Life

    I cannot but remember
        When the year grows old--
    October--November--
        How she disliked the cold!

    She used to watch the swallows
        Go down across the sky,
    And turn from the window
        With a little sharp sigh.

    And often when the brown leaves
        Were brittle on the ground,
    And the wind in the chimney
        Made a melancholy sound,

    She had a look about her
        That I wish I could forget--
    The look of a scared thing
        Sitting in a net!

    Oh, beautiful at nightfall
        The soft spitting snow!
    And beautiful the bare boughs
        Rubbing to and fro!

    But the roaring of the fire,
        And the warmth of fur,
    And the ...

"Oh brew me a potion strong and good!
    One golden drop in his wine
Shall charm his sense and fire his blood,
    And    bend his will to    mine."


Poor child of passion! ask of me
    Elixir of death or sleep,
Or Lethe's stream; but love is free,
    And woman must wait and weep.

Petronii Fragmenta, xxx.


THOSE dreams, that on the silent night intrude,
And with false flitting shades our minds delude
Jove never sends us downward from the skies;
Nor can they from infernal mansions rise;
But are all mere productions of the brain,
And fools consult interpreters in vain.[1]

For when in bed we rest our weary limbs,
The mind unburden'd sports in various whims;
The busy head with mimic art runs o'er
The scenes and actions of the day before.[2]

The drowsy tyrant, by his minions led,
To regal rage devotes some patriot's head.
With equal terrors, not with equal guilt,
The murderer dreams of all the blood he spilt.

The soldier smiling hears the widow's cries,
And stabs the son before the mother's eyes.
With like r...

A poor torn heart, a tattered heart,
That sat it down to rest,
Nor noticed that the ebbing day
Flowed silver to the west,
Nor noticed night did soft descend
Nor constellation burn,
Intent upon the vision
Of latitudes unknown.

The angels, happening that way,
This dusty heart espied;
Tenderly took it up from toil
And carried it to God.
There, -- sandals for the barefoot;
There, -- gathered from the gales,
Do the blue havens by the hand
Lead the wandering sails.

Were I a bird free born to fly
    Aloof on two wee, downy wings,
My canopy would be the sky
    When rosy morn its dawning springs.

Were I a bird I'd sweetly sing
    Earth's vesper song in tree-tops high,
And chant the carol of the Spring
    To every weary passer by.

Were I a bird, the sweetest voice
    That human ear has ever heard, -
The mocking-bird would be my choice,
    For he's the sweetest singing bird!

Were I a bird my life would be
    In keeping with the Will divine -
I'd sing His carols full and free
    In spreading oak and cony pine!

Were I a bird through air I'd roam,
    Just flitting on the morning breeze,
In search of summer's sunny dome,
    To live contentedly at ease.

Were I a bird I'd ...

You can sigh o'er the sad-eyed Armenian
    Who weeps in her desolate home.
You can mourn o'er the exile of Russia
    From kindred and friends doomed to roam.

You can pity the men who have woven
    From passion and appetite chains
To coil with a terrible tension
    Around their heartstrings and brains.

You can sorrow o'er little children
    Disinherited from their birth,
The wee waifs and toddlers neglected,
    Robbed of sunshine, music and mirth.

For beasts you have gentle compassion;
    Your mercy and pity they share.
For the wretched, outcast and fallen
    You have tenderness, love and care.


But hark! from our Southland are floating
    Sobs of anguish, murmurs of pain,
And women heart-stricken are weeping

A fantasy that came to me
    As wild and wantonly designed
As ever any dream might be
    Unraveled from a madman's mind, -
A tangle-work of tissue, wrought
    By cunning of the spider-brain,
    And woven, in an hour of pain,
To trap the giddy flies of thought.

I stood beneath a summer moon
    All swollen to uncanny girth,
And hanging, like the sun at noon,
    Above the center of the earth;
    But with a sad and sallow light,
    As it had sickened of the night
And fallen in a pallid swoon.
Around me I could hear the rush
    Of sullen winds, and feel the whir
Of unseen wings apast me brush
    Like phantoms round a sepulcher;
And, like a carpeting of plush,0
    A lawn unrolled beneath my feet,
    Bespangled o'er with flo...

    SPOKEN BY MONTEZUMA.

    You see what shifts we are enforced to try,
    To help out wit with some variety;
    Shows may be found that never yet were seen,
    'Tis hard to find such wit as ne'er has been:
    You have seen all that this old world can do,
    We therefore try the fortune of the new,
    And hope it is below your aim to hit
    At untaught nature with your practised wit:
    Our naked Indians, then, when wits appear,
    Would as soon choose to have the Spaniards here.
    'Tis true, you have marks enough, the plot, the show,
    The poet's scenes, nay, more, the painter's too;
    If all this fail, considering the cost,
    'Tis a true voyage to the Indies lost:
    But if you smile on all, then these designs,
    Like the imperfect...

I met my mates in the morning (and oh, but I am old!)
Where roaring on the ledges the summer ground-swell rolled;
I heard them lift the chorus that dropped the breakers' song,
The beaches of Lukannon, two million voices strong!


The song of pleasant stations beside the salt lagoons,
The song of blowing squadrons that shuffled down the dunes,
The song of midnight dances that churned the sea to flame,
The beaches of Lukannon, before the sealers came!
I met my mates in the morning (I'll never meet them more!);
They came and went in legions that darkened all the shore.
And through the foam-flecked offing as far as voice could reach
We hailed the landing-parties and we sang them up the beach.


The beaches of Lukannon, the winter-wheat so tall,
The dripping, ...

Aw've a treasure yo'd laff if yo saw,
But its mem'ries are dear to mi heart;
For aw've oft seen it stuck in a jaw,
Whear it seem'd to form ommost a part.
Its net worth a hawpny, aw know,
But its given mooar pleasure maybe,
Nor some things at mak far mooar show,
An yo can't guess its vally to me.

Mi fayther wor fond ov his pipe,
An this wor his favorite clay;
An if mi ideas wor ripe,
Awd enshrine it ith' folds ov a lay;
But words allus fail to express
What aw think when aw see its old face;
For aw know th' world holds one friend the less,
An mi hearth has one mooar vacant place.

Ov trubbles his life had its share,
But he kept all his griefs to hissen;
Tho aw've oft seen his brow knit wi care,
Wol he tried to crack jooaks nah an then.<...

Here down this very way,
Here only yesterday
King Faun went leaping.
He sang, with careless shout
Hurling his name about;
He sang, with oaken stock
His steps from rock to rock
In safety keeping,
    "Here Faun is free,
    Here Faun is free!"

Today against yon pine,
Forlorn yet still divine,
King Faun leant weeping.
"They drank my holy brook,
My strawberries they took,
My private path they trod."
Loud wept the desolate God,
Scorn on scorn heaping,
"Faun, what is he,
Faun, what is he?"

Would that our scrupulous Sires had dared to leave
Less scanty measure of those graceful rites
And usages, whose due return invites
A stir of mind too natural to deceive;
Giving to Memory help when she would weave
A crown for Hope! I dread the boasted lights
That all too often are but fiery blights,
Killing the bud o'er which in vain we grieve.
Go, seek, when Christmas snows discomfort bring,
The counter Spirit found in some gay church
Green with fresh holly, every pew a perch
In which the linnet or the thrush might sing,
Merry and loud and safe from prying search,
Strains offered only to the genial Spring.

Dullest month of all the year, -
Suicidal atmosphere,
Everything is dark and drear,
Filling nervous minds with fear,
Skies are seldom ever clear,
Fogs are ever hov'ring near, -
'Tis a heavy load to bear.

Were it not that life is dear,
We should wish to disappear,
For it puts us out of gear.

But in vain we shed the tear,
We must still cling to the rear
Of the year that now is near.

Though our eyes begin to blear,
With fogs thick enough to shear,
And we feel inclined to swear,
At the month that comes to smear
All things lovely, all things dear;
We must bear and yet forbear.

But some thoughts our spirits cheer,
Christmas time will soon be here,
Then at thee we'll scoff and jeer,
Smoke our pipes and drink our b...

Your lines that linger for us down the years,
Like sparks that tell the glory of a flame,
Still keep alight the splendor of your name,
And living still, they sting us into tears.
Sole perfect singer that the world has heard,
Let fall from that far heaven of thine
One golden word.
Oh tell us we shall find beside the Nile,
Held fast in some Egyptian's dusty hand,
Deep covered by the centuries of sand,
The songs long written that were lost awhile
Sole perfect singer that the world has heard,
Let fall from that far heaven of thine
This golden word.

Here she lies, a pretty bud,
Lately made of flesh and blood;
Who as soon fell fast asleep,
As her little eyes did peep.
Give her strewings, but not stir
The earth, that lightly covers her.

Here is the soundless cypress on the lawn:
It listens, listens. Taller trees beyond
Listen. The moon at the unruffled pond
    Stares. And you sing, you sing.

That star-enchanted song falls through the air
From lawn to lawn down terraces of sound,
Darts in white arrows on the shadowed ground;
    And all the night you sing.

My dreams are flowers to which you are a bee
As all night long I listen, and my brain
Receives your song, then loses it again
    In moonlight on the lawn.

Now is your voice a marble high and white,
Then like a mist on fields of paradise,
Now is a raging fire, then is like ice,
    Then breaks, and it is dawn.

Shapeless and grim,
A Shadow dim
O'erhung the ways,
And darkened all my days.
And all who saw,
With bated breath,
Said, "It is Death!"

And I, in weakness
Slipping towards the Night,
In sore affright
Looked up. And lo!--
No Spectre grim,
But just a dim
Sweet face,
A sweet high mother-face,
A face like Christ's Own Mother's face,
Alight with tenderness
And grace.

"Thou art not Death!" I cried;--
For Life's supremest fantasy
Had never thus envisaged Death to me;--
"Thou art not Death, the End!"

In accents winning,
Came the answer,--"Friend,
There is no Death!
I am the Beginning,
--Not the End!"

Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: the seed,
The little seed they laugh'd at in the dark,
Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk
Of spanless girth, that lays on every side
A thousand arms and rushes to the Sun.
Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they came;
The leaves were wet with women's tears: they heard
A noise of songs they would not understand:
They mark'd it with the red cross to the fall,
And would have strown it, and are fall'n themselves.

Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they came,
The woodmen with their axes: lo the tree!
But we will make it faggots for the hearth,
And shape it plank and beam for roof and floor,
And boats and bridges for the use of men.

Our enemies have fall'n, have fall'n: they struck;
With their own b...