Identity

    "Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
    When a new planet swims within his ken."

I who had sought afar from earth
    The faery land to greet,
Now find content within its girth,
    And wonder nigh my feet.

To-day a nearer love I choose
    And seek no distant sphere,
For aureoled by faery dews
    The dear brown breasts appear.

With rainbow radiance come and go
    The airy breaths of day,
And eve is all a pearly glow
    With moonlit winds a-play.

The lips of twilight burn my brow,
    The arms of night caress:
Glimmer her white eyes drooping now
    With grave old tenderness.

I close mine eyes from dream to be
    The diamond-rayed again,
As in the ancient hours ere we
    Forgot ourselves t...

Unto my books so good to turn
Far ends of tired days;
It half endears the abstinence,
And pain is missed in praise.

As flavors cheer retarded guests
With banquetings to be,
So spices stimulate the time
Till my small library.

It may be wilderness without,
Far feet of failing men,
But holiday excludes the night,
And it is bells within.

I thank these kinsmen of the shelf;
Their countenances bland
Enamour in prospective,
And satisfy, obtained.

I met Jack Ellis in town to-day,
Jack Ellis, my old mate, Jack,
Ten years ago, from the Castlereagh,
We carried our swags together away
To the Never-Again, Out Back.

But times have altered since those old days,
And the times have changed the men.
Ah, well! there's little to blame or praise,
Jack Ellis and I have tramped long ways
On different tracks since then.

His hat was battered, his coat was green,
The toes of his boots were through,
But the pride was his! It was I felt mean,
I wished that my collar was not so clean,
Nor the clothes I wore so new.

He saw me first, and he knew 'twas I,
The holiday swell he met.
Why have we no faith in each other? Ah, why?,
He made as though he would pass me by,
For he thought that I might fo...

A thought went up my mind to-day
That I have had before,
But did not finish, -- some way back,
I could not fix the year,

Nor where it went, nor why it came
The second time to me,
Nor definitely what it was,
Have I the art to say.

But somewhere in my soul, I know
I 've met the thing before;
It just reminded me -- 't was all --
And came my way no more.

Where in a green, moist, myrtle dell
The torrent voice rings strong
And clear, above a star-bright well,
I write this woodland song.

The melodies of many leaves
Float in a fragrant zone;
And here are flowers by deep-mossed eaves
That day has never known.

I’ll weave a garland out of these,
The darlings of the birds,
And send it over singing seas
With certain sunny words

With certain words alive with light
Of welcome for a thing
Of promise, born beneath the white,
Soft afternoon of Spring.

The faithful few have waited long
A life like this to see;
And they will understand the song
That flows to-day from me.

May every page within this book
Be as a radiant hour;
Or like a bank of mountain brook,
All ...

Oh, dim and wan came in the dawn,
And gloomy closed the day;
The killdee whistled among the weeds,
The heron flapped in the river reeds,
And the snipe piped far away.

At dawn she stood - her dark gray hood
Flung back - in the ferry-boat;
Sad were the eyes that watched him ride,
Her raider love, from the riverside,
His kiss on her mouth and throat.

Like some wild spell the twilight fell,
And black the tempest came;
The heavens seemed filled with the warring dead,
Whose batteries opened overhead
With thunder and with flame.

At night again in the wind and rain,
She toiled at the ferry oar;
For she heard a voice in the night and storm,
And it seemed that her lover's shadowy form
Beckoned her to the shore.

And swift to sa...

When summer’s end is nighing
And skies at evening cloud,
I muse on change and fortune
And all the feats I vowed
When I was young and proud.

The weathercock at sunset
Would lose the slanted ray,
And I would climb the beacon
That looked to Wales away
And saw the last of day.

From hill and cloud and heaven
The hues of evening died;
Night welled through lane and hollow
And hushed the countryside,
But I had youth and pride.

And I with earth and nightfall
In converse high would stand,
Late, till the west was ashen
And darkness hard at hand,
And the eye lost the land.

The year might age, and cloudy
The lessening day might close,
But air of other summers
Breathed from beyond the snows,
And I had hope of t...

The wind blows shrill along the hill,
--Black is the night and cold--
The sky hangs low with its weight of snow,
And the drifts are deep on the wold.
But what care I for wind or snow?
And what care I for the cold?
        Oh ... where is my lamb--
        My one ewe lamb--
        That strayed from the fold?

The beasts are safely gathered in,
--Black is the night and cold--
They are snug and warm, and safe from harm,
In stall and byre and fold.
And the dogs and I, by the blazing fire,
Care nought for the snow and the cold.
        Oh ... where is my lamb--
        My one ewe lamb--
        That strayed from the fold?

The barns are bursting with their store
Of grain like yellow gold;
A full, fat year h...

The gentlest Shade that walked Elysian plains
Might sometimes covet dissoluble chains;
Even for the tenants of the zone that lies
Beyond the stars, celestial Paradise,
Methinks 'twould heighten joy, to overleap
At will the crystal battlements, and peep
Into some other region, though less fair,
To see how things are made and managed there.
Change for the worse might please, incursion bold
Into the tracts of darkness and of cold;
O'er Limbo lake with aery flight to steer,
And on the verge of Chaos hang in fear.
Such animation often do I find,
Power in my breast, wings growing in my mind,
Then, when some rock or hill is overpast,
Perhance without one look behind me cast.
Some barrier with which Nature, from the birth
Of things, has fenced this fairest spot o...

I heard the trailing garments of the Night
    Sweep through her marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
    From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,
    Stoop o'er me from above;
The calm, majestic presence of the Night,
    As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,
    The manifold, soft chimes,
That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,
    Like some old poet's rhymes.

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air
    My spirit drank repose;
The fountain of perpetual peace flows there -
    From those deep cisterns flows.

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear
    What man has borne before!
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,
    And they co...

Last night
I watched a star fall like a great pearl into the sea,
Till my ego expanding encompassed sea and star,
Containing both as in a trembling cup.

I can't get up with the chickens;
I can't get up at dark:
And what do I care for the early worm?
And what do I care for the lark?

I can't do this or that thing;
I can't do things like you;
And the thing that I do most frequent
Is the thing I never do.

I can't go where I would go,
Though I go from morn till eve;
But some place I go wherever I go
Whenever a place I leave.

For the law of the road is this law,
And the law is right and good:
Just go your ways and take no heed
Of how you get your food.

And the law of the road is this law,
And the law is one to keep:
It never matters, wherever you are,
So you have a place to sleep.

And the law of the road is this law,
And the law may it grow and grow!
Wherev...

O God, I am ashamed to die,
But not the least afraid;
Tho' death's dark shadow draweth nigh,
Atonement has been made

For every member of our race,
And I on it rely,
And hope immortal blooms thro' grace;
I'm not afraid to die.

But Thou hast done great things for me,
And I have nothing done.
To set my sin-bound spirit free,
Was sacrificed Thy Son;

And every day by Thy kind hand
Rich blessings are bestowed;
Oh, how can I before Thee stand,
Or rest in Thine abode

With self-respect, or feel at home
With no returns to show,
My whole life like the worthless foam
On time's incessant flow.

Oh, that in life's great harvest field,
I may some reaping do;
Early and late the sickle wield,
And prove a reaper tr...

The clouds fast gather,
    The forest-oaks roar
A maiden is sitting
    Beside the green shore,
The billows are breaking with might, with might,
And she sighs aloud in the darkling night,
Her eyelid heavy with weeping.

"My heart's dead within me,
    The world is a void;
To the wish it gives nothing,
    Each hope is destroyed.
I have tasted the fulness of bliss below
I have lived, I have loved, Thy child, oh take now,
Thou Holy One, into Thy keeping!"

"In vain is thy sorrow,
    In vain thy tears fall,
For the dead from their slumbers
    They ne'er can recall;
Yet if aught can pour comfort and balm in thy heart,
Now that love its sweet pleasures no more can impart,
Speak thy wish, and thou granted shalt find it!"

"...

    "O last days of the year!" she whispered low,
    "You fly too swiftly past. Ah, you might stay
    A while, a little while. Do you not know
    What tender things you bear with you away?

    "I'm thinking, sitting in the soft gloom here,
    Of all the riches that were mine the day
    There crept down on the world the soft New Year,
    A rosy thing with promise filled, and gay.

    "But twelve short months ago! a little space
    In which to lose so much - a whole life's wealth
    Of love and faith, youth and youth's tender grace -
    Things that are wont to go from us by stealth.

    "Laughter and blushes, and the rapture strong,
    The clasp of clinging hands, the ling'ring kiss,
    The joy of living, and the glorious song
    That dr...

Orso, e' non furon mai fiumi nè stagni.

HE COMPLAINS OF THE VEIL AND HAND OF LAURA, THAT THEY DEPRIVE HIM OF THE SIGHT OF HER EYES.


    Orso, my friend, was never stream, nor lake,
Nor sea in whose broad lap all rivers fall,
Nor shadow of high hill, or wood, or wall,
Nor heaven-obscuring clouds which torrents make,
Nor other obstacles my grief so wake,
Whatever most that lovely face may pall,
As hiding the bright eyes which me enthrall,
That veil which bids my heart "Now burn or break,"
And, whether by humility or pride,
Their glance, extinguishing mine every joy,
Conducts me prematurely to my tomb:
Also my soul by one fair hand is tried,
Cunning and careful ever to annoy,
'Gainst my poor eyes a rock that has become.

MACGREGOR.

I.

THE NEW RESOLVE.

Last night, as I sat in my study,
    And thought o'er my lonely life,
I was seized with a passionate longing
    To escape from the weary strife;

To flee far away from my fellows,
    And far from the city's roar,
And seek on the boundless prairie
    A balm for my burning sore--

The sore of the weary spirit,
    The burn of the aching heart
Of him who has known true friendship--
    Has known it--but only to part.

And I said in that hour of anguish:
    "I will fly from the haunts of men,
And seek, in the bosom of Nature,
    Relief from my ceaseless pain."

As lonely I sat, and thus pondered,
    A voice seemed to speak in my ear;
And the sound of that voice was like music,
    ...

(February 23, 1821)

At midnight when the moonlit cypress trees
Have woven round his grave a magic shade,
Still weeping the unfinished hymn he made,
There moves fresh Maia like a morning breeze
Blown over jonquil beds when warm rains cease.
And stooping where her poet’s head is laid,
Selene weeps while all the tides are stayed
And swaying seas are darkened into peace.
But they who wake the meadows and the tides
Have hearts too kind to bid him wake from sleep
Who murmurs sometimes when his dreams are deep,
Startling the Quiet Land where he abides,
And charming still, sad-eyed Persephone
With visions of the sunny earth and sea.