were gay:
    But now our joys are fled
        On winter blasts awa!
    Yet maiden May, in rich array,
        Again shall bring them a'.


II.

    But my white pow, nae kindly thowe
        Shall melt the snaws of age;
    My trunk of eild, but buss or bield,
        Sinks in Time's wintry rage.
    Oh! age has weary days,
        And nights o' sleepless pain!
    Thou golden time o' youthfu' prime,
        Why comes thou not again?

You have taken away my cloak,
My cloak of weariness;
Take my coat also,
My many-coloured coat of life....

On this great nursery floor
I had three toys,
A bright and varnished vow,
A Speckled Monster, best of boys,
True friend to me, and more
Beloved and a thing of cost,
My doll painted like life; and now
One is broken and two are lost.

From the Arabic of John Duncan.

HOW weak is man! how changeable his mind!
His promises are naught, too oft we find;
I vowed (I hope in tolerable verse,)
Again no idle story to rehearse.
And whence this promise? - Not two days ago;
I'm quite confounded; better I should know:
A rhymer hear then, who himself can boast,
Quite steady for - a minute at the most.
The pow'rs above could PRUDENCE ne'er design;
For those who fondly court the SISTERS NINE.
Some means to please they've got, you will confess;
But none with certainty the charm possess.
If, howsoever, I were doomed to find
Such lines as fully would content the mind:
Though I should fail in matter, still in art;
I might contrive some pleasure to impart.

LET'S see what we are able to obtain: -
A bachelor resided in Touraine.
...

I.

Now will we plunge into the frigid dark,
The living light of summer gone too soon!
A1ready I can hear a dismal sound,
The thump of logs on courtyard paving stones.

All winter comes into my being: wrath,
Hate, chills and horror, forced and plodding work,
And like the sun in polar underground
My heart will be a red and frozen block.

I Shudder as I hear each log that drops;
A gallows being built makes no worse sound.
My mind is like the tower that succumbs,
Under a heavy engine battered down.

It seems to me, dull with this constant thud,
That someone nails a coffin, but for whom?
Yesterday summer, now the fall! something
With all this eerie pounding will be gone.


II.

I love the greenish light in your long eye...

    My soul, it shall not take us,
    O we will escape
    This world that strives to break us
    And cast us to its shape;
    Its chisel shall not enter,
    Its fire shall not touch,
    Hard from rim to centre,
    We will not crack or smutch.

    'Gainst words sweet and flowered
    We have an amulet,
    We will not play the coward
    For any black threat;
    If we but give endurance
    To what is now within,
    The single assurance
    That it is good to win.

    Slaves think it better
    To be weak than strong,
    Whose hate is a fetter
    And their love a thong.
    But we will view those others
    With eyes like stone,
    And if we have no brothers
    We will walk alone.

Pien d' un vago pensier, che me desvia.

HIS TONGUE IS TIED BY EXCESS OF PASSION.


    Such vain thought as wonted to mislead me
In desert hope, by well-assurèd moan,
Makes me from company to live alone,
In following her whom reason bids me flee.
She fleeth as fast by gentle cruelty;
And after her my heart would fain be gone,
But armèd sighs my way do stop anon,
'Twixt hope and dread locking my liberty;
Yet as I guess, under disdainful brow
One beam of ruth is in her cloudy look:
Which comforteth the mind, that erst for fear shook:
And therewithal bolded I seek the way how
To utter the smart I suffer within;
But such it is, I not how to begin.

WYATT.


    Full of a tender thought, which severs me
From all my ki...