Identity

    I.

    Old fables are not all a lie
    That tell of wondrous birth,
    Of Titan children, father Sky,
    And mighty mother Earth.

    Yea, now are walking on the ground
    Sons of the mingled brood;
    Yea, now upon the earth are found
    Such daughters of the Good.

    Earth-born, my sister, thou art still
    A daughter of the sky;
    Oh, climb for ever up the hill
    Of thy divinity!

    To thee thy mother Earth is sweet,
    Her face to thee is fair;
    But thou, a goddess incomplete,
    Must climb the starry stair.


    II.

    Wouldst thou the holy hill ascend,
    Wouldst see the Father's face?
    To all his other children bend,
    And take the lowest place.

   ...

Night waneth fast, the morning star
    Saddens with light the glimmering sea,
Whose waves shall soon to realms afar
    Waft me from hope, from love, and thee.
Coldly the beam from yonder sky
    Looks o'er the waves that onward stray;
But colder still the stranger's eye
    To him whose home is far away

Oh, not at hour so chill and bleak,
    Let thoughts of me come o'er thy breast;
But of the lost one think and speak,
    When summer suns sink calm to rest.
So, as I wander, Fancy's dream
    Shall bring me o'er the sunset seas,
Thy look in every melting beam,
    Thy whisper in each dying breeze.

Yes; since she knows not need,
Nor walks in blindness,
I may without unkindness
A true thing tell:

Which would be truth, indeed,
Though worse in speaking,
Were her poor footsteps seeking
A pauper's cell.

I judge, then, better far
She now have sorrow,
Than gladness that to-morrow
Might know its knell. -

It may be men there are
Could make of union
A lifelong sweet communion -
A passioned spell;

But I, to save her name
And bring salvation
By altar-affirmation
And bridal bell;

I, by whose rash unshame
These tears come to her:-
My faith would more undo her
Than my farewell!

Chained to me, year by year
My moody madness
Would wither her old gladness
Like famine fell.

I


The lights are out, and gone are all the guests
That thronging came with merriment and jests
    To celebrate the Hanging of the Crane
In the new house,--into the night are gone;
But still the fire upon the hearth burns on,
    And I alone remain.

    O fortunate, O happy day,
    When a new household finds its place
    Among the myriad homes of earth,
    Like a new star just sprung to birth,
    And rolled on its harmonious way
    Into the boundless realms of space!

So said the guests in speech and song,
As in the chimney, burning bright,
We hung the iron crane to-night,
And merry was the feast and long.


II

And now I sit and muse on what may be,
And in my vision see, or seem to see,
    Throug...

I

The happiest day the happiest hour
My seared and blighted heart hath known,
The highest hope of pride and power,
I feel hath flown.


II

Of power! said I? Yes! such I ween
But they have vanished long, alas!
The visions of my youth have been
But let them pass.


III

And pride, what have I now with thee?
Another brow may ev'n inherit
The venom thou hast poured on me
Be still my spirit!


IV

The happiest day the happiest hour
Mine eyes shall see have ever seen
The brightest glance of pride and power
I feel have been:


V

But were that hope of pride and power
Now offered with the pain
Ev'n then I felt that brightest hour
I would not live again:

All fly - yet who is misanthrope? -
The actual men and things that pass
Jostling, to wither as the grass
So soon: and (be it heaven's hope,
Or poetry's kaleidoscope,
Or love or wine, at feast, at mass)
Each owns a paradise of glass
Where never a yearning heliotrope
Pursues the sun's ascent or slope;
For the sun dreams there, and no time is or was.

Like fauns embossed in our domain,
We look abroad, and our calm eyes
Mark how the goatish gods of pain
Revel; and if by grim surprise
They break into our paradise,
Patient we build its beauty up again.

By the stream I dream in calm delight, and watch as in a glass,
How the clouds like crowds of snowy-hued and white-robed maidens pass,
And the water into ripples breaks and sparkles as it spreads,
Like a host of armored knights with silver helmets on their heads.
And I deem the stream an emblem fit of human life may go,
For I find a mind may sparkle much and yet but shallows show,
And a soul may glow with myriad lights and wondrous mysteries,
When it only lies a dormant thing and mirrors what it sees.

        In this dense hall of green and gold,
        Mirrors and lights and steam, there sit
        Two hundred munching men;
        While several score of others flit
        Like scurrying beetles over a fen,
        With plates in fanlike spread; or fold
        Napkins, or jerk the corks from bottles,
        Ministers to greedy throttles.
        Some make noises while they eat,
        Pick their teeth or shuffle their feet,
        Wipe their noses 'neath eyes that range
        Or frown whilst waiting for their change.
        Gobble, gobble, toil and trouble.
        Soul! this life is very strange,
        And circumstances very foul
        Attend the belly's stormy howl.
    How horrible this noise! this air how thick!
    It is disgusting ...

I

TEMPEST


Wrapped round of the night, as a monster is wrapped of the ocean,
Down, down through vast storeys of darkness, behold, in the tower
Of the heaven, the thunder! on stairways of cloudy commotion,
Colossal of tread, like a giant, from echoing hour to hour
Goes striding in rattling armor ...
The Nymph, at her billow-roofed dormer
Of foam; and the Sylvan--green-housed--at her window of leaves appears;
--As a listening woman, who hears
The approach of her lover, who comes to her arms in the night;
And, loosening the loops of her locks,
With eyes full of love and delight,
From the couch of her rest in ardor and haste arises.--
The Nymph, as if breathed of the tempest, like fire surprises
The riotous bands of the rocks,
That face with a roa...

        We talk of taxes, and I call you friend;
        Well, such you are,--but well enough we know
        How thick about us root, how rankly grow
        Those subtle weeds no man has need to tend,
        That flourish through neglect, and soon must send
        Perfume too sweet upon us and overthrow
        Our steady senses; how such matters go
        We are aware, and how such matters end.
        Yet shall be told no meagre passion here;
        With lovers such as we forevermore
        Isolde drinks the draught, and Guinevere
        Receives the Table's ruin through her door,
        Francesca, with the loud surf at her ear,
        Lets fall the colored book upon the floor.

Men of Eleusis, ye that with long staves
Sit in the market-houses, and speak words
Made sweet with wisdom as the rare wine is
Thickened with honey; and ye sons of these
Who in the glad thick streets go up and down
For pastime or grave traffic or mere chance;
And all fair women having rings of gold
On hands or hair; and chiefest over these
I name you, daughters of this man the king,
Who dipping deep smooth pitchers of pure brass
Under the bubbled wells, till each round lip
Stooped with loose gurgle of waters incoming,
Found me an old sick woman, lamed and lean,
Beside a growth of builded olive-boughs
Whence multiplied thick song of thick-plumed throats
Also wet tears filled up my hollow hands
By reason of my crying into them
And pitied me; for as cold wate...

(For Amelia Josephine Burr)



The road is wide and the stars are out and the breath of the night is sweet,
And this is the time when wanderlust should seize upon my feet.
But I'm glad to turn from the open road and the starlight on my face,
And to leave the splendour of out-of-doors for a human dwelling place.

I never have seen a vagabond who really liked to roam
All up and down the streets of the world and not to have a home:
The tramp who slept in your barn last night and left at break of day
Will wander only until he finds another place to stay.

A gypsy-man will sleep in his cart with canvas overhead;
Or else he'll go into his tent when it is time for bed.
He'll sit on the grass and take his ease so long as the sun is high,
But when it is dark he wa...

Stella, while now, by Honours cruell might,
I am from you, light of my life, misled,
And whiles, faire you, my sunne, thus ouerspred
With Absence vaile, I liue in Sorrowes night;
If this darke place yet shewe like candle-light,
Some beauties peece, as amber-colour'd hed,
Milke hands, rose cheeks, or lips more sweet, more red;
Or seeing jets blacke but in blacknesse bright;
They please, I do confesse they please mine eyes.
But why? because of you they models be;
Models, such be wood-globes of glist'ring skies.
Deere therefore be not iaelous ouer me,
If you heare that they seeme my heart to moue;
Not them, O no, but you in them I loue.

Dramatis Personæ

Poet. Philosopher. Jones of Mariposa.



Poet
Halt! Here we are. Now wheel your mare a trifle
Just where you stand; then doff your hat and swear
Never yet was scene you might cover with your rifle
Half as complete or as marvelously fair.

Philosopher
Dropped from Olympus or lifted out of Tempe,
Swung like a censer betwixt the earth and sky!
He who in Greece sang of flocks and flax and hemp, he
Here might recall them six thousand feet on high!

Poet
Well you may say so. The clamor of the river,
Hum of base toil, and man’s ignoble strife,
Halt far below, where the stifling sunbeams quiver,
But never climb to this purer, higher life!

Not to this glade, where Jones of Mariposa,
Simple and meek as his ...

I buckle to my slender side
The pistol and the scimitar,
And in my maiden flower and pride
Am come to share the tasks of war.
And yonder stands my fiery steed,
That paws the ground and neighs to go,
My charger of the Arab breed,
I took him from the routed foe.

My mirror is the mountain spring,
At which I dress my ruffled hair;
My dimmed and dusty arms I bring,
And wash away the blood-stain there.
Why should I guard from wind and sun
This cheek, whose virgin rose is fled?
It was for one, oh, only one,
I kept its bloom, and he is dead.

But they who slew him, unaware
Of coward murderers lurking nigh,
And left him to the fowls of air,
Are yet alive, and they must die.
They slew him, and my virgin years
Are vowed to Greece and v...

It wor dark an mi way wor across a wild mooar,
An noa signs could aw find ov a track,
'Twor a place whear aw nivver had rambled befooar;
An aw eearnestly wished misen back.
As aw went on an on mooar uneven it grew,
An farther mi feet seem'd to stray,
When a chap made me start, as he shaated "Halloa!
Maister, yor missin yor way!"

Wi' his help aw contrived to land safely back hooam,
An aw thowt as o'th' hearthstun aw set,
What a blessin 'twod be if when other fowk rooam,
They should meet sich a friend as aw'd met.
An aw sat daan to write just theas words ov advice,
Soa read 'em young Yorksher fowk, pray;
An aw'st think for mi trubble aw'm paid a rare price,
If aw've saved one throo missin ther way.

Yo lads 'at's but latly begun to wear hats,
An ...

A Log-Hut in the solitude,
A clapboard roof to rest beneath!
This side, the shadow-haunted wood;
That side, the sunlight-haunted heath.

At daybreak Morn shall come to me
In raiment of the white winds spun;
Slim in her rosy hand the key
That opes the gateway of the sun.

Her smile shall help my heart enough
With love to labour all the day,
And cheer the road, whose rocks are rough,
With her smooth footprints, each a ray.

At dusk a voice shall call afar,
A lone voice like the whippoorwill's;
And, on her shimmering brow one star,
Night shall descend the western hills.

She at my door till dawn shall stand,
With gothic eyes, that, dark and deep,
Are mirrors of a mystic land,
Fantastic with the towns of sleep.

I.

The plain was grassy, wild and bare,
Wide, wild, and open to the air,
Which had built up everywhere
An under-roof of doleful gray.
With an inner voice the river ran,
Adown it floated a dying swan,
And loudly did lament.
It was the middle of the day.
Ever the weary wind went on,
And took the reed-tops as it went.



II.

Some blue peaks in the distance rose,
And white against the cold-white sky,
Shone out their crowning snows.
One willow over the river wept,
And shook the wave as the wind did sigh;
Above in the wind was the swallow,
Chasing itself at its own wild will,
And far thro’ the marish green and still
The tangled water-courses slept,
Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow.