Identity

These times strike monied worldlings with dismay:
Even rich men, brave by nature, taint the air
With words of apprehension and despair:
While tens of thousands, thinking on the affray,
Men unto whom sufficient for the day
And minds not stinted or untilled are given,
Sound, healthy, children of the God of heaven,
Are cheerful as the rising sun in May.
What do we gather hence but firmer faith
That every gift of noble origin
Is breathed upon by Hope’s perpetual breath;
That virtue and the faculties within
Are vital, and that riches are akin
To fear, to change, to cowardice, and death?

Sylvia my heart in wondrous wise alarm'd
Awed without sense, and without beauty charm'd:
But some odd graces and some flights she had,
Was just not ugly, and was just not mad:
Her tongue still ran on credit from her eyes,
More pert than witty, more a wit than wise:
Good-nature, she declared it, was her scorn,
Though 'twas by that alone she could be borne:
Affronting all, yet fond of a good name;
A fool to pleasure, yet a slave to fame:
Now coy, and studious in no point to fall,
Now all agog for D----y at a ball:
Now deep in Taylor, and the Book of Martyrs,
Now drinking citron with his Grace and Chartres.

Men, some to business, some to pleasure take;
But every woman's in her soul a rake.
Frail, feverish sex; their fit now chills, now burns:
Atheism a...

All things within this fading world hath end,
Adversity doth still our joys attend;
No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet,
But with death's parting blow is sure to meet.
The sentence past is most irrevocable,
A common thing, yet oh, inevitable.
How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend.
How soon't may be thy lot to lose thy friend,
We both are ignorant, yet love bids me
These farewell lines to recommend to thee,
That when that knot's untied that made us one,
I may seem thine, who in effect am none.
And if I see not half my days that's due,
What nature would, God grant to yours and you;
The many faults that well you know
I have Let be interred in my oblivious grave;
If any worth or virtue were in me,
Let that live freshly in thy memory
An...

"Adieu, my love, adieu!
Be constant and be true
As the daisies gemmed with dew,
Bonny maid."
The cows their thirst were slaking,
Trees the playful winds were shaking;
Sweet songs the birds were making
In the shade.

The moss upon the tree
Was as green as green could be,
The clover on the lea
Ruddy glowed;
Leaves were silver with the dew,
Where the tall sowthistles grew,
And I bade the maid adieu
On the road.

Then I took myself to sea,
While the little chiming bee
Sung his ballad on the lea,
Humming sweet;
And the red-winged butterfly
Was sailing through the sky,
Skimming up and bouncing by
Near my feet.

I left the little birds,
And sweet lowing of the herds,
And couldn't find out words,
Do...

Whan Andrew frae Strathbogie gaed
    The lift was lowerin dreary,
The sun he wadna raise his heid,
    The win' blew laich and eerie.
In's pooch he had a plack or twa--
    I vow he hadna mony,
Yet Andrew like a linty sang,
    For Lizzie was sae bonny!
        O Lizzie, Lizzie, bonny lassie!
        Bonny, saucy hizzy!
        What richt had ye to luik at me
        And drive me daft and dizzy?

Whan Andrew to Strathbogie cam
    The sun was shinin rarely;
He rade a horse that pranced and sprang--
    I vow he sat him fairly!
And he had gowd to spen' and spare,
    And a hert as true as ony;
But his luik was doon, his sigh was sair,
    For Lizzie was sae bonny!
        O Lizzie, Lizzie, bonny hizzy!
        Aih, the sunlicht we...

For the mountains' hoarse greetings came hollow
From stormy wind-chasms and caves,
And I heard their wild cataracts wallow
Huge bulks in long spasms of waves,
And that Demon said, "Lo! you must follow!
And our path is o'er myriads of graves."

Then I felt that the black earth was porous
And rotten with worms and with bones;
And I knew that the ground that now bore us
Was cadaverous with Death's skeletons;
And I saw horrid eyes, heard sonorous
And dolorous gnashings and groans.

But the night of the tempest and thunder,
The might of the terrible skies,
And the fire of Hell that, - coiled under
The hollow Earth, - smoulders and sighs,
And the laughter of stars and their wonder
Mingled and mixed in its eyes.

And we clomb - and the moon o...

From pompous life's dull masquerade,
From Pride's pursuits, and Passion's war,
Far, my Cordelia, very far,
To thee and me may Heaven assign
The silent pleasures of the shade,
The joys of peace, unenvied, though divine!
Safe in the calm embowering grove,
As thy own lovely brow serene;
Behold the world's fantastic scene!
What low pursuits employ the great,
What tinsel things their wishes move,
The forms of Fashion, and the toys of State.
In vain are all Contentment's charms,
Her placid mien, her cheerful eye;
For look, Cordelia, how they fly!
Allur'd by Power, Applause, or Gain,
They fly her kind protecting arms;
Ah, blind to pleasure, and in love with pain!
Turn and indulge a fairer view,
Smile on the joys which here conspire;
O joys harmoni...

Ah! who is he by Cynthia's gleam
Discern'd, the statue of distress:
Weeping beside the willow'd stream
That bathes the woodland wilderness?

Why talks he to the idle air?
Why, listless, at his length reclin'd,
Heaves he the groan of deep despair,
Responsive to the midnight wind?

Speak, gentle shepherd! tell me why?
Sir! he has lost his wife, they say
Of what disorder did she die?
Lord, sir! of none she ran away.

Of dogs who sav'd a living friend,
    Most nobly, ye have read:
Now to a nobler still attend,
    A guardian of the dead.

As o'er wild Alpine scenes I stray'd,
    Not far from that retreat,
Where Bruno, with celestial aid,
    First plann'd his sacred seat.

An anchorite of noble mien,
    Attracted my regard;
Majestic as that savage scene,
    Or as a Cambrian bard.

He to no silent dome belongs,
    The rock is his domain;
It echoes to his nightly songs
    Devotion's lonely strain.

His mansion is a tranquil grot,
    Form'd in the living stone:
My view of the sequester'd spot,
    I owe to chance alone.

For happening near his cell to rove,
    Enamour'd of the wild;
I heard within a piny grove

High Church is undone,
As sure as a gun,
    For old Peter Patch is departed;
And Eyres and Delaune,
And the rest of that spawn,
    Are tacking about broken-hearted.

For strong Gill of Sarum,
That decoctum amarum,
    Has prescribed a dose of cant-fail;
Which will make them resign
Their flasks of French wine,
    And spice up their Nottingham ale.

It purges the spleen
Of dislike to the queen,
    And has one effect that is odder;
When easement they use,
They always will chuse
    The Conformity Bill for bumfodder.

I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide,
As being past away. -Vain sympathies!
For backward, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;
Still glides the Stream, and shall not cease to glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies;
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish; -be it so!
Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour;
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know.

Beautiful robin! with thy feathers red
    Contrasting sweetly with the soft green tree,
Making thy little flights as thou art led
    By things that tempt a simple one like thee -
I would that thou couldst warble me to tears
As lightly as the birds of other years.
    Idly to lie beneath an April sun,
Pressing the perfume from the tender grass;
    To watch a joyous rivulet leap on
With the clear tinkle of a music glass,
And as I saw the early robin pass,
    To hear him thro' his little compass run -
Hath been a joy that I shall no more know
Before I to my better portion go.

You will be mine; those lightly dancing feet,
    Falling as softly on the careless street
As the wind-loosened petals of a flower,
    Will bring you here, at the Appointed Hour.

And all the Temple's little links and laws
    Will not for long protect your loveliness.
I have a stronger force to aid my cause,
    Nature's great Law, to love and to possess!

Throughout those sleepless watches, when I lay
    Wakeful, desiring what I might not see,
I knew (it helped those hours, from dusk to day),
    In this one thing, Fate would be kind to me.

You will consent, through all my veins like wine
    This prescience flows; your lips meet mine above,
Your clear soft eyes look upward into mine
    Dim in a silent ecstasy of love.

The clustered ...

    Over and over they used to ask me,
    While buying the wine or the beer,
    In Peoria first, and later in Chicago,
    Denver, Frisco, New York, wherever I lived
    How I happened to lead the life,
    And what was the start of it.
    Well, I told them a silk dress,
    And a promise of marriage from a rich man -
    (It was Lucius Atherton).
    But that was not really it at all.
    Suppose a boy steals an apple
    From the tray at the grocery store,
    And they all begin to call him a thief,
    The editor, minister, judge, and all the people -
    "A thief," "a thief," "a thief," wherever he goes
    And he can't get work, and he can't get bread
    Without stealing it, why the boy will steal.
    It's the way the people regard the theft of ...

Dear native regions, I foretell,
From what I feel at this farewell,
That, wheresoe'er my steps may tend,
And whensoe'er my course shall end,
If in that hour a single tie
Survive of local sympathy,
My soul will cast the backward view,
The longing look alone on you.

Thus, while the Sun sinks down to rest
Far in the regions of the west,
Though to the vale no parting beam
Be given, not one memorial gleam,
A lingering light he fondly throws
On the dear hills where first he rose.

An empty bench, a sky of grayest etching,
A bare, bleak shed in blackest silhouette,
Twelve years of platform, and before them stretching
Twelve miles of prairie glimmering through the wet.

North, south, east, west, the same dull gray persistence,
The tattered vapors of a vanished train,
The narrowing rails that meet to pierce the distance,
Or break the columns of the far-off rain.

Naught but myself; nor form nor figure breaking
The long hushed level and stark shining waste;
Nothing that moves to fill the vision aching,
When the last shadow fled in sullen haste.

Nothing beyond. Ah yes! From out the station
A stiff, gaunt figure thrown against the sky,
Beckoning me with some wooden salutation
Caught from his signals as the train flashed by;

With fools and children good discretion bears;
    Then, honest people, bear with love and me,
    Nor older yet nor wiser made by years,
Amongst the rest of fools and children be.
    Love, still a baby, plays with gauds and toys,
And like a wanton sports with every feather,
And idiots still are running after boys;
Then fools and children fitt'st to go together.
    He still as young as when he first was born,
Nor wiser I than when as young as he;
You that behold us, laugh us not to scorn;
Give nature thanks you are not such as we!
    Yet fools and children sometimes tell in play;
    Some wise in show, more fools indeed than they.

Beautiful lofty things: O'Leary's noble head;
My father upon the Abbey stage, before him a raging crowd:
"This Land of Saints,' and then as the applause died out,
"Of plaster Saints'; his beautiful mischievous head thrown back.
Standish O'Grady supporting himself between the tables
Speaking to a drunken audience high nonsensical words;
Augusta Gregory seated at her great ormolu table,
Her eightieth winter approaching: "Yesterday he threatened my life.
I told him that nightly from six to seven I sat at this table,
The blinds drawn up'; Maud Gonne at Howth station waiting a train,
Pallas Athene in that straight back and arrogant head:
All the Olympians; a thing never known again.