Identity

    Yesterday I thought to roam
    Idly through the fields of home,
    And I came at morning's end
    To our brook's familiar bend.
    There I raised my eyes, and there,
    Shining through an ampler air,
    Folded in by hills of blue
    Such as Wessex never knew,
    Changed as in a waking dream
    Flowed the well-remembered stream.

    Now a line of wattled pale
    Fenced the downland from the vale,
    Now the sedge was set with reeds
    Fitter for Arcadian meads,
    And where I was wont to find
    Only things of timid kind,
    Now the Genius of the pool
    Mocked me from his corner cool.
    Eyes he had with malice quick,
    Tufted hair and ears a-prick,
    And, above a tiny chin,
    Lips with laughter wide a-...

I thought I was not alone, walking here by the shore,
But the one I thought was with me, as now I walk by the shore,
As I lean and look through the glimmering light - that one has utterly disappeared,
And those appear that perplex me.

Vergognando talor ch' ancor si taccia.

THE PRAISES OF LAURA TRANSCEND HIS POETIC POWERS.


    Ashamed sometimes thy beauties should remain
As yet unsung, sweet lady, in my rhyme;
When first I saw thee I recall the time,
Pleasing as none shall ever please again.
But no fit polish can my verse attain,
Not mine is strength to try the task sublime:
My genius, measuring its power to climb,
From such attempt doth prudently refrain.
Full oft I oped my lips to chant thy name;
Then in mid utterance the lay was lost:
But say what muse can dare so bold a flight?
Full oft I strove in measure to indite;
But ah, the pen, the hand, the vein I boast,
At once were vanquish'd by the mighty theme!

NOTT.


    Ashamed at times that I a...

This poem must be done to-day;
Then, I 'll e'en to it.
I must not dream my time away,--
I 'm sure to rue it.
The day is rather bright, I know
The Muse will pardon
My half-defection, if I go
Into the garden.
It must be better working there,--
I 'm sure it's sweeter:
And something in the balmy air
May clear my metre.

[In the Garden.]

Ah this is noble, what a sky!
What breezes blowing!
The very clouds, I know not why,
Call one to rowing.
The stream will be a paradise
To-day, I 'll warrant.
I know the tide that's on the rise
Will seem a torrent;
I know just how the leafy boughs
Are all a-quiver;
I know how many skiffs and scows
Are on the river.
I think I 'll just go out awhile
Before I write it;...

At the golden gate of song
Stood I, knocking all day long,
But the Angel, calm and cold,
Still refused and bade me, "Hold."

Then a breath of soft perfume,
Then a light within the gloom;
Thou, Love, camest to my side,
And the gates flew open wide.

Long I dwelt in this domain,
Knew no sorrow, grief, or pain;
Now you bid me forth and free,
Will you shut these gates on me?

Quel sempre acerbo ed onorato giorno.

HE RECALLS HER AS HE SAW HER WHEN IN TEARS.


    That ever-painful, ever-honour'd day
So left her living image on my heart
Beyond or lover's wit or poet's art,
That oft to it will doting memory stray.
A gentle pity softening her bright mien,
Her sorrow there so sweet and sad was heard,
Doubt in the gazer's bosom almost stirr'd
Goddess or mortal, which made heaven serene.
Fine gold her hair, her face as sunlit snow,
Her brows and lashes jet, twin stars her eyne,
Whence the young archer oft took fatal aim;
Each loving lip--whence, utterance sweet and low
Her pent grief found--a rose which rare pearls line,
Her tears of crystal and her sighs of flame.

MACGREGOR.


    That ever-hon...

What is a poet's love? -
To write a girl a sonnet,
To get a ring, or some such thing,
And fustianize upon it.

What is a poet's fame? -
Sad hints about his reason,
And sadder praise from garreteers,
To be returned in season.

Where go the poet's lines? -
Answer, ye evening tapers!
Ye auburn locks, ye golden curls,
Speak from your folded papers!

Child of the ploughshare, smile;
Boy of the counter, grieve not,
Though muses round thy trundle-bed
Their broidered tissue weave not.

The poet's future holds
No civic wreath above him;
Nor slated roof, nor varnished chaise,
Nor wife nor child to love him.

Maid of the village inn,
Who workest woe on satin,
(The grass in black, the graves in green,
The epitaph...

A voice of grave, deep emphasis
Is in the woods to-night;
No sound of radiant day is this,
No cadence of the light.
Here in the fall and flights of leaves
Against grey widths of sea,
The spirit of the forests grieves
For lost Persephone.

The fair divinity that roves
Where many waters sing
Doth miss her daughter of the groves
The golden-headed Spring.
She cannot find the shining hand
That once the rose caressed;
There is no blossom on the land,
No bird in last year’s nest.

Here, where this strange Demeter weeps
This large, sad life unseen
Where July’s strong, wild torrent leaps
The wet hill-heads between,
I sit and listen to the grief,
The high, supreme distress,
Which sobs above the fallen leaf
Like human tenderne...

Lo! I am come to autumn,
When all the leaves are gold;
Grey hairs and golden leaves cry out
The year and I are old.

In youth I sought the prince of men,
Captain in cosmic wars,
Our Titan, even the weeds would show
Defiant, to the stars.

But now a great thing in the street
Seems any human nod,
Where shift in strange democracy
The million masks of God.

In youth I sought the golden flower
Hidden in wood or wold,
But I am come to autumn,
When all the leaves are gold.

I am the one who loved her as my life,
    Had watched her grow to sweet young womanhood;
Won the dear privilege to call her wife,
    And found the world, because of her, was good.
I am the one who heard the spirit voice,
    Of which the paleface settlers love to tell;
From whose strange story they have made their choice
    Of naming this fair valley the "Qu'Appelle."

She had said fondly in my eager ear -
    "When Indian summer smiles with dusky lip,
Come to the lakes, I will be first to hear
    The welcome music of thy paddle dip.
I will be first to lay in thine my hand,
    To whisper words of greeting on the shore;
And when thou would'st return to thine own land,
    I'll go with thee, thy wife for evermore."

Not yet a leaf had fallen, not ...

Because you have found me in the pitch-dark night
With open book you ask me what I do.
Mark and digest my tale, carry it afar
To those that never saw this tonsured head
Nor heard this voice that ninety years have cracked.
Of Baile and Aillinn you need not speak,
All know their tale, all know what leaf and twig,
What juncture of the apple and the yew,
Surmount their bones; but speak what none ha've
heard.
The miracle that gave them such a death
Transfigured to pure substance what had once
Been bone and sinew; when such bodies join
There is no touching here, nor touching there,
Nor straining joy, but whole is joined to whole;
For the intercourse of angels is a light
Where for its moment both seem lost, consumed.
Here in the pitch-dark atmosphere above
...

I.

Through leafy windows of the trees
The full moon shows a wrinkled face,
And, trailing dim her draperies
Of mist from place to place,
The Twilight leads the breeze.

And now, far-off, beside a pool,
Dusk blows a reed, a guttural note;
Then sows the air around her full
Of twinkling disc and mote,
And moth-shapes soft as wool.

And from a glen, where lights glow by,
Through hollowed hands she sends a call,
And Solitude, with owlet cry,
Answers: and Evenfall
Steps swiftly from the sky.

And Mystery, in hodden gray,
Steals forth to meet her: and the Dark
Before him slowly makes to sway
A jack-o'-lantern spark
To light him on his way.

The grasshopper its violin
Tunes up, the katydid its fife;
The beetl...

I.
It once might have been, once only:
We lodged in a street together,
You, a sparrow on the housetop lonely,
I, a lone she-bird of his feather.

II.
Your trade was with sticks and clay,
You thumbed, thrust, patted and polished,
Then laughed “They will see some day
Smith made, and Gibson demolished.”

III.
My business was song, song, song;
I chirped, cheeped, trilled and twittered,
“Kate Brown’s on the boards ere long,
And Grisi’s existence embittered!”

IV.
I earned no more by a warble
Than you by a sketch in plaster;
You wanted a piece of marble,
I needed a music-master.

V.
We studied hard in our styles,
Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos,
For air looked out on the tiles,
For fun watched each oth...

I could not think of thee as piecèd rot,
Yet such thou wert, for thou hadst been long dead;
Yet thou liv'dst entire in my seeing thought
And what thou wert in me had never fled.
Nay, I had fixed the moments of thy beauty--
Thy ebbing smile, thy kiss's readiness,
And memory had taught my heart the duty
To know thee ever at that deathlessness.
But when I came where thou wert laid, and saw
The natural flowers ignoring thee sans blame,
And the encroaching grass, with casual flaw,
Framing the stone to age where was thy name,
    I knew not how to feel, nor what to be
    Towards thy fate's material secrecy.

A youth unto herself Grief took,
Whom everything of joy forsook,
And men passed with denying head,
Saying: "'T were better he were dead."

Grief took him, and with master-touch
Molded his being. I marveled much
To see her magic with the clay,
So much she gave - and took away.
Daily she wrought, and her design
Grew daily clearer and more fine,
To make the beauty of his shape
Serve for the spirit's free escape.
With liquid fire she filled his eyes.
She graced his lips with swift surmise
Of sympathy for others' woe,
And made his every fibre flow
In fairer curves. On brow and chin
And tinted cheek, drawn clean and thin,
She sculptured records rich, great Grief!
She made him loving, made him lief.

I marveled; for, where others saw

Like the moon her kindness is,
If kindness I may call
What has no comprehension in’t,
But is the same for all
As though my sorrow were a scene
Upon a painted wall.

So like a bit of stone I lie
Under a broken tree.
I could recover if I shrieked
My heart’s agony
To passing bird, but I am dumb
From human dignity.

This way and that way measuring,
Sighting from tree to tree,
And from the bend of the river.
This must be the place where Black Eagle
Twelve hundred moons ago
Stood with folded arms,
While a Pottawatomie father
Plunged a knife in his heart,
For the murder of a son.
Black Eagle stood with folded arms,
Slim, erect, firm, unafraid,
Looking into the distance, across the river.
Then the knife flashed,
Then the knife crashed through his ribs
And into his heart.
And like a wounded eagle's wings
His arms fell, slowly unfolding,
And he sank to death without a groan!

And my name is Black Eagle too.
And I am of the spirit,
And perhaps of the blood
Of that Black Eagle of old.
I am naked and alone,
But very happy;
Being rich in...

I arise and go down to the River, and currents that come from the sea,
Still fresh with the salt of the ocean, are lovely and precious to me,
The waters are silver and silent, except where the kingfisher dips,
Or the ripples wash off from my shoulder the reddening stain of thy lips.

Two things make my joy at this moment: thy gold-coloured beauty by night,
And the delicate charm of the River, all pale in the day-breaking light,
So cool are the waters' caresses. Ah, which is the lovelier, - this?
Or the fire that it kindles at midnight, beneath the soft glow of thy kiss?

Ah, Love has a mighty dominion, he forges with passionate breath
The links which stretch out to the Future, with forces of life and of death,
But great is the charm of the River, so soft is the sigh of the reeds,...