Identity

Not of the seething cities with their swarming human hives,
Their fetid airs, their reeking streets, their dwarfed and poisoned lives,
Not of the buried yesterdays, but of the days to be,
The glory and the gateway of the yellow West is she.

The Northern Lights dance down her plains with soft and silvery feet,
The sunrise gilds her prairies when the dawn and daylight meet;
Along her level lands the fitful southern breezes sweep,
And beyond her western windows the sublime old mountains sleep.

The Redman haunts her portals, and the Paleface treads her streets,
The Indian's stealthy footstep with the course of commerce meets,
And hunters whisper vaguely of the half forgotten tales
Of phantom herds of bison lurking on her midnight trails.

Not hers the lore of olden l...

Say a mass for my soul's repose, my brother,
Say a mass for my soul's repose, I need it,
Lovingly lived we, the sons of one mother,
Mine was the sin, but I pray you not heed it.

Dark were her eyes as the sloe and they called me,
Called me with voice independent of breath.
God! how my heart beat; her beauty appalled me,
Dazed me, and drew to the sea-brink of death.

Lithe was her form like a willow. She beckoned,
What could I do save to follow and follow,
Nothing of right or result could be reckoned;
Life without her was unworthy and hollow.

Ay, but I wronged thee, my brother, my brother;
Ah, but I loved her, thy beautiful wife.
Shade of our father, and soul of our mother,
Have I not paid for my love with my life?

Dark was the night when,...

Now cometh October - a nut-brown maid,
Who in robes of crimson and gold arrayed
Hath taken the king's highway!
On the world she smiles - but to me it seems
Her eyes are misty with mid-summer dreams,
Or memories of the May.

Opals agleam in the dusk of her hair
Flash their hearts of fire and colours rare
As she dances gaily by -
Yet she sighs for each empty swinging nest,
And she tenderly holds against her breast
A belated butterfly.

The crickets sing no more to the stars -
The spiders no more put up silver bars
To entangle silken wings;
But the quail pipes low in the rusted corn,
And here and there - both at night and at morn -
A lonely robin still sings.

A spice-laden breeze of the south is blent
With perfumed winds from the Or...

I've lived all my life i' Keighley,
    I'm a Yorkshire artisan;
An' when I were just turned seventy
    I became an Englishman.

Nat'ralised German! nay, deng it!
    I'm British-born, same as thee!
But I niver thowt mich to my country,
    While(1) my country thowt mich to me.

I were proud o' my lodge an' my union,
    An' proud o' my town an' my shire;
But all t' consans o' t' nation,
    I left to t' parson an' t' squire.

Class-war were t' faith that I Iived for,
    I call'd all capit'lists sharks;
An' "T' workin' man has no country,"
    Were my Gospel accordin' to Marx.

When I'd lossen my job back i' t' eighties,
    An were laikin' for well-nigh two year,
Who said that an out-o'-wark fettler
    Were costin' his co...

It seems that dawn will never climb
The eastern hills;
And, clad in mist and flame and rime,
Make flashing highways of the rills.

The night is as an ancient way
Through some dead land,
Whereon the ghosts of Memory
And Sorrow wander hand in hand.

By which man's works ignoble seem,
Unbeautiful;
And grandeur, but the ruined dream
Of some proud queen, crowned with a skull.

A way past-peopled, dark and old,
That stretches far
Its only real thing, the cold
Vague light of sleep's one fitful star.

Flee into some forgotten night and be
Of all dark long my moon-bright company:
Beyond the rumour even of Paradise come,
There, out of all remembrance, make our home:
Seek we some close hid shadow for our lair,
Hollowed by Noah's mouse beneath the chair
Wherein the Omnipotent, in slumber bound,
Nods till the piteous Trump of Judgment sound.
Perchance Leviathan of the deep sea
Would lease a lost mermaiden's grot to me,
There of your beauty we would joyance make -
A music wistful for the sea-nymph's sake:
Haply Elijah, o'er his spokes of fire,
Cresting steep Leo, or the heavenly Lyre,
Spied, tranced in azure of inanest space,
Some eyrie hostel, meet for human grace,
Where two might happy be - just you and I -
Lost in the uttermost of Eternity.
Think! In...

Was I a Samurai renowned,
Two-sworded, fierce, immense of bow?
A histrion angular and profound?
A priest? a porter? - Child, although
I have forgotten clean, I know
That in the shade of Fujisan,
What time the cherry-orchards blow,
I loved you once in old Japan.

As here you loiter, flowing-gowned
And hugely sashed, with pins a-row
Your quaint head as with flamelets crowned,
Demure, inviting - even so,
When merry maids in Miyako
To feel the sweet o' the year began,
And green gardens to overflow,
I loved you once in old Japan.

Clear shine the hills; the rice-fields round
Two cranes are circling; sleepy and slow,
A blue canal the lake's blue bound
Breaks at the bamboo bridge; and lo!
Touched with the sundown's spirit and glow,
...

A Tale Of A Grandfather.
By The Author Of "Dewy Memories," &C.



I know not of what we ponder'd
Or made pretty pretence to talk,
As, her hand within mine, we wander'd
Tow'rd the pool by the limetree walk,
While the dew fell in showers from the passion flowers
And the blush-rose bent on her stalk.

I cannot recall her figure:
Was it regal as Juno's own?
Or only a trifle bigger
Than the elves who surround the throne
Of the Faery Queen, and are seen, I ween,
By mortals in dreams alone?

What her eyes were like, I know not:
Perhaps they were blurr'd with tears;
And perhaps in your skies there glow not
(On the contrary) clearer spheres.
No! as to her eyes I am just as wise
As you or the cat, my dears.

Her teet...

Preserved By Macrobius.

What! no way left to shun th' inglorious stage,
And save from infamy my sinking age!
Scarce half alive, oppress'd with many a year,
What in the name of dotage drives me here?
A time there was, when glory was my guide,
Nor force nor fraud could turn my steps aside;
Unaw'd by pow'r, and unappall'd by fear,
With honest thrift I held my honour dear;
But this vile hour disperses all my store,
And all my hoard of honour is no more.
For ah! too partial to my life's decline,
Caesar persuades, submission must be mine;
Him I obey, whom heaven itself obeys,
Hopeless of pleasing, yet inclin'd to please.
Here then at once, I welcome every shame,
And cancel at threescore a life of fame;
No more my titles shall my children tell,
The ol...

Once a poet, long ago,
Wrote a song as void of art
As the songs that children know,
And as pure as a child’s heart.

With a sigh he threw it down,
Saying, “This will never shed
Any glory or renown
On my name when I am dead.

“I will sing a lordly song
Men shall hear, when I am gone,
Through the years sound clear and strong
As a golden clarion.”

So this lordly song he sang
That would gain him deathless fame,
When the death-knell o’er him rang
No man even knew its name.

Ay, and when his way he found
To the place of singing souls,
And beheld their bright heads crowned
With song-woven aureoles,

He stood shame-faced in the throng,
For his brow of wreath was bare,
And, alas! his lordly song
Sere had grow...

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain, and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
O luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

Poi che voi ed io più volte abbiam provato.

TO A FRIEND, COUNSELLING HIM TO ABANDON EARTHLY PLEASURES.


    Still has it been our bitter lot to prove
How hope, or e'er it reach fruition, flies!
Up then to that high good, which never dies,
Lift we the heart--to heaven's pure bliss above.
On earth, as in a tempting mead, we rove,
Where coil'd 'mid flowers the traitor serpent lies;
And, if some casual glimpse delight our eyes,
'Tis but to grieve the soul enthrall'd by Love.
Oh! then, as thou wouldst wish ere life's last day
To taste the sweets of calm unbroken rest,
Tread firm the narrow, shun the beaten way--
Ah! to thy friend too well may be address'd:
"Thou show'st a path, thyself most apt to stray,
Which late thy truant feet, fond youth, ha...

    O! He was the boy of the house, you know,
    A jolly and rollicking lad;
    He never was sick, he never was tired,
    And nothing could make him sad.

    If he started to play at sunrise,
    Not a rest would he take at noon;
    No day was so long from beginning to end,
    But his bed-time came too soon.

    Did someone urge that he make less noise,
    He would say, with a saucy grin:
    "Why, one boy alone doesn't make much stir -
    O sakes! I wish I was a twin.

    "There's two of twins, and it must be fun
    To go double at everything;
    To holler by twos, and whistle by twos,
    To stamp by twos, and to sing!"

    His laugh was something to make you glad,
    So brimful was it of joy;
    A conscience he h...