Loneliness

I am Raftery the poet, full of hope and love; my eyes without light, my gentleness without misery. Going west on my journey with the light of my heart; weak and tired to the end of my road.

I am now, and my back to a wall, playing music to empty pockets.

So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
Forevermore!

Revile him not, the Tempter hath
A snare for all;
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
Befit his fall!

Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage,
When he who might
Have lighted up and led his age,
Falls back in night.

Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark
A bright soul driven,
Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark,
From hope and heaven!

Let not the land once proud of him
Insult him now,
Nor brand with deeper shame his dim,
Dishonored brow.

But let its humbled sons, instead,
From sea to lake,
A long lament, as for the dead,
In sadness make.

Of all we loved and honored, naught
Save ...

    Oh, saucy gold circle of fairyland silk -
    Impudent, intimate, delicate treasure:
    A noose for my heart and a ring for my finger: -
    Here in my study you sing me a measure.

    Whimsy and song in my little gray study!
    Words out of wonderland, praising her fineness,
    Touched with her pulsating, delicate laughter,
    Saying, "The girl is all daring and kindness!"

    Saying, "Her soul is all feminine gameness,
    Trusting her insights, ardent for living;
    She would be weeping with me and be laughing,
    A thoroughbred, joyous receiving and giving!"

Wild bird, I stole you from your nest,
    And cannot find your nest again;
To hear you chirp a little while
    I wrung your mother's heart with pain.

And here you sit and droop and die,
    Nor any love that I can bring
Wins me forgiveness for the wrong,
    Nor any kindness makes you sing.

Oh, them days on Red Hoss Mountain, when the skies wuz fair 'nd blue,
When the money flowed like likker, 'nd the    folks wuz brave 'nd true!
When the nights wuz crisp 'nd balmy, 'nd    the camp wuz all astir,
With the joints all throwed wide open 'nd no sheriff to demur!
Oh, them times on Red Hoss Mountain in the Rockies fur away,--
There's no sich place nor times like them as I kin find to-day!
What though the camp hez busted? I seem to see it still
A-lyin', like it loved it, on that big 'nd warty hill;
And I feel a sort of yearnin' 'nd a chokin' in my throat
When I think of Red Hoss Mountain 'nd of Casey's tabble dote!

Wal, yes; it's true I struck it rich, but that don't cut a show
When one is old 'nd feeble 'nd it's nigh his time to go;
The money that he's got in...

    1

    "Death is but a sleep"
    quaint rationalization
    even to Revolutionaries.
    Think of Robespierre
    holding his bleeding jaw
    or Marat outside -
    eyeing the inscription,
    scofula no longer distracting while
    tepidly emptying bath water.

    2
    Dreams, poetry of painting,
    deathly pastel shades alongside
    granite canyons
    entwined with rosebuds and leaves -
    bone horseshoes clanking in the dark.

    3
    Catch basin, drainage ditch
    upon which the raspberry
    parts its tendrils and
    human remains, the loathing
    of the living ("not dead yet...."
    ...appropriate obscenity:)
    scrawled on one Victorian
    mortuary, windows knocked out,
    ...

The pink rose drops its petals on
The moonlit lawn, the moonlit lawn;
The moon, like some wide rose of white,
Drops down the summer night.
No rose there is
As sweet as this
Thy mouth, that greets me with a kiss.
The lattice of thy casement twines
With jasmine vines, with jasmine vines;
The stars, like jasmine blossoms, lie
About the glimmering sky.
No jasmine tress
Can so caress
Like thy white arms' soft loveliness.
About thy door magnolia blooms
Make sweet the glooms, make sweet the glooms;
A moon-magnolia is the dusk
Closed in a dewy husk.
However much,
No bloom gives such
Soft fragrance as thy bosom's touch.
The flowers blooming now will pass,
And strew the grass, and strew the grass;
The night, like some frail flower, daw...

1859

Has there any old fellow got mixed with the boys?
If there has, take him out, without making a noise.
Hang the Almanac's cheat and the Catalogue's spite!
Old Time is a liar! We're twenty to-night!

We're twenty! We're twenty! Who says we are more?
He's tipsy, - young jackanapes! - show him the door!
"Gray temples at twenty?" - Yes! white if we please;
Where the snow-flakes fall thickest there's nothing can freeze!

Was it snowing I spoke of? Excuse the mistake!
Look close, - you will see not a sign of a flake!
We want some new garlands for those we have shed, -
And these are white roses in place of the red.

We've a trick, we young fellows, you may have been told,
Of talking (in public) as if we were old: -
That boy we call "Doctor," and t...

Ianthe! you are call'd to cross the sea!
A path forbidden me!
Remember, while the Sun his blessing sheds
Upon the mountain-heads,
How often we have watcht him laying down
His brow, and dropt our own
Against each other's, and how faint and short
And sliding the support!
What will succeed it now? Mine is unblest,
Ianthe! nor will rest
But on the very thought that swells with pain.
O bid me hope again!
O give me back what Earth, what (without you)
Not Heaven itself can do,
One of the golden days that we have past,
And let it be my last!
Or else the gift would be, however sweet,
Fragile and incomplete.

Through long nursery nights he stood
By my bed unwearying,
Loomed gigantic, formless, queer,
Purring in my haunted ear
That same hideous nightmare thing,
Talking, as he lapped my blood,
In a voice cruel and flat,
Saying for ever, "Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!..."

That one word was all he said,
That one word through all my sleep,
In monotonous mock despair.
Nonsense may be light as air,
But there's Nonsense that can keep
Horror bristling round the head,
When a voice cruel and flat
Says for ever, "Cat! ... Cat! ... Cat!..."

He had faded, he was gone
Years ago with Nursery Land
When he leapt on me again
From the clank of a night train,
Overpowered me foot and head,
Lapped my blood, while on and on
The old voice cruel and flat

    The bank broke and I lost my savings.
    I was sick of the tiresome game in Spoon River
    And I made up my mind to run away
    And leave my place in life and my family;
    But just as the midnight train pulled in,
    Quick off the steps jumped Cully Green
    And Martin Vise, and began to fight
    To settle their ancient rivalry,
    Striking each other with fists that sounded
    Like the blows of knotted clubs.
    Now it seemed to me that Cully was winning,
    When his bloody face broke into a grin
    Of sickly cowardice, leaning on Martin
    And whining out "We're good friends, Mart,
    You know that I'm your friend."
    But a terrible punch from Martin knocked him
    Around and around and into a heap.
    And then they arrested me as...

    I shall make beauty out of many things:
    Lights, colours, motions, sky and earth and sea,
    The soft unbosoming of all the springs
    Which that inscrutable hand allows to me,
    Odours of flowers, sounds of smitten strings,
    The voice of many a wind in many a tree,
    Fields, rivers, moors, swift feet and floating wings,
    Rocks, caves, and hills that stand and clouds that flee.

    Men also and women, beautiful and dear,
    Shall come and pass and leave a fragrant breath;
    And my own heart, laughter and pain and fear,
    The majesties of evil and of death;
    But never, never shall my verses trace
    The loveliness of your most lovely face.

I took my heart in my hand
    (O my love, O my love),
I said: Let me fall or stand,
    Let me live or die,
But this once hear me speak -
    (O my love, O my love) -
Yet a woman's words are weak;
    You should speak, not I.

You took my heart in your hand
    With a friendly smile,
With a critical eye you scanned,
    Then set it down,
And said: It is still unripe,
    Better wait awhile;
Wait while the skylarks pipe,
    Till the corn grows brown.

As you set it down it broke -
    Broke, but I did not wince;
I smiled at the speech you spoke,
    At your judgement that I heard:
But I have not often smiled
    Since then, nor questioned since,
Nor cared for corn-flowers wild,
    Nor sung with the singing bird.

"Bring out your dead!" The midnight street
Heard and gave back the hoarse, low call;
Harsh fell the tread of hasty feet,
Glanced through the dark the coarse white sheet,
Her coffin and her pall.
"What, only one!" the brutal hack-man said,
As, with an oath, he spurned away the dead.

How sunk the inmost hearts of all,
As rolled that dead-cart slowly by,
With creaking wheel and harsh hoof-fall!
The dying turned him to the wall,
To hear it and to die!
Onward it rolled; while oft its driver stayed,
And hoarsely clamored, "Ho! bring out your dead."

It paused beside the burial-place;
"Toss in your load!" and it was done.
With quick hand and averted face,
Hastily to the grave's embrace
They cast them, one by one,
Stranger and friend, the evi...

1.
A pale Dream came to a Lady fair,
And said, A boon, a boon, I pray!
I know the secrets of the air,
And things are lost in the glare of day,
Which I can make the sleeping see,
If they will put their trust in me.

2.
And thou shalt know of things unknown,
If thou wilt let me rest between
The veiny lids, whose fringe is thrown
Over thine eyes so dark and sheen:
And half in hope, and half in fright,
The Lady closed her eyes so bright.

3.
At first all deadly shapes were driven
Tumultuously across her sleep,
And o'er the vast cope of bending heaven
All ghastly-visaged clouds did sweep;
And the Lady ever looked to spy
If the golden sun shone forth on high.

4.
And as towards the east she turned,
She saw aloft in t...

Life is a privilege.    Its youthful days
Shine with the radiance of continuous Mays.
To live, to breathe, to wonder and desire,
To feed with dreams the heart's perpetual fire,
To thrill with virtuous passions, and to glow
With great ambitions - in one hour to know
The depths and heights of feeling - God! in truth,
How beautiful, how beautiful is youth!

Life is a privilege.    Like some rare rose
The mysteries of the human mind unclose.
What marvels lie in earth, and air, and sea!
What stores of knowledge wait our opening key!
What sunny roads of happiness lead out
Beyond the realms of indolence and doubt!
And what large pleasures smile upon and bless
The busy avenues of usefulness!

Life is a privilege.    Though noontide fades
And shadows fal...

Sorry her lot who loves too well,
Heavy the heart that hopes but vainly,
Had are the sighs that own the spell
Uttered by eyes that speak too plainly;
Heavy the sorrow that bows the head
When Love is alive and Hope is dead!

Sad is the hour when sets the Sun
Dark is the night to Earth's poor daughters
When to the ark the wearied one
Flies from the empty waste of waters!
Heavy the sorrow that bows the head
When Love is alive and Hope is dead!

    My soul, it shall not take us,
    O we will escape
    This world that strives to break us
    And cast us to its shape;
    Its chisel shall not enter,
    Its fire shall not touch,
    Hard from rim to centre,
    We will not crack or smutch.

    'Gainst words sweet and flowered
    We have an amulet,
    We will not play the coward
    For any black threat;
    If we but give endurance
    To what is now within,
    The single assurance
    That it is good to win.

    Slaves think it better
    To be weak than strong,
    Whose hate is a fetter
    And their love a thong.
    But we will view those others
    With eyes like stone,
    And if we have no brothers
    We will walk alone.