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With heavy groans did I approach my friends,
Heavy as though the mountains I would move.
The flagon they were murdering; they poured
Into the cup, wild-eyed, the grape's red blood.
No, they killed not, they breathed new life therein.
Then, too, in fiery rapture, burned my veins,
But soon the fumes had fled. In vain, in vain!
Ye cannot fill the breach of the rent heart.
Ye crave a sensuous joy; ye strive in vain
To cheat with flames of passion, my despair.
So when the sinking sun draws near to night,
The sky's bright cheeks fade 'neath those tresses black.
Ye laugh - but silently the soul weeps on;
Ye cannot stifle her sincere lament.

Solomon Ben Judah Gabirol (Died Between 1070-80.)

There are no beaten paths to Glory's height,
There are no rules to compass greatness known;
Each for himself must cleave a path alone,
And press his own way forward in the fight.
Smooth is the way to ease and calm delight,
And soft the road Sloth chooseth for her own;
But he who craves the flower of life full-blown,
Must struggle up in all his armor dight!
What though the burden bear him sorely down
And crush to dust the mountain of his pride,
Oh, then, with strong heart let him still abide;
For rugged is the roadway to renown,
Nor may he hope to gain the envied crown,
Till he hath thrust the looming rocks aside.

Now swarthy summer, by rude health embrowned,
Precedence takes of rosy fingered spring;
And laughing joy, with wild flowers pranked and crowned,
A wild and giddy thing,
And health robust, from every care unbound,
Come on the zephyr's wing,
And cheer the toiling clown.

Happy as holiday-enjoying face,
Loud tongued, and "merry as a marriage bell,"
Thy lightsome step sheds joy in every place;
And where the troubled dwell,
Thy witching smiles wean them of half their cares;
And from thy sunny spell,
They greet joy unawares.

Then with thy sultry locks all loose and rude,
And mantle laced with gems of garish light,
Come as of wont; for I would fain intrude,
And in the world's despite,
Share the rude mirth that thy own heart beguiles:
If hapl...

I am a Goddess of the ambrosial courts,
And save by Here, Queen of Pride, surpassed
By none whose temples whiten this the world.
Thro’ Heaven I roll my lucid moon along;
I shed in Hell o’er my pale people peace;
On Earth, I, caring for the creatures, guard
Each pregnant yellow wolf and fox-bitch sleek.
And every feathered mother’s callow brood,
And all that love green haunts and loneliness.
Of men, the chaste adore me, hanging crowns
Of poppies red to blackness, bell and stem,
Upon my image at Athenai here;
And this dead Youth, Asclepios bends above,
Was dearest to me. He my buskined step
To follow thro’ the wild-wood leafy ways,
And chase the panting stag, or swift with darts
Stop the swift ounce, or lay the leopard low,
Neglected homage to another God:<...

Io son dell' aspectar omai sì vinto.

HAVING ONCE SURRENDERED HIMSELF, HE IS COMPELLED EVER TO ENDURE THE PANGS OF LOVE.


    Weary with expectation's endless round,
And overcome in this long war of sighs,
I hold desires in hate and hopes despise,
And every tie wherewith my breast is bound;
But the bright face which in my heart profound
Is stamp'd, and seen where'er I turn mine eyes,
Compels me where, against my will, arise
The same sharp pains that first my ruin crown'd.
Then was my error when the old way quite
Of liberty was bann'd and barr'd to me:
He follows ill who pleases but his sight:
To its own harm my soul ran wild and free,
Now doom'd at others' will to wait and wend;
Because that once it ventured to offend.

MACGREGOR.

How have I wandered here to this vaulted room
In the house of life? - the floor was ruffled with gold
Last evening, and she who was softly in bloom,
Glimmered as flowers that in perfume at twilight unfold

For the flush of the night; whereas now the gloom
Of every dirty, must-besprinkled mould,
And damp old web of misery's heirloom
Deadens this day's grey-dropping arras-fold.

And what is this that floats on the undermist
Of the mirror towards the dusty grate, as if feeling
Unsightly its way to the warmth? - this thing with a list
To the left? this ghost like a candle swealing?

Pale-blurred, with two round black drops, as if it missed
Itself among everything else, here hungrily stealing
Upon me! - my own reflection! - explicit gist
Of my presence th...

Bard of the Fleece, whose skilful genius made
That work a living landscape fair and bright;
Nor hallowed less with musical delight
Than those soft scenes through which thy childhood strayed,
Those southern tracts of Cambria, "deep embayed,
With green hills fenced, with ocean's murmur lulled;"
Though hasty Fame hath many a chaplet culled
For worthless brows, while in the pensive shade
Of cold neglect she leaves thy head ungraced,
Yet pure and powerful minds, hearts meek and still,
A grateful few, shall love thy modest Lay,
Long as the shepherd's bleating flock shall stray
O'er naked Snowdon's wide aerial waste;
Long as the thrush shall pipe on Grongar Hill!

I.

Thou art not steep’d in golden languors,
No tranced summer calm is thine,
Ever varying Madeline.
Thro’ light and shadow thou dost range,
Sudden glances, sweet and strange,
Delicious spites and darling angers,
And airy forms of flitting change.



II.

Smiling, frowning, evermore,
Thou art perfect in love-lore.
Revealings deep and clear are thine
Of wealthy smiles; but who may know
Whether smile or frown be fleeter?
Whether smile or frown be sweeter,
Who may know?
Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow
Light-glooming over eyes divine,
Like little clouds sun-fringed, are thine,
Ever varying Madeline.
Thy smile and frown are not aloof
From one another,
Each to each is dearest brother;
Hues of the silken...

Say not the Poet dies!
Though in the dust he lies,
He cannot forfeit his melodious breath,
Unsphered by envious death!
Life drops the voiceless myriads from its roll;
Their fate he cannot share,
Who, in the enchanted air
Sweet with the lingering strains that Echo stole,
Has left his dearer self, the music of his soul!

We o'er his turf may raise
Our notes of feeble praise,
And carve with pious care for after eyes
The stone with "Here he lies;"
He for himself has built a nobler shrine,
Whose walls of stately rhyme
Roll back the tides of time,
While o'er their gates the gleaming tablets shine
That wear his name inwrought with many a golden line!

Call not our Poet dead,
Though on his turf we tread!
Green is the wreath their brows so...

Ask not why hearts turn Magazines of passions,
And why that grief is clad in sev'ral fashions;
Why She on progress goes, and doth not borrow
The smallest respite from th'extreams of sorrow,
Her misery is got to such an height,
As makes the earth groan to support its weight,
Such storms of woe, so strongly have beset her,
She hath no place for worse, nor hope for better;
Her comfort is, if any for her be,
That none can shew more cause of grief then she.
Ask not why some in mournfull black are clad;
The Sun is set, there needs must be a shade.
Ask not why every face a sadness shrowdes;
The setting Sun ore-cast us hath with Clouds.
Ask not why the great glory of the Skye
That gilds the stars with heavenly Alchamy,
Which all the world doth lighten with his rayes,<...

Is mine the part of no companion hand
Of help, except my shadow's silent self?
A moonlight traveller in Fancy's land
Of leering gnome and hollow-laughing elf;

Whose forests deepen and whose moon goes down,
When Night's blind shadow shall usurp my own;
And, mid the dust and wreck of some old town,
The City of Dreams, I grope and fall alone.

Quando ad un giogo ed in Un tempo quivi.


    When to one yoke at once I saw the height
Of gods and men subdued by Cupid's might,
I took example from their cruel fate,
And by their sufferings eased my own hard state;
Since Phoebus and Leander felt like pain,
The one a god, the other but a man;
One snare caught Juno and the Carthage dame
(Her husband's death prepared her funeral flame--
'Twas not a cause that Virgil maketh one);
I need not grieve, that unprepared, alone,
Unarm'd, and young, I did receive a wound,
Or that my enemy no hurt hath found
By Love; or that she clothed him in my sight,
And took his wings, and marr'd his winding flight;
No angry lions send more hideous noise
From their beat breasts, nor clashing thunder's voice
Ren...

I give to you these verses, that if in
Some future time my name lands happily
To bring brief pleasure to humanity,
The craft supported by a great north wind,

Your memory, like tales from ancient times,
Will bore the reader like a dulcimer,
And by a strange fraternal chain live here
As if suspended in my lofty rhymes.

From deepest pit into the highest sky
Damned being, only I can bear you now.
0 shadow, barely present to the eye,

You lightly step, with a serene regard
On mortal fools who've judged you mean and hard
Angel with eyes of jet, great burnished brow!

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF HER LATE ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS DOWAGER OF WALES.

OVERTURE A SOLEMN DIRGE. AIR TRIO.

Arise, ye sons of worth, arise,
And waken every note of woe;
When truth and virtue reach the skies,
'Tis ours to weep the want below!

CHORUS.
When truth and virtue, etc.

MAN SPEAKER.
The praise attending pomp and power,
The incense given to kings,
Are but the trappings of an hour
Mere transitory things!
The base bestow them: but the good agree
To spurn the venal gifts as flattery.
But when to pomp and power are join'd
An equal dignity of mind
When titles are the smallest claim
When wealth and rank and noble blood,
But aid the power of doing good
Then all their trophies last; and flattery turns to fame.

I.

Light, warmth, and sprouting greenness, and o’er all
Blue, stainless, steel-bright ether, raining down
Tranquillity upon the deep-hushed town,
The freshening meadows, and the hillsides brown;
Voice of the west-wind from the hills of pine,
And the brimmed river from its distant fall,
Low hum of bees, and joyous interlude
Of bird-songs in the streamlet-skirting wood,
Heralds and prophecies of sound and sight,
Blessed forerunners of the warmth and light,
Attendant angels to the house of prayer,
With reverent footsteps keeping pace with mine,
Once more, through God’s great love, with you I share
A morn of resurrection sweet and fair
As that which saw, of old, in Palestine,
Immortal Love uprising in fresh bloom
From the dark night and winter of the to...

I

THE RETURN

He went, and he was gay to go:
And I smiled on him as he went.
My boy! 'Twas well he couldn't know
My darkest dread, or what it meant -

Just what it meant to smile and smile
And let my son go cheerily -
My son ... and wondering all the while
What stranger would come back to me.


II

THE DANCERS

All day beneath the hurtling shells
Before my burning eyes
Hover the dainty demoiselles -
The peacock dragon-flies.

Unceasingly they dart and glance
Above the stagnant stream -
And I am fighting here in France
As in a senseless dream.

A dream of shattering black shells
That hurtle overhead,
And dainty dancing demoiselles
Above the dreamless dead.


III

The neighbours gossiped idly at the door.
Copernicus lay dying overhead.
His little throng of friends, with startled eyes,
Whispered together, in that dark house of dreams,
From which by one dim crevice in the wall
He used to watch the stars.
        "His book has come
From Nuremberg at last; but who would dare
To let him see it now?"--
                            "They have altered it!
Though Rome approved in full, this preface, look,
Declares that his discoveries are a dream!"--
"He has asked a thousand times if it has come;
Could we tear out those pages?"--
                    "He'd suspect."--
"What shall be done, then?"--
            "Hold it back awhile.
That was the priest's voice in the room above.
He may forget it. Those last sacraments

Oh, unforgotten and only lover,
Many years have swept us apart,
But none of the long dividing seasons
Slay your memory in my heart.
In the clash and clamour of things unlovely
My thoughts drift back to the times that were,
When I, possessing thy pale perfection,
Kissed the eyes and caressed the hair.

Other passions and loves have drifted
Over this wandering, restless soul,
Rudderless, chartless, floating always
With some new current of chance control.
But thine image is clear in the whirling waters -
Ah, forgive - that I drag it there,
For it is so part of my very being
That where I wander it too must fare.

Ah, I have given thee strange companions,
To thee - so slender and chaste and cool -
But a white star loses no glimmer of beauty