Identity

The grand, authentic songs that roll
Across grey widths of wild-faced sea,
The lordly anthems of the Pole,
Are loud upon the lea.

Yea, deep and full the South Wind sings
The mighty symphonies that make
A thunder at the mountain springs
A whiteness on the lake.

And where the hermit hornet hums,
When Summer fires his wings with gold,
The hollow voice of August comes,
Across the rain and cold.

Now on the misty mountain tops,
Where gleams the crag and glares the fell,
Wild Winter, like one hunted, stops
And shouts a fierce farewell.

Keen fitful gusts shoot past the shore
And hiss by moor and moody mere
The heralds bleak that come before
The turning of the year.

A sobbing spirit wanders where
By fits and starts...

Out alone in the winter rain,
Intent on giving and taking pain.
But never was I far out of sight
Of a certain upper-window light.
The light was what it was all about:
I would not go in till the light went out;
It would not go out till I came in.
Well, we should wee which one would win,
We should see which one would be first to yield.
The world was black invisible field.
The rain by rights was snow for cold.
The wind was another layer of mold.
But the strangest thing: in the thick old thatch,
Where summer birds had been given hatch,
had fed in chorus, and lived to fledge,
Some still were living in hermitage.
And as I passed along the eaves,
So low I brushed the straw with my sleeves,
I flushed birds out of hole after hole,
Into the darkness. It g...

These are two friends whose lives were undivided;
So let their memory be, now they have glided
Under the grave; let not their bones be parted,
For their two hearts in life were single-hearted.

I found you and I lost you,
All on a gleaming day.
The day was rilled with sunshine,
And the land was full of May.

A golden bird was singing
Its melody divine,
I found you and I loved you,
And all the world was mine.

I found you and I lost you,
All on a golden day,
But when I dream of you, dear,
It is always brimming May.

Thou hast crossed over torrents, and swung through wide-spreading ocean,
Over the chain of the Alps dizzily bore thee the bridge,
That thou might'st see me from near, and learn to value my beauty,
Which the voice of renown spreads through the wandering world.
And now before me thou standest, canst touch my altar so holy,
But art thou nearer to me, or am I nearer to thee?

There is a wheel inside my head
Of wantonness and wine,
An old, cracked fiddle is begging without,
But the wind with scents of the sea is fed,
And the sun seems glad to shine.

The sun and the wind are akin to you,
As you are akin to June.
But the fiddle! . . . It giggles and twitters about,
And, love and laughter! who gave him the cue? -
He's playing your favourite tune.

1875

A gentle boy, with soft and silken locks
    A dreamy boy, with brown and tender eyes,
A castle-builder, with his wooden blocks,
    And towers that touch imaginary skies.

A fearless rider on his father's knee,
    An eager listener unto stories told
At the Round Table of the nursery,
    Of heroes and adventures manifold.

There will be other towers for thee to build;
    There will be other steeds for thee to ride;
There will be other legends, and all filled
    With greater marvels and more glorified.

Build on, and make thy castles high and fair,
    Rising and reaching upward to the skies;
Listen to voices in the upper air,
    Nor lose thy simple faith in mysteries.

What cares the rose if the buds which are its pride
Be plucked for the breast of the dead or the hands of a bride?

The mother-drift if its pebbles be dull inglorious things,
Or diamonds fit to shine from the diadems of kings?

Sing, O poet, the moods of thy moments each
Perfect to thee whatever the meaning it reach.

Let the years find if it be as a soulless stone,
Or under the words which hide there be a glory alone.

Written at four o'clock in the morning, after a ball.

Oh, modest maiden morn! why dost thou blush,
    Who thus betimes art walking in the sky?
'Tis I, whose cheek bears pleasure's sleepless flush,
    Who shame to meet thy gray, cloud-lidded eye,
Shadowy, yet clear: from the bright eastern door,
    Where the sun's shafts lie bound with thongs of fire,
Along the heaven's amber-paved floor,
    The glad hours move, hymning their early choir.
O, fair and fragrant morn! upon my brow
    Press thy fresh lips, shake from thy dropping hair
    Cold showers of balmy dew on me, and ere
Day's chariot-wheels upon th' horizon glow,
Wrap me within thy sober cloak of gray,
And bear me to thy twilight bowers away.

Se Virgilio ed Omero avessin visto.

THE MOST FAMOUS POETS OF ANTIQUITY WOULD HAVE SUNG HER ONLY, HAD THEY SEEN HER.


    Had tuneful Maro seen, and Homer old,
The living sun which here mine eyes behold,
The best powers they had join'd of either lyre,
Sweetness and strength, that fame she might acquire;
Unsung had been, with vex'd Æneas, then
Achilles and Ulysses, godlike men,
And for nigh sixty years who ruled so well
The world; and who before Ægysthus fell;
Nay, that old flower of virtues and of arms,
As this new flower of chastity and charms,
A rival star, had scarce such radiance flung.
In rugged verse him honour'd Ennius sung,
I her in mine. Grant, Heaven! on my poor lays
She frown not, nor disdain my humble praise.

ANON.

On ear and ear two noises too old to end
Trench - right, the tide that ramps against the shore;
With a flood or a fall, low lull-off or all roar,
Frequenting there while moon shall wear and wend.

Left hand, off land, I hear the lark ascend,
His rash-fresh re-winded new-skeinèd score
In crisps of curl off wild winch whirl, and pour
And pelt music, till none's to spill nor spend.

How these two shame this shallow and frail town!
How ring right out our sordid turbid time,
Being pure! We, life's pride and cared-for crown,

Have lost that cheer and charm of earth's past prime:
Our make and making break, are breaking, down
To man's last dust, drain fast towards man's first slime.

    The Sun hung like a red balloon
    As if he would not rise;
    For listless Helios drowsed and yawned.
    He cared not whether the morning dawned,
    The brother of Eos and the Moon
    Stretched him and rubbed his eyes.

    He would have dreamed the dream again
    That found him under sea:
    He saw Zeus sit by Hera's side,
    He saw Hæphestos with his bride;
    He traced from Enna's flowery plain
    The child Persephone.

    There was a time when heaven's vault
    Cracked like a temple's roof.
    A new hierarchy burst its shell,
    And as the sapphire ceiling fell,
    From stern Jehovah's mad assault,
    Vast spaces stretched aloof:

    Great blue black depths of frozen air
    Engulfed the soul of Zeus.

Some men I have beheld with wonderment,
Noble in form and feature, God's design,
In whom the thought must search, as in a mine,
For that live soul of theirs, by which they went
Thus walking on the earth. And I have bent
Frequent regard on women, who gave sign
That God willed Beauty, when He drew the line
That shaped each float and fold of Beauty's tent;
But the soul, drawing up in little space,
Thus left the form all staring, self-dismayed,
A vacant sign of what might be the grace
If mind swelled up, and filled the plan displayed:
Each curve and shade of thy pure form were Thine,
Thy very hair replete with the divine.

My thoughts are all in yonder town,
Where, wept by many tears,
To-day my mother's friend lays down
The burden of her years.

True as in life, no poor disguise
Of death with her is seen,
And on her simple casket lies
No wreath of bloom and green.

Oh, not for her the florist's art,
The mocking weeds of woe;
Dear memories in each mourner's heart
Like heaven's white lilies blow.

And all about the softening air
Of new-born sweetness tells,
And the ungathered May-flowers wear
The tints of ocean shells.

The old, assuring miracle
Is fresh as heretofore;
And earth takes up its parable
Of life from death once more.

Here organ-swell and church-bell toll
Methinks but discord were;
The prayerful silence of the soul...

At evening it rose in the hollow glade,
Where wild-flowers blushed 'mid silence and shade;
Where, hid from the gaze of the garish noon,
They were slily wooed by the trembling moon.
It rose for the guardian zephyrs had flown,
And left the valley that night alone.
No sigh was borne from the leafy hill,
No murmur came from the lapsing rill;
The boughs of the willow in silence wept,
And the aspen leaves in that sabbath slept.
The valley dreamed, and the fairy lute
Of the whispering reed by the brook was mute.
The slender rush o'er the glassy rill,
As a marble shaft, was erect and still,
And no airy sylph on the mirror wave,
A dimpling trace of its footstep gave.
The moon shone down, but the shadows deep
Of the pensile flowers, were hushed in sleep.
The p...

Methinks I see some crooked mimic jeer,
And tax my Muse with this fantastic grace;
Turning my papers asks, "What have we here?"
Making withal some filthy antic face.
    I fear no censure nor what thou canst say,
Nor shall my spirit one jot of vigour lose.
Think'st thou, my wit shall keep the packhorse way,
That every dudgeon low invention goes?
    Since sonnets thus in bundles are imprest,
And every drudge doth dull our satiate ear,
Think'st thou my love shall in those rags be drest
That every dowdy, every trull doth wear?
    Up to my pitch no common judgment flies;
    I scorn all earthly dung-bred scarabies.

"Your eyes that once were never weary of mine
Are bowed in sotrow under pendulous lids,
Because our love is waning."
And then She:
"Although our love is waning, let us stand
By the lone border of the lake once more,
Together in that hour of gentleness
When the poor tired child, passion, falls asleep.
How far away the stars seem, and how far
Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!"
Pensive they paced along the faded leaves,
While slowly he whose hand held hers replied:
"Passion has often worn our wandering hearts."
The woods were round them, and the yellow leaves
Fell like faint meteors in the gloom, and once
A rabbit old and lame limped down the path;
Autumn was over him: and now they stood
On the lone border of the lake once more:
Turning, he s...

The moon from solemn azure sky
    Looked down on earth below,
And coldly her wan light fell alike
    On scenes of joy and woe:
A stately palace reared its dome,
    Within reigned warmth and light
And festive mirth - the moon's faint rays
    Soft kissed its marble white.

A little farther was the home
    Of toil, alas! and want,
That spectre grim that countless hearths
    Seems ceaselessly to haunt;
And yet, as if in mocking mirth,
    She smiled on that drear spot,
Silvering brightly the ruined eaves
    And roof of that poor cot.

And then, with curious gaze, she looked
    Within a curtained loom,
Where sat a girl of gentle mien
    In young life's early bloom;
Her glitt'ring light made still more bright
    The veil ...