Identity

        I.

On a sheet of silver the morning-star lay
Fresh, white as a baby child,
And laughed and leaped in his lissome way,
On my parterre of flowers smiled.
For a morning-glory's spiral bud
Of shell-coned tallness slim
Stood ready to burst her delicate hood
And bloom on the dawning dim:
A princess royal in purple born
To beauty and pride in the balmy morn.


        II.

And she shook her locks at the morning-star
And her raiment scattered wide;
Low laughed at a hollyhock's scimetar,
Its jewels of buds to deride.
The pomegranate near, with fingers of flame,
The hot-faced geraniums nigh,
Their proud heads bowed to the queenly dame
For they knew her state was high:
The fuchsia like a bead of blood
Bashfully blushe...

I have been so great a lover: filled my days
So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise,
The pain, the calm, and the astonishment,
Desire illimitable, and still content,
And all dear names men use, to cheat despair,
For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear
Our hearts at random down the dark of life.
Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife
Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,
My night shall be remembered for a star
That outshone all the suns of all men's days.
Shall I not crown them with immortal praise
Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me
High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see
The inenarrable godhead of delight?
Love is a flame; we have beaconed the world's night.
A city: and we have built it, these and I.
...

If there were in my kalendar
No Emma, Florence, Mary,
What would be my existence now -
A hermit's? - wanderer's weary? -
How should I live, and how
Near would be death, or far?

Could it have been that other eyes
Might have uplit my highway?
That fond, sad, retrospective sight
Would catch from this dim byway
Prized figures different quite
From those that now arise?

With how strange aspect would there creep
The dawn, the night, the daytime,
If memory were not what it is
In song-time, toil, or pray-time. -
O were it else than this,
I'd pass to pulseless sleep!

1.
Death is here and death is there,
Death is busy everywhere,
All around, within, beneath,
Above is death - and we are death.

2.
Death has set his mark and seal
On all we are and all we feel,
On all we know and all we fear,

...

3.
First our pleasures die - and then
Our hopes, and then our fears - and when
These are dead, the debt is due,
Dust claims dust - and we die too.

4.
All things that we love and cherish,
Like ourselves must fade and perish;
Such is our rude mortal lot -
Love itself would, did they not.

Immortal love, forever full,
Forever flowing free,
Forever shared, forever whole,
A never ebbing sea!

Our outward lips confess the name
All other names above;
Love only knoweth whence it came,
And comprehendeth love.

Blow, winds of God, awake and blow
The mists of earth away:
Shine out, O Light divine, and show
How wide and far we stray.

We may not climb the heavenly steeps
To bring the Lord Christ down;
In vain we search the lowest deeps,
For Him no depths can drown.

But warm, sweet, tender, even yet,
A present help is He;
And faith still has its Olivet,
And love its Galilee.

The healing of His seamless dress
Is by our beds of pain;
We touch Him in life’s throng and press,
And we are whole again...

O blithe New-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
O Cuckoo! Shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear,
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off, and near.

Though babbling only to the Vale,
Of Sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;

The same whom in my school-boy days
I listened to; that Cry
Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, n...

The thorn-tree waved a bough of May
And all its branches bent
To indicate the wildwood way
The Wind and Sunbeam went.

A wildrose here, a wildrose there
Lifted appealing eyes,
And looked the path they did not dare
Reveal in other wise.

Wild parsley tossed a plume of gold
And breathed so sweet a sigh,
I guessed the way, it never told,
Which they had hastened by.

I traced the Beam, so swift and white,
In many a woodland place
By wildflower footprints of its flight
And gleamings of its grace.

I knew its joy had filled with song
The high heart of the bird,
That rippled, rippled all day long
In dells that hushed and heard.

I knew the Wind with flashing feet
Had charmed the brook withal,
Who in its cascades ...

The slender snail clings to the leaf,
Gray on its silvered underside;
And slowly, slowlier than the snail, with brief
Bright steps, whose ripening touch foretells the sheaf,
Her warm hands berry-dyed,
Comes down the tanned Noontide.

The pungent fragrance of the mint
And pennyroyal drench her gown,
That leaves long shreds of trumpet-blossom tint
Among the thorns, and everywhere the glint
Of gold and white and brown
Her flowery steps waft down.

The leaves, like hands with emerald veined,
Along her way try their wild best
To reach the jewel whose hot hue was drained
From some rich rose that all the June contained
The butterfly, soft pressed
Upon her sunny breast.

Her shawl, the lace-like elder bloom,
She hangs upon the hillside br...

"Below the Mill Dam" - Traffics and Discoveries


Thrones, Powers, Dominions, Peoples, Kings,
Are changing 'neath our hand.
Our fathers also see these things
But they do not understand.

By they are by with mirth and tears,
Wit or the works of Desire,
Cushioned about on the kindly years
Between the wall and the fire.

The grapes are pressed, the corn is shocked,
Standeth no more to glean;
For the Gates of Love and Learning locked
When they went out between.

All lore our Lady Venus bares,
Signalled it was or told
By the dear lips long given to theirs
And longer to the mould.

All Profit, all Device, all Truth,
Written it was or said
By the mighty men of their mighty youth,
Which is mighty being dead.

Fiamma dal ciel su le tue treccie piova.

HE INVEIGHS AGAINST THE COURT OF ROME.


    Vengeaunce must fall on thee, thow filthie whore
Of Babilon, thow breaker of Christ's fold,
That from achorns, and from the water colde,
Art riche become with making many poore.
Thow treason's neste that in thie harte dost holde
Of cankard malice, and of myschief more
Than pen can wryte, or may with tongue be tolde,
Slave to delights that chastitie hath solde;
For wyne and ease which settith all thie store
Uppon whoredome and none other lore,
In thye pallais of strompetts yonge and olde
Theare walks Plentie, and Belzebub thye Lorde:
Guydes thee and them, and doth thye raigne upholde:
It is but late, as wryting will recorde,
That poore thow weart without...

Thin, chisel-fine a cricket chipped
The crystal silence into sound;
And where the branches dreamed and dripped
A grasshopper its dagger stripped
And on the humming darkness ground.

A bat, against the gibbous moon,
Danced, imp-like, with its lone delight;
The glow-worm scrawled a golden rune
Upon the dark; and, emerald-strewn,
The firefly hung with lamps the night.

The flowers said their beads in prayer,
Dew-syllables of sighed perfume;
Or talked of two, soft-standing there,
One like a gladiole, straight and fair,
And one like some rich poppy-bloom.

The mignonette and feverfew
Laid their pale brows together:" See!"
One whispered. "Did their step thrill through
Your roots?"" Like rain."" I touched the two
And a new bud was born i...

When I'm among a blaze of lights,
With tawdry music and cigars
And women dawdling through delights,
And officers at cocktail bars, -
Sometimes I think of garden nights
And elm trees nodding at the stars.

I dream of a small firelit room
With yellow candles burning straight,
And glowing pictures in the gloom,
And kindly books that hold me late.
Of things like these I love to think
When I can never be alone:
Then some one says, "Another drink?" -
And turns my living heart to stone.

Not for less love, all glorious France, to thee,
‘Sweet enemy’ called in days long since at end.
Now found and hailed of England sweeter friend,
Bright sister of our freedom now, being free;
Not for less love or faith in friendship we
Whose love burnt ever toward thee reprehend
The vile vain greed whose pursy dreams portend
Between our shores suppression of the sea.
Not by dull toil of blind mechanic art
Shall these be linked for no man’s force to part
Nor length of years and changes to divide,
But union only of trust and loving heart
And perfect faith in freedom strong to abide
And spirit at one with spirit on either side.

Struggle not with thy life! - the heavy doom
    Resist not, it will bow thee like a slave:
Strive not! thou shalt not conquer; to thy tomb
    Thou shalt go crushed, and ground, though ne'er so brave.

Complain not of thy life! - for what art thou
    More than thy fellows, that thou should'st not weep?
Brave thoughts still lodge beneath a furrowed brow,
    And the way-wearied have the sweetest sleep.

Marvel not at thy life! - patience shall see
    The perfect work of wisdom to her given;
Hold fast thy soul through this high mystery,
    And it shall lead thee to the gates of heaven.

Pastoral Sung To The King

MON.Bad are the times.    SIL.    And worse than they are we.
MON.Troth, bad are both; worse fruit, and ill the tree:
The feast of shepherds fail.SIL.    None crowns the cup
Of wassail now, or sets the quintel up:
And he, who used to lead the country-round,
Youthful Mirtillo, here he comes, grief-drown'd.
AMBO.Let's cheer him up.    SIL. Behold him weeping-ripe.
MIRT. Ah, Amarillis!farewell mirth and pipe;
Since thou art gone, no more I mean to play
To these smooth lawns, my mirthful roundelay.
Dear Amarillis!MON.    Hark!    SIL.    Mark!    MIRT.    This
earth grew sweet
Where, Amarillis, thou didst set thy feet.
AMBOPoor pitied youth!    MIRT.    And here the breath
of kine
And sheep grew more sweet by that breath of thine.

Out of work and out of money,out of friends that means, you bet,
Out of firewood, togs and tucker, out of everything but debt,
And I loathe the barren pavements, and the crowds a fellow meets,
And the maddening repetition of the suffocating streets.

With their stinks my soul is tainted, and the tang is on my tongue
Of that sour and smoky suburb and the push we’re thrown among,
And I sicken at the corners polished free of paint and mirk
By the shoulders of the men who’re always hanging round for work.

Home,good Lord! a three-roomed hovel ’twixt a puddle and a drain,
In harmonious connection on the left with Liver Lane,
Where a crippled man is dying, and a horde of children fight,
And a woman in the horrors howls remorsefully at night.

It has stables close behind ...

Before the ice is in the pools,
Before the skaters go,
Or any cheek at nightfall
Is tarnished by the snow,

Before the fields have finished,
Before the Christmas tree,
Wonder upon wonder
Will arrive to me!

What we touch the hems of
On a summer's day;
What is only walking
Just a bridge away;

That which sings so, speaks so,
When there's no one here, --
Will the frock I wept in
Answer me to wear?

Slight as thou art, thou art enough to hide,
    Like all created things, secrets from me,
    And stand a barrier to eternity.
And I, how can I praise thee well and wide?

From where I dwell-upon the hither side?
    Thou little veil for so great mystery,
    When shall I penetrate all things and thee,
And then look back? For this I must abide,

Till thou shalt grow and fold and be unfurled
    Literally between me and the world.
    Then I shall drink from in beneath a spring,

And from a poet's side shall read his book.
    O daisy mine, what will it be to look
    From God's side even of such a simple thing?