Identity

This was in the white of the year,
That was in the green,
Drifts were as difficult then to think
As daisies now to be seen.

Looking back is best that is left,
Or if it be before,
Retrospection is prospect's half,
Sometimes almost more.

Oh! thou that roll'st above thy glorious Fire,
Round as the shield which grac'd my godlike Sire,
Whence are the beams, O Sun! thy endless blaze,
Which far eclipse each minor Glory's rays?
Forth in thy Beauty here thou deign'st to shine!
Night quits her car, the twinkling stars decline;
Pallid and cold the Moon descends to cave
Her sinking beams beneath the Western wave;
But thou still mov'st alone, of light the Source -
Who can o'ertake thee in thy fiery course?
Oaks of the mountains fall, the rocks decay,
Weighed down with years the hills dissolve away.
A certain space to yonder Moon is given,
She rises, smiles, and then is lost in Heaven.
Ocean in sullen murmurs ebbs and flows,
But thy bright beam unchanged for ever glows!
When Earth is darkened with tempest...

Patron of all those luckless brains,
That, to the wrong side leaning,
Indite much metre with much pains,
And little or no meaning;


Ah why, since oceans, rivers, streams,
That water all the nations,
Pay tribute to thy glorious beams,
In constant exhalations;


Why, stooping from the noon of day,
Too covetous of drink,
Apollo, hast thou stolen away
A poet’s drop of ink?


Upborne into the viewless air,
It floats a vapour now,
Impell’d through regions dense and rare,
By all the winds that blow.


Ordain’d perhaps, ere summer flies,
Combined with millions more,
To form an iris in the skies,
Though black and foul before.


Illustrious drop! and happy then
Beyond the happiest lot,
Of a...

I must leave thee, lady sweet
Months shall waste before we meet;
Winds are fair and sails are spread,
Anchors leave their ocean bed;
Ere this shining day grow dark,
Skies shall gird my shoreless bark.
Through thy tears, O lady mine,
Read thy lover's parting line.

When the first sad sun shall set,
Thou shalt tear thy locks of jet;
When the morning star shall rise,
Thou shalt wake with weeping eyes;
When the second sun goes down,
Thou more tranquil shalt be grown,
Taught too well that wild despair
Dims thine eyes and spoils thy hair.

All the first unquiet week
Thou shalt wear a smileless cheek;
In the first month's second half
Thou shalt once attempt to laugh;
Then in Pickwick thou shalt dip,
Slightly puckering round the lip,...

Since I lost you I am silence-haunted,
Sounds wave their little wings
A moment, then in weariness settle
On the flood that soundless swings.

Whether the people in the street
Like pattering ripples go by,
Or whether the theatre sighs and sighs
With a loud, hoarse sigh:

Or the wind shakes a ravel of light
Over the dead-black river,
Or night's last echoing
Makes the daybreak shiver:

I feel the silence waiting
To take them all up again
In its vast completeness, enfolding
The sound of men.

A Dialogue: Addressed to a young Lady.


Friendship:

In vain thy lawless Fires contend with mine,
Tho' Crouds unnumber'd fall before thy Shrine;
Let Youths, who ne'er aspir'd to noble Fame,
And the soft Virgin, kindle at thy Flame,
Thee, Son of Indolence and Vice, I scorn,
By Reason nourish'd, and of Virtue born.

Love:

Vain is that boasted Reason 'gainst my Dart,
I pierce the Sage's, as the vulgar Heart,
All Ages, Sexes, the soft Torment share,
The hoary Patriot, and the blooming Fair.
To narrow Limits is thy Sway confin'd,
To some few Breasts, I triumph o'er Mankind.

Friendship:

From grov'ling Sources, ever springs thy Pow'r,
Still varying Fancy, and frail Beauty's Flow'r:
Then with its Cause the short liv'd A...

A'a awm feeared tha's come too sooin,
Little daisy!
Pray, whativer wor ta doin?
Are ta crazy?
Winter winds are blowin' yet, -
Tha'll be starved, mi little pet.

Did a gleam o' sunshine warm thee,
An' deceive thee?
Niver let appearance charm thee,
For believe me,
Smiles tha'll find are oft but snares,
Laid to catch thee unawares.

Still aw think it luks a shame,
To tawk sich stuff;
Aw've lost faith, an' tha'll do th' same,
Hi, sooin enuff.
If tha'rt happy as tha art
Trustin' must be th' wisest part.

Come, aw'll pile some bits o' stooan,
Raand thi dwellin';
They may screen thee when aw've gooanm,
Ther's no tellin';
An' when gentle spring draws near
Aw'll release thee, niver fear.

An' if then thi prett...

Quando Amor i begli occhi a terra inchina.

LAURA SINGS.


    If Love her beauteous eyes to earth incline,
And all her soul concentring in a sigh,
Then breathe it in her voice of melody,
Floating clear, soft, angelical, divine;
My heart, forth-stolen so gently, I resign,
And, all my hopes and wishes changed, I cry,--
"Oh, may my last breath pass thus blissfully,
If Heaven so sweet a death for me design!"
But the rapt sense, by such enchantment bound,
And the strong will, thus listening to possess
Heaven's joys on earth, my spirit's flight delay.
And thus I live; and thus drawn out and wound
Is my life's thread, in dreamy blessedness,
By this sole syren from the realms of day.

DACRE.


    Her bright and love-lit eyes...

    Waking in the night to pray,
    Sleeping when the answer comes,
    Foolish are we even at play--
    Tearfully we beat our drums!
    Cast the good dry bread away,
    Weep, and gather up the crumbs!

    "Evermore," while shines the day,
    "Lord," we cry, "thy will be done!"
    Soon as evening groweth gray,
    Thy fair will we fain would shun!
    "Take, oh, take thy hand away!
    See the horrid dark begun!"

    "Thou hast conquered Death," we say,
    "Christ, whom Hades could not keep!"
    Then, "Ah, see the pallid clay!
    Death it is," we cry, "not sleep!
    Grave, take all. Shut out the Day.
    Sit we on the ground and weep!"

    Gathering potsherds all the day,
    Truant children, Lord, we roam;
    F...

Minnie and Winnie
Slept in a shell.
Sleep, little ladies!
And they slept well.

Pink was the shell within,
Silver without;
Sounds of the great sea
Wander'd about.

Sleep, little ladies!
Wake not soon!
Echo on echo
Dies to the moon.

Two bright stars
Peep'd into the shell.
"What are you dreaming of?
Who can tell?"

Started a green linnet
Out of the croft;
Wake, little ladies,
The sun is aloft!

Kindle the taper like the steadfast star
Ablaze on evening's forehead o'er the earth,
And add each night a lustre till afar
An eightfold splendor shine above thy hearth.
Clash, Israel, the cymbals, touch the lyre,
Blow the brass trumpet and the harsh-tongued horn;
Chant psalms of victory till the heart takes fire,
The Maccabean spirit leap new-born.


Remember how from wintry dawn till night,
Such songs were sung in Zion, when again
On the high altar flamed the sacred light,
And, purified from every Syrian stain,
The foam-white walls with golden shields were hung,
With crowns and silken spoils, and at the shrine,
Stood, midst their conqueror-tribe, five chieftains sprung
From one heroic stock, one seed divine.


Five branches grown from Mat...

Over the sea our galleys went,
With cleaving prows in order brave,
To a speeding wind and a bounding wave,

A gallant armament:
Each bark built out of a forest-tree,

Left leafy and rough as first it grew,
And nailed all over the gaping sides,
Within and without, with black bull-hides,
Seethed in fat and suppled in flame,
To bear the playful billows' game:
So, each good ship was rude to see,
Rude and bare to the outward view,

But each upbore a stately tent
Where cedar-pales in scented row
Kept out the flakes of the dancing brine,
And an awning drooped the mast below,
In fold on fold of the purple fine,
That neither noontide nor star-shine
Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad,

Might pierce the regal tenement.
When the su...

Tan ala tan glaukan otan onemos atrema Balle - k.t.l.

When winds that move not its calm surface sweep
The azure sea, I love the land no more;
The smiles of the serene and tranquil deep
Tempt my unquiet mind. - But when the roar
Of Ocean's gray abyss resounds, and foam
Gathers upon the sea, and vast waves burst,
I turn from the drear aspect to the home
Of Earth and its deep woods, where, interspersed,
When winds blow loud, pines make sweet melody.
Whose house is some lone bark, whose toil the sea,
Whose prey the wandering fish, an evil lot
Has chosen. - But I my languid limbs will fling
Beneath the plane, where the brook's murmuring
Moves the calm spirit, but disturbs it not.

Last night I heard the plaintive whippoorwill,
And straightway Sorrow shot his swiftest dart.
I know not why, but it has chilled my heart
Like some dread thing of evil. All night long
My nerves were shaken, and my pulse stood still,
And waited for a terror yet to come
To strike harsh discords through my life's sweet song.
Sleep came - an incubus that filled the sum
Of wretchedness with dreams so wild and chill
The sweat oozed from me like great drops of gall;
An evil spirit kept my mind in thrall,
And rolled my body up like a poor scroll
On which is written curses that the soul
Shrinks back from when it sees some hellish carnival.

As those of old drank mummia
To fire their limbs of lead,
Making dead kings from Africa
Stand pandar to their bed;

Drunk on the dead, and medicined
With spiced imperial dust,
In a short night they reeled to find
Ten centuries of lust.

So I, from paint, stone, tale, and rhyme,
Stuffed love's infinity,
And sucked all lovers of all time
To rarify ecstasy.

Helen's the hair shuts out from me
Verona's livid skies;
Gypsy the lips I press; and see
Two Antonys in your eyes.

The unheard invisible lovely dead
Lie with us in this place,
And ghostly hands above my head
Close face to straining face;

Their blood is wine along our limbs;
Their whispering voices wreathe
Savage forgotten drowsy hymns
Under the nam...

As I came over Windy Gap
They threw a halfpenny into my cap,
For I am running to Paradise;
And all that I need do is to wish
And somebody puts his hand in the dish
To throw me a bit of salted fish:
And there the king is but as the beggar.

My brother Mourteen is worn out
With skelping his big brawling lout,
And I am running to Paradise;
A poor life do what he can,
And though he keep a dog and a gun,
A serving maid and a serving man:
And there the king is but as the beggar.

Poor men have grown to be rich men,
And rich men grown to be poor again,
And I am running to Paradise;
And many a darling wit’s grown dull
That tossed a bare heel when at school,
Now it has filled an old sock full:
And there the king is but as the beggar.
...

I'll sing you a song, not very long,
    But the story somewhat new,
Of William Kidd, who, whatever he did,
    To his Poll was always true.
He sailed away in a galliant ship
    From the port of old Bristol,
        And the last words he uttered,
        As his hankercher he fluttered,
    Were, "My heart is true to Poll."

        His heart was true to Poll,
        His heart was true to Poll,
            It's no matter what you do
            If your heart be only true:
        And his heart was true to Poll.

'Twas a wreck. William, on shore he swam,
    And looked about for an inn;
When a noble savage lady, of a color rather shady,
    Came up with a kind of grin:
"Oh, marry me, and a king you'll be,
    And in a pal...

Gaunt in gloom,
The pale stars their torches,
Enshrouded, wave.
Ghostfires from heaven's far verges faint illume,
Arches on soaring arches,
Night's sindark nave.

Seraphim,
The lost hosts awaken
To service till
In moonless gloom each lapses muted, dim,
Raised when she has and shaken
Her thurible.

And long and loud,
To night's nave upsoaring,
A starknell tolls
As the bleak incense surges, cloud on cloud,
Voidward from the adoring
Waste of souls.