Identity

Translation of a Latin poem by Thomas Randolph

We the fairies blithe and antic
Of dimensions not gigantic,
Though the moonshine mostly keep us,
Oft in orchards frisk and peep us.

Stolen sweets are always sweeter;
Stolen kisses much completer;
Stolen looks are nice in chapels;
Stolen, stolen be your apples.

When to bed the world are bobbing,
Then’s the time for orchard robbing;
Yet the fruit were scarce worth peeling
Were it not for the stealing, stealing.

Posthumous Fragments Of Margaret Mcholson.

Being Poems found amongst the Papers of that noted Female who attempted the life of the King in 1786. Edited by John Fitzvictor.

[The "Posthumous Fragments", published at Oxford by Shelley, appeared in November, 1810.]


Melody To A Scene Of Former Times.

Art thou indeed forever gone,
Forever, ever, lost to me?
Must this poor bosom beat alone,
Or beat at all, if not for thee?
Ah! why was love to mortals given,
To lift them to the height of Heaven,
Or dash them to the depths of Hell?
Yet I do not reproach thee, dear!
Ah, no! the agonies that swell
This panting breast, this frenzied brain,
Might wake my - 's slumb'ring tear.
Oh! Heaven is witness I did love,
And Heaven does know I love thee s...

I was so proud of you last night, dear girl,
While man with man was striving for your smile.
You never lost your head, nor once dropped down
From your high place
As queen in that gay whirl.

(It takes more poise to wear a little crown
With modesty and grace
Than to adorn the lordlier thrones of earth.)

You seem so free from artifice and wile:
And in your eyes I read
Encouragement to my unspoken thought.
My heart is eloquent with words to plead
Its cause of passion; but my questioning mind,
Knowing how love is blind,
Dwells on the pros and cons, and God knows what.

My heart cries with each beat,
'She is so beautiful, so pure, so sweet,
So more than dear.'
And then I hear
The voice of Reason, asking:    'Would she meet
Life's...

The skies from black to pearly grey
Had veered without a star or sun;
Only a burning opal ray
Fell on your brow when all was done.

Aye, after victory, the crown;
Yet through the fight no word of cheer;
And what would win and what go down
No word could help, no light make clear.

A thousand ages onward led
Their joys and sorrows to that hour;
No wisdom weighed, no word was said,
For only what we were had power.

There was no tender leaning there
Of brow to brow in loving mood;
For we were rapt apart, and were
In elemental solitude.

We knew not in redeeming day
Whether our spirits would be found
Floating along the starry way,
Or in the earthly vapours drowned.

Brought by the sunrise-coloured flame
To earth, un...

I

Her eyes are wild, her head is bare,
The sun has burnt her coal-black hair;
Her eyebrows have a rusty stain,
And she came far from over the main.
She has a baby on her arm,
Or else she were alone:
And underneath the hay-stack warm,
And on the greenwood stone,
She talked and sung the woods among,
And it was in the English tongue.

II

"Sweet babe! they say that I am mad,
But nay, my heart is far too glad;
And I am happy when I sing
Full many a sad and doleful thing:
Then, lovely baby, do not fear!
I pray thee have no fear of me;
But safe as in a cradle, here,
My lovely baby! thou shalt be:
To thee I know too much I owe;
I cannot work thee any woe.

III

"A fire was once within my brain;
And in ...

God knows all things -- but we
In darkness walk our ways;
We wonder what will be,
We ask the nights and days.

Their lips are sealed; at times
The bards, like prophets, see,
And rays rush o'er their rhymes
From suns of "days to be".

They see To-morrow's heart,
They read To-morrow's face,
They grasp -- is it by art --
The far To-morrow's trace?

They see what is unseen,
And hear what is unheard,
And To-morrow's shade or sheen
Rests on the poet's word.

As seers see a star
Beyond the brow of night,
So poets scan the far
Prophetic when they write.

They read a human face,
As readers read their page,
The while their thought will trace
A life from youth to age.

They have a mournful gift,
T...

To my quick ear the leaves conferred;
The bushes they were bells;
I could not find a privacy
From Nature's sentinels.

In cave if I presumed to hide,
The walls began to tell;
Creation seemed a mighty crack
To make me visible.

Brother, my thought of you
In this letter on a palm-leaf
Goes up about you
As her own scent
Goes up about the rose.

The bracelets on my arms
Have grown too large
Because you went away.

I think the sun of love
Melted the snow of parting,
For the white river of tears has overflowed.

But though I am sad
I am still beautiful,
The girl that you desired
In April.

Brother, my love for you
In this letter on a palm-leaf
Brightens about you
As her own rays
Brighten about the moon.

Love Poem of Cambodia.

Onward, sail on in your boundless flight,
Neath shadowing skies and moonbeams bright,
Kissing the clouds as it drops the rain,
Touching the wall of the rainbow's fane;
With your wings unfurled, your lyres strung,
You sail where stars in their orbs are hung,
Or for stranger lands where bright flow'rs spring,
Ye have plumed the down and spread the wing.

We lay the strength of the forest down,
We wear the robe and the shining crown,
We tread down kings in our battle path,
And voices fail at our gathered wrath;
We touch; the numbers forget to pour,
From the serpent's hiss to the lion's roar;
But we may not tread the paths ye've trod,
Though children of men and sons of God.

Ye haste, ye haste, but ye bring not back
To waiting spirits the news we la...

Coming down the mountain road
Light of heart and all alone,
I caught from every rill that flowed
A rapture of its own.

Heart and mind sang on together,
Rhymes began to meet and run
In the windy mountain weather
And the winter sun.

Clad in freshest light and sweet
Far and far the city lay
With her suburbs at her feet
Round the laughing bay.

Like an eagle lifted high
Half the radiant world I scanned,
Till the deep unclouded sky
Circled sea and land.

No more was thought a weary load,
Older comforts stirred within,
Coming down the mountain road
The earth and I were kin.

    A singer sang in sorrow long
    And breathed his life into his song.

    Unknown, unheard, the song went wide,
    Until the singer, starving, died.

    Now in their hearts the nations write
    And wear the singer's song of might.

    Ah, singers fail and fall from view,
    But songs are always, always new!

    If garlands none to singers cling,
    Bays wreathe above the songs they sing.

Say, what blinds us, that we claim the glory
Of possessing powers not our share?
Since man woke on earth, he knows his story,
But, before we woke on earth, we were.

Long, long since, undower’d yet, our spirit
Roam’d, ere birth, the treasuries of God
Saw the gifts, the powers it might inherit;
Ask’d an outfit for its earthly road.

Then, as now, this tremulous, eager Being
Strain’d, and long’d, and grasp’d each gift it saw.
Then, as now, a Power beyond our seeing
Stav’d us back, and gave our choice the law.

Ah, whose hand that day through heaven guided
Man’s blank spirit, since it was not we?
Ah, who sway’d our choice, and who decided
What our gifts, and what our wants should be?

For, alas! he left us each retaining
Shreds of gifts w...

Fight through ignorance, want, and care,
Through the griefs that crush the spirit;
Push your way to a fortune fair,
And the smiles of the world you’ll merit.
Long, as a boy, for the chance to learn,
For the chance that Fate denies you;
Win degrees where the Life-lights burn,
And scores will teach and advise you.

My cultured friends! you have come too late
With your bypath nicely graded;
I’ve fought thus far on my track of Fate,
And I’ll follow the rest unaided.
Must I be stopped by a college gate
On the track of Life encroaching?
Be dumb to Love, and be dumb to Hate,
For the lack of a college coaching?

You grope for Truth in a language dead,
In the dust ’neath tower and steeple!
What know you of the tracks we tread?
And what know you...

1.
Brothers! between you and me
Whirlwinds sweep and billows roar:
Yet in spirit oft I see
On thy wild and winding shore
Freedom's bloodless banners wave, -
Feel the pulses of the brave
Unextinguished in the grave, -
See them drenched in sacred gore, -
Catch the warrior's gasping breath
Murmuring 'Liberty or death!'

2.
Shout aloud! Let every slave,
Crouching at Corruption's throne,
Start into a man, and brave
Racks and chains without a groan:
And the castle's heartless glow,
And the hovel's vice and woe,
Fade like gaudy flowers that blow -
Weeds that peep, and then are gone
Whilst, from misery's ashes risen,
Love shall burst the captive's prison.

3.
Cotopaxi! bid the sound
Through thy sister mountains ring,

    I hail thee, Nessmuk, for the lofty tone
            Yet simple grace that marks thy poetry!
            True forester thou art, and still to be,
    Even in happier fields than thou hast known.
    Thus, in glad visions, glimpses am I shown
            Of groves delectable - "preserves" for thee -
            Ranged but by friends of thine - I name thee three: -

    First, Chaucer, with his bald old pate new-grown
        With changeless laurel; next, in Lincoln-green,
            Gold-belted, bowed and bugled, Robin Hood;
        And next, Ike Walton, patient and serene:
    These three, O Nessmuk, gathered hunter-wise,
    Are camped on hither slopes of Paradise
            To hail thee first and greet thee, as they should.

Her younger sister, that Speranza hight.

England puts on her purple, and pale, pale
    With too much light, the primrose doth but wait
To meet the hyacinth; then bower and dale
    Shall lose her and each fairy woodland mate.
April forgets them, for their utmost sum
Of gift was silent, and the birds are come.

The world is stirring, many voices blend,
    The English are at work in field and way;
All the good finches on their wives attend,
    And emmets their new towns lay out in clay;
Only the cuckoo-bird only doth say
Her beautiful name, and float at large all day.

Everywhere ring sweet clamours, chirrupping,
    Chirping, that comes before the grasshopper;
The wide woods, flurried with the pulse of spring,
    Shake out their wrink...

TIRED.

I.

O, I would tell you more, but I am tired;
For I have longed, and I have had my will;
I pleaded in my spirit, I desired:
"Ah! let me only see him, and be still
All my days after."
    Rock, and rock, and rock,
Over the falling, rising watery world,
Sail, beautiful ship, along the leaping main;
The chirping land-birds follow flock on flock
To light on a warmer plain.
White as weaned lambs the little wavelets curled,
    Fall over in harmless play,
    As these do far away;
Sail, bird of doom, along the shimmering sea,
All under thy broad wings that overshadow thee.

II.

    I am so tired,
If I would comfort me, I know not how,
For I have seen thee, lad, as I desired,
And I have nothing left to long for no...

Yes! thou art fair, yet be not moved
To scorn the declaration,
That sometimes I in thee have loved
My fancy's own creation.

Imagination needs must stir;
Dear Maid, this truth believe,
Minds that have nothing to confer
Find little to perceive.

Be pleased that nature made thee fit
To feed my heart's devotion,
By laws to which all Forms submit
In sky, air, earth, and ocean.