Identity

The rosy hills of her high breasts,
Whereon, like misty morning, rests
The breathing lace; her auburn hair,
Wherein, a star point sparkling there,
One jewel burns; her eyes, that keep
Recorded dreams of song and sleep;
Her mouth, with whose comparison
The richest rose were poor and wan;
Her throat, her form - what masterpiece
Of man can picture half of these!
She comes! a classic from the hand
Of God! wherethrough I understand
What Nature means and Art and Love,
And all the lovely Myths thereof.

I

Hot through Troy's ruin Menelaus broke
To Priam's palace, sword in hand, to sate
On that adulterous whore a ten years' hate
And a king's honour. Through red death, and smoke,
And cries, and then by quieter ways he strode,
Till the still innermost chamber fronted him.
He swung his sword, and crashed into the dim
Luxurious bower, flaming like a god.

High sat white Helen, lonely and serene.
He had not remembered that she was so fair,
And that her neck curved down in such a way;
And he felt tired. He flung the sword away,
And kissed her feet, and knelt before her there,
The perfect Knight before the perfect Queen.


II

So far the poet. How should he behold
That journey home, the long connubial years?
He does not tell you how...

    Ye who are kicking against Fate,
    Tell me how it is that on this hill-side
    Running down to the river,
    Which fronts the sun and the south-wind,
    This plant draws from the air and soil
    Poison and becomes poison ivy?
    And this plant draws from the same air and soil
    Sweet elixirs and colors and becomes arbutus?
    And both flourish?
    You may blame Spoon River for what it is,
    But whom do you blame for the will in you
    That feeds itself and makes you dock-weed,
    Jimpson, dandelion or mullen
    And which can never use any soil or air
    So as to make you jessamine or wistaria?

Scattering, like birds escaped the fowler's net,
Some seek with timely flight a foreign strand;
Most happy, re-assembled in a land
By dauntless Luther freed, could they forget
Their Country's woes. But scarcely have they met,
Partners in faith, and brothers in distress,
Free to pour forth their common thankfulness,
Ere hope declines: their union is beset
With speculative notions rashly sown,
Whence thickly-sprouting growth of poisonous weeds;
Their forms are broken staves; their passions, steeds
That master them. How enviably blest
Is he who can, by help of grace, enthrone
The peace of God within his single breast!

One moonlit night a ship drove in,
    A ghost ship from the west,
Drifting with bare mast and lone tiller,
    Like a mermaid drest
In long green weed and barnacles:
    She beached and came to rest.

All the watchers of the coast
    Flocked to view the sight,
Men and women streaming down
    Through the summer night,
Found her standing tall and ragged
    Beached in the moonlight.

Then one old woman looked and wept
    "The 'Alice Jean'?    But no!
The ship that took my Dick from me
    Sixty years ago
Drifted back from the utmost west
    With the ocean's flow?

"Caught and caged in the weedy pool
    Beyond the western brink,
Where crewless vessels lie and rot
    in waters black as ink.
Torn out again by a su...

Quante fiate al mio dolce ricetto.

HER FORM STILL HAUNTS HIM IN SOLITUDE.


    How oft, all lonely, to my sweet retreat
From man and from myself I strive to fly,
Bathing with dewy eyes each much-loved seat,
And swelling every blossom with a sigh!
How oft, deep musing on my woes complete,
Along the dark and silent glens I lie,
In thought again that dearest form to meet
By death possess'd, and therefore wish to die!
How oft I see her rising from the tide
Of Sorga, like some goddess of the flood;
Or pensive wander by the river's side;
Or tread the flowery mazes of the wood;
Bright as in life; while angel pity throws
O'er her fair face the impress of my woes.

MERIVALE.

A Scythian philosopher austere,
Resolved his rigid life somewhat to cheer,
Perform'd the tour of Greece, saw many things,
But, best, a sage, - one such as Virgil sings, -
A simple, rustic man, that equal'd kings;
From whom, the gods would hardly bear the palm;
Like them unawed, content, and calm.
His fortune was a little nook of land;
And there the Scythian found him, hook in hand,
His fruit-trees pruning. Here he cropp'd
A barren branch, there slash'd and lopp'd,
Correcting Nature everywhere,
Who paid with usury his care.
'Pray, why this wasteful havoc, sir?' -
So spoke the wondering traveller;
'Can it, I ask, in reason's name,
Be wise these harmless trees to maim?
Fling down that instrument of crime,
And leave them to the scythe of Time.
Full ...

Pure fount, that, welling from this wooded hill,
Dost wander forth, as into life's wide vale,
Thou to the traveller dost tell no tale
Of other years; a lone, unnoticed rill,
In thy forsaken track, unheard of men,
Melting thy own sweet music through the glen.
Time was when other sounds and songs arose;
When o'er the pensive scene, at evening's close,
The distant bell was heard; or the full chant,
At morn, came sounding high and jubilant;
Or, stealing on the wildered pilgrim's way,
The moonlight "Miserere" died away,
Like all things earthly.
Stranger, mark the spot;
No echoes of the chiding world intrude.
The structure rose and vanished; solitude
Possessed the woods again; old Time forgot,
Passing to wider spoil, its place and name.
Since then, even as...

Some born of homely parents
For ages settled down,
The steady generations
Of village, farm, and town:
And some of dusky fathers
Who wandered since the flood,
The fairest skin or darkest
Might hold the roving blood,

Some born of brutish peasants,
And some of dainty peers,
In poverty or plenty
They pass their early years;
But, born in pride of purple,
Or straw and squalid sin,
In all the far world corners
The wanderers are kin.

A rover or a rebel,
Conceived and born to roam,
As babies they will toddle
With faces turned from home;
They’ve fought beyond the vanguard
Wherever storm has raged,
And home is but a prison
They pace like lions caged.

They smile and are not happy;
They sing and are not gay;

    I never heard
Of any true affection, but ’twas nipt
With care, that, like the caterpillar, eats
The leaves of the spring’s sweetest book, the rose.
- MIDDLETON.



It is a common practice with those who have outlived the susceptibility of early feeling, or have been brought up in the gay heartlessness of dissipated life, to laugh at all love stories, and to treat the tales of romantic passion as mere fictions of novelists and poets. My observations on human nature have induced me to think otherwise. They have convinced me that, however the surface of the character may be chilled and frozen by the cares of the world, or cultivated into mere smiles by the arts of society, still there are dormant fires lurking in the depths of the coldest bosom, which, when once enkindled, become impetuous, ...

O dear my Country, beautiful and dear,
Love cloth not darken sight.
God looketh through Love's eyes, whose vision clear
Beholds more flaws than keenest Hate hath known.
Nor is Love's judgment gentle, but austere;
The heart of Love must break ere it condone
One stain upon the white.

There comes an hour when on the parent turns
The challenge of the child;
The bridal passion for perfection burns;
Life gives her last allegiance to the best;
Each sweet idolatry the spirit spurns,
Once more enfranchised for its starry quest
Of beauty undefiled.

Love must be one with honor; yet to-day
Love liveth by a sign;
Allows no lasting compromise with clay,
But tends the mounting miracle of gold,
Content with service till the bud make way
To the rejoi...

Life swelleth in a whitening wave,
And dasheth thee and me apart.
I sweep out seaward: -    be thou brave.
And reach the shore, Sweetheart.

Beat back the backward-thrusting sea.
Thy weak white arm his blows may thwart,
Christ buffet the wild surge for thee
Till thou'rt ashore, Sweetheart.

Ah, now thy face grows dim apace,
And seems of yon white foam a part.
Canst hear me through the water-bass,
Cry: "To the Shore, Sweetheart?"

Now Christ thee soothe upon the Shore,
My lissome-armed sea-Britomart.
I sweep out seaward, never more
To find the Shore, Sweetheart.


Prattville, Alabama, December, 1867.

(For My Mother)



The fragile splendour of the level sea,
The moon's serene and silver-veiled face,
Make of this vessel an enchanted place
Full of white mirth and golden sorcery.
Now, for a time, shall careless laughter be
Blended with song, to lend song sweeter grace,
And the old stars, in their unending race,
Shall heed and envy young humanity.

And yet to-night, a hundred leagues away,
These waters blush a strange and awful red.
Before the moon, a cloud obscenely grey
Rises from decks that crash with flying lead.
And these stars smile their immemorial way
On waves that shroud a thousand newly dead!

[1]

A noted thief, the kite,
Had set a neighbourhood in fright,
And raised the clamorous noise
Of all the village boys,
When, by misfortune, - sad to say, -
A nightingale fell in his way.
Spring's herald begg'd him not to eat
A bird for music - not for meat.
'O spare!' cried she, 'and I'll relate
'The crime of Tereus and his fate.' -
'What's Tereus?[2] Is it food for kites?' -
'No, but a king, of female rights
The villain spoiler, whom I taught
A lesson with repentance fraught;
And, should it please you not to kill,
My song about his fall
Your very heart shall thrill,
As it, indeed, does all.' -
Replied the kite, a 'pretty thing!
When I am faint and famishing,
To let you go, and hear you sing?' -
'Ah, b...

I cannot tell, of twain beneath this bond,
Which one in grief the other goes beyond,---
Narcissus, who to end the pain he bore
Died of the love that could not help him more;
Or I, that pine because I cannot see
The lady who is queen and love to me.

Nay--for Narcissus, in the forest pond
Seeing his image, made entreaty fond,
"Beloved, comfort on my longing pour":
So for a while he soothed his passion sore;
So cannot I, for all too far is she---
The lady who is queen and love to me.

But since that I have Love's true colours donned,
I in his service will not now despond,
For in extremes Love yet can all restore:
So till her beauty walks the world no more
All day remembered in my hope shall be
The lady who is queen and love to me.

It is the story of Thompson of Thompson, the hero of Angels.
Frequently drunk was Thompson, but always polite to the stranger;
Light and free was the touch of Thompson upon his revolver;
Great the mortality incident on that lightness and freedom.

Yet not happy or gay was Thompson, the hero of Angels;
Often spoke to himself in accents of anguish and sorrow,
“Why do I make the graves of the frivolous youth who in folly
Thoughtlessly pass my revolver, forgetting its lightness and freedom?

“Why in my daily walks does the surgeon drop his left eyelid,
The undertaker smile, and the sculptor of gravestone marbles
Lean on his chisel and gaze? I care not o’er much for attention;
Simple am I in my ways, save but for this lightness and freedom.”

So spake that pensive man t...

Thou arrant robber, Death!
Couldst thou not find
Some lesser one than he
To rob of breath,--
Some poorer mind
Thy prey to be?

His mind was like the sky,--
As pure and free;
His heart was broad and open
As the sea.
His soul shone purely through his face,
And Love made him her dwelling place.

Not less the scholar than the friend,
Not less a friend than man;
The manly life did shorter end
Because so broad it ran.

Weep not for him, unhappy Muse!
His merits found a grander use
Some other-where. God wisely sees
The place that needs his qualities.
Weep not for him, for when Death lowers
O'er youth's ambrosia-scented bowers
He only plucks the choicest flowers.

Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's day
Gave his broad lawns until the set of sun
Up to the people: thither flocked at noon
His tenants, wife and child, and thither half
The neighbouring borough with their Institute
Of which he was the patron. I was there
From college, visiting the son,--the son
A Walter too,--with others of our set,
Five others: we were seven at Vivian-place.

And me that morning Walter showed the house,
Greek, set with busts: from vases in the hall
Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names,
Grew side by side; and on the pavement lay
Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park,
Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time;
And on the tables every clime and age
Jumbled together; celts and calumets,
Claymore and snowshoe, toys...