Life

I

O mother, I am sick of love,
I cannot laugh nor lift my head,
My bitter dreams have broken me,
I would my love were dead.

"Drink of the draught I brew for thee,
Thou shalt have quiet in its stead."

II

Where is the silver in the rain,
Where is the music in the sea,
Where is the bird that sang all day
To break my heart with melody?

"The night thou badst Love fly away,
He hid them all from thee."

"Late, late yestreen I saw the new moone
Wi' the auld moone in hir arme."
'Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, Percy's Reliques.'


Once I could hail (howe'er serene the sky)
The Moon re-entering her monthly round,
No faculty yet given me to espy
The dusky Shape within her arms imbound,
That thin memento of effulgence lost
Which some have named her Predecessor's ghost.

Young, like the Crescent that above me shone,
Nought I perceived within it dull or dim;
All that appeared was suitable to One
Whose fancy had a thousand fields to skim;
To expectations spreading with wild growth,
And hope that kept with me her plighted troth.

I saw (ambition quickening at the view)
A silver boat launched on a boundless flood;
A pearly crest, like Dian's when...

The waterfall is calling me
    With its merry gleesome flow,
And the green boughs are beckoning me,
    To where the wild flowers grow:

I may not go, I may not go,
To where the sunny waters flow,
To where the wild wood flowers blow;
        I must stay here
        In prison drear,
Oh, heavy life, wear on, wear on,
Would God that thou wert done!

The busy mill-wheel round and round
Goes turning, with its reckless sound,
And o'er the dam the wafers flow
Into the foaming stream below,
And deep and dark away they glide,
To meet the broad, bright river's tide;
And all the way
They murmuring say:
"Oh, child! why art thou far away?
Come back into the sun, and stray
Upon our mossy side!"

I may not go, I may not go,

    I.

    O night, send up the harvest moon
    To walk about the fields,
    And make of midnight magic noon
    On lonely tarns and wealds.

    In golden ranks, with golden crowns,
    All in the yellow land,
    Old solemn kings in rustling gowns,
    The shocks moon-charmed stand.

    Sky-mirror she, afloat in space,
    Beholds our coming morn:
    Her heavenly joy hath such a grace,
    It ripens earthly corn;

    Like some lone saint with upward eyes,
    Lost in the deeps of prayer:
    The people still their prayers and sighs,
    And gazing ripen there.

    II.

    So, like the corn moon-ripened last,
    Would I, weary and gray,
    On golden memories ripen fast,
    And ripening pass awa...

‘BEAT, little heart—I give you this and this’
Who are you? What! the Lady Hamilton?
Good, I am never weary painting you.
To sit once more? Cassandra, Hebe, Joan,
Or spinning at your wheel beside the vine—
Bacchante, what you will; and if I fail
To conjure and concentrate into form
And colour all you are, the fault is less
In me than Art. What Artist ever yet
Could make pure light live on the canvas? Art!
Why should I so disrelish that short word?
Where am I? snow on all the hills! so hot,
So fever’d! never colt would more delight
To roll himself in meadow grass than I
To wallow in that winter of the hills.
Nurse, were you hired? or came of your own will
To wait on one so broken, so forlorn?
Have I not met you somewhere long ago?
I am all but sure I h...

Harsh thoughts, blind angers, and fierce hands,
That keep this restless world at strife,
Mean passions that, like choking sands,
Perplex the stream of life,

Pride and hot envy and cold greed,
The cankers of the loftier will,
What if ye triumph, and yet bleed?
Ah, can ye not be still?

Oh, shall there be no space, no time,
No century of weal in store,
No freehold in a nobler clime,
Where men shall strive no more?

Where every motion of the heart
Shall serve the spirit's master-call,
Where self shall be the unseen part,
And human kindness all?

Or shall we but by fits and gleams
Sink satisfied, and cease to rave,
Find love but in the rest of dreams,
And peace but in the grave?

"Thou hast not lived! No aim of earth
Thy body serves, nor home nor birth;
No children's eyes look up to thee
To solace thy mortality."

"Thou hast not lived! Forbidden seas
Shut thee from Beauty's treasuries;
Not for those hungry eyes of thine
Her marbles gleam, her colors shine."

"Thou hast not lived! Hast never brought
To steadfast form thy hidden thought;
Striving to speak, thou still art mute.
And fain to bear, hast yet no fruit."

So spake the Tempter, at his plot,
But thee, my Soul, he counted not!
Who mad'st me stand, serene and free.
And give him answer dauntlessly:

"Yea, shapes of earth are sweet and near.
And home and child are very dear;
Yet do I live, to be denied
These things, and still be satisfied."

1.
Swifter far than summer's flight -
Swifter far than youth's delight -
Swifter far than happy night,
Art thou come and gone -
As the earth when leaves are dead,
As the night when sleep is sped,
As the heart when joy is fled,
I am left lone, alone.

2.
The swallow summer comes again -
The owlet night resumes her reign -
But the wild-swan youth is fain
To fly with thee, false as thou. -
My heart each day desires the morrow;
Sleep itself is turned to sorrow;
Vainly would my winter borrow
Sunny leaves from any bough.

3.
Lilies for a bridal bed -
Roses for a matron's head -
Violets for a maiden dead -
Pansies let MY flowers be:
On the living grave I bear
Scatter them without a tear -
Let no friend, however d...

Since early this morning the world has seemed surging
    With unworded rhythm, and rhyme without thought.
It may be the Muses take this way of urging
    The patience and pains by which poems are wrought.
It may be some singer who passed into glory,
    With songs all unfinished, is lingering near
And trying to tell me the rest of the story,
    Which I am too dull of perception to hear.

I hear not, I see not; but feel the sweet swinging
    And swaying of metre, in sunlight and shade,
The still arch of Space with such music is ringing
    As never an audible orchestra made.
The moments glide by me, and each one is dancing;
    Aquiver with life is each leaf on the tree,
And out on the ocean is movement entrancing,
    As billow with billow goes racing with ...

I looked upon the fair young flowers
That in our gardens bloom,
Gazed on their winning loveliness,
And then upon the tomb;
I looked upon the smiling earth,
The blue and cloudless sky,
And murmured in my spirit's depths,
"O I can never die!"

I heard my sister's joyous laugh,
As she danced lightly by,
Her heart was glad with love and hope,
Its pulse with youth beat high;
I sought my mother's quiet smile,
She fondly drew me nigh,
And still I said within my heart,
"O I can never die!"

Stern winter came, - the fairy flowers
Were swept by storms away,
And swiftly passed the verdant bloom
Of summer's lovely day;
My mother's smile grew more serene,
And brighter was her eye,
And now I know her only as
An angel in the sky.<...

When the buds are blossoming,
Smiling welcome to the spring,
Lovers choose a wedding day -
Life is love in merry May!

Spring is green - Fal lal la!
Summer's rose - Fal lal la!
It is sad when Summer goes,
Fal la!
Autumn's gold - Fal lal la!
Winter's grey - Fal lal la!
Winter still is far away -
Fal la!
Leaves in Autumn fade and fall;
Winter is the end of all.
Spring and summer teem with glee:
Spring and summer, then, for me!
Fal la!

In the Spring-time seed is sown:
In the Summer grass is mown:
In the Autumn you may reap:
Winter is the time for sleep.

Spring is hope - Fal lal la!
Summer's joy - Fal lal la!
Spring and Summer never cloy,
Fal la!
Autumn, toil - Fal lal la!
Winter, rest - Fal lal la...

It does not matter very much to me
    Through what strange ways my pathway now may lead;
Since I know that it runs away from thee,
    I give it little heed.

It does not matter if in calm or strife,
    There ebb or flow for me the future's tide.
I had but one great longing in my life,
    And that has been denied.

It does not matter if I stand or fall,
    Or walk with kings, or with the rank and file;
Life's loftiest aims and best ambitions all
    Were centred in thy smile.

It does not matter what the world may say:
    I feel no interest in its blame or praise.
I only know we dwell apart to-day,
    And shall through endless days.

It does not matter.    For my restless heart
    Is numb to sorrow, or to pleasure's touch.
...

I love the joyous thoughtless heart,
The revels of the youthful mind,
'Ere sad experience points the dart,
Which wounds so surely all mankind.

It glads me when the buoyant soul,
Unconscious ranges, fancy free,
Draining the sweets of pleasure's bowl,
And thinking all as blest as he.

Ah! me, yet sad it is to know,
The many griefs the future brings,
That time must change that note to woe,
Which now its merry carrol sings.

This "summer of the mind," alas!
Must have its autumn--leafless, bare,
When all these pleasing phantoms pass,
And end in winter, age, and care!

Such, such is life, the moral tells--
The tempest, and its sunny smiles,
A warning voice the cheerful bells,
The knell of death, our youth beguiles!

About the time of Michael's feast
And all his angels,
There comes a word to man and beast
By dark evangels.

Then hearing what the wild things say
To one another,
Those creatures first born of our gray
Mysterious Mother,

The greatness of the world's unrest
Steals through our pulses;
Our own life takes a meaning guessed
From the torn dulse's.

The draft and set of deep sea-tides
Swirling and flowing,
Bears every filmy flake that rides,
Grandly unknowing.

The sunlight listens; thin and fine
The crickets whistle;
And floating midges fill the shine
Like a seeding thistle.

The hawkbit flies his golden flag
From rocky pasture,
Bidding his legions never lag
Through morning's vasture.

Soon we sh...

The Minstrels played their Christmas tune
To-night beneath my cottage-eaves;
While, smitten by a lofty moon,
The encircling laurels, thick with leaves,
Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen,
That overpowered their natural green.

Through hill and valley every breeze
Had sunk to rest with folded wings:
Keen was the air, but could not freeze,
Nor check, the music of the strings;
So stout and hardy were the band
That scraped the chords with strenuous hand;

And who but listened? till was paid
Respect to every Inmate's claim:
The greeting given, the music played,
In honour of each household name,
Duly pronounced with lusty call,
And "merry Christmas" wished to all!

O Brother! I revere the choice
That took thee from thy native hills;

The evening came; the golden vane
A moment in the sunset glanced,
Then darkened, and then gleamed again,
As from the east the moon advanced
And touched it with a softer light;
While underneath, with flowing mane,
Upon the sign the Red Horse pranced,
And galloped forth into the night.

But brighter than the afternoon
That followed the dark day of rain,
And brighter than the golden vane
That glistened in the rising moon,
Within the ruddy fire-light gleamed;
And every separate window-pane,
Backed by the outer darkness, showed
A mirror, where the flamelets gleamed
And flickered to and fro, and seemed
A bonfire lighted in the road.

Amid the hospitable glow,
Like an old actor on the stage,
With the uncertain voice of age,
The sing...

O heart, - that beat the bird's blithe blood,
The blithe bird's strain, and understood
The song it sang to leaf and bud, -
What dost thou in the wood?

O soul, - that kept the brook's glad flow,
The glad brook's word to sun and moon, -
What dost thou here where song lies low,
And dead the dreams of June?

Where once was heard a voice of song,
The hautboys of the mad winds sing;
Where once a music flowed along,
The rain's wild bugle's ring.

The weedy water frets and ails,
And moans in many a sunless fall;
And, o'er the melancholy, trails
The black crow's eldritch call.

Unhappy brook! O withered wood!
O days, whom Death makes comrades of!
Where are the birds that thrilled the blood
When Life struck hands with Love?

(TO OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES)


Strange spell of youth for age, and age for youth,
Affinity between two forms of truth! -
As if the dawn and sunset watched each other,
Like and unlike as children of one mother
And wondering at the likeness. Ardent eyes
Of young men see the prophecy arise
Of what their lives shall be when all is told;
And, in the far-off glow of years called old,
Those other eyes look back to catch a trace
Of what was once their own unshadowed grace.
But here in our dear poet both are blended -
Ripe age begun, yet golden youth not ended; -
Even as his song the willowy scent of spring
Doth blend with autumn's tender mellowing,
And mixes praise with satire, tears with fun,
In strains that ever delicately run;
So musical and wise, page...