Identity

    In the moonless, misty night, with my little pipe alight,
    I am sitting by the camp-fire's fading cheer;
    Oh, the dew is falling chill on the dim, deer-haunted hill,
    And the breakers in the bay are moaning drear.
    The toilful hours are sped, the boys are long abed,
    And I alone a weary vigil keep;
    In the sightless, sullen sky I can hear the night-hawk cry,
    And the frogs in frenzied chorus from the creek.

    And somehow the embers' glow brings me back the long ago,
    The days of merry laughter and light song;
    When I sped the hours away with the gayest of the gay
    In the giddy whirl of fashion's festal throng.
    Oh, I ran a grilling race and I little recked the pace,
    For the lust of youth ran riot in my blood;
    But at l...

Piovonmi amare lagrime dal viso.

HIS STATE WHEN LAURA IS PRESENT, AND WHEN SHE DEPARTS.


    Down my cheeks bitter tears incessant rain,
And my heart struggles with convulsive sighs,
When, Laura, upon you I turn my eyes,
For whom the world's allurements I disdain,
But when I see that gentle smile again,
That modest, sweet, and tender smile, arise,
It pours on every sense a blest surprise;
Lost in delight is all my torturing pain.
Too soon this heavenly transport sinks and dies:
When all thy soothing charms my fate removes
At thy departure from my ravish'd view.
To that sole refuge its firm faith approves
My spirit from my ravish'd bosom flies,
And wing'd with fond remembrance follows you.

CAPEL LOFFT.


    Tears, b...

Its eyes are gray;
        Its hair is either brown
                Or black;
And, strange to say,
        Its dresses button down
                The back!

It wears a plume
        That loves to frisk around
                My ear.
It crowds the room
        With cushions in a mound
                And queer

Old rugs and lamps
        In corners a la Turque
                And things.
It steals my stamps,
        And when I want to work
                It sings!

It rides and skates,
        But then it comes and fills
                My walls
With plaques and plates
        And keeps me paying bills
                And calls.

It's firm; and if
        I should my many woes
             ...

Now ere I slept, my prayer had been that I might see my way
To do the will of Christ, our Lord and Master, day by day;
And with this prayer upon my lips, I knew not that I dreamed,
But suddenly the world of night a pandemonium seemed.
From forest, and from slaughter house, from bull ring, and from stall,
There rose an anguished cry of pain, a loud, appealing call;
As man - the dumb beast's next of kin - with gun, and whip, and knife,
Went pleasure-seeking through the earth, blood-bent on taking life.
From trap, and cage, and house, and zoo, and street, that awful strain
Of tortured creatures rose and swelled the orchestra of pain.
And then methought the gentle Christ appeared to me, and spoke:
'I called you, but ye answered not' - and in my fear I woke.

Then next I heard th...

To this white temple of my heroes here,
Beset with stately figures everywhere
Of such rare saintships, who did here consume
Their lives in sweets, and left in death perfume,
Come, thou brave man! And bring with thee a stone
Unto thine own edification.
High are these statues here, besides no less
Strong than the heavens for everlastingness:
Where build aloft; and, being fix'd by these,
Set up thine own eternal images.

I say whatever tastes sweet to the most perfect person, that is finally right.

I say nourish a great intellect, a great brain;
If I have said anything to the contrary, I hereby retract it.

I say man shall not hold property in man;
I say the least developed person on earth is just as important and sacred to himself or herself, as the most developed person is to himself or herself.


I say where liberty draws not the blood out of slavery, there slavery draws the blood out of liberty,
I say the word of the good old cause in These States, and resound it hence over the world.


I say the human shape or face is so great, it must never be made ridiculous;
I say for ornaments nothing outre can be allowed,
And that anything is most beautiful without ornament,
And tha...

Away, away! The plains of Ind
Have set their victim free;
I give my sorrows to the wind,
My sun-hat to the sea;
And, standing with a chosen few,
I watch a dying glow,
The passing of the Finest View
That all the world can show.

It would not fire an artist's eye,
This View whereof I sing;
Poets, no doubt, would pass it by
As quite a common thing;
The Tourist with belittling sniff
Would find no beauties there -
He couldn't if he would, and if
He could he wouldn't care.

Only for him that turns the back
On dark and evil days
It throws a glory down his track
That sets his heart ablaze;
A charm to make the wounded whole,
Which wearied eyes may draw
Luxuriously through the soul,
Like cocktails through a straw.

...

    Sheldrake, a magician
    - the mandrake
    a mythic plant whose shriek
    drove listeners wild....
    this lake, Sheldrake
    and its windsong-heartswoon
    counterpart, Skootematta
    with Shabomeka &
    a whiff of Buckshot Lake to boot,
    waves lapping the
    prayerful stones -
    water's edge
    the earth's bones....
    Lakes an art-form
    hardscrabble scribble
    shorthand on a blessed land.

    The mysticism of basic shadows,
    occult shapes of ourselves.

There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,
' T is the seal, despair, --
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, 't is like the distance
On the look of death.

I stood before a chain of beautiful mountains forming a semicircle. A young, green forest covered them from summit to base.

Limpidly blue above them was the southern sky; on the heights the sunbeams rioted; below, half-hidden in the grass, swift brooks were babbling.

And the old fable came to my mind, how in the first century after Christ's birth, a Greek ship was sailing on the Aegean Sea.

The hour was mid-day.... It was still weather. And suddenly up aloft, above the pilot's head, some one called distinctly, 'When thou sailest by the island, shout in a loud voice, "Great Pan is dead!"'

The pilot was amazed ... afraid. But when the ship passed the island, he obeyed, he called, 'Great Pan is dead!'

And, at once, in response to his shout, all along the coast (though the island was unin...

To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,
To my brethren in their sorrow overseas,
Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed,
And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.
Yea, a trooper of the forces who has run his own six horses,
And faith he went the pace and went it blind,
And the world was more than kin while he held the ready tin,
But to-day the Sergeant's something less than kind.
We're poor little lambs who've lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We're little black sheep who've gone astray,
Baa-aa-aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha' mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!

Oh, it's sweet to sweat through stables, sweet to empty kitchen slops,
And it's sweet to hear the tales ...

Touch my hands with your fingers, yellow wallflower.
Did God use a bluer paint
Painting the sky for the gold sun
Or making the sea about your two black stars?

Treasure the touches of my fingers.
God did not spread his bluest paint
On a hollow sky or a girl's eye,
But on a topaz chain, from you to me.

Touch my temples with your fingers, scarlet rose.
Did God use a stronger light
When He fashioned and dropped the sun into the sky
Or dropped your black stars into their blue sea?

Treasure the touches of my fingers.
God did not spend His strongest light
On a sun above or a look of love,
But on a round gold ring, from you to me.

Touch my cheeks with your fingers, blue hyacinth.
Did God use a whiter silk
Weaving the veil for your fev...

When spring, to woods and wastes around,
Brought bloom and joy again,
The murdered traveller's bones were found,
Far down a narrow glen.

The fragrant birch, above him, hung
Her tassels in the sky;
And many a vernal blossom sprung,
And nodded careless by.

The red-bird warbled, as he wrought
His hanging nest o'erhead,
And fearless, near the fatal spot,
Her young the partridge led.

But there was weeping far away,
And gentle eyes, for him,
With watching many an anxious day,
Were sorrowful and dim.

They little knew, who loved him so,
The fearful death he met,
When shouting o'er the desert snow,
Unarmed, and hard beset;

Nor how, when round the frosty pole
The northern dawn was red,
The mountain wolf and wil...

By chance my fingers, resting on my face,
Stayed suddenly where in its orbit shone
The lamp of all things beautiful; then on,
Following more heedfully, did softly trace
Each arch and prominence and hollow place
That shall revealed be when all else is gone -
Warmth, colour, roundness - to oblivion,
And nothing left but darkness and disgrace.

Life like a moment passed seemed then to be;
A transient dream this raiment that it wore;
While spelled my hand out its mortality
Made certain all that had seemed doubt before:
Proved - O how vaguely, yet how lucidly! -
How much death does; and yet can do no more.

Praised be the Rivers, from their mountain springs
Shouting to Freedom, "Plant thy banners here!"
To harassed Piety, "Dismiss thy fear,
And in our caverns smooth thy ruffled wings!"
Nor be unthanked their final lingerings
Silent, but not to high-souled Passion's ear
'Mid reedy fens wide-spread and marshes drear,
Their own creation. Such glad welcomings
As Po was heard to give where Venice rose
Hailed from aloft those Heirs of truth divine
Who near his fountains sought obscure repose,
Yet came prepared as glorious lights to shine,
Should that be needed for their sacred Charge;
Blest Prisoners They, whose spirits were at large!

Morning and evening are mine,
And the bright noon-day;
But night to no man doth belong
When the sad ghosts play.

From Kelso town I took the road
By the full-flood Tweed;
The black clouds swept across the moon
With devouring greed.

Seek ye no peace who tread the night;
I felt above my head
Blowing the cloud's edge, faces wry
In pale fury spread.

Twelve surly elves were digging graves
Beside black Eden brook;
Eleven dug and stared at me,
But one read in a book.

In Birgham trees and hedges rocked,
The moon was drowned in black;
At Hirsel woods I shrieked to find
A fiend astride my back.

His legs he closed about my breast,
His hands upon my head,
Till Coldstream lights beamed in the trees
And he wail...

When first, descending from the moorlands,
I saw the Stream of Yarrow glide
Along a bare and open valley,
The Ettrick Shepherd was my guide.

When last along its banks I wandered,
Through groves that had begun to shed
Their golden leaves upon the pathways,
My steps the Border-minstrel led.

The mighty Minstrel breathes no longer,
'Mid mouldering ruins low he lies;
And death upon the braes of Yarrow,
Has closed the Shepherd-poet's eyes:

Nor has the rolling year twice measured,
From sign to sign, its steadfast course,
Since every mortal power of Coleridge
Was frozen at its marvelous source;

The rapt One, of the godlike forehead,
The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth:
And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle,
Has vanished from h...

    A tremor, a quiver,
        Through her ran
    As over the river
        The dawn began.
    She drew her veil
        Over her eyes,
    And her face grew pale,
        As she watched the sun rise.
    She faded, turned
        To a ghost, was gone,
    As the morning burned
        And the day came on.
    With veiled, sad eye,
        And face still wan,
    She waited nigh
        When the dusk began.
    With her tears of bliss
        The earth was wet,
    And soothed with her kiss,
        When the sun had set.
    And with stately pride
        She sat on the throne
    Of her empire wide
        When the day had gone;
    And her robes she spread
        With their sable hem,
    And crowned her ...