Identity

On to Iona! What can she afford
To 'us' save matter for a thoughtful sigh,
Heaved over ruin with stability
In urgent contrast? To diffuse the WORD
(Thy Paramount, mighty Nature! and Time's Lord)
Her Temples rose, 'mid pagan gloom; but why,
Even for a moment, has our verse deplored
Their wrongs, since they fulfilled their destiny?
And when, subjected to a common doom
Of mutability, those far-famed Piles
Shall disappear from both the sister Isles,
Iona's Saints, forgetting not past days,
Garlands shall wear of amaranthine bloom,
While heaven's vast sea of voices chants their praise.

Vast empty shell!
Impertinent, preposterous abortion!
With vacant stare,
And ragged hair,
And every feature out of all proportion!
Embodiment of echoing inanity!
Excellent type of simpering insanity!
Unwieldy, clumsy nightmare of humanity!
I ring thy knell!

To-night thou diest,
Beast that destroy'st my heaven-born identity!
Nine weeks of nights,
Before the lights,
Swamped in thine own preposterous nonentity,
I've been ill-treated, cursed, and thrashed diurnally,
Credited for the smile you wear externally
I feel disposed to smash thy face, infernally,
As there thou liest!

I've been thy brain:
I'VE been the brain that lit thy dull concavity!
The human race
Invest MY face
With thine expression of unchecked depravity,

She wandered so young on the shore around,
Her thoughts were by naught on earth now bound.
Soon came there a painter, his art he plied
    Above the tide,
    In shadow wide, -
He painted the shore and herself beside.

More slowly she wandered near him around,
Her thoughts by a single thing were bound.
And this was his picture wherein he drew
    Herself so true,
    Herself so true,
Reflected in ocean with heaven's blue.

All driven and drawn far and wide around
Her thoughts now by everything were bound.
Far over the ocean, - and yet most dear
    The shore right here,
    The man so near,
Did ever the sunshine so bright appear!

She wandered so young on the shore around,
Her thoughts were by naught on earth now bound.
Soon came there a painter, his art he plied
    Above the tide,
    In shadow wide, -
He painted the shore and herself beside.

More slowly she wandered near him around,
Her thoughts by a single thing were bound.
And this was his picture wherein he drew
    Herself so true,
    Herself so true,
Reflected in ocean with heaven's blue.

All driven and drawn far and wide around
Her thoughts now by everything were bound.
Far over the ocean, - and yet most dear
    The shore right here,
    The man so near,
Did ever the sunshine so bright appear!

As the shifting sands of the desert
    Are born by the simoon's wrath,
And in wanton and fleet confusion,
    Are strewn on its trackless path;
So our lives with resistless fury,
    Insensibly and unknown,
With a restless vacillation
    By the winds of fate are blown;
    But an All-Wise Hand
    May have changed the sand,
    For a purpose of His own.

As the troubled and turbulent waters,
    As the waves of the angry main,
Respond with their undulations
    To the breath of the hurricane;
So our lives on Time's boundless ocean
    Unwittingly toss and roll,
And unconsciously drift with the current
    Which evades our assumed control;
    But a Hand of love,
    From the skies above,
    May have guided us past a shoal.

All day the primroses have thought of thee,
Their golden heads close-haremed from the heat;
All day the mystic moonflowers silkenly
Veiled snowy faces, that no bee might greet
Or butterfly that, weighed with pollen, passed;
Keeping Sultana-charms for thee, at last,
Their lord, who comest to salute each sweet.

Cool-throated flowers that avoid the day's
Too fervid kisses; every bud that drinks
The tipsy dew and to the starlight plays
Nocturns of fragrance, thy wing'd shadow links
In bonds of secret brotherhood and faith;
O bearer of their order's shibboleth,
Like some pale symbol fluttering o'er these pinks.

What dost thou whisper in the balsam's ear
That sets it blushing, or the hollyhock's,
A syllabled silence that no man may hear,
As dreamily...

Yet read at last the story of my woe,
The dreary abstracts of my endless cares,
With my life's sorrow interlinèd so,
Smoked with my sighs, and blotted with my tears,
    The sad memorials of my miseries,
Penned in the grief of mine afflicted ghost,
My life's complaint in doleful elegies,
With so pure love as time could never boast.
    Receive the incense which I offer here,
By my strong faith ascending to thy fame,
My zeal, my hope, my vows, my praise, my prayer,
My soul's oblations to thy sacred name;
    Which name my Muse to highest heavens shall raise,
By chaste desire, true love, and virtuous praise.

I.

In Southern sunny clime there is a hallowed tomb,
    Where rest the ashes of a minstrel priest;
And soft winds that are laden with a sweet perfume
    Their requiems for him have never ceased.


II.

We read his songs, and hear again the tread
    Of armed battalions, marching to the fray,
Or see once more the features of belovèd dead
    Whose life blood crimsoned uniforms of gray!


III.

We see the tattered banner that he loved so well
    Again unfurled and fluttering in the breeze,
And once again we hear the "rebel yell"
    Triumphant wafted o'er the riven trees!


IV.

O, may thy minstrel spirit find eternal rest
    In some fair clime where nothing can be lost!
Where anguish never more ca...

Life, and Death, and Giants
Such as these, are still.
Minor apparatus, hopper of the mill,
Beetle at the candle,
Or a fife's small fame,
Maintain by accident
That they proclaim.

Ah, what hast thou done with that Lover of mine?
The Lover who only cared for thee?
Mine for a handful of nights, and thine
For the Nights that Are and the Days to Be,
The scent of the Champa lost its sweet -
So sweet is was in the Times that Were! -
Since His alone, of the numerous feet
That climb my steps, have returned not there.
Ahi, Yasmini, return not there!

Art thou yet athrill at the touch of His hand,
Art thou still athirst for His waving hair?
Nay, passion thou never couldst understand,
Life's heights and depths thou wouldst never dare.
The Great Things left thee untouched, unmoved,
The Lesser Things had thy constant care.
Ah, what hast thou done with the Lover I loved,
Who found me wanting, and thee so fair?
Ahi, Yasmini, He found her fai...

Così potess' io ben chiuder in versi.

HE COMPLAINS THAT TO HIM ALONE IS FAITH HURTFUL.


    Could I, in melting verse, my thoughts but throw,
As in my heart their living load I bear,
No soul so cruel in the world was e'er
That would not at the tale with pity glow.
But ye, blest eyes, which dealt me the sore blow,
'Gainst which nor helm nor shield avail'd to spare
Within, without, behold me poor and bare,
Though never in laments is breathed my woe.
But since on me your bright glance ever shines,
E'en as a sunbeam through transparent glass,
Suffice then the desire without the lines.
Faith Peter bless'd and Mary, but, alas!
It proves an enemy to me alone,
Whose spirit save by you to none is known.

MACGREGOR.

Thou art not always kind, O sleep:
What awful secrets them dost keep
In store, and ofttimes make us know;
What hero has not fallen low
In sleep before a monster grim,
And whined for mercy unto him;
Knights, constables, and men-at-arms
Have quailed and whined in sleep's alarms.
Thou wert not kind last night to make
Me like a very coward shake,
Shake like a thin red-currant bush
Robbed of its fruit by a strong thrush.
I felt this earth did move; more slow,
And slower yet began to go;
And not a bird was heard to sing,
Men and great beasts were shivering;
All living things knew well that when
This earth stood still, destruction then
Would follow with a mighty crash.
'Twas then I broke that awful hush:
E'en as a mother, who does come
Runnin...

Dear P----, while Painters, Poets, Sages,
Inscribe this volume's votive pages
With partial friendship: why invite
The tribute of a luckless wight
Unknown--by wisdom or by wit
Indulged with no certificate?

Perchance, as in a diadem
Glittering with many a radiant gem,
Some mean metallic foil is placed
Judicious, by the hand of taste;
You seek, amidst the sons of fame,
To set an undistinguish'd name?
If so--that name is freely lent,
A pebble to your gems--T. GENT.

On southern winds shot through with amber light,
Breeding soft balm, and clothed in cloudy white,
The lily-fingered Spring came o'er the hills
Waking the crocus and the daffodils.
O'er the cold earth she breathed a tender sigh, -
The maples sang and flung their banners high,
Their crimson-tasseled pennons, and the elm
Bound his dark brows with a green-crested helm.
Beneath the musky rot of Autumn's leaves,
Under the forest's myriad naked eaves,
Life woke and rose in gold and green and blue,
Robed in the star-light of the twinkling dew.
With timid tread adown the barren wood
Spring held her way, when, lo! before her stood
White-mantled Winter wagging his white head,
Stormy his brow, and stormily he said: -
"Sole lord of terror, and the fiend of storm,
Crow...

"There's nothing new"--Not that I go so far
As he who also said "There's nothing true,"
Since, on the contrary, I hold there are
Surviving still a verity or two;
But, as to novelty, in my conviction,
There's nothing new,--especially in fiction.

Hence, at the outset, I make no apology,
If this my story is as old as Time,
Being, indeed, that idyll of mythology,--
The Cyclops' love,--which, somewhat varied, I'm
To tell once more, the adverse Muse permitting,
In easy rhyme, and phrases neatly fitting.

"Once on a time"--there's nothing new, I said--
It may be fifty years ago or more,
Beside a lonely posting-road that led
Seaward from Town, there used to stand of yore,
With low-built bar and old bow-window shady,
An ancient Inn, the "Dragon and the ...

        Earth's wheels run oiled with blood.    Forget we that.
        Let us lie down and dig ourselves in thought.
        Beauty is yours and you have mastery,
        Wisdom is mine, and I have mystery.
        We two will stay behind and keep our troth.
        Let us forego men's minds that are brute's natures,
        Let us not sup the blood which some say nurtures,
        Be we not swift with swiftness of the tigress.
        Let us break ranks from those who trek from progress.
        Miss we the march of this retreating world
        Into old citadels that are not walled.
        Let us lie out and hold the open truth.
        Then when their blood hath clogged the chariot wheels
        We will go up and wash them from deep wells.
        What though we s...

I.

A mile of moonlight and the whispering wood:
A mile of shadow and the odorous lane:
One large, white star above the solitude,
Like one sweet wish: and, laughter after pain,
Wild-roses wistful in a web of rain.

II.

No star, no rose, to lesson him and lead;
No woodsman compass of the skies and rocks,
Tattooed of stars and lichens, doth love need
To guide him where, among the hollyhocks,
A blur of moonlight, gleam his sweetheart's locks.

III.

We name it beauty that permitted part,
The love-elected apotheosis
Of Nature, which the god within the heart,
Just touching, makes immortal, but by this
A star, a rose, the memory of a kiss.

Your birthday, sweetheart, is my birthday too,
For, had you not been born,
I who began to live beholding you
Up early as the morn,
That day in June beside the rose-hung stream,
Had never lived at all -
We stood, do you remember? in a dream
There by the water-fall.

You were as still as all the other flowers
Under the morning's spell;
Sudden two lives were one, and all things "ours" -
How we can never tell.
Surely it had been fated long ago -
What else, dear, could we think?
It seemed that we had stood for ever so,
There by the river's brink.

And all the days that followed seemed as days
Lived side by side before,
Strangely familiar all your looks and ways,
The very frock you wore;
Nothing seemed strange, yet all divinely new;