Identity

Some day I shall rise and leave my friends
And seek you again through the world's far ends,
You whom I found so fair
(Touch of your hands and smell of your hair!),
My only god in the days that were.
My eager feet shall find you again,
Though the sullen years and the mark of pain
Have changed you wholly; for I shall know
(How could I forget having loved you so?),
In the sad half-light of evening,
The face that was all my sunrising.
So then at the ends of the earth I'll stand
And hold you fiercely by either hand,
And seeing your age and ashen hair
I'll curse the thing that once you were,
Because it is changed and pale and old
(Lips that were scarlet, hair that was gold!),
And I loved you before you were old and wise,
When the flame of youth was strong ...

        No rose that in a garden ever grew,
        In Homer's or in Omar's or in mine,
        Though buried under centuries of fine
        Dead dust of roses, shut from sun and dew
        Forever, and forever lost from view,
        But must again in fragrance rich as wine
        The grey aisles of the air incarnadine
        When the old summers surge into a new.
        Thus when I swear, "I love with all my heart,"
        'Tis with the heart of Lilith that I swear,
        'Tis with the love of Lesbia and Lucrece;
        And thus as well my love must lose some part
        Of what it is, had Helen been less fair,
        Or perished young, or stayed at home in Greece.

Much did I rage when young,
Being by the world oppressed,
But now with flattering tongue
It speeds the parting guest.

We will not speak of years to-night, -
For what have years to bring
But larger floods of love and light,
And sweeter songs to sing?

We will not drown in wordy praise
The kindly thoughts that rise;
If Friendship own one tender phrase,
He reads it in our eyes.

We need not waste our school-boy art
To gild this notch of Time; -
Forgive me if my wayward heart
Has throbbed in artless rhyme.

Enough for him the silent grasp
That knits us hand in hand,
And he the bracelet's radiant clasp
That locks our circling band.

Strength to his hours of manly toil!
Peace to his starlit dreams!
Who loves alike the furrowed soil,
The music-haunted streams!

Sweet smiles to keep forever bright
The sunshine on his lips,
And fa...

Australia, my native land,
A stirring whisper in your ear,
'Tis time for you to understand
Your rating now is A1, dear.
You've done some rousing things of late.
That lift you from the simple state
In which you chose to vegetate.

The persons so superior,
Whose patronage no more endures,
Now have to fire a salvo for
The glory that is fairly yours.
At length you need no sort of crutch,
You stand alone, you're voted “much”,
Get busy and behave as such.

No man from Oskosh, or from Hull,
Or any other chosen place
Can rise with a distended skull,
And cast aspersions in your face.
You're given all the world to know
Your proper standing as a foe,
And hats are off, and rightly so.

You furnished heroes for the fray,
Your st...

        Three years ago my vessel lay
        In a port of Hudson Bay,
        I started off for the trading post,
        But on the way back I then got lost.

        And the thought soon gave me the blues,
        Trudging along on my snow shoes,
        Over the wastes of drifting snow,
        While the wind it did fiercely blow.

        I feared that I would be froze hard,
        For it was a fearful blizzard,
        I was growing faint and weary,
        Not the slightest hopes to cheer me.

        Without compass to bearing,
        My yells were beyond crews' hearing,
        But at last to my loud halloo
        There came a mournful ho, ho.

        From creature white I thought 'twas ghost,
        And that I was foreve...

"If life were caught by a clarionet,
And a wild heart, throbbing in the reed,
Should thrill its joy and trill its fret,
And utter its heart in every deed,

"Then would this breathing clarionet
Type what the poet fain would be;
For none o' the singers ever yet
Has wholly lived his minstrelsy,

"Or clearly sung his true, true thought,
Or utterly bodied forth his life,
Or out of life and song has wrought
The perfect one of man and wife;

"Or lived and sung, that Life and Song
Might each express the other's all,
Careless if life or art were long
Since both were one, to stand or fall:

"So that the wonder struck the crowd,
Who shouted it about the land:
`His song was only living aloud,
His work, a singing with his hand!'"

    "More than half my life long
Did they weigh me falsely, to my bitter wrong,
But they all have shrunk away into the silence
    Like a lost song.

    "And the day has dawned and come
For forgiveness, when the past may hold it dumb
On the once reverberate words of hatred uttered
    Half in delirium . . .

    "With folded lips and hands
They lie and wait what next the Will commands,
And doubtless think, if think they can: 'Let discord
    Sink with Life's sands!'

    "By these late years their names,
Their virtues, their hereditary claims,
May be as near defacement at their grave-place
    As are their fames."

    Such thoughts bechanced to seize
A traveller's mind a man of memories -
As he set foot within the western city

In His blest name, who was His own creation,
Who from all time makes making his vocation;
The name of Him who makes our faith so bright,
Love, confidence, activity, and might;
In that One's name, who, named though oft He be,
Unknown is ever in Reality:
As far as ear can reach, or eyesight dim,
Thou findest but the known resembling Him;
How high so'er thy fiery spirit hovers,
Its simile and type it straight discovers
Onward thou'rt drawn, with feelings light and gay,
Where'er thou goest, smiling is the way;
No more thou numbrest, reckonest no time,
Each step is infinite, each step sublime.

L' aura gentil che rasserena i poggi.

JOURNEYING TO VISIT LAURA, HE FEELS RENEWED ARDOUR AS HE APPROACHES.


    The gale, that o'er yon hills flings softer blue,
And wakes to life each bud that gems the glade,
I know; its breathings such impression made,
Wafting me fame, but wafting sorrow too:
My wearied soul to soothe, I bid adieu
To those dear Tuscan haunts I first survey'd;
And, to dispel the gloom around me spread,
I seek this day my cheering sun to view,
Whose sweet attraction is so strong, so great,
That Love again compels me to its light;
Then he so dazzles me, that vain were flight.
Not arms to brave, 'tis wings to 'scape, my fate
I ask; but by those beams I'm doom'd to die,
When distant which consume, and which enflame when nigh.

    Young Chloe looks sweet as the rose,
    And her love might be reckoned no less,
    But her bosom so freely bestows
    That all may a portion possess.
    Her smiles would be cheering to see,
    But so freely they're lavished abroad
    That each silly swain, like to me,
    Can boast what the wanton bestowed.

    Her looks and her kisses so free
    Are for all, like the rain and the sky;
    As the blossom love is to the bee,
    Each swain is as welcome as I.
    And though I my folly can see,
    Yet still must I love and adore,
    Though I know the love whispered to me
    Has been told to so many before.

    'T is sad that a bosom so fair,
    And soft lips so seemingly sweet,
    Should study false ways, to ensnare,
  ...

I.

Mouths have they, but they speak not:
    Yet something in the certainty of faith
    To their disciples saith:
"Believe on me and vengeance I will wreak not."
The word that conquers death--
    The immutable and boundless gift of grace--
    Dwells in that stony face,
And every supplication answereth.
Mouths have they, but they speak not;
    Yet one supernal will that shapes to suit
A great decree that can not be belied
Utters from voiceless lips those creeds that guide
    The tribes that never heard
    The living, saving Word,--
That have their dead gods and are satisfied.


II.

Eyes have they, but they see not:
    Yet the pagan builds his shrine,
    And keeps his fires divine
Forever bright, nor darkly doubt...

Surprised by joy, impatient as the Wind
I turned to share the transport O! with whom
But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recall’d thee to my mind
But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss? That thought’s return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

Oh no, not this! This is a Roman face,
Superb, composed, with such a matron grace
As that of great Cornelia, never thee.
Young princess of an ancient poetry!

Nor do I wish thy beauty from its grave;
Rather, one bird across the purple wave,
Or the mere sight of that Aegean sea.
Shall tell thy mortal loveliness to me!

Or I will find some slender, broken plinth.
And mark it thine with wild blue hyacinth,
While some far fruit, upon triumphant bough.
Shall say how unattainable wert thou!

(Written during sickness).

Soul -
    Oh! say must I leave this world of light
    With its sparkling streams and sunshine bright,
    Its budding flowers, its glorious sky?
    Vain 'tis to ask me - I cannot die!

Angel -
    But, sister, list! in the realms above,
    That happy home of eternal love,
    Are flowers more fair, and skies more clear
    Than those thou dost cling to so fondly here.

Soul -
    Ah! yes, but to reach that home of light
    I must pass through the fearful vale of night;
    And my soul with alarm doth shuddering cry -
    O angel, I tell thee, I dare not die!

Angel -
    Ah! mortal beloved, in that path untried
    Will I be, as ever, still at thy side,
    T...

    Companioned by the lonely hours,
        My vigil with the stars I keep, -
        The happy stars that never weep, -
        The wakeful stars that never sleep,
    Spirit of me that frets and cowers,
        Ah, what am I, that I should be
        And breathe in this Infinity?

    Unburdened of the weight of self,
        Toward the highest heights I am borne,
        Below lies Earth, begrimed and worn,
        Far, far from me her praise, her scorn,
    Her joys, her woes, her loss, her pelf,
        One with the happy stars am I!
        Our limits the unbounded sky!

Calvert! it must not be unheard by them
Who may respect my name, that I to thee
Owed many years of early liberty.
This care was thine when sickness did condemn
Thy youth to hopeless wasting, root and stem
That I, if frugal and severe, might stray
Where'er I liked; and finally array
My temples with the Muse's diadem.
Hence, if in freedom I have loved the truth;
If there be aught of pure, or good, or great,
In my past verse; or shall be, in the lays
Of higher mood, which now I meditate;
It gladdens me, O worthy, short-lived, Youth!
To think how much of this will be thy praise.

"Phoebe! Phoebe! Where is the chit?
When I want her most she's out of the way.
Child, you're running a long account
Up, to be squared on Judgment-day.

"Where have you been? and what have you there?"
"To the pasture for buttercups wet with dew."
"My patience! I think you are out of your wits;
I wonder what good will buttercups do?

"There's pennyroyal you might have got,-
It might have been useful to you or me,
But I never heard, in all my life,
Of buttercup cordial or buttercup tea.

"I want you to stay and mind the bread,
I've just put two loaves in the oven to bake;
When they are clone take them carefully out,
And put in their place this loaf of cake,

"While I run over to Widow Brown's;
Her son, from the mines, has just got back.