Identity

Let us twain walk aside from the rest;
Now we are together privately, do you discard ceremony,
Come! vouchsafe to me what has yet been vouchsafed to none, Tell me the whole story,
Tell me what you would not tell your brother, wife, husband, or physician.

Home furthest off grows dearer from the way;
And when the army in the Indias lay
Friends' letters coming from his native place
Were like old neighbours with their country face.
And every opportunity that came
Opened the sheet to gaze upon the name
Of that loved village where he left his sheep
For more contented peaceful folk to keep;
And friendly faces absent many a year
Would from such letters in his mind appear.
And when his pockets, chafing through the case,
Wore it quite out ere others took the place,
Right loath to be of company bereft
He kept the fragments while a bit was left.

A budding mouth and warm blue eyes;
A laughing face; - and laughing hair,
    So ruddy does it rise
    From off that forehead fair;

Frank fervor in whate'er she said,
And a shy grace when she was still;
    A bright, elastic tread;
    Enthusiastic will;

These wrought the magic of a maid
As sweet and sad as the sun in spring,
    Joyous, yet half-afraid
    Her joyousness to sing.

What weighs the unworthiness of earth
When beauty such as this finds birth?
    Rare maid, to look on thee
    Gives all things harmony!

Split the lark and you'll find the music,
Bulb after bulb, in silver rolled,
Scantily dealt to the summer morning,
Saved for your ear when lutes be old.

Loose the flood, you shall find it patent,
Gush after gush, reserved for you;
Scarlet experiment! sceptic Thomas,
Now, do you doubt that your bird was true?

With sombre mien, the Evening gray
Comes nagging at the heels of Day,
And driven faster and still faster
Before the dusky-mantled Master,
The light fades from her fearful eyes,
She hastens, stumbles, falls, and dies.

Beside me Amaryllis weeps;
The swelling tears obscure the deeps
Of her dark eyes, as, mistily,
The rushing rain conceals the sea.
Here, lay my tuneless reed away,--
I have no heart to tempt a lay.

I scent the perfume of the rose
Which by my crystal fountain grows.
In this sad time, are roses blowing?
And thou, my fountain, art thou flowing,

While I who watched thy waters spring
Am all too sad to smile or sing?
Nay, give me back my pipe again,
It yet shall breathe this single strain:
Farewell to Arcady!

The white moth to the closing bine,
The bee to the opened clover,
And the gipsy blood to the gipsy blood
Ever the wide world over.

Ever the wide world over, lass,
Ever the trail held true,
Over the world and under the world,
And back at the last to you.

Out of the dark of the gorgio camp,
Out of the grime and the grey
(Morning waits at the end of the world),
Gipsy, come away!

The wild boar to the sun-dried swamp,
The red crane to her reed,
And the Romany lass to the Romany lad,
By the tie of a roving breed.

The pied snake to the rifted rock,
The buck to the stony plain,
And the Romany lass to the Romany lad,
And both to the road again.

Both to the road again, again!
Out on a clean sea-track,
Follow th...

Hence, my epistle--skim the Deep--fly o'er
Yon smooth expanse to the Teutonic shore!
Haste--lest a friend should grieve for thy delay--
And the Gods grant that nothing thwart thy way!
I will myself invoke the King[2] who binds
In his Sicanian ecchoing vault the winds,
With Doris[3] and her Nymphs, and all the throng
Of azure Gods, to speed thee safe along.
But rather, to insure thy happier haste,
Ascend Medea's chariot,[4] if thou may'st,    
Or that whence young Triptolemus[5] of yore
Descended welcome on the Scythian shore.
The sands that line the German coast descried,
To opulent Hamburg turn aside,
So call'd, if legendary fame be true,
From Hama,[6] whom a club-arm'd Cimbrian slew.
There lives, deep-le...

Here the flame that was ash, shrine that was void, lost in the haunted wood,
I have tended and loved, year upon year, I in the solitude
Waiting, quiet and glad-eyed in the dark, knowing that once a gleam
Glowed and went through the wood. Still I abode strong in a golden dream,
Unrecaptured.
For I, I that had faith, knew that a face would glance
One day, white in the dim woods, and a voice call, and a radiance
Fill the grove, and the fire suddenly leap . . . and, in the heart of it,
End of labouring, you! Therefore I kept ready the altar, lit
The flame, burning apart.
Face of my dreams vainly in vision white
Gleaming down to me, lo! hopeless I rise now. For about midnight
Whispers grew through the wood suddenly, strange cries in the boughs above
Grated, cries like a laugh. Si...

Whiten, oh whiten, O clouds of lawn!
Lily-like clouds that whiten above,
Now like a dove, and now like a swan,
But never, oh never pass on! pass on!
Never so white as the throat of my love.

Blue-black night on the mountain peaks
Is not so black as the locks o' my love!
Stars that shine through the evening streaks
Over the torrent that flashes and breaks,
Are not so bright as the eyes o' my love!

Moon in a cloud, a cloud of snow,
Mist in the vale where the rivulet sounds,
Dropping from ledge to ledge below,
Turning to gold in the sunset's glow,
Are not so soft as her footstep sounds.

Sound o' May winds in the blossoming trees,
Is not so sweet as her laugh that rings;
Song o' wild birds on the morning breeze,
Birds and brooks and murm...

The drooping, weary day night pushed aside;
        On Tschatir Dagh the sullen sun and low
Paints phantom purple upon ancient snow;
        While forest ways within, the wanderers hide.
Night veils the mountains and the valleys wide;
        The thunderous brooks are dream-held, dulled, and slow;
Beneath the blackness fragrant flowers blow
        And rich leaf-music clothes each valley side.

Almost my waking eyes are dream-held too;
        With gold a meteor marks the deep-domed sky
And fountain-like the fiery sparks float by.
        Oh! Beauty of the Eastern Night, you woo
My spirit like the odalisque, who held
        Men captive till her kiss the dream dispelled!

Within a London garret high,
Above the roofs and near the sky,
My ill-rewarding pen I ply
To win me bread.
This little chamber, six by four,
Is castle, study, den, and more,--
Altho' no carpet decks the floor,
Nor down, the bed.

My room is rather bleak and bare;
I only have one broken chair,
But then, there's plenty of fresh air,--
Some light, beside.
What tho' I cannot ask my friends
To share with me my odds and ends,
A liberty my aerie lends,
To most denied.

The bore who falters at the stair
No more shall be my curse and care,
And duns shall fail to find my lair
With beastly bills.
When debts have grown and funds are short,
I find it rather pleasant sport
To live "above the common sort"
With all their ills.

One moment past our bodies cast
No shadow on the plain;
Now clear and black they stride our track,
And we run home again.
In morning-hush, each rock and bush
Stands hard, and high, and raw:
Then give the Call: "Good rest to all
That keep the Jungle Law!"

Now horn and pelt our peoples melt
In covert to abide;
Now, crouched and still, to cave and hill
Our Jungle Barons glide.
Now, stark and plain, Man's oxen strain,
That draw the new-yoked plough;
Now, stripped and dread, the dawn is red
Above the lit talao.

Ho! Get to lair! The sun's aflare
Behind the breathing grass:
And creaking through the young bamboo
The warning whispers pass.
By day made strange, the woods we range
With blinking eyes we scan;
While down the skies ...

I

Wail! for the Law has scattered into flight
Those Drinks that were our sometime dear Delight;
And still the Morals-tinkers plot and plan
New, sterner, stricter Statutes to indite.


II

After the phantom of our Freedom died
Methought a Voice within the Tavern cried:
"Drink coffee, Lads, for that is all that's left
Since our Land of the Free is washed--and dried."


[Illustration:

And still the Morals-tinkers plot and plan
New, sterner, stricter Statutes to indite.]


III

The Haigs indeed are gone, and on the Nose
That bourgeoned once with color of the rose
A deathly Pallor sits, while down the lane
Where once strode Johnny Walker--Water goes.


IV

Come, fill the Cup, a...

Not unremembering we pass our exile from the starry ways:
One timeless hour in time we caught from the long night of endless days.
With solemn gaiety the stars danced far withdrawn on elfin heights:
The lilac breathed amid the shade of green and blue and citron lights.
But yet the close enfolding night seemed on the phantom verge of things,
For our adoring hearts had turned within from all their wanderings:
For beauty called to beauty and there thronged at the enchanter's will
The vanished hours of love that burn within the Ever-living still.
And sweet eternal faces put the shadows of the earth to rout,
And faint and fragile as a moth your white hand fluttered and went out.
Oh, who am I who tower beside this goddess of the twilight air?
The burning doves fly from my heart and melt wit...

    My mother was for woman's rights
    And my father was the rich miller at London Mills.
    I dreamed of the wrongs of the world and wanted to right them.
    When my father died, I set out to see peoples and countries
    In order to learn how to reform the world.
    I traveled through many lands. I saw the ruins of Rome
    And the ruins of Athens, And the ruins of Thebes.
    And I sat by moonlight amid the necropolis of Memphis.
    There I was caught up by wings of flame,
    And a voice from heaven said to me:
    "Injustice, Untruth destroyed them.
    Go forth Preach Justice! Preach Truth!"
    And I hastened back to Spoon River
    To say farewell to my mother before beginning my work.
    They all saw a strange light in my eye.
    And by and by, whe...

In cabin'd ships, at sea,
The boundless blue on every side expanding,
With whistling winds and music of the waves - the large imperious waves - In such,
Or some lone bark, buoy'd on the dense marine,
Where, joyous, full of faith, spreading white sails,
She cleaves the ether, mid the sparkle and the foam of day, or under many a star at night,
By sailors young and old, haply will I, a reminiscence of the land, be read,
In full rapport at last.


Here are our thoughts - voyagers' thoughts,
Here not the land, firm land, alone appears, may then by them be said;
The sky o'erarches here - we feel the undulating deck beneath our feet,
We feel the long pulsation - ebb and flow of endless motion;
The tones of unseen mystery - the vague and vast suggestions of the briny world - th...

I have passed the day 'mid the forest gay,
    In its gorgeous autumn dyes,
Its tints as bright and as fair to the sight
    As the hues of our sunset skies;
And the sun's glad rays veiled by golden haze,
    Streamed down 'neath its arches grand,
And with magic power made scene and hour
    Like a dream of Faerie Land.

The emerald sheen of the maple green
    Is turned to deep, rich red;
And the boughs entwine with the crimson vine
    That is climbing overhead;
While, like golden sheaves, the saffron leaves
    Of the sycamore strew the ground,
'Neath birches old, clad in shimmering gold,
    Or the ash with red berries crowned.

Stately and tall, o'er its sisters all,
    Stands the poplar, proud and lone,
Every silvery leaf in restless...

The moon has left the sky, love,
The stars are hiding now,
And frowning on the world, love,
Night bares her sable brow.
The snow is on the ground, love,
And cold and keen the air is.
I 'm singing here to you, love;
You 're dreaming there in Paris.

But this is Nature's law, love,
Though just it may not seem,
That men should wake to sing, love,
While maidens sleep and dream.
Them care may not molest, love,
Nor stir them from their slumbers,
Though midnight find the swain, love,
Still halting o'er his numbers.

I watch the rosy dawn, love,
Come stealing up the east,
While all things round rejoice, love,
That Night her reign has ceased.
The lark will soon be heard, love,
And on his way be winging;
When Nature's poets wake, ...