Identity

I.

‘Spring-flowers’! While you still delay to take
Your leave of town,
Our elm-tree’s ruddy-hearted blossom-flake
Is fluttering down.



II.

Be truer to your promise. There! I heard
Our cuckoo call.
Be needle to the magnet of your word,
Nor wait, till all



III.

Our vernal bloom from every vale and plain
And garden pass,
And all the gold from each laburnum chain
Drop to the grass.



IV.

Is memory with your Marian gone to rest,
Dead with the dead?
For ere she left us, when we met, you prest
My hand, and said



V.

‘I come with your spring-flowers.’ You came not, my friend;
My birds would sing,
You heard not. Take then this spring-flower...

Autumn's last days, winters and mud-soaked spring
I praise the stupefaction that you bring
By so enveloping my heart and brain
In shroud of vapours, tomb of mist and rain.

In this great flatness where the chill winds course,
Where through the nights the weather-cock grows hoarse,
My soul, more than in springtime's tepid sky,
Will open out her raven's wings to fly.

O blankest seasons, queens of all my praise,
Nothing is sweet to the funereal breast
That has been steeped in frost and wintriness

But the continuous face of your pale shades
- Except we two, where moonlight never creeps
Daring in bed to put our griefs to sleep.

To-day a bird on wings as white as foam
    That crests the blue-gray wave,
With the vesper light upon its breast, flew home
    Seaward. The God who gave
To the birds the virgin-wings of snow
Somehow telleth them the ways they go.

Unto the Evening went the white-winged bird --
    Gray clouds hung round the West --
And far away the tempest's tramp was heard.
    The bird flew for a rest
Away from the grove, out to the sea --
Is it only a bird's mystery?

Nay! nay! lone bird! I watched thy wings of white
    That cleft thy waveward way --
Past the evening and swift into the night,
    Out of the calm, bright day --
And thou didst teach me, bird of the sea,
More than one human heart's history.

Only men's hearts -- tho' God shows each ...

Two angels, one of Life and one of Death,
    Passed o'er our village as the morning broke;
The dawn was on their faces, and beneath,
    The sombre houses hearsed with plumes of smoke.

Their attitude and aspect were the same,
    Alike their features and their robes of white;
But one was crowned with amaranth, as with flame,
    And one with asphodels, like flakes of light.

I saw them pause on their celestial way;
    Then said I, with deep fear and doubt oppressed,
"Beat not so loud, my heart, lest thou betray
    The place where thy beloved are at rest!"

And he who wore the crown of asphodels,
    Descending, at my door began to knock,
And my soul sank within me, as in wells
    The waters sink before an earthquake's shock.

I recogni...

The day, all fierce with carmine, turns
An Indian face towards Earth and dies;
The west, like some gaunt vase, inurns
Its ashes under smouldering skies,
Athwart whose bowl one red cloud streams,
Strange as a shape some Aztec dreams.

Now shadows mass above the world,
And night comes on with wind and rain;
The mulberry-colored leaves are hurled
Like frantic hands against the pane.
And through the forests, bending low,
Night stalks like some gigantic woe.

In hollows where the thistle shakes
A hoar bloom like a witch's-light,
From weed and flower the rain-wind rakes
Dead sweetness as a wildman might,
From out the leaves, the woods among,
Dig some dead woman, fair and young.

Now let me walk the woodland ways,
Alone! except for thoug...

"Sweet Memory, wafted by thy gentle gale,
Oft up the stream of time I turn my sail." - ROGERS.


Come, my Crony, let's think upon far-away days,
And lift up a little Oblivion's veil;
Let's consider the past with a lingering gaze,
Like a peacock whose eyes are inclined to his tail.

Aye, come, let us turn our attention behind,
Like those critics whose heads are so heavy, I fear,
That they cannot keep up with the march of the mind,
And so turn face about for reviewing the rear.

Looking over Time's crupper and over his tail,
Oh, what ages and pages there are to revise!
And as farther our back-searching glances prevail,
Like the emmets, "how little we are in our eyes!"

What a sweet pretty innocent, half-a-yard long,
On a dimity lap of true nu...

‘From that sky livid, bizarre
as your tortured destiny,
what thoughts fill your empty heart,
Freethinker, answer me.’

Insatiable and avid
for vague and obscure skies,
I’ll not groan like Ovid,
banned from Rome and paradise.

Skies, shores split and seamed,
my pride’s mirrored in you:
your clouds in mourning, too,

are the hearses of my dreams,
Hell’s reflected in your light,
where my heart takes delight.

Not far from here, it lies beyond
That low-hilled belt of woods. We'll take
This unused lane where brambles make
A wall of twilight, and the blond
Brier-roses pelt the path and flake
The margin waters of a pond.

This is its fence - or that which was
Its fence once - now, rock rolled from rock,
One tangle of the vine and dock,
Where bloom the wild petunias;
And this its gate, the iron-weeds block,
Hot with the insects' dusty buzz.

Two wooden posts, wherefrom has peeled
The weather-crumbled paint, still rise;
Gaunt things - that groan when someone tries
The gate whose hinges, rust-congealed,
Snarl open: - on each post still lies
Its carven lion with a shield.

We enter; and between great rows
Of locusts winds a grass-grown road;

Anteros.


I.

    This is the feast-day of my soul and me,
    For I am half a god and half a man.
    These are the hours in which are heard by sea,
    By land and wave, and in the realms of space,
    The lute-like sounds which sanctify my span,
    And give me power to sway the human race.


II.

    I am the king whom men call Lucifer,
    I am the genius of the nether spheres.
    Give me my Christian name, and I demur.
    Call me a Greek, and straightway I rejoice.
    Yea, I am Anteros, and with my tears
    I salt the earth tha...

The tyrant Dionys to seek,
Stern Moerus with his poniard crept;
The watchful guard upon him swept;
The grim king marked his changeless cheek:
"What wouldst thou with thy poniard? Speak!"
"The city from the tyrant free!"
"The death-cross shall thy guerdon be."

"I am prepared for death, nor pray,"
Replied that haughty man, "I to live;
Enough, if thou one grace wilt give
For three brief suns the death delay
To wed my sister leagues away;
I boast one friend whose life for mine,
If I should fail the cross, is thine."

The tyrant mused, and smiled, and said
With gloomy craft, "So let it be;
Three days I will vouchsafe to thee.
But mark if, when the time be sped,
Thou fail'st thy surety dies instead.
His life shall buy thine own release;

Ye storm-winds of Autumn
Who rush by, who shake
The window, and ruffle
The gleam-lighted lake;
Who cross to the hill-side
Thin-sprinkled with farms,
Where the high woods strip sadly
Their yellowing arms;
Ye are bound for the mountains,
Ah, with you let me go
Where your cold distant barrier,
The vast range of snow,
Through the loose clouds lifts dimly
Its white peaks in air,
How deep is their stillness!
Ah! would I were there!

But on the stairs what voice is this I hear,
Buoyant as morning, and as morning clear?
Say, has some wet bird-haunted English lawn
Lent it the music of its trees at dawn?
Or was it from some sun-fleck’d mountain-brook
That the sweet voice its upland clearness took?
Ah! it comes nearer,
Sweet notes,...

"Drown'd! drown'd!" - Hamlet.


One more Unfortunate,
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate,
Gone to her death!

Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;
Fashion'd so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!

Look at her garments
Clinging like cerements;
Whilst the wave constantly
Drips from her clothing;
Take her up instantly,
Loving, not loathing. -

Touch her not scornfully;
Think of her mournfully,
Gently and humanly;
Not of the stains of her,
All that remains of her
Now is pure womanly.

Make no deep scrutiny
Into her mutiny
Bash and undutiful:
Past all dishonor,
Death has left on her
Only the beautiful.

Still, for all slips of hers,
One of Eve's family -
Wipe...

To-day the plant by Williams set
Its summer bloom discloses;
The wilding sweethrier of his prayers
Is crowned with cultured roses.

Once more the Island State repeats
The lesson that he taught her,
And binds his pearl of charity
Upon her brown-locked daughter.

Is 't fancy that he watches still
His Providence plantations?
That still the careful Founder takes
A part on these occasions.

Methinks I see that reverend form,
Which all of us so well know
He rises up to speak; he jogs
The presidential elbow.

"Good friends," he says, "you reap a field
I sowed in self-denial,
For toleration had its griefs
And charity its trial.

"Great grace, as saith Sir Thomas More,
To him must needs be given
Who heareth heresy ...

    ["We have not, alack! an ally to befriend us,
    And the season is ripe to extirpate and end us.
    Let the German touch hands with the Gaul,
    And the fortress of England must fall.

        *        *        *        *        *

    Louder and louder the noise of defiance
    Rings rage from the grave of a trustless alliance,
    And bids us beware, and be warn'd,
    As abhorr'd of all nations and scorn'd."

    A Word for the Nation, by A. C. Swinburne.


I.

    Nay, good Sir Poet, read thy rhymes again,
    And curb the tumults that are born in thee,
    That now thy hand, relentful, may refrain
    To deal the blow that Abel had of Cain.


II.

    Are we not Britons born, when all is said,

Phryne had talents for mankind,
Open she was, and unconfin'd,
Like some free port of trade:
Merchants unloaded here their freight,
And Agents from each foreign state,
Here first their entry made.

Her learning and good breeding such,
Whether th' Italian or the Dutch,
Spaniards or French came to her:
To all obliging she'd appear:
'Twas Si Signior, 'twas Yaw Mynheer,
'Twas S'il vous plaist, Monsieur.

Obscure by birth, renown'd by crimes,
Still changing names, religions, climes,
At length she turns a Bride:
In di'monds, pearls, and rich brocades,
She shines the first of batter'd jades,
And flutters in her pride.

So have I known those Insects fair
(Which curious Germans hold so rare)
Still vary shapes and dyes;
Still gain ...

Still, though the one I sing,
(One, yet of contradictions made,) I dedicate to Nationality,
I leave in him Revolt, (O latent right of insurrection! O quenchless, indispensable fire!)

        I.

I dreamed last night once more I stood
Knee-deep in purple clover leas;
Your old home glimmered thro' its wood
Of dark and melancholy trees,
Where ev'ry sudden summer breeze
That wantoned o'er the solitude
The water's melody pursued,
And sleepy hummings of the bees.


        II.

And ankle-deep in violet blooms
Methought I saw you standing there,
A lawny light among the glooms,
A crown of sunlight on your hair;
Wild songsters singing every where
Made lightning with their glossy plumes;
About you clung the wild perfumes
And swooned along the shining air.


        III.

And then you called me, and my ears
Grew flattered with the music, led
In fancy back to sweeter years,
Far sweeter y...

(TO MRS. PERCY DEARMER)

A poet hungered, as well he might -
Not a morsel since yesternight!
And sad he grew - good reason why -
For the poet had nought wherewith to buy.

'Are not two sparrows sold,' he cried,
'Sold for a farthing? and,' he sighed,
As he pushed his morning post away,
'Are not two sonnets more than they?'

Yet store of gold, great store had he, -
Of the gold that is known as 'faery.'
He had the gold of his burning dreams,
He had his golden rhymes - in reams,
He had the strings of his golden lyre,
And his own was that golden west on fire.

But the poet knew his world too well
To dream that such would buy or sell.
He had his poets, 'pure gold,' he said,
But the man at the bookstall shook his head,
And offered a...