Sadness

Di pensier in pensier, di monte in monte.

DISTANCE AND SOLITUDE.


    From hill to hill I roam, from thought to thought,
With Love my guide; the beaten path I fly,
For there in vain the tranquil life is sought:
If 'mid the waste well forth a lonely rill,
Or deep embosom'd a low valley lie,
In its calm shade my trembling heart's still;
And there, if Love so will,
I smile, or weep, or fondly hope, or fear.
While on my varying brow, that speaks the soul,
The wild emotions roll,
Now dark, now bright, as shifting skies appear;
That whosoe'er has proved the lover's state
Would say, He feels the flame, nor knows his future fate.

On mountains high, in forests drear and wide,
I find repose, and from the throng'd resort
Of man turn fea...

Do I dream? can I trust to my eye?
My sight sure some vapor must cover?
Or, there, did my Minna pass by
My Minna and knew not her lover?
On the arm of the coxcomb she crossed,
Well the fan might its zephyr bestow;
Herself in her vanity lost,
That wanton my Minna? Ah, no!

In the gifts of my love she was dressed,
My plumes o'er her summer hat quiver;
The ribbons that flaunt in her breast
Might bid her remember the giver!
And still do they bloom on thy bosom,
The flowerets I gathered for thee!
Still as fresh is the leaf of each blossom,
'Tis the heart that has faded from me!

Go and take, then, the incense they tender;
Go, the one that adored thee forget!
Go, thy charms to the feigner surrender,
In my scorn is my comforter yet!
Go, ...

1.
Dar'st thou amid the varied multitude
To live alone, an isolated thing?
To see the busy beings round thee spring,
And care for none; in thy calm solitude,
A flower that scarce breathes in the desert rude
To Zephyr's passing wing?

2.
Not the swart Pariah in some Indian grove,
Lone, lean, and hunted by his brother's hate,
Hath drunk so deep the cup of bitter fate
As that poor wretch who cannot, cannot love:
He bears a load which nothing can remove,
A killing, withering weight.

3.
He smiles - 'tis sorrow's deadliest mockery;
He speaks - the cold words flow not from his soul;
He acts like others, drains the genial bowl, -
Yet, yet he longs - although he fears - to die;
He pants to reach what yet he seems to fly,
Dull life's extre...

'Tis not the loss of love's assurance,
It is not doubting what thou art,
But 'tis the too, too long endurance
Of absence, that afflicts my heart.

The fondest thoughts two hearts can cherish,
When each is lonely doom'd to weep,
Are fruits on desert isles that perish,
Or riches buried in the deep.

What though, untouch'd by jealous madness,
Our bosom's peace may fall to wreck;
Th' undoubting heart, that breaks with sadness,
Is but more slowly doom'd to break.

Absence! is not the soul torn by it
From more than light, or life, or breath?
'Tis Lethe's gloom, but not its quiet,
The pain without the peace of death.

You see that porcelain ranged there in the window,
Platters and soup-plates done with pale pink rosebuds,
And tiny violets, and wreaths of ivy?
See how the pattern clings to the gleaming edges!
They’re works of art, minutely seen and felt,
Each petal done devoutly. Is it failure
To spend your blood like this?

Study them . . . you will see there, in the porcelain,
If you stare hard enough, a sort of swimming
Of lights and shadows, ghosts within a crystal,
My brain unfolding! There you’ll see me sitting
Day after day, close to a certain window,
Looking down, sometimes, to see the people . . .

Sometimes my wife comes there to speak to me . . .
Sometimes the grey cat waves his tail around me . . .
Goldfish swim in a bowl, glisten in sunlight,
Dilate to...

(After Walt Whitman.)


That light, that white, that weird, uncanny substance we call snow
    Is slowly sifting through the bare branches--and ever and anon
My thoughts sift with the drifting snow, and I am full of pale regret.
    Yes, full of pale regret and other things--you know what I mean.
And why? Because the snow must go; the time has came to part.
    Yes, it cannot wait much longer--like the flakes my thoughts are melting
'Tis here, 'tis there, in fact, 'tis everywhere--the snow I mean.
    Like the thick syrup which covers buckwheat cakes it lies.

The man who says he don't regret its passing also lies.
    And wilt thou never come again? Yes, thou ilt never come again. Alas!
How well I remember thee! 'Twas but yesterday, methinks.
    When a great daub...

"Why urge the long, unequal fight,
Since Truth has fallen in the street,
Or lift anew the trampled light,
Quenched by the heedless million's feet?
"Give o'er the thankless task; forsake
The fools who know not ill from good:
Eat, drink, enjoy thy own, and take
Thine ease among the multitude.
"Live out thyself; with others share
Thy proper life no more; assume
The unconcern of sun and air,
For life or death, or blight or bloom.
"The mountain pine looks calmly on
The fires that scourge the plains below,
Nor heeds the eagle in the sun
The small birds piping in the snow!
"The world is God's, not thine; let Him
Work out a change, if change must be:
The hand that planted best can trim
And nurse the old unfruitful tree."
So spake the Tempter, when ...

Mon. Bad are the times. Sil. And worse than they are we.
Mon. Troth, bad are both; worse fruit and ill the tree:
The feast of shepherds fail. Sil. None crowns the cup
Of wassail now or sets the quintell up;
And he who us'd to lead the country-round,
Youthful Mirtillo, here he comes grief-drown'd.
Ambo. Let's cheer him up. Sil. Behold him weeping-ripe.
Mir. Ah! Amaryllis, farewell mirth and pipe;
Since thou art gone, no more I mean to play
To these smooth lawns my mirthful roundelay.
Dear Amaryllis! Mon. Hark! Sil. Mark! Mir. This earth grew sweet
Where, Amaryllis, thou didst set thy feet.
Ambo. Poor pitied youth! Mir. And here the breath of kine
And sheep grew more sweet by that breath of thi...

What He who, 'mid the kindred throng
Of Heroes that inspired his song,
Doth yet frequent the hill of storms,
The stars dim-twinkling through their forms!
What! Ossian here, a painted Thrall,
Mute fixture on a stuccoed wall;
To serve, an unsuspected screen
For show that must not yet be seen;
And, when the moment comes, to part
And vanish by mysterious art;
Head, harp, and body, split asunder,
For ingress to a world of wonder;
A gay saloon, with waters dancing
Upon the sight wherever glancing;
One loud cascade in front, and lo!
A thousand like it, white as snow
Streams on the walls, and torrent-foam
As active round the hollow dome,
Illusive cataracts! of their terrors
Not stripped, nor voiceless in the mirrors,
That catch the pageant from the...

Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you'll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
The sun above the mountain's head,
A freshening lustre mellow
Through all the long green fields has spread,
His first sweet evening yellow.
Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach ...

The ceaseless whirr of crickets fills the ear
From underneath each hedge and bush and tree,
Deep in the dew-drenched grasses everywhere.


The simple sound dispels the fantasy
Of gloom and terror gathering round the mind.
It seems a pleasant thing to breathe, to be,


To hear the many-voiced, soft summer wind
Lisp through the dark thick leafage overhead -
To see the rosy half-moon soar behind


The black slim-branching elms.    Sad thoughts have fled,
Trouble and doubt, and now strange reveries
And odd caprices fill us in their stead.


From yonder broken disk the redness dies,
Like gold fruit through the leaves the half-sphere gleams,
Then over the hoar tree-tops climbs the skies,


Blanched ever more and more, unt...

O my lost beauty! - hast thou folded quite
Thy wings of morning light
Beyond those iron gates
Where Life crowds hurrying to the haggard Fates,
And Age upon his mound of ashes waits
To chill our fiery dreams,
Hot from the heart of youth plunged in his icy streams?

Leave me not fading in these weeds of care,
Whose flowers are silvered hair!
Have I not loved thee long,
Though my young lips have often done thee wrong,
And vexed thy heaven-tuned ear with careless song?
Ah, wilt thou yet return,
Bearing thy rose-hued torch, and bid thine altar burn?

Come to me! - I will flood thy silent shrine
With my soul's sacred wine,
And heap thy marble floors
As the wild spice-trees waste their fragrant stores,
In leafy islands walled with madrepores
...

        Well, how has it been with you since we met
    That last strange time of a hundred times?
        When we met to swear that we could forget -
    I your caresses, and you my rhymes -
        The rhyme of my lays that rang like a bell,
        And the rhyme of my heart with yours, as well?

        How has it been since we drank that last kiss,
    That was bitter with lees of the wasted wine,
        When the tattered remains of a threadbare bliss,
    And the worn-out shreds of a joy divine,
        With a year's best dreams and hopes, were cast
        Into the rag-bag of the Past?

        Since Time, the rag-buyer, hurried away,
    With a chuckle of glee at a bargain made,
        Did you discover, like me, one day,
    That, hid in the fold...

Thou little star, that in the purple clouds
    Hang'st, like a dew-drop, in a violet bed;
First gem of evening, glittering on the shrouds,
    'Mid whose dark folds the day lies pale and dead:
As through my tears my soul looks up to thee,
    Loathing the heavy chains that bind it here,
There comes a fearful thought that misery
    Perhaps is found, even in thy distant sphere.
Art thou a world of sorrow and of sin,
    The heritage of death, disease, decay,
A wilderness, like that we wander in,
    Where all things fairest, soonest pass away?
And are there graves in thee, thou radiant world,
    Round which life's sweetest buds fall withered,
Where hope's bright wings in the dark earth lie furled,
    And living hearts are mouldering with the dead?
Perchance ...

'Twixt a smile and a tear,
'Twixt a song and a sigh,
'Twixt the day and the dark,
When the night draweth nigh.

Ah, sunshine may fade
From the heavens above,
No twilight have we
To the day of our love.

Sweet empty sky of June without a stain,
    Faint, gray-blue dewy mists on far-off hills,
Warm, yellow sunlight flooding mead and plain,
    That each dark copse and hollow overfills;
    The rippling laugh of unseen, rain-fed rills,
Weeds delicate-flowered, white and pink and gold,
A murmur and a singing manifold.


The gray, austere old earth renews her youth
    With dew-lines, sunshine, gossamer, and haze.
How still she lies and dreams, and veils the truth,
    While all is fresh as in the early days!
    What simple things be these the soul to raise
To bounding joy, and make young pulses beat,
With nameless pleasure finding life so sweet.


On such a golden morning forth there floats,
    Between the soft earth and the softer sky,
In ...

High on her speculative tower
Stood Science waiting for the hour
When Sol was destined to endure
'That' darkening of his radiant face
Which Superstition strove to chase,
Erewhile, with rites impure.

Afloat beneath Italian skies,
Through regions fair as Paradise
We gaily passed, till Nature wrought
A silent and unlooked-for change,
That checked the desultory range
Of joy and sprightly thought.

Where'er was dipped the toiling oar,
The waves danced round us as before,
As lightly, though of altered hue,
'Mid recent coolness, such as falls
At noontide from umbrageous walls
That screen the morning dew.

No vapour stretched its wings; no cloud
Cast far or near a murky shroud;
The sky an azure field displayed;
'Twas sunlight s...

While one sere leaf, that parting Autumn gilds,
    Trembles upon the thin, and naked spray,
    November, dragging on his sunless day,
    Lours, cold and fallen, on the watry fields;
And Nature to the waste dominion yields,
    Stript her last robes, with gold and purple gay. -
    So droops my life, of your soft beams despoil'd,
    Youth, Health, and Hope, that long exulting smil'd;
And the wild carols, and the bloomy hues
    Of merry Spring-time, spruce on every plain
    Her half-blown bushes, moist with sunny rain,
More pensive thoughts in my sunk heart infuse
    Than Winter's grey, and desolate domain,
    Faded, like my lost Youth, that no bright Spring renews.