Identity

For moveless limbs no pity I crave,
That never were swift! Still all I prize,
Laughter and thought and friends, I have;
No fool to heave luxurious sighs
For the woods and hills that I never knew.
The more excellent way's yet mine! And you

Flower-laden come to the clean white cell,
And we talk as ever, am I not the same?
With our hearts we love, immutable,
You without pity, I without shame.
We talk as of old; as of old you go
Out under the sky, and laughing, I know,

Flit through the streets, your heart all me;
Till you gain the world beyond the town.
Then, I fade from your heart, quietly;
And your fleet steps quicken. The strong down
Smiles you welcome there; the woods that love you
Close lovely and conquering arms above you.

O ever-...

I

He bends his travel-tarnished feet
To where she wastes in clay:
From day-dawn until eve he fares
Along the wintry way;
From day-dawn until eve repairs
Unto her mound to pray.

II

"Are these the gravestone shapes that meet
My forward-straining view?
Or forms that cross a window-blind
In circle, knot, and queue:
Gay forms, that cross and whirl and wind
To music throbbing through?" -

III

"The Keeper of the Field of Tombs
Dwells by its gateway-pier;
He celebrates with feast and dance
His daughter's twentieth year:
He celebrates with wine of France
The birthday of his dear." -

IV

"The gates are shut when evening glooms:
Lay down your wreath, sad wight;
To-morrow is a time more fit

Is anyone sad in the world, I wonder?
    Does anyone weep on a day like this,
With the sun above and the green earth under?
    Why, what is life but a dream of bliss?

With the sun and the skies and the birds above me,
    Birds that sing as they wheel and fly -
With the winds to follow and say they loved me -
    Who could be lonely?    O ho, not I!

Somebody said in the street this morning,
    As I opened my window to let in the light,
That the darkest day of the world was dawning;
    But I looked, and the East was a gorgeous sight

One who claims that he knows about it
    Tells me the Earth is a vale of sin;
But I and the bees and the birds - we doubt it,
    And think it a world worth living in.

Someone says that hearts are fickle...

We reached the place by night,
And heard the waves breaking:
They came to meet us with candles alight
To show the path we were taking.
A myrtle, trained on the gate, was white
With tufted flowers down shaking.

With head beneath her wing,
A little wren was sleeping -
So near, I had found it an easy thing
To steal her for my keeping
From the myrtle-bough that with easy swing
Across the path was sweeping.

Down rocky steps rough-hewed,
Where cup-mosses flowered,
And under the trees, all twisted and rude,
Wherewith the dell was dowered,
They led us, where deep in its solitude
Lay the cottage, leaf-embowered.

The thatch was all bespread
With climbing passion-flowers;
They were wet, and glistened with raindrops, shed
That da...

Come, let us set our careful breasts,
Like Philomel, against the thorn,
To aggravate the inward grief,
That makes her accents so forlorn;
The world has many cruel points,
Whereby our bosoms have been torn,
And there are dainty themes of grief,
In sadness to outlast the morn, -
True honor's dearth, affection's death,
Neglectful pride, and cankering scorn,
With all the piteous tales that tears
Have water'd since the world was born.

The world! - it is a wilderness,
Where tears are hung on every tree;
For thus my gloomy phantasy
Makes all things weep with me!
Come let us sit and watch the sky,
And fancy clouds, where no clouds be;
Grief is enough to blot the eye,
And make heaven black with misery.
Why should birds sing such merry notes,

To J. A. C.


Fresh from his fastnesses
Wholesome and spacious,
The North Wind, the mad huntsman,
Halloas on his white hounds
Over the grey, roaring
Reaches and ridges,
The forest of ocean,
The chace of the world.
Hark to the peal
Of the pack in full cry,
As he thongs them before him,
Swarming voluminous,
Weltering, wide-wallowing,
Till in a ruining
Chaos of energy,
Hurled on their quarry,
They crash into foam!

Old Indefatigable,
Time's right-hand man, the sea
Laughs as in joy
From his millions of wrinkles:
Laughs that his destiny,
Great with the greatness
Of triumphing order,
Shows as a dwarf
By the strength of his heart
And the might of his hands.

Master of masters,
O make...

I


Morn's mystic rose is reddening on the hills,
Dawn's irised nautilus makes glad the sea;
There is a lyre of flame that throbs and fills
Far heaven and earth with hope's wild ecstasy.--
With lilied field and grove,
Haunts of the turtle-dove,
Here is the land of Love.


II


The chariot of the noon makes blind the blue
As towards the goal his burning axle glares;
There is a fiery trumpet thrilling through
Wide heaven and earth with deeds of one who dares.--
With peaks of splendid name,
Wrapped round with astral flame,
Here is the land of Fame.


III


The purple priesthood of the evening waits
With golden pomp within the templed skies;
There is a harp of worship at the gates
Of heaven and ...

Were I a skilful painter,
My pencil, not my pen,
Should try to teach thee hope and fear,
And who would blame me then?--
Fear of the tide of darkness
That floweth fast behind,
And hope to make thee journey on
In the journey of the mind.

Were I a skilful painter,
What should I paint for thee?--
A tiny spring-bud peeping out
From a withered wintry tree;
The warm blue sky of summer
O'er jagged ice and snow,
And water hurrying gladsome out
From a cavern down below;

The dim light of a beacon
Upon a stormy sea,
Where a lonely ship to windward beats
For life and liberty;
A watery sun-ray gleaming
Athwart a sullen cloud
And falling on some grassy flower
The rain had earthward bowed;

Morn peeping o'er a mountain,...

(ISABELLA STEWART)


Heart of mine, by thy quick beating,
    Thou knowest Isabel is near,
And the gladness of the greeting
    Dims my eye with rapture's tear.
Heart of mine, each beat will tell
How I love young Isabel.

When I first beheld the maiden,
    So fair to see, so sweet to bless,
I, a stranger, sorrow laden,
    Arrested by her loveliness,
Then I thought some hand would set,
On that brow a coronet.

She had grace all hearts beguiling,
    She had the wealth of silken hair,
And sweet lips, half proud, half smiling,
    Neck of snow and bosom fair,
And each eye a sapphire gem
For a monarch's diadem

Oh, she was peerless in her beauty,
    Like the fair moon she walked alone,
And loving her was but a d...

In my dream last night it seemed I stood
With a boy's glad heart in my boyhood's wood.

The beryl green and the cairngorm brown
Of the day through the deep leaves sifted down.

The rippling drip of a passing shower
Rinsed wild aroma from herb and flower.

The splash and urge of a waterfall
Spread stairwayed rocks with a crystal caul.

And I waded the pool where the gravel gray,
And the last year's leaf, like a topaz lay.

And searched the strip of the creek's dry bed
For the colored keel and the arrow-head.

And I found the cohosh coigne the same,
Tossing with torches of pearly flame.

The owlet dingle of vine and brier,
That the butterfly-weed flecked fierce with fire.

The elder edge with its warm perfume,
And the...

Into these loues who but for passion lookes,
At this first sight, here let him lay them by,
And seeke elsewhere in turning other bookes,
Which better may his labour satisfie.
No far-fetch'd sigh shall euer wound my brest,
Loue from mine eye, a teare shall neuer wring,
Nor in ah-mees my whyning Sonets drest,
(A Libertine) fantasticklie I sing;
My verse is the true image of my mind,
Euer in motion, still desiring change,
To choyce of all varietie inclin'd,
And in all humors sportiuely I range;
    My actiue Muse is of the worlds right straine,
    That cannot long one fashion entertaine.

"Speak! speak I thou fearful guest
Who, with thy hollow breast
Still in rude armor drest,
    Comest to daunt me!
Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
Bat with thy fleshless palms
Stretched, as if asking alms,
    Why dost thou haunt me?"

Then, from those cavernous eyes
Pale flashes seemed to rise,
As when the Northern skies
    Gleam in December;
And, like the water's flow
Under December's snow,
Came a dull voice of woe
    From the heart's chamber.

"I was a Viking old!
My deeds, though manifold,
No Skald in song has told,
    No Saga taught thee!
Take heed, that in thy verse
Thou dost the tale rehearse,
Else dread a dead man's curse;
    For this I sought thee.

"Far in the Northern Land,
By the wild Balti...

The curious wits, seeing dull pensiuenesse
Bewray it self in my long-settl'd eies
Whence those same fumes of melancholy rise,
With idle paines and missing ayme do guesse.
Some, that know how my spring I did addresse,
Deem that my Muse some fruit of knowledge plies;
Others, because the prince my seruice tries,
Thinke that I think State errours to redress:
But harder iudges iudge ambitions rage:
Scourge of itselfe, still climbing slipperie place:
Holds my young brain captiu'd in golden cage.
O fooles, or ouer-wise. alas, the race
Of all my thoughts hath neither stop nor start
But only Stellaes eyes and Stellaes heart.

It was a night of smell and dew
When very old things seemed how new;
When speech was softest in the still
Air that loitered down the hill;
When the lime's sweetness could but creep
Like music to slow ears of sleep;
When far below the lapping sea
Lisped but of tired tranquillity....
No, 'twas a night that seemed almost
Of real night the little ghost,
As though a painter painted it
Out of the shallows of his wit--
The easy air, the whispered trees,
Faint prattle of strait distant seas,
Pettiness all: but hark, hark!
Large and rich in the narrow dark
Music rose. Was music never
Braver in her pure endeavour
Against the meanness of the world.
Her purple banner she unfurled
Of stars and suns upon the night
Amazed with the strange living ligh...

Beneath a broad grey sky, upon a vast and dusty plain devoid of grass, and where not even a nettle or a thistle was to be seen, I met several men who walked bowed down to the ground.
Each one carried upon his back an enormous Chimera as heavy as a sack of flour or coal, or as the equipment of a Roman foot-soldier.
But the monstrous beast was not a dead weight, rather she enveloped and oppressed the men with her powerful and elastic muscles, and clawed with her two vast talons at the breast of her mount. Her fabulous head reposed upon the brow of the man like one of those horrible casques by which ancient warriors hoped to add to the terrors of the enemy.
I questioned one of the men, asking him why they went so. He replied that he knew nothing, neither he nor the others, but that evidently they went somewhere, since they wer...

The valiant girls - of them I sing -
Who daily to their business go,
Happy as larks, and fresh as spring;
They are the bravest things I know.
At eight, from out my lazy tower,
I watch the snow, and shake my head;
But yonder petticoated flower
Braves it alone, with aery tread;
Nor wind, nor rain, nor ice-fanged storm,
Frightens that valiant little form.

Strange! she that sweetens all the air,
The New York sister of the rose,
To a grim office should repair,
With picture-hat and silken hose,
And strange it is to see her there,
With powder on her little nose;
And yet how business-like is she,
With pad and pencil on her knee.

Changed are the times - no stranger sign,
If you but think the matter over,
Than she, the delicate, the divin...

The night is come, but not too soon;
    And sinking silently,
All silently, the little moon
    Drops down behind the sky.

There is no light in earth or heaven,
    But the cold light of stars;
And the first watch of night is given
    To the red planet Mars.

Is it the tender star of love?
    The star of love and dreams?
Oh, no! from that blue tent above,
    A hero's armour gleams.

And earnest thoughts within me rise,
    When I behold afar,
Suspended in the evening skies
    The shield of that red star.

O star of strength!    I see thee stand
    And smile upon my pain;
Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand,
    And I am strong again.

Within my breast there is no light,
    But the cold light of stars;

I

To none the city bends a servile knee;
    Purse-proud and scornful, on her heights she stands,
And at her feet the great white moaning sea
    Shoulders incessantly the grey-gold sands, -
One the Almighty's child since time began,
    And one the might of Mammon, born of clods;
For all the city is the work of man,
    But all the sea is God's.

II

And she - between the ocean and the town -
    Lies cursed of one and by the other blest:
Her staring eyes, her long drenched hair, her gown,
    Sea-laved and soiled and dank above her breast.
She, image of her God since life began,
    She, but the child of Mammon, born of clods,
Her broken body spoiled and spurned of man,
    But her sweet soul is God's.