Life

Out from the harbour of youth's bay
    There leads the path of pleasure;
With eager steps we walk that way
    To brim joy's largest measure.
But when with morn's departing beam
    Goes youth's last precious minute,
We sigh "'Twas but a fevered dream -
    There's nothing in it."

Then on our vision dawns afar
    The goal of glory, gleaming
Like some great radiant solar star,
    And sets us longing, dreaming.
Forgetting all things left behind,
    We strain each nerve to win it,
But when 'tis ours -alas! we find
    There's nothing in it.

We turn our sad, reluctant gaze
    Upon the path of duty;
Its barren, uninviting ways
    Are void of bloom and beauty.
Yet in that road, though dark and cold,
    It seems as we begin...

Free man, you'll love the ocean endlessly!
It is your mirror, you observe your soul
In how its billows endlessly unroll
Your spirit's bitter depths are there to see.

You plunge in joy to your reflection's core,
With eyes and heart seizing it all along;
Your heart sometimes neglects its proper song
Distracted by the ocean's savage roar.

The two of you are subtle, shadowy:
Man, none has sounded your profound recess;
O sea, none knows the richness of your depths
Since you protect your secrets jealously!

And yet, because you both love death and strife,
You've fought each other through the endless years
With no remorse, without a pitying tear
Relentless brothers, enemies for life!

Lyre of the Sonnet, that full many a time
    Amus'd my lassitude, and sooth'd my pains,
    When graver cares forbade the lengthen'd strains,
    To thy brief bound, and oft-returning chime
A long farewell! - the splendid forms of Rhyme
    When Grief in lonely orphanism reigns,
    Oppress the drooping Soul. - DEATH's dark domains
    Throw mournful shadows o'er the Aonian clime;
For in their silent bourne my filial bands
    Lie all dissolv'd; - and swiftly-wasting pour
    From my frail glass of life, health's sparkling sands.
Sleep then, my LYRE, thy tuneful tasks are o'er,
    Sleep! for my heart bereav'd, and listless hands
    Wake with rapt touch thy glowing strings no more!

'Tis true, Idoloclastes Satyrane!
(So call him, for so mingling blame with praise,
And smiles with anxious looks, his earliest friends,
Masking his birth-name, wont to character
His wild-wood fancy and impetuous zeal,)
'Tis true that, passionate for ancient truths,
And honouring with religious love the Great
Of elder times, he hated to excess,
With an unquiet and intolerant scorn,
The hollow Puppets of an hollow Age,
Ever idolatrous, and changing ever
Its worthless Idols! Learning, Power, and Time,
(Too much of all) thus wasting in vain war
Of fervid colloquy. Sickness, 'tis true,
Whole years of weary days, besieged him close,
Even to the gates and inlets of his life!
But it is true, no less, that strenuous, firm,
And with a natural gladness, he maintaine...

I.

Alas! That breathing Vanity should go
Where Pride is buried, - like its very ghost,
Uprisen from the naked bones below,
In novel flesh, clad in the silent boast
Of gaudy silk that flutters to and fro,
Shedding its chilling superstition most
On young and ignorant natures - as it wont
To haunt the peaceful churchyard of Bedfont!


II.

Each Sabbath morning, at the hour of prayer,
Behold two maidens, up the quiet green
Shining, far distant, in the summer air
That flaunts their dewy robes and breathes between
Their downy plumes, - sailing as if they were
Two far-off ships, - until they brush between
The churchyard's humble walls, and watch and wait
On either side of the wide open'd gate,


III.

And there they ...

    I evaded capture today
    with only a handful of dust
    to escape that Old Sandman Death.

    Certainly, those maroon berries,
    so large & luscious,
    crowded on their fat stems
    had something to do with it
    as did the ground fog
    leaving its burrow as so many boll-weevils
    their crowded nests.

    And there might be something to the fact
    the moonlight sat
    fat & confidant in the night sky
    as surely
    as my head rests on this pillow
    and the poem invites itself
    into my lair of thoughts,
    much as nestlings charge the
    entrance to the runway
    of a tree.

    I walked flat out
    in an instance
    as standing urine
    held its own stench
    an...

When by the wall the tiger-flower swings
A head of sultry slumber and aroma;
And by the path, whereon the blown rose flings
Its obsolete beauty, the long lilies foam a
White place of perfume, like a beautiful breast -
Between the pansy fire of the west,
And poppy mist of moonrise in the east,
This heartache will have ceased.

The witchcraft of soft music and sweet sleep -
Let it beguile the burthen from my spirit,
And white dreams reap me as strong reapers reap
The ripened grain and full blown blossom near it;
Let me behold how gladness gives the whole
The transformed countenance of my own soul -
Between the sunset and the risen moon
Let sorrow vanish soon.

And these things then shall keep me company:
The elfins of the dew; the spirit of laught...

    The    time shall be, old Wisdom says, when you
        Shall grow awrinkled and I, indifferent,
    Shall no more follow the light steps I knew
        Or trace you, finding out the way you went,
    By swinging branches and the displaced flowers
        Among the thickets.    I no more shall stand,
    With careful pencil through the adoring hours
        Scratching your grace on paper.    My still hand
    No more shall tremble at the touch of yours
        And I'll write no more songs and you'll not sing.
    But this is all a lie, for love endures
        And we shall closer kiss, remembering
    How budding trees turned barren in the sun
    Through this long week, whereof one day's now done.

Written on the news of the death of Lord Leighton
A light has passed that never shall pass away,
A sun has set whose rays are unquelled of night.
The loyal grace, the courtesy bright as day,
The strong sweet radiant spirit of life and light
That shone and smiled and lightened on all men's sight,
The kindly life whose tune was the tune of May,
For us now dark, for love and for fame is bright.
Nay, not for us that live as the fen-fires live,
As stars that shoot and shudder with life and die,
Can death make dark that lustre of life, or give
The grievous gift of trust in oblivion's lie.
Days dear and far death touches, and draws them nigh,
And bids the grief that broods on their graves forgive
The day that seems to mock them as clouds that fly.
If life be life more fai...

Letter III. Regrets.


I.

    When I did wake, to-day, a bird of Heaven,
    A wanton, woeless thing, a wandering sprite,
    Did seem to sing a song for my delight;
    And, far away, did make its holy steven
    Sweeter to hear than lute-strings that are seven;
    And I did weep thereat in my despite.


II.

    O glorious sun! I thought, O gracious king,
    Of all this splendour that we call the earth!
    For thee the lark distils his morning mirth,
    But who will hear the matins that I sing?
    Who will be glad to greet ...

They come, as the breeze comes over the foam,
Waking the waves that are sinking to sleep --
The fairest of memories from far-away home,
The dim dreams of faces beyond the dark deep.

They come as the stars come out in the sky,
That shimmer wherever the shadows may sweep,
And their steps are as soft as the sound of a sigh
And I welcome them all while I wearily weep.

They come as a song comes out of the past
A loved mother murmured in days that are dead,
Whose tones spirit-thrilling live on to the last,
When the gloom of the heart wraps its gray o'er the head.

They come like the ghosts from the grass shrouded graves,
And they follow our footsteps on life's winding way;
And they murmur around us as murmur the waves
That sigh on the shore at the dying ...

The cup of life is not so shallow
That we have drained the best,
That all the wine at once we swallow
And lees make all the rest.

Maids of as soft a bloom shall marry
As Hymen yet hath blessed,
And fairer forms are in the quarry
Than Phidias released.

From the rainy hill-heads, where, in starts and in spasms,
Leaps wild the white torrent from chasms to chasms
From the home of bold echoes, whose voices of wonder
Fly out of blind caverns struck black by high thunder
Through gorges august, in whose nether recesses
Is heard the far psalm of unseen wildernesses
Like a dominant spirit, a strong-handed sharer
Of spoil with the tempest, comes down the Narrara.

Yea, where the great sword of the hurricane cleaveth
The forested fells that the dark never leaveth
By fierce-featured crags, in whose evil abysses
The clammy snake coils, and the flat adder hisses
Past lordly rock temples, where Silence is riven
By the anthems supreme of the four winds of heaven
It speeds, with the cry of the streams of the fountains
It cha...

    Dear are some hidden things
            My soul has sealed in silence; past delights,
    Hope unconfessed; desires with hampered wings,
            Remembered in the nights.

    But my best treasures are
            Ignoble, undelightful, abject, cold;
    Yet O! profounder hoards oracular
            No reliquaries hold.

    There lie my trespasses,
            Abjured but not disowned.    I’ll not accuse
    Determinism, nor, as the Master {26} says,
            Charge even "the poor Deuce."

    Under my hand they lie,
            My very own, my proved iniquities,
    And though the glory of my life go by
            I hold and garner these.

    How else, how otherwhere.
            How otherwise, shall I discern and grope<...

That painter has not with a careless smutch
Accomplished his despair?--one touch revealing
All he had put of life, thought, vigor, feeling,
Into the canvas that without that touch
Showed of his love and labor just so much
Raw pigment, scarce a scrap of soul concealing!
What poet has not found his spirit kneeling
A sudden at the sound of such or such
Strange verses staring from his manuscript,
Written he knows not how, but which will sound
Like trumpets down the years? So Accident
Itself unmasks the likeness of Intent,
And ever in blind Chance's darkest crypt
The shrine-lamp of God's purposing is found.

I can call a lake a kettle
a splendid, ivory comb a snare    -
tiny feet cataclysms off a mountain.
the night sky my ariel home.

Nothing matters with my heart at my ribs
a collarbone of doubt
inching into my anatomy
Everest-wide.
surging canals into my throat.

I am a pianist plying my trade
playing to waves    -
the wharf and pier
passionate onlookers
entranced with joy.
sailors wearing blond caps
in stout approval
their tall ships wavy as decorative pins.
smashed bottles accumulated days at sea
lapping the dock.

    How cold is that bosom which folly once fired,
        How pale is that cheek where the rouge lately glisten'd!
    How silent that tongue which the echoes oft tired,
        How dull is that ear which to flattery so listen'd!

    If sorrow and anguish their exit await,
        From friendship and dearest affection remov'd;
    How doubly severer, Maria, thy fate,
        Thou diest unwept as thou livedst unlov'd.

    Loves, Graces, and Virtues, I call not on you;
        So shy, grave, and distant, ye shed not a tear:
    But come, all ye offspring of Folly so true,
        And flowers let us cull for Maria's cold bier.

    We'll search through the garden for each silly flower,
        We'll roam through the forest for each idle weed;
    But chie...

"Dying?    I am not dying?    Are you mad?
    You think I need to ask for heavenly grace?
I think you are a fiend, who would be glad
    To see me struggle in death's cold embrace.

"But, man, you lie! for I am strong - in truth
    Stronger than I have been in years; and soon
I shall feel young again as in my youth,
    My glorious youth - life's one great priceless boon.

"O youth, youth, youth!    O God! that golden time,
    When proud and glad I laughed the hours away.
Why, there's no sacrifice (perhaps no crime)
    I'd pause at, could it make me young to-day.

"But I'm not old!    I grew - just ill, somehow;
    Grew stiff of limb, and weak, and dim of sight.
It was but sickness.    I am better now,
    Oh, vastly better,...