Identity

Dimly and dumbly under the ground,
Groping the walls of their prison round,
The roots of the aged and garrulous trees
Are sending electrical messages
    From the under-world to the world without
And quickening pulses that course in each
    Fettered and bound and frozen thing,
Rootlets that tremble, and fibres that reach
    Are pushing inanimate fingers out,
To ask further inarticulate speech
        For tidings of Spring

And the fine invisible sprite which dwells
In cups and discs, in blossoms and bells,
Fleeter than Ariel's wing hath flown
Beyond this cloudy and frozen zone,
    To the summer land of the South,
Beyond those rugged sentinels
Which winter seta in the snow-capped hills,
    From the breath of whose cruel mouth,
Sighing, t...

We look up to the stars tonight,
    Idolatrous of them,
And dream that Heaven is in sight,
And each a ray of purest light
    From some celestial gem
    In her bright diadem.

Before that lonely home we wait,
    Ah! nevermore to see
Her lovely form within the gate
Where heart and hearthstone desolate
    And vine and shrub and tree
    Seem asking: "Where is she?"

There is the cottage Love had planned -
    Where hope in ashes lies -
A tower beautiful to stand,
Her monument whose gentle hand
    And presence in the skies
    Make home of Paradise.

In wintry bleakness nature glows
    Beneath the stellar ray;
We see the mold, but not the rose,
And meditate if knowledge goes
    Into yon mound of clay,
    W...

There was a time when I was confident
That God's stupendous mystery of birth
Was mine to know.    The wonder of it lent
New ecstasy and glory to the earth.
I heard no voice that uttered it aloud,
Nor was it written for me on a scroll;
Yet, if alone or in the common crowd,
I felt myself a consecrated soul.
My child leaped in its dark and silent room
And cried, 'I am,' though all unheard by men.
So leaps my spirit in the body's gloom
And cries, 'I live!    I shall be born again.'
Elate with certitude towards death I go,
Nor doubt, nor argue, since I know, I know!

Written In The Danville (KY.) Cemetery.


I.

Within thy hallowed precincts on this sweet autumnal day,
    We're wandering 'neath the cedar and the pine,
Where rests the sacred dust of loved ones passed away,
    And bleeding hearts a melancholy pleasure find.


II.

In memory's faithful mirror here once more we trace
    Familiar forms of those in life we knew,
And see again the shadowy outlines of some face
    That, living, beamed with kindness--ever true.


III.

Old age, and manhood's prime, and helpless infancy
    Have dotted o'er with many an emerald mound,
And marked each stone with mournful tracery
    Which stands within this consecrated ground.


IV.

And there the marble shaft its s...

    What are the Kaiser's favorite poems?
        Well, now, you tax me hard:
    I know the Kaiser's favorite drink
        But do not know his bard;
    I'm sure it is not Schiller
        Who reigns in German homes.
    Nor yet Olympian Goethe,
        Who writes the Kaiser's poems.

    Perhaps that Heinrich Heine
        Has touched the Kaiser's soul;
    Or Arndt with his trumpet call
        Like a new conscription roll;
    Or, Walther von der Vogelweide
        With his nest in mythic domes,
    Is the author and creator
        Of the Kaiser's favorite poems.

    If I saw the Kaiser's library
        I'd know well what he reads -
    The color of his fancy
        And the prompter of his deeds:
    I'd learn the depth a...

Another day of rest, and I sit here
Among the trees, green mounds, and leaves as sere
As my own blasted hopes. There was a time
When Love and perfect Happiness did chime
Like two sweet sounds upon this blessed day;
But one has flown forever, far away
From this poor Earth's unsatisfied desires
To love eternal, and the sacred fires
With which the other lighted up my mind
Have faded out and left no trace behind,
But dust and bitter ashes. Like a bark
Becalmed, I anchor through the midnight dark,
Still hoping for another dawn of Love.
Bring back my olive branch of Happiness, O dove!

    I was not beloved of the villagers,
    But all because I spoke my mind,
    And met those who transgressed against me
    With plain remonstrance, hiding nor nurturing
    Nor secret griefs nor grudges.
    That act of the Spartan boy is greatly praised,
    Who hid the wolf under his cloak,
    Letting it devour him, uncomplainingly.
    It is braver, I think, to snatch the wolf forth
    And fight him openly, even in the street,
    Amid dust and howls of pain.
    The tongue may be an unruly member -
    But silence poisons the soul.
    Berate me who will - I am content.

Who, then, was Cestius,
And what is he to me? -
Amid thick thoughts and memories multitudinous
One thought alone brings he.

I can recall no word
Of anything he did;
For me he is a man who died and was interred
To leave a pyramid

Whose purpose was exprest
Not with its first design,
Nor till, far down in Time, beside it found their rest
Two countrymen of mine.

Cestius in life, maybe,
Slew, breathed out threatening;
I know not. This I know: in death all silently
He does a kindlier thing,

In beckoning pilgrim feet
With marble finger high
To where, by shadowy wall and history-haunted street,
Those matchless singers lie . . .

- Say, then, he lived and died
That stones which bear his name
Should mark, throug...

His shatter’d Empire thunders to the ground:
A myriad hearts peal laughter as it falls,
While red flags flutter on its ruined walls
And living joy darts all the world around.
The imperial criminal, naked and uncrowned,
Breathing a shuddering air of curses, crawls,
Baffled and beaten, from his gorgeous halls,
While Vengeance halloos lapdog, cur and hound.

Behold the arrogant humbled, and rejoice
The grasping hand holds naught but flying dust,
And Envy meets the pitiless grin of Fate.
Take warning of your own heart’s inward voice,
Bid your own soul be humble and distrust
The yelping promises of greed and hate.

1.

Remind me not, remind me not,
Of those beloved, those vanish'd hours,
    When all my soul was given to thee;
Hours that may never be forgot,
Till Time unnerves our vital powers,
    And thou and I shall cease to be.


2.

Can I forget - canst thou forget,
When playing with thy golden hair,
    How quick thy fluttering heart did move?
Oh! by my soul, I see thee yet,
With eyes so languid, breast so fair,
    And lips, though silent, breathing love.


3.

When thus reclining on my breast,
Those eyes threw back a glance so sweet,
    As half reproach'd yet rais'd desire,
And still we near and nearer prest,
And still our glowing lips would meet,
As if in kisses to expire.


4.

And...

"Le temps le mieux employe est celui qu' on perd."
                                |Claude Tillier|.

I'd read three hours. Both notes and text
    Were fast a mist becoming;
In bounced a vagrant bee, perplexed,
    And filled the room with humming.

Then out. The casement's leafage sways,
    And, parted light, discloses
Miss Di., with hat and book, a maze
    Of muslin mixed with roses.

"You're reading Greek?" "I am, and you?"
    "O, mine's a mere romancer!"
"So Plato is." "Then read him, do;
    And I'll read mine in answer."

I read. "My Plato (Plato, too,
    That wisdom thus should harden!)
Declares 'blue eyes look doubly blue
    Beneath a Dolly Varden.'"

She smiled. "My book in turn avers
    (No author...

        Einst ziert' ich, den Aether durchspähend,
        Als Spitze des Urgebirg's Stock,
        Ruhm, Hoheit und Stellung verschmähend,
        Ward ich zum erratischen Block.


Once high on the mountain-peak rising,
    In sunlight I shone like a flame;
But height and position despising,
    A wandering boulder became.

They say of a thinker's bold sallies,
    He goes where the ice will not bear;
I was beckoned to false hollow valleys,
    By snow maids, seductive and fair.

Thus driven by furious fancies,
    I went down the hill with a shout;
But atoned for my youthful romances
    By a thousand years rolling about.

Cried the Glacier, his teeth sharply showing,
    Here, my blade, you'll be polished right well,
And f...

One room is full of luxury, and dim
    With that soft moonlit radiance of light
That she best loves, who sits and dreams of him
    Her heart has crowned as knight.

And one is bare, and comfortless, and dim
    With that strange, fitful glimmer that is shed
By candles casting shadows weird and grim,
    Above the sheeted dead.

In one, a round and beautiful young face
    Is full of wordless rapture; and so fair
You know her breast is joy's best dwelling-place;
    You know sweet love is there.

In one, there lies a white and wasted face
    Whereon is frozen such supreme despair,
You need but look to know what left the trace;
    You know love has been there.

To one he comes!    She leans her head of gold
    Upon his breast...

"Gabble-gabble,... brethren,... gabble-gabble!"
My window frames forest and heather.
I hardly hear the tuneful babble,
Not knowing nor much caring whether
The text is praise or exhortation,
Prayer or thanksgiving, or damnation.

Outside it blows wetter and wetter,
The tossing trees never stay still.
I shift my elbows to catch better
The full round sweep of heathered hill.
The tortured copse bends to and fro
In silence like a shadow-show.

The parson's voice runs like a river
Over smooth rocks. I like this church:
The pews are staid, they never shiver,
They never bend or sway or lurch.
"Prayer," says the kind voice, "is a chain
That draws down Grace from Heaven again."

I add the hymns up, over and over,
Until there's not the least...

There was grief within our household
    Because of a vacant chair.
Our mother, so loved and precious,
    No longer was sitting there.

Our hearts grew heavy with sorrow,
    Our eyes with tears were blind,
And little Jamie was wondering,
    Why we were left behind.

We had told our little darling,
    Of the land of love and light,
Of the saints all crowned with glory,
    And enrobed in spotless white.

We said that our precious mother,
    Had gone to that land so fair,
To dwell with beautiful angels,
    And to be forever there.

But the child was sorely puzzled,
    Why dear grandmamma should go
To dwell in a stranger city,
    When her children loved her so.

But again the mystic angel
    Came with swi...

        Esteem is frequently misplaced,
        Where she may even stand disgraced;
        We must allow to wealth and birth
        Precedence, which is due on earth:
        But our esteem is only due
        Unto the worth of man and virtue.

        Around an ancient pedigree
        There is a halo fair to see,
        With "unwrung withers" we afford
        Our salutation to milord,
        As due unto his ancient house,
        Albeit his lordship be a chouse.
        And riches dazzle us - we know
        How much they might or should bestow:
        But power is nothing, sans the will,
        Often recalcitrant to ill:
        And yet the mob will stand and gaze
        On each, with similar amaze.
        But worst of all the lot, w...

Oh dread uncertainty!
Life-wasting agony!
How dost thou pain the heart,
Causing such tears to start,
As sorrow never shed
O'er hopes for ever fled.
For memory hoards up joy
Beyond Time's dull alloy;
Pleasures that once have been
Shed light upon the scene,
As setting suns fling back
A bright and glowing track,
To show they once have cast
A glory o'er the past;
But thou, tormenting fiend,
Beneath Hope's pinions screened,
Leagued with distrust and pain,
Makest her promise vain;
Weaving in life's fair crown
Thistles instead of down.

Who would not rather know
Present than coming woe?
For certain sorrow brings
A healing in its wings.
The softening touch of years
Still dries the mourner's tears;
For human minds ...

O Cloud so golden, stealing o'er the sky,
Like pensive thought across a virgin mind,
Scarce sadder than the sunshine left behind;
Would that o'er heaven with thee my soul could fly,
Scanning Earth's beauty with a lover's eye,
Tracing the waving waters and the woods,
Their sleepy shades and silent solitudes,
Where all the summer through I long to lie.
O Cloud so golden stealing o'er the sky,
Sail'd I within thy bosom o'er heaven's main,
Methinks that, gazing downward on the glory,
The liquid loveliness of sea and plain,
Of mountain, isle, and leafy promontory,
My soul would melt and fall again in rain.