Identity

Zefiro torna, e 'l bel tempo rimena.

RETURNING SPRING BRINGS TO HIM ONLY INCREASE OF GRIEF.


    Zephyr returns; and in his jocund train
Brings verdure, flowers, and days serenely clear;
Brings Progne's twitter, Philomel's lorn strain,
With every bloom that paints the vernal year;
Cloudless the skies, and smiling every plain;
With joyance flush'd, Jove views his daughter dear;
Love's genial power pervades earth, air, and main;
All beings join'd in fond accord appear.
But nought to me returns save sorrowing sighs,
Forced from my inmost heart by her who bore
Those keys which govern'd it unto the skies:
The blossom'd meads, the choristers of air,
Sweet courteous damsels can delight no more;
Each face looks savage, and each prospect drear.
...

IF Wytheburn's modest House of prayer,
As lowly as the lowliest dwelling,
Had, with its belfry's humble stock,
A little pair that hang in air,
Been mistress also of a clock,
(And one, too, not in crazy plight)
Twelve strokes that clock would have been telling
Under the brow of old Helvellyn
Its bead-roll of midnight,
Then, when the Hero of my tale
Was passing by, and, down the vale
(The vale now silent, hushed I ween
As if a storm had never been)
Proceeding with a mind at ease;
While the old Familiar of the seas,
Intent to use his utmost haste,
Gained ground upon the Waggon fast,
And gives another lusty cheer;
For spite of rumbling of the wheels,
A welcome greeting he can hear;
It is a fiddle in its glee
Dinning from the CHERRY TREE!

Letter XI. Faith.


I.

    Now will I sing to God a song of praise,
    And thank the morning for the light it brings,
    Aye! and the earth for every flower that springs,
    And every tree that, in the jocund days,
    Thrills to the blast. My voice I will upraise
    To thank the world for every bird that sings.


II.

    I will unpack my mind of all its fears,
    I will advance to where the matin fires
    Absorb the hills. My hopes and my desires
    Will lead me safe; and day will have no tears
    And night no torture, as i...

Red gleams the mountain ridge,
    Slow the stream creeps
Under the old bent bridge,
    And labor sleeps.

There are no restless birds,
    No leaves that stir,
Dusk her gray mantle girds,
    Night's harbinger.

The storm-soul's change and start
    Pause, lull, and cease;
In my unquiet heart
    Is born a peace.

Thought, with good cause thou lik'st so well the night,
Since kind or chance giues both one liuerie,
Both sadly blacke, both blackly darkned be;
Night bard from Sunne, thou from thy owne sunlight;
Silence in both displaies his sullen might;
Slow heauinesse in both holds one degree
That full of doubts, thou of perplexity;
Thy teares expresse Nights natiue moisture right;
In both amazeful solitarinesse:
In night, of sprites, the gastly powers do stur;
In thee or sprites or sprited gastlinesse.
But, but (alas) Nights side the ods hath fur:
For that, at length, yet doth inuite some rest;
Thou, though still tired, yet still doost it detest.

The moonlight is without; and I could lose
An hour to gaze, though Taste and Splendour here,
As in a lustrous fairy palace, reign!
Regardless of the lights that blaze within,
I look upon the wide and silent sea,
That in the shadowy moonbeam sleeps:
    How still,
Nor heard to murmur, or to move, it lies;
Shining in Fancy's eye, like the soft gleam,
The eve of pleasant yesterdays!
    The clouds
Have all sunk westward, and the host of stars
Seem in their watches set, as gazing on;
While night's fair empress, sole and beautiful,
Holds her illustrious course through the mid heavens
Supreme, the spectacle, for such she looks,
Of gazing worlds!
    How different is the scene
That lies beneath this arched window's height!
The town, that murmured throu...

I.

When dusk is drowned in drowsy dreams,
And slow the hues of sunset die;
When firefly and moth go by,
And in still streams the new-moon gleams,
A sickle in the sky;
Then from the hills there comes a cry,
The owlet's cry;
A shivering voice that sobs and screams,
That, frightened, screams:

"Who is it, who is it, who?
Who rides through the dusk and dew,
With a pair o' horns,
As thin as thorns,
And face a bubble blue?
Who, who, who!
Who is it, who is it, who?"

II.

When night has dulled the lily's white,
And opened wide the primrose eyes;
When pale mists rise and veil the skies,
And 'round the height in whispering flight
The night-wind sounds and sighs;
Then in the woods again it cries,
The owlet cri...

I set out for the Land of Content,
    By the gay crowded pleasure-highway,
With laughter, and jesting, I went
    With the mirth-loving throng for a day;
    Then I knew I had wandered astray,
For I met returned pilgrims, belated,
Who said, "We are weary and sated,
But we found not the Land of Content."

I turned to the steep path of fame,
    I said, "It is over yon height -
This land with the beautiful name -
    Ambition will lend me its light."
    But I paused in my journey ere night,
For the way grew so lonely and troubled;
I said - my anxiety doubled -
"This is not the road to Content."

Then I joined the great rabble and throng
    That frequents the moneyed world's mart;
But the greed, and the grasping and wrong,
    Left me ...

Sidney, in whom the heyday of romance
Came to its precious and most perfect flower,
Whether you tourneyed with victorious lance
Or brought sweet roundelays to Stella's bower,
I give myself some credit for the way
I have kept clean of what enslaves and lowers,
Shunned the ideals of our present day
And studied those that were esteemed in yours;
For, turning from the mob that buys Success
By sacrificing all Life's better part,
Down the free roads of human happiness
I frolicked, poor of purse but light of heart,
And lived in strict devotion all along
To my three idols - Love and Arms and Song.

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.

Oh, go not to the lonely hill,
That from its heart pours one clear well!
There is a witch who haunts it still,
Who would undo you with her spell.
Oh, go not to the lonely hill.
There was a youth who, with his book,
Would dream for hours and hours alone
Beneath the boughs, beside the brook,
Seated upon a mossy stone,
His gaze upon his wonder-book.
The scent of lilies there is cool,
Hanging in many a wild raceme
Around a glimmering woodland pool,
From whence flows down a shadowy stream.
The scent of lilies there is cool. . . .
Between his eyes and unturned page
He saw her bright face, smiling, nod:
And knew her of another Age,
A pagan Age that mocked at God.
She seemed to rise from out the page,
Clothed on with dreams and forest scent,
A...

She sped through the door
And, following in haste,
And stirred to the core,
I entered hot-faced;
But I could not find her,
No sign was behind her.
"Where is she?" I said:
- "Who?" they asked that sat there;
"Not a soul's come in sight."
- "A maid with red hair."
- "Ah." They paled. "She is dead.
People see her at night,
But you are the first
On whom she has burst
In the keen common light."

It was ages ago,
When I was quite strong:
I have waited since, - O,
I have waited so long!
- Yea, I set me to own
The house, where now lone
I dwell in void rooms
Booming hollow as tombs!
But I never come near her,
Though nightly I hear her.
And my cheek has grown thin
And my hair has grown gray
With this waiting th...

I have eaten your bread and salt.
I have drunk your water and wine.
In deaths ye died I have watched beside,
And the lives ye led were mine.

Was there aught that I did not share
In vigil or toil or ease,
One joy or woe that I did not know,
Dear hearts across the seas?

I have written the tale of our life
For a sheltered people's mirth,
In jesting guise, but ye are wise,
And ye know what the jest is worth.

Who robbed the woods,
The trusting woods?
The unsuspecting trees
Brought out their burrs and mosses
His fantasy to please.
He scanned their trinkets, curious,
He grasped, he bore away.
What will the solemn hemlock,
What will the fir-tree say?

Ay, Oliver! I was but seven, and he was eleven;
He looked at me pouting and rosy. I blushed where I stood.
They had told us to play in the orchard (and I only seven!
A small guest at the farm); but he said, 'Oh, a girl was no good!'
So he whistled and went, he went over the stile to the wood.
It was sad, it was sorrowful! Only a girl - only seven!
At home in the dark London smoke I had not found it out.
The pear-trees looked on in their white, and blue birds flash'd about,
And they too were angry as Oliver. Were they eleven?
I thought so. Yes, everyone else was eleven - eleven!

So Oliver went, but the cowslips were tall at my feet,
And all the white orchard with fast-falling blossom was litter'd;
And under and over the branches those little birds twitter'd,
While hangi...

I.

Clear-headed friend, whose joyful scorn,
Edged with sharp laughter, cuts atwain
The knots that tangle human creeds,
The wounding cords that bind and strain
The heart until it bleeds,
Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn
Roof not a glance so keen as thine;
If aught of prophecy be mine,
Thou wilt not live in vain.


II.

Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit;
Falsehood shall bare her plaited brow;
Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now
With shrilling shafts of subtle wit.
Nor martyr-flames, nor trenchant swords
Can do away that ancient lie;
A gentler death shall Falsehood die,
Shot thro’ and thro’ with cunning words.



III.

Weak Truth a-leaning on her crutch,
Wan, wasted Truth in her utmost need,

1.

Those flaxen locks, those eyes of blue
Bright as thy mother's in their hue;
Those rosy lips, whose dimples play
And smile to steal the heart away,
Recall a scene of former joy,
And touch thy father's heart, my Boy!


2.

And thou canst lisp a father's name -
Ah, William, were thine own the same, -
No self-reproach - but, let me cease -
My care for thee shall purchase peace;
Thy mother's shade shall smile in joy,
And pardon all the past, my Boy!


3.

Her lowly grave the turf has prest,
And thou hast known a stranger's breast;
Derision sneers upon thy birth,
And yields thee scarce a name on earth;
Yet shall not these one hope destroy, -
A Father's heart is thine, my Boy!


4.

W...

S. M. A.



Gone! and there's not a gleam of you,
Faces that float into far away;
Gone! and we can only dream of you
Each as you fade like a star away.
Fade as a star in the sky from us,
Vainly we look for your light again;
Hear ye the sound of a sigh from us?
"Come!" and our hearts will be bright again.

Come! and gaze on our face once more,
Bring us the smiles of the olden days;
Come! and shine in your place once more,
And change the dark into golden days.
Gone! gone! gone! Joy is fled for us;
Gone into the night of the nevermore,
And darkness rests where you shed for us
A light we will miss ~forevermore~.

Faces! ye come in the night to us;
Shadows! ye float in the sky of sleep;
Shadows! ye bring nothing bright to us;...