Identity

From over the leagues of ice and snow, and the miles of scorching sand;
From back of the days of long ago, and the lonely sea and land,
To the end of the world and our Gipsy race, to the death of our dark-eyed line,
I have set the lines on my children’s palms as my fathers did on mine,
That the world shall know and my name shall glow in the light of the aftershine,
I have set the lines on my children’s palms as my fathers did on mine.

I have given them health and strength, pure blood, clear skins for a glorious youth;
I have set in their souls contempt for sham, and a deathless regard for truth;
I have bequeathed the spirit to fight, I have given the will to rise,
And the slumbering fires of Hate and Love in their dreaming, dreaming eyes.
That the world shall know and my name shall g...

(Sung, on one night, in the cities, in the darkness.)



Come away! Come away!
Ye are sober and dull through the common day,
But now it is night!
It is shameful night, and God is asleep!
(Have you not felt the quick fires that creep
Through the hungry flesh, and the lust of delight,
And hot secrets of dreams that day cannot say?).
The house is dumb;
The night calls out to you. Come, ah, come!
Down the dim stairs, through the creaking door,
Naked, crawling on hands and feet
It is meet! it is meet!
Ye are men no longer, but less and more,
Beast and God. . . . Down the lampless street,
By little black ways, and secret places,
In the darkness and mire,
Faint laughter around, and evil faces
By the star-glint seen, ah! follow with us!
F...

("J'habite l'ombre.")

[1855.]


    True; I dwell lone,
        Upon sea-beaten cape,
    Mere raft of stone;
        Whence all escape
Save one who shrinks not from the gloom,
And will not take the coward's leap i' the tomb.

    My bedroom rocks
        With breezes; quakes in storms,
    When dangling locks
        Of seaweed mock the forms
Of straggling clouds that trail o'erhead
Like tresses from disrupted coffin-lead.

    Upon the sky
        Crape palls are often nailed
    With stars. Mine eye
        Has scared the gull that sailed
To blacker depths with shrillest scream,
Still fainter, till like voices in a dream.

    My days become
        More plaintive, wan, and pale,
    While ...

                    A COLLOQUIAL POEM


Jacob! I do not like to see thy nose
Turn'd up in scornful curve at yonder pig,
It would be well, my friend, if we like him,
Were perfect in our kind!... And why despise
The sow-born grunter?... He is obstinate,
Thou answerest; ugly, and the filthiest beast
That banquets upon offal.... Now I pray you
Hear the pig's counsel.
                        Is he obstinate?
We must not, Jacob, be deceived by words;
We must not take them as unheeding hands
Receive base money at the current worth
But with a just suspicion try their sound,
And in the even balance weight them well
See now to what this obstinacy comes:
A poor, mistreated, democratic beast,
He knows that his unmerciful drivers seek
Their profit, and ...

1.
How stern are the woes of the desolate mourner,
As he bends in still grief o'er the hallowed bier,
As enanguished he turns from the laugh of the scorner,
And drops, to Perfection's remembrance, a tear;
When floods of despair down his pale cheek are streaming,
When no blissful hope on his bosom is beaming,
Or, if lulled for awhile, soon he starts from his dreaming,
And finds torn the soft ties to affection so dear.

2.
Ah! when shall day dawn on the night of the grave,
Or summer succeed to the winter of death?
Rest awhile, hapless victim, and Heaven will save
The spirit, that faded away with the breath.
Eternity points in its amaranth bower,
Where no clouds of fate o'er the sweet prospect lower,
Unspeakable pleasure, of goodness the dower,
When woe...

Lofty and enduring is the monument I've reared:
Come, tempests, with your bitterness assailing;
And thou, corrosive blasts of time, by all things mortal feared,
Thy buffets and thy rage are unavailing!

I shall not altogether die: by far my greater part
Shall mock man's common fate in realms infernal;
My works shall live as tributes to my genius and my art,--
My works shall be my monument eternal!

While this great Roman empire stands and gods protect our fanes,
Mankind with grateful hearts shall tell the story
How one most lowly born upon the parched Apulian plains
First raised the native lyric muse to glory.

Assume, revered Melpomene, the proud estate I've won,
And, with thine own dear hand the meed supplying,
Bind thou about the forehead of thy celebr...

    'Neath their black yews in solemn state
        The owls are sitting in a row
        Like foreign gods; and even so
    Blink their red eyes; they meditate.

    Quite motionless they hold them thus
        Until at last the day is done,
        And driving down the slanting sun,
    The sad night is victorious.

    They teach the wise who gives them ear
    That in this world he most should fear
        All things which loud or restless be.

    Who, dazzled by a passing shade,
        Follows it, never will be free
    Till the dread penalty be paid.

As on a waveless sea, a vessel strikes
Upon a treacherous rock;
Waking the sailors from their happy dreams
By the swift, terrible shock.

Dreaming of shaded village streets, and home,
Forgetting the cruel sea
Till the shock came - so woke I, yet I know
'Twas Love, I loved, not he.

'Tis not the star the wave so wildly clasps,
Only its form reflected in the stream;
'Tis not a broken heart I mourn,
Only a broken dream.

I should have died when he was brought so low,
Had it been him I loved,
Died clinging to him, as to the blasted oak
The ivy clings unmoved.

'Twas Love that looked on me with strange, sweet eyes
Burning with marvellous flame;
Love was the idol that I worshipped, though
I gave to it his name.

I gave to...

Febrile perfumes as of faded roses
In the old house speak of love to-day,
Love long past; and where the soft day closes,
Down the west gleams, golden-red, a ray.

Pointing where departed splendor perished,
And the path that night shall walk, and hang,
On blue boughs of heaven, gold, long cherished
Fruit Hesperian, that the ancients sang.

And to him, who sits there dreaming, musing,
At the window in the twilight wan,
Like old scent of roses interfusing,
Comes a vision of a day that's gone.

And he sees Youth, walking brave but dimly
'Mid the roses, in the afterglow;
And beside him, like a star seen slimly,
Love, who used to meet him long-ago.

And again he seems to hear the flowers
Whispering faintly of what no one knows
Of the dr...

My business on the jury's done - the quibblin' all is through -
I've watched the lawyers right and left, and give my verdict true;
I stuck so long unto my chair, I thought I would grow in;
And if I do not know myself, they'll get me there ag'in;
But now the court's adjourned for good, and I have got my pay;
I'm loose at last, and thank the Lord, I'm going home to-day.

I've somehow felt uneasy like, since first day I come down;
It is an awkward game to play the gentleman in town;
And this 'ere Sunday suit of mine on Sunday rightly sets;
But when I wear the stuff a week, it somehow galls and frets.
I'd rather wear my homespun rig of pepper-salt and gray -
I'll have it on in half a jiff, when I get home to-day.

I have no doubt my wife looked out, as well as any one -

Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
And having climb’d the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage:
But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, ’fore duteous, now converted are
From his low tract, and look another way:
So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon:
Unlook’d, on diest unless thou get a son.

    Must I needes write, who's hee that can refuse,
He wants a minde, for her that hath no Muse,
The thought of her doth heau'nly rage inspire,
Next powerfull, to those clouen tongues of fire.
    Since I knew ought time neuer did allowe
Me stuffe fit for an Elegie, till now;
When France and England's HENRIES dy'd, my quill,
Why, I know not, but it that time lay still.
'Tis more then greatnesse that my spirit must raise,
To obserue custome I vse not to praise;
Nor the least thought of mine yet ere depended,
On any one from whom she was descended;
That for their fauour I this way should wooe,
As some poor wretched things (perhaps) may doe;
I gaine the end, whereat I onely ayme,
If by my freedome, I may giue her fame.
    Walking then forth being newly vp from b...

As leaves are to the tree whereon they grow
And wither, every human generation
Is, to the Being of a mighty nation,
Locked in our world's embrace through weal and woe;
Thought that should teach the zealot to forego
Rash schemes, to abjure all selfish agitation,
And seek through noiseless pains and moderation
The unblemished good they only can bestow.
Alas! with most, who weigh futurity
Against time present, passion holds the scales:
Hence equal ignorance of both prevails,
And nations sink; or, struggling to be free,
Are doomed to flounder on, like wounded whales
Tossed on the bosom of a stormy sea.

    Nobody on the old farm here but Mother, me and John,
    Except, of course, the extry he'p when harvest-time come on -
    And then, I want to say to you, we needed he'p about,
    As you'd admit, ef you'd a-seen the way the crops turned out!

    A better quarter-section, ner a richer soil warn't found
    Than this-here old-home place o' ourn fer fifty miles around! -
    The house was small - but plenty-big we found it from the day
    That John - our only livin' son - packed up and went way.

    You see, we tuck sich pride in John - his mother more 'n me -
    That's natchurul; but both of us was proud as proud could be;
    Fer the boy, from a little chap, was most oncommon bright,
    And seemed in work as well as play to take the same delight.
...

My soul, do you remember the object we saw
on what was a fine summer’s day:
at the path’s far corner, a shameful corpse
on the gravel-bed, darkly lay,

legs in the air, like a lecherous woman,
burning and oozing with poisons,
revealing, with nonchalance, cynicism,
the belly ripe with its exhalations.

The sun shone down on that rot and mould,
as if to grill it completely,
and render to Nature a hundredfold
what she’d once joined so sweetly:

and the sky gazed at that noble carcass,
like a flower, now blossoming.
The stench was so great, that there, on the grass,
you almost considered fainting.

The flies buzzed away on its putrid belly,
from which black battalions slid,
larvae, that flowed in thickening liquid
the length of t...

Sing, sweet Harp, oh sing to me
    Some song of ancient days,
Whose sounds, in this sad memory,
    Long buried dreams shall raise;--
Some lay that tells of vanished fame,
    Whose light once round us shone;
Of noble pride, now turned to shame,
    And hopes for ever gone.--
Sing, sad Harp, thus sing to me;
    Alike our doom is cast,
Both lost to all but memory,
    We live but in the past.

How mournfully the midnight air
    Among thy chords doth sigh,
As if it sought some echo there
    Of voices long gone by;--
Of Chieftains, now forgot, who seemed
    The foremost then in fame;
Of Bards who, once immortal deemed,
    Now sleep without a name.--
In vain, sad Harp, the midnight air
    Among thy chords doth sigh;
In vai...

My soul goes out to meet her, and my heart
Flings wide the portals of its love, and yearns
To have her enter its serene retreat.
A poor stray lamb, not wand'ring from the fold,
But all unstudied in the worldling's art,
Turning life's mintage into seeming gold,
Wherewith to purchase love and love's returns;
Unknowing that love's waters, though so sweet,
Lead to some bitter Marah.    So my soul
Goes out to meet her, and it clasps her home,
And seeks to bear her upward to the goal
At which the righteous enter.    From the dome
Of starriest Night two blest Immortals come,
To bear us spheral-ward to God's own mercy-seat.

Night bent o'er the mountains
With aspect serene;
The deep waters slept
'Neath the moon's pallid sheen,
And the stars in their courses
Moved noiseless on high,
As a soul, when it cleaveth
In thought the blue sky.

The low winds were spent
With the fever of day,
And stirred scarce a leaf
Of the green wood's array;
And the white, fleecy clouds
Hovered light on the air,
Like an angel's wing, bent
For a penitent prayer.

Sleep hushed in the city
The tumult and strife,
And calmed in the spirit
The unrest of life:
But one, where Mount Lebanon
Lifted its snow,
Slumbered not till the morn
Wakened earth with its glow.

Beneath the dark cedars,
Majestic, sublime,
That for ages had mocked
Both at tempe...