Identity

A score of years had come and gone
Since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth stone,
When Captain Underhill, bearing scars
From Indian ambush and Flemish wars,
Left three-hilled Boston and wandered down,
East by north, to Cocheco town.

With Vane the younger, in counsel sweet,
He had sat at Anna Hutchinson's feet,
And, when the bolt of banishment fell
On the head of his saintly oracle,
He had shared her ill as her good report,
And braved the wrath of the General Court.

He shook from his feet as he rode away
The dust of the Massachusetts Bay.
The world might bless and the world might ban,
What did it matter the perfect man,
To whom the freedom of earth was given,
Proof against sin, and sure of heaven?

He cheered his heart as he rode along<...

My beloved, is it nothing
Though we meet not, neither can,
That I see thee, and thou me,
That we see, and see we see,
When I see I also feel thee;
Is it nothing, my beloved!

Thy luminous clear beauty
Brightens on me in my night,
I withdraw into my darkness
To allure thee into light.
About me and upon me I feel them pass and stay,
About me, deep into me, every lucid tender ray.
And thou, thou also feelest
When thou stealest
Shamefaced and half afraid
To the chamber of thy shade,
Thou in thy turn,
Thou too feelest
Something follow, something yearn,
A full orb blaze and burn.

My full orb upon thine,
As thine erst, gently smiling,
Softly wooing, sweetly wiling,
Gleamed on mine;
So mine on thine in turn
When ...

When I first ended, then I first began;
The more I trauell, further from my rest;
Where most I lost, there most of all I wan;
Pyned with hunger, rysing from a feast.
Mee thinks I flee, yet want I legs to goe,
Wise in conceite, in acte a very sot;
Rauisht with ioy amidst a hell of woe,
What most I seeme, that surest I am not.
I build my hopes a world aboue the skye,
Yet with a Mole I creepe into the earth:
In plenty am I staru'd with penury,
And yet I serfet in the greatest dearth.
    I haue, I want, dispayre, and yet desire,
    Burn'd in a Sea of Ice, and drown'd amidst a fire.

“Gillian’s dead, God rest her bier,
How I loved her many years syne;
Marion’s married, but I sit here,
Alive and merry at three-score year,
Dipping my nose in Gascoigne wine.”
- Wamba’s Song, Thackeray.


A mellower light doth Sol afford,
His meridian glare has pass’d,
And the trees on the broad and sloping sward
Their length’ning shadows cast.
“Time flies.” The current will be no joke,
If swollen by recent rain,
To cross in the dark, so I’ll have a smoke,
And then I’ll be off again.

What’s up, old horse? Your ears you prick,
And your eager eyeballs glisten;
’Tis the wild dog’s note in the tea-tree thick,
By the river, to which you listen.
With head erect and tail flung out,
For a gallop you seem to beg,
But I feel th...

Love, though for this you riddle me with darts,
And drag me at your chariot till I die,--
Oh, heavy prince! Oh, panderer of hearts!--
Yet hear me tell how in their throats they lie
Who shout you mighty: thick about my hair
Day in, day out, your ominous arrows purr
Who still am free, unto no querulous care
A fool, and in no temple worshiper!
I, that have bared me to your quiver's fire,
Lifted my face into its puny rain,
Do wreathe you Impotent to Evoke Desire
As you are Powerless to Elicit Pain!
(Now will the god, for blasphemy so brave,
Punish me, surely, with the shaft I crave!)

Thanks for thy song, sweet Bird! thanks for thy song!
O! 'twas delightful; how have I been lost
As in a blissful dream! how has my soul
Been wafted in a sea of melody!
Scarce yet am I awake, yet scarce myself:
Still with the enchanting music's dying breath
The air is kept in motion, and conveys
Sweet whispers to the finely-listening ear;
Or is it but an echo from the cell
Of memory that deludes my doating sense?
Ah! now 'tis gone; Silence resumes her sway,
And o'er my hearing spreads her subtile web;
But she resumes it, changed, methinks, in nature,
More soft, more amiable, as if inform'd
With the departed soul of harmony.

Thanks for thy song, sweet Bird! it well deserves
All my heart's gratitude; for it has still'd
Its anxious throbbings, and remov...

The twilight is sad and cloudy,
    The wind blows wild and free,
And like the wings of sea-birds
    Flash the white caps of the sea.

But in the fisherman's cottage
    There shines a ruddier light,
And a little face at the window
    Peers out into the night.

Close, close it is pressed to the window,
    As if those childish eyes
Were looking into the darkness,
    To see some form arise.

And a woman's waving shadow
    Is passing to and fro,
Now rising to the ceiling,
    Now bowing and bending low.

What tale do the roaring ocean,
    And the night-wind, bleak and wild,
As they beat at the crazy casement,
    Tell to that little child?

And why do the roaring ocean,
    And the night-wind, wild and bleak...

Stand out, swift-footed leaders of the horns,
And draw strong breath, and fill the hollowy cliff
With shocks of clamour, let the chasm take
The noise of many trumpets, lest the hunt
Should die across the dim Aonian hills,
Nor break through thunder and the surf-white cave
That hems about the old-eyed Ogyges
And bars the sea-wind, rain-wind, and the sea!

Much fierce delight hath old-eyed Ogyges
(A hairless shadow in a lion’s skin)
In tumult, and the gleam of flying spears,
And wild beasts vexed to death; “for,” sayeth he,
“Here lying broken, do I count the days
For every trouble; being like the tree
The many-wintered father of the trunks
On yonder ridges: wherefore it is well
To feel the dead blood kindling in my veins
At sound of boar or battle; yea ...

        In the midnight of darkness and terror,
    When I would grope nearer to God,
        With my back to a record of error
    And the highway of sin I have trod,
        There come to me shapes I would banish -
    The shapes of the deeds I have done;
        And I pray and I plead till they vanish -
    All vanish and leave me, save one.

        That one with a smile like the splendor
    Of the sun in the middle-day skies -
        That one with a spell that is tender -
    That one with a dream in her eyes -
        Cometh close, in her rare Southern beauty,
    Her languor, her indolent grace;
        And my soul turns its back on its duty,
    To live in the light of her face.

        She touches my cheek, and I quiver -
    I tremb...

With blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the pear to the gable-wall.
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

Her tears fell with the dews at even;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,
When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
She only said, "My life is dreary,
He come...

On such a day the shrunken stream
Spends its last water and runs dry;
Clouds like far turrets in a dream
Stand baseless in the burning sky.
On such a day at every rod
The toilers in the hay-field halt,
With dripping brows, and the parched sod
Yields to the crushing foot like salt.

But here a little wind astir,
Seen waterward in jetting lines,
From yonder hillside topped with fir
Comes pungent with the breath of pines;
And here when all the noon hangs still,
White-hot upon the city tiles,
A perfume and a wintry chill
Breathe from the yellow lumber-piles.

And all day long there falls a blur
Of noises upon listless ears,
The rumble of the trams, the stir
Of barges at the clacking piers;
The champ of wheels, the crash of steam,

Scene - A spacious drawing-room, with music-room adjoining.

Katharine. What are the words?

Eliza. Ask our friend, the Improvisatore; here he comes. Kate has a favour to ask of you, Sir; it is that you will repeat the ballad [Believe me if all those endearing young charms. - EHC's ? note] that Mr. ____ sang so sweetly.
Friend. It is in Moore's Irish Melodies; but I do not recollect the words distinctly. The moral of them, however, I take to be this:

Love would remain the same if true,
When we were neither young nor new;
Yea, and in all within the will that came,
By the same proofs would show itself the same.

Eliza. What are the lines you repeated from Beaumont and Fletcher, which my mother admired so much? It begins with something about two v...

Cover him over with daisies white
And eke with the poppies red,
Sit with me here by his couch to-night,
For the First-Born, Love, is dead.

Poor little fellow, he seemed so fair
As he lay in my jealous arms;
Silent and cold he is lying there
Stripped of his darling charms.

Lusty and strong he had grown forsooth,
Sweet with an infinite grace,
Proud in the force of his conquering youth,
Laughter alight in his face.

Oh, but the blast, it was cruel and keen,
And ah, but the chill it was rare;
The look of the winter-kissed flow'r you've seen
When meadows and fields were bare.

Can you not wake from this white, cold sleep
And speak to me once again?
True that your slumber is deep, so deep,
But deeper by far is my pain.

It may indeed be fantasy when I
Essay to draw from all created things
Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings;
And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie
Lessons of love and earnest piety.
So let it be; and if the wide world rings
In mock of this belief, it brings
Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity.
So will I build my altar in the fields,
And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,
And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields
Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee,
Thee only God! and thou shalt not despise
Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice.

Oh, enter old minstrel, thou time-honour'd one!
We children are here in the hall all alone,

The portals we straightway will bar.
Our mother is praying, our father is gone

To the forest, on wolves to make war.
Oh sing us a ballad, the tale then repeat,

'Till brother and I learn it right;
We long have been hoping a minstrel to meet,

For children hear tales with delight.

"At midnight, when darkness its fearful veil weaves,
His lofty and stately old castle he leaves,

But first he has buried his wealth.
What figure is that in his arms one perceives,

As the Count quits the gateway by stealth?
O'er what is his mantle so hastily thrown?

What bears he along in his flight?
A daughter it is, and she gently sleeps on"
<...

    I.

On a little piece of wood
Mr. Spikky Sparrow stood:
Mrs. Sparrow sate close by,
A-making of an insect-pie
For her little children five,
In the nest and all alive;
Singing with a cheerful smile,
To amuse them all the while,
"Twikky wikky wikky wee,
Wikky bikky twikky tee,
Spikky bikky bee!"


    II.

Mrs. Spikky Sparrow said,
"Spikky, darling! in my head
Many thoughts of trouble come,
Like to flies upon a plum.
All last night, among the trees,
I heard you cough, I heard you sneeze;
And thought I, 'It's come to that
Because he does not wear a hat!'
Chippy wippy sikky tee,
Bikky wikky tikky mee,
Spikky chippy wee!


    III.

It's cruel cold on the water-front, silent and dark and drear;
Only the black tide weltering, only the hissing snow;
And I, alone, like a storm-tossed wreck, on this night of the glad New Year,
Shuffling along in the icy wind, ghastly and gaunt and slow.

They're playing a tune in McGuffy's saloon, and it's cheery and bright in there
(God! but I'm weak - since the bitter dawn, and never a bite of food);
I'll just go over and slip inside - I mustn't give way to despair -
Perhaps I can bum a little booze if the boys are feeling good.

They'll jeer at me, and they'll sneer at me, and they'll call me a whiskey soak;
("Have a drink? Well, thankee kindly, sir, I don't mind if I do.")
A drivelling, dirty gin-joint fiend, the butt of the bar-room joke;
Sunk and sodden and hopeless -...

The goodman sat beside his door
One sultry afternoon,
With his young wife singing at his side
An old and goodly tune.

A glimmer of heat was in the air,
The dark green woods were still;
And the skirts of a heavy thunder-cloud
Hung over the western hill.

Black, thick, and vast arose that cloud
Above the wilderness,

As some dark world from upper air
Were stooping over this.

At times the solemn thunder pealed,
And all was still again,
Save a low murmur in the air
Of coming wind and rain.

Just as the first big rain-drop fell,
A weary stranger came,
And stood before the farmer's door,
With travel soiled and lame.

Sad seemed he, yet sustaining hope
Was in his quiet glance,
And peace, like autumn's moon...