Loneliness

I have no wit, no words, no tears;
    My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears.
    Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
    No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
    O Jesus, quicken me.

My life is like a faded leaf,
    My harvest dwindled to a husk;
Truly my life is void and brief
    And tedious in the barren dusk;
My life is like a frozen thing,
    No bud nor greenness can I see:
Yet rise it shall - the sap of Spring;
    O Jesus, rise in me.

My life is like a broken bowl,
    A broken bowl that cannot hold
One drop of water for my soul
    Or cordial in the searching cold
Cast in the fire the perished thing,
    Melt and remo...

Deep in the bosom of the ocean,
    Where sunshine fades to twilight gloom,
    The pure pearls lie, and the coral bloom
Rests unsway'd by the upper motion--
    Calm and still the hours pass by
    The lovely things that sleeping lie,
Deep in the bosom of the ocean.

The thunder rolls from cloud to cloud,
    And the bitter blast sweeps o'er the sea,
    Shaking the waters mightily;
But ne'er the tempest's voice so loud,
    Sinketh down to the things that lie--
    The lovely things that sleeping lie,
Deep in the bosom of the ocean.

The icebergs crack with a sullen boom,
    Riven by the hands of the angry North;
    And, like the Angel of Wrath sent forth,
The whirlwind stalks with the breath of doom,
    Crushing, like dust 'neath its ...

Come, ponder well, for ‘tis no jest,
To laugh it would be wrong,
The troubles of a worthy priest,
The burden of my song.


This priest he merry is and blithe
Three quarters of a year:
But oh! it cuts him like a scythe,
When tithing time draws near.


He then is full of fright and fears,
As one at point to die,
And long before the day appears,
He heaves up many a sigh.


For then the farmers come jog, jog,
Along the miry road,
Each heart as heavy as a log,
To make their payments good.


In sooth the sorrow of such days
Is not to be express’d,
When he that takes and he that pays
Are both alike distress’d.


Now all unwelcome at his gates
The clumsy swains alight,
With rueful faces an...

Cara la vita, e dopo lei mi pare.

HONOUR TO BE PREFERRED TO LIFE.


    Methinks that life in lovely woman first,
And after life true honour should be dear;
Nay, wanting honour--of all wants the worst--
Friend! nought remains of loved or lovely here.
And who, alas! has honour's barrier burst,
Unsex'd and dead, though fair she yet appear,
Leads a vile life, in shame and torment curst,
A lingering death, where all is dark and drear.
To me no marvel was Lucretia's end,
Save that she needed, when that last disgrace
Alone sufficed to kill, a sword to die.
Sophists in vain the contrary defend:
Their arguments are feeble all and base,
And truth alone triumphant mounts on high!

MACGREGOR.

One moment the slim cloudflakes seem to lean
With their sad sunward faces aureoled,
And longing lips set downward brightening
To take the last sweet hand kiss of the king,
Gone down beyond the closing west acold;
Paying no reverence to the slender queen,
That like a curvèd olive leaf of gold
Hangs low in heaven, rounded toward sun,
Or the small stars that one by one unfold
Down the gray border of the night begun.

With stammering lips and insufficient sound
I strive and struggle to deliver right
That music of my nature, day and night
With dream and thought and feeling interwound
And inly answering all the senses round
With octaves of a mystic depth and height
Which step out grandly to the infinite
From the dark edges of the sensual ground.
This song of soul I struggle to outbear
Through portals of the sense, sublime and whole,
And utter all myself into the air:
But if I did it, as the thunder-roll
Breaks its own cloud, my flesh would perish there,
Before that dread apocalypse of soul.

I shall behold far off thy towering crest,
Proud mountain! from thy heights as slow I stray
Down through the distant vale my homeward way,
I shall behold upon thy rugged breast,
The parting sun sit smiling: me the while
Escaped the crowd, thoughts full of heaviness
May visit, as life's bitter losses press
Hard on my bosom; but I shall beguile
The thing I am, and think, that ev'n as thou
Dost lift in the pale beam thy forehead high,
Proud mountain! whilst the scattered vapours fly
Unheeded round thy breast, so, with calm brow,
The shades of sorrow I may meet, and wear
The smile unchanged of peace, though pressed by care!

Dante Alighieri To Guido Cavalcanti:

Guido, I would that Lapo, thou, and I,
Led by some strong enchantment, might ascend
A magic ship, whose charmed sails should fly
With winds at will where'er our thoughts might wend,
So that no change, nor any evil chance
Should mar our joyous voyage; but it might be,
That even satiety should still enhance
Between our hearts their strict community:
And that the bounteous wizard then would place
Vanna and Bice and my gentle love,
Companions of our wandering, and would grace
With passionate talk, wherever we might rove,
Our time, and each were as content and free
As I believe that thou and I should be.

Red-Faced as old carousal, and with eyes
A hard, hot blue; her hair a frowsy flame,
Bold, dowdy-bosomed, from her widow-frame
She leans, her mouth all insult and all lies.
Or slattern-slippered and in sluttish gown,
With ribald mirth and words too vile to name,
A new Doll Tearsheet, glorying in her shame,
Armed with her Falstaff now she takes the town.
The flaring lights of alley-way saloons,
The reek of hideous gutters and black oaths
Of drunkenness from vice-infested dens,
Are to her senses what the silvery moon's
Chaste splendor is, and what the blossoming growths
Of earth and bird-song are to innocence.

The half-moon westers low, my love,
And the wind brings up the rain;
And wide apart lie we, my love,
And seas between the twain.

I know not if it rains, my love,
In the land where you do lie;
And oh, so sound you sleep, my love,
You know no more than I.

The earth was flooded in the amber haze
That renders so lovely our autumn days,
The dying leaves softly fluttered down,
Bright crimson and orange and golden brown,
And the hush of autumn, solemn and still,
Brooded o'er valley, plain and hill.

Yet still from that scene with rare beauty rife
And the touching sweetness of fading life,
From glowing foliage and sun bright ray,
My gaze soon mournfully turned away
To rest, instead, on a new made grave,
Enshrouding a heart true, loyal and brave.

At rest for aye! Cold and pulseless now
That high throbbing breast and calm, earnest brow;
Laid down forever the quick, gifted pen
That toiled but for God and his fellow men;
Silent that voice, free from hatred or ruth,
Yet e'er boldly raised in the cause of t...

"Sit down and fall to, said the Barmecide."
Arabian Nights.


At seven you just nick it,
Give card - get wine ticket;
Walk round through the Babel,
From table to table,
To find - a hard matter -
Your name in a platter;
Your wish was to sit by
Your friend Mr. Whitby,
But stewards' assistance
Has placed you at distance,
And, thanks to arrangers,
You sit amongst strangers,
But too late for mending;
Twelve sticks come attending
A stick of a Chairman,
A little dark spare man,
With bald, shining nob,
'Mid committee swell-mob;
In short, a short figure, -
You thought the Duke bigger.
Then silence is wanted,
Non Nobis is chanted;
Then Chairman reads letter,
The Duke's a regretter,
A promise to br...

    My miserable countrymen, whose wont is once a-year
    To lounge in watering-places, disagreeable and dear;
    Who on pigmy Cambrian mountains, and in Scotch or Irish bogs
    Imbibe incessant whisky, and inhale incessant fogs:
    Ye know not with what transports the mad Alpine Clubman gushes,
    When with rope and axe and knapsack to the realms of snow he rushes.
    O can I e'er the hour forget - a voice within cries "Never!" -
    From British beef and sherry dear which my young heart did sever?
    My limbs were cased in flannel light, my frame in Norfolk jacket,
    As jauntily I stepped upon the impatient Calais packet.
    "Dark lowered the tempest overhead," the waters wildly rolled,
    Wildly the moon sailed thro' the clouds, "and it grew wondrous cold;"
 ...

The season of the rose and peace is past:
It could not last.
There's heartbreak in the hills and stormy sighs
Of sorrow in the rain-lashed plains and skies,
While Earth regards, aghast,
The last red leaf that flies.

The world is cringing in the darkness where
War left his lair,
And everything takes on a lupine look,
Baring gaunt teeth at every peaceful nook,
And shaking torrent hair
At every little brook.

Cancers of ulcerous flame his eyes, and hark!
There in the dark
The ponderous stir of metal, iron feet;
And with it, heard around the world, the beat
Of Battle; sounds that mark
His heart's advance, retreat.

With shrapnel pipes he goes his monstrous ways;
And, screeching, plays
The hell-born music Havoc dances to;
An...

Spring.

Another four I've left yet to bring on,
Of four times four the last Quarternion
The Winter, Summer, Autumn & the Spring,
In season all these Seasons I shall bring:
Sweet Spring like man in his Minority,
At present claim'd, and had priority.
With smiling face and garments somewhat green,
She trim'd her locks, which late had frosted been,
Nor hot nor cold, she spake, but with a breath,
Fit to revive, the nummed earth from death.
Three months (quoth she) are 'lotted to my share
March, April, May of all the rest most fair.
Tenth of the first, Sol into Aries enters,
And bids defiance to all tedious winters,
Crosseth the Line, and equals night and day,
(Stil adds to th' last til after pleasant May)
And now makes glad the darkned nothern...

1.
The waters are flashing,
The white hail is dashing,
The lightnings are glancing,
The hoar-spray is dancing -
Away!

The whirlwind is rolling,
The thunder is tolling,
The forest is swinging,
The minster bells ringing -
Come away!

The Earth is like Ocean,
Wreck-strewn and in motion:
Bird, beast, man and worm
Have crept out of the storm -
Come away!

2.
'Our boat has one sail
And the helmsman is pale; -
A bold pilot I trow,
Who should follow us now,' -
Shouted he -

And she cried: 'Ply the oar!
Put off gaily from shore!' -
As she spoke, bolts of death
Mixed with hail, specked their path
O'er the sea.

And from isle, tower and rock,
The blue beacon-cloud broke,
And though...

I am of all bereft,
Save but some few beans left,
Whereof, at last, to make
For me and mine a cake,
Which eaten, they and I
Will say our grace, and die.

I am poor and old and blind;
The sun burns me, and the wind
    Blows through the city gate
And covers me with dust
From the wheels of the august
    Justinian the Great.

It was for him I chased
The Persians o'er wild and waste,
    As General of the East;
Night after night I lay
In their camps of yesterday;
    Their forage was my feast.

For him, with sails of red,
And torches at mast-head,
    Piloting the great fleet,
I swept the Afric coasts
And scattered the Vandal hosts,
    Like dust in a windy street.

For him I won again
The Ausonian realm and reign,
    Rome and Parthenope;
And all the land was mine
From the summits of Apennine
    To the shores of either sea.

For him, in my feeble age,