Identity

Let us bid the world good-by,
Now while sun and cloud's above us,
While we've nothing to deny,
Nothing but our selves to love us:
Let us fancy, I and you,
All the dreams we dreamed came true.

We have gone but half the road,
Rugged road of root and bowlder;
Made the best of Life's dark load,
Cares, that helped us to grow older:
We, my dear, have done our best
Let us stop awhile and rest.

Let us, by this halfway stile,
Put away the world's desire,
And sit down, a little while,
With our hearts, and light a fire:
Sing the songs that once we sung
In the days when we were young.

Haply they will bring again,
From the Lands of Song and Story,
To our sides the elfin train
Of the dreams we dreamed of glory,
That are one no...

(Musa loquitur.)

I hung my verses in the wind,
Time and tide their faults may find.
All were winnowed through and through,
Five lines lasted sound and true;
Five were smelted in a pot
Than the South more fierce and hot;
These the siroc could not melt,
Fire their fiercer flaming felt,
And the meaning was more white
Than July's meridian light.
Sunshine cannot bleach the snow,
Nor time unmake what poets know.
Have you eyes to find the five
Which five hundred did survive?

Like to a bride, come forth, my book, at last,
With all thy richest jewels overcast;
Say, if there be, 'mongst many gems here, one
Deserveless of the name of paragon;
Blush not at all for that, since we have set
Some pearls on queens that have been counterfeit.

I am glad that you have come,
    Arthur, from the dusty town;
You must throw aside your cares,
    And relax your legal frown.
Coke and Littleton, avaunt!
    You have ruled him through the day;
In this quiet, sylvan haunt,
    Be content to yield your sway.

It is pleasant, is it not,
    Sitting here beneath the trees,
While the restless wind above
    Ripples over leafy seas?

Often, when the twilight falls,
    In the shadow, quite alone,
I have sat till starlight came,
    Listening to its monotone.
Yet not always quite alone,--
    Brother, let me take the place
Just behind you now the moon
    Shines no longer in my face.

It is near two months ago
    Since I met him, as I think,
By God's mercy, when my hor...

The typewriter ticketh no more in the twilight;
The mother of poets is sitting alone;
Only the katydid teases the noonday;
Where are the good-for-naught wanderbirds flown?

Tom's in the North with his purple impressions;
Dickon's in London a-building his fame;
Fred's in the mountains a-minding his cattle;
Kavanagh's teaching and preaching and game.

Over in Kingscroft a toiler is writing,
The boyish Old Man whom no fate ever floored;
Karl's in New York with his briefs and his logic,
That subtile mind like a velvet-sheathed sword.

Blomidon welcomes his brother in silence;
Grand Pré is luring him back to her breast;
Faint and far off are the cries of the city,
There in the country of infinite rest.

All of them turn in their wide vagabondage...

"I suppose she was right in rejecting my suit,
But why did she kick me down stairs?"
                        Halleck's "Discarded."




The wing of my spirit is broken,
    My day-star of hope has declined;
For a month not a word have I spoken
    That's either polite or refined.
My mind's like the sky in bad weather,
    When mist-clouds around us are curled:
And, viewing myself altogether,
    I'm the veriest wretch in the world!

I wander about like a vagrant--
    I spend half my time in the street;
My conduct's improper and flagrant,
    For I quarrel with all that I meet.
My dress, too, is wholly neglected,
    My hat I pull over my brow,
And I look like a fellow suspected
    Of wishing to kick up a row.

In ...

The gulf of seven and fifty years
We stretch our welcoming hands across;
The distance but a pebble's toss
Between us and our youth appears.

For in life's school we linger on
The remnant of a once full list;
Conning our lessons, undismissed,
With faces to the setting sun.

And some have gone the unknown way,
And some await the call to rest;
Who knoweth whether it is best
For those who went or those who stay?

And yet despite of loss and ill,
If faith and love and hope remain,
Our length of days is not in vain,
And life is well worth living still.

Still to a gracious Providence
The thanks of grateful hearts are due,
For blessings when our lives were new,
For all the good vouchsafed us since.

The pain that spared us...

All hail, once pleasing, once inspiring shade,
Scene of my youthful loves, and happier hours!
Where the kind Muses met me as I stray'd,
And gently press'd my hand, and said, 'Be ours!--
Take all thou e'er shalt have, a constant Muse:
At Court thou mayst be liked, but nothing gain;
Stocks thou mayst buy and sell, but always lose;
And love the brightest eyes, but love in vain.'

Life is a privilege.    Its youthful days
Shine with the radiance of continuous Mays.
To live, to breathe, to wonder and desire,
To feed with dreams the heart's perpetual fire,
To thrill with virtuous passions, and to glow
With great ambitions - in one hour to know
The depths and heights of feeling - God! in truth,
How beautiful, how beautiful is youth!

Life is a privilege.    Like some rare rose
The mysteries of the human mind unclose.
What marvels lie in earth, and air, and sea!
What stores of knowledge wait our opening key!
What sunny roads of happiness lead out
Beyond the realms of indolence and doubt!
And what large pleasures smile upon and bless
The busy avenues of usefulness!

Life is a privilege.    Though noontide fades
And shadows fal...

Illileo, the moonlight seemed lost across the vales -
The stars but strewed the azure as an armor's scattered scales;
The airs of night were quiet as the breath of silken sails,
And all your words were sweeter than the notes of nightingales.

Illileo Legardi, in the garden there alone,
With your figure carved of fervor, as the Psyche carved of stone,
There came to me no murmur of the fountain's undertone
So mystically, musically mellow as your own.

You whispered low, Illileo - so low the leaves were mute,
And the echoes faltered breathless in your voice's vain pursuit;
And there died the distant dalliance of the serenader's lute:
And I held you in my bosom as the husk may hold the fruit.

Illileo, I listened. I believed you. In my bliss,
What were all the wor...

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.

In the turbulent beauty
Of a gusty Autumn day,
Poet on a sunny headland
Sighed his soul away.

Farms the sunny landscape dappled,
Swandown clouds dappled the farms,
Cattle lowed in mellow distance
Where far oaks outstretched their arms.

Sudden gusts came full of meaning,
All too much to him they said,
Oh, south winds have long memories,
Of that be none afraid.

I cannot tell rude listeners
Half the tell-tale South-wind said,--
'T would bring the blushes of yon maples
To a man and to a maid.

Those parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view
Want nothing that the thought of hearts can mend;
All tongues, the voice of souls, give thee that due,
Uttering bare truth, even so as foes commend.
Thy outward thus with outward praise is crown’d;
But those same tongues, that give thee so thine own,
In other accents do this praise confound
By seeing farther than the eye hath shown.
They look into the beauty of thy mind,
And that in guess they measure by thy deeds;
Then, churls, their thoughts, although their eyes were kind,
To thy fair flower add the rank smell of weeds:
But why thy odour matcheth not thy show,
The soil is this, that thou dost common grow.

[1]

Two demons at their pleasure share our being -
The cause of Reason from her homestead fleeing;
No heart but on their altars kindleth flames.
If you demand their purposes and names,
The one is Love, the other is Ambition.
Of far the greater share this takes possession,
For even into love it enters,
Which I might prove; but now my story centres
Upon a shepherd clothed with lofty powers:
The tale belongs to older times than ours.

A king observed a flock, wide spread
Upon the plains, most admirably fed,
O'erpaying largely, as return'd the years,
Their shepherd's care, by harvests for his shears.
Such pleasure in this man the monarch took, -
'Thou meritest,' said he, 'to wield a crook
O'er higher flock than this; and my esteem
O...

Give all to love;
Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good-fame,
Plans, credit and the Muse,--
Nothing refuse.

'T is a brave master;
Let it have scope:
Follow it utterly,
Hope beyond hope:
High and more high
It dives into noon,
With wing unspent,
Untold intent;
But it is a god,
Knows its own path
And the outlets of the sky.

It was never for the mean;
It requireth courage stout.
Souls above doubt,
Valor unbending,
It will reward,--
They shall return
More than they were,
And ever ascending.

Leave all for love;
Yet, hear me, yet,
One word more thy heart behoved,
One pulse more of firm endeavor,--
Keep thee to-day,
To-morrow, forever,
Free as an Arab
Of th...

Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower
Of beauty is thy earthly dower!
Twice seven consenting years have shed
Their utmost bounty on thy head:
And these grey rocks; that household lawn;
Those trees, a veil just half withdrawn;
This fall of water that doth make
A murmur near the silent lake;
This little bay; a quiet road
That holds in shelter thy Abode
In truth together do ye seem
Like something fashioned in a dream;
Such Forms as from their covert peep
When earthly cares are laid asleep!
But, O fair Creature! in the light
Of common day, so heavenly bright,
I bless Thee, Vision as thou art,
I bless thee with a human heart;
God shield thee to thy latest years!
Thee, neither know I, nor thy peers;
And yet my eyes are filled with tears.

...

    Thou art not lovelier than lilacs,--no,
        Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair
        Than small white single poppies,--I can bear
    Thy beauty; though I bend before thee, though
    From left to right, not knowing where to go,
        I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor there
        Find any refuge from thee, yet I swear
    So has it been with mist,--with moonlight so.

    Like him who day by day unto his draught
        Of delicate poison adds him one drop more
    Till he may drink unharmed the death of ten,
    Even so, inured to beauty, who have quaffed
        Each hour more deeply than the hour before,
    I drink--and live--what has destroyed some men.

IN THE MANNER OF SWIFT

Long had I sought in vain to find
A likeness for the scribbling kind;
The modern scribbling kind, who write
In wit, and sense, and nature's spite:
Till reading, I forget what day on,
A chapter out of Tooke's Pantheon,
I think I met with something there,
To suit my purpose to a hair;
But let us not proceed too furious,
First please to turn to god Mercurius;
You'll find him pictur'd at full length
In book the second, page the tenth:
The stress of all my proofs on him I lay,
And now proceed we to our simile.

Imprimis, pray observe his hat,
Wings upon either side mark that.
Well! what is it from thence we gather?
Why these denote a brain of feather.
A brain of feather! very right,
With wit that's flighty, lear...