Identity

(Lyra Eucharistica, second edition, 1865.)


Golden-winged, silver-winged,
    Winged with flashing flame,
Such a flight of birds I saw,
    Birds without a name:
Singing songs in their own tongue
    (Song of songs) they came.

One to another calling,
    Each answering each,
One to another calling
    In their proper speech:
High above my head they wheeled,
    Far out of reach.

On wings of flame they went and came
    With a cadenced clang,
Their silver wings tinkled,
    Their golden wings rang,
The wind it whistled through their wings
    Where in Heaven they sang.

They flashed and they darted
    Awhile before mine eyes,
Mounting, mounting, mounting still
    In haste to scale the skies -

Deep-hearted roses of the purple dusk
And lilies of the morn;
And cactus, holding up a slender tusk
Of fragrance on a thorn;
All heavy flowers, sultry with their musk,
Her presence puts to scorn.

For she is like the pale, pale snowdrop there,
Scentless and chaste of heart;
The moonflower, making spiritual the air,
Like some pure work of art;
Divine and holy, exquisitely fair,
And virtue's counterpart.

Yet when her eyes gaze into mine, and when
Her lips to mine are pressed,--
Why are my veins all fire then? and then
Why should her soul suggest
Voluptuous perfumes, maddening unto men,
And prurient with unrest?

'... O she,
To me myself, for some three careless moons,
The summer pilot of an empty heart
Unto the shores of Nothing.' - Tennyson.


'Tis the hour when golden slumbers
Through th' Hesperian portals creep,
And the youth who lisps in numbers
Dreams of novel rhymes to 'sleep';
I shall merely note, at starting,
That responsive Nature thrills
To the twilight hour of parting
From my Lady of the Hills.

Lady, 'neath the deepening umbrage
We have wandered near and far,
To the ludicrously dumb rage
Of your truculent Mamma;
We have urged the long-tailed gallop;
Lightly danced the still night through;
Smacked the ball, and oared the shallop
(In a vis-à-vis canoe);

We have walked this fair Oasis,
Keeping...

A DRUID.


Sweet smiles the May!

The forest gay

From frost and ice is freed;

No snow is found,

Glad songs resound

Across the verdant mead.

Upon the height

The snow lies light,

Yet thither now we go,
There to extol our Father's name,

Whom we for ages know.
Amid the smoke shall gleam the flame;

Thus pure the heart will grow.

THE DRUIDS.

Amid the smoke shall gleam the flame;
Extol we now our Father's name,

Whom we for ages know!

Up, up, then, let us go!

ONE OF THE PEOPLE.

Would ye, then, so rashly act?
Would ye instant death attract?
Know ye not the cruel threats

Of the victors we obey?
Round about are placed thei...

'Tis strange to leave this world of woods and hills,
This world of little farms, and shady mills, -
Of fields, and water-meadows fair,
Upon some sad and shadowy day
When all the skies are overcast and grey,
And climb up through the gloomy air,
And ever hurry higher still, and higher,
Till underneath you lies a far-flung shire
All sober-hued beneath the ceiling pale
Of crawling clouds, whose barrier soon you reach,
And through their clammy vapours swiftly sail,
Their chill defences hoping soon to breach -
To see no skies above, no ground below,
And in that nothingness toss to and fro
Is no sweet moment - will it never cease? -
Climbing and diving, thrown from side to side, -
All suddenly there comes a sense of peace
And o'er a wondrous scenery we glide.

    Love, if I weep it will not matter,
        And if you laugh I shall not care;
    Foolish am I to think about it,
        But it is good to feel you there.

    Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking,--
        White and awful the moonlight reached
    Over the floor, and somewhere, somewhere,
        There was a shutter loose,--it screeched!

    Swung in the wind,--and no wind blowing!--
        I was afraid, and turned to you,
    Put out my hand to you for comfort,--
        And you were gone!    Cold, cold as dew,

    Under my hand the moonlight lay!
        Love, if you laugh I shall not care,
    But if I weep it will not matter,--
        Ah, it is good to feel you there!

You ask what -- I have found, and far and wide I go:
Nothing but Cromwell's house and Cromwell's mur-
derous crew,
The lovers and the dancers are beaten into the clay,
And the tall men and the swordsmen and the horsemen,
where are they?
And there is an old beggar wandering in his pride -- -
His fathers served their fathers before Christ was
crucified.
i(O what of that, O what of that,)
i(What is there left to say?)

All neighbourly content and easy talk are gone,
But there's no good complaining, for money's rant is
on.
He that's mounting up must on his neighbour mount,
And we and all the Muses are things of no account.
They have schooling of their own, but I pass their
schooling by,
What can they know that we know that know the
time to die?...

Ben sei mila anni.


Six thousand years or more on earth I've been:
        Witness those histories of nations dead,
        Which for our age I have illustrated
        In philosophic volumes, scene by scene.
And thou, mere mite, seeing my sun serene
        Eclipsed, wilt argue that I had no head
        To live by.--Why not try the sun instead,
        If nought in fate unfathomed thou hast seen?
If wise men, whom the world rebukes, combined
        With tyrant wolves, brute beasts we should become.
        The sage, once stoned for sin, you canonise.
When rennet melts, much milk makes haste to bind.
        The more you blow the flames, the more they rise,
        Bloom into stars, and find in heaven their home.

Look in my book, and herein see
Life endless signed to thee and me.
We o'er the tombs and fates shall fly;
While other generations die.

SAPPHICs.

Cold was the night wind, drifting fast the snows fell,
Wide were the downs and shelterless and naked,
When a poor Wanderer struggled on her journey
        Weary and way-sore.

Drear were the downs, more dreary her reflexions;
Cold was the night wind, colder was her bosom!
She had no home, the world was all before her,
        She had no shelter.

Fast o'er the bleak heath rattling drove a chariot,
"Pity me!" feebly cried the poor night wanderer.
"Pity me Strangers! lest with cold and hunger
        Here I should perish.

"Once I had friends,--but they have all forsook me!
"Once I had parents,--they are now in Heaven!
"I had a home once--I had once a husband--
        "Pity me Strangers!

"I had a home once--I had once ...

    I feed a flame within, which so torments me,
    That it both pains my heart, and yet contents me:
    'Tis such a pleasing smart, and I so love it,
    That I had rather die than once remove it.

    Yet he for whom I grieve shall never know it:
    My tongue does not betray, nor my eyes show it.
    Not a sigh, not a tear, my pain discloses,
    But they fall silently, like dew on roses.

    Thus, to prevent my love from being cruel,
    My heart's the sacrifice, as 'tis the fuel:
    And while I suffer this to give him quiet,
    My faith rewards my love, though he deny it.

    On his eyes will I gaze, and there delight me;
    Where I conceal my love no frown can fright me:
    To be more happy, I dare not aspire;
    Nor can I fall more lo...

    Terminus shows the ways and says,
    "All things must have an end."
    Oh, bitter thought we hid away
    When first you were my friend.

    We hid it in the darkest place
    Our hearts had place to hide,
    And took the sweet as from a spring
    Whose waters would abide.

    For neither life nor the wide world
    Has greater store than this: -
    The thought that runs through hands and eyes
    And fills the silences.

    There is a void the agéd world
    Throws over the spent heart;
    When Life has given all she has,
    And Terminus says depart.

    When we must sit with folded hands,
    And see with inward eye
    A void rise like an arctic breath
    To hollow the morrow's sky.

    To-morrow...

Noëra, when sad Fall
Has grayed the fallow;
Leaf-cramped the wood-brook's brawl
In pool and shallow;
When, by the woodside, tall
Stands sere the mallow.

Noëra, when gray gold
And golden gray
The crackling hollows fold
By every way,
Shall I thy face behold,
Dear bit of May?

When webs are cribs for dew,
And gossamers
Streak by you, silver-blue;
When silence stirs
One leaf, of rusty hue,
Among the burrs:

Noëra, through the wood,
Or through the grain,
Come, with the hoiden mood
Of wind and rain
Fresh in thy sunny blood,
Sweetheart, again.

Noëra, when the corn,
Reaped on the fields,
The asters' stars adorn;
And purple shields
Of ironweeds lie torn
Among the wealds:

N...

    By her white bed I muse a little space:
    She fell asleep - not very long ago, -
    And yet the grass was here and not the snow -
    The leaf, the bud, the blossom, and - her face! -
    Midsummer's heaven above us, and the grace
    Of Lovers own day, from dawn to afterglow;
    The fireflies' glimmering, and the sweet and low
    Plaint of the whip-poor-wills, and every place
    In thicker twilight for the roses' scent.
    Then night. - She slept - in such tranquility,
    I walk atiptoe still, nor dare to weep,
    Feeling, in all this hush, she rests content -
    That though God stood to wake her for me, she
    Would mutely plead: "Nay, Lord!    Let him so sleep."

Flower! Flower, why repine?
God knows each creature's place;
He hides within me when I shine,
And your leaves hide His face.

And you are near as I to Him,
And you reveal as much
Of that eternal soundless hymn
Man's words may never touch.

God sings to man through all my rays
That wreathe the brow of night,
And walks with me thro' all my ways --
The everlasting light.

Flower! Flower, why repine?
He chose on lowly earth,
And not in heaven where I shine,
His Bethlehem and birth.

Flower! Flower, I see Him pass
Each hour of night and day,
Down to an altar and a Mass
Go thou! and fade away.

Fade away upon His shrine!
Thy light is brighter far
Than all the light wherewith I shine
In heaven, as a star.

    "Those who there take refuge nevermore return."--Bhagavad Gita


Ere I lose myself in the vastness and drowse myself with the peace,
While I gaze on the light and beauty afar from the dim homes of men,
May I still feel the heart-pang and pity, love-ties that I would not release,
May the voices of sorrow appealing call me back to their succour again.

Ere I storm with the tempest of power the thrones and dominions of old,
Ere the ancient enchantment allures me to roam through the star- misty skies,
I would go forth as one who has reaped well what harvest the earth may unfold:
May my heart be o'erbrimmed with compassion, on my brow be the crown of the wise.

I would go as the dove from the ark sent forth with wishes and prayers
To return with the paradise-blossoms tha...

    One by one, ye are passing, beloved,
        Out of the shadow into the light.
                    One by one,
                Are your tasks all done.
        Ended the toil, and the swift race run.
                Child and maiden, mother and sire,
                    Sister and brother,
                Ye follow each other,
Out of the darkness where we stand weeping,
Weary and faint with our virgil-keeping,
Into die summer-land, peaceful and bright!

    One by one, ye are passing, beloved,
        Out of the darkness round us that lies -
                    One by one,
                Gliding on alone,
        Hearing nor heeding our plaint and moan.
                Friend and lover, the fondest, best,
                    Most tender and true...

Petronii Fragmenta, xxx.


THOSE dreams, that on the silent night intrude,
And with false flitting shades our minds delude
Jove never sends us downward from the skies;
Nor can they from infernal mansions rise;
But are all mere productions of the brain,
And fools consult interpreters in vain.[1]

For when in bed we rest our weary limbs,
The mind unburden'd sports in various whims;
The busy head with mimic art runs o'er
The scenes and actions of the day before.[2]

The drowsy tyrant, by his minions led,
To regal rage devotes some patriot's head.
With equal terrors, not with equal guilt,
The murderer dreams of all the blood he spilt.

The soldier smiling hears the widow's cries,
And stabs the son before the mother's eyes.
With like r...