Identity

Time and I pass to and fro,
Hardly greeting as we go, -
Go askant, like crossing wings
Of sea-gulls where the brave sea sings.

Time, the messenger of Fate!
Cunning master of debate,
Cunning soother of all sorrow,
Ruthless robber of to-morrow;
Tyrant to our dallying feet,
Though patron of a life complete;
Like Puck upon a rosy cloud,
He rides to distance while we woo him, -
Like pale Remorse wrapped in a shroud,
He brings the world in sackcloth to him!
O dimly seen, and often met
As shadowings of a wild regret!
O king of us, yet feebly served;
Dispenser of the dooms reserved;
So silent at the folly done,
So deadly when our respite's gone! -
As sea-gulls, slanting, cross at sea,
So cross our rapid flights with thee.

Midnight June 30 1879

I.

Midnight–in no midsummer tune
The breakers lash the shores:
The cuckoo of a joyless June
Is calling out of doors:

And thou hast vanish’d from thine own
To that which looks like rest,
True brother, only to be known
By those who love thee best.


II.

Midnight–and joyless June gone by,
And from the deluged park
The cuckoo of a worse July
Is calling thro’ the dark:

But thou art silent underground,
And o’er thee streams the rain,
True poet, surely to be found
When Truth is found again.


III.

And now, in these unsummer’d skies
The summer bird is still,
Far off a phantom cuckoo cries
From out a phantom hill;

And thro’ this midnight breaks th...

i.

It seems a year, and more, since last we met,
    Since roseate spring repaid, in part, its debt
To thy bright eyes, and o'er the lowlands fair
Made daffodils so like thy golden hair
That I, poor wretch, have kiss'd them on my knees!
Forget-Me-Nots peep out beneath the trees
    So like thine eyes that I have question'd them,
And thought thee near, though viewless on the breeze.


ii.

It seems a year; and yet, when all is told,
    'Tis but a week since I was re-enroll'd
Among thy friends. How fairy-like the scene!
How gay with lamps! How fraught with tender sheen
Of life and languor! I was thine alone:--
Alert for thee,--intent to catch the tone
    Of thy sweet voice,--and proud to be alive
To call to heart a peace for ever flow...

        The débutantes are in force to-night,
            Sweet as their roses, pure as truth;
        Dreams of beauty in clouds of tulle;
            Blushing, fair in their guileless youth.
        Flashing bright glances carelessly
            Carelessly, think you! Wait and see
        How their sweetest smile is kept for him
            Whom "mother" considers a good parti.

        For the matrons watch and guard them well
            Little for youth or love care they;
        The man they seek is the man with gold,
            Though his heart be black, and his hair be gray.
        "Nellie, how could you treat him so!
            You know very well he is Goldmore's heir,"
        "Jennie, look modest! Glance down and blush,
     ...

What is it to grow old?
Is it to lose the glory of the form,
The lustre of the eye?
Is it for beauty to forego her wreath?
Yes, but not for this alone.

Is it to feel our strength,
Not our bloom only, but our strength, decay?
Is it to feel each limb
Grow stiffer, every function less exact,
Each nerve more weakly strung?

Yes, this, and more! but not,
Ah, 'tis not what in youth we dreamed 'twould be!
'Tis not to have our life
Mellowed and softened as with sunset-glow,
A golden day's decline!

'Tis not to see the world
As from a height, with rapt prophetic eyes,
And heart profoundly stirred;
And weep, and feel the fulness of the past,
The years that are no more!

It is to spend long days
And not once feel that we were...

Music in Italy.--Disappointed by it.--Recollections or other Times and Friends.--Dalton.--Sir John Stevenson.--His Daughter.--Musical Evenings together.


If it be true that Music reigns,
    Supreme, in ITALY'S soft shades,
'Tis like that Harmony so famous,
Among the spheres, which He of SAMOS
Declared had such transcendent merit
That not a soul on earth could hear it;
For, far as I have come--from Lakes,
Whose sleep the Tramontana breaks,
Thro' MILAN and that land which gave
The Hero of the rainbow vest[1]--
By MINCIO'S banks, and by that wave,
Which made VERONA'S bard so blest--
Places that (like the Attic shore,
Which rung back music when the sea
Struck on its marge) should be all o'er
Thrilling alive with melody--
I've hea...

My ear is full of summer sounds,
Of summer sights my languid eye;
Beyond the dusty village bounds
I loiter in my daily rounds,
And in the noon-time shadows lie.

I hear the wild bee wind his horn,
The bird swings on the ripened wheat,
The long green lances of the corn
Are tilting in the winds of morn,
The locust shrills his song of heat.

Another sound my spirit hears,
A deeper sound that drowns them all,
A voice of pleading choked with tears,
The call of human hopes and fears,
The Macedonian cry to Paul!

The storm-bell rings, the trumpet blows;
I know the word and countersign;
Wherever Freedom’s vanguard goes,
Where stand or fall her friends or foes,
I know the place that should be mine.

Shamed be the hands that idly ...

I know a land, I, too,
    Where warm keen incense on the sea-wind blows,
And all the winter long the skies are blue,
    And the brown deserts blossom with the rose.

Deserts of all delight,
    Cactus and palm and earth of thirsty gold,
Dark purple blooms round eaves of sun-washed white,
    And that Hesperian fruit men sought of old.

O, to be wandering there,
    Under the palm-trees, on that sunset shore,
Where the waves break in song, and the bright air
    Is crystal clean; and peace is ours, once more.

There Beauty dwells,
    Beauty, re-born in whiteness from the foam;
And Youth returns with all its magic spells,
    And the heart finds its long-forgotten home,--

Home--home! Where is that land?
    For, when I dream it found...

"When will the grave fling her cold arms around me,
    And earth on her dark bosom pillow my head?
Sorrow and trouble and anguish, have found me,
    Oh that I slumbered in peace with the dead!

"The forests are budding, the fruit-trees in bloom,
    And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
But my soul is bowed down by the spirit of gloom,
    I no longer rejoice as the blossoms expand.

"And April is here with her rich varied skies,
    Where the sunbeams of hope with the tempest contend,
And the bright drops that flow from her deep azure eyes
    On the bosom of nature like diamonds descend.

"She scatters her jewels o'er forest and lea,
    And casts in earth's lap all the wealth of the year;
But the promise she brings wakes no transports in ...

        Fair, sweet, and young, receive a prize
        Reserved for your victorious eyes:
        From crowds, whom at your feet you see,
        O pity, and distinguish me!
        As I from thousand beauties more
        Distinguish you, and only you adore.

        Your face for conquest was design'd,
        Your every motion charms my mind;
        Angels, when you your silence break,
        Forget their hymns, to hear you speak;
        But when at once they hear and view,
        Are loth to mount, and long to stay with you.

        No graces can your form improve,
        But all are lost, unless you love;
        While that sweet passion you disdain,
        Your veil and beauty are in vain:
        In pity then prevent my fate,
    ...

    When the shades of eve descending
        Throw o'er cloistered courts their gloom,
    Dimly with the twilight blending
        Memories long forgotten loom.
    From the bright fire's falling embers
        Faces smile that smiled of yore;
    Till my heart again remembers
        Hopes and thoughts that live no more.

    Then again does manhood's vigour
        Nerve my arm with iron strength;
    As of old when trained with rigour
        We beat Oxford by a length.
    Once again the willow wielding
        Do I urge the flying ball;
    Till "lost ball" the men who're fielding
        Hot and weary faintly call.

    Then I think of hours of study,
        Study silent as the tomb,
    Till the rays of morning ruddy
        ...

THE quick sparks on the gorse bushes are leaping,
Little jets of sunlight-texture imitating flame;
Above them, exultant, the pee-wits are sweeping:
They are lords of the desolate wastes of sadness their screamings proclaim.

Rabbits, handfuls of brown earth, lie
Low-rounded on the mournful grass they have bitten down to the quick.
Are they asleep? - Are they alive? - Now see, when I
Move my arms the hill bursts and heaves under their spurting kick.

The common flaunts bravely; but below, from the rushes
Crowds of glittering king-cups surge to challenge the blossoming bushes;
There the lazy streamlet pushes
Its curious course mildly; here it wakes again, leaps, laughs, and gushes.

Into a deep pond, an old sheep-dip,
Dark, overgrown with willows, cool, with the...

Down through the woods, along the way
That fords the stream; by rock and tree,
Where in the bramble-bell the bee
Swings; and through twilights green and gray
The redbird flashes suddenly,
My thoughts went wandering to-day.

I found the fields where, row on row,
The blackberries hang dark with fruit;
Where, nesting at the elder's root,
The partridge whistles soft and low;
The fields, that billow to the foot
Of those old hills we used to know.

There lay the pond, all willow-bound,
On whose bright face, when noons were hot,
We marked the bubbles rise; some plot
To lure us in; while all around
Our heads, - like faery fancies, - shot
The dragonflies without a sound.

The pond, above which evening bent
To gaze upon her gypsy face;

As the time draws nigh, glooming, a cloud,
A dread beyond, of I know not what, darkens me.

I shall go forth,
I shall traverse The States awhile--but I cannot tell whither or how long;
Perhaps soon, some day or night while I am singing, my voice will suddenly cease.

O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this?
Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us?... And yet it is enough, O soul!
O soul! we have positively appear'd--that is enough.

I determined to find out whose it was -
The portrait he looked at so, and sighed;
Bitterly have I rued my meanness
    And wept for it since he died!

I searched his desk when he was away,
And there was the likeness - yes, my own!
Taken when I was the season's fairest,
    And time-lines all unknown.

I smiled at my image, and put it back,
And he went on cherishing it, until
I was chafed that he loved not the me then living,
    But that past woman still.

Well, such was my jealousy at last,
I destroyed that face of the former me;
Could you ever have dreamed the heart of woman
    Would work so foolishly!

Inscribed to S.F.S.

They say that lonely sorrows do not chance.
I think it true, and that the cause I know:
A sorrow glideth in a funeral show
Easier than if it broke into a dance.
But I think too, that joy doth joy enhance
As often as an added grief brings low;
And if keen-eyed to see the flowers that grow,
As keen of nerve to feel the thorns that lance
The foot that must walk naked in one way--
Blest by the lily, white from toils and fears,
Oftener than wounded by the thistle-spears,
We should walk upright, bold, and earnest-gay.
I'll tell you how it fared with me one day
After noon in a world, so-called, of tears.

Evening is grey on the hills. The
north wind resounds through the
woods. White clouds rise on the sky: the
trembling snow descends. The river howls
afar, along its winding course. Sad,
by a hollow rock, the grey-hair'd Carryl
sat. Dry fern waves over his head; his
seat is in an aged birch. Clear to the
roaring winds he lifts his voice of woe.

Tossed on the wavy ocean is He,
the hope of the isles; Malcolm, the
support of the poor; foe to the proud
in arms! Why hast thou left us behind?
why live we to mourn thy fate? We
might have heard, with thee, the voice
of the deep; have seen the oozy rock.

Sad on the sea-beat shore thy spouse
looketh for thy return. The time of
thy promise is come; the night is gathering
around. But no white sail...

[PARIS, 1896]


Oh, damsel fair at the Porte Maillot,
With the soft blue eyes that haunt me so,
        Pray what should I do
        When a girl like you
Bestows her smile, her glance, and her sigh
On the first fond fool that is passing by,
Who listens and longs as the sweet words flow
From her pretty red lips at the Porte Maillot?

There were lips as red ere you were born,
Now wreathed in smiles, now curled in scorn,
        And other bright eyes
        With their truth and lies,
That broke the heart and turned the brain
Of many a tender, lovelorn swain;
But never, I ween, brought half the woe
That comes from the lips at the Porte Maillot.

A charming picture, there you stand,
A perfect work from a master's hand!
        W...