Identity

The night is come, but not too soon;
    And sinking silently,
All silently, the little moon
    Drops down behind the sky.

There is no light in earth or heaven
    But the cold light of stars;
And the first watch of night is given
    To the red planet Mars.

Is it the tender star of love?
    The star of love and dreams?
O no! from that blue tent above,
    A hero's armor gleams.

And earnest thoughts within me rise,
    When I behold afar,
Suspended in the evening skies,
    The shield of that red star.

O star of strength! I see thee stand
    And smile upon my pain;
Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand,
    And I am strong again.

Within my breast there is no light
    But the cold light of stars;
I g...

My heart cried like a beaten child
Ceaselessly all night long;
I had to take my own cries
And thread them into a song.

One was a cry at black midnight
And one when the first cock crew,
My heart was like a beaten child,
But no one ever knew.

Life, you have put me in your debt
And I must serve you long,
But oh, the debt is terrible
That must be paid in song.

Ye Trees! whose slender roots entwine
Altars that piety neglects;
Whose infant arms enclasp the shrine
Which no devotion now respects;
If not a straggler from the herd
Here ruminate, nor shrouded bird,
Chanting her low-voiced hymn, take pride
In aught that ye would grace or hide
How sadly is your love misplaced,
Fair Trees, your bounty run to waste!

Ye, too, wild Flowers! that no one heeds,
And ye, full often spurned as weeds
In beauty clothed, or breathing sweetness
From fractured arch and mouldering wall
Do but more touchingly recall
Man's headstrong violence and Time's fleetness,
Making the precincts ye adorn
Appear to sight still more forlorn.

Illyrian woodlands, echoing falls
Of water, sheets of summer glass,
The long divine Peneïan pass,
The vast Akrokeraunian walls,

Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair,
With such a pencil, such a pen,
You shadow forth to distant men,
I read and felt that I was there:

And trust me while I turn’d the page,
And track’d you still on classic ground,
I grew in gladness till I found
My spirits in the golden age.

For me the torrent ever pour’d
And glisten’d–here and there alone
The broad-limb’d Gods at random thrown
By fountain-urns;–and Naiads oar’d

A glimmering shoulder under gloom
Of cavern pillars; on the swell
The silver lily heaved and fell;
And many a slope was rich in bloom

From him that on the mountain lea
By da...

The linnet had flown from its cage away,
And flitted and sang in the light of day--
Had flown from the lady who loved it well,
In Liberty's freer air to dwell.
Alas! poor bird, it was soon to prove,
Sweeter than Liberty is Love.

When night came on it had ceased to sing,
And had hidden its head beneath its wing.
It thought of the warm room left behind,
The shelter from cold and rain and wind;
It could not sleep, when to sleep it strove--
Liberty needeth the help of Love.

The night owls shrieked as they wheeled along,
Bent upon slaughter, and rapine, and wrong:
There was devilish mirth in their wild halloo,
And the linnet trembled when near they drew;
'Twas fearful to watch them madly rove,
Drunken with Liberty, left of Love.

When mor...

As Nancy at her toilette sat,
Admiring this, and blaming that,
Tell me, she said, but tell me true,
The nymph who could your heart subdue.
What sort of charms does she possess?
Absolve me, fair one, I'll confess
With pleasure, I replied: Her hair,
In ringlets rather dark than fair,
Does down her ivory bosom roll,
And hiding half adorns the whole,
In her high forehead's fair half round
Love sits, in open triumph crown'd;
He, in the dimple of her chin,
In private state, by friends is seen.
Her eyes are neither black nor grey,
Nor fierce nor feeble is their ray;
Their dubious lustre seems to show
Something that speaks nor yes nor no.
Her lips no living bard, I weet,
May say how red, how round, how sweet:
Old Homer only could indite
Their ...

Thought of the Infinite - the All!
Be thou my God.

Lover Divine, and Perfect Comrade!
Waiting, content, invisible yet, but certain,
Be thou my God.

Thou - thou, the Ideal Man!
Fair, able, beautiful, content, and loving,
Complete in Body, and dilate in Spirit,
Be thou my God.

O Death - (for Life has served its turn;)
Opener and usher to the heavenly mansion!
Be thou my God.

Aught, aught, of mightiest, best, I see, conceive, or know,
(To break the stagnant tie - thee, thee to free, O Soul,)
Be thou my God.

Or thee, Old Cause, when'er advancing;
All great Ideas, the races' aspirations,
All that exalts, releases thee, my Soul!
All heroisms, deeds of rapt enthusiasts,
Be ye my Gods!

Or Time and Space!
Or ...

See, he sitteth on his mat
Sitteth there upright,
With the grace with which he sat
While he saw the light.

Where is now the sturdy gripe,
Where the breath sedate,
That so lately whiffed the pipe
Toward the Spirit great?

Where the bright and falcon eye,
That the reindeer's tread
On the waving grass could spy,
Thick with dewdrops spread?

Where the limbs that used to dart
Swifter through the snow
Than the twenty-membered hart,
Than the mountain roe?

Where the arm that sturdily
Bent the deadly bow?
See, its life hath fleeted by,
See, it hangeth low!

Happy he! He now has gone
Where no snow is found:
Where with maize the fields are sown,
Self-sprung from the ground;

Where with birds each bus...

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

    Merely on edge,
    the wharf in bad light
    clinging to water's ledge -
    a loon from afar
    the Woods
    closing with each sound.

    Casting rocks toward moon's glare
    lapidations laughing back,
    the treacle of warm night
    coaxing fire's glowing might.

    Sudden, oceanic wilderness
    breathless in barked silence -
    and camphor to keep the flies at distance,
    the anchored boat like a prison ship
    dallying on the waves,
    brambles & underbrush
    sunken wet sand,
    abundant berries rasp in thickets -
    the cottage like a jar
    closing for the night.

I shall be satisfied
With the seeing of thy face.
When I awake, wide-eyed,
I shall be satisfied
With what this life did hide,
The one supernal grace!
I shall be satisfied
With the seeing of thy face.



DECEMBER 27, 1879

Every time would have its song
    If the heart were right,
Seeing Love all tender-strong
    Fills the day and night.


Weary drop the hands of Prayer
    Calling out for peace;
Love always and everywhere
    Sings and does not cease.

Fear, the caitiff, through the night
    Silent peers about;
Love comes singing with a light
    And doth cast him out.

Hate and Guile and Wrath and Doubt
    Never try to sing;
If they did, oh, what a rout
    Anguished ea...

Vanish, dark clouds on high,

Offspring of night!
Let a more radiant beam
Through the blue ether gleam,

Charming the sight!
Would the dark clouds on high

Melt into air!
Stars glimmer tenderly,

Planets more fair

Shed their soft light.
Spirits of heav'nly birth,
Fairer than sons of earth,
Quivering emotions true

Hover above;
Yearning affections, too,

In their train move.
See how the spirit-band,
By the soft breezes fann'd,
Covers the smiling land,
Covers the leafy grove,
Where happy lovers rove,
Deep in a dream of love,
True love that never dies!
Bowers on bowers rise,

Soft tendrils twine;
While from the press escapes,
Born of the juicy grapes,

Foaming, th...

I.

    My Lord, I know your noble ear
        Woe ne'er assails in vain;
    Embolden'd thus, I beg you'll hear
        Your humble slave complain,
    How saucy Phoebus' scorching beams
        In flaming summer-pride,
    Dry-withering, waste my foamy streams,
        And drink my crystal tide.

II.

    The lightly-jumpin' glowrin' trouts,
        That thro' my waters play,
    If, in their random, wanton spouts,
        They near the margin stray;
    If, hapless chance! they linger lang,
        I'm scorching up so shallow,
    They're left the whitening stanes amang,
        In gasping death to wallow.

III.

    Last day I grat wi' spite and teen,
        As Poet Burns came by,
    That to a bard I shou...

"This Land of Rainbows spanning glens whose walls,
Rock-built, are hung with rainbow-coloured mists
Of far-stretched Meres whose salt flood never rests
Of tuneful Caves and playful Waterfalls
Of Mountains varying momently their crests
Proud be this Land! whose poorest huts are halls
Where Fancy entertains becoming guests;
While native song the heroic Past recalls."
Thus, in the net of her own wishes caught,
The Muse exclaimed; but Story now must hide
Her trophies, Fancy crouch; the course of pride
Has been diverted, other lessons taught,
That make the Patriot-spirit bow her head
Where the all-conquering Roman feared to tread.

The wisest of the wise
Listen to pretty lies
And love to hear them told;
Doubt not that Solomon
Listen’d to many a one,        
Some in his youth, and more when he grew old.

I never was among
The choir of Wisdom’s song,
But pretty lies lov’d I
As much as any king,
When youth was on the wing,
And (must it then be told?) when youth had quite gone by.

Alas! and I have not
The pleasant hour forgot
When one pert lady said,
“O Walter! I am quite
Bewilder’d with affright!
I see (sit quiet now) a white hair on your head!”

Another more benign
Snipp’d it away from mine,
And in her own dark hair
Pretended it was found…
She leap’d, and twirl’d it round…
Fair as she was, she never was so fair!

"But who art thou, with curious beauty graced,
O woman, stamped with some bright heavenly seal
Why go thy feet on wings, and in such haste?"

"I am that maid whose secret few may steal,
Called Opportunity. I hasten by
Because my feet are treading on a wheel,

Being more swift to run than birds to fly.
And rightly on my feet my wings I wear,
To blind the sight of those who track and spy;

Rightly in front I hold my scattered hair
To veil my face, and down my breast to fall,
Lest men should know my name when I am there;

And leave behind my back no wisp at all
For eager folk to clutch, what time I glide
So near, and turn, and pass beyond recall."

"Tell me; who is that Figure at thy side?"
"Penitence. Mark this well that by decree
W...

I

On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
The yellow-leaved waterlily
The green-sheathed daffodilly
Tremble in the water chilly
Round about Shalott.

Willows whiten, aspens shiver.
The sunbeam showers break and quiver
In the stream that runneth ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.

Underneath the bearded barley,
The reaper, reaping late and early,
Hears her ever chanting cheerly,
Like an angel, singing clearly,
O'er the stream of Camelot.
Piling the...

Night is for sorrow and dawn is for joy,
Chasing the troubles that fret and annoy;
Darkness for sighing and daylight for song,--
Cheery and chaste the strain, heartfelt and strong.
All the night through, though I moan in the dark,
I wake in the morning to sing with the lark.

Deep in the midnight the rain whips the leaves,
Softly and sadly the wood-spirit grieves.
But when the first hue of dawn tints the sky,
I shall shake out my wings like the birds and be dry;
And though, like the rain-drops, I grieved through the dark,
I shall wake in the morning to sing with the lark.

On the high hills of heaven, some morning to be,
Where the rain shall not grieve thro' the leaves of the tree,
There my heart will be glad for the pain I have known,
For my hand will be...