Life

In what I do I note the marring flaw,
The imperfections of the work I see;
Nor am I one who rather DO than BE,
Since its reversal is Creation's law.

Nay, since there lies a better and a worse,
A lesser and a larger, in men's view,
I would be better than the thing I do,
As God is greater than His universe.

He shaped Himself before He shaped one world:
A million eons, toiling day and night,
He built Himself to majesty and might,
Before the planets into space were hurled.

And when Creation's early work was done,
What crude beginnings out of chaos came -
A formless nebula, a wavering flame,
An errant comet, a voracious sun.

And, still unable to perfect His plan,
What awful creatures at His touch found birth -
Those protoplasmic mo...

That way look, my Infant, lo!
What a pretty baby-show!
See the kitten on the wall,
Sporting with the leaves that fall,
Withered leaves, one, two, and three
From the lofty elder-tree!
Through the calm and frosty air
Of this morning bright and fair,
Eddying round and round they sink
Softly, slowly: one might think,
From the motions that are made,
Every little leaf conveyed
Sylph or Faery hither tending,
To this lower world descending,
Each invisible and mute,
In his wavering parachute.
But the Kitten, how she starts,
Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts!
First at one, and then its fellow
Just as light and just as yellow;
There are many now, now one
Now they stop and there are none
What intenseness of desire
In her upward eye of...

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?

When our bosoms were lightest,
And day-dreams were brightest,
The gay vision melted away;
By sorrow 'twas shaded,
Too quickly it faded;
How transient its halcyon sway!

From my heart would you sever,
(Harsh fate!) and forever,
The friends who to life gave a charm,
What oblivion effaces
Fond mem'ry retraces,
And pictures each well-beloved form.

Some accent well known,
Some melodious tone,
Through my bosom like witchery shed,
Shall awake the sad sigh,
To the hours gone by,
And the friends, like a fairy dream, fled.

Long remembrance shall treasure
Those moments of pleasure,
When time flew unheeded away;
Joy's light skiff was near us,
Hope ventured to steer us,
And brighten our path with her ray.

We sa...

Are you sleeping? have you forgotten? do not sleep, my sister dear!
How can you sleep? the morning brings the day I hate and fear;
The cock has crow’d already once, he crows before his time;
Awake! the creeping glimmer steals, the hills are white with rime.

II.
Ah, clasp me in your arms, sister, ah, fold me to your breast!
Ah, let me weep my fill once more, and cry myself to rest!
To rest? to rest and wake no more were better rest for me,
Than to waken every morning to that face I loathe to see:

III.
I envied your sweet slumber, all night so calm you lay,
The night was calm, the morn is calm, and like another day;
But I could wish yon moaning sea would rise and burst the shore,
And such a whirlwind blow these woods, as never blew before.

IV.
For, ...

They proved we could not think nor see,
They proved we could not write,
They proved we drank the day away
And raved through half the night.
They proved our stars were never up,
They’ve proved our stars are set,
They’ve proved we ne’er saw sorrow’s cup,
And they’re not happy yet.

They proved that in the Southern Land
We all led vicious lives;
They’ve proved we starved our children, and,
They’ve proved we beat our wives.
They’ve proved we never worked, and we
Were never out of debt;
They’ve proved us bad as we can be
And they’re not happy yet.

The Daily Press, with paltry power,
For reasons understood,
Have aye sought to belittle our
Unhappy brotherhood.
Because we fought in days like these,
Where rule the upper tens,
Be...

They proved we could not think nor see,
They proved we could not write,
They proved we drank the day away
And raved through half the night.
They proved our stars were never up,
They’ve proved our stars are set,
They’ve proved we ne’er saw sorrow’s cup,
And they’re not happy yet.

They proved that in the Southern Land
We all led vicious lives;
They’ve proved we starved our children, and,
They’ve proved we beat our wives.
They’ve proved we never worked, and we
Were never out of debt;
They’ve proved us bad as we can be
And they’re not happy yet.

The Daily Press, with paltry power,
For reasons understood,
Have aye sought to belittle our
Unhappy brotherhood.
Because we fought in days like these,
Where rule the upper tens,
Be...

I.

There is a scent of roses and spilt wine
Between the moonlight and the laurel coppice;
The marble idol glimmers on its shrine,
White as a star, among a heaven of poppies.
Here all my life lies like a spilth of wine.
There is a mouth of music like a lute,
A nightingale that sigheth to one flower;
Between the falling flower and the fruit,
Where love hath died, the music of an hour.

II.

To sit alone with memory and a rose;
To dwell with shadows of whilom romances;
To make one hour of a year of woes
And walk on starlight, in ethereal trances,
With love's lost face fair as a moon-white rose,
To shape from music and the scent of buds
Love's spirit and its presence of sweet fire,
Between the heart's wild burning and the blood's,
Is...

        1.

        LORD, what I once had done with youthful might,
        Had I been from the first true to the truth,
        Grant me, now old, to do--with better sight,
        And humbler heart, if not the brain of youth;
        So wilt thou, in thy gentleness and ruth,
        Lead back thy old soul, by the path of pain,
        Round to his best--young eyes and heart and brain.

        2.

        A dim aurora rises in my east,
        Beyond the line of jagged questions hoar,
        As if the head of our intombed High Priest
        Began to glow behind the unopened door:
        Sure the gold wings will soon rise from the gray!--
        They rise not. Up I rise, press on the more,
        To meet the slow coming of the Master's day.

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told;
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge; that branchless ash,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends
Behold the dark green file of long lank w...

Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,
    One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,
    Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.

Stars they are, wherein we read our history,
    As astrologers and seers of eld;
Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,
    Like the burning stars, which they beheld.

Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,
    God hath written in those stars above;
But not less in the bright flowerets under us
    Stands the revelation of his love.

Bright and glorious is that revelation,
    Written all over this great world of ours;
Making evident our own creation,
    In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.

And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing,
    ...

When all the world has gone awry,
And I myself least favour find
With my own self, and but to die
And leave the whole sad coil behind,
Seems but the one and only way;
Should I but hear some water falling
Through woodland veils in early May,
And small bird unto small bird calling -
O then my heart is glad as they.

Lifted my load of cares, and fled
My ghosts of weakness and despair,
And, unafraid, I raise my head
And Life to do its utmost dare;
Then if in its accustomed place
One flower I should chance find blowing,
With lovely resurrected face
From Autumn's rust and Winter's snowing -
I laugh to think of my disgrace.

A simple brook, a simple flower,
A simple wood in green array, -
What, Nature, thy mysterious power
To bind a...

To a good Man of most dear memory
This Stone is sacred. Here he lies apart
From the great city where he first drew breath,
Was reared and taught; and humbly earned his bread,
To the strict labours of the merchant's desk
By duty chained. Not seldom did those tasks
Tease, and the thought of time so spent depress,
His spirit, but the recompense was high;
Firm Independence, Bounty's rightful sire;
Affections, warm as sunshine, free as air;
And when the precious hours of leisure came,
Knowledge and wisdom, gained from converse sweet
With books, or while he ranged the crowded streets
With a keen eye, and overflowing heart:
So genius triumphed over seeming wrong,
And poured out truth in works by thoughtful love
Inspired works potent over smiles and tears.
And as...

I.

It is not early spring and yet
Of bloodroot blooms along the stream,
And blotted banks of violet,
My heart will dream.
Is it because the windflower apes
The beauty that was once her brow,
That the white memory of it shapes
The April now?
Because the wild-rose wears the blush
That once made sweet her maidenhood,
Its thought makes June of barren bush
And empty wood?
And then I think how young she died
Straight, barren Death stalks down the trees,
The hard-eyed Hours by his side,
That kill and freeze.

II.

When orchards are in bloom again
My heart will bound, my blood will beat,
To hear the redbird so repeat,
On boughs of rosy stain,
His blithe, loud song, like some far strain
From out the past, among the blo...

Welladay!
Here I lay
You at rest - all worn away,
    O my pencil, to the tip
    Of our old companionship!

Memory
Sighs to see
What you are, and used to be,
    Looking backward to the time
    When you wrote your earliest rhyme! -

When I sat
Filing at
Your first point, and dreaming that
    Your initial song should be
    Worthy of posterity.

With regret
I forget
If the song be living yet,
    Yet remember, vaguely now,
    It was honest, anyhow.

You have brought
Me a thought -
Truer yet was never taught, -
    That the silent song is best,
    And the unsung worthiest.

So if I,
When I die,
May as uncomplainingly
    Drop aside as now you do,
    Write of me, as I ...

Flow on, sweet river! like his verse
Who lies beneath this sculptured hearse
Nor wait beside the churchyard wall
For him who cannot hear thy call.

Thy playmate once; I see him now
A boy with sunshine on his brow,
And hear in Stratford's quiet street
The patter of his little feet.

I see him by thy shallow edge
Wading knee-deep amid the sedge;
And lost in thought, as if thy stream
Were the swift river of a dream.

He wonders whitherward it flows;
And fain would follow where it goes,
To the wide world, that shall erelong
Be filled with his melodious song.

Flow on, fair stream!    That dream is o'er;
He stands upon another shore;
A vaster river near him flows,
And still he follows where it goes.

(Written during sickness).

Soul -
    Oh! say must I leave this world of light
    With its sparkling streams and sunshine bright,
    Its budding flowers, its glorious sky?
    Vain 'tis to ask me - I cannot die!

Angel -
    But, sister, list! in the realms above,
    That happy home of eternal love,
    Are flowers more fair, and skies more clear
    Than those thou dost cling to so fondly here.

Soul -
    Ah! yes, but to reach that home of light
    I must pass through the fearful vale of night;
    And my soul with alarm doth shuddering cry -
    O angel, I tell thee, I dare not die!

Angel -
    Ah! mortal beloved, in that path untried
    Will I be, as ever, still at thy side,
    T...

And after all, and after all,
Our passionate prayers, and sighs, and tears,
Is life a reckless carnival?
And are they lost, our golden years?

Ah, no; ah, no; for, long ago,
Ere time could sear, or care could fret,
There was a youth called Romeo,
There was a maid named Juliet.

The players of the past are gone;
The races rise; the races pass;
And softly over all is drawn
The quiet Curtain of the Grass.

But when the world went wild with Spring,
What days we had! Do you forget?
When I of all the world was King,
And you were my Queen Juliet?

The things that are; the things that seem,
Who shall distinguish shape from show?
The great processional, splendid dream
Of life is all I wish to know.

The gods their faces turn...