Identity

[1]

A braggart, lover of the chase,
Had lost a dog of valued race,
And thought him in a lion's maw.
He ask'd a shepherd whom he saw,
'Pray show me, man, the robber's place,
And I'll have justice in the case.'
''Tis on this mountain side,'
The shepherd man replied.
'The tribute of a sheep I pay,
Each month, and where I please I stray.'
Out leap'd the lion as he spake,
And came that way, with agile feet.
The braggart, prompt his flight to take,
Cried, 'Jove, O grant a safe retreat!'

A danger close at hand
Of courage is the test.
It shows us who will stand -
Whose legs will run their best.

Thou say'st my lines are hard,
And I the truth will tell -
They are both hard and marr'd
If thou not read'st them well.

That wind is from the North, I know it well;
No other breeze could have so wild a swell.
Now deep and loud it thunders round my cell,
The faintly dies,
And softly sighs,
And moans and murmurs mournfully.

I know its language; thus is speaks to me
'I have passed over thy own mountains dear,
Thy northern mountains, and they still are free,
Still lonely, wild, majestic, bleak and drear,
And stern and lovely, as they used to be
When thou, a young enthusiast,
As wild and free as they,
O'er rocks and glens and snowy heights
Didst often love to stray.

I've blown the wild untrodden snows
In whirling eddies from their brows,
And I have howled in caverns wild
Where thou, a joyous mountain child,
Didst dearly love to be.
The sweet world is ...

When I behold thee, O my indolent love,
    To the sound of ringing brazen melodies,
Through garish halls harmoniously move,
    Scattering a scornful light from languid eyes;

When I see, smitten by the blazing lights,
    Thy pale front, beauteous in its bloodless glow
As the faint fires that deck the Northern nights,
    And eyes that draw me wheresoe'er I go;

I say, She is fair, too coldly strange for speech;
    A crown of memories, her calm brow above,
Shines; and her heart is like a bruised red peach,
    Ripe as her body for intelligent love.

Art thou late fruit of spicy savour and scent?
    A funeral vase awaiting tearful showers?
An Eastern odour, waste and oasis blent?
    A silken cushion or a bank of flowers?

I know there a...

I.

    Edina! Scotia's darling seat!
        All hail thy palaces and tow'rs,
    Where once beneath a monarch's feet
        Sat Legislation's sov'reign pow'rs!
    From marking wildly-scatter'd flow'rs,
        As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd,
    And singing, lone, the ling'ring hours,
        I shelter in thy honour'd shade.

II.

    Here wealth still swells the golden tide,
        As busy Trade his labour plies;
    There Architecture's noble pride
        Bids elegance and splendour rise;
    Here Justice, from her native skies,
        High wields her balance and her rod;
    There Learning, with his eagle eyes,
        Seeks Science in her coy abode.

III.

    Thy sons, Edina! social, kind,
        With...

Oh, the hobo's life is a roving life;
It robs pretty maids of their heart's delight -
It causes them to weep and it causes them to mourn
For the life of a hobo, never to return.

The hobo's heart it is light and free,
Though it's Sweethearts all, farewell, to thee! -
Farewell to thee, for it's far away
The homeless hobo's footsteps stray.

In the morning bright, or the dusk so dim,
It's any path is the one for him!
He'll take his chances, long or short,
For to meet his fate with a valiant heart.

Oh, it's beauty mops out the sidetracked-car,
And it's beauty-beaut' at the pigs-feet bar;
But when his drinks and his eats is made
Then the hobo shunts off down the grade.

He camps near town, on the old crick-bank,
And he cuts his name on th...

Not as the eye hath seen, shall we behold
Romance and beauty, when we've passed away;
That robed the dull facts of the intimate day
In life's wild raiment of unusual gold:
Not as the ear hath heard, shall we be told,
Hereafter, myth and legend once that lay
Warm at the heart of Nature, clothing clay
In attribute of no material mold.
These were imperfect of necessity,
That wrought thro' imperfection for far ends
Of perfectness, As calm philosophy,
Teaching a child, from his high heav'n descends
To Earth's familiar things; informingly
Vesting his thoughts with that it comprehends.

Often, when o'er tree and turret,
Eve a dying radiance flings,
By that ancient pile I linger
Known familiarly as "King's."
And the ghosts of days departed
Rise, and in my burning breast
All the undergraduate wakens,
And my spirit is at rest.

What, but a revolting fiction,
Seems the actual result
Of the Census's enquiries
Made upon the 15th ult.?
Still my soul is in its boyhood;
Nor of year or changes recks.
Though my scalp is almost hairless,
And my figure grows convex.

Backward moves the kindly dial;
And I'm numbered once again
With those noblest of their species
Called emphatically 'Men':
Loaf, as I have loafed aforetime,
Through the streets, with tranquil mind,
And a long-backed fancy-mongrel
Trailing casually ...

(In memory of Joseph Mary Plunkett)


("Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.")
        William Butler Yeats.



"Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave."
Then, Yeats, what gave that Easter dawn
A hue so radiantly brave?

There was a rain of blood that day,
Red rain in gay blue April weather.
It blessed the earth till it gave birth
To valour thick as blooms of heather.

Romantic Ireland never dies!
O'Leary lies in fertile ground,
And songs and spears throughout the years
Rise up where patriot graves are found.

Immortal patriots newly dead
And ye that bled in bygone years,
What banners rise before your eyes?
What is the tune that greets your ears?
...

A Proper New Ballad Of The Country And The Town.

"Phyllida amo ante alias."
Virg.


The ladies of St. James's
Go swinging to the play;
Their footmen run before them,
With a "Stand by! Clear the way!"
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
She takes her buckled shoon,
When we go out a-courting
Beneath the harvest moon.

The ladies of St. James's
Wear satin on their backs;
They sit all night at Ombre,
With candles all of wax:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
She dons her russet gown,
And runs to gather May dew
Before the world is down.

The ladies of St. James's!
They are so fine and fair,
You'd think a box of essences
Was broken in the air:
But Phyllida, my Phyllida!
The breath of heath and furze,
When breeze...

My friend, thou sorrowest for thy golden prime,
For thy fair youthful years too swift of flight;
Thou musest, with wet eyes, upon the time
Of cheerful hopes that filled the world with light,
Years when thy heart was bold, thy hand was strong,
And quick the thought that moved thy tongue to speak,
And willing faith was thine, and scorn of wrong
Summoned the sudden crimson to thy cheek.

Thou lookest forward on the coming days,
Shuddering to feel their shadow o'er thee creep;
A path, thick-set with changes and decays,
Slopes downward to the place of common sleep;
And they who walked with thee in life's first stage,
Leave one by one thy side, and, waiting near,
Thou seest the sad companions of thy age,
Dull love of rest, and weariness and fear.

Yet grie...

In low chalk hills the great King's body lay,
And bright streams fell, tinkling like polished tin,
As though they carried off his armoury,
And spread it glinting through his wide domain.

Old bearded soldiers sat and gazed dim-eyed
At the strange brightness flowing under trees,
And saw his sword flashing in ancient battles,
And drank, and swore, and trembled helplessly.

And bright-haired maidens dipped their cold white arms,
And drew them glittering colder, whiter, still;
The sky sparkled like the dead King's blue eye
Upon the sentries that were dead as trees.

His shining shield lay in an old grey town,
And white swans sailed so still and dreamfully,
They seemed the thoughts of those white, peaceful hills
Mirrored that day within his glazing eyes.<...

    Poets, like disputants, when reasons fail,
    Have one sure refuge left--and that's to rail.
    Fop, coxcomb, fool, are thunder'd through the pit;
    And this is all their equipage of wit.
    We wonder how the devil this difference grows,
    Betwixt our fools in verse, and yours in prose:
    For, 'faith, the quarrel rightly understood,
    'Tis civil war with their own flesh and blood.
    The threadbare author hates the gaudy coat;
    And swears at the gilt coach, but swears afoot:
    For 'tis observed of every scribbling man,
    He grows a fop as fast as e'er he can;
    Prunes up, and asks his oracle, the glass,
    If pink and purple best become his face.
    For our poor wretch, he neither rails nor prays;
    Nor likes your wit, just as you like ...

Quick throbb'd my heart: to norse! haste, haste,

And lo! 'twas done with speed of light;
The evening soon the world embraced,

And o'er the mountains hung the night.
Soon stood, in robe of mist, the oak,

A tow'ring giant in his size,
Where darkness through the thicket broke,

And glared with hundred gloomy eyes.

From out a hill of clouds the moon

With mournful gaze began to peer:
The winds their soft wings flutter'd soon,

And murmur'd in mine awe-struck ear;
The night a thousand monsters made,

Yet fresh and joyous was my mind;
What fire within my veins then play'd!

What glow was in my bosom shrin'd!

I saw thee, and with tender pride

Felt thy sweet gaze pour joy on me;
While all my heart ...

        ---- vo cercand' io,
        Donna quant' e possibile in altrui
        La desiata vostra forma vera.
                    PETRARC, Sonett. 14.


Yes, if 'twere any common love,
    That led my pliant heart astray,
I grant, there's not a power above
    Could wipe the faithless crime away.

But 'twas my doom to err with one
    In every look so like to thee
That, underneath yon blessed sun
    So fair there are but thou and she

Both born of beauty, at a birth,
    She held with thine a kindred sway,
And wore the only shape on earth
    That could have lured my soul to stray.

Then blame me not, if false I be,
    'Twas love that waked the fond excess;
My heart had been more true to thee,
    Had min...

I love red poppies! Imperial red poppies!
Sun-worshippers are they;
Gladly as trees live through a hundred summers
They live one little day.

I love red poppies! Impassioned scarlet poppies!
Ever their strange perfume
Seems like an essence brewed by fairy people
From an immortal bloom.

I love red poppies! Red, silken, swaying poppies!
Deep in their hearts they keep
A magic cure for woe - a draught of Lethe -
A lotus-gift of sleep.

I love red poppies! Soft silver-stemmed, red poppies,
That from the rain and sun
Gather a balm to heal some earth-born sorrow,
When their glad day is done.

1.

It was too sweet--such dreams do ever fade
    When Sorrow shakes the sleeper from his rest--
Life still to me hath been a masquerade,
    Woe in Mirth's wildest, gayest mantle drest,
With the heart hidden--but the face display'd.

But now the vizard droppeth, crush'd and torn,
    And there is nought left but some tinsell'd rags,
To mock the wearer in the face of morn,
    As through the gaping world she feebly drags
Her day-born measure of reproach and scorn.

But that _his_ hand should pluck the dream away--
    And thus--and thus--O Heaven! it strikes too deep!
The knife that wounds me, if not meant to slay,
    Stumbles upon my heart the while I weep:
So be it; no hand of mine its course shall stay.

False? false to him? Release me...

Like burnt-out torches by a sick man's bed
Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone;
Here doth the little night-owl make her throne,
And the slight lizard show his jewelled head.
And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red,
In the still chamber of yon pyramid
Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid,
Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead.

Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the womb
Of Earth, great mother of eternal sleep,
But sweeter far for thee a restless tomb
In the blue cavern of an echoing deep,
Or where the tall ships founder in the gloom
Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep.

ROME.