Identity

Glide gently, thus for ever glide,
O Thames! that other bards may see
As lovely visions by thy side
As now, fair river! come to me.
O glide, fair stream! for ever so,
Thy quiet soul on all bestowing,
Till all our minds for ever flow
As thy deep waters now are flowing.

Vain thought! Yet be as now thou art,
That in thy waters may be seen
The image of a poet's heart,
How bright, how solemn, how serene!
Such as did once the Poet bless,
Who murmuring here a later ditty,
Could find no refuge from distress
But in the milder grief of pity.

Now let us, as we float along,
For 'him' suspend the dashing oar;
And pray that never child of song
May know that Poet's sorrows more.
How calm! how still! the only sound,
The dripping of the oar...

Wandering by the river's edge,
I love to rustle through the sedge
And through the woods of reed to tear
Almost as high as bushes are.
Yet, turning quick with shudder chill,
As danger ever does from ill,
Fear's moment ague quakes the blood,
While plop the snake coils in the flood
And, hissing with a forked tongue,
Across the river winds along.
In coat of orange, green, and blue
Now on a willow branch I view,
Grey waving to the sunny gleam,
Kingfishers watch the ripple stream
For little fish that nimble bye
And in the gravel shallows lie.

Eddies run before the boats,
Gurgling where the fisher floats,
Who takes advantage of the gale
And hoists his handkerchief for sail
On osier twigs that form a mast--
While idly lies, nor wanted mo...

        Upon a gnarly, knotty limb
            That fought the current's crest,
        Where shocks of reeds peeped o'er the brim,
            Wild wasps had glued their nest.

        And in a sprawling cypress' grot,
            Sheltered and safe from flood,
        Dirt-daubers each had chosen a spot
            To shape his house of mud.

        In a warm crevice of the bark
            A basking scorpion clung,
        With bright blue tail and red-rimmed eyes
            And yellow, twinkling tongue.

        A lunging trout flashed in the sun,
            To do some petty slaughter,
        And set the spiders all a-run
            On little stilts of water.

        Toward noon upon the swamp there stole
            A deep, ...

[Bk. III. vi., October, 1846.]


A lion camped beside a spring, where came the Bird
    Of Jove to drink:
When, haply, sought two kings, without their courtier herd,
    The moistened brink,
Beneath the palm - they always tempt pugnacious hands -
    Both travel-sore;
But quickly, on the recognition, out flew brands
    Straight to each core;
As dying breaths commingle, o'er them rose the call
    Of Eagle shrill:
"Yon crownèd couple, who supposed the world too small,
    Now one grave fill!
Chiefs blinded by your rage! each bleachèd sapless bone
    Becomes a pipe
Through which siroccos whistle, trodden 'mong the stone
    By quail and snipe.
Folly's liege-men, what boots such murd'rous raid,
    And mortal feud?
I, Eagle, dwel...

I

Over every hill
All is still;
In no leaf of any tree
Can you see
The motion of a breath.
Every bird has ceased its song,
Wait; and thou too, ere long,
Shall be quiet in death.

II

Who ne’er his bread with tears hath ate,
Who never through the sad night hours
Weeping upon his bed hath sate,
He knows not you, you heavenly powers.

Forth into life you bid us go,
And into guilt you let us fall,
Then leave us to endure the woe
It brings unfailingly to all.

III

You complain of the woman for roving from one to another:
Where is the constant man whom she is trying to find?

IV

Slumber and Sleep, two brothers appointed to serve the immortals,
By Prometheus were brought hither to comfort m...

"Teach me the wisdom of thy beauty, pray,
That, being thus wise, I may aspire to see
What beauty is, whence, why, and in what way
Immortal, yet how mortal utterly:
For, shrinking loveliness, thy brow of day
Pleads plaintive as a prayer, anemone.

"Teach me wood-wisdom, I am petulant:
Thou hast the wildness of a Dryad's eyes,
The shyness of an Oread's, wild plant: -
Behold the bashful goddess where she lies
Distinctly delicate! - inhabitant
Ambrosial-earthed, star-cousin of the skies.

"Teach me thy wisdom, for, thro' knowing, yet,
When I have drunk dull Lethe till each vein
Thuds full oblivion, I shall not forget; -
For beauty known is beauty; to sustain
Glad memories with life, while mad regret
And sorrow perish, being Lethe slain."

...

It rained last night,
But fair weather has come back
This morning.

The green clusters of the palm-trees
Open and begin to throw shadows.

But sorrow drifts slowly down about me.

I come and go in my room,
Heart-heavy with memories.

The neighbour green casts shadows of green
On my blind;
The moss, soaked in dew,
Takes the least print
Like delicate velvet.

I see again a gauze tunic of oranged rose
With shadowy underclothes of grenade red.

How things still live again.

I go and sit by the day balustrade

And do nothing

Except count the plains
And the mountains
And the valleys
And the rivers
That separate from my Spring.

From the Chinese (early nineteenth century).

One song, America, before I go,
I'd sing, o'er all the rest, with trumpet sound,
For thee - the Future.

I'd sow a seed for thee of endless Nationality;
I'd fashion thy Ensemble, including Body and Soul;
I'd show, away ahead, thy real Union, and how it may be accomplish'd.

(The paths to the House I seek to make,
But leave to those to come, the House itself.)

Belief I sing - and Preparation;
As Life and Nature are not great with reference to the Present only,
But greater still from what is yet to come,
Out of that formula for Thee I sing.

That son of Italy who tried to blow,
Ere Dante came, the trump of sacred song,
In his light youth amid a festal throng
Sate with his bride to see a public show.

Fair was the bride, and on her front did glow
Youth like a star; and what to youth belong,
Gay raiment, sparkling gauds, elation strong.
A prop gave way! crash fell a platform! lo,

Mid struggling sufferers, hurt to death, she lay
Shuddering they drew her garments off and found
A robe of sackcloth next the smooth, white skin.

Such, poets, is your bride, the Muse! young, gay,
Radiant, adorn’d outside; a hidden ground
Of thought and of austerity within.

Search thou my heart;
If there be guile,
It shall depart
Before thy smile.

Search thou my soul;
Be there deceit,
'T will vanish whole
Before thee, sweet.

Upon my mind
Turn thy pure lens;
Naught shalt thou find
Thou canst not cleanse.

If I should pray,
I scarcely know
In just what way
My prayers would go.

So strong in me
I feel love's leaven,
I 'd bow to thee
As soon as Heaven!

I missed him when the sun began to bend;
I found him not when I had lost his rim;
With many tears I went in search of him,
Climbing high mountains which did still ascend,
And gave me echoes when I called my friend;
Through cities vast and charnel-houses grim,
And high cathedrals where the light was dim,
Through books and arts and works without an end,
But found him not--the friend whom I had lost.
And yet I found him--as I found the lark,
A sound in fields I heard but could not mark;
I found him nearest when I missed him most;
I found him in my heart, a life in frost,
A light I knew not till my soul was dark.

In the first rare spring of song,
In my heart's young hours,
In my youth 't was thus I sang,
Choosing 'mid the flowers: - 

"Fair the Dandelion is,
But for me too lowly;
And the winsome Violet
Is, forsooth, too holy.
'But the Touchmenot?' Go to!
What! a face that's speckled
Like a common milking-maid's,
Whom the sun hath freckled.
Then the Wild-Rose is a flirt;
And the trillium Lily,
In her spotless gown, 's a prude,
Sanctified and silly.
By her cap the Columbine,
To my mind, 's too merry;
Gossips, I would sooner wed
Some plebeian Berry.
And the shy Anemone -
Well, her face shows sorrow;
Pale, goodsooth! alive to-day,
Dead and gone to-morrow.
Then that bold-eyed, buxom wench,
Big and blond and lazy, -<...