Life

If days should pass without a written word
    To tell me of thy welfare, and if days
    Should lengthen out to weeks, until the maze
Of questioning fears confused me, and I heard.
    Life-sounds as echoes; and one came and said
    After these weeks of waiting: "He is dead!"

Though the quick sword had found the vital part,
    And the life-blood must mingle with the tears,
    I think that, as the dying soldier hears
The cries of victory, and feels his heart
    Surge with his country's triumph-hour, I could
    Hope bravely on, and feel that God was good.

I could take up my thread of life again
    And weave my pattern though the colors were
    Faded forever. Though I might not dare
Dream often of thee, I should know that when
    Death came t...

It came with the threat of a waning moon
And the wail of an ebbing tide,
But many a woman has lived for less,
And many a man has died;
For life upon life took hold and passed,
Strong in a fate set free,
Out of the deep, into the dark,
On for the years to be.

Between the gleam of a waning moon
And the song of an ebbing tide,
Chance upon chance of love and death
Took wing for the world so wide.
Leaf out of leaf is the way of the land,
Wave out of wave of the sea;
And who shall reckon what lives may live
In the life that we bade to be?

Let the dream go. Are there not other dreams
    In vastness of clouds hid from thy sight
That yet shall gild with beautiful gold gleams,
    And shoot the shadows through and through with light?
    What matters one lost vision of the night?
    Let the dream go!

Let the hope set. Are there not other hopes
    That yet shall rise like new stars in thy sky?
Not long a soul in sullen darkness gropes
    Before some light is lent it from on high;
    What folly to think happiness gone by!
    Let the hope set!

Let the joy fade. Are there not other joys,
    Like frost-bound bulbs, that yet shall start and bloom?
Severe must be the winter that destroys
    The hardy roots locked in their silent tomb.
    What cares the earth for her brief time of gloo...

    Round them a fierce, wide, crazy noon
    Heaves with crushed lips and glowing sides
    Against the huge and drowsy sun.
    Beneath them turn the glittering tides
    Where dizzy waters reel with gold,
    And strange, rich trophies sink and rise
    From decks of sunken argosies.
    With shining arms they cleave the cold
    Far reaches of the sea, and beat
    The hissing foam with flash of feet
    Into bright fangs, while breathlessly
    Curls over them the amorous sea.

    Naked they laugh and revel there.
    One shakes the sea-drops from his hair,
    Then, singing, takes the bubbles: one
    Lies couched among the shells, the sands
    Telling gold hours between his hands:
    One floats like sea-wrack in the sun.
    The gods o...

1.
The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon's transparent might,
The breath of the moist earth is light,
Around its unexpanded buds;
Like many a voice of one delight,
The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,
The City's voice itself, is soft like Solitude's.

2.
I see the Deep's untrampled floor
With green and purple seaweeds strown;
I see the waves upon the shore,
Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:
I sit upon the sands alone, -
The lightning of the noontide ocean
Is flashing round me, and a tone
Arises from its measured motion,
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

3.
Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
Nor peace wit...

The Desert sands are heated, parched and dreary,
    The tigers rend alive their quivering prey
In the near Jungle; here the kites rise, weary,
    Too gorged with living food to fly away.

All night the hungry jackals howl together
    Over the carrion in the river bed,
Or seize some small soft thing of fur or feather
    Whose dying shrieks on the night air are shed.

I hear from yonder Temple in the distance
    Whose roof with obscene carven Gods is piled,
Reiterated with a sad insistence
    Sobs of, perhaps, some immolated child.

Strange rites here, where the archway's shade is deeper,
    Are consummated in the river bed;
Parias steal the rotten railway sleeper
    To burn the bodies of their cholera dead.

But yet, their lust, thei...

O Bios Bpaxus, - life is but a song;
H rexvn uakpn, - art is wondrous long;
Yet to the wise her paths are ever fair,
And Patience smiles, though Genius may despair.
Give us but knowledge, though by slow degrees,
And blend our toil with moments bright as these;
Let Friendship's accents cheer our doubtful way,
And Love's pure planet lend its guiding ray, -
Our tardy Art shall wear an angel's wings,
And life shall lengthen with the joy it brings!

Thou who singest through the earth,
    All the earth's wild creatures fly thee,
Everywhere thou marrest mirth.
    Dumbly they defy thee.
There is something they deny thee.

Pines thy fallen nature ever
For the unfallen Nature sweet.
But she shuns thy long endeavour,
    Though her flowers and wheat
Throng and press thy pausing feet.

Though thou tame a bird to love thee,
Press thy face to grass and flowers,
All these things reserve above thee
    Secrets in the bowers,
Secrets in the sun and showers.

Sing thy sorrow, sing thy gladness.
In thy songs must wind and tree
Bear the fictions of thy sadness,
    Thy humanity.
For their truth is not for thee.

Wait, and many a secret nest,
Many a hoarded winter-store

The list is long, the stories read the same;
    Strong mortal man is but a flesh-hued toy;
Some have their ending in a life of shame;
    Others drink deeply from the glass of joy;
Some see the cup dashed dripping from their lip
    Or drinking, find the wine has turned to gall,
While others taste the sweets they fain would sip
    And then Death comes--the sequel to it all.

"To-day" Oh! not to-day shall sound
Thy mild and gentle voice;
Nor yet "to-morrow" will it bid
My heart rejoice.

But one, one fondly treasured thing
Is left me 'mid decay,
This record, hallowed with thy thoughts
Of yesterday.

Chaste thoughts and holy, such as still
To purest hearts are given,
Breathing of Earth, yet wafting high
The soul to Heaven;

Soaring beyond the bounds of Time,
Beyond the blight of Death,
To worlds where "parting is no more,"
"Nor Life a breath."

'Tis true they whisper mournfully
Of buds too bright to bloom,
Of hopes that blossomed but to die
Around the tomb.

Still they are sweet remembrances
Of life's unclouded day
Sketches of mind, which death alone
Can wrench away;
<...

Over the hills and the valleys of dreaming
Slowly I take my way.
Life is the night with its dream-visions teeming,
Death is the waking at day.

Down thro' the dales and the bowers of loving,
Singing, I roam afar.
Daytime or night-time, I constantly roving,--
Dearest one, thou art my star.

It is a pity and a shame - alas! alas! I know it is,
To tread the trodden grapes again, but so it has been, so it is;
The purple vintage long is past, with ripened clusters bursting so
They filled the wine-vats to the brim,-'t is strange you will be thirsting so!

Too well our faithful memory tells what might be rhymed or sung about,
For all have sighed and some have wept since last year's snows were flung about;
The beacon flame that fired the sky, the modest ray that gladdened us,
A little breath has quenched their light, and deepening shades have saddened us.

No more our brother's life is ours for cheering or for grieving us,
One only sadness they bequeathed, the sorrow of their leaving us;
Farewell! Farewell! - I turn the leaf I read my chiming measure in;
Who knows but...

As he said vanity, so vain say I,
Oh! vanity, O vain all under Sky;
Where is the man can say, lo, I have found
On brittle Earth a Consolation sound?
What is't in honour to be set on high?
No, they like Beasts and Sons of men shall dye,
And whil'st they live, how oft doth turn their fate;
He's now a captive that was King of late.
What is't in wealth, great Treasures to obtain?
No that's but labour, anxious care and pain.
He heaps up riches, and he heaps up sorrow,
It's his to day, but who's his heir to morrow?
What then? Content in pleasures canst thou find,
More vain then all, that's but to grasp the wind.
The sensual senses for a time they please.
Mean while the conscience rage, who shall appease?
What is't in beauty? No that's but a snare,
They're foul ...

I'll tell thee why this weary world meseemeth
But as the visions light of one who dreameth,
Which pass like clouds, leaving no trace behind;
Why this strange life, so full of sin and folly,
In me awakeneth no melancholy,
Nor leaveth shade, or sadness, on my mind.
'Tis not that with an undiscerning eye
I see the pageant wild go dancing by,
Mistaking that which falsest is, for true;
'Tis not that pleasure hath entwined me,
'Tis not that sorrow hath enshrined me;
I bear no badge of roses or of rue,
But in the inmost chambers of my soul
There is another world, a blessed home,
O'er which no living power holdeth control,
Anigh to which ill things do never come.
There shineth the glad sunlight of clear thought,
With hope, and faith, holding communion high,
...

Ho! sportsman Time, whose chargers fleet
    The moments, madly driven,
Beat in the dust beneath their feet
    Sweet hopes that years have given;
Turn, turn aside those reckless steeds,
    Oh! do not urge them my way;
There's nothing that Time wants or needs
    In this contented by-way.

You have down-trodden, in your race,
    So much that proves your power,
Why not avoid my humble place?
    Why rob me of my dower?
With your vast cellars, cavern deep,
    Packed tier on tier with treasures,
You would not miss them should I KEEP
    My little store of pleasures.

As one who, frightened, flying, flings
    Her riches down at random,
Your course is paved with precious things
    Life casts before your tandem:
The warrior's fame,...

    Admiring Nature in her wildest grace,
    These northern scenes with weary feet I trace;
    O'er many a winding dale and painful steep,
    Th' abodes of covey'd grouse and timid sheep,
    My savage journey, curious I pursue,
    'Till fam'd Breadalbane opens to my view.
    The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides,
    The woods, wild scatter'd, clothe their ample sides;
    Th' outstretching lake, embosom'd 'mong the hills,
    The eye with wonder and amazement fills;
    The Tay, meand'ring sweet in infant pride,
    The palace, rising on its verdant side;
    The lawns, wood-fring'd in Nature's native taste;
    The hillocks, dropt in Nature's careless haste;
    The arches, striding o'er the new-born stream;
    The village, glittering in the noont...

How young I am!    Ah! heaven, this curse of youth
    Doth mock me from my mirror with great eyes,
And pulsing veins repeat the unwelcome truth,
    That I must live, though hope within me dies.

So young, and yet I have had all of life.
    Why, men have lived to see a hundred years,
Who have not known the rapture, joy, and strife
    Of my brief youth, its passion and its tears.

Oh! what are years?    A ripe three score and ten
    Hold often less of life, in its best sense,
Than just a twelvemonth lived by other men,
    Whose high-strung souls are ardent and intense.

But having seen all depths and scaled all heights,
    Having a heart love thrilled, and sorrow wrung,
Knowing all pains, all pleasures, all delights,
    Now I would die -but can...

The patient Pan,
Drunken with nectar,
Sleeps or feigns slumber,
Drowsily humming
Music to the march of time.
This poor tooting, creaking cricket,
Pan, half asleep, rolling over
His great body in the grass,
Tooting, creaking,
Feigns to sleep, sleeping never;
'T is his manner,
Well he knows his own affair,
Piling mountain chains of phlegm
On the nervous brain of man,
As he holds down central fires
Under Alps and Andes cold;
Haply else we could not live,
Life would be too wild an ode.



Come search the wood for flowers,--
Wild tea and wild pea,
Grapevine and succory,
Coreopsis
And liatris,
Flaunting in their bowers;
Grass with green flag half-mast high,
Succory to match the sky,
Columbine with horn...