Identity

        I.

There be Fairies bright of eye,
Who the wild-flowers warders are;
There be Fairies subtlely
Nourished in a blossom's star;
Fairies tripping merrily
Singing in faint echoes far,
Singing fairy melodies
Murmured by the burly bees,
By the wild brown bees.


        II.

Well I wot that Fairies be there, -
Fairies, Fairies that at eve
Lurking in a blossom-lair,
In some rose-bud's scented hair
From white beams of starlight weave
Glinting gown and shining shoe.
I have proven sure and true
Fairies be there, fays of dew,
Lying laughing in its spark
Floating in a rose's sark;
Singing fairy melodies,
When asleep the dusty bees
Can not steal their melodies,
Fairy melodies.

An Imitation Of Theocritus.[1]

To Madame De La Mésangère.[2]

Offspring of her to whom, to-day,
While from thy lovely self away,
A thousand hearts their homage pay,
Besides the throngs whom friendship binds to please,
And some whom love presents thee on their knees!
A mandate which I cannot thrust aside
Between you both impels me to divide
Some of the incense which the dews distil
Upon the roses of a sacred hill,
And which, by secret of my trade,
Is sweet and most delicious made.
To you, I say, ... but all to say
Would task me far beyond my day;
I need judiciously to choose;
Thus husbanding my voice and muse,
Whose strength and leisure soon would fail.
I'll only praise your tender heart, and hale,
Exalted feeling...

    Elenor Murray and Petain, the major,
    The Promenade des Anglais walked at Nice.
    A cloud was over him, and in her heart
    A growing grief.

    He knew her at the hospital,
    First saw her face among a little group
    Of faces at a grave when rain was falling,
    The burial of a nurse, when Elenor's face
    Was bathed in tears and strained with agony.
    And after that he saw her in the wards;
    Heard soldiers, whom she nursed, say as she passed,
    Dear little soul, sweet soul, or take her hand
    In gratitude and kiss it.

        But as a stream
    Flows with clear water even with the filth
    Of scum, debris that drifts beside the current
    Of crystal water, nor corrupts it, keeps
    Its poisoned, heavier medium ap...

’Midst the men and things which will
Haunt an old man’s memory still,
Drollest, quaintest of them all,
With a boy’s laugh I recall
Good old Abram Morrison.

When the Grist and Rolling Mill
Ground and rumbled by Po Hill,
And the old red school-house stood
Midway in the Powow’s flood,
Here dwelt Abram Morrison.

From the Beach to far beyond
Bear-Hill, Lion’s Mouth and Pond,
Marvellous to our tough old stock,
Chips o’ the Anglo-Saxon block,
Seemed the Celtic Morrison.

Mudknock, Balmawhistle, all
Only knew the Yankee drawl,
Never brogue was heard till when,
Foremost of his countrymen,
Hither came Friend Morrison;

Yankee born, of alien blood,
Kin of his had well withstood
Pope and King with pike and ball
Unde...

Umbrageous cedars murmuring symphonies
Stooped in late twilight o'er dark Denmark's Prince:
He sat, his eyes companioned with dream -
Lustrous large eyes that held the world in view
As some entrancèd child's a puppet show.
Darkness gave birth to the all-trembling stars,
And a far roar of long-drawn cataracts,
Flooding immeasurable night with sound.
He sat so still, his very thoughts took wing,
And, lightest Ariels, the stillness haunted
With midge-like measures; but, at last, even they
Sank 'neath the influences of his night.
The sweet dust shed faint perfume in the gloom;
Through all wild space the stars' bright arrows fell
On the lone Prince - the troubled son of man -
On Time's dark waters in unearthly trouble:
Then, as the roar increased, and one fair towe...

Out of the west a voice--a shudder of horror and pity;
    Quivers along the pulses of all the winds that blow;--
Woe for the fallen queen, for the proud and beautiful city.
    Out of the North a cry--lamentation and mourning and woe.

Dust and ashes and darkness her splendour and brightness cover,
    Like clouds above the glory of purple mountain peaks;
She sits with her proud head bowed, and a mantle of blackness over--
    She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks.

The city of gardens and palaces, stately and tall pavilions,
    Roofs flashing back the sunlight, music and gladness and mirth,
Whose streets were full of the hum and roar of the toiling millions,
    Whose merchantmen were princes, and the honourable of the earth:

Whose trad...

The wild duck startles like a sudden thought,
And heron slow as if it might be caught.
The flopping crows on weary wings go by
And grey beard jackdaws noising as they fly.
The crowds of starnels whizz and hurry by,
And darken like a clod the evening sky.
The larks like thunder rise and suthy round,
Then drop and nestle in the stubble ground.
The wild swan hurries hight and noises loud
With white neck peering to the evening clowd.
The weary rooks to distant woods are gone.
With lengths of tail the magpie winnows on
To neighbouring tree, and leaves the distant crow
While small birds nestle in the edge below.

I'm wife; I've finished that,
That other state;
I'm Czar, I'm woman now:
It's safer so.

How odd the girl's life looks
Behind this soft eclipse!
I think that earth seems so
To those in heaven now.

This being comfort, then
That other kind was pain;
But why compare?
I'm wife! stop there!

I asked the rock beside the road what joy existence lent.
It answered, 'For a million years my heart has been content.'

I asked the truffle-seeking swine, as rooting by he went,
'What is the keynote of your life?'    He grunted out, 'Content.'

I asked a slave, who toiled and sung, just what his singing meant.
He plodded on his changeless way, and said, 'I am content.'

I asked a plutocrat of greed, on what his thoughts were bent.
He chinked the silver in his purse, and said, 'I am content.'

I asked the mighty forest tree from whence its force was sent.
Its thousand branches spoke as one, and said, 'From discontent.'

I asked the message speeding on, by what great law was rent
God's secret from the waves of space.    It said, 'From discontent.'

I ...

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;

Whew! - Tha'rt in a famous hurry!
Awm nooan baan to try to catch thi!
Aw've noa dogs wi' me to worry
Thee poor thing, - aw like to watch thi.
Tha'rt a runner! aw dar back thi,
Why, tha ommost seems to fly!
Did ta think aw meant to tak thi?
Well, awm fond o' rabbit pie.

Aw dooan't want th' world to misen, mun,
Awm nooan like a dog i'th' manger;
Yet still 'twor happen best to run,
For tha'rt th' safest aght o' danger.
An sometimes fowks' inclination
Leads 'em to do what they shouldn't; -
But tha's saved me a temptation, -
Aw've net harmed thi, 'coss aw couldn't.

Aw wish all temptations fled me,
As tha's fled throo me to-day;
For they've oft to trouble led me,
For which aw've had dear to pay.
An a taicher wise aw've faand thi,

Celia, we know, is sixty-five,
Yet Celia's face is seventeen;
Thus winter in her breast must live,
While summer in her face is seen.

How cruel Celia's fate, who hence
Our heart's devotion cannot try;
Too pretty for our reverence,
Too ancient for our gallantry!

    Slip back, Time!
Yet again I am nearing
Castle and keep, uprearing
    Gray, as in my prime.

    At the inn
Smiling close, why is it
Not as on my visit
    When hope and I were twin?

    Groom and jade
Whom I found here, moulder;
Strange the tavern-holder,
    Strange the tap-maid.

    Here I hired
Horse and man for bearing
Me on my wayfaring
    To the door desired.

    Evening gloomed
As I journeyed forward
To the faces shoreward,
    Till their dwelling loomed.

    If again
Towards the Atlantic sea there
I should speed, they'd be there
    Surely now as then? . . .

    Why waste thought,
When I know them vanished
Under earth; yea, banished
    Ever into nought.

He smashed his hand
in opening a door for her,
and less pain than
embarrassment shrieked through him.
Concealing both,
grimacing as if theatrically,
he asked himself
who he thought he was to go
around opening
doors for anyone, much less for her.

Rimansi addietro il sestodecim' anno.

THOUGH HE IS UNHAPPY, HIS LOVE REMAINS EVER UNCHANGED.


    My sixteenth year of sighs its course has run,
I stand alone, already on the brow
Where Age descends: and yet it seems as now
My time of trial only were begun.
'Tis sweet to love, and good to be undone;
Though life be hard, more days may Heaven allow
Misfortune to outlive: else Death may bow
The bright head low my loving praise that won.
Here am I now who fain would be elsewhere;
More would I wish and yet no more I would;
I could no more and yet did all I could:
And new tears born of old desires declare
That still I am as I was wont to be,
And that a thousand changes change not me.

MACGREGOR.

On receiving a basket of sea-mosses.


Thanks for thy gift
Of ocean flowers,
Born where the golden drift
Of the slant sunshine falls
Down the green, tremulous walls
Of water, to the cool, still coral bowers,
Where, under rainbows of perpetual showers,
God's gardens of the deep
His patient angels keep;
Gladdening the dim, strange solitude
With fairest forms and hues, and thus
Forever teaching us
The lesson which the many-colored skies,
The flowers, and leaves, and painted butterflies,
The deer's branched antlers, the gay bird that flings
The tropic sunshine from its golden wings,
The brightness of the human countenance,
Its play of smiles, the magic of a glance,
Forevermore repeat,
In varied tones and sweet,
That beauty...

I saw an old man like a child,
His blue eyes bright, his white hair wild,
Who turned for ever, and might not stop,
Round and round like an urchin's top.

'Fool,' I cried, 'while you spin round,
'Others grow wise, are praised, are crowned.'
Ever the same round road he trod,
'This is better: I seek for God.'

'We see the whole world, left and right,
Yet at the blind back hides from sight
The unseen Master that drives us forth
To East and West, to South and North.

'Over my shoulder for eighty years
I have looked for the gleam of the sphere of spheres.'
'In all your turning, what have you found?'
'At least, I know why the world goes round.'

When the shy star goes forth in heaven
All maidenly, disconsolate,
Hear you amid the drowsy even
One who is singing by your gate.
His song is softer than the dew
And he is come to visit you.

O bend no more in revery
When he at eventide is calling.
Nor muse: Who may this singer be
Whose song about my heart is falling?
Know you by this, the lover’s chant,
’Tis I that am your visitant.