Identity

I.

Summer evenings, when it's warm,
In the yard we sit and swing:
And it's better than a farm,
Watching how the fireflies swarm,
Listening to the crickets sing,
And the katydids that cry,
"Katy did n't! Katy did!"
In the trees and flowers hid.
So I ask my father, "Why?
What's the thing she did n't do?"
For he told me that he knew:
"Katy did n't like to worry;
But she did so like to talk;
Gossip of herself and talk;
Katy did n't like to hurry;
But she did so like to walk;
Saunter by herself and walk.
How is that now for a story?"

II.

And one night when it was fine,
And the moon peeped through the trees;
And the scented jessamine vine
Swung its blossoms in the breeze,
Full of sleeping honeybees:
"Tha...

In that fair capital where Pleasure, crowned
Amidst her myriad courtiers, riots and rules,
I too have been a suitor. Radiant eyes
Were my life's warmth and sunshine, outspread arms
My gilded deep horizons. I rejoiced
In yielding to all amorous influence
And multiple impulsion of the flesh,
To feel within my being surge and sway
The force that all the stars acknowledge too.
Amid the nebulous humanity
Where I an atom crawled and cleaved and sundered,
I saw a million motions, but one law;
And from the city's splendor to my eyes
The vapors passed and there was nought but Love,
A ferment turbulent, intensely fair,
Where Beauty beckoned and where Strength pursued.

Complacent Fictions were they, yet the same
Involved a history of no doubtful sense,
History that proves by inward evidence
From what a precious source of truth it came.
Ne'er could the boldest Eulogist have dared
Such deeds to paint, such characters to frame,
But for coeval sympathy prepared
To greet with instant faith their loftiest claim.
None but a noble people could have loved
Flattery in Ancient Rome's pure-minded style:
Not in like sort the Runic Scald was moved;
He, nursed 'mid savage passions that defile
Humanity, sang feats that well might call
For the blood-thirsty mead of Odin's riotous Hall.

While not a leaf seems faded; while the fields,
With ripening harvest prodigally fair,
In brightest sunshine bask; this nipping air,
Sent from some distant clime where Winter wields
His icy scimitar, a foretaste yields
Of bitter change, and bids the flowers beware;
And whispers to the silent birds, "Prepare
Against the threatening foe your trustiest shields."
For me, who under kindlier laws belong
To Nature's tuneful quire, this rustling dry
Through leaves yet green, and yon crystalline sky,
Announce a season potent to renew,
'Mid frost and snow, the instinctive joys of song,
And nobler cares than listless summer knew.

The little tents the wildflowers raise
Are tabernacles where Love prays
And Beauty preaches all the days.

I walk the woodland through and through,
And everywhere I see their blue
And gold where I may worship too.

All hearts unto their inmost shrine
Of fragrance they invite; and mine
Enters and sees the All Divine.

I hark; and with some inward ear
Soft words of praise and prayer I hear,
And bow my head and have no fear.

For God is present as I see
In them; and gazes out at me
Kneeling to His divinity.

Oh, holiness that Nature knows,
That dwells within each thing that grows,
Vestured with dreams as is the rose.

With perfume! whereof all things preach
The birds, the brooks, the leaves, that reach
Our hearts ...

Far in the ways of the hyaline wastes in the face of the splendid
Six of the sisters the star-dowered sisters ineffably bright,
Merope sitteth, the shadow-like wife of a monarch unfriended
Of Ades of Orcus, the fierce, the implacable god of the night.
Merope fugitive Merope! lost to thyself and thy lover,
Cast, like a dream, out of thought, with the moons which have passed into sleep,
What shall avail thee? Alcyone’s tears, or the sight to discover
Of Sisyphus pallid for thee by the blue, bitter lights of the deep
Pallid, but patient for sorrow? Oh, thou of the fire and the water,
Half with the flame of the sunset, and kin to the streams of the sea,
Hast thou the songs of old times for desire of thy dark-featured daughter,
Sweet with the lips of thy yearning, O Aethra! with tokens of ...

The smell of the sea in my nostrils,
The sound of the sea in mine ears;
The touch of the spray on my burning face,
Like the mist of reluctant tears.

The blue of the sky above me,
The green of the waves beneath;
The sun flashing down on a gray-white sail
Like a scimitar from its sheath.

And ever the breaking billows,
And ever the rocks' disdain;
And ever a thrill in mine inmost heart
That my reason cannot explain.

So I say to my heart, "Be silent,
The mystery of time is here;
Death's way will be plain when we fathom the main,
And the secret of life be clear."

I

One by one they go
Into the unknown dark--
Star-lit brows of the brave,
Voices that drew men's souls.
Rich is the land, O Death!
Can give you dead like our dead!--
Such as he from whose hand
The magic web of romance
Slipt, and the art was lost!
Such as he who erewhile--
The last of the Titan brood--
With his thunder the Senate shook;
Or he who, beside the Charles,
Untoucht of envy or hate,
Tranced the world with his song;
Or that other, that gray-eyed seer
Who in pastoral Concord ways
With Plato and Hafiz walked.


II

Not of these was the man
Whose wraith, through the mists of night,
Through the shuddering wintry stars,
Has passed to eternal morn.
Fit were the moan of the sea
And the clashing...

I dug a grave, one smiling April day,
    A grave whose small proportions testified
To empty arms, and playthings put away,
    To ears which heard, when only fancy cried;
        I wondered, as I shaped that little mound,
        If in my home such grief should e'er be found.

I dug a grave, 'twas in the month of June;
    A grave for one who at his zenith died;
When, on that mound with floral tributes strewn,
    The tear-drops fell of one but late his bride,
        I wondered if upon my silent bier
        Should rest the moist impression of a tear.

I dug a grave by Autumn's sober light,
    A grave of full dimensions; 'twas for one
Whose hair had changed its raven hue to white,
    Whose course had finished with the setting sun;
        I wonde...

Thither, as I look, I see each result and glory retracing itself and nestling close, always obligated;
Thither hours, months, years thither trades, compacts, establishments, even the most minute;
Thither every-day life, speech, utensils, politics, persons, estates;
Thither we also, I with my leaves and songs, trustful, admirant,
As a father, to his father going, takes his children along with him.

It's "Gallop and go!" and "Slow, now, slow!"
With every man in this life below
But the things of this world are a fleeting show.

The postchaise Time that all must take
Is old with clay and dust;
Two horses strain its rusty brake
Named Pleasure and Disgust.

Our baggage totters on its roof,
Of Vanity and Care,
As Hope, the postboy, spurs each hoof,
Or heavy-eyed Despair.

And now a comrade with us rides,
Love, haply, or Remorse;
And that dim traveler besides,
Gaunt Memory on a horse.

And be we king or be we kern
Who ride the roads of Sin,
No matter how the roads may turn
They lead us to that Inn.

Unto that Inn within that land
Of silence and of gloom,
Whose ghastly landlord takes our hand
And leads us to...

Peace! Let me go, or ere it be too late;
    Dip not your arrows in the honey-mead;
    Paint not the wound through which my heart doth bleed;
Leave me unmock'd, unpitied to my fate--
Peace! Let me go.

Think you that words can smooth my rugged track?
    Words heal the stab your soft white hands have made,
    Or stir the burthen on my bosom laid?
Winds shook not Earth from Atlas' bended back--
Peace! Let me go.

What though it be the last time we shall meet--
    Raise your white brow, and wreathe your raven hair,
    And fill with music sweet the summer air;
Not this again shall draw me to your feet--
Peace! Let me go.

No laurels from my vanquish'd heart shall wave
    Round your triumphant beauty as you go,
    Not thus adorn'd work ou...

There is darkness behind the light -- and the pale light drips
Cold on vague shapes and figures, that, half-seen loom
Like the carven prows of proud, far-triumphing ships --
And the firelight wavers and changes about the room,

As the three logs crackle and burn with a small still sound;
Half-blotting with dark the deeper dark of her hair,
Where she lies, head pillowed on arm, and one hand curved round
To shield the white face and neck from the faint thin glare.

Gently she breathes -- and the long limbs lie at ease,
And the rise and fall of the young, slim, virginal breast
Is as certain-sweet as the march of slow wind through trees,
Or the great soft passage of clouds in a sky at rest.

I kneel, and our arms enlace, and we kiss long, long.
I am drowned in her...

I have seen things that charmed the heart to rest:
Faint moonlight on the towers of ancient towns,
Flattering the soul to dream of old renowns;
The first clear silver on the mountain crest
Where the lone eagle by his chilly nest
Called the lone soul to brood serenely free;
Still pools of sunlight shimmering in the sea,
Calm after storm, wherein the storm seemed blest.

But here a peace deeper than peace is furled,
Enshrined and chaliced from the changeful hour;
The snow is still, yet lives in its own light.
Here is the peace which brooded day and night,
Before the heart of man with its wild power
Had ever spurned or trampled the great world.

See how, like lightest waves at play, the airy dancers fleet;
And scarcely feels the floor the wings of those harmonious feet.
Ob, are they flying shadows from their native forms set free?
Or phantoms in the fairy ring that summer moonbeams see?
As, by the gentle zephyr blown, some light mist flees in air,
As skiffs that skim adown the tide, when silver waves are fair,
So sports the docile footstep to the heave of that sweet measure,
As music wafts the form aloft at its melodious pleasure,
Now breaking through the woven chain of the entangled dance,
From where the ranks the thickest press, a bolder pair advance,
The path they leave behind them lost wide open the path beyond,
The way unfolds or closes up as by a magic wand.
See now, they vanish from the gaze in wild confusion blen...

When I read the book, the biography famous,
And is this, then, (said I,) what the author calls a man's life?
And so will some one, when I am dead and gone, write my life?
(As if any man really knew aught of my life;
Why, even I myself, I often think, know little or nothing of my real life;
Only a few hints, a few diffused, faint clues and indirections,
I seek, for my own use, to trace out here.)

The passion of despair is quelled at last;
    The cruel sense of undeserved wrong,
The wild self-pity, these are also past;
    She knows not what may come, but she is strong;
She feels she hath not aught to lose nor gain,
Her patience is the essence of all pain.


As one who sits beside a lapsing stream,
    She sees the flow of changeless day by day,
Too sick and tired to think, too sad to dream,
    Nor cares how soon the waters slip away,
Nor where they lead; at the wise God's decree,
She will depart or bide indifferently.


There is deeper pathos in the mild
    And settled sorrow of the quiet eyes,
Than in the tumults of the anguish wild,
    That made her curse all things beneath the skies;
No question, no reproaches, no complaint,<...

Survey my Features, you will own it clear
That little skill has been exerted here.
My Friends, who know me not here smile to see
How ill the model and the work agree.


Another Translation of the Same.

Look on myself, you will own at once
This Copy of me, taken by a Dunce.
My Friends, who gaze and guess not whom ye see,
Laugh! Would ye think it? He intended me!