Identity

    Back and forth, back and forth, to and from the church,
    With my Bible under my arm
    'Till I was gray and old;
    Unwedded, alone in the world,
    Finding brothers and sisters in the congregation,
    And children in the church.
    I know they laughed and thought me queer.
    I knew of the eagle souls that flew high in the sunlight,
    Above the spire of the church, and laughed at the church,
    Disdaining me, not seeing me.
    But if the high air was sweet to them, sweet was the church to me.
    It was the vision, vision, vision of the poets
    Democratized!

On must we go: we search dead leaves,
We chase the sunset's saddest flames,
The nameless hues that o'er and o'er
In lawless wedding lost their names.

God of the daybreak! Better be
Black savages; and grin to gird
Our limbs in gaudy rags of red,
The laughing-stock of brute and bird;

And feel again the fierce old feast,
Blue for seven heavens that had sufficed,
A gold like shining hoards, a red
Like roses from the blood of Christ.

I

Has she forgotten? On this very May
We were to meet here, with the birds and bees,
As on that Sabbath, underneath the trees
We strayed among the tombs, and stripped away
The vines from these old granites, cold and gray -
And yet indeed not grim enough were they
To stay our kisses, smiles and ecstasies,
Or closer voice-lost vows and rhapsodies.
Has she forgotten - that the May has won
Its promise? - that the bird-songs from the tree
Are sprayed above the grasses as the sun
Might jar the dazzling dew down showeringly?
Has she forgotten life - love - everyone -
Has she forgotten me - forgotten me?


II

Low, low down in the violets I press
My lips and whisper to her. Does she hear,
And yet hold silence, though I call her dear,

I
Life, sublime and serene when time had power upon it and ruled its breath,
Changed it, bade it be glad or sad, and hear what change in the world's ear saith,
Shines more fair in the starrier air whose glory lightens the dusk of death.
Suns that sink on the wan sea's brink, and moons that kindle and flame and fade,
Leave more clear for the darkness here the stars that set not and see not shade
Rise and rise on the lowlier skies by rule of sunlight and moonlight swayed.
So, when night for his eyes grew bright, his proud head pillowed on Shakespeare's breast,
Hand in hand with him, soon to stand where shine the glories that death loves best,
Passed the light of his face from sight, and sank sublimely to radiant rest.

II
Far above us and all our love, beyond all reach of its voice...

The modern English-speaking young girl is the astonishment of the world and the despair of the older generation.    Nothing like her has ever been seen or heard before.    Alike in drawing-rooms and the amusement places of the people, she defies conventions in dress, speech, and conduct.    She is bold, yet not immoral.    She is immodest, yet she is chaste.    She has no ideals, yet she is kind and generous.    She is an anomaly and a paradox.

We are the little daughters of Time and the World his wife,
We are not like the children, born in their younger life,
We are marred with our mother's follies and torn with our father's strife.

We are the little daughters of the modern world,
And Time, her spouse.
She has brought many children to our father's house
Before we came, when both our parents ...

    Four little chests all in a row,
    Dim with dust, and worn by time,
    All fashioned and filled, long ago,
    By children now in their prime.
    Four little keys hung side by side,
    With faded ribbons, brave and gay
    When fastened there, with childish pride,
    Long ago, on a rainy day.
    Four little names, one on each lid,
    Carved out by a boyish hand,
    And underneath there lieth hid
    Histories of the happy band
    Once playing here, and pausing oft
    To hear the sweet refrain,
    That came and went on the roof aloft,
    In the falling summer rain.


    "Meg" on the first lid, smooth and fair.
    I look in with loving eyes,
    For folded here, with well-known care,
    A goodly gathering lies,
 ...

Our share of night to bear,
Our share of morning,
Our blank in bliss to fill,
Our blank in scorning.

Here a star, and there a star,
Some lose their way.
Here a mist, and there a mist,
Afterwards -- day!

Haunted by unknown feet -
Ways of the midnight hour!
Strangely you murmur below me,
Strange is your half-silent power.
Places of life and of death,
Numbered and named as streets,
What, through your channels of stone,
Is the tide that unweariedly beats?
A whisper, a sigh-laden breath,
Is all that I hear of its flowing.
Footsteps of stranger and foe -
Footsteps of friends, could we meet -
Alike to me in my sorrow;
Alike to a life left alone.
Yet swift as my heart they throb,
They fall thick as tears on the stone:
My spirit perchance may borrow
New strength from their eager tone.

Still ever that slip and slide
Of the feet that shuffle or glide,
And linger or haste through the populous waste
Of the shadowy, dim-lit square!
And I...

I saw them beautiful, in fair array upon Commencement Day;
Lissome and lovely, radiant and sweet
As cultured roses, brought to their estate
By careful training.    Finished and complete
(As teachers calculate).

They passed in maiden grace along the aisle,
Leaving the chaste white sunlight of a smile
Upon the gazing throng.
Musing I thought upon their place as mothers of the race.

Oh there are many actors who can play
Greatly, great parts; but rare indeed the soul
Who can be great when cast for some small role;
Yet that is what the world most needs; big hearts
That will shine forth and glorify poor parts
In this strange drama, Life!    Do they,
Who in full dress-rehearsal pass to-day
Before admiring eyes, hold in their store
Those fine high pri...

Composed At Rotterdam.


I.

I gaze upon a city, -
A city new and strange, -
Down many a watery vista
My fancy takes a range;
From side to side I saunter,
And wonder where I am;
And can you be in England,
And I at Rotterdam!


II.

Before me lie dark waters
In broad canals and deep,
Whereon the silver moonbeams
Sleep, restless in their sleep;
A sort of vulgar Venice
Reminds me where I am;
Yes, yes, you are in England,
And I'm at Rotterdam.


III.

Tall houses with quaint gables,
Where frequent windows shine,
And quays that lead to bridges,
And trees in formal line,
And masts of spicy vessels
From western Surinam,
All tell me you're in England,
But ...

I opened a long closed drawer to-day,
And among the souvenirs stored away
Were the faded leaves of an old bouquet.

Those faded leaves were as white as snow,
With a background of green, to make them show,
When you gave them to me long years ago.

They carried me back in a flash of light
To a perfumed, perfect summer night,
And a rider who came on a steed of white.

I can see it all -how you rode down
Like a knight of old, from the dusty town,
With a passionate glow in your eyes of brown.

Again I stand by the garden gate,
While the golden sun slips low, and wait
And watch your coming, my love, my fate.

Young and handsome and debonair
You leap to my side in the garden there,
And I take your flowers, and call them fair.

...

Wanderer! that stoop'st so low, and com'st so near
To human life's unsettled atmosphere;
Who lov'st with Night and Silence to partake,
So might it seem, the cares of them that wake;
And, through the cottage-lattice softly peeping,
Dost shield from harm the humblest of the sleeping;
What pleasure once encompassed those sweet names
Which yet in thy behalf the Poet claims,
An idolizing dreamer as of yore!
I slight them all; and, on this sea-beat shore
Sole-sitting, only can to thoughts attend
That bid me hail thee as the Sailor's friend;
So call thee for heaven's grace through thee made known
By confidence supplied and mercy shown,
When not a twinkling star or beacon's light
Abates the perils of a stormy night;
And for less obvious benefits, that find
Their ...

White moons may come, white moons may go
She sleeps where early blossoms blow;
Knows nothing of the leafy June,
That leans above her night and noon,
Crowned now with sunbeam, now with moon,
Watching her roses grow.

The downy moth at twilight comes
And flutters round their honeyed blooms:
Long, lazy clouds, like ivory,
That isle the blue lagoons of sky,
Redden to molten gold and dye
With flame the pine-deep glooms.

Dew, dripping from wet fern and leaf;
The wind, that shakes the violet's sheaf;
The slender sound of water lone,
That makes a harp-string of some stone,
And now a wood bird's glimmering moan,
Seem whisperings there of grief.

Her garden, where the lilacs grew,
Where, on old walls, old roses blew,
Head-heavy with t...

I.

When the poppies, with their shields,
Sentinel
Forest and the harvest fields,
In the bell
Of a blossom, fair to see,
There I stall the bumble-bee,
My good stud;
There I stable him and hold,
Harness him with hairy gold;
There I ease his burly back
Of the honey and its sack
Gathered from each bud.

II.

Where the glow-worm lights its lamp,
There I lie;
Where, above the grasses damp,
Moths go by;
Now within the fussy brook,
Where the waters wind and crook
Round the rocks,
I go sailing down the gloom
Straddling on a wisp of broom;
Or, beneath the owlet moon,
Trip it to the cricket's tune
Tossing back my locks.

III.

Ere the crowfoot on the lawn
Lifts its head,
Or the glo...

Youth, with an arrogant air,
Passes me by:
Age, on his tottering staff,
Stops with a sigh.

"Here is a flower, "he says,
"I knew when young:
It keeps its oldtime place
The woods among.

"Fresh and fragrant as when
I was a boy;
Still is it young as then,
And full of joy.

"Years have not changed it, no;
In leaf and bloom
It keeps the selfsame glow,
And the same perfume.

"Time, that has grayed my hair,
And bowed my form,
Retains it young and fair
And full of charm.

"The root from which it grows
Is firm and fit,
And every year bestows
New strength on it.

"Not so with me. The years
Have changed me much;
And care and pain and tears
Have left their touch.

"It keeps a s...

Peace flows into me
As the tide to the pool by the shore;
It is mine forevermore,
It will not ebb like the sea.

I am the pool of blue
That worships the vivid sky;
My hopes were heaven-high,
They are all fulfilled in you.

I am the pool of gold
When sunset burns and dies,
You are my deepening skies;
Give me your stars to hold.

Though thou return unto the former things,
Fields, woods, and gardens, where thy feet have strayed
In other days, and not a bough, branch, blade
Of tree, or meadow, but the same appears
As when thou lovedst them in former years,
They shall not seem the same; the spirit brings
Change from the inward, though the outward be
E'en as it was, when thou didst weep to see
It last, and spak'st that prophecy of pain,
"Farewell!    I shall not look on ye again!"
And so thou never didst - no, though e'en now
    Thine eyes behold all they so loved of yore,
    The Thou that did behold them then, no more
Lives in this world, it is another Thou.

I cried when the moon was murmuring to the birds:
"Let peewit call and curlew cry where they will,
I long for your merry and tender and pitiful words,
For the roads are unending, and there is no place to my mind."
The honey-pale moon lay low on the sleepy hill,
And I fell asleep upon lonely Edge of streams.
i(No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind;)
i(The boughs have withered because I have told them my, dreams.)
I know of the leafy paths that the witches take
Who come with their crowns of pearl and their spindles of wool,
And their secret smile, out of the depths of the lake;
I know where a dim moon drifts, where the Danaan kind
Wind and unwind their dances when the light grows cool
On the island lawns, their feet where the pale foam gleams.
i(No boughs hav...