Identity

What are my books? - My friends, my loves,
    My church, my tavern, and my only wealth;
My garden: yea, my flowers, my bees, my doves;
    My only doctors - and my only health.

    Hail, thairm-inspirin', rattlin' Willie!
    Though fortune's road be rough an' hilly
    To every fiddling, rhyming billie,
        We never heed,
    But tak' it like the unback'd filly,
        Proud o' her speed.

    When idly goavan whyles we saunter
    Yirr, fancy barks, awa' we canter
    Uphill, down brae, till some mishanter,
        Some black bog-hole,
    Arrests us, then the scathe an' banter
        We're forced to thole.

    Hale be your heart! Hale be your fiddle!
    Lang may your elbuck jink and diddle,
    To cheer you through the weary widdle
        O' this wild warl',
    Until you on a crummock driddle
        A gray-hair'd carl.

    Come wealth, come poortith, late or soon,
    Heaven send your hear...

    To-morrow I shall see you come again
        Between the pale trees, through the sullen gate,
    Out of the dark and secret house of pain
        Where lie the unhappy and unfortunate.
    To-morrow you will live with me and love me,
        Spring will go on again, I'll see the flowers
    And little things, ridiculous things, shall move me
        To smiles or tears or verse.    The world is ours
    To-morrow.    Open heaths, tall trees, great skies,
        With massive clouds that fly and come again,
    Sweet fields, delicious rivers and the rise
        And fall of swelling land from the swift train
    We'll see together, knowing that all this
    Is one great room wherein we two may kiss.

        In the dark night, from sweet refreshing sleep
    I wake to hear outside my window-pane
    The uncurbed fury of the wild spring rain,
        And weird winds lashing the defiant deep,
        And roar of floods that gather strength and leap
    Down dizzy, wreck-strewn channels to the main.
    I turn upon my pillow and again
        Compose myself for slumber.
    Let them sweep;
    I once survived great floods, and do not fear,
        Though ominous planets congregate, and seem
        To foretell strange disasters.
    From a dream -
    Ah! dear God! such a dream! - I woke to hear,
        Through the dense shadows lit by no star's gleam,
    The rush of mighty waters on my ear.
        Helpless, afraid, and all alone, I lay;
    The flood...

My boat is on the bounding tide,
Away, away from surge and shore;
A waif upon the wave I ride,
Without a rudder or an oar.

Blow as ye list, ye breezes, blow
The compass now is nought to me;
Flow as ye will, ye billows, flow,
If but ye bear me out to sea.

Yon waving line of dusky blue,
Where care and toil oppress the heart
To thee I bid a long adieu,
And smile to feel that thus we part.

There let the sweating ploughman toil,
The yearning miser count his gain,
The fevered scholar waste his oil,
But I am bounding o'er the main!

How fresh these breezes to the brow
How dear this freedom to the soul;
Bright ocean, I am with thee now,
So let thy golden billows roll!

* * * * *

But stay what means this throbb...

JOSEPH

Mary, art thou the little maid
Who plucked me flowers in Spring?
I know thee not: I feel afraid:
Thou'rt strange this evening.

A sweet and rustic girl I won
What time the woods were green;
No woman with deep eyes that shone,
And the pale brows of a Queen.

MARY (inattentive to his words.)

A stranger came with feet of flame
And told me this strange thing, -
For all I was a village maid
My son should be a King.

JOSEPH

A King, dear wife. Who ever knew
Of Kings in stables born!

MARY

Do you hear, in the dark and starlit blue
The clarion and the horn?

JOSEPH

Mary, alas, lest grief and joy
Have sent thy wits astray;
But let me look on this my boy,
And take the wr...

There is a place among the Cape Ann hills
That looks from fir-dark summits on the sea,
Whose surging sapphire changes constantly
Beneath deep heavens, Morning windowsills,
With golden calm, or sunset citadels
With storm, whose towers the winds' confederacy
And bandit thunder hold in rebel fee,
Swooping upon the ilsher's sail that swells.
A place, where Sorrow ceases to complain,
And life's old Cares put all their burdens by,
And Weariness forgets itself in rest.
Would that all life were like it; might obtain
Its pure repose, its outlook, strong and high,
That sees, beyond, far Islands of the Blest.

When the gardener has gone this garden
Looks wistful and seems waiting an event.
It is so spruce, a metaphor of Eden
And even more so since the gardener went,

Quietly godlike, but of course, he had
Not made me promise anything and I
Had no one tempting me to make the bad
Choice. Yet I still felt lost and wonder why.

Even the beech tree from next door which shares
Its shadow with me, seemed a kind of threat.
Everything was too neat, and someone cares

In the wrong way. I need not have stood long
Mocked by the smell of a mown lawn, and yet
I did. Sickness for Eden was so strong.

I went into the deserts of dim sleep -
That world which, like an unknown wilderness,
Bounds this with its recesses wide and deep -

I.

The white-rose garland at her feet,
The crown of laurel at her head,
Her noble life on earth complete,
Lay her in the last low bed
For the slumber calm and deep:
“He giveth His belovèd sleep.”



II.

Soldiers find their fittest grave
In the field whereon they died;
So her spirit pure and brave
Leaves the clay it glorified
To the land for which she fought
With such grand impassioned thought.



III.

Keats and Shelley sleep at Rome,
She in well-loved Tuscan earth;
Finding all their death’s long home
Far from their old home of birth.
Italy, you hold in trust
Very sacred English dust.



IV.

Therefore this one prayer I breathe,
That you yet may worthy prove

Where, through the myriad leaves of forest trees,
The daylight falls, beryl and chrysoprase,
The glamour and the glimmer of its rays
Seem visible music, tangible melodies:
Light that is music; music that one sees
Wagnerian music where forever sways
The spirit of romance, and gods and fays
Take form, clad on with dreams and mysteries.
And now the wind's transmuting necromance
Touches the light and makes it fall and rise,
Vocal, a harp of multitudinous waves
That speaks as ocean speaks an utterance
Of far-off whispers, mermaid-murmuring sighs
Pelagian, vast, deep down in coral caves.

The skylark mounts up with the morn,
The valleys are green with the Spring,
The linnets sit in the whitethorn,
To build mossy dwellings and sing;
I see the thornbush getting green,
I see the woods dance in the Spring,
But Mary can never be seen,
Though the all-cheering Spring doth begin.

I see the grey bark of the oak
Look bright through the underwood now;
To the plough plodding horses they yoke,
But Mary is not with her cow.
The birds almost whistle her name:
Say, where can my Mary be gone?
The Spring brightly shines, and 'tis shame
That she should be absent alone.

The cowslips are out on the grass,
Increasing like crowds at a fair;
The river runs smoothly as glass,
And the barges float heavily there;
The milkmaid she sings to ...

(May 24, 1819 - January 22, 1901)

Sceptre and orb and crown,
High ensigns of a sovranty containing
The beauty and strength and state of half a World,
Pass from her, and she fades
Into the old, inviolable peace.

I

She had been ours so long
She seemed a piece of ENGLAND: spirit and blood
And message ENGLAND'S self,
Home-coloured, ENGLAND in look and deed and dream;
Like the rich meadows and woods, the serene rivers,
And sea-charmed cliffs and beaches, that still bring
A rush of tender pride to the heart
That beats in ENGLAND'S airs to ENGLAND'S ends:
August, familiar, irremovable,
Like the good stars that shine
In the good skies that only ENGLAND knows:
So that we held it sure
GOD'S aim, GOD'S will, GOD'S way,
When Empire fr...

        (To a Lawyer.)


        My friend, the sophisticated tongue
        Of lawyers can turn right to wrong;
        And language, by your skill made pliant,
        Can save an undeserving client.
        Is it the fee directs the sense
        To injure injured innocence?
        Or can you, with a double face
        Like Janus's, mistate a case?
        Is scepticism your profession,
        And justice absent from your session?
        And is, e'en so, the bar supplied,
        Where eloquence takes either side?

        A man can well express his meaning,
        Except in law deeds, where your gleaning
        Must be first purchased - must be fee'd;
        Engrossed, too, the too-prolix deed.
        But do we shelter be...

A Song.


        Happy and free, securely blest,
        No beauty could disturb my rest;
        My amorous heart was in despair,
        To find a new victorious fair.

        Till you descending on our plains,
        With foreign force renew my chains:
        Where now you rule without control
        The mighty sovereign of my soul.

        Your smiles have more of conquering charms,
        Than all your native country arms;
        Their troops we can expel with ease,
        Who vanquish only when we please.

        But in your eyes, oh! there's the spell,
        Who can see them, and not rebel?
        You make us captives by your stay,
        Yet kill us if you go away.

Fair is the rising morn when o'er the sky
    The orient sun expands his roseate ray,
And lovely to the Bard's enthusiast eye
    Fades the meek radiance of departing day;
But fairer is the smile of one we love,
    Than all the scenes in Nature's ample sway.
And sweeter than the music of the grove,
    The voice that bids us welcome. Such delight
    EDITH! is mine, escaping to thy sight
From the hard durance of the empty throng.
    Too swiftly then towards the silent night
Ye Hours of happiness! ye speed along,
    Whilst I, from all the World's cold cares apart,
    Pour out the feelings of my burthen'd heart.

He walked alone beside the lonely sea,
The slanting sunbeams fell upon his face,
His shadow fluttered on the pure white sands
Like the weary wing of a soundless prayer.
And He was, oh! so beautiful and fair!
Brown sandals on His feet -- His face downcast,
As if He loved the earth more than the heav'ns.
His face looked like His Mother's -- only hers
Had not those strange serenities and stirs
That paled or flushed His olive cheeks and brow.
He wore the seamless robe His Mother made --
And as He gathered it about His breast,
The wavelets heard a sweet and gentle voice
Murmur, "Oh! My Mother" -- the white sands felt
The touch of tender tears He wept the while.
He walked beside the sea; He took His sandals off
To bathe His weary feet in the pure cool wave --
F...

    Hither, hither, from thy home,
    Airy sprite, I bid thee come!
    Born of roses, fed on dew,
    Charms and potions canst thou brew?
    Bring me here, with elfin speed,
    The fragrant philter which I need.
    Make it sweet and swift and strong,
    Spirit, answer now my song!


**    *    *    *

    Hither I come,
    From my airy home,
    Afar in the silver moon.
    Take the magic spell,
    And use it well,
    Or its power will vanish soon!