Identity

Stop, Christian passer-by: Stop, child of God,
And read, with gentle breast. Beneath this sod
A poet lies, or that which once seem'd he
O, lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C.
That he who many a year with toil of breath
Found death in life, may here find life in death:
Mercy for praise, to be forgiven for fame
He ask'd, and hoped through Christ. Do thou the same.

A sky of wind! And while these fitful gusts
Are beating round the windows in the cold,
With sullen sobs of rain, behold I shape
A settler’s story of the wild old times:
One told by camp-fires when the station drays
Were housed and hidden, forty years ago;
While swarthy drivers smoked their pipes, and drew,
And crowded round the friendly gleaming flame
That lured the dingo, howling, from his caves,
And brought sharp sudden feet about the brakes.

A tale of Love and Death. And shall I say
A tale of love in death for all the patient eyes
That gathered darkness, watching for a son
And brother, never dreaming of the fate
The fearful fate he met alone, unknown,
Within the ruthless Australasian wastes?

For in a far-off, sultry summer, rimmed
With thun...

'T was somewhere in the April time,
Not long before the May,
A-sitting on a bank o' thyme
I heard a maiden say,
"My true love is a sailor,
And ere he went away
We spent a year together,
And here my lover lay.

The gold furze was in blossom,
So was the daisy too;
The dew-drops on the little flowers
Were emeralds in hue.
On this same Summer morning,
Though then the Sabbath day,
He crop't me Spring pol'ant'uses,
Beneath the whitethorn may.

He crop't me Spring pol'ant'uses,
And said if they would keep
They'd tell me of love's fantasies,
For dews on them did weep.
And I did weep at parting,
Which lasted all the week;
And when he turned for starting
My full heart could not speak.

The same roots grow pol'ant'us...

"O thou Almighty Father, who dost make
The heavens thy dwelling, not in bounds confin'd,
But that with love intenser there thou view'st
Thy primal effluence, hallow'd be thy name:
Join each created being to extol
Thy might, for worthy humblest thanks and praise
Is thy blest Spirit. May thy kingdom's peace
Come unto us; for we, unless it come,
With all our striving thither tend in vain.
As of their will the angels unto thee
Tender meet sacrifice, circling thy throne
With loud hosannas, so of theirs be done
By saintly men on earth. Grant us this day
Our daily manna, without which he roams
Through this rough desert retrograde, who most
Toils to advance his steps. As we to each
Pardon the evil done us, pardon thou
Benign, and of our merit take no count.
...

That whisper takes the voice
Of a Spirit's compassionings
Close, but invisible,
And throws me under a spell
At the kindling vision it brings;
And for a moment I rejoice,
And believe in transcendent things
That would mould from this muddy earth
A spot for the splendid birth
Of everlasting lives,
Whereto no night arrives;
And this gaunt gray gallery
A tabernacle of worth
On this drab-aired afternoon,
When you can barely see
Across its hazed lacune
If opposite aught there be
Of fleshed humanity
Wherewith I may commune;
Or if the voice so near
Be a soul's voice floating here.

My heart forgot its God for love of you,
    And you forgot me, other loves to learn;
Now through a wilderness of thorn and rue
    Back to my God I turn.

And just because my God forgets the past,
    And in forgetting does not ask to know
Why I once left His arms for yours, at last
    Back to my God I go.

He stood where all the rare voluptuous West,
Like some mad Maenad wine-stained to the breast,
Shot from delirious lips of ruby must
Long, fierce, triumphant smiles wherein hot lust
Swam like a feverish wine exultant tost
High from a golden goblet and so lost.
And all the West, and all the rosy West,
Bathed his frail beauty, hair and throat and breast;
And there he bloomed, a thing of rose and snows,
A passion flower of men of snows and rose
Beneath the casement of her old red tower
Whereat the lady sat, as white a flower
As ever blew in Provence, and the lace,
Mist-like about her hair, half hid her face
And all its moods which his sweet singing raised,
Sad moods that censured it, sweet moods that praised.
And where the white rose climbing over and over
Up...

The long laments I spent for ruin'd Troy,
Are dried; and now mine eyes run teares of joy.
No more shall men suppose Electra dead,
Though from the consort of her sisters fled
Unto the Artick circle, here to grace,
And gild this day with her serenest face:
And see, my daughter Iris hastes to throw
Her roseat wings in compasse of a bow,
About our State, as signe of my approach:
Attracting to her seate from Mithras coach,
A thousand different, and particular hiewes,
Which she throughout her body doth diffuse.
The Sun, as loth to part from this halfe Spheare,
Stands still; and Phoebe labors to appeare
In all as bright (if not as rich) as he:
And, for a note of more serenity,
My six faire sisters hither shift their lights;
To do this hower the utmost of her rit...

The crimson life-drops from a virgin heart
Pierced to the core by Cupid's fatal dart.

    I have sipped, with drooping lashes,
        Dreamy draughts of Verzenay;
    I have flourished brandy-smashes
        In the wildest sort of way;
    I have joked with "Tom and Jerry"
        Till wee hours ayont the twal' -
    But I've found my tea the very
        Safest tipple of them all!

    'Tis a mystical potation
        That exceeds in warmth of glow
    And divine exhilaration
        All the drugs of long ago -
    All of old magicians' potions -
        Of Medea's filtered spells -
    Or of fabled isles and oceans
        Where the Lotos-eater dwells!

    Though I've reveled o'er late lunches
        With blasé dramatic stars,
    And absorbed their wit and punches
        And the fumes of their cigars -

Joy, thou goddess, fair, immortal,
Offspring of Elysium,
Mad with rapture, to the portal
Of thy holy fame we come!
Fashion's laws, indeed, may sever,
But thy magic joins again;
All mankind are brethren ever
'Neath thy mild and gentle reign.

    CHORUS.
Welcome, all ye myriad creatures!
Brethren, take the kiss of love!
Yes, the starry realms above
Hide a Father's smiling features!

He, that noble prize possessing
He that boasts a friend that's true,
He whom woman's love is blessing,
Let him join the chorus too!
Aye, and he who but one spirit
On this earth can call his own!
He who no such bliss can merit,
Let him mourn his fate alone!

    CHORUS.
All who Nature's tribes are swelling
Homage pay to sympathy;

Once through an autumn wood
I roamed in tearful mood,
By grief dismayed, doubting, and ill at ease;
When from a leafless oak,
Methought low murmurs broke,
Complaining accents, as of words like these:

"Incline thy mighty ear
Great Mother Earth, and hear
How I, thy child, am sorely vexed and tossed;
No one to heed my moan,
I shudder here, alone
With my destroyers, wind and snow, and frost.

Then low and unaware
This answer cleaved the air,
This tender answer, "Doubting one be still;
Oh trust to me, and know
The wind, the frost, the snow,
Are but my servants sent to do my will.

"For the destroyer frost,
His labor is not lost,
Rid thee he shall of many noisome things;
And thou shalt praise the snow
When drinking far b...

As I gae'd doon by the twa mill dams i' the mornin'
The water-hen cam' oot like a passin' wraith
And her voice cam' through the reeds wi' a sound of warnin',
        "Faith - keep faith!"
"Aye, bird, tho' ye see but ane ye may cry on baith!"

As I gae'd doon the field when the dew was lyin',
My ain love stood whaur the road an' the mill-lade met,
An it seemed to me that the rowin' wheel was cryin',
        "Forgi'e - forget,
An turn, man, turn, for ye ken that ye lo'e her yet!"

As I gae'd doon the road 'twas a weary meetin',
For the ill words said yest're'en they were aye the same,
And my het he'rt drouned the wheel wi' its heavy beatin'.
        "Lass, think shame,
It's no for me to speak, for it's you to blame!"

As I gae'd doon by the toon when t...

The hoar-frost hisses 'neath the feet,
And the worm-fence's straggling length,
Smote by the morning's slanted strength,
Sparkles one rib of virgin sleet.

To withered fields the crisp breeze talks,
And silently and sadly lifts
The bronz'd leaves from the beech and drifts
Them wadded down the woodland walks.

Reluctantly and one by one
The worthless leaves sift slowly down,
And thro' the mournful vistas blown
Drop rustling, and their rest is won.

Where stands the brook beneath its fall,
Thin-scaled with ice the pool is bound,
And on the pebbles scattered 'round
The ooze is frozen; one and all

White as rare crystals shining fair.
There stirs no life: the faded wood
Mourns sighing, and the solitude
Seems shaken with a mighty c...

ONE Spring-morning bright and fair,

Roam'd a shepherdess and sang;
Young and beauteous, free from care,

Through the fields her clear notes rang:
So, Ia, Ia! le ralla, &c.

Of his lambs some two or three

Thyrsis offer'd for a kiss;
First she eyed him roguishly,

Then for answer sang but this:
So, Ia, Ia! le ralla, &c.

Ribbons did the next one offer,

And the third, his heart so true
But, as with the lambs, the scoffer

Laugh'd at heart and ribbons too,
Still 'twas Ia! le ralla, &c.

All in the dark we grope along,
    And if we go amiss
We learn at least which path is wrong,
    And there is gain in this.

We do not always win the race
    By only running right;
We have to tread the mountain's base
    Before we reach its height.

The Christs alone no errors made;
    So often had they trod
The paths that lead through light and shade,
    They had become as God.

As Krishna, Buddha, Christ again,
    They passed along the way,
And left those mighty truths which men
    But dimly grasp to-day.

But he who loves himself the last
    And knows the use of pain,
Though strewn with errors all his past,
    He surely shall attain.

Some souls there are that needs must taste
    Of wrong, ere choo...

In fashion, as a snow-white rose, lay then
Before my view the saintly multitude,
Which in his own blood Christ espous'd. Meanwhile
That other host, that soar aloft to gaze
And celebrate his glory, whom they love,
Hover'd around; and, like a troop of bees,
Amid the vernal sweets alighting now,
Now, clustering, where their fragrant labour glows,
Flew downward to the mighty flow'r, or rose
From the redundant petals, streaming back
Unto the steadfast dwelling of their joy.
Faces had they of flame, and wings of gold;
The rest was whiter than the driven snow.
And as they flitted down into the flower,
From range to range, fanning their plumy loins,
Whisper'd the peace and ardour, which they won
From that soft winnowing. Shadow none, the vast
Interposition of suc...

I gladly left
The noisy death of the city,
With its thousands of leering faces,
The yellow night of the alleys.
I stride into the broad,
Silver sky;
The pious limbs glide
Deep into gently being.
I am in the white brightness
Of cloud, meadow, wind.
Am tree, am town, am child...
How wet are my eyes!
Soon the green evening will stand
At its silver end...
I raise blessed hands -
I want to go to meet it -