Identity

What virtue, or what mental grace
But men unqualified and base
Will boast it their possession?
Profusion apes the noble part
Of liberality of heart,
And dulness of discretion.


If every polish’d gem we find,
Illuminating heart or mind,
Provoke to imitation;
No wonder friendship does the same,
That jewel of the purest flame,
Or rather constellation.


No knave but boldly will pretend
The requisites that form a friend,
A real and a sound one;
Nor any fool, he would deceive,
But prove as ready to believe,
And dream that he had found one.


Candid, and generous, and just,
Boys care but little whom they trust,
An error soon corrected—
For who but learns in riper years
That man, when smoothest he appears,<...

I have fetched the tears up out of the little wells,
Scooped them up with small, iron words,
Dripping over the runnels.

The harsh, cold wind of my words drove on, and still
I watched the tears on the guilty cheek of the boys
Glitter and spill.

Cringing Pity, and Love, white-handed, came
Hovering about the Judgment which stood in my eyes,
Whirling a flame.


The tears are dry, and the cheeks' young fruits are fresh
With laughter, and clear the exonerated eyes, since pain
Beat through the flesh.

The Angel of Judgment has departed again to the Nearness.
Desolate I am as a church whose lights are put out.
And night enters in drearness.

The fire rose up in the bush and blazed apace,
The thorn-leaves crackled and twisted and sweated...

TO LORD BOLINGBROKE.

St John, whose love indulged my labours past,
Matures my present, and shall bound my last!
Why will you break the Sabbath of my days?
Now sick alike of envy and of praise.
Public too long, ah, let me hide my age!
See, modest Cibber now has left the stage:
Our generals now, retired to their estates,
Hang their old trophies o'er the garden gates,
In life's cool evening satiate of applause,
Nor fond of bleeding, even in Brunswick's cause.

A voice there is, that whispers in my ear,
('Tis reason's voice, which sometimes one can hear)
'Friend Pope! be prudent, let your Muse take breath,
And never gallop Pegasus to death;
Lest, still and stately, void of fire or force,
You limp, like Blackmore on a Lord Mayor's horse.'

Fare...

In the tents of Akbar
Are dole and grief to-day,
For the flower of all the Indies
Has gone the silent way.

In the tents of Akbar
Are emptiness and gloom,
And where the dancers gather,
The silence of the tomb.

Across the yellow desert,
Across the burning sands,
Old Akbar wanders madly,
And wrings his fevered hands.

And ever makes his moaning
To the unanswering sky,
For Sutna, lovely Sutna,
Who was so fair to die.

For Sutna danced at morning,
And Sutna danced at eve;
Her dusky eyes half hidden
Behind her silken sleeve.

Her pearly teeth out-glancing
Between her coral lips,
The tremulous rhythm of passion
Marked by her quivering hips.

As lovely as a jewel
Of fire and dewdrop blent,

‘Though to my feathers in the wet,
I have stood here from break of day,
I have not found a thing to eat
For only rubbish comes my way.
Am I to live on lebeen-lone?’
Muttered the old crane of Gort.
‘For all my pains on lebeen-lone.’

King Guari walked amid his court
The palace-yard and river-side
And there to three old beggars said:
‘You that have wandered far and wide
Can ravel out what’s in my head.
Do men who least desire get most,
Or get the most who most desire?’
A beggar said: ‘They get the most
Whom man or devil cannot tire,
And what could make their muscles taut
Unless desire had made them so.’
But Guari laughed with secret thought,
‘If that be true as it seems true,
One of you three is a rich man,
For he shall have a thous...

There's a feast undated yet:
    Both our true lives hold it fast,--
The first day we ever met.
    What a great day came and passed!
    --Unknown then, but known at last.

And we met: You knew not me,
    Mistress of your joys and fears;
Held my hands that held the key
    Of the treasure of your years,
    Of the fountain of your tears.

For you knew not it was I,
        And I knew not it was you.
We have learnt, as days went by.
        But a flower struck root and grew
        Underground, and no one knew.

Days of days!    Unmarked it rose,
    In whose hours we were to meet;
And forgotten passed.    Who knows,
    Was earth cold or sunny, Sweet,
    At the coming of your feet?

One mere day, we thought; the measu...

Crass rays streaming from the vestibules;
Cafes glittering like jeweled teeth;
High-flung signs
Blinking yellow phosphorescent eyes;
Girls in black
Circling monotonously
About the orange lights...

Nothing to guess at...
Save the darkness above
Crouching like a great cat.

In the dim-lit square,
Where dishevelled trees
Tustle with the wind - the wind like a scythe
Mowing their last leaves -
Arcs shimmering through a greenish haze -
Pale oval arcs
Like ailing virgins,
Each out of a halo circumscribed,
Pallidly staring...

Figures drift upon the benches
With no more rustle than a dropped leaf settling -
Slovenly figures like untied parcels,
And papers wrapped about their knees
Huddled one to the other,
Cring...

Hark! some wild trumpeter some strange musician,
Hovering unseen in air, vibrates capricious tunes to-night.

I hear thee, trumpeter listening, alert, I catch thy notes,
Now pouring, whirling like a tempest round me,
Now low, subdued now in the distance lost.

Come nearer, bodiless one haply, in thee resounds
Some dead composer haply thy pensive life
Was fill'd with aspirations high unform'd ideals,
Waves, oceans musical, chaotically surging,
That now, ecstatic ghost, close to me bending, thy cornet echoing, pealing,
Gives out to no one's ears but mine but freely gives to mine,
That I may thee translate.

Blow, trumpeter, free and clear I follow thee,
While at thy liquid prelude, glad, serene,
The fretting world, the streets, the noisy hours of day, withd...

As lightens the brown Hill to vivid green
    When juvenescent April's showery Sun
    Looks on its side, with golden glance, at Noon;
    So on the gloom of Life's now faded scene
Shines the dear image of those days serene,
    From Memory's consecrated treasures won;
    The days that rose, ere youth, and years were flown,
    Soft as the morn of May; - and well I ween
If they had clouds, in Time's alembic clear
    They vanish'd all, and their gay vision glows
    In brightness unobscur'd; and now they wear
A more than pristine sunniness, which throws
    Those mild reflected lights that soften care,
    Loss of lov'd Friends, and all the train of Woes.

The image of the moon at night
All trembling in the ocean lies,
But she, with calm and steadfast light,
Moves proudly through the radiant skies,

How like the tranquil moon thou art--
Thou fairest flower of womankind!
And, look, within my fluttering heart
Thy image trembling is enshrined!

All that a man can say of woman's charms,
    Mine eyes have spoken and my lips have told
To you a thousand times.    Your perfect arms
    (A replica from that lost Melos mould),
The fair firm crescents of your bosom (shown
With full intent to make their splendours known),

Your eyes (that mask with innocence their smile),
    The (artful) artlessness of all your ways,
Your kiss-provoking mouth, its lure, its guile -
    All these have had my fond and frequent praise.
And something more than praise to you I gave -
Something which made you know me as your slave.

Yet slaves, at times, grow mutinous and rebel.
    Here in this morning hour, from you apart,
The mood is on me to be frank and tell
    The thoughts long hidden deep down in my heart.
These...

God makes sech nights, all white an' still
    Fur 'z you can look or listen,
Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,
    All silence an' all glisten.

Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown
    An' peeked in thru' the winder,
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
    'Ith no one nigh to hender.

A fireplace filled the room's one side
    With half a cord o' wood in,
There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died)
    To bake ye to a puddin'.

The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out
    Towards the pootiest, bless her,
An' leetle flames danced all about
    The chiny on the dresser.

Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,
    An' in amongst 'em rusted
The ole queen's-arm that Gran'ther Young
    Fetched back f'om Concord busted.

The very room, c...

FROM ORCUS, HIGH PRIEST OF MEMPHIS, TO DECIUS, THE PRAETORIAN PREFECT.


Rejoice, my friend, rejoice;--the youthful Chief
Of that light Sect which mocks at all belief,
And gay and godless makes the present hour
Its only heaven, is now within our power.
Smooth, impious school!--not all the weapons aimed,
At priestly creeds, since first a creed was framed,
E'er struck so deep as that sly dart they wield,
The Bacchant's pointed spear in laughing flowers concealed.
And oh, 'twere victory to this heart, as sweet
As any thou canst boast--even when the feet
Of thy proud war-steed wade thro' Christian blood,
To wrap this scoffer in Faith's blinding hood,
And bring him tamed and prostrate to implore
The vilest gods even Egypt's saints adore.
What!--do these...

Impassioned singer of the happy time.
When all the world was waking into morn,
And dew still glistened on the tangled thorn,
And lingered on the branches of the lime,
Oh peerless singer of the golden rhyme,
Happy wert thou to live ere doubt was born,
Before the joy of life was half out-worn,
And nymphs and satyrs vanished from your clime.
Then maidens bearing parsley in their hands
Wound thro' the groves to where the goddess stands,
And mariners might sail for unknown lands
Past sea-clasped islands veiled in mystery,
And Venus still was shining from the sea,
And Ceres had not lost Persephone.

It was on such a night as this,
Some long unreal years ago,
When all within were wrapp'd in sleep,
And all without was wrapp'd in snow,
The full moon rising in the east,
The old church standing like a ghost,
That, shivering in the wintry mist,
And breathless with the silent frost,
A little lad, I ran to seek my fortune on the main;
I marvel now with how much hope and with how little pain!

It is of such a night as this,
In all the lands where I have been,
That memory too faithfully
Has painted the familiar scene.
By all the shores, on every sea,
In luck or loss, by night or day,
My highest hope has been to see
That home from which I ran away.
For this I toil'd, to this I look'd through many a weary year,
I marvel now with how much hope, and...

Clear are her eyes,
Like purest skies;
Discovering from thence
A baby there
That turns each sphere,
Like an Intelligence.

Cool is the wind, for the summer is waning,
Who 's for the road?
Sun-flecked and soft, where the dead leaves are raining,
Who 's for the road?
Knapsack and alpenstock press hand and shoulder,
Prick of the brier and roll of the boulder;
This be your lot till the season grow older;
Who 's for the road?

Up and away in the hush of the morning,
Who 's for the road?
Vagabond he, all conventions a-scorning,
Who 's for the road?
Music of warblers so merrily singing,
Draughts from the rill from the roadside up-springing,
Nectar of grapes from the vines lowly swinging,
These on the road.

Now every house is a hut or a hovel,
Come to the road:
Mankind and moles in the dark love to grovel,
But to the road.
Throw off the loads that are bendin...

1.

There was a time, I need not name,
Since it will ne'er forgotten be,
When all our feelings were the same
As still my soul hath been to thee.


2.

And from that hour when first thy tongue
Confess'd a love which equall'd mine,
Though many a grief my heart hath wrung,
Unknown, and thus unfelt, by thine,


3.

None, none hath sunk so deep as this -
To think how all that love hath flown;
Transient as every faithless kiss,
But transient in thy breast alone.


4.

And yet my heart some solace knew,
When late I heard thy lips declare,
In accents once imagined true,
Remembrance of the days that were.


5.

Yes! my adored, yet most unkind!
Though thou wilt never love agai...