Identity

Tangled in thought am I,
Stumble in speech do I?
Do I blunder and blush for the reason why?
Wander aloof do I,
Lean over gates and sigh,
Making friends with the bee and the butterfly?

If thus and thus I do,
Dazed by the thought of you,
Walking my sorrowful way in the early dew,
My heart cut through and through
In this despair of you,
Starved for a word or a look will my hope renew:

Give then a thought for me
Walking so miserably,
Wanting relief in the friendship of flower or tree;
Do but remember, we
Once could in love agree,
Swallow your pride, let us be as we used to be.

Let's strive to be the best; the gods, we know it,
Pillars and men, hate an indifferent poet.

    "Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul!
    Sweet'ner of life and solder of society!
    I owe thee much!"

Blair.


    Dear Smith, the sleest, paukie thief,
    That e'er attempted stealth or rief,
    Ye surely hae some warlock-breef
    Owre human hearts;
    For ne'er a bosom yet was prief
    Against your arts.

    For me, I swear by sun an' moon,
    And ev'ry star that blinks aboon,
    Ye've cost me twenty pair o' shoon
    Just gaun to see you;
    And ev'ry ither pair that's done,
    Mair ta'en I'm wi' you.

    That auld capricious carlin, Nature,
    To mak amends for scrimpit stature,
    She's turn'd you aff, a human creature
    On her first plan;
    And in her freaks, on every feature

We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly! - yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.

We rest. - A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise. - One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:

It is the same! - For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.

NOTES:
_15 may 1816; can Lo...

"Child of the Woods, bred in leafy dell,
See the palace home in which I dwell,
With its lofty walls and casements wide,
And objects of beauty on every side;
Now, tell me, dost thou not think it bliss
To dwell in a home as bright as this?"

"Has my pale-faced sister never seen
My home in the pleasant forest green,
With the sunshine weaving its threads of gold
Through the boughs of elm and of maples old,
And soft green moss and wild flowers sweet,
What carpet more fitting for maidens' feet?"

"Well, see these diamonds of price untold,
These costly trinkets of burnished gold,
With rich soft robes - my daily wear -
These graceful flower-wreaths for my hair;
And now, at least, thou must frankly tell
Thou would'st like such garb and jewels well."

Part V

Winter

We, whom God sets a task,
    Striving, who ne'er attain,
We are the curst! - who ask
    Death, and still ask in vain.
We, whom God sets a task.


1

In the silence of his room. After many days.

All, all are shadows. All must pass
As writing in the sand or sea;
Reflections in a looking-glass
Are not less permanent than we.

The days that mould us - what are they?
That break us on their whirling wheel?
What but the potters! we the clay
They fashion and yet leave unreal.

Linked through the ages, one and all,
In long anthropomorphous chain,
The human and the animal
Inseparably must remain.

Within us still the monster shape
That shrieked in air and howled i...

In cold blue lucid dusk before the sunrise,
One yellow star sings over a peak of snow,
And melts and vanishes in a light like roses.
Through slanting mist, black rocks appear and glow.
The clouds flow downward, slowly as grey glaciers,
Or up to a pale rose-azure pass.
Blue streams tinkle down from snow to boulders,
From boulders to white grass.
Icicles on the pine tree melt
And softly flash in the sun:
In long straight lines the star-drops fall
One by one.
Is a voice heard while the shadows still are long,
Borne slowly down on the sparkling air?
Is a thin bell heard from the peak of silence?
Is someone among the high snows there?
Where the blue stream flows coldly among the meadows
And mist still clings to rock and tree
Senlin walks alone; and from t...

Letter III. Regrets.


I.

    When I did wake, to-day, a bird of Heaven,
    A wanton, woeless thing, a wandering sprite,
    Did seem to sing a song for my delight;
    And, far away, did make its holy steven
    Sweeter to hear than lute-strings that are seven;
    And I did weep thereat in my despite.


II.

    O glorious sun! I thought, O gracious king,
    Of all this splendour that we call the earth!
    For thee the lark distils his morning mirth,
    But who will hear the matins that I sing?
    Who will be glad to greet ...

Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old,
This knight so bold,
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow,
"Shadow," said he,
"Where can it be,
This land of Eldorado?"

"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied,
"If you seek for Eldorado!"

In Spring,
        While softly cooed
                                The Dove,

Sam
        Told Selina of
                                His Love.


The Summer Moon smiled on them both,
Selina plighted him her Troth.

But Autumn brought a gayer Swain--
Selina broke it off again.


'Tis Winter now--
                    Selina's slack--
She'd give her thumbs to have him back.

Yet--
        When they met
                She tossed her head;

He
        Stared at her and
                            Cut her dead!


But Fate at last to them was kind:
    It sent
                a
                    Roaring,
                                Raging
                           ...

Rigid sleeps the house in darkness, I alone
Like a thing unwarrantable cross the hall
And climb the stairs to find the group of doors
Standing angel-stern and tall.

I want my own room's shelter. But what is this
Throng of startled beings suddenly thrown
In confusion against my entry? Is it only the trees'
Large shadows from the outside street lamp blown?

Phantom to phantom leaning; strange women weep
Aloud, suddenly on my mind
Startling a fear unspeakable, as the shuddering wind
Breaks and sobs in the blind.

So like to women, tall strange women weeping!
Why continually do they cross the bed?
Why does my soul contract with unnatural fear?
I am listening! Is anything said?

Ever the long black figures swoop by the bed;
They seem to be...

Far reaching down's a solid sea sunk everlastingly to rest,
And yet whose billows seem to be for ever heaving toward the west
The tiny fieldmice make their nests, the summer insects buzz and hum
Among the hollows and the crests of this wide ocean stricken dumb,
Whose rollers move for ever on, though sullenly, with fettered wills,
To break in voiceless wrath upon the crumbled bases of far hills,
Where rugged outposts meet the shock, stand fast, and hurl them back again,
An avalanche of earth and rock, in tumbled fragments on the plain;
But, never heeding the rebuff, to right and left they kiss the feet
Of hanging cliff and bouldered bluff till on the farther side they meet,
And once again resume their march to where the afternoon sun dips
Toward the west, and Heaven's arch salutes the ...

1.
I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright:
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Hath led me - who knows how?
To thy chamber window, Sweet!

2.
The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream -
The Champak odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart; -
As I must on thine,
Oh, beloved as thou art!

3.
Oh lift me from the grass!
I die! I faint! I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast; -
Oh! press it to thine own again,
Where it will break at last.

Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary
Of lofty contemplation left to Time
By buried centuries of pomp and power!
At length at length after so many days
Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst,
(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,)
I kneel, an altered and an humble man,
Amid thy shadows, and so drink within
My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory!

Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!
Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night!
I feel ye now I feel ye in your strength
O spells more sure than e'er Judæan king
Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane!
O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee
Ever drew down from out the quiet stars!

Here, where a hero fell, a column falls!
Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold,
A midnight v...

There's a place in the North where the bonnie broom grows,
Where winding through green meadows the silver Maine flows,
Every lark as it soars and sings that sweet spot knows;
                For the mate for whom it sings,
                Till the clear blue heaven rings,
Is brooding on its nest mid the daisies in the grass;
                And that psalmist sweet, the thrush,
                And the linnet in the bush,
Tell the children all their secrets in song as they pass.

Oh brightly shines the sun there where wee birdies sing,
A glamour's o'er the buds in the green lap of spring,
In happy, happy laughter children's voices ring!
                Like some fair enchanted ground,
                In memory it is found,
Where my childhood's golden hours of happine...

The darkness steals the forms of all the queens,
But oh, the palms of his two black hands are red,
Inflamed with binding up the sheaves of dead
Hours that were once all glory and all queens.

And I remember all the sunny hours
Of queens in hyacinth and skies of gold,
And morning singing where the woods are scrolled
And diapered above the chaunting flowers.

Here lamps are white like snowdrops in the grass;
The town is like a churchyard, all so still
And grey now night is here; nor will
Another torn red sunset come to pass.

L' aura e l' odore e 'l refrigerio e l' ombra.

HER OWN VIRTUES IMMORTALISE HER IN HEAVEN, AND HIS PRAISES ON EARTH.


    The air and scent, the comfort and the shade
Of my sweet laurel, and its flowery sight,
That to my weary life gave rest and light,
Death, spoiler of the world, has lowly laid.
As when the moon our sun's eclipse has made,
My lofty light has vanish'd so in night;
For aid against himself I Death invite;
With thoughts so dark does Love my breast invade.
Thou didst but sleep, bright lady, a brief sleep,
In bliss amid the chosen spirits to wake,
Who gaze upon their God, distinct and near:
And if my verse shall any value keep,
Preserved and praised 'mid noble minds to make
Thy name, its memory shall be deathless here.

...

Stay near me, do not take thy flight!
A little longer stay in sight!
Much converse do I find I thee,
Historian of my infancy!
Float near me; do not yet depart!
Dead times revive in thee:
Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art!
A solemn image to my heart,
My father's family!

Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,
The time, when, in our childish plays,
My sister Emmeline and I
Together chased the butterfly!
A very hunter did I rush
Upon the prey: with leaps and spring
I followed on from brake to bush;
But she, God love her, feared to brush
The dust from off its wings.