Life

How often we forget all time, when lone
Admiring Nature's universal throne;
Her woods, her wilds, her mountains, the intense
Reply of Hers to Our intelligence! [BYRON, The Island.]

I

In youth have I known one with whom the Earth
In secret communing held, as he with it,
In daylight, and in beauty from his birth:
Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit
From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
A passionate light, such for his spirit was fit,
And yet that spirit knew not, in the hour
Of its own fervor what had o'er it power.


II

Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought
To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o'er,
But I will half believe that wild light fraught
With more of sovereignty than ancient lore
Hath ev...

Since thou and I have proven many a time
That all our hope betrays us and deceives,
To that consummate good which never grieves
Uplift thy heart, towards a happier clime.
This life is like a field of flowering thyme,
Amidst the herbs and grass the serpent lives;
If aught unto the sight brief pleasure gives,
'T is but to snare the soul with treacherous lime.
So, wouldst thou keep thy spirit free from cloud,
A tranquil habit to thy latest day,
Follow the few, and not the vulgar crowd.
Yet mayest thou urge, "Brother, the very way
Thou showest us, wherefrom thy footsteps proud
(And never more than now) so oft did stray."

All through the night time, and all through the day time,
    Dreading the morning and dreading the night,
Nearer and nearer we drift to the May time
    Season of beauty and season of blight,
Leaves on the linden, and sun on the meadow,
    Green in the garden, and bloom everywhere,
Gloom in my heart, and a terrible shadow,
    Walks by me, sits by me, stands by my chair.

Oh, but the birds by the brooklet are cheery,
    Oh, but the woods show such delicate greens,
Strange how you droop and how soon you are weary -
    Too well I know what that weariness means.
But how could I know in the crisp winter weather
    (Though sometimes I noticed a catch in your breath),
Riding and singing and dancing together,
    How could I know you were racing with death?

Do you remember the wood, love,
That skirted the meadow so green;
Where the cooing was heard of the stock-dove,
And the sunlight just glinted between.
The trees, that with branches entwining
Made shade, where we wandered in bliss,
And our eyes with true love-light were shining, -
When you gave me the first loving kiss?

The ferns grew tall, graceful and fair,
But none were so graceful as you;
Wild flow'rs in profusion were there,
But your eyes were a lovelier blue;
And the tint on your cheek shamed the rose,
And your brow as the lily was white,
And your curls, bright as gold, when it glows,
In the crucible, liquid and bright.

And do you remember the stile,
Where so cosily sitting at eve,
Breathing forth ardent love-vows the while,
We ...

The joys that touched thee once, be mine!
The sympathies of sky and sea,
The friendships of each rock and pine,
That made thy lonely life, ah me!
In Tempe or in Gargaphie.

Such joy as thou didst feel when first,
On some wild crag, thou stood'st alone
To watch the mountain tempest burst,
With streaming thunder, lightning-sown,
On Latmos or on Pelion.

Thy awe! when, crowned with vastness, Night
And Silence ruled the deep's abyss;
And through dark leaves thou saw'st the white
Breasts of the starry maids who kiss
Pale feet of moony Artemis.

Thy dreams! when, breasting matted weeds
Of Arethusa, thou didst hear
The music of the wind-swept reeds;
And down dim forest-ways drew near
Shy herds of slim Arcadian deer.

Thy wisdom...

    Terminus shows the ways and says,
    "All things must have an end."
    Oh, bitter thought we hid away
    When first you were my friend.

    We hid it in the darkest place
    Our hearts had place to hide,
    And took the sweet as from a spring
    Whose waters would abide.

    For neither life nor the wide world
    Has greater store than this: -
    The thought that runs through hands and eyes
    And fills the silences.

    There is a void the agéd world
    Throws over the spent heart;
    When Life has given all she has,
    And Terminus says depart.

    When we must sit with folded hands,
    And see with inward eye
    A void rise like an arctic breath
    To hollow the morrow's sky.

    To-morrow...

Light rain-drops fall and wrinkle the sea,
Then vanish, and die utterly.
One would not know that rain-drops fell
If the round sea-wrinkles did not tell.

So souls come down and wrinkle life
And vanish in the flesh-sea strife.
One might not know that souls had place
Were't not for the wrinkles in life's face.

This is the place.    Stand still, my steed,
    Let me review the scene,
And summon from the shadowy Past
    The forms that once have been.

The Past and Present here unite
    Beneath Time's flowing tide,
Like footprints hidden by a brook,
    But seen on either side.

Here runs the highway to the town;
    There the green lane descends,
Through which I walked to church with thee,
    O gentlest of my friends!

The shadow of the linden-trees
    Lay moving on the grass;
Between them and the moving boughs,
    A shadow, thou didst pass.

Thy dress was like the lilies,
    And thy heart as pure as they:
One of God's holy messengers
    Did walk with me that day.

I saw the branches of the trees
    Bend down t...

As a guest who may not stay
Long and sad farewells to say
Glides with smiling face away,

Of the sweetness and the zest
Of thy happy life possessed
Thou hast left us at thy best.

Warm of heart and clear of brain,
Of thy sun-bright spirit's wane
Thou hast spared us all the pain.

Now that thou hast gone away,
What is left of one to say
Who was open as the day?

What is there to gloss or shun?
Save with kindly voices none
Speak thy name beneath the sun.

Safe thou art on every side,
Friendship nothing finds to hide,
Love's demand is satisfied.

Over manly strength and worth,
At thy desk of toil, or hearth,
Played the lambent light of mirth,

Mirth that lit, but never burned;
All thy blame to pity ...

Queen of the stars! so gentle, so benign,
That ancient Fable did to thee assign,
When darkness creeping o'er thy silver brow
Warned thee these upper regions to forego,
Alternate empire in the shades below
A Bard, who, lately near the wide-spread sea
Traversed by gleaming ships, looked up to thee
With grateful thoughts, doth now thy rising hail
From the close confines of a shadowy vale.
Glory of night, conspicuous yet serene,
Nor less attractive when by glimpses seen
Through cloudy umbrage, well might that fair face,
And all those attributes of modest grace,
In days when Fancy wrought unchecked by fear,
Down to the green earth fetch thee from thy sphere,
To sit in leafy woods by fountains clear!

O still beloved (for thine, meek Power, are charms
That...

I have trod this path a hundred times
With idle footsteps, crooning rhymes.
I know each nest and web-worm's tent,
The fox-hole which the woodchucks rent,
Maple and oak, the old Divan
Self-planted twice, like the banian.
I know not why I came again
Unless to learn it ten times ten.
To read the sense the woods impart
You must bring the throbbing heart.
Love is aye the counterforce,--
Terror and Hope and wild Remorse,
Newest knowledge, fiery thought,
Or Duty to grand purpose wrought.
Wandering yester morn the brake,
I reached this heath beside the lake,
And oh, the wonder of the power,
The deeper secret of the hour!
Nature, the supplement of man,
His hidden sense interpret can;--
What friend to friend cannot convey
Shall the dumb bird ins...

How richly glows the water's breast
Before us, tinged with evening hues,
While, facing thus the crimson west,
The boat her silent course pursues!
And see how dark the backward stream!
A little moment past so smiling!
And still, perhaps, with faithless gleam,
Some other loiterers beguiling.

Such views the youthful Bard allure;
But, heedless of the following gloom,
He deems their colours shall endure
Till peace go with him to the tomb.
And let him nurse his fond deceit,
And what if he must die in sorrow!
Who would not cherish dreams so sweet,
Though grief and pain may come to-morrow?

The ceaseless rain is falling fast,
    And yonder gilded vane,
Immovable for three days past,
    Points to the misty main,

It drives me in upon myself
    And to the fireside gleams,
To pleasant books that crowd my shelf,
    And still more pleasant dreams,

I read whatever bards have sung
    Of lands beyond the sea,
And the bright days when I was young
    Come thronging back to me.

In fancy I can hear again
    The Alpine torrent's roar,
The mule-bells on the hills of Spain,
    The sea at Elsinore.

I see the convent's gleaming wall
    Rise from its groves of pine,
And towers of old cathedrals tall,
    And castles by the Rhine.

I journey on by park and spire,
    Beneath centennial trees,
Throug...

Spoken by Miss ADA REHAN at the Lyceum Theatre, July 23, 1890, at a performance on behalf of Lady Jeune's Holiday Fund for City Children.

Before we part to alien thoughts and aims,
Permit the one brief word the occasion claims:
- When mumming and grave projects are allied,
Perhaps an Epilogue is justified.

Our under-purpose has, in truth, to-day
Commanded most our musings; least the play:
A purpose futile but for your good-will
Swiftly responsive to the cry of ill:
A purpose all too limited! to aid
Frail human flowerets, sicklied by the shade,
In winning some short spell of upland breeze,
Or strengthening sunlight on the level leas.

Who has not marked, where the full cheek should be,
Incipient lines of lank flaccidity,
Lymphatic pallor where the p...

All Things will Die

Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing

Under my eye;
Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing

Over the sky.
One after another the white clouds are fleeting;
Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating

Full merrily;
Yet all things must die.
The stream will cease to flow;
The wind will cease to blow;
The clouds will cease to fleet;
The heart will cease to beat;
For all things must die.
All things must die.
Spring will come never more.
O, vanity!
Death waits at the door.
See! our friends are all forsaking
The wine and the merrymaking.
We are call’d–we must go.
Laid low, very low,
In the dark we must lie.
The merry glees are still;
The voice of the bird
Shal...

Sweet solitude, what joy to be alone--
In wild, wood-shady dell to stay for hours.
Twould soften hearts if they were hard as stone
To see glad butterflies and smiling flowers.
Tis pleasant in these quiet lonely places,
Where not the voice of man our pleasure mars,
To see the little bees with coal black faces
Gathering sweets from little flowers like stars.

The wind seems calling, though not understood.
A voice is speaking; hark, it louder calls.
It echoes in the far-outstretching wood.
First twas a hum, but now it loudly squalls;
And then the pattering rain begins to fall,
And it is hushed--the fern leaves scarcely shake,
The tottergrass it scarcely stirs at all.
And then the rolling thunder gets awake,
And from black clouds the lightning flashes break.<...

O Mystery of life,
That, after all our strife,
    Defeats, mistakes,
Just as, at last, we see
The road to victory,
    The tired heart breaks.

Just as the long years give
Knowledge of how to live,
    Life's end draws near;
As if, that gift being ours,
God needed our new powers
    In worlds elsewhere.

There, if the soul whose wings
Were won in suffering, springs
    To life anew,
Justice would have some room
For hope beyond the tomb,
    And mercy, too.

And since, without this dream
No light, no faintest gleam
    Answers our "why";
But earth and all its race
Must pass and leave no trace
    On that blind sky;

Shall reason close that door
On all we struggled for,
    Seal the soul's do...

I slept upon the Rice-boat
That, reef protected, lay
At anchor, where the palm-trees
Infringe upon the bay.
The windless air was heavy
With cinnamon and rose,
The midnight calm seemed waiting,
Too fateful for repose.

One joined me on the Rice-boat
With wild and waving hair,
Whose vivid words and laughter
Awoke the silent air.
Oh, beauty, bare and shining,
Fresh washen in the bay,
One well may love by moonlight
What one would not love by day!

Above among the cordage
The night wind hardly stirred,
The lapping of the ripples
Was all the sound we heard.
Love reigned upon the Rice-boat,
And Peace controlled the sea,
The spirit's consolation,
The senses' ecstasy.

Though many things and mighty
Are further...