Identity

    "The valiant, in himself, what can he suffer?
    Or what does he regard his single woes?
    But when, alas! he multiplies himself,
    To dearer selves, to the lov'd tender fair,
    The those whose bliss, whose beings hang upon him,
    To helpless children! then, O then! he feels
    The point of misery fest'ring in his heart,
    And weakly weeps his fortune like a coward.
    Such, such am I! undone."

Thomson.


I.

    Farewell, old Scotia's bleak domains,
    Far dearer than the torrid plains
        Where rich ananas blow!
    Farewell, a mother's blessing dear!
    A brother's sigh! a sister's tear!
        My Jean's heart-rending throe!
    Farewell, my Bess! tho' thou'rt bereft
        Of my parental care,
  ...

Gulls in an aery morrice
Gleam and vanish and gleam . . .
The full sea, sleepily basking,
Dreams under skies of dream.

Gulls in an aery morrice
Circle and swoop and close . . .
Fuller and ever fuller
The rose of the morning blows.

Gulls in an aery morrice
Frolicking float and fade . . .
O the way of a bird in the sunshine,
The way of a man with a maid!

Night's heavy hand is lifted up at last,
    And my freed heart beats evenly again,
    Unpress'd by that dull heavy weight of pain
Cast backward from the unforgotten Past;
    Darkness no longer muffles Time's slow tread,
    Till my own pulse-beat mark the moment fled.

Over the speeding shadows, calm and clear,
    Rises the Star of Morn upon the Earth,
    Eternal Prophet of the Sun-god's birth,
Shining serenely from its silver sphere
    Mute mystic meanings on the strengthen'd soul,
    Till all its night-bred vapours backward roll.

Oh, bright-eyed Angel of the undimm'd Light,
    Standing upon Heaven's pinnacle, thy glance
    Pierces like two-edged sword through many a trance,
Dividing Truth from Dreaming in its might,
    Scourging Doubt's ...

"Don't they consult the 'Victims,' though?"
I said. "They should, by rights,
Give them a chance,because, you know,
The tastes of people differ so,
Especially in Sprites."

The Phantom shook his head and smiled.
"Consult them? Not a bit!
'Twould be a job to drive one wild,
To satisfy one single child,
There'd be no end to it!"

"Of course you can't leave CHILDREN free,"
Said I, "to pick and choose:
But, in the case of men like me,
I think 'Mine Host' might fairly be
Allowed to state his views."

He said "It really wouldn't pay,
Folk are so full of fancies.
We visit for a single day,
And whether then we go, or stay,
Depends on circumstances.

"And, though we don't consult 'Mine Host'
Before the thing's arranged,
...

My latest tribute here I send,
With this let your collection end.
Thus I consign you down to fame
A character to praise or blame:
And if the whole may pass for true,
Contented rest, you have your due.
Give future time the satisfaction,
To leave one handle for detraction.

V

...
O Liberty! with profitless endeavour
Have I pursued thee, many a weary hour;
But thou nor swell'st the victor's strain, nor ever
Didst breathe thy soul in forms of human power.
Alike from all, howe'er they praise thee,
(Nor prayer, nor boastful name delays thee)
    Alike from Priestcraft's harpy minions,
And factious Blasphemy's obscener slaves,
    Thou speedest on thy subtle pinions,
The guide of homeless winds, and playmate of the waves!
And there I felt thee! on that sea-cliff's verge,
Whose pines, scarce travelled by the breeze above,
Had made one murmur with the distant surge!
Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare,
And shot my being through earth, sea, and air,
Possessing all things with intensest love,
    O Liberty! my sp...

I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world, and upon all oppression and shame;
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at anguish with themselves, remorseful after deeds done;
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children, dying, neglected, gaunt, desperate;
I see the wife misused by her husband - I see the treacherous seducer of young women;
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be hid - I see these sights on the earth;
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny - I see martyrs and prisoners;
I observe a famine at sea - I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be kill'd, to preserve the lives of the rest;
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor, and upon Negroes, and the like;
All these ...

Thus have I pictured her: - In Arden old
A white-browed maiden with a falcon eye,
Rose-flushed of face, with locks of wind-blown gold,
Teaching her hawks to fly.

Or, 'mid her boar-hounds, panting with the heat,
In huntsman green, sounding the hunt's wild prize,
Plumed, dagger-belted, while beneath her feet
The spear-pierced monster dies.

Or in Brécéliand, on some high tower,
Clad white in samite, last of her lost race,
My soul beholds her, lovelier than a flower,
Gazing with pensive face.

Or, robed in raiment of romantic lore,
Like Oriana, dark of eye and hair,
Riding through realms of legend evermore,
And ever young and fair.

Or now like Bradamant, as brave as just,
In complete steel, her pure face lit with scorn,
At giant ca...

(Student's Love-song)



Once more the cauldron of the sun
Smears the bookcase with winy red,
And here my page is, and there my bed,
And the apple-tree shadows travel along.
Soon their intangible track will be run,
    And dusk grow strong
    And they be fled.

Yes: now the boiling ball is gone,
And I have wasted another day . . .
But wasted WASTED, do I say?
Is it a waste to have imaged one
Beyond the hills there, who, anon,
    My great deeds done
    Will be mine alway?

Argument.

To leap from the promontory of LEUCADIA was believed by the Greeks to be a remedy for hopeless love, if the self-devoted victim escaped with life. Artemisia lost her life in the dangerous experiment: and Sappho is said thus to have perished, in attempting to cure her passion for Phaon.


SAPPHO

(Scene the promontory of Leucadia.)

This is the spot:--'tis here Tradition says
That hopeless Love from this high towering rock
Leaps headlong to Oblivion or to Death.
Oh 'tis a giddy height! my dizzy head
Swims at the precipice--'tis death to fall!

Lie still, thou coward heart! this is no time
To shake with thy strong throbs the frame convuls'd.
To die,--to be at rest--oh pleasant thought!
Perchance to leap and live; the soul all still,
And...

Who does not feel desire unending
    To solace through his daily strife,
With some mysterious Mental Blending,
    The hungry loneliness of life?

Until, by sudden passion shaken,
    As terriers shake a rat at play,
He finds, all blindly, he has taken
    The old, Hereditary way.

Yet, in the moment of communion,
    The very heart of passion's fire,
His spirit spurns the mortal union,
    "Not this, not this, the Soul's desire!"

    *    *    *    *

Oh You, by whom my life is riven,
    And reft away from my control,
Take back the hours of passion given!
    Love me one moment from your soul.

Although I once, in ardent fashion,
    Implored you long to give me this;
(In hopes to stem, or stifle, passion)
    Y...

What is the gold of mortal-kind
To that men find
Deep in the poet's mind!
That magic purse
Of Dreams from which
God builds His universe!
That makes life rich
With, many a vision;
Taking the soul from out its prison
Of facts with the precision
A wildflower dons
When Spring comes knocking at the door
Of Earth across the windy lawns;
Calling to Joy to rise and dance before
Her happy feet:
Or with the beat
And bright exactness of a star,
Hanging its punctual point afar,
When Night comes tripping over Heaven's floor,
Leaving a gate ajar.
That leads the Heart from all its aching
Far above where day is breaking;
Out of the doubts, the agonies,
The strife and sin, to join with these
Hope and Beauty and Joy that build
Their ...

O'er the dark pines she sees the silver moon,
And in the west, all tremulous, a star;
And soothing sweet she hears the mellow tune
Of cow-bells jangled in the fields afar.

Quite listless, for her daily stent is done,
She stands, sad exile, at her rose-wreathed door,
And sends her love eternal with the sun
That goes to gild the land she'll see no more.

The grave, gaunt pines imprison her sad gaze,
All still the sky and darkling drearily;
She feels the chilly breath of dear, dead days
Come sifting through the alders eerily.

Oh, how the roses riot in their bloom!
The curtains stir as with an ancient pain;
Her old piano gleams from out the gloom,
And waits and waits her tender touch in vain.

But now her hands like moonlight brush the keys

"Vell! Here I am - no Matter how it suits
A-keeping Company vith them dumb Brutes;
Old Park vos no bad Judge - confound his vig!
Of vot vood break the Sperrit of a Prig!

"The Like of Me, to come to New Sow Wales
To go a-tagging arter Vethers' Tails
And valk in Herbage as delights the Flock,
But stinks of Sweet Herbs vorser nor the Dock!

"To go to set this solitary Job
To Von whose Vork vos alvay in a Mob!
It's out of all our Lines, for sure I am
Jack Shepherd even never kep a Lamb!

"I arn't ashamed to say I sit and veep
To think of Seven Year of keepin Sheep,
The spooniest Beast in Nater, all to Sticks,
And not a Votch to take for all their Ticks!

"If I'd fore-seed how Transports vould turn out
To only Baa! and Botanize about,

Call me away; there's nothing here,
That wins my soul to stay;
Then let me leave this prospect drear,
And hasten far away.

To our beloved land I'll flee,
Our land of thought and soul,
Where I have roved so oft with thee,
Beyond the world's control.

I'll sit and watch those ancient trees,
Those Scotch firs dark and high;
I'll listen to the eerie breeze,
Among their branches sigh.

The glorious moon shines far above;
How soft her radiance falls,
On snowy heights, and rock, and grove;
And yonder palace walls!

Who stands beneath yon fir trees high?
A youth both slight and fair,
Whose bright and restless azure eye
Proclaims him known to care,
Though fair that brow, it is not smooth;
Though small those features, yet in...

What is a home? A guarded space,
Wherein a few, unfairly blest,
Shall sit together, face to face,
And bask and purr and be at rest?

Where cushioned walls rise up between
Its inmates and the common air,
The common pain, and pad and screen
From blows of fate or winds of care?

Where Art may blossom strong and free,
And Pleasure furl her silken wing,
And every laden moment be
A precious and peculiar thing?

And Past and Future, softly veiled
In hiding mists, shall float and lie
Forgotten half, and unassailed
By either hope or memory,

While the luxurious Present weaves
Her perfumed spells untried, untrue,
Broiders her garments, heaps her sheaves,
All for the pleasure of a few?

Can it be this, the longed-for thing

Your lines that linger for us down the years,
Like sparks that tell the glory of a flame,
Still keep alight the splendor of your name,
And living still, they sting us into tears.
Sole perfect singer that the world has heard,
Let fall from that far heaven of thine
One golden word.
Oh tell us we shall find beside the Nile,
Held fast in some Egyptian's dusty hand,
Deep covered by the centuries of sand,
The songs long written that were lost awhile
Sole perfect singer that the world has heard,
Let fall from that far heaven of thine
This golden word.

Come away, the clouds are high,
Put the flashing needles by.
Many days are not to spare,
Or to waste, my fairest fair!
All is ready. Come to-day,
For the nightingale her lay,
When she findeth that the whole
Of her love, and all her soul,
Cannot forth of her sweet throat,
Sobs the while she draws her breath,
And the bravery of her note
In a few days altereth.

Come, ere she despond, and see
In a silent ecstasy
Chestnuts heave for hours and hours
All the glory of their flowers
To the melting blue above,
That broods over them like love.
Leave the garden walls, where blow
Apple-blossoms pink, and low
Ordered beds of tulips fine.
Seek the blossoms made divine
With a scent that is their soul.
These are soulless. Bring the whit...