Identity

Stranger! this hillock of mis-shapen stones
Is not a Ruin spared or made by time,
Nor, as perchance thou rashly deem'st, the Cairn
Of some old British Chief: 'tis nothing more
Than the rude embryo of a little Dome
Or Pleasure-house, once destined to be built
Among the birch-trees of this rocky isle.
But, as it chanced, Sir William having learned
That from the shore a full-grown man might wade,
And make himself a freeman of this spot
At any hour he chose, the prudent Knight
Desisted, and the quarry and the mound
Are monuments of his unfinished task.
The block on which these lines are traced, perhaps,
Was once selected as the corner-stone
Of that intended Pile, which would have been
Some quaint odd plaything of elaborate skill,
So that, I guess, the linnet ...

One night when I went down
Thames' side, in London Town,
A heap of rags saw I,
And sat me down close by.
That thing could shout and bawl,
But showed no face at all;
When any steamer passed
And blew a loud shrill blast,
That heap of rags would sit
And make a sound like it;
When struck the clock's deep bell,
It made those peals as well.
When winds did moan around,
It mocked them with that sound;
When all was quiet, it
Fell into a strange fit;
Would sigh, and moan and roar,
It laughed, and blessed, and swore.
Yet that poor thing, I know,
Had neither friend nor foe;
Its blessing or its curse
Made no one better or worse.
I left it in that place,
The thing that showed no face,
Was it a man that had
Suffered till he went m...

I.

The voice and the Peak
Far over summit and lawn,
The lone glow and long roar
Green-rushing from the rosy thrones of dawn!



II.

All night have I heard the voice
Rave over the rocky bar,
But thou wert silent in heaven,
Above thee glided the star.



III.

Hast thou no voice, O Peak,
That standest high above all?
‘I am the voice of the Peak,
I roar and rave, for I fall.



IV.

‘A thousand voices go
To North, South, East, and West;
They leave the heights and are troubled,
And moan and sink to their rest.



V.

‘The fields are fair beside them,
The chestnut towers in his bloom;
But they–they feel the desire of the deep–
Fall, and fol...

Of a thousand things that the Year snowed under -
    The busy Old Year who has gone away -
How many will rise in the Spring, I wonder,
    Brought to life by the sun of May?
Will the rose-tree branches, so wholly hidden
    That never a rose-tree seems to be,
At the sweet Spring's call come forth unbidden,
    And bud in beauty, and bloom for me?

Will the fair green Earth, whose throbbing bosom
    Is hid like a maid's in her gown at night,
Wake out of her sleep, and with blade and blossom
    Gem her garments to please my sight?
Over the knoll in the valley yonder
    The loveliest buttercups bloomed and grew;
When the snow has gone that drifted them under,
    Will they shoot up sunward, and bloom anew?

When wild winds blew, and a sleet-storm pe...

The world was in its day of peril dark
Wont to believe the dotage of fond love
From the fair Cyprian deity, who rolls
In her third epicycle, shed on men
By stream of potent radiance: therefore they
Of elder time, in their old error blind,
Not her alone with sacrifice ador'd
And invocation, but like honours paid
To Cupid and Dione, deem'd of them
Her mother, and her son, him whom they feign'd
To sit in Dido's bosom: and from her,
Whom I have sung preluding, borrow'd they
The appellation of that star, which views,
Now obvious and now averse, the sun.

I was not ware that I was wafted up
Into its orb; but the new loveliness
That grac'd my lady, gave me ample proof
That we had entered there. And as in flame
A sparkle is distinct, or voice in voice

I.

Goodnight and goodbye to the life whose signs denote us
As mourners clothed with regret for the life gone by;
To the waters of gloom whence winds of the dayspring float us
Goodnight and goodbye.

A time is for mourning, a season for grief to sigh;
But were we not fools and blind, by day to devote us
As thralls to the darkness, unseen of the sundawn's eye?

We have drunken of Lethe at length, we have eaten of lotus;
What hurts it us here that sorrows are born and die?
We have said to the dream that caressed and the dread that smote us
Goodnight and goodbye.

II.

Outside of the port ye are moored in, lying
Close from the wind and at ease from the tide,
What sounds come swelling, what notes fall dying
Outside?

They will no...

Dear old road, wheel-worn and broken,
Winding through the forest green,
Barred with shadows and with sunshine,
Misty vistas drawn between.
Grim, scarred bluegums ranged austerely,
Lifting blackened columns each
To the large, fair fields of azure,
Stretching ever out of reach.

See the hardy bracken growing
Round the fallen limbs of trees;
And the sharp reeds from the marshes,
Washed across the flooded leas;
And the olive rushes, leaning
All their pointed spears to cast
Slender shadows on the roadway,
While the faint, slow wind creeps past.

Ancient ruts grown round with grasses,
Soft old hollows filled with rain;
Rough, gnarled roots all twisting queerly,
Dark with many a weather-stain.
Lichens moist upon the fences,
Twiners ...

Oh, the wild black swans fly westward still,
While the sun goes down in glory,
And away o’er lonely plain and hill
Still runs the same old story:
The sheoaks sigh it all day long,
It is safe in the Big Scrub’s keeping,
’Tis the butcher-birds’ and the bell-birds’ song
In the gum where ‘Unknown’ lies sleeping,
(It is heard in the chat of the soldier-birds
O’er the grave where ‘Unknown’ lies sleeping).
Ah! the Bushmen knew not his name or land,
Or the shame that had sent him here,
But the Bushmen knew by the dead man’s hand
That his past life lay not near.
The law of the land might have watched for him,
Or a sweetheart, wife, or mother;
But they bared their heads, and their eyes were dim,
For he might have been a brother!
(Ah! the death he died brought ...

Lo! where the car of Day down slopes of flame
On burnished axle quits the drowsy skies!
And as his snorting steeds of glowing brass
Rush 'neath the earth, a glimmering dust of gold
From their fierce hoofs o'er heaven's azure meads
Rolls to yon star that burns beneath the moon.
With solemn tread and holy-stoled, star-bound,
The Night steps in, sad votaress, like a nun,
To pace lone corridors of th' ebon-archéd sky.
How sad! how beautiful! her raven locks
Pale-filleted with stars that dance their sheen
On her deep, holy eyes, and woo to sleep,
Sleep or the easeful slumber of white Death!
How calm o'er this great water, in its flow
Silent and vast, smoothes yon cold sister sphere,
Her lucid chasteness feathering the wax-white foam!
As o'er a troubled brow falls c...

What is Harry thinking of,
    Sitting on that mossy stone?
All his brothers are at play;
    Why is he so still and lone?

He is musing earnestly;
    And the flutterings of the bird
And its pleading, feeble chirp
    Fall upon his ear unheard.

Well may little Harry think!
    From the pear-tree's withered bough
He has brought the pretty nest,
    Placed within his hat-crown now.

That is why he sits alone;
    And he hears a voice within,
Louder than the Robin's note,
    Crying, "Harry, this is sin!"

Then put back the nest, my boy,
    So you will be glad and free,
Nor will hasten by in shame,
    When you pass that withered tree.

Not only men of stormy minds,
    The storms of trouble know,
All creatures of this earth must find
    A share of earthly woe!

Ye whose pure hearts with pity swell,
    For pain by all incurr'd;
Hear how affliction once befell,
    Serenity's sweet bird.

Ye fair, who in your carols praise
    The Halcyon's happy state;
Hear in compassionate amaze,
    One Halcyon's hapless fate.

A nymph, Selina is her name,
    Lovely in mind and mien,
When spring, however early, came,
    Was fond of walks marine.

Between a woman and a child,
    In tender charms she grew,
And lov'd with fancy sweetly wild,
    The lonely shore to view.

Nature she studied, every spring,
    To all her offspring kind,
And taught the ...

I

From Wynyard's Gap the livelong day,
The livelong day,
We beat afoot the northward way
We had travelled times before.
The sun-blaze burning on our backs,
Our shoulders sticking to our packs,
By fosseway, fields, and turnpike tracks
We skirted sad Sedge-Moor.

II

Full twenty miles we jaunted on,
We jaunted on, -
My fancy-man, and jeering John,
And Mother Lee, and I.
And, as the sun drew down to west,
We climbed the toilsome Poldon crest,
And saw, of landskip sights the best,
The inn that beamed thereby.

III

For months we had padded side by side,
Ay, side by side
Through the Great Forest, Blackmoor wide,
And where the Parret ran.
We'd faced the gusts on Mendip ridge,
Had crossed the Yeo unhel...

The sea is the road of the bold,
Frontier of the wheat-sown plains,
The pit wherein the streams are rolled
And fountain of the rains.

Her voice did quiver as we parted,
Yet knew I not that heart was broken
From which it came, and I departed
Heeding not the words then spoken.
Misery - O Misery,
This world is all too wide for thee.

Shall we, too, rise forgetful from our sleep,
And shall my soul that lies within your hand
Remember nothing, as the blowing sand
Forgets the palm where long blue shadows creep
When winds along the darkened desert sweep?

Or would it still remember, tho' it spanned
A thousand heavens, while the planets fanned
The vacant ether with their voices deep?
Soul of my soul, no word shall be forgot,
Nor yet alone, beloved, shall we see

The desolation of extinguished suns,
Nor fear the void wherethro' our planet runs,
For still together shall we go and not
Fare forth alone to front eternity.

Why run the crowd? What means the throng
That rushes fast the streets along?
Can Rhodes a prey to flames, then, be?
In crowds they gather hastily,
And, on his steed, a noble knight
Amid the rabble, meets my sight;
Behind him prodigy unknown!
A monster fierce they're drawing on;
A dragon stems it by its shape,
With wide and crocodile-like jaw,
And on the knight and dragon gape,
In turns, the people, filled with awe.

And thousand voices shout with glee
"The fiery dragon come and see,
Who hind and flock tore limb from limb!
The hero see, who vanquished him!
Full many a one before him went,
To dare the fearful combat bent,
But none returned home from the fight;
Honor ye, then, the noble knight!"
And toward the convent move they all,
...

Letter VIII. A Vision.


I.

    Yes, I will tell thee what, a week ago,
    I dreamt of thee, and all the joy therein
    Which I conceiv'd, and all the holy din
    Of throbbing music, which appear'd to flow
    From room to room, as if to make me know
    The power thereof to lead me out of sin.


II.

    Methought I saw thee in a ray of light,
    This side a grove - a dream within a dream -
    With eyes of tender pleading, and the gleam
    Of far-off summers in thy tresses bright;
    And I did tremble at the gracious sig...

Dark head by the fireside brooding,
    Sad upon your ears
Whirlwinds of the earth intruding
    Sound in wrath and tears:

Tender-hearted, in your lonely
    Sorrow I would fain
Comfort you, and say that only
    Gods could feel such pain.

Only spirits know such longing
    For the far away;
And the fiery fancies thronging
    Rise not out of clay.

Keep the secret sense celestial
    Of the starry birth;
Though about you call the bestial
    Voices of the earth.

If a thousand ages since
    Hurled us from the throne:
Then a thousand ages wins
    Back again our own.

Sad one, dry away your tears:
    Sceptred you shall rise,
Equal mid the crystal spheres
    With seraphs kingly wise.

--...