Sadness

At the silence of twilight's contemplative hour,
I have mused in a sorrowful mood,
On the wind-shaken weeds that embosom the bower,
Where the home of my forefathers stood.
All ruin'd and wild is their roofless abode;
And lonely the dark raven's sheltering tree;
And travell'd by few is the grass-cover'd road,
Where the hunter of deer and the warrior trode,
To his hills that encircle the sea.

Yet wandering, I found on my ruinous walk,
By the dial-stone aged and green,
One rose of the wilderness left on its stalk,
To mark where a garden had been.
Like a brotherless hermit, the last of its race,
All wild in the silence of nature, it drew,
From each wandering sun-beam, a lonely embrace,
For the night-weed and thorn overshadow'd the place,
Where the flowe...

Where Time the measure of his hours
By changeful bud and blossom keeps,
And, like a young bride crowned with flowers,
Fair Shiraz in her garden sleeps;

Where, to her poet's turban stone,
The Spring her gift of flowers imparts,
Less sweet than those his thoughts have sown
In the warm soil of Persian hearts:

There sat the stranger, where the shade
Of scattered date-trees thinly lay,
While in the hot clear heaven delayed
The long and still and weary day.

Strange trees and fruits above him hung,
Strange odors filled the sultry air,
Strange birds upon the branches swung,
Strange insect voices murmured there.

And strange bright blossoms shone around,
Turned sunward from the shadowy bowers,
As if the Gheber's soul had found
A fi...

Yesterday I held your hand,
Reverently I pressed it,
And its gentle yieldingness
From my soul I blessed it.

But to-day I sit alone,
Sad and sore repining;
Must our gold forever know
Flames for the refining?

Yesterday I walked with you,
Could a day be sweeter?
Life was all a lyric song
Set to tricksy meter.

Ah, to-day is like a dirge,--
Place my arms around you,
Let me feel the same dear joy
As when first I found you.

Let me once retrace my steps,
From these roads unpleasant,
Let my heart and mind and soul
All ignore the present.

Yesterday the iron seared
And to-day means sorrow.
Pause, my soul, arise, arise,
Look where gleams the morrow.

Pardon, old fathers, if you still remain
Somewhere in ear-shot for the story’s end,
Old Dublin merchant ‘free of ten and four’
Or trading out of Galway into Spain;
And country scholar, Robert Emmet’s friend,
A hundred-year-old memory to the poor;
Traders or soldiers who have left me blood
That has not passed through any huxter’s loin,
Pardon, and you that did not weigh the cost,
Old Butlers when you took to horse and stood
Beside the brackish waters of the Boyne
Till your bad master blenched and all was lost;
You merchant skipper that leaped overboard
After a ragged hat in Biscay Bay,
You most of all, silent and fierce old man
Because you were the spectacle that stirred
My fancy, and set my boyish lips to say
‘Only the wastful virtues earn the sun’;
...

All hot and grimy from the road,
Dust gray from arduous years,
I sat me down and eased my load
Beside the Fount of Tears.

The waters sparkled to my eye,
Calm, crystal-like, and cool,
And breathing there a restful sigh,
I bent me to the pool.

When, lo! a voice cried: "Pilgrim, rise,
Harsh tho' the sentence be,
And on to other lands and skies--
This fount is not for thee.

"Pass on, but calm thy needless fears,
Some may not love or sin,
An angel guards the Fount of Tears;
All may not bathe therein."

Then with my burden on my back
I turned to gaze awhile,
First at the uninviting track,
Then at the water's smile.

And so I go upon my way,
Thro'out the sultry years,
But pause no more, by night, by day,
...

At length, my friend, the far-sent letters come,
Charged with thy kindness, to their destin'd home,
They come, at length, from Deva's2 Western side,
Where prone she seeks the salt Vergivian tide.3
Trust me, my joy is great that thou shouldst be,
Though born of foreign race, yet born for me,
And that my sprightly friend, now free to roam,
Must seek again so soon his wonted home.
I well content, where Thames with refluent tide
My native city laves, meantime reside,
Nor zeal nor duty, now, my steps impell
To reedy Cam,4 and my forbidden cell.5
Nor aught of pleasure in those fields have I,
That, to the musing bard, all shade deny.
Tis time, that I, a pedant's threats6 disdain,
And fly from wrongs, my soul will ne'e...

Hush, sweet Lute, thy songs remind me
    Of past joys, now turned to pain;
Of ties that long have ceased to bind me,
    But whose burning marks remain.
In each tone, some echo falleth
    On my ear of joys gone by;
Every note some dream recalleth
    Of bright hopes but born to die.

Yet, sweet Lute, though pain it bring me,
    Once more let thy numbers thrill;
Tho' death were in the strain they sing me,
    I must woo its anguish still.
Since no time can e'er recover
    Love's sweet light when once 'tis set,--
Better to weep such pleasures over,
    Than smile o'er any left us yet.

The sunburnt face in the willow shade
To the face in the water-mirror said,

"O deep mysterious face in the stream,
Art thou myself or am I thy dream?"

And the face deep down in the water's side
To the face in the upper air replied,

"I am thy dream, them poor worn face,
And this is thy heart's abiding place.

"Too much in the world, come back and be
Once more my dream-fellow with me,

"In the far-off untarnished years
Before thy furrows were washed with tears,

"Or ever thy serious creature eyes
Were aged with a mist of memories.

"Hast thou forgotten the long ago
In the garden where I used to flow,

"Among the hills, with the maple tree
And the roses blowing over me?--

"I who am now but a wraith of thi...

The moonlight is without; and I could lose
An hour to gaze, though Taste and Splendour here,
As in a lustrous fairy palace, reign!
Regardless of the lights that blaze within,
I look upon the wide and silent sea,
That in the shadowy moonbeam sleeps:
    How still,
Nor heard to murmur, or to move, it lies;
Shining in Fancy's eye, like the soft gleam,
The eve of pleasant yesterdays!
    The clouds
Have all sunk westward, and the host of stars
Seem in their watches set, as gazing on;
While night's fair empress, sole and beautiful,
Holds her illustrious course through the mid heavens
Supreme, the spectacle, for such she looks,
Of gazing worlds!
    How different is the scene
That lies beneath this arched window's height!
The town, that murmured throu...

Oh, the day has set me dreaming
In a strange, half solemn way
Of the feelings I experienced
On another long past day,--
Of the way my heart made music
When the buds began to blow,
And o' little Lucy Landman
Whom I loved long years ago.

It 's in spring, the poet tells us,
That we turn to thoughts of love,
And our hearts go out a-wooing
With the lapwing and the dove.
But whene'er the soul goes seeking
Its twin-soul, upon the wing,
I 've a notion, backed by mem'ry,
That it's love that makes the spring.

I have heard a robin singing
When the boughs were brown and bare,
And the chilling hand of winter
Scattered jewels through the air.
And in spite of dates and seasons,
It was always spring, I know,
When I loved Lucy Landman<...

I sit by the fire in the gloaming,
    In the depths of my easy chair,
And I ponder, as old men ponder,
    Over times and things that were.

And outside is the gusty rushing,
    Of the fierce November blast,
With the snow drift waltzing and whirling,
    And eddying swiftly past,

It's a wild night to be abroad in,
    When the ice blast and snow drift meet
To wreath round all the world of winter
    A shroud and a winding sheet.

There's a dash of hail at the window,
    Thick with driving snow is the air;
But I sit here in ease and comfort
    In the depths of my easy chair.

I have fought my way in life's battle,
    And won Fortune's fickle caress;
Won from fame just a passing notice,
    And enjoy what is called succes...

Winds are sighing round the drooping eaves;
    Sadly float the midnight hours away;
Dun and grey athwart the ivy-leaves,
    Fall the first pale chilly tints of day,
    Ah me! the weary, weary tints of day.

Soon the darkness will be past and gone;
    Soon the silence spread its noiseless wing;
Sleep will strike its tent and hurry on;
    Life commence its weary wandering,
    Ah me! its weary, weary wandering.

Not the sighing of my lonely heart,
    Not the heavy grief-clouds hanging o'er,
Not its silence can with night depart:
    Gloom hangs o'er it ever, evermore,
    Ah me! darkness ever, evermore.

When the hours of Day are numbered,
    And the voices of the Night
Wake the better soul, that slumbered,
    To a holy, calm delight;

Ere the evening lamps are lighted,
    And, like phantoms grim and tall,
Shadows from the fitful firelight
    Dance upon the parlour wall;

Then the forms of the departed
    Enter at the open door;
The beloved, the true-hearted,
    Come to visit me once more;

He, the young and strong, who cherished
    Noble longings for the strife,
By the road-side fell and perished,
    Weary with the march of life!

They, the holy ones and weakly,
    Who the cross of suffering bore,
Folded their pale hands so meekly,
    Spake with us on earth no more!

And with them the Being Beauteous,

My sun has set, I dwell
In darkness as a dead man out of sight;
And none remains, not one, that I should tell
To him mine evil plight
This bitter night.
I will make fast my door
That hollow friends may trouble me no more.

'Friend, open to Me.' - Who is this that calls?
Nay, I am deaf as are my walls:
Cease crying, for I will not hear
Thy cry of hope or fear.
Others were dear,
Others forsook me: what art thou indeed
That I should heed
Thy lamentable need?
Hungry should feed,
Or stranger lodge thee here?

'Friend, My Feet bleed.
Open thy door to Me and comfort Me.'
I will not open, trouble me no more.
Go on thy way footsore,
I will not rise and open unto thee.

'Then is it nothing to thee? Open, see
Who stands t...

What were sweet life without her
Who maketh all things sweet
With smiles that dream about her,
With dreams that come and fleet!
Soft moods that end in languor;
Soft words that end in sighs;
Curved frownings as of anger;
Cold silence of her eyes.

Sweet eyes born but for slaying,
Deep violet-dark and lost
In dreams of whilom Maying
In climes unstung of frost.
Wild eyes shot through with fire
God's light in godless years,
Brimmed wine-dark with desire,
A birth for dreams and tears.

Dear tears as sweet as laughter,
Low laughter sweet as love
Unwound in ripples after
Sad tears we knew not of.
What if the day be lawless,
What if the heart be dead,
Such tears would make it flawless,
Such laughter make it red.

...

My thoughts are all in yonder town,
Where, wept by many tears,
To-day my mother's friend lays down
The burden of her years.

True as in life, no poor disguise
Of death with her is seen,
And on her simple casket lies
No wreath of bloom and green.

Oh, not for her the florist's art,
The mocking weeds of woe;
Dear memories in each mourner's heart
Like heaven's white lilies blow.

And all about the softening air
Of new-born sweetness tells,
And the ungathered May-flowers wear
The tints of ocean shells.

The old, assuring miracle
Is fresh as heretofore;
And earth takes up its parable
Of life from death once more.

Here organ-swell and church-bell toll
Methinks but discord were;
The prayerful silence of the soul...

    I.

    A glory on the chamber wall!
    A glory in the brain!
    Triumphant floods of glory fall
    On heath, and wold, and plain.

    Earth lieth still in hopeless bliss;
    She has, and seeks no more;
    Forgets that days come after this,
    Forgets the days before.

    Each ripple waves a flickering fire
    Of gladness, as it runs;
    They laugh and flash, and leap and spire,
    And toss ten thousand suns.

    But hark! low, in the world within,
    One sad aeolian tone:
    "Ah! shall we ever, ever win
    A summer of our own?"


    II.

    A morn of winds and swaying trees--
    Earth's jubilance rushing out!
    The birds are fighting with the breeze;
    The waters heave about...

'Love, while you were away there came to me -
    From whence I cannot tell -
A plaintive lady pale and passionless,
Who bent her eyes upon me critically,
And weighed me with a wearing wistfulness,
    As if she knew me well."

"I saw no lady of that wistful sort
    As I came riding home.
Perhaps she was some dame the Fates constrain
By memories sadder than she can support,
Or by unhappy vacancy of brain,
    To leave her roof and roam?"

"Ah, but she knew me. And before this time
    I have seen her, lending ear
To my light outdoor words, and pondering each,
Her frail white finger swayed in pantomime,
As if she fain would close with me in speech,
    And yet would not come near.

"And once I saw her beckoning with her hand
    A...