Loneliness

The bird flies home to its young;
The flower folds its leaves about an opening bud;
And in my neighbour's house there is the cry of a child.
I close my window that I need not hear.

She is mine, and she is very beautiful:
And in her heart there is no evil thought.
There is even love in her heart -
Love of life, love of joy, love of this fair world,
And love of me (or love of my love for her);
Yet she will never consent to bear me a child.
And when I speak of it she weeps,
Always she weeps, saying:
'Do I not bring joy enough into your life?
Are you not satisfied with me and my love,
As I am satisfied with you?
Never would I urge you to some great peril
To please my whim; yet ever so you urge me,
Urge me to risk my happiness - yea, life itself -
S...

MUSE.
Give me a kiss, my poet, take thy lyre;
The buds are bursting on the wild sweet-briar.
To-night the Spring is born - the breeze takes fire.
Expectant of the dawn behold the thrush,
Perched on the fresh branch of the first green bush;
Give me a kiss, my poet, take thy lyre.


POET.
How black it looks within the vale!
I thought a muffled form did sail
Above the tree-tops, through the air.
It seemed from yonder field to pass,
Its foot just grazed the tender grass;
A vision strange and fair it was.
It melts and is no longer there.


MUSE.
My poet, take thy lyre; upon the lawn
Night rocks the zephyr on her veiled, soft breast.
The rose, still virgin, holds herself withdrawn
From the winged, irised wasp with love possessed.

Delicious gloom! asylum of repose!
Within your verdant shades, your tranquil bound,
A wretched fugitive[A], oppress'd by woes,
The balm of peace, that long had left him, found.

Ne'er does the trump of war disturb this grove;
Throughout its deep recess the warbling bird
Discourses sweetly of its happy lore,
Or distant sounds of rural joy are heard.

Life's checquer'd scene is softly pictur'd here;
Here the proud moss-rose spreads its transient pride;
Close by, the willow drops a dewy tear,
And gaudy flow'rs the modest lily hide.

Alas! poor Hermit! happy had it been
For thee, if in these shades thy days had past,
If, well contented with the happy scene,
Thou ne'er again had fac'd life's stormy blast!

And Pity oft shall shed the ...

My neighbor lives on the hill,
And I in the valley dwell,
My neighbor must look down on me,
Must I look up?--ah, well,
My neighbor lives on the hill,
And I in the valley dwell.

My neighbor reads, and prays,
And I--I laugh, God wot,
And sing like a bird when the grass is green
In my small garden plot;
But ah, he reads and prays,
And I--I laugh, God wot.

His face is a book of woe,
And mine is a song of glee;
A slave he is to the great "They say,"
But I--I am bold and free;
No wonder he smacks of woe,
And I have the tang of glee.

My neighbor thinks me a fool,
"The same to yourself," say I;
"Why take your books and take your prayers,
Give me the open sky;"
My neighbor thinks me a fool,
"The same to yourself," sa...

When, to the attractions of the busy world,
Preferring studious leisure, I had chosen
A habitation in this peaceful Vale,
Sharp season followed of continual storm
In deepest winter; and, from week to week,
Pathway, and lane, and public road, were clogged
With frequent showers of snow. Upon a hill
At a short distance from my cottage, stands
A stately Fir-grove, whither I was wont
To hasten, for I found, beneath the roof
Of that perennial shade, a cloistral place
Of refuge, with an unincumbered floor.
Here, in safe covert, on the shallow snow,
And, sometimes, on a speck of visible earth,
The redbreast near me hopped; nor was I loth
To sympathise with vulgar coppice birds
That, for protection from the nipping blast,
Hither repaired. A single beech-tree grew<...

Here, where love's stuff is body, arm and side
Are stabbing-sweet 'gainst chair and lamp and wall.
In every touch more intimate meanings hide;
And flaming brains are the white heart of all.

Here, million pulses to one centre beat:
Closed in by men's vast friendliness, alone,
Two can be drunk with solitude, and meet
On the sheer point where sense with knowing's one.

Here the green-purple clanging royal night,
And the straight lines and silent walls of town,
And roar, and glare, and dust, and myriad white
Undying passers, pinnacle and crown

Intensest heavens between close-lying faces
By the lamp's airless fierce ecstatic fire;
And we've found love in little hidden places,
Under great shades, between the mist and mire.

Stay! though the woo...

He found the road so long and lone
That he was fain to turn again.
The bird's faint note, the bee's low drone
Seemed to his heart to monotone
The unavailing and the vain,
And dirge the dreams that life had slain.
And for a while he sat him there
Beside the way, and bared his head:
He felt the hot sun on his hair;
And weed-warm odors everywhere
Waked memories, forgot or dead,
Of days when love this way had led
To that old house beside the road
With white board-fence and picket gate,
And garden plot that gleamed and glowed
With color, and that overflowed
With fragrance; where, both soon and late,
She 'mid the flowers used to wait.
Was it the same? or had it changed,
As he and she, with months and years?
How long now had they been estranged?

He sat by me in school. His face is now
Vividly in my mind, as if he went
From me but yesterday - its pleasant smile
And the rich, joyous laughter of his eye,
And the free play of his unhaughty lip,
So redolent of his heart! He was not fair,
Nor singular, nor over-fond of books,
And never melancholy when alone.
He was the heartiest in the ring, the last
Home from the summer's wanderings, and the first
Over the threshold when the school was done.
All of us loved him. We shall speak his name
In the far years to come, and think of him
When we have lost life's simplest passages,
And pray for him - forgetting he is dead -
Life was in him so passing beautiful!

His childhood had been wasted in the close
And airless city. He had never thought
That the ...

Rich in the waning light she sat
While the fierce rain on the window spat.
The yellow lamp-glow lit her face,
Shadows cloaked the narrow place
She sat adream in. Then she'd look
Idly upon an idle book;
Anon would rise and musing peer
Out at the misty street and drear;
Or with her loosened dark hair play,
Hiding her fingers' snow away;
And, singing softly, would sing on
When the desire of song had gone.
"O lingering day!" her bosom sighed,
"O laggard Time!" each motion cried.
Last she took the lamp and stood
Rich in its flood,
And looked and looked again at what
Her longing fingers' zeal had wrought;
And turning then did nothing say,
Hiding her thoughts away.

What things for dream there are when spectre-like,
Moving among tall haycocks lightly piled,
I enter alone upon the stubble field,
From which the laborers' voices late have died,
And in the antiphony of afterglow
And rising full moon, sit me down
Upon the full moon's side of the first haycock
And lose myself amid so many alike.
I dream upon the opposing lights of the hour,
Preventing shadow until the moon prevail;
I dream upon the night-hawks peopling heaven,
Each circling each with vague unearthly cry,
Or plunging headlong with fierce twang afar;
And on the bat's mute antics, who would seem
Dimly to have made out my secret place,
Only to lose it when he pirouettes,
And seek it endlessly with purblind haste;
On the last swallow's sweep; and on the rasp

I and my Soul are alone to-day,
    All in the shining weather;
We were sick of the world, and put it away,
    So we could rejoice together.

Our host, the Sun, in the blue, blue sky
    Is mixing a rare, sweet wine,
In the burnished gold of this cup on high,
    For me, and this Soul of mine.

We find it a safe and royal drink,
    And a cure for every pain;
It helps us to love, and helps us to think,
    And strengthens body and brain.

And sitting here, with my Soul alone,
    Where the yellow sun-rays fall,
Of all the friends I have ever known
    I find it the BEST of all.

We rarely meet when the world is near,
    For the World hath a pleasing art
And brings me so much that is bright and dear
    That my Soul it keepe...

My song is of that city which
Has men too poor and men too rich;
Where some are sick, too richly fed,
While others take the sparrows' bread:
Where some have beds to warm their bones,
While others sleep on hard, cold stones
That suck away their bodies' heat.
Where men are drunk in every street;
Men full of poison, like those flies
That still attack the horses' eyes.
Where some men freeze for want of cloth,
While others show their jewels' worth
And dress in satin, fur or silk;
Where fine rich ladies wash in milk,
While starving mothers have no food
To make them fit in flesh and blood;
So that their watery breasts can give
Their babies milk and make them live.
Where one man does the work of four,
And dies worn out before his hour;
While some s...

For some forty years, and over,
Poets had with me their way;
And they made me think that Sorrow
Owned the Night and owned the Day;
And the corpse beneath the clover
Had a hopeful word to say.

And they made me think that Sorrow
Was the Shadow in the Sun;
And they made me think To-morrow
Was a gift to everyone:
And the days I used to borrow,
Till my credit now is done.

And they told me softly, sweetly,
That, when Life had lost its glee,
I could be consoled completely

By the Forest or the Sea;
And they wrote their rhymes so neatly
That they quite deluded me.

But when Sorrow is at sorest,
And the heart weeps silently,
Is there healing in the Forest?
Is there solace in the Sea?
And the God whom thou adorest

The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.
And days may pass in gay confusion,
And nights in rosy riot fly,
While, lost in Fame's or Wealth's illusion,
The memory of the Past may die.

But there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart's best feelings gather home.
Then in our souls there seems to languish
A tender grief that is not woe;
And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish
Now cause but some mild tears to flow.

And feelings, once as strong as passions,
Float softly back, a faded dream;
Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations,
The tale...

City and beloved are far behind.
I am so betrayed and alone.
Slowly I move from one
Leg to the other.
Around me strange doors screech.
I reach for dagger and gun.
Ah, if I were only at home
With my mother.

"Come, sit thee by my side once more,
    'Tis long since thus we' met;
And though our dream of love is o'er,
    Its sweetness lingers yet.
Its transient day has long been past,
    Its flame has ceased to burn, -
But Memory holds its spirit fast,
    Safe in her sacred urn.

"I will not chide thy wanderings,
    Nor ask why thou couldst flee
A heart whose deep affection's springs
    Poured forth such love for thee!
We may not curb the restless mind,
    Nor teach the wayward heart
To love against its will, nor bind
    It with the chains of art.

"I would but tell thee how, in tears
    And bitterness, my soul
Has yearned with dreams, through long, long, years,
    Which it could not control.
And how the thought that clingeth t...

He lives his lonely life, and when he dies
A thousand hearts maybe will utter sighs;
Because they liked his songs, and now their bird
Sleeps with his head beneath his wing, unheard.

But what kind hand will tend his grave, and bring
Those blossoms there, of which he used to sing?
Who'll kiss his mound, and wish the time would come
To lie with him inside that silent tomb?

And who'll forget the dreamer's skill, and shed
A tear because a loving heart is dead?
Heigh ho for gossip then, and common sighs,
And let his death bring tears in no one's eyes.

    What doest thou in heaven, O moon?
    Say, silent moon, what doest thou?
    Thou risest in the evening; thoughtfully
    Thou wanderest o'er the plain,
    Then sinkest to thy rest again.
    And art thou never satisfied
    With going o'er and o'er the selfsame ways?
    Art never wearied? Dost thou still
    Upon these valleys love to gaze?
    How much thy life is like
    The shepherd's life, forlorn!
    He rises in the early dawn,
    He moves his flock along the plain;
    The selfsame flocks, and streams, and herbs
    He sees again;
    Then drops to rest, the day's work o'er;
    And hopes for nothing more.
    Tell me, O moon, what signifies his life
    To him, thy life to thee? Say, whither tend
    My weary, short-lived pilgr...