Identity

I dreamed and did not seek: to-day I seek
Who can no longer dream;
But now am all behindhand, waxen weak,
And dazed amid so many things that gleam
Yet are not what they seem.

I dreamed and did not work: to-day I work
Kept wide awake by care
And loss, and perils dimly guessed to lurk;
I work and reap not, while my life goes bare
And void in wintry air.

I hope indeed; but hope itself is fear
Viewed on the sunny side;
I hope, and disregard the world that's here,
The prizes drawn, the sweet things that betide;
I hope, and I abide.

As one, who, journeying westward with the sun,
Beholds at length from the up-towering hills,
Far off, a land unspeakable beauty fills,
Circean peaks and vales of Avalon:
And, sinking weary, watches, one by one,
The big seas beat between; and knows it skills
No more to try; that now, as Heaven wills,
This is the helpless end, that all is done:
So 'tis with him, whom long a vision led
In quest of Beauty, and who finds at last
She lies beyond his effort. All the waves
Of all the world between them: While the dead,
The myriad dead, who people all the Past
With failure, hail him from forgotten graves.

The sunlight from the sky is swept,
But, over Snowdon’s summit kept,
One brand of cloud yet burns,
By ghostly hands far out of sight,
Held, glowing, in the even-light,
As Fate still keeps the weapon bright
That lingers and returns.

-    -    -    -    -    -

O day of slaughter! Day of woe!
But once, a thousand years ago,
Such day has Britain seen;
When blushed her hoary hills with shame
At Mona’s sacrifice of flame;
While shrieks from out the burning came
Across the strait between.

Death-helping day! That couldst not find
One weeping cloud to hide behind!
Cursed day whose light was given
For search-mate to the Saxon sword
Through coverts that our rocks afford,
While Edward’s godless minions poured
The blood of the uns...

Love, I recant,
And pardon crave
That lately I offended;
But 'twas,
Alas!
To make a brave,
But no disdain intended.

No more I'll vaunt,
For now I see
Thou only hast the power
To find
And bind
A heart that's free,
And slave it in an hour.

An old man bending, I come, among new faces,
Years looking backward, resuming, in answer to children,
Come tell us, old man, as from young men and maidens that love me;
Years hence of these scenes, of these furious passions, these chances,
Of unsurpass'd heroes, (was one side so brave? the other was equally brave;)
Now be witness again paint the mightiest armies of earth;
Of those armies so rapid, so wondrous, what saw you to tell us?
What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics,
Of hard-fought engagements, or sieges tremendous, what deepest remains?

O maidens and young men I love, and that love me,
What you ask of my days, those the strangest and sudden your talking recalls;
Soldier alert I arrive, after a long march, cover'd with sweat and dust;
In the nick o...

        She was but a child, a child,
    And I a man grown;
        Sweet she was, and fresh, and wild,
    And, I thought, my own.
What could I do? The long grass groweth,
    The long wave floweth with a murmur on:
The why and the wherefore of it all who knoweth?
    Ere I thought to lose her she was grown - and gone.
This day or that day in warm spring weather.
The lamb that was tame will yearn to break its tether.
"But if the world wound thee," I said, "come back to me,
Down in the dell wishing - wishing, wishing for thee."

        The dews hang on the white may,
    Like a ghost it stands,
        All in the dusk before day
    That folds the dim lands:

Dark fell the skies when once belated,
    Sad, and sorrow-fated, I missed the sun;

I am the family face;
Flesh perishes, I live on,
Projecting trait and trace
Through time to times anon,
And leaping from place to place
Over oblivion.

The years-heired feature that can
In curve and voice and eye
Despise the human span
Of durance - that is I;
The eternal thing in man,
That heeds no call to die.

Away from the city's herds!
    Away from the noisy street!
Away from the storm of words,
    Where hateful and hating meet!

Away from the vapour grey,
    That like a boding of ill
Is blotting the morning gay,
    And gathers and darkens still!

Away from the stupid book!
    For, like the fog's weary rest,
With anger dull it fills each nook
    Of my aching and misty breast.

Over some shining shore,
    There hangeth a space of blue;
A parting 'mid thin clouds hoar
    Where the sunlight is falling through.

The glad waves are kissing the shore
    Rejoice, and tell it for ever;
The boat glides on, while its oar
    Is flashing out of the river.

Oh to be there with thee!
    Thou and I only, my love!
...

Our thoughts are molding unmade spheres,
    And, like a blessing or a curse,
They thunder down the formless years,
    And ring throughout the universe.

We build our futures, by the shape
    Of our desires, and not by acts.
There is no pathway of escape;
    No priest-made creeds can alter facts.

Salvation is not begged or bought;
    Too long this selfish hope sufficed;
Too long man reeked with lawless thought,
    And leaned upon a tortured Christ.

Like shriveled leaves, these worn out creeds
    Are dropping from Religion's tree;
The world begins to know its needs,
    And souls are crying to be free.

Free from the load of fear and grief,
    Man fashioned in an ignorant age;
Free from the ache of unbelief
    He fle...

In dark wild woods, where the lone owl broods
And the dingoes nightly yell
Where the curlew’s cry goes floating by,
We splitters of shingles dwell.
And all day through, from the time of the dew
To the hour when the mopoke calls,
Our mallets ring where the woodbirds sing
Sweet hymns by the waterfalls.
And all night long we are lulled by the song
Of gales in the grand old trees;
And in the brakes we can hear the lakes
And the moan of the distant seas.
For afar from heat and dust of street,
And hall and turret and dome,
In forest deep, where the torrents leap,
Is the shingle-splitter’s home.

The dweller in town may lie upon down,
And own his palace and park:
We envy him not his prosperous lot,
Though we slumber on sheets of bark.
Our foo...

Quest' anima gentil che si diparte.

ON LAURA DANGEROUSLY ILL.


    That graceful soul, in mercy call'd away
Before her time to bid the world farewell,
If welcomed as she ought in the realms of day,
In heaven's most blessèd regions sure shall dwell.
There between Mars and Venus if she stay,
Her sight the brightness of the sun will quell,
Because, her infinite beauty to survey,
The spirits of the blest will round her swell.
If she decide upon the fourth fair nest
Each of the three to dwindle will begin,
And she alone the fame of beauty win,
Nor e'en in the fifth circle may she rest;
Thence higher if she soar, I surely trust
Jove with all other stars in darkness will be thrust.

MACGREGOR.

She sleeps; he sings to her. The day was long,
And, tired out with too much happiness,
She fain would have him sing of old Provence;
Quaint songs, that spoke of love in such soft tones,
Her restless soul was straight besieged of dreams,
And her wild heart beleagured of deep peace,
And heart and soul surrendered unto sleep.--
Like perfect sculpture in the moon she lies,
Its pallor on her through heraldic panes
Of one tall casement's gulèd quarterings.--
Beside her couch, an antique table, weighed
With gold and crystal; here, a carven chair,
Whereon her raiment,--that suggests sweet curves
Of shapely beauty,--bearing her limbs' impress,
Is richly laid: and, near the chair, a glass,
An oval mirror framed in ebony:
And, dim and deep,--investing all the room
W...

Fate has given me many a gift
To which men most aspire,
Lovely, precious and costly things,
But not my heart's desire.

Many a man has a secret dream
Of where his soul would be,
Mine is a low verandah'd house
In a tope beside the sea.

Over the roof tall palms should wave,
Swaying from side to side,
Every night we should fall asleep
To the rhythm of the tide.

The dawn should be gay with song of birds,
And the stir of fluttering wings.
Surely the joy of life is hid
In simple and tender things!

At eve the waves would shimmer with gold
In the rosy sunset rays,
Emerald velvet flats of rice
Would rest the landward gaze.

A boat must rock at the laterite steps
In a reef-protected pool,
For we should sail throu...

    The mountains stand and stare around,
        They are far too proud to speak;
    Altho' they're rooted in the ground,
        Up they go, peak after peak,
    Beyond the tallest tree, and still
        Soaring over house and hill
    Until you'd think they'd never stop
        Going up, top over top,
    Into the clouds,
                                Still I mark
        That a sparrow or a lark
    Flying just as high, can sing
        As if he'd not done anything.

    I think the mountains ought to be
    Taught a little modesty.

Sweep up the flure, Janet;
    Put on anither peat.
It's a lown and a starry nicht, Janet,
    And nowther cauld nor weet.

It's the nicht atween the Sancts and Souls
    Whan the bodiless gang aboot;
And it's open hoose we keep the nicht
    For ony that may be oot.

Set the cheirs back to the wa', Janet;
    Mak ready for quaiet fowk.
Hae a'thing as clean as a windin-sheet:
    They comena ilka ook.

There's a spale upo' the flure, Janet,
    And there's a rowan-berry!
Sweep them intil the fire, Janet,
    Or they'll neither come nor tarry.

Syne set open the outer dure--
    Wide open for wha kens wha?
As ye come ben to your bed, Janet,
    Set baith dures to the wa'.

She set the cheirs back to the wa',
   ...

Vago augelletto che cantando vai.

THE PLAINTIVE SONG OF A BIRD RECALLS TO HIM HIS OWN KEENER SORROW.


    Poor solitary bird, that pour'st thy lay;
Or haply mournest the sweet season gone:
As chilly night and winter hurry on,
And day-light fades and summer flies away;
If as the cares that swell thy little throat
Thou knew'st alike the woes that wound my rest.
Ah, thou wouldst house thee in this kindred breast,
And mix with mine thy melancholy note.
Yet little know I ours are kindred ills:
She still may live the object of thy song:
Not so for me stern death or Heaven wills!
But the sad season, and less grateful hour,
And of past joy and sorrow thoughts that throng
Prompt my full heart this idle lay to pour.

DACRE.


...

I saw a black girl once,
As black as winter's night;
Till through her parted lips
There came a flood of light;
It was the milky way
Across her face so black:
Her two lips closed again,
And night came back.

I see a maiden now,
Fair as a summer's day;
Yet through her parted lips
I see the milky way;
It makes the broad daylight
In summer time look black:
Her two lips close again,
And night comes back.

Your presence like a benison to me
Wakes my sick soul to dreamful ecstasy,
I fancy that some old Arabian night
Saw you my houri and my heart's delight.

And wandering forth beneath the passionate moon,
Your love-strung zither and my soul in tune,
We knew the joy, the haunting of the pain
That like a flame thrills through me now again.

To-night we sit where sweet the spice winds blow,
A wind the northland lacks and ne'er shall know,
With clasped hands and spirits all aglow
As in Arabia in the long ago.