Identity

Home, home from the horizon far and clear,
    Hither the soft wings sweep;
Flocks of the memories of the day draw near
    The dovecote doors of sleep.

O which are they that come through sweetest light
    Of all these homing birds?
Which with the straightest and the swiftest flight?
    Your words to me, your words!

"What tuneful strains salute mine ear

Without the castle walls?
Oh, let the song re-echo here,

Within our festal halls!"
Thus spake the king, the page out-hied;
The boy return'd; the monarch cried:

"Admit the old man yonder!"

"All hail, ye noble lords to-night!

All hail, ye beauteous dames!
Star placed by star! What heavenly sight!

Whoe'er can tell their names?
Within this glittering hall sublime,
Be closed, mine eyes! 'tis not the time

For me to feast my wonder."

The minstrel straightway closed his eyes,

And woke a thrilling tone;
The knights look'd on in knightly guise,

Fair looks tow'rd earth were thrown.
The monarch, ravish'd by the strain,
Bade them bring forth a golden chain,

("Murs, ville et port.")

[XXVIII., Aug. 28, 1828.]


    Town, tower,
        Shore, deep,
    Where lower
        Cliff's steep;
    Waves gray,
    Where play
    Winds gay,
        All sleep.

Hark! a sound,
    Far and slight,
Breathes around
    On the night
High and higher,
Nigh and nigher,
Like a fire,
    Roaring, bright.

Now, on 'tis sweeping
    With rattling beat,
Like dwarf imp leaping
    In gallop fleet
He flies, he prances,
In frolic fancies,
On wave-crest dances
    With pattering feet.

Hark, the rising swell,
    With each new burst!
Like the tolling bell
    Of a convent curst;
Like the billowy roar
On a storm-lashed shore, -

There was darkness under Heaven
For an hour's space,
Darkness that we knew was given
Us for special grace.
Sun and moon and stars were hid,
God had left His Throne,
When Helen came to me, she did,
Helen all alone!

Side by side (because our fate
Damned us ere our birth)
We stole out of Limbo Gate
Looking for the Earth.
Hand in pulling hand amid
Fear no dreams have known,
Helen ran with me, she did,
Helen all alone!

When the Horror passing speech
Hunted us along,
Each laid hold on each, and each
Found the other strong.
In the teeth of Things forbid
And Reason overthrown,
Helen stood by me, she did,
Helen all alone!

When, at last, we heard those Fires
Dull and die away,
When, at last, our linked ...

Into the rose gold westland, its yellow prairies roll,
World of the bison's freedom, home of the Indian's soul.
Roll out, O seas! in sunlight bathed,
Your plains wind-tossed, and grass enswathed.

Farther than vision ranges, farther than eagles fly,
Stretches the land of beauty, arches the perfect sky,
Hemm'd through the purple mists afar
By peaks that gleam like star on star.

Fringing the prairie billows, fretting horizon's line,
Darkly green are slumb'ring wildernesses of pine,
Sleeping until the zephyrs throng
To kiss their silence into song.

Whispers freighted with odour swinging into the air,
Russet needles as censers swing to an altar, where
The angels' songs are less divine
Than duo sung twixt breeze and pine.

Laughing into the fo...

[Greek: Argureais logchaisi machou kai panta krataeseo.] [1]

(Reply of the Pythian Oracle to Philip of Macedon.)


1.

Oh! could LE SAGE'S [2] demon's gift
Be realis'd at my desire,
This night my trembling form he'd lift
To place it on St. Mary's spire.


2.

Then would, unroof'd, old Granta's halls,
Pedantic inmates full display;
Fellows who dream on lawn or stalls,
The price of venal votes to pay.


3.

Then would I view each rival wight,
PETTY and PALMERSTON survey;
Who canvass there, with all their might,
Against the next elective day. [3]


4.

Lo! candidates and voters lie
All lull'd in sleep, a goodly number!
A race renown'd for piety,<...

I


Teach me the secret of thy loveliness,
That, being made wise, I may aspire to be
As beautiful in thought, and so express
Immortal truths to earth's mortality;
Though to my soul ability be less
Than 't is to thee, O sweet anemone.


II


Teach me the secret of thy innocence,
That in simplicity I may grow wise;
Asking from Art no other recompense
Than the approval of her own just eyes;
So may I rise to some fair eminence,
Though less than thine, O cousin of the skies.


III


Teach me these things; through whose high knowledge, I,--
When Death hath poured oblivion through my veins,
And brought me home, as all are brought, to lie
In that vast house, common to serfs and Thanes,--
I shall not die,...

Those were the days of doubt. How clear
It all comes back! This ribbon, see?
Brings that far past so very near
I lose my own identity,
And seem two beings: one that's here,
And one back in that century
Of cowardice and fear,
Wherein I met with love and her,
When I was but a wanderer.
Those were the days of doubt, I said:
I doubted all things; even God.
Within my heart there was no dread
Of Hell or Heaven. Never a rod
Was there to smite; no mercy led:
And man's reward was death: a clod
He was, alive or dead.
Those were the days of doubt; and so
I scoffed at all things, high and low.
And then I met her. Fair and frail,
A girl whose soul was as a flame
That burns within the Holy Grael;
And through her eyes shone clear the same
Fanati...

Wind-flicked and ruddy her young body glowed
In sunny shallows, splashing them to spray;
But when on rippled, silver sand she lay,
And over her the little green waves flowed,
Coldly translucent and moon-coloured showed
Her frail young beauty, as if rapt away
From all the light and laughter of the day
To some twilit, forlorn sea-god's abode.

Again into the sun with happy cry
She leapt alive and sparkling from the sea,
Sprinkling white spray against the hot blue sky,
A laughing girl ... and yet, I see her lie
Under a deeper tide eternally
In cold moon-coloured immortality.

1

In green sea-caverns dim,
Deep down,
A monarch pale and slim,
Whose soul's a frown,
He ruleth cold and grim
In foamy crown:
In green sea-caverns dim,
    Deep down.


2

He hears the Mermaid sing
    So sad!
Far off like some curs'd thing,
That ne'er is glad,
A vague, wild murmuring,
That drives men mad:
He hears the Mermaid sing
    So sad!


3

Strange monster bulks are there,
    That yawn
Or roll huge eyes that glare
And then are gone;
Weird foliage passing fair
Where clings the spawn:
Strange monster bulks are there,
    That yawn.


4

What cares he for wrecked hulls
    These years!
Red gold the water dulls!
Grim, dead-men jeer...

Our minds are married, but we are too young
For wedlock by the customs of this age
When parent homes pen each in separte cage
And only supper-earning songs are sung.

Times past, when medieval woods were green,
Babes were betrothed, and that betrothal brief.
Remember Romeo in love and grief
Those star-crossed lovers, Juliet was fourteen.

Times past, the caveman by his new-found fire
Rested beside his mate in woodsmoke’s scent.
By our own fireside we shall rest content
Fifty years hence keep troth with hearts desire.

We shall remember, when our hair is white,
These clouded days revealed in radiant light.

I know two women, and one is chaste
And cold as the snows on a winter waste,
Stainless ever in act and thought
(As a man, born dumb, in speech errs not).
But she has malice toward her kind,
A cruel tongue and a jealous mind.
Void of pity and full of greed,
She judges the world by her narrow creed;
A brewer of quarrels, a breeder of hate,
Yet she holds the key to "Society's" Gate.

The other woman, with heart of flame,
Went mad for a love that marred her name:
And out of the grave of her murdered faith
She rose like a soul that has passed through death.
Her aims are noble, her pity so broad,
It covers the world like the mercy of God.
A soother of discord, a healer of woes,
Peace follows her footsteps wherever she goes.
The worthier life of the tw...

Dichtqualmende Nebel umfeuchten
Ein Pfahlbaugerüstwerk im See
Und fern ob der Waldwildniss leuchten
Die Alpen in ewigem Schnee.

Damp smoky-like vapour is streaming
    O'er piles in the waters below.
And far o'er the forest are gleaming
    The Alps in perpetual snow.

A man on a wood block is sitting
    In furs, for the wind-draught is strong:
With a flint chip a deer-horn splitting,
    While he mournfully murmurs a song:

'See my face swollen up like the devil!
    Remark how in wind, as it spins,
The history of Europe primæval
    With rheumatics and toothache begins!

'It is true that with stone-axe employment,
    Or with celts I can hammer my way,
But no rational means of enjoyment
    Is known to the world in this d...

Paestum, your temples and your streets
Have been restored to view;
Your fadeless Grecian beauty greets
The eyes of men anew.

But where are all your roses now -
Those wonderful delights
That made such garlands for the brow
Of your fair Sybarites?

They in your time were more renown'd,
And dearer to your heart,
Than these fine works which mark the bound
And highest reach of art.

We'd see you as you look'd of old;
Though column, arch and wall
Were worth a kingdom to behold,
One rose would shame them all.

In the placid summer midnight,
Under the drowsy sky,
I seem to hear in the stillness
The moths go glimmering by.

One by one from the windows
The lights have all been sped.
Never a blind looks conscious -
The street is asleep in bed!

But I come where a living casement
Laughs luminous and wide;
I hear the song of a piano
Break in a sparkling tide;

And I feel, in the waltz that frolics
And warbles swift and clear,
A sudden sense of shelter
And friendliness and cheer . . .

A sense of tinkling glasses,
Of love and laughter and light -
The piano stops, and the window
Stares blank out into the night.

The blind goes out, and I wander
To the old, unfriendly sea,
The lonelier for the memory
That walks like...

When the mist drives past and the wind blows high,
And the harbour lights are dim -
See where they circle, and dip and fly,
The grey free-lances of wind and sky,
To the water's distant rim!

Like spirits possessed of a fierce delight,
A courage that cannot fail,
They face the breakers - they face the night -
The mad storm-horses are silvery white,
They ride through the bitter gale!

They seem like the souls of the long, long lost,
Who breasted the ocean-main -
Vikings whose vessels were tempest-tossed,
Voyagers who sailed, whatever the cost,
And never came home again.

Or stranger and wilder fancy - it seems
As I hear their wind-torn cry,
No birds fly there through the sun's last gleams,
But the wraiths of hopes - the ghosts of dreams<...

I.

Sun, whom the faltering snow-cloud fears,
Rise, let the time of year be May,
Speak now the word that April hears,
Let March have all his royal way;
Bid all spring raise in winter’s ears
All tunes her children hear or play,
Because the crown of eight glad years
On one bright head is set to-day.

II.

What matters cloud or sun to-day
To him who wears the wreath of years
So many, and all like flowers at play
With wind and sunshine, while his ears
Hear only song on every way?
More sweet than spring triumphant hears
Ring through the revel-rout of May
Are these, the notes that winter fears.

III.

Strong-hearted winter knows and fears
The music made of love at play,
Or haply loves the tune he hears
From hear...

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world,s storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear.

O God within my breast.
Almighty ever-present Deity!
Life , that in me has rest,
As I Undying Life, have power in thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts, unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thy infinity;
So surely anchored on
The steadfast rock of Immortality.

With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though Earth and moon were gone,
And suns and universes c...