Identity

These, I, singing in spring, collect for lovers,
(For who but I should understand lovers, and all their sorrow and joy?
And who but I should be the poet of comrades?)
Collecting, I traverse the garden, the world but soon I pass the gates,
Now along the pond-side now wading in a little, fearing not the wet,
Now by the post-and-rail fences, where the old stones thrown there, pick'd from the fields, have accumulated,
(Wild-flowers and vines and weeds come up through the stones, and partly cover them Beyond these I pass,)
Far, far in the forest, before I think where I go,
Solitary, smelling the earthy smell, stopping now and then in the silence,
Alone I had thought yet soon a troop gathers around me,
Some walk by my side, and some behind, and some embrace my arms or neck,
They, the spirit...

We stood by the window and hearkened
To the voice of the runnels sea-driven,
While, northward, the mountain-heads darkened,
Girt round with the clamours of heaven.
One peak with the storm at his portal
Loomed out to the left of his brothers:
Sustained, and sublime, and immortal,
A king, and the lord of the others!
Beneath him a cry from the surges
Rang shrill, like a clarion calling;
And about him, the wind of the gorges
Went falling, and rising, and falling.
But I, as the roofs of the thunder
Were cloven with manifold fires,
Turned back from the wail and the wonder,
And dreamed of old days and desires.
A song that was made, I remembered
A song that was made in the gloaming
Of suns which are sunken and numbered
With times that my heart hath no h...

‘What have I earned for all that work,’ I said,
‘For all that I have done at my own charge?
The daily spite of this unmannerly town,
Where who has served the most is most defamed,
The reputation of his lifetime lost
Between the night and morning. I might have lived,
And you know well how great the longing has been,
Where every day my footfall should have lit
In the green shadow of Ferrara wall;
Or climbed among the images of the past—
The unperturbed and courtly images—
Evening and morning, the steep street of Urbino
To where the duchess and her people talked
The stately midnight through until they stood
In their great window looking at the dawn;
I might have had no friend that could not mix
Courtesy and passion into one like those
That saw the wicks grow...

"Seldom we find," says Solomon Don Dunce,
"Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet.
Through all the flimsy things we see at once
As easily as through a Naples bonnet,
Trash of all trash! how can a lady don it?
Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff,
Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff
Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it."
And, veritably, Sol is right enough.
The general tuckermanities are arrant
Bubbles, ephemeral and so transparent,
But this is, now, you may depend upon it,
Stable, opaque, immortal- all by dint
Of the dear names that he concealed within't.

Poets are strange -- not always understood
By many is their gift,
Which is for evil or for mighty good --
To lower or to lift.

Upon their spirits there hath come a breath;
Who reads their verse
Will rise to higher life, or taste of death
In blessing or in curse.

The Poet is great Nature's own high priest,
Ordained from very birth
To keep for hearts an everlasting feast --
To bless or curse the earth.

They cannot help but sing; they know not why
Their thoughts rush into song,
And float above the world, beneath the sky,
For right or for the wrong.

They are like angels -- but some angels fell,
While some did keep their place;
Their poems are the gates of heav'n or hell,
And God's or Satan's face

Looks thro' their ...

O strange, dim other-world revealed to us,
Beginning there where ends reality,
Lying 'twixt life and death, and populous


With souls from either sphere! now enter we
Thy twisted paths.    Barred is the silver gate,
But the wild-carven doors of ivory


Spring noiselessly apart: between them straight
Flies forth a cloud of nameless shadowy things,
With harpies, imps, and monsters, small and great,


Blurring the thick air with darkening wings.
All humors of the blood and brain take shape,
And fright us with our own imaginings.


A trouble weighs upon us: no escape
From this unnatural region can there be.
Fixed eyes stare on us, wide mouths grin and gape,


Familiar faces out of reach we see.
Fain would we scream...

Poetry, music, I have loved, and yet
Because of those new dead
That come into my soul and escape
Confusion of the bed,
Or those begotten or unbegotten
Perning in a band,

Or those begotten or unbegotten,
For I would not recall
Some that being unbegotten
Are not individual,
But copy some one action,
Moulding it of dust or sand,

An old ghost's thoughts are lightning,
To follow is to die;
Poetry and music I have banished,
But the stupidity
Of root, shoot, blossom or clay
Makes no demand.

There is a charm in footing slow across a silent plain,
Where patriot battle has been fought, where glory had the gain;
There is a pleasure on the heath where Druids old have been,
Where mantles grey have rustled by and swept the nettles green;
There is a joy in every spot made known by times of old,
New to the feet, although each tale a hundred times be told;
There is a deeper joy than all, more solemn in the heart,
More parching to the tongue than all, of more divine a smart,
When weary steps forget themselves upon a pleasant turf,
Upon hot sand, or flinty road, or sea-shore iron scurf,
Toward the castle or the cot, where long ago was born
One who was great through mortal days, and died of fame unshorn.
Light heather-bells may tremble then, but they are far away;
Wood-lark...

I would I could weave in
    The colour, the wonder,
The song I conceive in
    My heart while I ponder,

And show how it came like
    The magi of old
Whose chant was a flame like
    The dawn's voice of gold;

Who dreams followed near them
    A murmur of birds,
And ear still could hear them
    Unchanted in words.

In words I can only
    Reveal thee my heart,
Oh, Light of the Lonely,
    The shining impart.

Between the twilight and the dark
The lights danced up before my eyes:
I found no sleep or peace or rest,
But dreams of stars and burning skies.

I knew the faces of the day--
Dream faces, pale, with cloudy hair,
I know you not nor yet your home,
The Fount of Shadowy Beauty, where?

...

    An Apologue.


("Poetry must be simple, sensuous, or impassioned; this man is neither simple, sensuous, nor impassioned; therefore he is not a poet.")


No man had ever heard a nightingale,
When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirred
To study and define - what is a bird,
To classify by rote and book, nor fail
To mark its structure and to note the scale
Whereon its song might possibly be heard.
Thus far, no farther; - so he spake the word.
When of a sudden, - hark, the nightingale!


Oh deeper, higher than he could divine
That all-unearthly, untaught strain!    He saw
The plain, brown warbler, unabashed.    "Not mine"
(He cried) "the error of this fatal flaw.
No bird is this, it soars beyond my line,
Were it a bird, 't would answer...

The South-wind brings
Life, sunshine and desire,
And on every mount and meadow
Breathes aromatic fire;
But over the dead he has no power,
The lost, the lost, he cannot restore;
And, looking over the hills, I mourn
The darling who shall not return.

I see my empty house,
I see my trees repair their boughs;
And he, the wondrous child,
Whose silver warble wild
Outvalued every pulsing sound
Within the air's cerulean round,--
The hyacinthine boy, for whom
Morn well might break and April bloom,
The gracious boy, who did adorn
The world whereinto he was born,
And by his countenance repay
The favor of the loving Day,--
Has disappeared from the Day's eye;
Far and wide she cannot find him;
My hopes pursue, they cannot bind him.
Re...

That you are fair or wise is vain,
Or strong, or rich, or generous;
You must add the untaught strain
That sheds beauty on the rose.
There's a melody born of melody,
Which melts the world into a sea.
Toil could never compass it;
Art its height could never hit;
It came never out of wit;
But a music music-born
Well may Jove and Juno scorn.
Thy beauty, if it lack the fire
Which drives me mad with sweet desire,
What boots it? What the soldier's mail,
Unless he conquer and prevail?
What all the goods thy pride which lift,
If thou pine for another's gift?
Alas! that one is born in blight,
Victim of perpetual slight:
When thou lookest on his face,
Thy heart saith, 'Brother, go thy ways!
None shall ask thee what thou doest,
Or care a rush ...

Over the pool of sleep
The night mists creep,
Then faint thin light and then clear day,
Noontide, and lingering afternoon;
Then that Wanderer, the Moon
Wandering her old wild way.

How many spirits follow
Her in that dark hollow!
Like a lost lamb she roams on high
Through the cold and soundless sky,
And stares down into her deep
Reflection in the pool of sleep.

How many follow
Her in that lone hollow!
She sees them not nor would she hear
Though both shape and sound were clear,
But stares, stares into the pool
Of her fear and beauty full.

Far in strange gay skies
She pales and dies,
Forgetting that bright transitory
Reflection of astonished glory,
Nor heeds the spirits that follow
Her into day's bright hollow.

Ah, I have changed, I do not know
Why lonely hours affect me so.
In days of yore, this were not wont,
No loneliness my soul could daunt.

For me too serious for my age,
The weighty tome of hoary sage,
Until with puzzled heart astir,
One God-giv'n night, I dreamed of her.

I loved no woman, hardly knew
More of the sex that strong men woo
Than cloistered monk within his cell;
But now the dream is lost, and hell

Holds me her captive tight and fast
Who prays and struggles for the past.
No living maid has charmed my eyes,
But now, my soul is wonder-wise.

For I have dreamed of her and seen
Her red-brown tresses' ruddy sheen,
Have known her sweetness, lip to lip,
The joy of her companionship.

When days were bleak and wi...

So ancient to myself I seem,
I might have crossed grave Styx's stream
A year ago; -
My word, 'tis so; -
And now be wandering with my sires
In that rare world we wonder o'er,
Half disbelieve, and prize the more!

Yet spruce I am, and still can mix
My wits with all the sparkling tricks,
A youth and girl
At twenty's whirl
Play round each other's bosom fires,
On this brisk earth I once enjoyed: -
But now I'm otherwise employed!

Am I a thing without a name;
A sort of dummy in the game?
"Not young, not old:"
A world is told
Of misery in that lengthened phrase;
Yet, gad, although my coat be smooth,
My forehead's wrinkled, - that's the truth!

I hardly know which road to go.
With youth? Perhaps. With age? Oh no!
Well,...

Where's the Poet? show him! show him,
Muses nine! that I may know him.
'Tis the man who with a man
Is an equal, be he King,
Or poorest of the beggar-clan
Or any other wonderous thing
A man may be 'twixt ape and Plato;
'Tis the man who with a bird,
Wren or Eagle, finds his way to
All its instincts; he hath heard
The Lion's roaring, and can tell
What his horny throat expresseth,
And to him the Tiger's yell
Come articulate and presseth
Or his ear like mother-tongue.

No Muse will I invoke; for she is fled!
Lo! where she sits, breathing, yet all but dead.
She loved the heavens of old, she thought them fair;
And dream'd of Gods in Tempe's golden air.
For her the wind had voice, the sea its cry;
She deem'd heroic Greece could never die.
Breathless was she, to think what nymphs might play
In clear green depths, deep-shaded from the day;
She thought the dim and inarticulate god
Was beautiful, nor knew she man a sod;
But hoped what seem'd might not be all untrue,
And feared to look beyond the eternal blue.
But now the heavens are bared of dreams divine.
Still murmurs she, like Autumn, _This was mine!_
How should she face the ghastly, jarring Truth,
That questions all, and tramples without ruth?
And still she clings to Ida of her...

After C. S. C.

When the hunter-star Orion
    (Or, it may be, Charles his Wain)
Tempts the tiny elves to try on
    All their little tricks again;
When the earth is calmly breathing
    Draughts of slumber undefiled,
And the sire, unused to teething,
    Seeks for errant pins his child;

When the moon is on the ocean,
    And our little sons and heirs
From a natural emotion
    Wish the luminary theirs;
Then a feeling hard to stifle,
    Even harder to define,
Makes me feel I 'd give a trifle
    For the days of Auld Lang Syne.

James--for we have been as brothers
    (Are, to speak correctly, twins),
Went about in one another's
    Clothing, bore each other's sins,
Rose together, ere the pearly
    Tint of morn ha...