Loss

With dirge-like music, low,
Sounds forth again the solemn harp of Time;
Mass for the buried hours, a funeral chime
O'er human joy and woe.
The sere leaves wail around thy passing bier,
Speed to thy dreamless rest, departing year!

Yet, ere thy sable pall
Cross the wide threshold of the mighty Past,
Give back the treasures on thy bosom cast;
Earth would her gems recall:
Give back the lily's bloom and violet's breath,
The summer leaves that bowed before the reaper Death.

Give back the dreams of fame,
The aspirations strong for glory won;
Hopes that went out perchance when set thy sun,
Nor left nor trace nor name:
Give back the wasted hours, half-uttered prayer,
The high resolves forgot that stained thine annals fair.

Give back the flow...

Stay yet awhile, oh flowers!--oh wandering grasses,
    And creeping ferns, and climbing, clinging vines;--
Bend down and cover with lush odorous masses
        My darling's couch, where he in sleep reclines.

Stay yet awhile;--let not the chill October
    Plant spires of glinting frost about his bed;
Nor shower her faded leaves, so brown and sober,
    Among the tuberoses above his head.

I would have all things fair, and sweet, and tender,--
    The daisy's pearl, the cowslip's shield of snow,
And fragrant hyacinths in purple splendour,
    About my darling's grassy couch to grow.

Oh birds!--small pilgrims of the summer weather,
    Come hither, for my darling loved ye well;--
Here floats the thistle down for you to gather,
    And bearded grasse...

Out of the earth to rest or range
Perpetual in perpetual change,
The unknown passing through the strange.

Water and saltness held together
To tread the dust and stand the weather,
And plough the field and stretch the tether,

To pass the wine-cup and be witty,
Water the sands and build the city,
Slaughter like devils and have pity,

Be red with rage and pale with lust,
Make beauty come, make peace, make trust,
Water and saltness mixed with dust;

Drive over earth, swim under sea,
Fly in the eagle’s secrecy,
Guess where the hidden comets be;

Know all the deathy seeds that still
Queen Helen’s beauty, Caesar’s will,
And slay them even as they kill;

Fashion an altar for a rood,
Defile a continent with blood,
And...

“Me too, perchance, in future days,
The sculptured stone shall show,
With Paphian myrtle or with bays
Parnassian on my brow.


“But I, or ere that season come,
Escaped from every care,
Shall reach my refuge in the tomb,
And sleep securely there.”


So sang, in Roman tone and style,
The youthful bard, ere long
Ordain’d to grace his native isle
With her sublimest song.


Who then but must conceive disdain,
Hearing the deed unblest
Of wretches who have dared profane
His dread sepulchral rest?


Ill fare the hands that heaved the stones
Where Milton’s ashes lay,
That trembled not to grasp his bones
And steal his dust away!


O ill requited bard! neglect
Thy living worth repaid,
And bli...

Go! heart of mine! the way is long --
The night is dark -- the place is far;
Go! kneel and pray, or chant a song,
Beside two graves where Mary's star
Shines o'er two children's hearts at rest,
With Mary's medals on their breast.

Go! heart! those children loved you so,
Their little lips prayed oft for you!
But ah! those necks are lying low
Round which you twined the badge of blue.
Go to their graves, this Virgin's feast,
With poet's song and prayer of priest.

Go! like a pilgrim to a shrine,
For that is holy ground where sleep
Children of Mary and of thine;
Go! kneel, and pray and sing and weep;
Last summer how their faces smiled
When each was blessed as Mary's child.

    *    *    *    *    *

My heart is gone! I cannot sin...

In crime and enmity they lie
Who sin and tell us love can die,
Who say to us in slander's breath
That love belongs to sin and death.
From heaven it came on angel's wing
To bloom on earth, eternal spring;
In falsehood's enmity they lie
Who sin and tell us love can die.

Twas born upon an angel's breast.
The softest dreams, the sweetest rest,
The brightest sun, the bluest sky,
Are love's own home and canopy.
The thought that cheers this heart of mine
Is that of love; love so divine
They sin who say in slander's breath
That love belongs to sin and death.

The sweetest voice that lips contain,
The sweetest thought that leaves the brain,
The sweetest feeling of the heart--
There's pleasure in its very smart.
The scent of rose and cinna...

"Oh tell me once and tell me twice
And tell me thrice to make it plain,
When we who part this weary day,
When we who part shall meet again."

"When windflowers blossom on the sea
And fishes skim along the plain,
Then we who part this weary day,
Then you and I shall meet again."

"Yet tell me once before we part,
Why need we part who part in pain?
If flowers must blossom on the sea,
Why, we shall never meet again.

"My cheeks are paler than a rose,
My tears are salter than the main,
My heart is like a lump of ice
If we must never meet again."

"Oh weep or laugh, but let me be,
And live or die, for all's in vain;
For life's in vain since we must part,
And parting must not meet again

"Till windflowers blossom on the s...

Year after year the artist wrought
    With earnest, loving care,
The music flooding all his soul
    To pour upon the air.

For this no metal was too rare,
    He counted not the cost;
Nor deemed the years in which he toiled
    As labor vainly lost.

When morning flushed with crimson light
    The golden gates of day,
He longed to fill the air with chimes
    Sweet as a matin's lay.

And when the sun was sinking low
    Within the distant West,
He gladly heard the bells he wrought
    Herald the hour of rest.

The music of a thousand harps
    Could never be so dear
As when those solemn chants and thrills
    Fell on his list'ning ear.

He poured his soul into their chimes,
    And felt his toil repaid;
...

Si è debile il filo a cui s' attene.

HE GRIEVES IN ABSENCE FROM LAURA.


    The thread on which my weary life depends
So fragile is and weak,
If none kind succour lends,
Soon 'neath the painful burden will it break;
Since doom'd to take my sad farewell of her,
In whom begins and ends
My bliss, one hope, to stir
My sinking spirit from its black despair,
Whispers, "Though lost awhile
That form so dear and fair,
Sad soul! the trial bear,
For thee e'en yet the sun may brightly shine,
And days more happy smile,
Once more the lost loved treasure may be thine."
This thought awhile sustains me, but again
To fail me and forsake in worse excess of pain.

Time flies apace: the silent hours and swift
So urge his journey on,

DEATH:
For my dagger is bathed in the blood of the brave,
I come, care-worn tenant of life, from the grave,
Where Innocence sleeps 'neath the peace-giving sod,
And the good cease to tremble at Tyranny's nod;
I offer a calm habitation to thee, -
Say, victim of grief, wilt thou slumber with me?
My mansion is damp, cold silence is there,
But it lulls in oblivion the fiends of despair;
Not a groan of regret, not a sigh, not a breath,
Dares dispute with grim Silence the empire of Death.
I offer a calm habitation to thee, -
Say, victim of grief, wilt thou slumber with me?

MORTAL:
Mine eyelids are heavy; my soul seeks repose,
It longs in thy cells to embosom its woes,
It longs in thy cells to deposit its load,
Where no longer the scorpions of Perfidy goad,...

Oh, for a home of rest!
Time lags alone so slow, so wearily;
Couldst thou but smile on me, I should be blest.
Alas, alas! that never more may be.
Oh, for the sky-lark's wing to soar to thee!

This earth I would forsake
For starry realms whose sky's forever fair;
There, tears are shed not, hearts will cease to ache,
And sorrow's plaintive voice shall never break
The heavenly stillness that is reigning there.

Life's every charm has fled,
The world is all a wilderness to me;
"For thou art numbered with the silent dead."
Oh, how my heart o'er this dark thought has bled!
How I have longed for wings to follow thee!

In visions of the night
With angel smile thou beckon'st me away,
Pointing to worlds where hope is free from blight;
And...

"You must give back," her mother said,
To a poor sobbing little maid,
"All the young man has given you,
Hard as it now may seem to do."
"'Tis done already, mother dear!"
Said the sweet girl, "So never fear."
        Mother. Are you quite certain? Come, recount
(There was not much) the whole amount.
    Girl. The locket; the kid gloves.
    Mother. Go on.
    Girl. Of the kid gloves I found but one.
    Mother. Never mind that. What else? Proceed.
You gave back all his trash?
    Girl. Indeed.
    Mother. And was there nothing you would save?
    Girl. Everything I could give I gave.
    Mother. To the last tittle?
    Girl. Even to that.
    Mother. Freely?
    Girl<...