Identity

To ports of balm through isles of musk
The gentle airs are leading us;
To curtained calm and tents of dusk,
The wood-wild things unheeding us
Will share their hoards of hardihood,
Cool dew and roots of fern for food,
Frail berries full of the sun's blood.

To planets bland with dales of dream
A tranquil life is leading us,
We shall land from the languid stream,
The musing shades, unheeding us,
Will share their veils of angelhood,
Thoughts that are tranced with mystic food,
Still broodings tinct with a seraph's blood.

The peril of fair faces all his days
No man shall 'scape: be it for joy or woe,
Each is the thrall of some predestined face
Divinely doomed to work his overthrow,
Transiently fair, as flowers in gardens blow,
Then fade, and charm no more our listless eyes;
But some fair faces ever fairer grow -
Beware of the dead face that never dies.

No snare young beauty for thy manhood lays,
No honeyed kiss the girls of Paphos know,
Shall hold thee as the silent smiling ways
Of her that went - yet only seemed to go -
With April blossoms and with last year's snow;
Each year she comes again in subtler guise,
And beckons us to her green bed below -
Beware of the dead face that never dies.

The living fade before her lunar gaze,
Her phantom youth their ruddy vei...

The dreamy rhymer’s measur’d snore
Falls heavy on our ears no more;
And by long strides are left behind
The dear delights of woman-kind,
Who win their battles like their loves,
In satin waistcoats and kid gloves,
And have achiev’d the crowning work
When they have truss’d and skewer’d a Turk.
Another comes with stouter tread,
And stalks among the statelier dead.
He rushes on, and hails by turns
High-crested Scott, broad-breasted Burns,
And shows the British youth, who ne’er
Will lag behind, what Romans were,
When all the Tuscans and their Lars
Shouted, and shook the towers of Mars.

I travelled among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.

'Tis past, that melancholy dream!
Nor will I quit thy shore
A second time; for still I seem
To love thee more and more.

Among thy mountains did I feel
The joy of my desire;
And she I cherished turned her wheel
Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed
The bowers where Lucy played;
And thine too is the last green field
That Lucy's eyes surveyed.

We know where deepest lies the snow,
And where the frost-winds keenest blow,
O'er every mountain's brow,
We long have known and learnt to bear
The wandering outlaw's toil and care,
But where we late were hunted, there
Our foes are hunted now.

We have their princely homes, and they
To our wild haunts are chased away,
Dark woods, and desert caves.
And we can range from hill to hill,
And chase our vanquished victors still;
Small respite will they find until
They slumber in their graves.

But I would rather be the hare,
That crouching in its sheltered lair
Must start at every sound;
That forced from cornfields waving wide
Is driven to seek the bare hillside,
Or in the tangled copse to hide,
Than be the hunter's hound.

Three Souls there were that reached the Heavenly Gate,
And gained permission of the Guard to wait.
Barred from the bliss of Paradise by sin,
They did not ask or hope to enter in.
'We loved one woman (thus their story ran);
We lost her, for she chose another man.
So great our love, it brought us to this door;
We only ask to see her face once more.
Then will we go to realms where we belong,
And pay our penalty for doing wrong.'

'And wert thou friends on earth?'    (The Guard spake thus.)
'Nay, we were foes; but Death made friends of us.
The dominating thought within each Soul
Brought us together, comrades, to this goal,
To see her face, and in its radiance bask
For one great moment - that is all we ask.
And, having seen her, we must journey back
The p...

I am worn out with dreams;
A weather-worn, marble triton
Among the streams;
And all day long I look
Upon this lady’s beauty
As though I had found in book
A pictured beauty,
Pleased to have filled the eyes
Or the discerning ears,
Delighted to be but wise,
For men improve with the years;
And yet and yet
Is this my dream, or the truth?
O would that we had met
When I had my burning youth;
But I grow old among dreams,
A weather-worn, marble triton
Among the streams.

Up from the templed city of the Jews,
The road ran straight and white
To Jericho, the City of the Palms,
The City of Delight.

Down that still road from far Judean hills
The shepherds drove their sheep
At silver dawn - at stirring of the birds -
When men were all asleep.

Full many went that weary way at noon,
Or rested by the trees,
Romans and slaves, Gentiles and bearded priests,
Sinners and Pharisees.

But when the pink clouds drifted far and high,
Like rose leaves blowing past,
When in the west where one star blessed the sky
The gates of day shut fast.

All travellers journeyed home, and the moonlight
Washed the road fresh and sweet,
Until it seemed a gleaming ivory path,
Waiting for royal feet.

*    *    *    ...

To drift with every passion till my soul
Is a stringed lute on which can winds can play,
Is it for this that I have given away
Mine ancient wisdom and austere control?
Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll
Scrawled over on some boyish holiday
With idle songs for pipe and virelay,
Which do but mar the secret of the whole.
Surely there was a time I might have trod
The sunlit heights, and from life's dissonance
Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God:
Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod
I did but touch the honey of romance -
And must I lose a soul's inheritance?

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 ...

Sweet Flower! belike one day to have
A place upon thy Poet's grave,
I welcome thee once more:
But He, who was on land, at sea,
My Brother, too, in loving thee,
Although he loved more silently,
Sleeps by his native shore.

Ah! hopeful, hopeful was the day
When to that Ship he bent his way,
To govern and to guide:
His wish was gained: a little time
Would bring him back in manhood's prime
And free for life, these hills to climb;
With all his wants supplied.

And full of hope day followed day
While that stout Ship at anchor lay
Beside the shores of Wight;
The May had then made all things green;
And, floating there, in pomp serene,
That Ship was goodly to be seen,
His pride and his delight!

Yet then, when called ashore, he s...

(Spoken by Mrs. Chapman.)




    Nay, Mr. Simpson!--'Tis not kind--polite--
To shut me out, sir?--I'm in such a fright!--
I can not speak the lines, I'm sure!--Oh, fie!
To say I must!--but if I must--I'll try!

    From him I turn to these more generous souls
The drama's patrons and the friends of KNOWLES.
Why, what a brilliant galaxy is here!
What stars adorn this mimic hemisphere!
Names that shine brightest on our country's page!
The props of science--literature--the stage!
Above--below--around me--woman smiles,
The fairest floweret of these western wilds--
All come to pay the tribute of their praise
To the first dramatist of modern days:
And welcome, to the green home of the free,
With heart and hand, the bard of liberty!

Oh! give me the night, the dark, dark night,
    The night with never a star.
When the stars are veiled and the moon has sailed
    Beyond the horizon's bar.
When thought grows weary of groping its way
    Through darkness dense and deep,
And buries its head in oblivion's bed,
    Wrapped warm in the mantle of sleep.

For I hate the night, the moon-white night,
    The night with a pallid face,
When a million eyes from the watchful skies
    Peers into each secret place.
For thought awakes and the old wound aches,
    And Sorrow she cannot rest,
But all night long walks to and fro
    Through the aisles of my troubled breast.

And Memory thinks it her royal hour
    When the heavens glitter and shine;
And she fills the cup of the past well ...

    O it was but a dream I had
        While the musician played! -
    And here the sky, and here the glad
        Old ocean kissed the glade -
    And here the laughing ripples ran,
        And here the roses grew
    That threw a kiss to every man
        That voyaged with the crew.

    Our silken sails in lazy folds
        Drooped in the breathless breeze:
    As o'er a field of marigolds
        Our eyes swam o'er the seas;
    While here the eddies lisped and purled
        Around the island's rim,
    And up from out the underworld
        We saw the mermen swim.

    And it was dawn and middle-day
        And midnight - for the moon
    On silver rounds across the bay
        Had climbed the skies of June -
    And there...

The lady lay in her bed,
Her couch so warm and soft,
But her sleep was restless and broken still;
For turning often and oft
From side to side, she mutter'd and moan'd,
And toss'd her arms aloft.

At last she startled up,
And gazed on the vacant air,
With a look of awe, as if she saw
Some dreadful phantom there -
And then in the pillow she buried her face
From visions ill to bear.

The very curtain shook,
Her terror was so extreme;
And the light that fell on the broider'd quilt
Kept a tremulous gleam;
And her voice was hollow, and shook as she cried: -
"Oh me! that awful dream"!

"That weary, weary walk,
In the churchyard's dismal ground!
And those horrible things, with shady wings,
That came and flitted round, -
Dea...

No wonder bards, both high and low,
    From Byron down to ***** and me,
Should seek the fame which all bestow
    On him whose task is praising thee.

Let but the theme be Jersey's eyes,
    At once all errors are forgiven;
As even old Sternhold still we prize,
    Because, tho' dull, he sings of heaven.

Against my love shall be as I am now,
With Time’s injurious hand crush’d and o’erworn;
When hours have drain’d his blood and fill’d his brow
With lines and wrinkles; when his youthful morn
Hath travell’d on to age’s steepy night;
And all those beauties whereof now he’s king
Are vanishing, or vanished out of sight,
Stealing away the treasure of his spring;
For such a time do I now fortify
Against confounding age’s cruel knife,
That he shall never cut from memory
My sweet love’s beauty, though my lover’s life:
His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
And they shall live, and he in them still green.

        I

        Sleep, little eyes
        That brim with childish tears amid thy play,
        Be comforted!    No grief of night can weigh
        Against the joys that throng thy coming day.

        Sleep, little heart!
        There is no place in Slumberland for tears:
        Life soon enough will bring its chilling fears
        And sorrows that will dim the after years.
        Sleep, little heart!


        II

        Ah, little eyes
        Dead blossoms of a springtime long ago,
        That life's storm crushed and left to lie below
        The benediction of the falling snow!

        Sleep, little heart
        That ceased so long ago its frantic beat!
        The years that come and go with silent feet