Loneliness

My garden roses long ago
Have perished from the leaf-strewn walks;
Their pale, fair sisters smile no more
Upon the sweet-brier stalks.

Gone with the flower-time of my life,
Spring's violets, summer's blooming pride,
And Nature's winter and my own
Stand, flowerless, side by side.

So might I yesterday have sung;
To-day, in bleak December's noon,
Come sweetest fragrance, shapes, and hues,
The rosy wealth of June!

Bless the young bands that culled the gift,
And bless the hearts that prompted it;
If undeserved it comes, at least
It seems not all unfit.

Of old my Quaker ancestors
Had gifts of forty stripes save one;
To-day as many roses crown
The gray head of their son.

And with them, to my fancy's eye,
The fres...

        The squadrons of the sun still hold
            The western hills, their armor glances,
        Their crimson banners wide unfold,
            Low-levelled lie their golden lances.
        The shadows lurk along the shore,
            Where, as our row-boat lightly passes,
        The ripples startled by our oar,
            Hide murmuring 'neath the hanging grasses.

        Your eyes are downcast, for the light
            Is lingering on your lids forgetting
        How late it is for one last sight
            Of you the sun delays his setting.
        One hand droops idly from the boat,
            And round the white and swaying fingers,
        Like half-blown lilies gone afloat,
            The amorous water, toying, lingers.

       ...

I

Where love is life
The roses blow,
Though winds be rude
And cold the snow,
The roses climb
Serenely slow,
They nod in rhyme
We know - we know
Where love is life
The roses blow.

Where life is love
The roses blow,
Though care be quick
And sorrows grow,
Their roots are twined
With rose-roots so
That rosebuds find
A way to show
Where life is love
The roses blow.


II

Nothing came here but sunlight,
Nothing fell here but rain,
Nothing blew but the mellow wind,
Here are the flowers again!

No one came here but you, dear,
You with your magic train
Of brightness and laughter and lightness,
Here is my joy again!


III

I have songs of dancing ple...

I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree
    And wore them all that evening in my hair:
Then in due season when I went to see
        I found no apples there.

With dangling basket all along the grass
    As I had come I went the selfsame track:
My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass
        So empty-handed back.

Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by,
    Their heaped-up basket teased me like a jeer;
Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky,
        Their mother's home was near.

Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full,
    A stronger hand than hers helped it along;
A voice talked with her through the shadows cool
        More sweet to me than song.

Ah Willie, Willie, was my love less worth
    Than apples wi...

Dark house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street.
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand.

A hand that can be clasped no more,
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.

He is not here; but far away
The noise of life begins again,
And ghastly thro’ the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.

Just as the even-bell rang, we set out
To wander the fields and the meadows about;
And the first thing we mark'd that was lovely to view,
Was the sun hung on nothing, just bidding adieu:
He seem'd like a ball of pure gold in the west,
In a cloud like a mountain blue, dropping to rest;
The skies all around him were ting'd with his rays,
And the trees at a distance seem'd all on a blaze,
Till, lower and lower, he sank from our sight,
And the blue mist came creeping with silence and night.
The woodman then ceas'd with his hatchet to hack,
And bent away home with his kid on his back;
The mower too lapt up his scythe from our sight,
And put on his jacket, and bid us good-night;
The thresher once lumping, we heard him no more,
He left his barn-dust, and had shut up his d...

I

The train! The twelve o'clock for paradise.
Hurry, or it will try to creep away.
Out in the country every one is wise:
We can be only wise on Saturday.
There you are waiting, little friendly house:
Those are your chimney-stacks with you between,
Surrounded by old trees and strolling cows,
Staring through all your windows at the green.
Your homely floor is creaking for our tread;
The smiling tea-pot with contented spout
Thinks of the boiling water, and the bread
Longs for the butter. All their hands are out
    To greet us, and the gentle blankets seem
    Purring and crooning: 'Lie in us, and dream.'


II

The key will stammer, and the door reply,
The hall wake, yawn, and smile; the torpid stair
Will grumble at our feet, the ta...

A dusty clearing in the scrubs
Of barren, western lands,
Where, out of sight, or sign of hope
The wretched school-house stands;
A roof that glares at glaring days,
A bare, unshaded wall,
A fence that guards no blade of green,
A dust-storm over all.
The books and slates are packed away,
The maps are rolled and tied,
And for an hour I breathe, and lay
My ghastly mask aside;
I linger here to save my head
From voices shrill and thin,
That rasp for ever in the shed,
The ‘home’ I’m boarding in.

The heat and dirt and wretchedness
With which their lives began,
Bush mother nagging day and night,
And sullen, brooding man;
The minds that harp on single strings,
And never bright by chance,
The rasping voice of paltry things,
The ho...

I will throw by my book. The weariness
Of too much study presses on my brain,
And thought's close fetter binds upon my brow
Like a distraction, and I must give o'er.
Morning hath seen me here, and noon, and eve;
And midnight with its deep and solemn hush
Has look'd upon my labors, and the dawn,
With its sweet voices, and its tempting breath
Has driven me to rest - and I can bear
The burden of such weariness no more.
I have foregone society, and fled
From a sweet sister's fondness, and from all
A home's alluring blandishments, and now
When I am thirsting for them, and my heart
Would leap at the approaches of their kind
And gentle offices, they are not here,
And I must feel that I am all alone.
Oh, for the fame of this forgetful world
How much we suffe...

Come, walk with me,
There's only thee
To bless my spirit now
We used to love on winter nights
To wander through the snow;
Can we not woo back old delights?
The clouds rush dark and wild
They fleck with shade our mountain heights
The same as long ago
And on the horizon rest at last
In looming masses piled;
While moonbeams flash and fly so fast
We scarce can say they smiled

Come walk with me, come walk with me;
We were not once so few
But Death has stolen our company
As sunshine steals the dew
He took them one by one and we
Are left the only two;
So closer would my feelings twine
Because they have no stay but thine

'Nay call me not, it may not be
Is human love so true?
Can Friendship's flower droop on for years

    I knew her, why of course. And you want me?
    What can I say? I don't know how she died.
    I know what people say. But if you want
    To hear about her, as I knew the girl,
    Sit down a minute. Wait, a customer!...
    It was a fellow with a bill, these fellows
    Who come for money make me smile. Good God!
    Where shall I get the money, when pianos,
    Such as I make, are devilish hard to sell?
    Now listen to this tune! Dumm, dumm, dumm, dumm,
    How's that for quality, sweet clear and pure?
    Now listen to these chords I take from Bach!
    Oh no, I never played much, just for self.
    Well, you might say my passion for this work
    Is due to this: I pick the wire strings,
    The spruce boards and all that for instruments
    That sui...

How changed is here each spot man makes or fills!
In the two Hinkseys nothing keeps the same;
The village street its haunted mansion lacks,
And from the sign is gone Sibylla's name,
And from the roofs the twisted chimney-stacks
Are ye too changed, ye hills?
See, 'tis no foot of unfamiliar men
To-night from Oxford up your pathway strays!
Here came I often, often, in old days
Thyrsis and I; we still had Thyrsis then.

Runs it not here, the track by Childsworth Farm,
Past the high wood, to where the elm-tree crowns
The hill behind whose ridge the sunset flames?
The signal-elm, that looks on Ilsley Downs,
The Vale, the three lone weirs, the youthful Thames?
This winter-eve is warm,
Humid the air! leafless, yet soft as spring,
The tender purple spray on c...

Hopeless! Despairless! like that Indian wise
Free of desire, save no desire to know.
To gain that sweet Nirvana each one tries,
Thinks to assuage soul-wearing passion so.
From the white rest, the ante-natal bliss,
Not loth, the wondrous wondering soul awakes;
Now drawn to that illusion, now to this,
With gathering strength each devious pathway takes;
Till at the noon of life his aims decline;
Evermore earthward bend the tiring eyes,
Evermore earthward, till with no surprise
They see Nirvana from Earth's bosom shine.
The still kind mother holds her child again
In blank desirelessness without a stain.

The cuckoo and the coo-dove's ceaseless calling,
    Calling,
Of a meaningless monotony is palling
All my morning's pleasure in the sun-fleck-scattered wood.
May-blossom and blue bird's-eye flowers falling,
    Falling
In a litter through the elm-tree shade are scrawling
Messages of true-love down the dust of the high- road.
I do not like to hear the gentle grieving,
    Grieving
Of the she-dove in the blossom, still believing
Love will yet again return to her and make all good.

When I know that there must ever be deceiving,
    Deceiving
Of the mournful constant heart, that while she's weaving
Her woes, her lover woos and sings within another wood.

Oh, boisterous the cuckoo shouts, forestalling,
    Stalling
A progress down the intricate...

COUNT.

I Know a flower of beauty rare,

Ah, how I hold it dear!
To seek it I would fain repair,

Were I not prison'd here.
My sorrow sore oppresses me,
For when I was at liberty,

I had it close beside me.

Though from this castle's walls so steep

I cast mine eyes around,
And gaze oft from the lofty keep,

The flower can not be found.
Whoe'er would bring it to my sight,
Whether a vassal he, or knight,

My dearest friend I'd deem him.

THE ROSE.

I blossom fair, thy tale of woes

I hear from 'neath thy grate.
Thou doubtless meanest me, the rose.

Poor knight of high estate!
Thou hast in truth a lofty mind;
The queen of flowers is then enshrin'd,

I doubt not, in thy...

Steely stars and moon of brass,
How mockingly you watch me pass!
You know as well as I how soon
I shall be blind to stars and moon,
Deaf to the wind in the hemlock tree,
Dumb when the brown earth weighs on me.

With envious dark rage I bear,
Stars, your cold complacent stare;
Heart-broken in my hate look up,
Moon, at your clear immortal cup,
Changing to gold from dusky red,
Age after age when I am dead
To be filled up with light, and then
Emptied, to be refilled again.

What has man done that only he
Is slave to death, so brutally
Beaten back into the earth
Impatient for him since his birth?

Oh let me shut my eyes, close out
The sight of stars and earth and be
Sheltered a minute by this tree.
Hemlock, through your fragr...

Hide me, Mother! my Fathers belong’d to the church of old,
I am driven by storm and sin and death to the ancient fold,
I cling to the Catholic Cross once more, to the Faith that saves,
My brain is full of the crash of wrecks, and the roar of waves,
My life itself is a wreck, I have sullied a noble name,
I am flung from the rushing tide of the world as a waif of shame,
I am roused by the wail of a child, and awake to a livid light,
And a ghastlier face than ever has haunted a grave by night,
I would hide from the storm without, I would flee from the storm within,
I would make my life one prayer for a soul that died in his sin,
I was the tempter, Mother, and mine was the deeper fall;
I will sit at your feet, I will hide my face, I will tell you all.

II.
He that they gave...

The summer-flower has run to seed,
And yellow is the woodland bough;
And every leaf of bush and weed
Is tipt with autumn's pencil now.

And I do love the varied hue,
And I do love the browning plain;
And I do love each scene to view,
That's mark'd with beauties of her reign.

The woodbine-trees red berries bear,
That clustering hang upon the bower;
While, fondly lingering here and there,
Peeps out a dwindling sickly flower.

The trees' gay leaves are turned brown,
By every little wind undress'd;
And as they flap and whistle down,
We see the birds' deserted nest.

No thrush or blackbird meets the eye,
Or fills the ear with summer's strain;
They but dart out for worm and fly,
Then silent seek their rest again.

Beside...