Loss

Hush, hush! my thoughts are resting on a changeless world of bliss;
Oh! come not with the voice of mirth to lure them back to this.
'Tis true, we've much of sadness in our weary sojourn here,
That fades, and leaves no deeper trace than childhood's reckless tear;
But there are woes which scathe the heart till all its bloom is o'er,
A deadly blight we feel but once, that once for evermore.

Oh, then, 'tis sweet on fancy's wing to cleave that bright domain!
The loved and the redeemed are there, why lure me back again?
The cadences of gladness to your hearts may yet be dear;
They have no melody for mine, all, all is desert here.
The sunshine still is bright to you, the moonlight and the flowers;
To me they tell a harrowing tale of dear departed hours.

I would not cu...

Qual paura ho, quando mi torna a mente.

MELANCHOLY RECOLLECTIONS AND PRESAGES.


    O Laura! when my tortured mind
The sad remembrance bears
Of that ill-omen'd day,
When, victim to a thousand doubts and fears,
I left my soul behind,
That soul that could not from its partner stray;
In nightly visions to my longing eyes
Thy form oft seems to rise,
As ever thou wert seen,
Fair like the rose, 'midst paling flowers the queen,
But loosely in the wind,
Unbraided wave the ringlets of thy hair,
That late with studious care,
I saw with pearls and flowery garlands twined:
On thy wan lip, no cheerful smile appears;
Thy beauteous face a tender sadness wears;
Placid in pain thou seem'st, serene in grief,
As conscious of thy fate, and h...

Thou who hast follow'd far with eyes of love
The shy and virgin sights of Spring to-day,
Sad soul, what dost thou in this happy grove?
Hast thou no pipe to touch, no strain to play,
Where Nature smiles so fair and seems to ask a lay?

Ah! she needs none! she is too beautiful.
How should I sing her? for my heart would tire,
Seeking a lovelier verse each time to cull,
In striving still to pitch my music higher:
Lovelier than any muse is she who gives the fire!

No impulse I beseech; my strains are vile:
To escape thee, Nature, restless here I rove.
Look not so sweet on me, avert thy smile!
O cease at length this fever'd breast to move!
I have loved thee in vain; I cannot speak my love.

Here sense with apathy seems gently wed:
The gloom is starr'd...

"Why are you weeping, ye gentle flowers?
Are ye not blest in your sunny bowers?
Have you startling dreams that make ye weep,
When waking up from your holy sleep?

"Ah, knowest thou not, we fold at night,
The tears earth drops from her eyelids bright,
Like a loving mother her griefs are born,
Lest her tender nurslings should die ere morn,
And the sweet dew falls in each open cup,
Till the eyes of morn are lifted up;
We unfold our leaves to the sun's bright face,
And close them up at the night's embrace.

Dost thou ask if grief comes creeping across,
From the poplar bough to the dark green moss?
No, round us the sunbeams smile and glow,
Round us the streamlets dance and flow,
And the zephyr comes with its gentle breeze,
To sigh out its life in the...

A lover whom duty called over the wave,
With himself communed: "Will my love be true
If left to herself? Had I better not sue
Some friend to watch over her, good and grave?
But my friend might fail in my need," he said,
"And I return to find love dead.
Since friendships fade like the flow'rs of June,
I will leave her in charge of the stable moon."

Then he said to the moon: "O dear old moon,
Who for years and years from thy thrown above
Hast nurtured and guarded young lovers and love,
My heart has but come to its waiting June,
And the promise time of the budding vine;
Oh, guard thee well this love of mine."
And he harked him then while all was still,
And the pale moon answered and said, "I will."

And he sailed in his ship o'er many seas,
And he...

Across the hills and down the narrow ways,
And up the valley where the free winds sweep,
The earth is folded in an ermined sleep
That mocks the melting mirth of myriad Mays.
Departed her disheartening duns and grays,
And all her crusty black is covered deep.
Dark streams are locked in Winter's donjon-keep,
And made to shine with keen, unwonted rays.
O icy mantle, and deceitful snow!
What world-old liars in your hearts ye are!
Are there not still the darkened seam and scar
Beneath the brightness that you fain would show?
Come from the cover with thy blot and blur,
O reeking Earth, thou whited sepulchre!

Strew on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew!
In quiet she reposes;
Ah, would that I did too!

Her mirth the world required;
She bathed it in smiles of glee.
But her heart was tired, tired,
And now they let her be.

Her life was turning, turning,
In mazes of heat and sound.
But for peace her soul was yearning,
And now peace laps her round.

Her cabin'd, ample spirit,
It flutter'd and fail'd for breath.
To-night it doth inherit
The vasty hall of death.

I wandered through Scoglietto's far retreat,
The oranges on each o'erhanging spray
Burned as bright lamps of gold to shame the day;
Some startled bird with fluttering wings and fleet
Made snow of all the blossoms; at my feet
Like silver moons the pale narcissi lay:
And the curved waves that streaked the great green bay
Laughed i' the sun, and life seemed very sweet.
Outside the young boy-priest passed singing clear,
'Jesus the son of Mary has been slain,
O come and fill His sepulchre with flowers.'
Ah, God! Ah, God! those dear Hellenic hours
Had drowned all memory of Thy bitter pain,
The Cross, the Crown, the Soldiers and the Spear.

The waning moon looks upward; this grey night
Slopes round the heavens in one smooth curve
Of easy sailing; odd red wicks serve
To show where the ships at sea move out of sight.

The place is palpable me, for here I was born
Of this self-same darkness. Yet the shadowy house below
Is out of bounds, and only the old ghosts know
I have come, I feel them whimper in welcome, and mourn.

My father suddenly died in the harvesting corn
And the place is no longer ours. Watching, I hear
No sound from the strangers, the place is dark, and fear
Opens my eyes till the roots of my vision seems torn.

Can I go no nearer, never towards the door?
The ghosts and I we mourn together, and shrink
In the shadow of the cart-shed. Must we hover on the brink
Forever, and nev...

                Once as the aureole
                Day left the earth,
                Faded, a twilight soul,
                Memory, had birth:
Young were her sister souls, Sorrow and Mirth.

                Dark mirrors are her eyes:
                Wherein who gaze
                See wan effulgencies
                Flicker and blaze -
Lorn fleeting shadows of beautiful days.

                Scan those deep mirrors well
                After long years:
                Lo! what aforetime fell
                In rain of tears,
In radiant glamour-mist now reappears.

                See old wild gladness
                Tamed now and coy;
                Grief that was madness
                Turned into joy.
Fate cannot harr...

Far from our home by Grasmere's quiet Lake,
From the Vale's peace which all her fields partake,
Here on the bleakest point of Cumbria's shore
We sojourn stunned by Ocean's ceaseless roar;
While, day by day, grim neighbour! huge Black Comb
Frowns deepening visibly his native gloom,
Unless, perchance rejecting in despite
What on the Plain 'we' have of warmth and light,
In his own storms he hides himself from sight.
Rough is the time; and thoughts, that would be free
From heaviness, oft fly, dear Friend, to thee;
Turn from a spot where neither sheltered road
Nor hedge-row screen invites my steps abroad;
Where one poor Plane-tree, having as it might
Attained a stature twice a tall man's height,
Hopeless of further growth, and brown and sere
Through half the summer...

Thank God, bless God, all ye who suffer not
More grief than ye can weep for. That is well
That is light grieving! lighter, none befell
Since Adam forfeited the primal lot.
Tears! what are tears? The babe weeps in its cot,
The mother singing, at her marriage-bell
The bride weeps, and before the oracle
Of high-faned hills the poet has forgot
Such moisture on his cheeks. Thank God for grace,
Ye who weep only! If, as some have done,
Ye grope tear-blinded in a desert place
And touch but tombs, look up I those tears will run
Soon in long rivers down the lifted face,
And leave the vision clear for stars and sun

As, when the seaward ebbing tide doth pour
    Out by the low sand spaces,
The parting waves slip back to clasp the shore
    With lingering embraces,-

So in the tide of life that carries me
    From where thy true heart dwells,
Waves of my thoughts and memories turn to thee
    With lessening farewells;

Waving of hands; dreams, when the day forgets;
    A care half lost in cares;
The saddest of my verses; dim regrets;
    Thy name among my prayers.

I would the day might come, so waited for,
    So patiently besought,
When I, returning, should fill up once more
    Thy desolated thought;

And fill thy loneliness that lies apart
    In still, persistent pain.
Shall I content thee, O thou broken heart,
    As the tide comes ...

FROM THE GREEK OF BION.


I mourn Adonis dead - loveliest Adonis -
Dead, dead Adonis - and the Loves lament.
Sleep no more, Venus, wrapped in purple woof -
Wake violet-stoled queen, and weave the crown
Of Death, - 'tis Misery calls, - for he is dead.

The lovely one lies wounded in the mountains,
His white thigh struck with the white tooth; he scarce
Yet breathes; and Venus hangs in agony there.
The dark blood wanders o'er his snowy limbs,
His eyes beneath their lids are lustreless,
The rose has fled from his wan lips, and there
That kiss is dead, which Venus gathers yet.

A deep, deep wound Adonis...
A deeper Venus bears upon her heart.
See, his beloved dogs are gathering round -
The Oread nymphs are weeping - Aphrodite
With hair unbo...

Angel of gaiety, have you tasted grief?
Shame and remorse and sobs and weary spite,
And the vague terrors of the fearful night
That crush the heart up like a crumpled leaf?
Angel of gaiety, have you tasted grief?

Angel of kindness, have you tasted hate?
With hands clenched in the shade and tears of gall,
When Vengeance beats her hellish battle-call,
And makes herself the captain of our fate,
Angel of kindness, have you tasted hate?

Angel of health, did you ever know pain,
Which like an exile trails his tired footfalls
The cold length of the white infirmary walls,
With lips compressed, seeking the sun in vain?
Angel of health, did ever you know pain?

Angel of beauty, do you wrinkles know?
Know you the fear of age, the torment vile
Of read...

That hour when thou and Grief were first acquainted
Thou wrotest, "Come, for I have lookt on death."
Piteous I held my indeterminate breath
And sought thee out, and saw how he had painted
Thine eyes with rings of black; yet never fainted
Thy radiant immortality underneath
Such stress of dark; but then, as one that saith,
"I know Love liveth," sat on by death untainted.

O to whom Grief too poignant was and dry
To sow in thee a fountain crop of tears!
O youth, O pride, set too remote and high
For touch of solace that gives grace to men!
Thy life must be our death, thy hopes our fears:
We weep, thou lookest strangely--we know thee then!

What a night! The wind howls, hisses, and but stops
To howl more loud, while the snow volley keeps
Incessant batter at the window pane,
Making our comfort feel as sweet again;
And in the morning, when the tempest drops,
At every cottage door mountainous heaps
Of snow lie drifted, that all entrance stops
Untill the beesom and the shovel gain
The path, and leave a wall on either side.
The shepherd rambling valleys white and wide
With new sensations his old memory fills,
When hedges left at night, no more descried,
Are turned to one white sweep of curving hills,
And trees turned bushes half their bodies hide.

The boy that goes to fodder with surprise
Walks oer the gate he opened yesternight.
The hedges all have vanished from his eyes;
Een some tree top...

"Oh! Autumn winds, what means this plaintive wailing
    Around the quiet homestead where we dwell?
Whence come ye, say, and what the story mournful
    That your weird voices ever seek to tell -
Whispering or clamoring, beneath the casements,
    Rising in shriek or dying off in moan,
But ever breathing, menace, fear, or anguish
    In every thrilling and unearthly tone?"

"We come from far off and from storm-tossed oceans,
    Where vessels bravely battle with fierce gale, -
Mere playthings of our stormy, restless power,
    We rend them quickly, shuddering mast and sail;
And with their, stalwart, gallant crews we hurl them
    Amid the hungry waves that for them wait,
Nor leave one floating spar nor fragile taffrail
    To tell unto the world their dreary f...