Identity

Time like a cloud
Has risen from the East
And whelmed the sky over
Even to the wide-arched West,
Darkening the blue,
Embrowning the early gold,
Until no more the eternal Sun
Looks simply through.

In each man's eyes
The cloud is set,
With but the chill light
Of silver January skies.
On each man's heart
Time's firm shadow falls,
And the mind throws but a candle's beam
On the dark walls.

But on those walls
Man paints his dream
Rejoicing purely
In the faithful candle's beam:
Lives by its beauty,
Pictures his heart's delight,
And with that only beam outbraves
Time's gathering night.

O spiritual flame,
Calm, faithful, bright!
Time may whelm over
All but this candle's light:
Shadow but shad...

Am I despised, because you say;
And I dare swear, that I am gray?
Know, Lady, you have but your day!
And time will come when you shall wear
Such frost and snow upon your hair;
And when, though long, it comes to pass,
You question with your looking-glass,
And in that sincere crystal seek
But find no rose-bud in your cheek,
Nor any bed to give the shew
Where such a rare carnation grew:
Ah!then too late, close in your chamber keeping,
It will be told
That you are old,
By those true tears you're weeping.

If heaven were to do again,
And on the pasture bars,
I leaned to line the figures in
Between the dotted starts,

I should be tempted to forget,
I fear, the Crown of Rule,
The Scales of Trade, the Cross of Faith,
As hardly worth renewal.

For these have governed in our lives,
And see how men have warred.
The Cross, the Crown, the Scales may all
As well have been the Sword.

Strange is the song, and the soul that is singing
Falters because of the vision it sees;
Voice that is not of the living is ringing
Down in the depths where the darkness is clinging,
Even when Noon is the lord of the leas,
Fast, like a curse, to the ghosts of the trees!

Here in a mist that is parted in sunder,
Half with the darkness and half with the day;
Face of a woman, but face of a wonder,
Vivid and wild as a flame of the thunder,
Flashes and fades, and the wail of the grey
Water is loud on the straits of the bay!

Father, whose years have been many and weary
Elder, whose life is as lovely as light
Shining in ways that are sterile and dreary
Tell me the name of this beautiful peri,
Flashing on me like the wonderful white
Star, at the meetin...

To Jenny came a gentle youth
From inland leazes lone,
His love was fresh as apple-blooth
By Parrett, Yeo, or Tone.
And duly he entreated her
To be his tender minister,
And call him aye her own.

Fair Jenny's life had hardly been
A life of modesty;
At Casterbridge experience keen
Of many loves had she
From scarcely sixteen years above;
Among them sundry troopers of
The King's-Own Cavalry.

But each with charger, sword, and gun,
Had bluffed the Biscay wave;
And Jenny prized her gentle one
For all the love he gave.
She vowed to be, if they were wed,
His honest wife in heart and head
From bride-ale hour to grave.

Wedded they were. Her husband's trust
In Jenny knew no bound,
And Jenny kept her pure and just,
T...

Jones! as from Calais southward you and I
Went pacing side by side, this public Way
Streamed with the pomp of a too-credulous day,
When faith was pledged to new-born Liberty:
A homeless sound of joy was in the sky:
From hour to hour the antiquated Earth
Beat like the heart of Man: songs, garlands, mirth,
Banners, and happy faces, far and nigh!
And now, sole register that these things were,
Two solitary greetings have I heard,
"Good-morrow, Citizen!" a hollow word,
As if a dead man spake it! Yet despair
Touches me not, though pensive as a bird
Whose vernal coverts winter hath laid bare.

Now we are tired of boisterous joy,
Have romped enough, my little Boy!
Jane hangs her head upon my breast,
And you shall bring your stool and rest;
This corner is your own.

There! take your seat, and let me see
That you can listen quietly:
And, as I promised, I will tell
That strange adventure which befell
A poor blind Highland Boy.

A 'Highland' Boy! why call him so?
Because, my Darlings, ye must know
That, under hills which rise like towers,
Far higher hills than these of ours!
He from his birth had lived.

He ne'er had seen one earthly sight
The sun, the day; the stars, the night;
Or tree, or butterfly, or flower,
Or fish in stream, or bird in bower,
Or woman, man, or child.

And yet he neither drooped nor pined,

Tell me not what too well I know
About the bard of Sirmio.
Yes, in Thalia’s son
Such stains there are, as when a Grace
Sprinkles another’s laughing face
With nectar, and runs on.

    When I look back upon my life nigh spent,
        Nigh spent, although the stream as yet flows on,
    I more of follies than of sins repent,
        Less for offence than Love's shortcomings moan.
        With self, O Father, leave me not alone--
    Leave not with the beguiler the beguiled;
        Besmirched and ragged, Lord, take back thine own:
    A fool I bring thee to be made a child.

    (Spirit of Lord Eldon speaks)

    This England is gone staring mad,
    She hath abolished Chancery,[J]
    See the long lines of suitors, sad
    To find themselves unwontedly
    After one day of trial free.
    Pleading and seals have gone their way.
    "I know," said I, "that after me
    Too quickly comes the evil day."


    (Spirit of Lord Lyndhurst speaks)

    I was Chief Baron, and I had
    A Court of Law and Equity,[K]
    The Courts at Westminster were clad
    With ancient glory fair to see.
    Now County Courts have come to be
    Exalted high on our decay,
    And every whit as good as we;
    Too quickly comes the evil day.


    (Shade of Butler speaks)

    In days of yore we used to p...

Do you blame me that I loved him?
    If when standing all alone
I cried for bread a careless world
    Pressed to my lips a stone.

Do you blame me that I loved him,
    That my heart beat glad and free,
When he told me in the sweetest tones
    He loved but only me?

Can you blame me that I did not see
    Beneath his burning kiss
The serpent's wiles, nor even hear
    The deadly adder hiss?


Can you blame me that my heart grew cold
    The tempted, tempter turned;
When he was feted and caressed
    And I was coldly spurned?

Would you blame him, when you draw from me
    Your dainty robes aside,
If he with gilded baits should claim
    Your fairest as his bride?

Would you blame the world if it should press...

Picture Diana decked out for the chase,
Charging through forests, beating brush aside,
Drunk with the action, wind around her face,
Breast bare, her finest horsemen left behind!

You've seen Theroigne, carnage in her heart,
Rousing the shoeless masses to resist,
Cheek and eye blazing, playing out her part,
Mounting the royal stair, sabre in fist?

Such is Sisina, but the gentle knight
Within her heart can love as well as fight;
Though spurred by powder and by drums, her nerve

Before her suppliants lays arms to earth,
And her flame-ravaged heart keeps in reserve
A well of tears, for those who've proved their worth.

I love the warm bare earth and all
That works and dreams thereon:
I love the seasons yet to fall:
I love the ages gone,

The valleys with the sheeted grain,
The river's smiling might,
The merry wind, the rustling rain,
The vastness of the night.

I love the morning's flame, the steep
Where down the vapour clings:
I love the clouds that float and sleep,
And every bird that sings.

I love the purple shower that pours
On far-off fields at even:
I love the pine-wood dusk whose floors
Are like the courts of heaven.

I love the heaven's azure span,
The grass beneath my feet:
I love the face of every man
Whose thought is swift and sweet.

I let the wrangling world go by,
And like an idle breath
Its echoes and its...

The air is dark, the sky is gray,
The misty shadows come and go,
And here within my dusky room
Each chair looks ghostly in the gloom.
Outside the rain falls cold and slow--
Half-stinging drops, half-blinding spray.

Each slightest sound is magnified,
For drowsy quiet holds her reign;
The burnt stick in the fireplace breaks,
The nodding cat with start awakes,
And then to sleep drops off again,
Unheeding Towser at her side.

I look far out across the lawn,
Where huddled stand the silly sheep;
My work lies idle at my hands,
My thoughts fly out like scattered strands
Of thread, and on the verge of sleep--
Still half awake--I dream and yawn.

What spirits rise before my eyes!
How various of kind and form!
Sweet memories of days lo...

Let others boast ther bit o' brass,
That's moor nor aw can do;
Aw'm nobbut one o'th' workin class,
'At's strugglin to pool throo;
An if it's little 'at aw get,
It's little 'at aw need;
An if sometimes aw'm pinched a bit,
Aw try to nivver heed.

Some fowk they tawk o' brokken hearts,
An mourn ther sorry fate,
Becoss they can't keep sarvent men,
An dine off silver plate;
Aw think they'd show more gradely wit
To listen to my creed,
An things they find they connot get,
Why, try to nivver heed.

Ther's some 'at lang for parks an halls,
An letters to ther name;
But happiness despises walls,
It's nooan a child o' fame.
A robe may lap a woeful chap,
Whose heart wi' grief may bleed,
Wol rags may rest on joyful breast,
Soa ha...

Prat he writes satires, but herein's the fault,
In no one satire there's a mite of salt.

With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.

Der noble Ritter Hugo
Von Schwillensaufenstein,
Rode out mit shper and helmet,
Und he coom to de panks of de Rhine.

Und oop dere rose a meermaid,
Vot hadn’t got nodings on,
Und she say, “Oh, Ritter Hugo,
Vhere you goes mit yourself alone?”

And he says, “I rides in de creenwood,
Mit helmet und mit shpeer,
Til I coomes into em Gasthaus,
Und dere I trinks some beer.”

Und den outshpoke de maiden
Vot hadn’t got nodings on:
“I don’t dink mooch of beoplesh
Dat goes mit demselfs alone.

“You’d petter coom down in de wasser,
Vhere dere’s heaps of dings to see,
Und hafe a shplendid tinner
Und drafel along mit me.

“Dere you sees de fisch a schwimmin’,
Und you catches dem efery von:”
So sang dis wasser maiden