Life

"Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico." - HORACE.


Dear LONG, in this sequester'd scene,
While all around in slumber lie,
The joyous days, which ours have been
Come rolling fresh on Fancy's eye;
Thus, if, amidst the gathering storm,
While clouds the darken'd noon deform,
Yon heaven assumes a varied glow,
I hail the sky's celestial bow,
Which spreads the sign of future peace,
And bids the war of tempests cease.
Ah! though the present brings but pain,
I think those days may come again;
Or if, in melancholy mood,
Some lurking envious fear intrude,
To check my bosom's fondest thought,
And interrupt the golden dream,
I crush the fiend with malice fraught,
And, still, indulge my wonted theme.
Although we ne'er again can trace,
In Gra...

(a brief fragment of an extensive projected poem.)


“I could be well content, allowed the use
Of past experience, and the wisdom glean’d
From worn-out follies, now acknowledged such,
To recommence life’s trial, in the hope
Of fewer errors, on a second proof!”
Thus, while grey evening lull’d the wind, and call’d
Fresh odours from the shrubbery at my side,
Taking my lonely winding walk, I mused,
And held accustom’d conference with my heart;
When from within it thus a voice replied:
“Could’st thou in truth? and art thou taught at length
This wisdom, and but this, from all the past?
Is not the pardon of thy long arrear,
Time wasted, violated laws, abuse
Of talents judgment, mercies, better far
Than opportunity vouchsafed to err
With less excuse, an...

Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,
Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!
I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.
Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,
We know, we know that we can smile!
But there's a something in this breast,
To which thy light words bring no rest,
And thy gay smiles no anodyne.
Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,
And turn those limpid eyes on mine,
And let me read there, love! thy inmost soul.

Alas! is even love too weak
To unlock the heart, and let it speak?
Are even lovers powerless to reveal
To one another what indeed they feel?
I knew the mass of men conceal'd
Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd
They would by other men be met
With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;
I knew they lived and moved<...

Speakin' in general, I'ave tried 'em all
The 'appy roads that take you o'er the world.
Speakin' in general, I'ave found them good
For such as cannot use one bed too long,
But must get 'ence, the same as I'ave done,
An' go observin' matters till they die.

What do it matter where or 'ow we die,
So long as we've our 'ealth to watch it all,
The different ways that different things are done,
An' men an' women lovin' in this world;
Takin' our chances as they come along,
An' when they ain't, pretendin' they are good?

In cash or credit, no, it aren't no good;
You've to 'ave the 'abit or you'd die,
Unless you lived your life but one day long,
Nor didn't prophesy nor fret at all,
But drew your tucker some'ow from the world,
An' never bothered what you m...

A wan sky greener than the lawn,
A wan lawn paler than the sky.
She gave a flower into my hand,
And all the hours of eve went by.

Who knows what round the corner waits
To smite? If shipwreck, snare, or slur
Shall leave me with a head to lift,
Worthy of him that spoke with her.

A wan sky greener than the lawn,
A wan lawn paler than the sky.
She gave a flower into my hand,
And all the days of life went by.

Live ill or well, this thing is mine,
From all I guard it, ill or well.
One tawdry, tattered, faded flower
To show the jealous kings in hell.

I have run where festival was loud
With drum and brass among the crowd
Of panic revellers, whose cries
Affront the quiet of the skies;
Whose dancing lights contract the deep
Infinity of night and sleep
To a narrow turmoil of troubled fire.
And I have found my heart's desire
In beechen caverns that autumn fills
With the blue shadowiness of distant hills;
Whose luminous grey pillars bear
The stooping sky: calm is the air,
Nor any sound is heard to mar
That crystal silence - as from far,
Far off a man may see
The busy world all utterly
Hushed as an old memorial scene.
Long evenings I have sat and been
Strangely content, while in my hands
I held a wealth of coloured strands,
Shimmering plaits of silk and skeins
Of soft bright wool. Each co...

We never meet; yet we meet day by day
    Upon those hills of life, dim and immense:
    The good we love, and sleep--our innocence.
O hills of life, high hills!    And higher than they,

Our guardian spirits meet at prayer and play.
    Beyond pain, joy, and hope, and long suspense,
    Above the summits of our souls, far hence,
An angel meets an angel on the way.

Beyond all good I ever believed of thee
    Or thou of me, these always love and live.
And though I fail of thy ideal of me,

My angel falls not short.    They greet each other.
    Who knows, they may exchange the kiss we give,
Thou to thy crucifix, I to my mother.

When I watch you go by, in all your indolence,
To sound of instruments within the echoing hall
Suspending your appeal of lingering harmony,
And showing in your glance the ennui of your soul;

And when I contemplate, in colouring flames of gas,
Your pallid brow enhanced with a morbidity,
Where torches of the evening light a promised dawn,
Abd your alluring eyes, a master's artistry,

I think, how lovely! and how oddly innocent!
Massive remembrance, that great tower raised above,
Crowns her, and oh, her heart, bruised like a softened peach,
Is mellow, like her body, ripe for skilful love.

Are you the fruit of fall, when flavour is supreme?
Funeral vase, that waits for tears in darkened rooms,
Perfume that brings the far oases to our dreams,
Caressing ...

My heart has grown rich with the passing of years,
I have less need now than when I was young
To share myself with every comer
Or shape my thoughts into words with my tongue.

It is one to me that they come or go
If I have myself and the drive of my will,
And strength to climb on a summer night
And watch the stars swarm over the hill.

Let them think I love them more than I do,
Let them think I care, though I go alone;
If it lifts their pride, what is it to me
Who am self-complete as a flower or a stone.

Turn thy fair face to the breaking dawn,
Lily so white, that through all the dark,
Hast kept lone watch on the dewy lawn,
Deeming thy comrades grown cold and stark;
Soon shall the sunbeam, joyous and strong,
Dry the tears in thy stamens of gold--
Glinteth the day up merry and long,
    And the night grows old.

Turn thy fair face to Faith's rosy sky,
Soul so white that lone night hath kept
Sighing for spirits sin-bound that lie;
Wrong has ruled right, and the truth has slept;
The dawn shall show thee a host ere long,
Planting sweet roses abqve the mould;
The sun of righteousness beameth strong,
    And sin's night grows old.

Turn thine eyes to the burnished zone
From out of thy nest neath darkened eaves,
Oh bird, who hast mingled thy plain...

Amor che meco al buon tempo ti stavi.

HE VENTS HIS SORROW TO ALL WHO WITNESSED HIS FORMER FELICITY.


    Love, that in happier days wouldst meet me here
Along these meads that nursed our kindred strains;
And that old debt to clear which still remains,
Sweet converse with the stream and me wouldst share:
Ye flowers, leaves, grass, woods, grots, rills, gentle air,
Low valleys, lofty hills, and sunny plains:
The harbour where I stored my love-sick pains,
And all my various chance, my racking care:
Ye playful inmates of the greenwood shade;
Ye nymphs, and ye that in the waves pursue
That life its cool and grassy bottom lends:--
My days were once so fair; now dark and dread
As death that makes them so. Thus the world through
On each as soon as bo...

Winter is past; the heart of Nature warms
Beneath the wrecks of unresisted storms;
Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen,
The southern slopes are fringed with tender green;
On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves,
Spring's earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves,
Bright with the hues from wider pictures won,
White, azure, golden, - drift, or sky, or sun, -
The snowdrop, bearing on her patient breast
The frozen trophy torn from Winter's crest;
The violet, gazing on the arch of blue
Till her own iris wears its deepened hue;
The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould
Naked and shivering with his cup of gold.
Swelled with new life, the darkening elm on high
Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky
On all her boughs the stately ches...

The ways are green with the gladdening sheen
Of the young year's fairest daughter.
O, the shadows that fleet o'er the springing wheat!
O, the magic of running water!
The spirit of spring is in every thing,
The banners of spring are streaming,
We march to a tune from the fifes of June,
And life's a dream worth dreaming.

It's all very well to sit and spell
At the lesson there's no gainsaying;
But what the deuce are wont and use
When the whole mad world's a-maying?
When the meadow glows, and the orchard snows,
And the air's with love-motes teeming,
When fancies break, and the senses wake,
O, life's a dream worth dreaming!

What Nature has writ with her lusty wit
Is worded so wisely and kindly
That whoever has dipped in her manuscript
Mus...

Maiden May sat in her bower,
In her blush rose bower in flower,
Sweet of scent;
Sat and dreamed away an hour,
Half content, half uncontent.

"Why should rose blossoms be born,
Tender blossoms, on a thorn
Though so sweet?
Never a thorn besets the corn
Scentless in its strength complete.

"Why are roses all so frail,
At the mercy of the gale,
Of a breath?
Yet so sweet and perfect pale,
Still so sweet in life and death."

Maiden May sat in her bower,
In her blush rose bower in flower,
Where a linnet
Made one bristling branch the tower
For her nest and young ones in it.

"Gay and clear the linnet trills;
Yet the skylark only, thrills
Heaven and earth
When he breasts the height, and fills
Height and depth ...

And has the Spring's all glorious eye
No lesson to the mind?
The birds that cleave the golden sky--
Things to the earth resigned--
Wild flowers that dance to every wind--
Do they no memory leave behind?

Aye, flowers! The very name of flowers,
That bloom in wood and glen,
Brings Spring to me in Winter's hours,
And childhood's dreams again.
The primrose on the woodland lea
Was more than gold and lands to me.

The violets by the woodland side
Are thick as they could thrive;
I've talked to them with childish pride
As things that were alive:
I find them now in my distress--
They seem as sweet, yet valueless.

The cowslips on the meadow lea,
How have I run for them!
I looked with wild and childish glee
Upon each golden gem:

I love thee, Nature, with a boundless love!
The calm of earth, the storm of roaring woods!
The winds breathe happiness where'er I rove!
There's life's own music in the swelling floods!
My heart is in the thunder-melting clouds,
The snow-cap't mountain, and the rolling sea!
And hear ye not the voice where darkness shrouds
The heavens? There lives happiness for me!

My pulse beats calmer while His lightnings play!
My eye, with earth's delusions waxing dim,
Clears with the brightness of eternal day!
The elements crash round me! It is He!
Calmly I hear His voice and never start.
From Eve's posterity I stand quite free,
Nor feel her curses rankle round my heart.

Love is not here. Hope is, and at His voice--
The rolling thunder and the roaring sea--
...

Great are the myths - I too delight in them;
Great are Adam and Eve - I too look back and accept them;
Great the risen and fallen nations, and their poets, women, sages, inventors, rulers, warriors, and priests.
Great is Liberty! great is Equality! I am their follower;
Helmsmen of nations, choose your craft! where you sail, I sail,
I weather it out with you, or sink with you.

Great is Youth - equally great is Old Age - great are the Day and Night;
Great is Wealth - great is Poverty - great is Expression - great is Silence.

Youth, large, lusty, loving - Youth, full of grace, force, fascination!
Do you know that Old Age may come after you, with equal grace, force, fascination?

Day, full-blown and splendid - Day of the immense sun, action, ambition, laughter,
The Night ...

    I thought I had forever lost,
        Alas, though still so young,
    The tender joys and sorrows all,
        That unto youth belong;

    The sufferings sweet, the impulses
        Our inmost hearts that warm;
    Whatever gives this life of ours
        Its value and its charm.

    What sore laments, what bitter tears
        O'er my sad state I shed,
    When first I felt from my cold heart
        Its gentle pains had fled!

    Its throbs I felt no more; my love
        Within me seemed to die;
    Nor from my frozen, senseless breast
        Escaped a single sigh!

    I wept o'er my sad, hapless lot;
        The life of life seemed lost;
    The earth an arid wilderness,
        Locked in eternal frost;