Loneliness

Though the torrents from their fountains
Roar down many a craggy steep,
Yet they find among the mountains
Resting-places calm and deep.

Clouds that love through air to hasten,
Ere the storm its fury stills,
Helmet-like themselves will fasten
On the heads of towering hills.

What, if through the frozen centre
Of the Alps the Chamois bound,
Yet he has a home to enter
In some nook of chosen ground:

And the Sea-horse, though the ocean
Yield him no domestic cave,
Slumbers without sense of motion,
Couched upon the rocking wave.

If on windy days the Raven
Gambol like a dancing skiff,
Not the less she loves her haven
In the bosom of the cliff.

The fleet Ostrich, till day closes,
Vagrant over desert sands,
Broo...

You read, what is it, then that you are reading?
What music moves so silently in your mind?
Your bright hand turns the page.
I watch you from my window, unsuspected:
You move in an alien land, a silent age . . .

. . . The poet, what was his name? Tokkei, Tokkei,
The poet walked alone in a cold late rain,
And thought his grief was like the crying of sea-birds;
For his lover was dead, he never would love again.

Rain in the dreams of the mind, rain forever,
Rain in the sky of the heart, rain in the willows,
But then he saw this face, this face like flame,
This quiet lady, this portrait by Hiroshigi;
And took it home with him; and with it came

What unexpected changes, subtle as weather!
The dark room, cold as rain,
Grew faintly fragrant, stirred ...

The moonlight is without; and I could lose
An hour to gaze, though Taste and Splendour here,
As in a lustrous fairy palace, reign!
Regardless of the lights that blaze within,
I look upon the wide and silent sea,
That in the shadowy moonbeam sleeps:
    How still,
Nor heard to murmur, or to move, it lies;
Shining in Fancy's eye, like the soft gleam,
The eve of pleasant yesterdays!
    The clouds
Have all sunk westward, and the host of stars
Seem in their watches set, as gazing on;
While night's fair empress, sole and beautiful,
Holds her illustrious course through the mid heavens
Supreme, the spectacle, for such she looks,
Of gazing worlds!
    How different is the scene
That lies beneath this arched window's height!
The town, that murmured throu...

I

Between extremities
Man runs his course;
A brand, or flaming breath.
Comes to destroy
All those antinomies
Of day and night;
The body calls it death,
The heart remorse.
But if these be right
What is joy?


II

A tree there is that from its topmost bough
Is half all glittering flame and half all green
Abounding foliage moistened with the dew;
And half is half and yet is all the scene;
And half and half consume what they renew,
And he that Attis' image hangs between
That staring fury and the blind lush leaf
May know not what he knows, but knows not grief


III

Get all the gold and silver that you can,
Satisfy ambition, animate
The trivial days and ram them with the sun,
And yet upon t...

        Into the golden vessel of great song
        Let us pour all our passion; breast to breast
        Let other lovers lie, in love and rest;
        Not we,--articulate, so, but with the tongue
        Of all the world: the churning blood, the long
        Shuddering quiet, the desperate hot palms pressed
        Sharply together upon the escaping guest,
        The common soul, unguarded, and grown strong.
        Longing alone is singer to the lute;
        Let still on nettles in the open sigh
        The minstrel, that in slumber is as mute
        As any man, and love be far and high,
        That else forsakes the topmost branch, a fruit
        Found on the ground by every passer-by.

O my lost beauty! - hast thou folded quite
Thy wings of morning light
Beyond those iron gates
Where Life crowds hurrying to the haggard Fates,
And Age upon his mound of ashes waits
To chill our fiery dreams,
Hot from the heart of youth plunged in his icy streams?

Leave me not fading in these weeds of care,
Whose flowers are silvered hair!
Have I not loved thee long,
Though my young lips have often done thee wrong,
And vexed thy heaven-tuned ear with careless song?
Ah, wilt thou yet return,
Bearing thy rose-hued torch, and bid thine altar burn?

Come to me! - I will flood thy silent shrine
With my soul's sacred wine,
And heap thy marble floors
As the wild spice-trees waste their fragrant stores,
In leafy islands walled with madrepores
...

I

I hear a voice, perchance I heard
Long ago, but all too low,
So that scarce a care it stirred
If the voice was real or no:
I heard it in my youth when first
The waters of my life outburst:
But now their stream ebbs faint, I hear
That voice, still low but fatal-clear
As if all Poets, God ever meant
Should save the world, and therefore lent
Great gifts to, but who, proud, refused
To do His work, or lightly used
Those gifts, or failed through weak endeavour,
So, mourn cast off by Him for ever,
As if these leaned in airy ring
To take me; this the song they sing.

‘Lost, lost! yet come,
With our wan troop make thy home.
Come, come! for we
Will not breathe, so much as breathe
Reproach to thee!
Knowing what thou sink’st bene...

    Admiring Nature in her wildest grace,
    These northern scenes with weary feet I trace;
    O'er many a winding dale and painful steep,
    Th' abodes of covey'd grouse and timid sheep,
    My savage journey, curious I pursue,
    'Till fam'd Breadalbane opens to my view.
    The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides,
    The woods, wild scatter'd, clothe their ample sides;
    Th' outstretching lake, embosom'd 'mong the hills,
    The eye with wonder and amazement fills;
    The Tay, meand'ring sweet in infant pride,
    The palace, rising on its verdant side;
    The lawns, wood-fring'd in Nature's native taste;
    The hillocks, dropt in Nature's careless haste;
    The arches, striding o'er the new-born stream;
    The village, glittering in the noont...

'The oppression of the tumult, wrath and scorn
The tribulation and the gleaming blades'
Such is the impetuous spirit that pervades
The song of Taliesin; Ours shall mourn
The 'unarmed' Host who by their prayers would turn
The sword from Bangor's walls, and guard the store
Of Aboriginal and Roman lore,
And Christian monuments, that now must burn
To senseless ashes. Mark! how all things swerve
From their known course, or vanish like a dream;
Another language spreads from coast to coast;
Only perchance some melancholy Stream
And some indignant Hills old names preserve,
When laws, and creeds, and people all are lost!

    I

    When I was a boy there was a friend of mine:
    We thought ourselves warriors and grown folk swine,
    Stupid old animals who never understood
    And never had an impulse and said "you must be good."

    We slank like stoats and fled like foxes,
    We put cigarettes in the pillar-boxes,
    Lighted cigarettes and letters all aflame,
    O the surprise when the postman came!

    We stole eggs and apples and made fine hay
    In people's houses when people were away,
    We broke street lamps and away we ran,
    Then I was a boy but now I am a man.

    Now I am a man and don't have any fun,
    I hardly ever shout and I never, never run,
    And I don't care if he's dead that friend of mine,
    For then I was a boy and now...

Well, some may hate, and some may scorn,
And some may quite forget thy name;
But my sad heart must ever mourn
Thy ruined hopes, thy blighted fame!
'Twas thus I thought, an hour ago,
Even weeping o'er that wretch's woe;
One word turned back my gushing tears,
And lit my altered eye with sneers.
Then "Bless the friendly dust," I said,
"That hides thy unlamented head!
Vain as thou wert, and weak as vain,
The slave of Falsehood, Pride, and Pain
My heart has nought akin to thine;
Thy soul is powerless over mine."
But these were thoughts that vanished too;
Unwise, unholy, and untrue:
Do I despise the timid deer,
Because his limbs are fleet with fear?
Or, would I mock the wolf's death-howl,
Because his form is gaunt and foul?
Or, hear with joy the ...

In the youth of the year, when the birds were building,
    When the green was showing on tree and hedge,
And the tenderest light of all lights was gilding
    The world from zenith to outermost edge,
My soul grew sad and longingly lonely!
    I sighed for the season of sun and rose,
And I said, "In the Summer and that time only
    Lies sweet contentment and blest repose."

With bee and bird for her maids of honour
    Came Princess Summer in robes of green.
And the King of day smiled down upon her
    And wooed her, and won her, and made her queen.
Fruit of their union and true love's pledges,
    Beautiful roses bloomed day by day,
And rambled in gardens and hid in hedges
    Like royal children in sportive play.

My restless soul for a little sea...

1.

Oh! my lonely - lonely - lonely - Pillow!
Where is my lover? where is my lover?
Is it his bark which my dreary dreams discover?
Far - far away! and alone along the billow?

2.

Oh! my lonely - lonely - lonely - Pillow!
Why must my head ache where his gentle brow lay?
How the long night flags lovelessly and slowly,
And my head droops over thee like the willow!

3.

Oh! thou, my sad and solitary Pillow!
Send me kind dreams to keep my heart from breaking,
In return for the tears I shed upon thee waking;
Let me not die till he comes back o'er the billow.

4.

Then if thou wilt - no more my lonely Pillow,
In one embrace let these arms again enfold him,
And then expire of the joy - but to behold him!
Oh! m...

On moonlit heath and lonesome bank
The sheep beside me graze;
And yon the gallows used to clank
Fast by the four cross ways.

A careless shepherd once would keep
The flocks by moonlight there, [1]
And high amongst the glimmering sheep
The dead man stood on air.

They hang us now in Shrewsbury jail:
The whistles blow forlorn,
And trains all night groan on the rail
To men that die at morn.

There sleeps in Shrewsbury jail to-night,
Or wakes, as may betide,
A better lad, if things went right,
Than most that sleep outside.

And naked to the hangman's noose
The morning clocks will ring
A neck God made for other use
Than strangling in a string.

And sharp the link of life will snap,
And dead on air will st...

Alone by the Schuylkill a wanderer roved,
    And bright were its flowery banks to his eye;
But far, very far were the friends that he loved,
    And he gazed on its flowery banks with a sigh.

Oh Nature, though blessed and bright are thy rays,
    O'er the brow of creation enchantingly thrown,
Yet faint are they all to the lustre that plays
    In a smile from the heart that is fondly our own.

Nor long did the soul of the stranger remain
Unblest by the smile he had languished to meet;
Though scarce did he hope it would soothe him again,
    Till the threshold of home had been pressed by his feet.

But the lays of his boyhood had stolen to their ear,
And they loved what they knew of so humble a name;
And they told him, with flattery welcome and dear,

DAKRTSI DIOISO POTMON 'APOTMON.

Oh! there are spirits of the air,
And genii of the evening breeze,
And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair
As star-beams among twilight trees: -
Such lovely ministers to meet
Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.

With mountain winds, and babbling springs,
And moonlight seas, that are the voice
Of these inexplicable things,
Thou didst hold commune, and rejoice
When they did answer thee; but they
Cast, like a worthless boon, thy love away.

And thou hast sought in starry eyes
Beams that were never meant for thine,
Another's wealth: - tame sacrifice
To a fond faith! still dost thou pine?
Still dost thou hope that greeting hands,
Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands?

Ah! wherefore...

A Conversation

We talked with open heart, and tongue
Affectionate and true,
A pair of friends, though I was young,
And Matthew seventy-two.

We lay beneath a spreading oak,
Beside a mossy seat;
And from the turf a fountain broke
And gurgled at our feet.

`Now, Matthew!' said I, `let us match
This water's pleasant tune
With some old border-song, or catch
That suits a summer's noon;

`Or of the church-clock and the chimes
Sing here beneath the shade
That half-mad thing of witty rhymes
Which you last April made!'

In silence Matthew lay, and eyed
The spring beneath the tree;
And thus the dear old man replied,
The grey-haired man of glee:

`No check, no stay, this streamlet fears,
How merrily it goes!

The scent of honeysuckle,
Drugging the twilight
With its sweet opiate of lovers' dreams!
The last red glow of the setting sun
On the red brick wall
Of the neighboring house,
And the scramble of red roses over it!

Slowly, slowly
The night smokes up from the city to the stars,
The faint foreshadowed stars;
The smouldering night
Breathes upward like the breath
Of a woman asleep
With dim breast rising and falling
And a smile of delicate dreams.

Softly, softly
The wind comes into the garden,
Like a lover that fears lest he waken his love,
And his hands drip with the scent of the roses
And his locks weep with the opiate odor of honeysuckle.
Sighing, sighing
As a lover that yearns for the lips of his love,
In a torment of bli...