Identity

One silent night of late,
When every creature rested,
Came one unto my gate,
And knocking, me molested.

Who's that, said I, beats there,
And troubles thus the sleepy?
Cast off; said he, all fear,
And let not locks thus keep ye.

For I a boy am, who
By moonless nights have swerved;
And all with showers wet through,
And e'en with cold half starved.

I pitiful arose,
And soon a taper lighted;
And did myself disclose
Unto the lad benighted.

I saw he had a bow,
And wings too, which did shiver;
And looking down below,
I spied he had a quiver.

I to my chimney's shine
Brought him, as Love professes,
And chafed his hands with mine,
And dried his dropping tresses.

But when he felt him warm'd,

The groundflame of the crocus breaks the mould,
Fair Spring slides hither o'er the Southern sea,
Wavers on her thin stem the snowdrop cold
That trembles not to kisses of the bee:
Come Spring, for now from all the dripping eaves
The spear of ice has wept itself away,
And hour by hour unfolding woodbine leaves
O'er his uncertain shadow droops the day.
She comes! The loosen'd rivulets run;
The frost-bead melts upon her golden hair;
Her mantle, slowly greening in the Sun,
Now wraps her close, now arching leaves her bar
To breaths of balmier air;

Up leaps the lark, gone wild to welcome her,
About her glance the tits, and shriek the jays,
Before her skims the jubilant woodpecker,
The linnet's bosom blushes at her gaze,
While round her brows a woodland cul...

(SUNG IN A CIRCLE OF FRIENDS.)

With one last bumper let us hail
The wanderer beloved,
Who takes his leave of this still vale
Wherein in youth he roved.

From loving arms, from native home,
He tears himself away,
To yonder city proud to roam,
That makes whole lands its prey.

Dissension flies, all tempests end,
And chained is strife abhorred;
We in the crater may descend
From whence the lava poured.

A gracious fate conduct thee through
Life's wild and mazy track!
A bosom nature gave thee true,
A bosom true bring back!

Thou'lt visit lands that war's wild train
Had crushed with careless heed;
Now smiling peace salutes the plain,
And strews the golden seed.

The hoary Father Rhine thou'lt greet,
Who th...

The memory of my father is wrapped up in
white paper, like sandwiches taken for a day at work.

Just as a magician takes towers and rabbits
out of his hat, he drew love from his small body,

and the rivers of his hands
overflowed with good deeds.

Thus, once, long since, the daring of my youth
Drew nigh thy greatness with a little thing;
And thou didst take me in: thy home of truth

Has domed me since, a heaven of sheltering,
Uplighted by the tenderness and grace
Which round thy absolute friendship ever fling

A radiant atmosphere. Turn not thy face
From that small part of earnest thanks, I pray,
Which, spoken, leaves much more in speechless case.

I saw thee as a strong man on his way!
Up the great peaks: I know thee stronger still;
Thy intellect unrivalled in its sway,

Upheld and ordered by a regnant will;
While Wisdom, seer and priest of holy Fate,
Searches all truths, its prophecy to fill:

Yet, O my friend, throned in thy heart so great,
High Love is queen, and hath no equ...

The breathing freshness of the shining Morn,
    Whose beams glance yellow on the distant fields,
    A sweet, unutterable pleasure yields
    To my dejected sense, that turns with scorn
From the light joys of Dissipation born.
    Sacred Remembrance all my bosom shields
    Against each glittering lance she gaily wields,
    Warring with fond Regrets, that silent mourn
The Heart's dear comforts lost. - But, NATURE, thou,
    Thou art resistless still; - and yet I ween
    Thy present balmy gales, and vernal blow,
To MEMORY owe the magic of their scene;
    For with such fragrant breath, such orient rays,
    Shone the soft mornings of my youthful days.

("Tandis que l'étoile inodore.")

[XXXII.]


While bright but scentless azure stars
Be-gem the golden corn,
And spangle with their skyey tint
The furrows not yet shorn;
While still the pure white tufts of May
Ape each a snowy ball, -
Away, ye merry maids, and haste
To gather ere they fall!

Nowhere the sun of Spain outshines
Upon a fairer town
Than Peñafiel, or endows
More richly farming clown;
Nowhere a broader square reflects
Such brilliant mansions, tall, -
Away, ye merry maids, etc.

Nowhere a statelier abbey rears
Dome huger o'er a shrine,
Though seek ye from old Rome itself
To even Seville fine.
Here countless pilgrims come to pray
And promenade the Mall, -
Away, ye merry maids, etc.

When dark December glooms the day,
And takes our autumn joys away;
When short and scant the sunbeam throws,
Upon the weary waste of snows,
A cold and profitless regard,
Like patron on a needy bard,
When silvan occupation's done,
And o'er the chimney rests the gun,
And hang, in idle trophy, near,
The game-pouch, fishing-rod, and spear;
When wiry terrier, rough and grim,
And greyhound, with his length of limb,
And pointer, now employed no more,
Cumber our parlour's narrow floor;
When in his stall the impatient steed
Is long condemned to rest and feed;
When from our snow-encircled home,
Scarce cares the hardiest step to roam,
Since path is none, save that to bring
The needful water from the spring;
When wrinkled news-page, thrice conned o'er,<...

Whether on Ida's shady brow,
Or in the chambers of the East,
The chambers of the sun, that now
From ancient melody have ceas'd;

Whether in Heav'n ye wander fair,
Or the green corners of the earth,
Or the blue regions of the air,
Where the melodious winds have birth;

Whether on crystal rocks ye rove,
Beneath the bosom of the sea
Wand'ring in many a coral grove,
Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry!

How have you left the ancient love
That bards of old enjoy'd in you!
The languid strings do scarcely move!
The sound is forc'd, the notes are few!

The world is taking little heed
And plods from day to day:
The vulgar flourish like a weed,
The learned pass away.

We miss him on the summer path
The lonely summer day,
Where mowers cut the pleasant swath
And maidens make the hay.

The vulgar take but little heed;
The garden wants his care;
There lies the book he used to read,
There stands the empty chair.

The boat laid up, the voyage oer,
And passed the stormy wave,
The world is going as before,
The poet in his grave.

"What ails the world?" the poet cried;
    "And why does death walk everywhere?
    And why do tears fall anywhere?
    And skies have clouds, and souls have care?"
Thus the poet sang, and sighed.

For he would fain have all things glad,
    All lives happy, all hearts bright;
    Not a day would end in night,
    Not a wrong would vex a right --
And so he sang -- and he was sad.

Thro' his very grandest rhymes
    Moved a mournful monotone --
    Like a shadow eastward thrown
    From a sunset -- like a moan
Tangled in a joy-bell's chimes.

"What ails the world?" he sang and asked --
    And asked and sang -- but all in vain;
    No answer came to any strain,
    And no reply to his refrain --
The mystery moved 'round him masked....

    Parable as metaphor -
    profile in hard glint of light,
    buckskin garb
    merging from shadow &
    buckboards -
    sandwiching of memory
    being elbowed
    thru a Deadwood City
    saloon door.

    Noneother.
    Dead Man's Hand.
    Cards strewn,
    last tumbler ...
    chamber on empty.
    Yancy Derringer modelling the
    latest revolver of his namesake,
    in pit & the palm
    bullet in the back
    for Wild Bill, just for a keepsake.

    Treasure-trove for the funeral parlour:
    "they done him up well". Peccadillo as provocation.

All submit to them, where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to analysis, in the Soul;
Not traditions not the outer authorities are the judges they are the judges of outer authorities, and of all traditions;
They corroborate as they go, only whatever corroborates themselves, and touches themselves;
For all that, they have it forever in themselves to corroborate far and near, without one exception.

John Littlewit, friends, was a credulous man.
                In the good time long ago,
Ere men had gone wild o'er the latter-day dream
Of turning the world upside down with steam,
Or of chaining the lightning down to a wire,
And making it talk with its tongue of fire.

He was perfectly sure that the world stood still,
            And the sun and moon went round; -
He believed in fairies, and goblins ill,
And witches that rode over vale and hill
On wicked broom-sticks, studying still
            Mischief and craft profound.

"What a fool was John Littlewit!" somebody cries; -
                Nay, friend, not so fast, if you please!
        A humble man was John Littlewit -
                    A gentle, loving man;
He clothed the needy, the hu...

Pace non trovo, e non ho da far guerra.

LOVE'S INCONSISTENCY.


    I fynde no peace and all my warre is done,
I feare and hope, I bourne and freese lyke yse;
I flye above the wynde, yet cannot ryse;
And nought I have, yet all the worlde I season,
That looseth, nor lacketh, holdes me in pryson,
And holdes me not, yet can I escape no wyse.
Nor lets me leeve, nor die at my devyce,
And yet of death it giveth none occasion.
Without eye I see, and without tongue I playne;
I desyre to perishe, yet aske I health;
I love another, and yet I hate my self;
I feede in sorrow and laughe in all my payne,
Lykewyse pleaseth me both death and lyf,
And my delight is cawser of my greif.

WYATT.[S]

[Footnote S: Harrington's Nugæ Antiquæ.]

Ah! this wild desolated spot,
Calls forth the plaintive tear;
Remembrance paints my little cot,
Which once did flourish here.

No more the early lark and thrush
Shall hail the rising day,
Nor warble on their native bush,
Nor charm me with their lay.

No more the foliage of the oak
Shall spread its wonted shade;
Now fell'd beneath the hostile stroke
Of red destruction's blade.

Beneath its bloom when summer smil'd,
How oft the rural train
The lingering hours with tales beguil'd,
Or danc'd to Colin's strain.

And, when Aurora with the dawn
Dispell'd the midnight shade,
Her flocks to the accustom'd lawn
Would lovely Phillis lead.

Delusive grandeur never wreath'd
Around Contentment's head,
'Till war its flami...

I passed along the water's edge below the humid trees,
My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees,
My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moor-fowl pace
All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase
Each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak:
Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weak
Is an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky.
The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from His eye.
I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk:
Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk,
For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide
Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide.
A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes
Brimful of starlight, and he...

Let him, who would conceive what now I saw,
Imagine (and retain the image firm,
As mountain rock, the whilst he hears me speak),
Of stars fifteen, from midst the ethereal host
Selected, that, with lively ray serene,
O'ercome the massiest air: thereto imagine
The wain, that, in the bosom of our sky,
Spins ever on its axle night and day,
With the bright summit of that horn which swells
Due from the pole, round which the first wheel rolls,
T' have rang'd themselves in fashion of two signs
In heav'n, such as Ariadne made,
When death's chill seized her; and that one of them
Did compass in the other's beam; and both
In such sort whirl around, that each should tend
With opposite motion and, conceiving thus,
Of that true constellation, and the dance
Twofold, that...