Loneliness

I.
Mystery of mysteries,
Faintly smiling Adeline,
Scarce of earth nor all divine,
Nor unhappy, nor at rest,
But beyond expression fair
With thy floating flaxen hair;
Thy rose-lips and full blue eyes
Take the heart from out my breast.
Wherefore those dim looks of thine,
Shadowy, dreaming Adeline?

II.
Whence that aery bloom of thine,
Like a lily which the sun
Looks thro’ in his sad decline,
And a rose-bush leans upon,
Thou that faintly smilest still,
As a Naiad in a well,
Looking at the set of day,
Or a phantom two hours old
Of a maiden passed away,
Ere the placid lips be cold?
Wherefore those faint smiles of thine,
Spiritual Adeline?

III.
What hope or fear or joy is thine?
Who talketh with thee, Adel...

A fine and subtle spirit dwells
In every little flower,
Each one its own sweet feeling breathes
With more or less of power.

There is a silent eloquence
In every wild bluebell
That fills my softened heart with bliss
That words could never tell.

Yet I recall not long ago
A bright and sunny day,
'Twas when I led a toilsome life
So many leagues away;

That day along a sunny road
All carelessly I strayed,
Between two banks where smiling flowers
Their varied hues displayed.

Before me rose a lofty hill,
Behind me lay the sea,
My heart was not so heavy then
As it was wont to be.

Less harassed than at other times
I saw the scene was fair,
And spoke and laughed to those around,
As if I knew no care.

To me this world's a dreary blank,
All hopes in life are gone and fled,
My high strung energies are sank,
And all my blissful hopes lie dead. -

The world once smiling to my view,
Showed scenes of endless bliss and joy;
The world I then but little knew,
Ah! little knew how pleasures cloy;

All then was jocund, all was gay,
No thought beyond the present hour,
I danced in pleasure's fading ray,
Fading alas! as drooping flower.

Nor do the heedless in the throng,
One thought beyond the morrow give[,]
They court the feast, the dance, the song,
Nor think how short their time to live.

The heart that bears deep sorrow's trace,
What earthly comfort can console,
It drags a dull and lengthened pace,
'Till friendly death its woes enrol...

Down slant the moonbeams to the floor
Through the garret's scented air,
And show a thin-spoked spinning-wheel,
Standing ten years and more
Far from the hearth-stone's woe and weal, -
The ghost of a lost day's care!

And over the dreaming spinning-wheel,
That has not stirred so long,
The weaving spiders spin a veil,
A silvery shroud for its human zeal
And usefulness, with their fingers pale,
The shadowy lights among.

See! in the moonlight cold and gray
A thoughtful maiden stands;
And though she blames not overmuch
With her sweet lips the great world's way,
Yet sad and slow she stoops to touch
The still wheel with her hands.

"Forsaken wheel! when you first came
To clothe young hearts and old,
Our ancestors were glad to wear

My heart is sick awishing and awaiting:
The lad took up his knapsack, he went, he went his way;
And I looked on for his coming, as a prisoner through the grating
Looks and longs and longs and wishes for its opening day.

On the wild purple mountains, all alone with no other,
The strong terrible mountains he longed, he longed to be;
And he stooped to kiss his father, and he stooped to kiss his mother,
And till I said, "Adieu, sweet Sir," he quite forgot me.

He wrote of their white raiment, the ghostly capes that screen them,
Of the storm winds that beat them, their thunder-rents and scars,
And the paradise of purple, and the golden slopes atween them,
And fields, where grow God's gentian bells, and His crocus stars.

He wrote of frail gauzy clouds, that drop on the...

Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which needs
No school of long experience, that the world
Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen
Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares,
To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood
And view the haunts of Nature. The calm shade
Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze
That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm
To thy sick heart. Thou wilt find nothing here
Of all that pained thee in the haunts of men
And made thee loathe thy life. The primal curse
Fell, it is true, upon the unsinning earth,
But not in vengeance. God hath yoked to guilt
Her pale tormentor, misery. Hence, these shades
Are still the abodes of gladness; the thick roof
Of green and stirring branches is alive
And musical with birds, that ...

Who's there? who's there? who was it tried
To force the entrance I've denied?
An 'twere a friend, I'd gladly borne it,
But no--'twas Want! I could have sworn it.
I heard thy voice, old witch, I know thee!
Avaunt, thou evil hag, beshrew thee!
God's curse! why seekest thou to find me?
Away to all black years behind me!

To torture me was thine endeavor,
My body from my soul to sever,
Of pride and courage to deprive me,
And into beggary to drive me.
Begone, where thousand devils burn--
Begone, nor evermore return!
Begone, most wretched thou of creatures,
And hide for aye thine hateful features!
--Beloved, ope the door in pity!

No friend have I in all the city
Save thee, then open to my call!
The night is bleak, the snowflakes fall.
...

    Out of the lights and roar of cities,
    Drifting down like a spark in Spoon River,
    Burnt out with the fire of drink, and broken,
    The paramour of a woman I took in self-contempt,
    But to hide a wounded pride as well.
    To be judged and loathed by a village of little minds -
    I, gifted with tongues and wisdom,
    Sunk here to the dust of the justice court,
    A picker of rags in the rubbage of spites and wrongs, -
    I, whom fortune smiled on!
    I in a village,
    Spouting to gaping yokels pages of verse,
    Out of the lore of golden years,
    Or raising a laugh with a flash of filthy wit
    When they bought the drinks to kindle my dying mind.
    To be judged by you,
    The soul of me hidden from you,
    With its wound gang...

Pien d' un vago pensier, che me desvia.

HIS TONGUE IS TIED BY EXCESS OF PASSION.


    Such vain thought as wonted to mislead me
In desert hope, by well-assurèd moan,
Makes me from company to live alone,
In following her whom reason bids me flee.
She fleeth as fast by gentle cruelty;
And after her my heart would fain be gone,
But armèd sighs my way do stop anon,
'Twixt hope and dread locking my liberty;
Yet as I guess, under disdainful brow
One beam of ruth is in her cloudy look:
Which comforteth the mind, that erst for fear shook:
And therewithal bolded I seek the way how
To utter the smart I suffer within;
But such it is, I not how to begin.

WYATT.


    Full of a tender thought, which severs me
From all my ki...

‘Henri Heine’, , ’tis here!
The black tombstone, the name
Carved there, no more! and the smooth,
Swarded alleys, the limes
Touch’d with yellow by hot
Summer, but under them still
In September’s bright afternoon
Shadow, and verdure, and cool!
Trim Montmartre! the faint
Murmur of Paris outside;
Crisp everlasting-flowers,
Yellow and black, on the graves.

Half blind, palsied, in pain,
Hither to come, from the streets’
Uproar, surely not loath
Wast thou, Heine!, to lie
Quiet! to ask for closed
Shutters, and darken’d room,
And cool drinks, and an eased
Posture, and opium, no more!
Hither to come, and to sleep
Under the wings of Renown.

Ah! not little, when pain
Is most quelling, and man
Easily quell’d, and the fine...

I.

    Wherever I am, and whatever I do,
    My Phyllis is still in my mind;
    When angry, I mean not to Phyllis to go,
    My feet, of themselves, the way find:
    Unknown to myself I am just at her door,
    And when I would rail, I can bring out no more,
    Than, Phyllis too fair and unkind!

    When Phyllis I see, my heart bounds in my breast,
    And the love I would stifle is shown;
    But asleep or awake I am never at rest,
    When from my eyes Phyllis is gone.
    Sometimes a sad dream does delude my sad mind;
    But, alas! when I wake, and no Phyllis I find,
    How I sigh to myself all alone!

    Should a king be my rival in her I adore,
    He should offer his treasure in vain:
    Oh, let me alone to be happy and poor,...

The old farm-home is Mother's yet and mine,
And filled it is with plenty and to spare,
But we are lonely here in life's decline,
Though fortune smiles around us everywhere:
We look across the gold
Of the harvests, as of old -
The corn, the fragrant clover, and the hay;
But most we turn our gaze,
As with eyes of other days,
To the orchard where the children used to play.

O from our life's full measure
And rich hoard of worldly treasure
We often turn our weary eyes away,
And hand in hand we wander
Down the old path winding yonder
To the orchard where the children used to play.

Our sloping pasture-lands are filled with herds;
The barn and granary-bins are bulging o'ver;
The grove's a paradise of singing birds -
The woodland brook leaps ...

When the evening came my love said to me:
Let us go into the garden now that the sky is cool;
The garden of black hellebore and rosemary,
Where wild woodruff spills in a milky pool.

Low we passed in the twilight, for the wavering heat
Of day had waned; and round that shaded plot
Of secret beauty the thickets clustered sweet:
Here is heaven, our hearts whispered, but our lips spake not.

Between that old garden and seas of lazy foam
Gloomy and beautiful alleys of trees arise
With spire of cypress and dreamy beechen dome,
So dark that our enchanted sight knew nothing but the skies:

Veiled with a soft air, drench'd in the roses' musk
Or the dusky, dark carnation's breath of clove:
No stars burned in their deeps, but through the dusk
I saw my love's ey...

Bother Bulleys, let us sing
From the dawn till evening! -
For we know not that we go not
When the day's pale pinions fold
Unto those who sang of old.

When I flew to Blackmoor Vale,
Whence the green-gowned faeries hail,
Roosting near them I could hear them
Speak of queenly Nature's ways,
Means, and moods, - well known to fays.

All we creatures, nigh and far
(Said they there), the Mother's are:
Yet she never shows endeavour
To protect from warrings wild
Bird or beast she calls her child.

Busy in her handsome house
Known as Space, she falls a-drowse;
Yet, in seeming, works on dreaming,
While beneath her groping hands
Fiends make havoc in her bands.

How her hussif'ry succeeds
She unknows or she unheeds,
All thi...

As when the strong stream of a wintering sea
Rolls round our coast, with bodeful breaks of storm,
And swift salt rain, and bitter wind that saith
Wild things and woeful of the White South Land
Alone with God and silence in the cold
As when this cometh, men from dripping doors
Look forth, and shudder for the mariners
Abroad, so we for absent brothers looked
In days of drought, and when the flying floods
Swept boundless; roaring down the bald, black plains
Beyond the farthest spur of western hills.

For where the Barwon cuts a rotten land,
Or lies unshaken, like a great blind creek,
Between hot mouldering banks, it came to this,
All in a time of short and thirsty sighs,
That thirty rainless months had left the pools
And grass as dry as ashes: then it was

The skies they were ashen and sober,
The streets they were dirty and drear;
It was night in the month of October,
Of my most immemorial year.
Like the skies, I was perfectly sober,
As I stopped at the mansion of Shear,
At the Nightingale, perfectly sober,
And the willowy woodland down here.

Here, once in an alley Titanic
Of Ten-pins, I roamed with my soul,
Of Ten-pins, with Mary, my soul;
They were days when my heart was volcanic,
And impelled me to frequently roll,
And made me resistlessly roll,
Till my ten-strikes created a panic
In the realms of the Boreal pole,
Till my ten-strikes created a panic
With the monkey atop of his pole.

I repeat, I was perfectly sober,
But my thoughts they were palsied and sear,
My thoughts were de...

    If I were a monk, and thou wert a nun,
            Pacing it wearily, wearily,
    Twixt chapel and cell till day were done--
            Wearily, wearily--
    How would it fare with these hearts of ours
    That need the sunshine, and smiles, and flowers?

    To prayer, to prayer, at the matins' call,
            Morning foul or fair!--
    Such prayer as from weary lips might fall--
            Words, but hardly prayer--
    The chapel's roof, like the law in stone,
    Caging the lark that up had flown!

    Thou, in the glory of cloudless noon,
            The God-revealing,
    Turning thy face from the boundless boon--
            Painfully kneeling;
    Or, in brown-shadowy solitude,
    Bending thy head o'er the legend rude!
<...

My dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone,
And left me in this dreary world alone?
Thy form is here indeed - a lovely one -
But thou art fled, gone down the dreary road,
That leads to Sorrow's most obscure abode;
Thou sittest on the hearth of pale despair,
Where
For thine own sake I cannot follow thee.