Loneliness

Musicians wrestle everywhere:
All day, among the crowded air,
I hear the silver strife;
And -- waking long before the dawn --
Such transport breaks upon the town
I think it that "new life!"

It is not bird, it has no nest;
Nor band, in brass and scarlet dressed,
Nor tambourine, nor man;
It is not hymn from pulpit read, --
The morning stars the treble led
On time's first afternoon!

Some say it is the spheres at play!
Some say that bright majority
Of vanished dames and men!
Some think it service in the place
Where we, with late, celestial face,
Please God, shall ascertain!

You played and sang a snatch of song,
A song that all-too well we knew;
But whither had flown the ancient wrong;
And was it really I and you?
O since the end of life's to live
And pay in pence the common debt,
What should it cost us to forgive
Whose daily task is to forget?

You babbled in the well-known voice,
Not new, not new, the words you said.
You touched me off that famous poise,
That old effect, of neck and head.
Dear, was it really you and I?
In truth the riddle's ill to read,
So many are the deaths we die
Before we can be dead indeed.

"'He cometh not,' she said."
- MARIANA

It will not be to-day and yet
I think and dream it will; and let
The slow uncertainty devise
So many sweet excuses, met
With the old doubt in hope's disguise.

The panes were sweated with the dawn;
Yet through their dimness, shriveled drawn,
The aigret of one princess-feather,
One monk's-hood tuft with oilets wan,
I glimpsed, dead in the slaying weather.

This morning, when my window's chintz
I drew, how gray the day was! - Since
I saw him, yea, all days are gray! -
I gazed out on my dripping quince,
Defruited, gnarled; then turned away

To weep, but did not weep: but felt
A colder anguish than did melt
About the tearful-visaged year! -
Then flung the lattice wide, and smelt...

In this Monody the Author bewails a learned Friend, unfortunatly drown’d in his Passage from Chester on the Irish Seas, 1637. And by occasion foretels the ruine of our corrupted Clergy then in their height.

Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and once more
Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never-sear,
I com to pluck your Berries harsh and crude,
And with forc’d fingers rude,
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due:
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer:
Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not flote upon his watry bear
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of som melod...

Your spoken words are roses fine and sweet,
The songs you sing are perfect pearls of sound.
How lavish nature is about your feet,
To scatter flowers and jewels both around.

Blushing the stream of petal beauty flows,
Softly the white strings trickle down and shine.
Oh! speak to me, my love, I crave a rose.
Sing me a song, for I would pearls were mine.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

‘Whither, O whither, love, shall we go,
For a score of sweet little summers or so?’
The sweet little wife of the singer said,
On the day that follow’d the day she was wed,
‘Whither, O whither, love, shall we go?’
And the singer shaking his curly head
Turn’d as he sat, and struck the keys
There at his right with a sudden crash,
Singing, ‘And shall it be over the seas
With a crew that is neither rude nor rash,
But a bevy of Eroses apple-cheek’d,
In a shallop of crystal ivory-beak’d?
With a satin sail of a ruby glow,
To a sweet little Eden on earth that I know,
A mountain islet pointed and peak’d;
Waves on a diamond shingle dash,
Cataract brooks to the ocean run,
Fairily-delicate palaces shine
Mixt with myrtle and clad with vine,
And overstream’d a...

Alone in the night
On a dark hill
With pines around me
Spicy and still,

And a heaven full of stars
Over my head,
White and topaz
And misty red;

Myriads with beating
Hearts of fire
That aeons
Cannot vex or tire;

Up the dome of heaven
Like a great hill,
I watch them marching
Stately and still,
And I know that I
Am honored to be
Witness
Of so much majesty.

Hard by the road, where on that little mound
    The high grass rustles to the passing breeze,
    The child of Misery rests her head in peace.
Pause there in sadness. That unhallowed ground
Inshrines what once was Isabel. Sleep on
    Sleep on, poor Outcast! lovely was thy cheek,
    And thy mild eye was eloquent to speak
The soul of Pity. Pale and woe-begone
Soon did thy fair cheek fade, and thine eye weep
    The tear of anguish for the babe unborn,
    The helpless heir of Poverty and Scorn.
She drank the draught that chill'd her soul to sleep.
I pause and wipe the big drop from mine eye,
Whilst the proud Levite scowls and passes by.

My thoughts have borne me far away
To Beauties of an older day,
Where, crowned with roses, stands the DAWN,
Striking her seven-stringed barbiton
Of flame, whose chords give being to
The seven colours, hue for hue;
The music of the colour-dream
She builds the day from, beam by beam.

My thoughts have borne me far away
To Myths of a diviner day,
Where, sitting on the mountain, NOON
Sings to the pines a sun-soaked tune
Of rest and shade and clouds and skies,
Wherein her calm dreams idealize
Light as a presence, heavenly fair,
Sleeping with all her beauty bare.

My thoughts have borne me far away
To Visions of a wiser day,
Where, stealing through the wilderness,
NIGHT walks, a sad-eyed votaress,
And prays with mystic words she hears

"A German aeroplane flew over Greek territory dropping a bomb which killed a shepherd."


'Sitting on a stone a Shepherd,
Stone and Shepherd sleeping,
Under the high blue Attic sky;
Along the green monotony
Grey sheep creeping, creeping'.

Deep down on the hill and valley,
At the bottom of the sunshine,
Like great Ships in clearest water,
Water holding anchored Shadows,
Water without wave or ripple,
Sunshine deep and clear and heavy,
Sunshine like a booming bell
Made of purest golden metal,
White Ships heavy in the sky
Sleep with anchored shadow.

Pipe a song in that still air
And the song would be of crystal
Snapped in silence, or a bronze vase
Smooth and graceful, curved and shining.
Tell an old tale or a history;

We two in the fever, and fervour, and glow
    Of life's high tide have rejoiced together.
We have looked out over the glittering snow,
    And known we were dwelling in summer weather.
For the seasons are made by the heart, I hold,
    And not by the outdoor heat or cold.

We two in the shadows of pain and fear
    Have journeyed together in dim, dark places,
Where black-robed sorrow walked to and fro,
    And fear and trouble with phantom faces
Peered out upon us, and froze our blood,
    Though June's fair roses were all in bud.

We two have measured all depths, all heights;
    We have bathed in tears, we have sunned in laughter;
We have known all sorrow, and all delights,
    They never could keep us apart hereafter.
Wherever your spirit was sen...

Roses red and roses white
Plucked I for my love's delight.
She would none of all my posies,
Bade me gather her blue roses.

Half the world I wandered through,
Seeking where such flowers grew.
Half the world unto my quest
Answered me with laugh and jest.

Home I came at wintertide,
But my silly love had died
Seeking with her latest breath
Roses from the arms of Death.

It may be beyond the grave
She shall find what she would have.
Mine was but an idle quest,
Roses white and red are best!

When the long day leans to the twilight,
    When the Evening star climbs to the moon,
With a heart that is silently breaking,
    I sit in the gloaming and croon.
I croon a low song for my darling,
    My wee one, my baby, my own;
Who, cradled in rosewood and velvet,
    Sleeps out in the churchyard alone.

Alone with no arms to enfold her,
    Alone with no pillowing breast,
Alone with no hand on her cradle,
    To rock her to soundlier rest.
But each day in the hush of the twilight,
    Is silenced my broken heart's cry;
And I sit where I sat with my darling,
    And sing her the old lullaby.

Oh! the dreams that come back to me mocking,
    The sorrow that makes the days long;
As I sit in the twilight there rocking,
    And singing...

(Oscar Wilde.)


I gazed upon thee desolate and heard
    Thine anguished cry when fell the iron gin
That all but broke thy soul, yet gave thy word
    The strength to ask forgiveness of thy sin.

I saw thee fleeing from the cruel light
    Of thine own fame; I saw thee hide thy face
In alien dust to cover up the blight
    Upon thy brow that time may yet erase.

I knew thy creed, although thy lips were mute;
    I knew the gods thou didst not dare to own;
I knew the Upas poison at the root
    Of thy last flower of song, in prison blown.

And out of all thy woe there came to me
    This miracle of dogma, like a cry:
"No law but freedom for the vagrant bee--
    No love but summer for the butterfly."

Amor, Natura, e la bell' alma umile.

DURING A SERIOUS ILLNESS OF LAURA.


    Love, Nature, Laura's gentle self combines,
She where each lofty virtue dwells and reigns,
Against my peace: To pierce with mortal pains
Love toils--such ever are his stern designs.
Nature by bonds so slight to earth confines
Her slender form, a breath may break its chains;
And she, so much her heart the world disdains,
Longer to tread life's wearying round repines.
Hence still in her sweet frame we view decay
All that to earth can joy and radiance lend,
Or serve as mirror to this laggard age;
And Death's dread purpose should not Pity stay,
Too well I see where all those hopes must end,
With which I fondly soothed my lingering pilgrimage.

WRANGHAM.
<...

Oh! ye, who pine, in London smoke immured,
With spirits wearied, and with pains uncured,
With all the catalogue of city evils,
Colds, asthmas, rheumatism, coughs, blue devils!
Who bid each bold empiric roll in wealth,
Who drains your fortunes while he saps your health:
So well ye love your dirty streets and lanes,
Ye court your ailments and embrace your pains.
And scarce ye know, so little have ye seen,
If corn be yellow, or if grass be green;
Why leave ye not your smoke-obstructed holes,
With wholesome air to cheer your sickly souls?
In scenes where Health's bright goddess wakes the breeze,
Floats on the stream, and fans the whisp'ring trees:
Soon would the brighten'd eye her influence speak,
And her full roses flush the faded cheek.

Then, where romanti...

As the time draws nigh, glooming, a cloud,
A dread beyond, of I know not what, darkens me.

I shall go forth,
I shall traverse The States awhile--but I cannot tell whither or how long;
Perhaps soon, some day or night while I am singing, my voice will suddenly cease.

O book, O chants! must all then amount to but this?
Must we barely arrive at this beginning of us?... And yet it is enough, O soul!
O soul! we have positively appear'd--that is enough.