Life

'Neath the radiance faint of the starlit sky
The gleaming snow-drifts lay wide and high;
O'er hill and dell stretched a mantle white,
The branches glittered with crystal bright;
But the winter wind's keen icy breath
Was merciless, numbing and chill as death.

It clamored around a handsome pile -
Abode of modern wealth and style
Where smiling guests had gathered to greet
Its master's birth-day with welcome meet;
And clink of glasses and loud gay tone,
With song and jest, drowned the wind's wild moan.

Yet, farther on, another abode
Its pillared portico proudly showed.
From its windows high flowed streams of light,
Mingling with outside shadows of night;
And the strains of music rapid, gay -
Told well how within sped the hours away.

Ste...

CHARACTERS

The Father. The Child. Death. Angels.
        Two Travellers.

    *    *    *    *    *

The even settles still and deep,
In the cold sky the last gold burns,
Across the colour snow flakes creep.
Each one from grey to glory turns
Then flutters into nothingness;
The frost down falls with mighty stress
Through the swift cloud that parts on high;
The great stars shrivel into less
In the hard depth of the iron sky.

    *    *    *    *    *

The Child:

What is that light, dear father,
That light in the dark, dark sky?


The Father:

Those are the lights of the city
And the villages thereby.


The Child:

There must be fire in the city

One Autumn evening, wandering, when the sun was hanging low,
Through a woodland where the music of a streamlet's gentle flow
Commingled with the rustling of the yellow golden leaves,
And the idling breeze's sighing as it floated through the trees,
I heard sweet voices whispering in accents soft and low,
That lulled to rest the troubled soul, like those of long ago.

Enchanted thus I lingered, by unseen hands fast bound,
My willing fancy captive to the magic of sweet sound,
And eagerly I listened to the whispering voices tell
Of happy days of childhood, and the tear unbidden fell,
As were pictured to the mind again the halcyon scenes of yore,
And loved ones that no more I'll meet till on the silent shore!

And as the slanting shadows fell athwart the scattered leaves

The sinking sun is taking leave,
And sweetly gilds the edge of Eve,
While huddling clouds of purple dye
Gloomy hang the western sky.
Crows crowd croaking over head,
Hastening to the woods to bed.
Cooing sits the lonely dove,
Calling home her absent love.
With "Kirchup! Kirchup!" mong the wheats
Partridge distant partridge greets;
Beckoning hints to those that roam,
That guide the squandered covey home.
Swallows check their winding flight,
And twittering on the chimney light.
Round the pond the martins flirt,
Their snowy breasts bedaubed with dirt,
While the mason, neath the slates,
Each mortar-bearing bird awaits:
By art untaught, each labouring spouse
Curious daubs his hanging house.

Bats flit by in hood and cowl;
Through the ba...

Along in early spring time, as the sun starts swinging North
To linger with the land it loves, and violets peep forth,
When the water starts to running thru the riffle blocks at noon
And you figure that you'll clean up, about the first of June.
You've been thru a long hard winter, but you see the end in sight,
You don't worry 'bout the cleanup, cause you know the pay is right;
But you're feeling sort of restless, as your blood warms with the sun
And your heart will start to itching, when the water starts to run.

You may leave your Camp at evening and mush away to Town
To dally with the hootch a bit, but the feeling will not down.
You may mix up in a poker game, or try the dance hall's lure
But you're fighting off a feeling, that the old cures cannot cure.
You've got that lo...

It seems a day
(I speak of one from many singled out)
One of those heavenly days that cannot die;
When, in the eagerness of boyish hope,
I left our cottage-threshold, sallying forth
With a huge wallet o’er my shoulders slung,
A nutting-crook in hand; and turned my steps
Tow’rd some far-distant wood, a Figure quaint,
Tricked out in proud disguise of cast-off weeds
Which for that service had been husbanded,
By exhortation of my frugal Dame,
Motley accoutrement, of power to smile
At thorns, and brakes, and brambles,, and, in truth,
More ragged than need was! O’er pathless rocks,
Through beds of matted fern, and tangled thickets,
Forcing my way, I came to one dear nook
Unvisited, where not a broken bough
Drooped with its withered leaves, ungracious sign
...

Tho' leafless are the woods, tho' flow'rs no more,
In beauty blushing, spread their fragrant store,
Yet still 'tis sweet to quit the crowded scene,
And rove with Nature, tho' no longer green;
For Winter bids her winds so softly blow,
That, cold and famine scorning, even now
The feather'd warblers still delight the ear,
And all of Summer, but her leaves, is here.
Here, on this winding garden's sloping bound,
'Tis sweet to listen to each rustic sound,
The distant dog-bark, and the rippling rill,
Or catch the sparkling of the water-mill.
The tranquil scene each tender feeling moves;
As the eye rests on Holwood's naked groves,
A tear bedims the sight for Chatham's son,
For him whose god-like eloquence could stun,
Like some vast cat'ract, Faction's clam'rous tongue...

Vital spark of heav'nly flame,
Quit, oh, quit, this mortal frame!
Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying,
Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life!

Hark! they whisper; Angels say,
Sister Spirit, come away.
What is this absorbs me quite,
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirits, draws my breath?
Tell me, my Soul! can this be Death?

The world recedes; it disappears;
Heav'n opens on my eyes; my ears
With sounds seraphic ring:
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O Grave! where is thy Victory?
O Death! where is thy Sting?

I
Days dawn on us that make amends for many
Sometimes,
When heaven and earth seem sweeter even than any
Man's rhymes.
Light had not all been quenched in France, or quelled
In Greece,
Had Homer sung not, or had Hugo held
His peace.
Had Sappho's self not left her word thus long
For token,
The sea round Lesbos yet in waves of song
Had spoken.

II
And yet these days of subtler air and finer
Delight,
When lovelier looks the darkness, and diviner
The light -
The gift they give of all these golden hours,
Whose urn
Pours forth reverberate rays or shadowing showers
In turn -
Clouds, beams, and winds that make the live day's track
Seem living -
What were they did no spirit give them back
Thanksgiving?

III

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!

Where dost thou careless lie,
Buried in ease and sloth?
Knowledge that sleeps doth die;
And this security,
It is the common moth
That eats on wits and arts, and oft destroys them both.

Are all th' Aonian springs
Dried up? lies Thespia waste?
Doth Clarius' harp want strings,
That not a nymph now sings?
Or droop they as disgrac'd,
To see their seats and bowers by chatt'ring pies defac'd?

If hence thy silence be,
As 'tis too just a cause,
Let this thought quicken thee:
Minds that are great and free
Should not on fortune pause;
'Tis crown enough to virtue still, her own applause.

What though the greedy fry
Be taken with false baits
Of worded balladry,
And think it poesy?
They die with their conceits,
And only pi...

Prologue

Calm and clear! the bright day is declining,
The crystal expanse of the bay,
Like a shield of pure metal, lies shining
’Twixt headlands of purple and grey,
While the little waves leap in the sunset,
And strike with a miniature shock,
In sportive and infantine onset,
The base of the iron-stone rock.

Calm and clear! the sea-breezes are laden
With a fragrance, a freshness, a power,
With a song like the song of a maiden,
With a scent like the scent of a flower;
And a whisper, half-weird, half-prophetic,
Comes home with the sigh of the surf;
But I pause, for your fancies poetic
Never rise from the level of “Turf”.

Fellow-bungler of mine, fellow-sinner,
In public performances past,
In trials whence touts take their wi...

An Oyster, cast upon the shore,
Was heard, though never heard before,
Complaining in a speech well worded,
And worthy thus to be recorded:—
Ah, hapless wretch! condemn’d to dwell
For ever in my native shell;
Ordain’d to move when others please,
Not for my own content or ease;
But toss’d and buffeted about,
Now in the water and now out.
‘Twere better to be born a stone,
Of ruder shape, and feeling none,
Than with a tenderness like mine,
And sensibilities so fine!
I envy that unfeeling shrub,
Fast rooted against every rub.
The plant he meant grew not far off,
And felt the sneer with scorn enough:
Was hurt, disgusted, mortified,
And with asperity replied
(When, cry the botanists, and stare,
Did plants call’d sensitive grow there?
No ...

Oh! I should ill thy generous cares requite
Thou who didst first inspire my timid Muse,
Could I one tuneful tear to thee refuse,
Now that thine aged eyes are closed in night,
Kind Warton! Thou hast stroked my stripling head,
And sometimes, mingling soft reproof with praise,
My path hast best directed through the maze
Of thorny life: by thee my steps were led
To that romantic valley, high o'erhung
With sable woods, where many a minstrel rung
His bold harp to the sweeping waterfall;
Whilst Fancy loved around each form to call
That fill the poet's dream: to this retreat
Of Fancy, (won by whose enticing lay
I have forgot how sunk the summer's day),
Thou first did guide my not unwilling feet;
Meantime inspiring the gay breast of youth
With love of taste, of sc...

    Illustrious fathers of the human race,
    Of you, the song of your afflicted sons
    Will chant the praise; of you, more dear, by far,
    Unto the Great Disposer of the stars,
    Who were not born to wretchedness, like ours.
    Immedicable woes, a life of tears,
    The silent tomb, eternal night, to find
    More sweet, by far, than the ethereal light,
    These things were not by heaven's gracious law
    Imposed on you. If ancient legends speak
    Of sins of yours, that brought calamity
    Upon the human race, and fell disease,
    Alas, the sins more terrible, by far,
    Committed by your children, and their souls
    More restless, and with mad ambition fixed,
    Against them roused the wrath of angry gods,
    The hand of all-sustaining Natu...

Long the road,
Till Love came down it!
Dark the life,
Till Love did crown it!
Dark the life,
And long the road,
Till Love came
To share the load!
For the touch
Of Love transfigures
All the road
And all its rigours.
Life and Death,
Love's touch transfigures.
Life and Death
And all that lies
In between,
Love sanctifies.
Once the heavenly spark is lighted,
Once in love two hearts united,
Nevermore
Shall aught that was be
As before.

Show me the noblest Youth of present time,
Whose trembling fancy would to love give birth;
Some God or Hero, from the Olympian clime
Returned, to seek a Consort upon earth;
Or, in no doubtful prospect, let me see
The brightest star of ages yet to be,
And I will mate and match him blissfully.
I will not fetch a Naiad from a flood
Pure as herself, (song lacks not mightier power)
Nor leaf-crowned Dryad from a pathless wood,
Nor Sea-nymph glistening from her coral bower;
Mere Mortals bodied forth in vision still,
Shall with Mount Ida's triple lustre fill
The chaster coverts of a British hill.
"Appear! obey my lyre's command!
Come, like the Graces, hand in hand!
For ye, though not by birth allied,
Are Sisters in the bond of love;
Nor shall the tongue of e...

You ask and I send. It is well, yea! best:
A lily hangs dead on its stalk, ah me!
A dream hangs dead on a life it blest.
Shall it flaunt its death where sad eyes may see
In the cold dank wind of our memory?
Shall we watch it rot like an empty nest?
Love's ghost, poor pitiful mockery -
Bury these shreds and behold it shall rest.

And shall life fail if one dream be sped?
For loss of one bloom shall the lily pass?
Nay, bury these deep round the roots, for so
In soil of old dreams do the new dreams grow,
New 'Hail' is begot of the old 'Alas.'
See, here are our letters, so sweet - so dead.