Identity

How happy is the little stone
That rambles in the road alone,
And does n't care about careers,
And exigencies never fears;
Whose coat of elemental brown
A passing universe put on;
And independent as the sun,
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute decree
In casual simplicity.

The red blood clings in her cheeks and stings
Through their tan with a fever that lightens,
And the clearness of heaven-born mountain springs
In her dark eyes dusks and brightens.
And her limbs are the limbs of an Atalanta who swings
With the youths in the sinewy games,
When the hot air sings thro' the hair it flings,
And the circus roars hoarse with their names,
As they fly to the goal that flames.

A voice as deep as wan waters that sweep
Thro' the musical reeds of a river;
A song of red reapers that bind and reap,
With the ring of curved scythes that quiver.
The note-like lisp of the pippins that leap,
Ripe-mellowed to gold, to the ground;
The murmurous sleep that the cool leaves keep
On close lips that trickle with sound.

And sweet is the b...

I am not wiser for my age,
Nor skilful by my grief;
Life loiters at the book's first page,--
Ah! could we turn the leaf.

I
Enchanter of Erin, whose magic has bound us,
Thy wand for one moment we fondly would claim,
Entranced while it summons the phantoms around us
That blush into life at the sound of thy name.

The tell-tales of memory wake from their slumbers, -
I hear the old song with its tender refrain, -
What passion lies hid in those honey-voiced numbers
What perfume of youth in each exquisite strain!

The home of my childhood comes back as a vision, -
Hark! Hark! A soft chord from its song-haunted room, -
'T is a morning of May, when the air is Elysian, -
The syringa in bud and the lilac in bloom, -

We are clustered around the "Clementi" piano, -
There were six of us then, - there are two of us now, -
She is singing - the girl with the silver soprano -
How...

When the wasting embers redden the chimney-breast,
And Life's bare pathway looms like a desert track to me,
And from hall and parlour the living have gone to their rest,
My perished people who housed them here come back to me.

They come and seat them around in their mouldy places,
Now and then bending towards me a glance of wistfulness,
A strange upbraiding smile upon all their faces,
And in the bearing of each a passive tristfulness.

"Do you uphold me, lingering and languishing here,
A pale late plant of your once strong stock?" I say to them;
"A thinker of crooked thoughts upon Life in the sere,
And on That which consigns men to night after showing the day to them?"

" - O let be the Wherefore! We fevered our years not thus:
Take of Life what it grants, wi...

When from their game of dice men separate,
He, who hath lost, remains in sadness fix'd,
Revolving in his mind, what luckless throws
He cast: but meanwhile all the company
Go with the other; one before him runs,
And one behind his mantle twitches, one
Fast by his side bids him remember him.
He stops not; and each one, to whom his hand
Is stretch'd, well knows he bids him stand aside;
And thus he from the press defends himself.
E'en such was I in that close-crowding throng;
And turning so my face around to all,
And promising, I 'scap'd from it with pains.

Here of Arezzo him I saw, who fell
By Ghino's cruel arm; and him beside,
Who in his chase was swallow'd by the stream.
Here Frederic Novello, with his hand
Stretch'd forth, entreated; and of Pisa he,...

At Aix-la-Chapelle, in imperial array,
In its halls renowned in old story,
At the coronation banquet so gay
King Rudolf was sitting in glory.
The meats were served up by the Palsgrave of Rhine,
The Bohemian poured out the bright sparkling wine,
And all the Electors, the seven,
Stood waiting around the world-governing one,
As the chorus of stars encircle the sun,
That honor might duly be given.

And the people the lofty balcony round
In a throng exulting were filling;
While loudly were blending the trumpets' glad sound,
The multitude's voices so thrilling;
For the monarchless period, with horror rife,
Has ended now, after long baneful strife,
And the earth had a lord to possess her.
No longer ruled blindly the iron-bound spear,
And the weak and t...

Beloved, let us once more praise the rain.
Let us discover some new alphabet,
For this, the often praised; and be ourselves,
The rain, the chickweed, and the burdock leaf,
The green-white privet flower, the spotted stone,
And all that welcomes the rain; the sparrow too,
Who watches with a hard eye from seclusion,
Beneath the elm-tree bough, till rain is done.
There is an oriole who, upside down,
Hangs at his nest, and flicks an orange wing,
Under a tree as dead and still as lead;
There is a single leaf, in all this heaven
Of leaves, which rain has loosened from its twig:
The stem breaks, and it falls, but it is caught
Upon a sister leaf, and thus she hangs;
There is an acorn cup, beside a mushroom
Which catches three drops from the stooping cloud.
The tim...

I.

The flower that she gave to me
    Has withered now and died--
But yet with fond fidelity
    Its faded leaves abide.


II.

The petals that so fragrant then
    She wore upon her breast--
Still clinging to the lifeless stem,
    With miser care possessed.


III.

As when in sweetest purity
    It shed its perfume rare,
A symbol dear 'twill ever be
    Of one divinely fair!


IV.

Plucked by the cruel hand of Death
    In beauty's youthful bloom--
She perished with his chilling breath,
    And withered in the tomb.


V.

But I will cherish ever thus
    The token that she gave
When sun-lit skies were over us,
    Unclouded by the grave!

If you loved me ever so little,
I could bear the bonds that gall,
I could dream the bonds were brittle;
You do not love me at all.

O beautiful lips, O bosom
More white than the moon’s and warm,
A sterile, a ruinous blossom
Is blown your way in a storm.

As the lost white feverish limbs
Of the Lesbian Sappho, adrift
In foam where the sea-weed swims,
Swam loose for the streams to lift,

My heart swims blind in a sea
That stuns me; swims to and fro,
And gathers to windward and lee
Lamentation, and mourning, and woe.

A broken, an emptied boat,
Sea saps it, winds blow apart,
Sick and adrift and afloat,
The barren waif of a heart.

Where, when the gods would be cruel,
Do they go for a torture? where
Plant thor...

occasioned by His Majesty's Royal Encouragement of the Sea Service.


    To Which is Prefixed an Ode to the King; and a Discourse on Ode.


    I think myself obliged to recommend to you a consideration of the greatest importance; and I should look upon it as a great happiness, if, at the beginning of my reign, I could see the foundation laid of so great and necessary a work, as the increase and encouragement of our seamen in general; that they may be invited, rather than compelled by force and violence, to enter into the service of their country, as oft as occasion shall require it: a consideration worthy the representatives of a people great and flourishing in trade and navigation. This leads me to mention to you the case of Greenwich Hospital, that care may be taken, by some addition to that fund, to rend...

Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmèd sleep:
    Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
    Her pleasant lot.

She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
    And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
    That sadly sings.

Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
    The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
    Upon her hand.

Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core
    Till time ...

What tho' no sculptur'd monument proclaim
    Thy fate-yet Albert in my breast I bear
Inshrin'd the sad remembrance; yet thy name
    Will fill my throbbing bosom. When DESPAIR
The child of murdered HOPE, fed on thy heart,
    Loved honored friend, I saw thee sink forlorn
Pierced to the soul by cold Neglect's keen dart,
    And Penury's hard ills, and pitying Scorn,
And the dark spectre of departed JOY
    Inhuman MEMORY. Often on thy grave
Love I the solitary hour to employ
Thinking on other days; and heave the sigh
    Responsive, when I mark the high grass wave
Sad sounding as the cold breeze rustles by.

Thus I lift the sash, so long
Shut against the flight of song;
All too late for vain excuse, -
Lo, my captive rhymes are loose.

Rhymes that, flitting through my brain,
Beat against my window-pane,
Some with gayly colored wings,
Some, alas! with venomed stings.

Shall they bask in sunny rays?
Shall they feed on sugared praise?
Shall they stick with tangled feet
On the critic's poisoned sheet?

Are the outside winds too rough?
Is the world not wide enough?
Go, my winged verse, and try, -
Go, like Uncle Toby's fly!

I asked the first stray swallow of the spring,
"Where hast thou been through all the winter drear?
Beneath what distant skies did'st fold thy wing,
    Since thou wast with us here,
When Autumn's withered leaves foretold the passing year?"

And it replied, "Whither has Fancy led
The plumy thoughts that circle through thy brain?
Like birds about some mountain's lofty head,
    Singing a sweet refrain:
There, without bound, I've been, and must return again."

It may be so, - perhaps thou hast
A warm and loving heart;
I will not blame thee for thy face,
Poor devil as thou art.

That thing thou fondly deem'st a nose,
Unsightly though it be, -
In spite of all the cold world's scorn,
It may be much to thee.

Those eyes, - among thine elder friends
Perhaps they pass for blue, -
No matter, - if a man can see,
What more have eyes to do?

Thy mouth, - that fissure in thy face,
By something like a chin, -
May be a very useful place
To put thy victual in.

I know thou hast a wife at home,
I know thou hast a child,
By that subdued, domestic smile
Upon thy features mild.

That wife sits fearless by thy side,
That cherub on thy knee;
They do not shudder at thy looks,
T...

The mist hangs round the College tower,
    The ghostly street
Is silent at this midnight hour,
    Save for my feet.

With none to see, with none to hear,
    Downward I go
To where, beside the rugged pier,
    The sea sings low.

It sings a tune well loved and known
    In days gone by,
When often here, and not alone,
    I watched the sky.

That was a barren time at best,
    Its fruits were few;
But fruits and flowers had keener zest
    And fresher hue.

Life has not since been wholly vain,
    And now I bear
Of wisdom plucked from joy and pain
    Some slender share.

But, howsoever rich the store,
    I'd lay it down,
To feel upon my back once more
    The old red gown.

You lived in a land horror-haunted,
    And wrote with a pen half-divine;
You drank bitter sorrow, undaunted
    And cast precious pearls before swine.