Life

Oh, the day has set me dreaming
In a strange, half solemn way
Of the feelings I experienced
On another long past day,--
Of the way my heart made music
When the buds began to blow,
And o' little Lucy Landman
Whom I loved long years ago.

It 's in spring, the poet tells us,
That we turn to thoughts of love,
And our hearts go out a-wooing
With the lapwing and the dove.
But whene'er the soul goes seeking
Its twin-soul, upon the wing,
I 've a notion, backed by mem'ry,
That it's love that makes the spring.

I have heard a robin singing
When the boughs were brown and bare,
And the chilling hand of winter
Scattered jewels through the air.
And in spite of dates and seasons,
It was always spring, I know,
When I loved Lucy Landman<...

    Let the little birds sing;
        Let the little lambs play;
    Spring is here; and so 'tis spring;--
        But not in the old way!

    I recall a place
        Where a plum-tree grew;
    There you lifted up your face,
        And blossoms covered you.

    If the little birds sing,
        And the little lambs play,
    Spring is here; and so 'tis spring--
        But not in the old way!

To bear a weight that cannot be borne,
Sisyphus, even you aren't that strong,
Although your heart cannot be torn
Time is short and Art is long.

Far from celebrated sepulchers
Toward a solitary graveyard
My heart, like a drum muffled hard
Beats a funeral march for the ill-starred.

Many jewels are buried or shrouded
In darkness and oblivion's clouds,
Far from any pick or drill bit,

Many a flower unburdens with regret
Its perfume sweet like a secret;
In profoundly empty solitude to sit.

I have been down in the darkest water -
    Deep, deep down where no light could pierce;
Alone with the things that are bent on slaughter,
    The mindless things that are cruel and fierce.
I have fought with fear in my wave-walled prison,
    And begged for the beautiful boon of death;
But out of the billows my soul has risen
    To glorify God with my latest breath.

There is no potion I have not tasted
    Of all the bitters in life's large store;
And never a drop of the gall was wasted
    That the lords of Karma saw fit to pour,
Though I cried as my Elder Brother before me,
    'Father in heaven, let pass this cup!'
And the only response from the still skies o'er me
    Was the brew held close for my lips to sup.

Yet I have grown strong on the ...

I.

O Age that half believ'st thou half believ'st,
Half doubt'st the substance of thine own half doubt,
And, half perceiving that thou half perceiv'st,
Stand'st at thy temple door, heart in, head out!
Lo! while thy heart's within, helping the choir,
Without, thine eyes range up and down the time,
Blinking at o'er-bright science, smit with desire
To see and not to see. Hence, crime on crime.
Yea, if the Christ (called thine) now paced yon street,
Thy halfness hot with His rebuke would swell;
Legions of scribes would rise and run and beat
His fair intolerable Wholeness twice to hell.
`Nay' (so, dear Heart, thou whisperest in my soul),
`'Tis a half time, yet Time will make it whole.'


II.

Now at thy soft recalling voice I rise
Where tho...

Unmoor the skiff, - unmoor the skiff, -
    The night wind's sigh is on the air,
And o'er the highest Alpine cliff,
    The pale moon rises, broad and clear.
The murmuring waves are tranquil now,
    And on their breast each twinkling star
With which Night gems her dusky brow,
    Flings its mild radiance from afar.

Put off upon the deep blue sea,
    And leave the banquet and the ball;
For solitude, when shared with thee,
    Is dearer than the carnival.
And in my heart are thoughts of love,
    Such thoughts as lips should only breathe,
When the bright stars keep watch above,
    And the calm waters sleep beneath!

The tale I have for thee, perchance,
    May to thine eye anew impart
The long-lost gladness of its glance,
    And soo...

When I was born,
From all the seas of strength Fate filled a chalice,
Saying, 'This be thy portion, child; this chalice,
Less than a lily's, thou shalt daily draw
From my great arteries,--nor less, nor more.'
All substances the cunning chemist Time
Melts down into that liquor of my life,--
Friends, foes, joys, fortunes, beauty and disgust.
And whether I am angry or content,
Indebted or insulted, loved or hurt,
All he distils into sidereal wine
And brims my little cup; heedless, alas!
Of all he sheds how little it will hold,
How much runs over on the desert sands.
If a new Muse draw me with splendid ray,
And I uplift myself into its heaven,
The needs of the first sight absorb my blood,
And all the following hours of the day
Drag a ridiculous age.

The Spring of life is o'er with me,
And love and all gone by;
Like broken bough upon yon tree,
I'm left to fade and die.
Stern ruin seized my home and me,
And desolate's my cot:
Ruins of halls, the blasted tree,
Are emblems of my lot.

I lived and loved, I woo'd and won,
Her love was all to me,
But blight fell o'er that youthful one,
And like a blasted tree
I withered, till I all forgot
But Mary's smile on me;
She never lived where love was not,
And I from bonds was free.

The Spring it clothed the fields with pride,
When first we met together;
And then unknown to all beside
We loved in sunny weather;
We met where oaks grew overhead,
And whitethorns hung with may;
Wild thyme beneath her feet was spread,
And cows in ...

This is the scene of a man’s despair, and a soul’s release
From the difficult traits of the flesh; so, it seeking peace,
A shot rang out in the night; death’s doors were wide;
And you stood alone, a stranger, and saw inside.

Coward flesh, brave soul, which was it?    One feared the world,
The pity of men, or their scorn; yet carelessly hurled
All on the balance of Chance for a state unknown;
Fled the laughter of men for the anger of God-alone.

Perhaps when the hot blood streamed on the daisied sod,
Poor soul, you were likened to Cain, and you fled from God;
Men say you fought hard for your life, when the deed was done;
But your body would rise no more ’neath this world’s sun.

I’d choose-should I do the act-such a night as this,
When the sea throws up white ...

1.
The flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
Tempts and then flies.
What is this world's delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.

2.
Virtue, how frail it is!
Friendship how rare!
Love, how it sells poor bliss
For proud despair!
But we, though soon they fall,
Survive their joy, and all
Which ours we call.

3.
Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;
Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou - and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep.

There's joy when the rosy morning floods
    The purple east with light,
When the zephyr sweeps from a thousand buds
    The pearly tears of night.
There's joy when the lark exulting springs
    To pour his matin lay,
From the blossomed thorn when the blackbird sings,
    And the merry month is May.

There's joy abroad when the wintry snow
    Melts as it ne'er had been,
When cowslips bud and violets blow,
    And leaves are fresh and green.
There's joy in the swallow's airy flight,
    In the cuckoo's blithesome cry,
When the floating clouds reflect the light
    Of evening's glowing sky.

There's joy in April's balmy showers
    'Mid gleam of sunshine shed,
When May calls forth a thousand flowers
    To deck the earth's green bed.

My youth was nothing but a black storm
Crossed now and then by brilliant suns.
The thunder and the rain so ravage the shores
Nothing's left of the fruit my garden held once.

I should employ the rake and the plow,
Having reached the autumn of ideas,
To restore this inundated ground
Where the deep grooves of water form tombs in the lees.

And who knows if the new flowers you dreamed
Will find in a soil stripped and cleaned
The mystic nourishment that fortifies?

O Sorrow — O Sorrow — Time consumes Life,
And the obscure enemy that gnaws at my heart
Uses the blood that I lose to play my part.

That kind heart you were jealous of, my nurse
Who sleeps her sleep beneath the humble turf,
I'd like to give her flowers, wouldn't you?
The dead, the poor dead, have their sorrows too,
And when October trims the branches down,
Blowing its sombre wind around their stones,
The living seem ungrateful to the dead,
For sleeping as they do, warm in their beds;
Meanwhile, devoured by black imaginings,
No bedmate, and without good gossiping,
Worked by the worm, cold skeletons below
Seem to be filtering the winter's snows,
And time flows by, no family who will
Tend to the scraps that hang from iron grills.

If in the dusk, while logs would smoke and sing,
I'd see her in the armchair, pondering,
Or find her in a night of wintry gloom
Abinding in a corner of my...

This winter air is keen and cold,
And keen and cold this winter sun,
But round my chair the children run
Like little things of dancing gold.

Sometimes about the painted kiosk
The mimic soldiers strut and stride,
Sometimes the blue-eyed brigands hide
In the bleak tangles of the bosk.

And sometimes, while the old nurse cons
Her book, they steal across the square,
And launch their paper navies where
Huge Triton writhes in greenish bronze.

And now in mimic flight they flee,
And now they rush, a boisterous band
And, tiny hand on tiny hand,
Climb up the black and leafless tree.

Ah! cruel tree! if I were you,
And children climbed me, for their sake
Though it be winter I would break
Into spring blossoms white and blue!

We chanced in passing by that afternoon
To catch it in a sort of special picture
Among tar-banded ancient cherry trees,
Set well back from the road in rank lodged grass,
The little cottage we were speaking of,
A front with just a door between two windows,
Fresh painted by the shower a velvet black.
We paused, the minister and I, to look.
He made as if to hold it at arm's length
Or put the leaves aside that framed it in.
"Pretty," he said. "Come in. No one will care."
The path was a vague parting in the grass
That led us to a weathered window-sill.
We pressed our faces to the pane. "You see," he said,
"Everything's as she left it when she died.
Her sons won't sell the house or the things in it.
They say they mean to come and summer here
Where they were boy...

Who veileth love should first have vanquished fate.
    She folded up the dream in her deep heart,
    Her fair full lips were silent on that smart,
Thick fringèd eyes did on the grasses wait.
What good? one eloquent blush, but one, and straight
    The meaning of a life was known; for art
    Is often foiled in playing nature's part,
And time holds nothing long inviolate.
Earth's buried seed springs up - slowly, or fast:
The ring came home, that one in ages past
    Flung to the keeping of unfathomed seas:
    And golden apples on the mystic trees
Were sought and found, and borne away at last,
    Though watched of the divine Hesperides.

O to be a woman! to be left to pique and pine,
When the winds are out and calling to this vagrant heart of mine.
Whisht! it whistles at the windows, and how can I be still?
There! the last leaves of the beech-tree go dancing down the hill.
All the boats at anchor they are plunging to be free-
O to be a sailor, and away across the sea!
When the sky is black with thunder, and the sea is white with foam,
The gray-gulls whirl up shrieking and seek their rocky home,
Low his boat is lying leeward, how she runs upon the gale,
As she rises with the billows, nor shakes her dripping sail.
There is danger on the waters-there is joy where dangers be-
Alas! to be a woman and the nomad’s heart in me.

Ochone! to be a woman, only sighing on the shore-
With a soul that finds a passion ...

The leaves are many under my feet,
    And drift one way.
Their scent of death is weary and sweet.
    A flight of them is in the grey
Where sky and forest meet.

The low winds moan for dead sweet years;
    The birds sing all for pain,
Of a common thing, to weary ears,-
    Only a summer's fate of rain,
And a woman's fate of tears.

I walk to love and life alone
    Over these mournful places,
Across the summer overthrown,
    The dead joys of these silent faces,
To claim my own.

I know his heart has beat to bright
    Sweet loves gone by.
I know the leaves that die to-night
    Once budded to the sky,
And I shall die from his delight.

O leaves, so quietly ending now,
    You have heard cuckoos sing.
And I w...