Identity

"Beloved! thou'rt gazing with thoughtful look
    On those flowers of brilliant hue,
Blushing in spring tide freshness and bloom,
    Glittering with diamond dew:
What dost thou read in each chalice fair,
    And what does each blossom say?
Do they not tell thee, my peerless one,
    Thou'rt lovelier far than they?"

"Not so - not so, but they whisper low
    That quickly will fade their bloom;
Soon will they withered lie on the sod,
    Ravished of all perfume;
They tell that youth and beauty below
    Are doomed, alas! to decay,
And I, like them, in life's flower and prime
    May pass from this earth away."

"Too sad thy thoughts! Look up at yon stars,
    That gleam in the sapphire skies;
Not clearer their radiance, best beloved,
 ...

If every tongue that speaks her praise
For whom I shape my tinkling phrase
Were summoned to the table,
The vocal chorus that would meet
Of mingling accents harsh or sweet,
From every land and tribe, would beat
The polyglots at Babel.

Briton and Frenchman, Swede and Dane,
Turk, Spaniard, Tartar of Ukraine,
Hidalgo, Cossack, Cadi,
High Dutchman and Low Dutchman, too,
The Russian serf, the Polish Jew,
Arab, Armenian, and Mantchoo,
Would shout, "We know the lady!"

Know her! Who knows not Uncle Tom
And her he learned his gospel from
Has never heard of Moses;
Full well the brave black hand we know
That gave to freedom's grasp the hoe
That killed the weed that used to grow
Among the Southern roses.

When Archimedes, long ago,...

I am the voice of the voiceless;
    Through me the dumb shall speak;
Till the deaf world's ear be made to hear
    The cry of the wordless weak.
From street, from cage, and from kennel,
    From jungle and stall, the wail
Of my tortured kin proclaims the sin
    Of the mighty against the frail.

I am a ray from the centre;
    And I will feed God's spark,
Till a great light glows in the night and shows
    The dark deeds done in the dark.
And full on the thoughtless sleeper
    Shall flash its glaring flame,
Till he wakens to see what crimes may be
    Cloaked under an honoured name.

The same Force formed the sparrow
    That fashioned man, the king;
The God of the Whole gave a spark of soul
    To furred and to feathered thing.

That night the whole world mingled,
The souls were babes at play,
And angel danced with devil.
And God cried, 'Holiday!'

The sea had climbed the mountain peaks,
And shouted to the stars
To come to play: and down they came
Splashing in happy wars.

The pine grew apples for a whim,
The cart-horse built a nest;
The oxen flew, the flowers sang,
The sun rose in the west.

And 'neath the load of many worlds,
The lowest life God made
Lifted his huge and heavy limbs
And into heaven strayed.

To where the highest life God made
Before His presence stands;
But God himself cried, 'Holiday!'
And she gave me both her hands.

Had I been young I could have claimed to fold thee
For many days against my eager breast;
But, as things are, how can I hope to hold thee
Once thou hast wakened from this fleeting rest?

Clear shone the moonlight, so that thou couldst find me,
Yet not so clear that thou couldst see my face,
Where in the shadow of the palms behind me
I waited for thy steps, for thy embrace.

What reck I now my morning life was lonely?
For widowed feet the ways are always rough.
Though thou hast come to me at sunset only,
Still thou hast come, my Lord, it is enough.

Ah, mine no more the glow of dawning beauty,
The fragrance and the dainty gloss of youth,
Worn by long years of solitude and duty,
I have no bloom to offer thee in truth.

Yet, since these eyes o...

June 4th! Do you know what that date means?
June 4th! By this air and these pines!
Well, only you know how I hate scenes,
These might be my very last lines!
For perhaps, sir, you’ll kindly remember
If some other things you’ve forgot
That you last wrote the 4th of december,
Just six months ago! from this spot;

From this spot, that you said was “the fairest
For once being held in my thought.”
Now, really I call that the barest
Of well, I won’t say what I ought!
For here I am back from my “riches,”
My “triumphs,” my “tours,” and all that;
And you’re not to be found in the ditches
Or temples of Poverty Flat!

From Paris we went for the season
To London, when Pa wired, “Stop.”
Mama says “his health” was the reason.
(I’ve heard that some th...

Senlin stood before us in the sunlight,
And laughed, and walked away.
Did no one see him leaving the doors of the city,
Looking behind him, as if he wished to stay?
Has no one, in the forests of the evening,
Heard the sad horn of Senlin slowly blown?
For somewhere, in the worlds-in-worlds about us,
He changes still, unfriended and alone.
Is he the star on which we walk at daybreak,
The light that blinds our eyes?
‘Senlin!’ we cry. ‘Senlin!’ again . . . no answer:
Only the soulless brilliance of blue skies.
Yet we would say, this was no man at all,
But a dream we dreamed, and vividly recall;
And we are mad to walk in wind and rain
Hoping to find, somewhere, that dream again.

Quando 'l sol bagna in mur l' aurato carro.

HIS NIGHTS ARE, LIKE HIS DAYS, PASSED IN TORMENT.


    When in the sea sinks the sun's golden light,
And on my mind and nature darkness lies,
With the pale moon, faint stars and clouded skies
I pass a weary and a painful night:
To her who hears me not I then rehearse
My sad life's fruitless toils, early and late;
And with the world and with my gloomy fate,
With Love, with Laura and myself, converse.
Sleep is forbid me: I have no repose,
But sighs and groans instead, till morn returns,
And tears, with which mine eyes a sad heart feeds;
Then comes the dawn, the thick air clearer grows,
But not my soul; the sun which in it burns
Alone can cure the grief his fierce warmth breeds.

NOTT.
...

    After a dream-dim voyage
    We came with sails all set
    Towards the city of the sea,
    And it was wonderful to me
    To find her reigning yet.

    Oh beauty that my eyes and heart
    Had feasted on before!
    The evening mosques were brushed with gold,
    The water lapped a lazy fold
    Upon that lovely shore;

    The gardens of her terraced hills
    Rose up above the port,
    And little houses half concealed
    The presence of a light revealed,
    And here my journey's end was sealed,
    And I reached the home I sought.

    Those windows I had opened wide
    To welcome in the sun!
    Those stairs that only happy feet
    Had measured with their running beat!
    That well-remembered winding street!

Still glides the stream, slow drops the boat
Under the rustling poplars’ shade;
Silent the swans beside us float
None speaks, none heeds ah, turn thy head.

Let those arch eyes now softly shine,
That mocking mouth grow sweetly bland:
Ah, let them rest, those eyes, on mine;
On mine let rest that lovely hand.

My pent-up tears oppress my brain,
My heart is swoln with love unsaid:
Ah, let me weep, and tell my pain,
And on thy shoulder rest my head.

Before I die, before the soul,
Which now is mine, must re-attain
Immunity from my control,
And wander round the world again:

Before this teas’d o’erlabour’d heart
For ever leaves its vain employ,
Dead to its deep habitual smart,
And dead to hopes of future joy.

Fifteen miles and then the harbour! Here we cannot choose but stand,
Faces thrust towards the day-break, listening for our native land!
Close-reefed topsails shuddering over, straining down the groaning mast;
For a tempest cleaves the darkness, hissing, howling, shrieking past!
Lo! the air is flecked with stormbirds, and their melancholy wail
Lends a tone of deeper pathos to the melancholy gale!
Whilst away they wheel to leeward, leaving in their rapid flight
Wind and water grappling wildly through the watches of the night.

Yesterday we both were happy; but my soul is filled with change,
And I’m sad, my gallant comrade, with foreshadowings vague and strange!
Dear old place, are we so near you? Like to one that speaks in sleep,
I’m talking, thinking wildly o’er this moaning, madd...

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water-rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berries
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim grey sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances,
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And is anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and...

Fresco ambroso fiorito e verde colle.

HE CONGRATULATES HIS HEART ON ITS REMAINING WITH HER.


    O hill with green o'erspread, with groves o'erhung!
Where musing now, now trilling her sweet lay,
Most like what bards of heavenly spirits say,
Sits she by fame through every region sung:
My heart, which wisely unto her has clung--
More wise, if there, in absence blest, it stay!
Notes now the turf o'er which her soft steps stray,
Now where her angel-eyes' mild beam is flung;
Then throbs and murmurs, as they onward rove,
"Ah! were he here, that man of wretched lot,
Doom'd but to taste the bitterness of love!"
She, conscious, smiles: our feelings tally not:
Heartless am I, mere stone; heaven is thy grove--
O dear delightful shade, O consecrated spo...

Like an old tree uprooted by the wind
And flung down cruelly
With roots bared to the sun and stars
And limp leaves brought to earth
Torn from its house
So do I seem to myself
When you have left me.

    Silence comes upon the night,
        Gone is all the cheerful day,
    The moon has disappeared from sight,
        Every star has gone away.

    Sinking through the void, and thence
        Disappearing, star and sky,
    In the stern and black immense
        That has blinded every eye.

    Silence crouches on the land,
        In the street a shadow lies
    Cloaked in velvet wrappings, and
        With a mask upon her eyes.

    Anonymous and terrible
        Mother of the primal ray,
    Only night because thou art
        In thyself excess of day.

Type of two mighty continents! combining
The strength of Europe with the warmth and glow
Of Asian song and prophecy, the shining
Of Orient splendors over Northern snow!
Who shall receive him? Who, unblushing, speak
Welcome to him, who, while he strove to break
The Austrian yoke from Magyar necks, smote off
At the same blow the fetters of the serf,
Rearing the altar of his Fatherland
On the firm base of freedom, and thereby
Lifting to Heaven a patriot's stainless hand,
Mocked not the God of Justice with a lie!
Who shall be Freedom's mouthpiece? Who shall give
Her welcoming cheer to the great fugitive?
Not he who, all her sacred trusts betraying,
Is scourging back to slavery's hell of pain
The swarthy Kossuths of our land again!
Not he whose utterance now f...

Why might I not for once be of that sect,
Which hold that souls, when Nature hath her right,
Some other bodies to themselves elect;
And sunlike make the day, and license night?
That soul, whose setting in one hemisphere
Was to enlighten straight another part;
In that horizon, if I see it there,
Calls for my first respect and its desert;
Her virtue is the same and may be more;
For as the sun is distant, so his power
In operation differs, and the store
Of thick clouds interpos'd make him less our.
And verily I think her climate such,
Since to my former flame it adds so much.

"O Dionysos! Dionysos! the ivy-crowned!
O let me sing thy triumph ere I die!"

Within my sleep a Maenad came to me:
A harp of crimson agate strung with gold
Wailed 'neath her waxen fingers, and her heart
'Neath the white gauze, thro' which a moonlight shone,
Kept time with its wild throbbings to her song.

"Aegeus sleeps, O Dionysos! sleeps
Pale 'neath the tumbling waves that sing his name
Eternally at my dew-glist'ning feet.
And so he died, O Dionysos! died!
O let me sing thy triumph ere I die!

"With the shrill syrinx and the kissing clang
Of silver cymbals clashed by Ethiopes swart,
O, pard-drawn youth, thou didst awake the world
To joy and pleasure with thy sunny wine!
Mad'st India bow and the dun, flooding Nile
Grow purple in the radia...