Loss

The birds laugh loud and long together
    When Fashion's followers speed away
At the first cool breath of autumn weather.
    Why, this is the time, cry the birds, to stay!
When the deep calm sea and the deep sky over
    Both look their passion through sun-kissed space,
As a blue-eyed maid and her blue-eyed lover
    Might each gaze into the other's face.

Oh! this is the time when careful spying
    Discovers the secrets Nature knows.
You find when the butterflies plan for flying
    (Before the thrush or the blackbird goes),
You see some day by the water's edges
    A brilliant border of red and black;
And then off over the hills and hedges
    It flutters away on the summer's track.

The shy little sumacs, in lonely places,
    Bowed all su...

Beloved, thou art like a tune that idle fingers
    Play on a window-pane.
The time is there, the form of music lingers;
    But O thou sweetest strain,
Where is thy soul?    Thou liest i' the wind and rain.

Even as to him who plays that idle air,
    It seems a melody,
For his own soul is full of it, so, my Fair,
    Dead, thou dost live in me,
And all this lonely soul is full of thee.

Thou song of songs!--not music as before
    Unto the outward ear;
My spirit sings thee inly evermore,
    Thy falls with tear on tear.
I fail for thee, thou art too sweet, too dear.

Thou silent song, thou ever voiceless rhyme,
    Is there no pulse to move thee,
At windy dawn, with a wild heart beating time,
    And falling tears above thee,
O ...

Face in the tomb, that lies so still,
    May I draw near,
And watch your sleep and love you,
    Without word or tear.

You smile, your eyelids flicker;
    Shall I tell
How the world goes that lost you?
    Shall I tell?

Ah! love, lift not your eyelids;
    'Tis the same
Old story that we laughed at, -
    Still the same.

We knew it, you and I,
    We knew it all:
Still is the small the great,
    The great the small;

Still the cold lie quenches
    The flaming truth,
And still embattled age
    Wars against youth.

Yet I believe still in the ever-living God
    That fills your grave with perfume,
Writing your name in violets across the sod,
    Shielding your holy face from hail and snow;
 ...

The beauty and the life
Of life’s and beauty’s fairest paragon
O tears! O grief! hung at a feeble thread
To which pale Atropos had set her knife;
The soul with many a groan
Had left each outward part,
And now did take his last leave of the heart:
Naught else did want, save death, ev’n to be dead;
When the afflicted band about her bed,
Seeing so fair him come in lips, cheeks, eyes,
Cried, ‘Ah! and can Death enter Paradise?‘

Upon a day, a merry day,
When summer in her best,
Like Sunday belles, prepares for play,
And joins each merry guest,
A maid, as wild as is a bird
That never knew a cage,
Went out her parents' kine to herd,
And Jocky, as her page,

Must needs go join her merry toils;

A silly shepherd he,
And little thought the aching broils
That in his heart would be;
For he as yet knew nought of love,
And nought of love knew she;
Yet without learning love can move
The wildest to agree.

The wind, enamoured of the maid,
Around her drapery swims,
And moulds in luscious masquerade
Her lovely shape and limbs.
Smith's "Venus stealing Cupid's bow"
In marble hides as fine;
But hers were life and soul, whose glow
Makes meaner things d...

        Poetry to us is given,
        As stars beautify the Heaven,
        Or, as the sunbeams when they gleam,
        Sparkling so bright upon the stream,
        And the poetry of motion
        Is ship sailing o'er the ocean;
        Or, when the bird doth graceful fly,
        Seeming to float upon the sky,
        For poetry is the pure cream,
        And essence of the common theme.

        Poetic thoughts the mind doth fill,
        When on broad plain to view a hill,
        On barren heath how it doth cheer,
        To see in distance herd of deer,
        And poetry breathes in each flower,
        Nourished by the gentle shower,
        In song of birds upon the trees,
        And humming of busy bees,
        'Tis solace for the ...

I.

To-night he sees their star burn, dewy-bright,
Deep in the pansy, eve hath made for it,
Low in the west; a placid purple lit
At its far edge with warm auroral light:
Love's planet hangs above a cedared height;
And there in shadow, like gold music writ
Of dusk's dark fingers, scale-like fire-flies flit
Now up, now down the balmy bars of night.
How different from that eve a year ago!
Which was a stormy flower in the hair
Of dolorous day, whose sombre eyes looked, blurred,
Into night's sibyl face, and saw the woe
Of parting near, and imaged a despair,
As now a hope caught from a homing word.


II.

She came unto him, as the springtime does
Unto the land where all lies dead and cold,
Until her rosary of days is told
And beaut...

What hast thou done to this dear friend of mine,
Thou cold, white, silent Stranger?    From my hand
Her clasped hand slips to meet the grasp of thine;
Here eyes that flamed with love, at thy command
Stare stone-blank on blank air; her frozen heart
Forgets my presence.    Teach me who thou art,
Vague shadow sliding 'twixt my friend and me.
    I never saw thee till this sudden hour.
What secret door gave entrance unto thee?
    What power in thine, o'ermastering Love's own power?

Beloved, thou art like a tune that idle fingers
    Play on a window-pane.
The time is there, the form of music lingers;
    But O thou sweetest strain,
Where is thy soul? Thou liest i' the wind and rain.

Even as to him who plays that idle air,
    It seems a melody,
For his own soul is full of it, so, my Fair,
    Dead, thou dost live in me,
And all this lonely soul is full of thee.

Thou song of songs!-not music as before
    Unto the outward ear;
My spirit sings thee inly evermore,
    Thy falls with tear on tear.
I fail for thee, thou art too sweet, too dear.

Thou silent song, thou ever voiceless rhyme,
    Is there no pulse to move thee,
At windy dawn, with a wild heart beating time,
    And falling tears above thee,
O musi...

Night, dim night, and it rains, my love, it rains,
(Art thou dreaming of me, I wonder)
The trees are sad, and the wind complains,
Outside the rolling of the thunder,
And the beat against the panes.

Heart, my heart, thou art mournful in the rain,
(Are thy redolent lips a-quiver?)
My soul seeks thine, doth it seek in vain?
My love goes surging like a river,
Shall its tide bear naught save pain?

Full many a sharp, sad, unexpected thorn
Finds room to wound Life's lacerated flower,
Which subtle fate, to every mortal born,
Guides unprevented in an early hour.
Ah, cruel thorns, too soon I felt your power;
Your throbbing shoots of never-ceasing pain
Hope's blossoms in their bud did long devour,
And left continued my sad eyes to strain
On wilder'd spots chok'd up with Sorrow's weeds,
Alas, that's shaken but too many seeds
To leave me room for Hopes to bud again.
But Fate may torture, while it is decreed,
Where all my hope's unblighted blooms remain,
That Heaven's recompense shall this succeed.

Who is the maid with silken hair
    By clear Maine Water roaming?
For the fairy Queen is not so fair
    As she in the lonely gloaming

It is sweet Mysie of Bellee,
    John Millar's lovely daughter;
She is waiting where the old elm tree
    Droops over the sweet Maine Water.

"The trysting time has come and past,
    The day is fast declining;
Oh my true love, are you coming fast,
    For the star of love is shining?"

"The moon is bright, the ford is safe,
    The market folks crossed over;
Oh, come to me, it is wearing late,
    And I wait for thee, my lover.

"I fear me there will be a storm,
    The clouds, with murky fingers,
Are muffling the stars o'er far Galgorm,
    Where my own true lover lingers."

She ...

Her voice did quiver as we parted,
Yet knew I not that heart was broken
From which it came, and I departed
Heeding not the words then spoken.
Misery - O Misery,
This world is all too wide for thee.

They left their home of summer ease
Beneath the lowland’s sheltering trees,
To seek, by ways unknown to all,
The promise of the waterfall.

Some vague, faint rumor to the vale
Had crept, perchance a hunter’s tale,
Of its wild mirth of waters lost
On the dark woods through which it tossed.

Somewhere it laughed and sang; somewhere
Whirled in mad dance its misty hair;
But who had raised its veil, or seen
The rainbow skirts of that Undine?

They sought it where the mountain brook
Its swift way to the valley took;
Along the rugged slope they clomb,
Their guide a thread of sound and foam.

Height after height they slowly won;
The fiery javelins of the sun
Smote the bare ledge; the tangled shade
With rock and vine their steps delay...

A little dreaming by the way,
A little toiling day by day;
A little pain, a little strife,
A little joy,--and that is life.

A little short-lived summer's morn,
When joy seems all so newly born,
When one day's sky is blue above,
And one bird sings,--and that is love.

A little sickening of the years,
The tribute of a few hot tears
Two folded hands, the failing breath,
And peace at last,--and that is death.

Just dreaming, loving, dying so,
The actors in the drama go--
A flitting picture on a wall,
Love, Death, the themes; but is that all?

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other h...

I

Flutt'ring spread thy purple Pinions,
Gentle Cupid, o'er my Heart;
I a Slave in thy Dominions;
Nature must give Way to Art.

II

Mild Arcadians, ever blooming,
Nightly nodding o'er your Flocks,
See my weary Days consuming,
All beneath yon flow'ry Rocks.

III

Thus the Cyprian Goddess weeping,
Mourn'd Adonis, darling Youth:
Him the Boar in Silence creeping,
Gor'd with unrelenting Tooth.

IV

Cynthia, tune harmonious Numbers;
Fair Discretion, string the Lyre;
Sooth my ever-waking Slumbers:
Bright Apollo, lend thy Choir.

V

Gloomy Pluto, King of Terrors,
Arm'd in adamantine Chains,
Lead me to the Crystal Mirrors,
Wat'ring soft Elysian Plains.

VI

Mournful...

A yellow leaf from the darkness
Hops like a frog before me.
Why should I start and stand still?

I was watching the woman that bore me
Stretched in the brindled darkness
Of the sick-room, rigid with will
To die: and the quick leaf tore me
Back to this rainy swill
Of leaves and lamps and traffic mingled before me.