Identity

All has been plunder'd from me but my wit:
Fortune herself can lay no claim to it.

What dainty note of long-drawn melody
Athwart our dreamless sleep rings sweet and clear,
Till all the fumes of slumber are brushed by,


And with awakened consciousness we hear
The pipe of birds?    Look forth!    The sane, white day
Blesses the hilltops, and the sun is near.


All misty phantoms slowly roll away
With the night's vapors toward the western sky.
The Real enchants us, the fresh breath of hay


Blows toward us; soft the meadow-grasses lie,
Bearded with dew; the air is a caress;
The sudden sun o'ertops the boundary


Of eastern hills, the morning joyousness
Thrills tingling through the frame; life's pulse beats strong;
Night's fancies melt like dew.    So ends the song!

Great spirits now on earth are sojourning;
He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake,
Who on Helvellyn's summit, wide awake,
Catches his freshness from Archangel's wing:
He of the rose, the violet, the spring,
The social smile, the chain for Freedom's sake:
And lo! whose stedfastness would never take
A meaner sound than Raphael’s whispering.
And other spirits there are standing apart
Upon the forehead of the age to come;
These, these will give the world another heart,
And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum
Of mighty workings?
Listen awhile ye nations, and be dumb.

Welladay!
Here I lay
You at rest - all worn away,
    O my pencil, to the tip
    Of our old companionship!

Memory
Sighs to see
What you are, and used to be,
    Looking backward to the time
    When you wrote your earliest rhyme! -

When I sat
Filing at
Your first point, and dreaming that
    Your initial song should be
    Worthy of posterity.

With regret
I forget
If the song be living yet,
    Yet remember, vaguely now,
    It was honest, anyhow.

You have brought
Me a thought -
Truer yet was never taught, -
    That the silent song is best,
    And the unsung worthiest.

So if I,
When I die,
May as uncomplainingly
    Drop aside as now you do,
    Write of me, as I ...

In times of old, when Time was young,
And poets their own verses sung,
A verse would draw a stone or beam,
That now would overload a team;
Lead 'em a dance of many a mile,
Then rear 'em to a goodly pile.
Each number had its diff'rent power;
Heroic strains could build a tower;
Sonnets, or elegies to Chloris,
Might raise a house about two stories;
A lyric ode would slate; a catch
Would tile; an epigram would thatch.
    But, to their own or landlord's cost,
Now Poets feel this art is lost.
Not one of all our tuneful throng
Can raise a lodging for a song.
For Jove consider'd well the case,
Observed they grew a numerous race;
And should they build as fast as write,
'Twould ruin undertakers quite.
This evil, therefore, to prevent,
He wisely...

I fling my past behind me, like a robe
Worn threadbare in the seams, and out of date.
I have outgrown it. Wherefore should I weep
And dwell upon its beauty, and its dyes
Of Oriental splendor, or complain
That I must needs discard it? I can weave
Upon the shuttles of the future years
A fabric far more durable. Subdued,
It may be, in the blending of its hues,
Where somber shades commingle, yet the gleam
Of golden warp shall shoot it through and through,
While over all a fadeless luster lies,
And starred with gems made out of crystalled tears,
My new robe shall be richer than the old.

The fresh savannas of the Sangamon
Here rise in gentle swells, and the long grass
Is mixed with rustling hazels. Scarlet tufts
Are glowing in the green, like flakes of fire;
The wanderers of the prairie know them well,
And call that brilliant flower the Painted Cup.

Now, if thou art a poet, tell me not
That these bright chalices were tinted thus
To hold the dew for fairies, when they meet
On moonlight evenings in the hazel bowers,
And dance till they are thirsty. Call not up,
Amid this fresh and virgin solitude,
The faded fancies of an elder world;
But leave these scarlet cups to spotted moths
Of June, and glistening flies, and humming-birds,
To drink from, when on all these boundless lawns
The morning sun looks hot. Or let the wind
O'erturn in spor...

High travelling winds by royal hill
Their awful anthem sing,
And songs exalted flow and fill
The caverns of the spring.

To-night across a wild wet plain
A shadow sobs and strays;
The trees are whispering in the rain
Of long departed days.

I cannot say what forest saith
Its words are strange to me:
I only know that in its breath
Are tones that used to be.

Yea, in these deep dim solitudes
I hear a sound I know
The voice that lived in Penrith woods
Twelve weary years ago.

And while the hymn of other years
Is on a listening land,
The Angel of the Past appears
And leads me by the hand;

And takes me over moaning wave,
And tracts of sleepless change,
To set me by a lonely grave
Within a lonely range.

I.
O sweet pale Margaret,
O rare pale Margaret,
What lit your eyes with tearful power,
Like moonlight on a falling shower?
Who lent you, love, your mortal dower
Of pensive thought and aspect pale,
Your melancholy sweet and frail
As perfume of the cuckoo-flower?
From the westward-winding flood,
From the evening-lighted wood,
From all things outward you have won
A tearful grace, as tho’ you stood
Between the rainbow and the sun.
The very smile before you speak,
That dimples your transparent cheek,
Encircles all the heart, and feedeth
The senses with a still delight
Of dainty sorrow without sound,
Like the tender amber round,
Which the moon about her spreadeth,
Moving thro’ a fleecy night.

II.
You love, remaining peacefull...

FRANK (on the Lawn).
Come to the Terrace, May,--the sun is low.

MAY (in the House).
Thanks, I prefer my Browning here instead.

FRANK.
There are two peaches by the strawberry bed.

MAY.
They will be riper if we let them grow.

FRANK.
Then the Park-aloe is in bloom, you know.

MAY.
Also, her Majesty Queen Anne is dead.

FRANK.
But surely, May, your pony must be fed.

MAY.
And was, and is. I fed him hours ago.
'Tis useless, Frank, you see I shall not stir.

FRANK.
Still, I had something you would like to hear.

MAY.
No doubt some new frivolity of men.

FRANK.
Nay,--'tis a thing the gentler sex deplores
Chiefly, I think....

MAY (coming to the window).
What is thi...

When each white moon, her lantern idly swinging,
    Comes out to join the star night-watching band,
Across the grey-green sea, a ship is bringing
    For me a letter, from the Motherland.

Naught would I care to live in quaint old Britain,
    These wilder shores are dearer far to me,
Yet when I read the words that hand has written,
    The parent sod more precious seems to be.

Within that folded note I catch the savour
    Of climes that make the Motherland so fair,
Although I never knew the blessed favour
    That surely lies in breathing English air.

Imagination's brush before me fleeing,
    Paints English pictures, though my longing eyes
Have never known the blessedness of seeing
    The blue that lines the arch of English skies.

A...

Softened by Time's consummate plush,
How sleek the woe appears
That threatened childhood's citadel
And undermined the years!

Bisected now by bleaker griefs,
We envy the despair
That devastated childhood's realm,
So easy to repair.

The days go by, the days go by,
Sadly and wearily to die:
Each with its burden of small cares,
Each with its sad gift of gray hairs
For those who sit, like me, and sigh,
“The days go by! The days go by!”
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes,
Shedding a rain of rare perfumes
That men call memories, they are borne
As in life’s many-visioned morn,
When Love sang in the myrtle-blooms,
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes!

Where is my life? Where is my life?
The morning of my youth was rife
With promise of a golden day.
Where have my hopes gone? Where are they,
The passion and the splendid strife?
Where is my life? Where is my life?

My thoughts take hue from this wild day,
And, like the skies, are ashen gray;
The sharp rain, falling constantly...

Out of the window a sea of green trees
Lift their soft boughs like the arms of a dancer,
They beckon and call me, "Come out in the sun!"
But I cannot answer.

I am alone with Weakness and Pain,
Sick abed and June is going,
I cannot keep her, she hurries by
With the silver-green of her garments blowing.

Men and women pass in the street
Glad of the shining sapphire weather,
But we know more of it than they,
Pain and I together.

They are the runners in the sun,
Breathless and blinded by the race,
But we are watchers in the shade
Who speak with Wonder face to face.

    As there is music uninform'd by art
    In those wild notes, which, with a merry heart,
    The birds in unfrequented shades express,
    Who, better taught at home, yet please us less:
    So in your verse a native sweetness dwells,
    Which shames composure, and its art excels.
    Singing no more can your soft numbers grace,
    Than paint adds charms unto a beauteous face.
    Yet as, when mighty rivers gently creep,
    Their even calmness does suppose them deep;
    Such is your muse: no metaphor swell'd high
    With dangerous boldness lifts her to the sky:
    Those mounting fancies, when they fall again,
    Show sand and dirt at bottom do remain.
    So firm a strength, and yet withal so sweet,
    Did never but in Samson's riddle meet.
    'Tis...

THE BRICKLAYER:

I tell this tale, which is strictly true,
Just by way of convincing you
How very little, since things were made,
Things have altered in building trade.

A year ago, come the middle of March,
We was building flats near the Marble Arch,
When a thin young man with coal-black hair
Came up to watch us working there.

Now there wasn't a trick in brick or stone
Which this young man hadn't seen or known;
Nor there wasn't a tool from trowel to maul
But this young man could use 'em all!

Then up and spoke the plumbyers bold,
Which was laying the pipes for the hot and cold:
"Since you with us have made so free,
Will you kindly say what your name might be? "

The young man kindly answered them:
"It might be Lot or Methus...

    When I see truth, do I seek truth
    Only that I may things denote,
    And, rich by striving, deck my youth
    As with a vain unusual coat?

    Or seek I truth for other ends:
    That she in other hearts may stir,
    That even my most familiar friends
    May turn from me to look on her?

    So I this day myself was asking;
    Out of the window skies were blue
    And Thames was in the sunlight basking;
    My thoughts coiled inwards like a screw.

    I watched them anxious for a while;
    Then quietly, as I did watch,
    Spread in my soul a sudden smile:
    I knew that no firm thing they'd catch.

    And I remembered if I leapt
    Upon the bosom of the wind
    It would sustain me; question slept;
    I fel...

One sweeps by, attended by an immense train,
All emblematic of peace - not a soldier or menial among them.

One sweeps by, old, with black eyes, and profuse white hair,
He has the simple magnificence of health and strength,
His face strikes as with flashes of lightning whoever it turns toward.

Three old men slowly pass, followed by three others, and they by three others,
They are beautiful - the one in the middle of each group holds his companions by the hand,
As they walk, they give out perfume wherever they walk.