Identity

I

He sees the world as a boisterous place
Where all things bear a laughing face,
And humorous scenes go hourly on,
Does John.

II

They find the world a pleasant place
Where all is ecstasy and grace,
Where a light has risen that cannot wane,
Do John and Jane.

III

They see as a palace their cottage-place,
Containing a pearl of the human race,
A hero, maybe, hereafter styled,
Do John and Jane with a baby-child.

IV

They rate the world as a gruesome place,
Where fair looks fade to a skull's grimace, -
As a pilgrimage they would fain get done -
Do John and Jane with their worthless son.

        (HE EXPLAINS.)

        Oh, just burning up some old papers,
            They do make a good deal of smoke:
        That's right, Dolly, open the window;
            They'll blaze if you give them a poke.
        I've got a lot more in the closet;
            Just look at the dust! What a mess!
        Why, read it, of course, if you want to,
            It's only a letter, I guess.


        (SHE READS.)

        Just me, and my pipe, and the fire-light,
            Whose mystical circles of red
        Protect me alone with the shadows;
            The smoke-wreaths engarland my head;
        And the strains of a waltz, half forgotten,
            The favorite waltz of the year,
        Played softly by fairy musicians,
     ...

The kine of my rather, they are straying from my keeping;
        The young goat’s at mischief, but little can I do:
For all through the night did I hear the Banshee keening;
        O youth of my loving, and is it well with you?

All through the night sat my mother with my sorrow;
        “Whisht, it is the wind, O one childeen of my heart!”
My hair with the wind, and my two hands clasped in anguish;
        Black head of my darling! too long are we apart.

Were your grave at my feet, I would think it half a blessing;
        I could herd then the cattle, and drive the goats away;
Many a Paternoster I would say for your safe keeping;
        I could sleep above your heart, until the dawn of day.

I see you on the prairie, hot with thirst and faint with hunger;

O truant Muse what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy’d?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
So dost thou too, and therein dignified.
Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,
‘Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix’d;
Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay;
But best is best, if never intermix’d’?
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
Excuse not silence so, for’t lies in thee
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb
And to be prais’d of ages yet to be.
Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
To make him seem long hence as he shows now.

Safe in their alabaster chambers,
Untouched by morning and untouched by noon,
Sleep the meek members of the resurrection,
Rafter of satin, and roof of stone.

Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine;
Babbles the bee in a stolid ear;
Pipe the sweet birds in ignorant cadence, --
Ah, what sagacity perished here!

Grand go the years in the crescent above them;
Worlds scoop their arcs, and firmaments row,
Diadems drop and Doges surrender,
Soundless as dots on a disk of snow.

I

Why should I say I see the things I see not?
Why be and be not?
Show love for that I love not, and fear for what I fear not?
And dance about to music that I hear not?
Who standeth still i’ the street
Shall be hustled and justled about;
And he that stops i’ the dance shall be spurned by the dancers’ feet,
Shall be shoved and be twisted by all he shall meet,
And shall raise up an outcry and rout;
And the partner, too,
What ’s the partner to do?
While all the while ’tis but, perchance, an humming in mine ear,
That yet anon shall hear,
And I anon, the music in my soul,
In a moment read the whole;
The music in my heart,
Joyously take my part,
And hand in hand, and heart with heart, with these retreat, advance;
And borne on wings of wavy sound...

Beside the bare and beaten track of travelling flocks and herds
The woodpecker went tapping on, the postman of the birds,
"I've got a letter here," he said, "that no one's understood,
Addressed as follows: 'To the bird that's like a piece of wood.'

"The soldier bird got very cross, it wasn't meant for her;
The spurwing plover had a try to stab me with a spur:
The jackass laughed, and said the thing was written for a lark.
I think I'll chuck this postman job and take to stripping bark."

Then all the birds for miles around came in to lend a hand;
They perched upon a broken limb as thick as they could stand,
And just as old man eaglehawk prepared to have his say
A portion of the broken limb got up and flew away.

Then, casting grammar to the winds, the postman said,...

I'll write no more of love, but now repent
Of all those times that I in it have spent.
I'll write no more of life, but wish 'twas ended,
And that my dust was to the earth commended.

The song of the water
Doomed ever to roam,
A beautiful exile,
Afar from its home.

The cliffs on the mountain,
The grand and the gray,
They took the bright creature
And hurled it away!

I heard the wild downfall,
And knew it must spill
A passionate heart out
All over the hill.

Oh! was it a daughter
Of sorrow and sin,
That they threw it so madly
Down into the lynn?

.    .    .    .    .

And listen, my Sister,
For this is the song
The Waterfall taught me
The ridges among:

“Oh where are the shadows
So cool and so sweet
And the rocks,” saith the water,
“With the moss on their feet?

“Oh, where are my playmates
The wind and the flowers
The golden and purple
Of honey-s...

Power that by obedience grows,
Knowledge which its source not knows,
Wave which severs whom it bears
From the things which he compares,
Adding wings through things to range,
To his own blood harsh and strange.

'Tis well - 'tis well - that clustering shade
Is on thy forehead sweetly laid;
And that light curl that slumbers by
Makes deeper yet thy depth of eye;
And that white rose that decks thy hair
Just wins the eye to linger there,
Yet makes it not to note the less
The beauty of that raven tress.

Thy coral necklace? - ear-rings too?
Nay - nay - not them - no darker hue
Than thy white bosom be to-night
On that fair neck the bar of light,
Or hide the veins that faintly glow
And wander in its living snow.

What! - yet another? can it be
That neck needs ornament to thee? -
Yet not thy jewels! - they are bright,
But that dark eye has softer light,
And tho' each gem had been a star,
Thy simple self were lovelier far -
Yet stay! - that string...

I walked in loamy Wessex lanes, afar
From rail-track and from highway, and I heard
In field and farmstead many an ancient word
Of local lineage like "Thu bist," "Er war,"

"Ich woll," "Er sholl," and by-talk similar,
Nigh as they speak who in this month's moon gird
At England's very loins, thereunto spurred
By gangs whose glory threats and slaughters are.

Then seemed a Heart crying: "Whosoever they be
At root and bottom of this, who flung this flame
Between kin folk kin tongued even as are we,

"Sinister, ugly, lurid, be their fame;
May their familiars grow to shun their name,
And their brood perish everlastingly."

April 1915.

When slim Sophia mounts her horse
    And paces down the avenue,
It seems an inward melody
        She paces to.

Each narrow hoof is lifted high
    Beneath the dark enclust'ring pines,
A silver ray within his bit
    And bridle shines.

His eye burns deep, his tail is arched,
    And streams upon the shadowy air,
The daylight sleeks his jetty flanks,
    His mistress' hair.

Her habit flows in darkness down,
    Upon the stirrup rests her foot,
Her brow is lifted, as if earth
    She heeded not.

'Tis silent in the avenue,
    The sombre pines are mute of song,
The blue is dark, there moves no breeze
    The boughs among.

When slim Sophia mounts her horse
    And paces down the avenue,
It seems an inwar...

Kate, they say, is seventeen
Do not count her sweet, you know.
Arms of her are rather lean
Ditto, calves and feet, you know.
Features of Hellenic type
Are not patent here, you see.
Katie loves a black clay pipe
Doesn’t hate her beer, you see.

Spartan Helen used to wear
Tresses in a plait, perhaps:
Kate has ochre in her hair
Nose is rather flat, perhaps.
Rose Lorraine’s surpassing dress
Glitters at the ball, you see:
Daughter of the wilderness
Has no dress at all, you see.

Laura’s lovers every day
In sweet verse embody her:
Katie’s have a different way,
Being frank, they “waddy” her.
Amy by her suitor kissed,
Every nightfall looks for him:
Kitty’s sweetheart isn’t missed
Kitty “humps” and cooks for him.

...

When the cabin port-holes are dark and green
Because of the seas outside;
When the ship’goes wop (with a wiggle between)
And the steward falls into the soup-tureen,
And the trunks begin to slide;
When Nursey lies on the floor in a heap,
And Mummy tells you to let her sleep,
And you are n’t waked or washed or dressed,
Why, then you will know (if you have n’t guessed)
You’re “Fifty North and Forty West!”
How the Whale Got His Throat.

The Camel’s hump is an ugly lump
Which well you may see at the Zoo;
But uglier yet is the hump we get
From having too little to do.

Kiddies and grown-ups too-oo-oo,
If we haven’t enough to do-oo-oo,
We get the hump,
Cameelious hump,
The hump that is black and blue!

We climb out of bed with a fro...

Forth from a jutting ridge, around whose base
Winds our deep Vale, two heath-clad Rocks ascend
In fellowship, the loftiest of the pair
Rising to no ambitious height; yet both,
O'er lake and stream, mountain and flowery mead,
Unfolding prospects fair as human eyes
Ever beheld. Up-led with mutual help,
To one or other brow of those twin Peaks
Were two adventurous Sisters wont to climb,
And took no note of the hour while thence they gazed,
The blooming heath their couch, gazed, side by side,
In speechless admiration. I, a witness
And frequent sharer of their calm delight
With thankful heart, to either Eminence
Gave the baptismal name each Sister bore.
Now are they parted, far as Death's cold hand
Hath power to part the Spirits of those who love
As they did l...

Al cader d' una pianta che si svelse.

UNDER THE ALLEGORY OF A LAUREL HE AGAIN DEPLORES HER DEATH.


    As a fair plant, uprooted by oft blows
Of trenchant spade, or which the blast upheaves,
Scatters on earth its green and lofty leaves,
And its bare roots to the broad sunlight shows;
Love such another for my object chose,
Of whom for me the Muse a subject weaves,
Who in my captured heart her home achieves,
As on some wall or tree the ivy grows
That living laurel--where their chosen nest
My high thoughts made, where sigh'd mine ardent grief,
Yet never stirr'd of its fair boughs a leaf--
To heaven translated, in my heart, her rest,
Left deep its roots, whence ever with sad cry
I call on her, who ne'er vouchsafes reply.

MACGREGOR.

See, as the carver carves a rose,
A wing, a toad, a serpent's eye,
In cruel granite, to disclose
The soft things that in hardness lie,
So this one, taking up his heart,
Which time and change had made a stone,
Carved out of it with dolorous art,
Laboring yearlong and alone,
The thing there hidden, rose, toad, wing?
A frog's hand on a lily pad?
Bees in a cobweb? no such thing!
A girl's head was the thing he had,
Small, shapely, richly crowned with hair,
Drowsy, with eyes half closed, as they
Looked through you and beyond you, clear
To something farther than Cathay:
Saw you, yet counted you not worth
The seeing, thinking all the while
How, flower-like, beauty comes to birth;
And thinking this, began to smile.
Medusa! For she could not see