Identity

Why dost thou build the hall, Son of the winged days? Thou lookest from thy tower to-day: yet a few years, and the blast of the desart comes: it howls in thy empty court.-OSSIAN. [1]


I.

Through thy battlements, Newstead, [2] the hollow winds whistle:
Thou, the hall of my Fathers, art gone to decay;
In thy once smiling garden, the hemlock and thistle
Have choak'd up the rose, which late bloom'd in the way.


2.

Of the mail-cover'd Barons, who, proudly, to battle,
Led their vassals from Europe to Palestine's plain, [3]
The escutcheon and shield, which with ev'ry blast rattle,
Are the only sad vestiges now that remain.


3.

No more doth old Robert, with harp-stringing numbers,
Raise a flame, in t...

Even as I watched the daylight how it sped
From noon till eve, and saw the light wind pass
In long pale waves across the flashing grass,
And heard through all my dreams, wherever led,
The thin cicada singing overhead,
I felt what joyance all this nature has,
And saw myself made clear as in a glass,
How that my soul was for the most part dead.

Oh, light, I cried, and, heaven, with all your blue,
Oh, earth, with all your sunny fruitfulness,
And ye, tall lilies, of the wind-vexed field,
What power and beauty life indeed might yield,
Could we but cast away its conscious stress,
Simple of heart, becoming even as you.

It does not matter very much to me
    Through what strange ways my pathway now may lead;
Since I know that it runs away from thee,
    I give it little heed.

It does not matter if in calm or strife,
    There ebb or flow for me the future's tide.
I had but one great longing in my life,
    And that has been denied.

It does not matter if I stand or fall,
    Or walk with kings, or with the rank and file;
Life's loftiest aims and best ambitions all
    Were centred in thy smile.

It does not matter what the world may say:
    I feel no interest in its blame or praise.
I only know we dwell apart to-day,
    And shall through endless days.

It does not matter.    For my restless heart
    Is numb to sorrow, or to pleasure's touch.
...

Why am I sorry, Chloe? Because the moon is far:
And who am I to be straitened in a little earthly star?

Because thy face is fair? And what if it had not been,
The fairest face of all is the face I have not seen.

Because the land is cold, and however I scheme and plot,
I cannot find a ferry to the land where I am not.

Because thy lips are red and thy breasts upbraid the snow?
(There is neither white nor red in the pleasance where I go.)

Because thy lips grow pale and thy breasts grow dun and fall?
I go where the wind blows, Chloe, and am not sorry at all.

A little while to walk with thee, dear child;
To lean on thee my weak and weary head;
Then evening comes: the winter sky is wild,
The leafless trees are black, the leaves long dead.

A little while to hold thee and to stand,
By harvest-fields of bending golden corn;
Then the predestined silence, and thine hand,
Lost in the night, long and weary and forlorn.

A little while to love thee, scarcely time
To love thee well enough; then time to part,
To fare through wintry fields alone and climb
The frozen hills, not knowing where thou art.

Short summer-time and then, my heart's desire,
The winter and the darkness: one by one
The roses fall, the pale roses expire
Beneath the slow decadence of the sun.

Here they lie who once learned here
    All that is taught of hurt or fear;
Dead, but by free will they died:
    They were true men, they had pride.

Tune - "Robin Adair."



I.

    While larks with little wing
        Fann'd the pure air,
    Tasting the breathing spring,
        Forth I did fare:
    Gay the sun's golden eye
    Peep'd o'er the mountains high;
    Such thy morn! did I cry,
        Phillis the fair.

II.

    In each bird's careless song,
        Glad I did share;
    While yon wild flowers among,
        Chance led me there:
    Sweet to the opening day,
    Rosebuds bent the dewy spray;
    Such thy bloom! did I say,
        Phillis the fair.

III.

    Down in a shady walk
        Doves cooing were,
    I mark'd the cruel hawk,
        Caught in a snare:
    So kind may fortune be,
    Such make...

Far potess' io vendetta di colei.

HIS SOUL VISITS HER IN SLEEP.


    Oh! that from her some vengeance I could wrest
With words and glances who my peace destroys,
And then abash'd, for my worse sorrow, flies,
Veiling her eyes so cruel, yet so blest;
Thus mine afflicted spirits and oppress'd
By sure degrees she sorely drains and dries,
And in my heart, as savage lion, cries
Even at night, when most I should have rest.
My soul, which sleep expels from his abode,
The body leaves, and, from its trammels free,
Seeks her whose mien so often menace show'd.
I marvel much, if heard its advent be,
That while to her it spake, and o'er her wept,
And round her clung, asleep she alway kept.

MACGREGOR.

To be like a fish,
Brisk and quick, is my wish;
If thou cam'st with thy line.
Thou wouldst soon make me thine.
To be like a fish,
Brisk and quick, is my wish.

Oh, were I a steed!
Thou wouldst love me indeed.
Oh, were I a car
Fit to bear thee afar!
Oh, were I a steed!
Thou wouldst love me indeed.

I would I were gold
That thy fingers might hold!
If thou boughtest aught then,
I'd return soon again.
I would I were gold
That thy fingers might hold!

I would I were true,
And my sweetheart still new!
To be faithful I'd swear,
And would go away ne'er.
I would I were true,
And my sweetheart still new!

I would I were old,
And wrinkled and cold,
So that if thou said'st No,
I could stand such a ...

Here in the dusk I see her face again
As then I knew it, ere she fell asleep;
Renunciation glorifying pain
    Of her soul's inmost deep.

I shall not see its like again! the brow
Of passive marble, purely aureoled, -
As some pale lily in the afterglow, -
    With supernatural gold.

As if a rose should speak and, somehow heard
By some strange sense, the unembodied sound
Grow visible, her mouth was as a word
    A sweet thought falters 'round.

So do I still remember eyes imbued
With far reflections - as the stars suggest
The silence, purity and solitude
    Of infinite peace and rest.

She was my all. I loved her as men love
A high desire, religion, an ideal -
The meaning purpose in the loss whereof
    God shall alone revea...

She was half Lady and half cat--
What is so wonderful in that?
Half of our lady friends (so say
The other half) are Cats to-day.
In Egypt she made quite a stir,
They carved huge Images of her.
Riddles she asked of all she met
And all who answered wrong, she ate.
When Oedipus her riddle solved
The minx--I mean the Sphinx--dissolved
In tears. What is there, when one thinks,
So wonderful about the Sphinx?

Within Fancy's Halls I sit, and quaff
Rich draughts of the Wine of Song,
    And I drink, and drink,
    To the very brink
Of delirium wild and strong,
Till I lose all sense of the outer world,
And see not the human throng.

The lyral chords of each rising thought
Are swept by a hand unseen;
    And I glide, and glide,
    With my music bride,
Where few spiritless souls have been;
And I soar afar on wings of sound,
With my fair AEolian Queen.

Deep, deeper still, from the springs of Thought
I quaff, till the fount is dry;
    And I climb, and climb,
    To a height sublime,
Up the stars of some lyric sky,
Where I seem to rise upon airs that melt
Into song as they pass by.

Millennial rounds of bliss I live,
Withdraw...

    The old yellow stucco
    Of the time of the Regent
    Is flaking and peeling:
    The rows of square windows
    In the straight yellow building
    Are empty and still;
    And the dusty dark evergreens
    Guarding the wicket
    Are draped with wet cobwebs,
    And above this poor wilderness
    Toneless and sombre
    Is the flat of the hill.

    They said that a colonel
    Who long ago died here
    Was the last one to live here:
    An old retired colonel,
    Some Fraser or Murray,
    I don't know his name;
    Death came here and summoned him,
    And the shells of him vanished
    Beyond all speculation;
    And silence resumed here,
    Silence and emptiness,
    And nobody came.

    Was it ...

Life is not sweet. One day it will be sweet
    To shut our eyes and die:
Nor feel the wild flowers blow, nor birds dart by
    With flitting butterfly,
Nor grass grow long above our heads and feet,
Nor hear the happy lark that soars sky high,
Nor sigh that spring is fleet and summer fleet,
    Nor mark the waxing wheat,
Nor know who sits in our accustomed seat.

Life is not good. One day it will be good
    To die, then live again;
To sleep meanwhile: so not to feel the wane
Of shrunk leaves dropping in the wood,
Nor hear the foamy lashing of the main,
Nor mark the blackened bean-fields, nor where stood
    Rich ranks of golden grain
Only dead refuse stubble clothe the plain:
Asleep from risk, asleep from pain.

Beloved! amid the earnest woes
That crowd around my earthly path,
(Drear path, alas! where grows
Not even one lonely rose),
My soul at least a solace hath
In dreams of thee, and therein knows
An Eden of bland repose.

And thus thy memory is to me
Like some enchanted far-off isle
In some tumultuous sea,
Some ocean throbbing far and free
With storm,but where meanwhile
Serenest skies continually
Just o’er that one bright inland smile.

Tell me, young man, or did the Muses bring
Thee less to taste than to drink up their spring,
That none hereafter should be thought, or be
A poet, or a poet-like but thee?
What was thy birth, thy star that makes thee known,
At twice ten years, a prime and public one?
Tell us thy nation, kindred, or the whence
Thou had'st and hast thy mighty influence,
That makes thee lov'd, and of the men desir'd,
And no less prais'd than of the maids admired.
Put on thy laurel then; and in that trim
Be thou Apollo or the type of him:
Or let the unshorn god lend thee his lyre,
And next to him be master of the choir.

The wild winds weep
And the night is a-cold;
Come hither, Sleep,
And my griefs infold:
But lo! the morning peeps
Over the eastern steeps,
And the rustling birds of dawn
The earth do scorn.

Lo! to the vault
Of paved heaven,
With sorrow fraught
My notes are driven:
They strike the ear of night,
Make weep the eyes of day;
They make mad the roaring winds,
And with tempests play.

Like a fiend in a cloud,
With howling woe,
After night I do crowd,
And with night will go;
I turn my back to the east,
From whence comforts have increas'd;
For light doth seize my brain
With frantic pain.

They say there's a high windless world and strange,
Out of the wash of days and temporal tide,
Where Faith and Good, Wisdom and Truth abide,
'Aeterna corpora', subject to no change.
There the sure suns of these pale shadows move;
There stand the immortal ensigns of our war;
Our melting flesh fixed Beauty there, a star,
And perishing hearts, imperishable Love. . . .

Dear, we know only that we sigh, kiss, smile;
Each kiss lasts but the kissing; and grief goes over;
Love has no habitation but the heart.
Poor straws! on the dark flood we catch awhile,
Cling, and are borne into the night apart.
The laugh dies with the lips, 'Love' with the lover.