Sadness

Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost
With the least shade of thought to sin allied.
Woman! above all women glorified,
Our tainted nature’s solitary boast;
Purer than foam on central ocean tost;
Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn
With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon
Before her wane begins on heaven’s blue coast;
Thy image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween,
Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend,
As to a visible Power, in which did blend
All that was mixed and reconciled in thee
Of mother’s love with maiden purity,
Of high with low, celestial with terrene!

    Hither, hither, from thy home,
    Airy sprite, I bid thee come!
    Born of roses, fed on dew,
    Charms and potions canst thou brew?
    Bring me here, with elfin speed,
    The fragrant philter which I need.
    Make it sweet and swift and strong,
    Spirit, answer now my song!


**    *    *    *

    Hither I come,
    From my airy home,
    Afar in the silver moon.
    Take the magic spell,
    And use it well,
    Or its power will vanish soon!

I' mi soglio accusare, ed or mi scuso.

HE GLORIES IN HIS LOVE.


    I now excuse myself who wont to blame,
Nay, more, I prize and even hold me dear,
For this fair prison, this sweet-bitter shame,
Which I have borne conceal'd so many a year.
O envious Fates! that rare and golden frame
Rudely ye broke, where lightly twined and clear,
Yarn of my bonds, the threads of world-wide fame
Which lovely 'gainst his wont made Death appear.
For not a soul was ever in its days
Of joy, of liberty, of life so fond,
That would not change for her its natural ways,
Preferring thus to suffer and despond,
Than, fed by hope, to sing in others' praise,
Content to die, or live in such a bond.

MACGREGOR.

Though sprightly Sappho force our love and praise,
A softer wonder my pleased soul surveys,
The mild Erinna, blushing in her bays.
So, while the sun's broad beam yet strikes the sight,
All mild appears the moon's more sober light;
Serene, in virgin majesty she shines,
And, unobserved, the glaring sun declines.

[1]


I saw the smiling bard of pleasure,
The minstrel of the Teian measure;
'Twas in a vision of the night,
He beamed upon my wondering sight.
I heard his voice, and warmly prest
The dear enthusiast to my breast.
His tresses wore a silvery dye,
But beauty sparkled in his eye;
Sparkled in his eyes of fire,
Through the mist of soft desire.
His lip exhaled, when'er he sighed,
The fragrance of the racy tide;
And, as with weak and reeling feet
He came my cordial kiss to meet,
An infant, of the Cyprian band,
Guided him on with tender hand.
Quick from his glowing brows he drew
His braid, of many a wanton hue;
I took the wreath, whose inmost twine
Breathed of him and blushed with wine.
I hung it o'er my thoughtless brow,<...

I now will endeavor, while fresh in my mind,
My Sabbath School Class to portray;
The theme's furnished for me, I've only to find
Colors to blend, their forms to display.

And first on the canvass we'll Adeline place,
With her full and expressive dark eye;
Decision of purpose is stamped on that face,
And good scholarship too we descry.

Next in order comes Alice, with bright sunny smile,
That does one's heart good to behold;
May the sorrows of life ne'er that young spirit blight,
Nor that heart be less cheerful when old.

But who's this that we see, with that mild pensive air,
And a look so expressively kind?
It is Ann, gentle Ann, before whom we pass by,
We will add - 't would be useless in any to try
Disposition more lovely to find.

...

O once I had a true love,
As blest as I could be:
Patty was my turtle dove,
And Patty she loved me.
We walked the fields together,
By roses and woodbine,
In Summer's sunshine weather,
And Patty she was mine.

We stopped to gather primroses,
And violets white and blue,
In pastures and green closes
All glistening with the dew.
We sat upon green mole-hills,
Among the daisy flowers,
To hear the small birds' merry trills,
And share the sunny hours.

The blackbird on her grassy nest
We would not scare away,
Who nuzzling sat with brooding breast
On her eggs for half the day.
The chaffinch chirruped on the thorn,
And a pretty nest had she;
The magpie chattered all the morn
From her perch upon the tree.

And I woul...

They dropped like flakes, they dropped like stars,
Like petals from a rose,
When suddenly across the June
A wind with fingers goes.

They perished in the seamless grass, --
No eye could find the place;
But God on his repealless list
Can summon every face.

South winds jostle them,
Bumblebees come,
Hover, hesitate,
Drink, and are gone.

Butterflies pause
On their passage Cashmere;
I, softly plucking,
Present them here!

I met Jack Ellis in town to-day,
Jack Ellis, my old mate, Jack,
Ten years ago, from the Castlereagh,
We carried our swags together away
To the Never-Again, Out Back.

But times have altered since those old days,
And the times have changed the men.
Ah, well! there's little to blame or praise,
Jack Ellis and I have tramped long ways
On different tracks since then.

His hat was battered, his coat was green,
The toes of his boots were through,
But the pride was his! It was I felt mean,
I wished that my collar was not so clean,
Nor the clothes I wore so new.

He saw me first, and he knew 'twas I,
The holiday swell he met.
Why have we no faith in each other? Ah, why?,
He made as though he would pass me by,
For he thought that I might fo...

God gave to mortals birth,

In his own image too;
Then came Himself to earth,

A mortal kind and true.

                    1821.*
-
Barbarians oft endeavour

Gods for themselves to make
But they're more hideous ever

Than dragon or than snake.

                    1821.*
-
What shall I teach thee, the very first thing?
Fain would I learn o'er my shadow to spring!

                    1827.*
-
"What is science, rightly known?
'Tis the strength of life alone.
Life canst thou engender never,
Life must be life's parent ever.

                    1827.*
-
It matters not, I ween,

Where worms our friends consume,
Beneath the turf so green,

Or 'neath a marble tomb.
R...

Now first we stand and understand,
And sunder false from true,
And handle boldly with the hand,
And see and shape and do.

Dash back that ocean with a pier,
Strow yonder mountain flat,
A railway there, a tunnel here,
Mix me this Zone with that!

Bring me my horse—my horse? my wings
That I may soar the sky,
For Thought into the outward springs,
I find her with the eye.

O will she, moonlike, sway the main,
And bring or chase the storm,
Who was a shadow in the brain,
And is a living form?

Far as the Future vaults her skies,
From this my vantage ground
To those still-working energies
I spy nor term nor bound.

As we surpass our fathers’ skill,
Our sons will shame our own;
A thousand things are hidden still

I walk to my work, says Senlin, along a street
Superbly hung in space.
I lift these mortal stones, and with my trowel
I tap them into place.
But is god, perhaps, a giant who ties his tie
Grimacing before a colossal glass of sky?
These stones are heavy, these stones decay,
These stones are wet with rain,
I build them into a wall today,
Tomorrow they fall again.
Does god arise from a chaos of starless sleep,
Rise from the dark and stretch his arms and yawn;
And drowsily look from the window at his garden;
And rejoice at the dewdrop sparkeling on his lawn?
Does he remember, suddenly, with amazement,
The yesterday he left in sleep, his name,
Or the glittering street superbly hung in wind
Along which, in the dusk, he slowly came?
I devise new patterns for...

Bugle and battle-cry are still,
The long strife's over;
Low o'er the corpse-encumbered hill
The sad stars hover.

It is in vain, O stars! you look
On these forsaken:
Awhile with blows on blows they shook,
Or struck unshaken.

Needs now no pity of God or man ...
Tears for the living!
They have 'scaped the confines of life's plan
That holds us grieving.

The unperturbed soft moon, the stars,
The breeze that lingers,
Wake not to ineffectual wars
Their hearts and fingers.

Warriors o'ercoming and o'ercome,
Alike contented,
Have marched now to the last far drum,
Praised, unlamented.

Bugle and battle-cry are still,
The long strife's over;
Oh, that with them I had fought my fill
And found like cover!

Is his form hidden by some cliff or crag,
Or does he loiter on the shelving shore?
We know not, though we know he waits for us,
Somewhere upon the road that lies before.

And when he bids us we must follow him,
Must leave our half-drawn nets, our houses, lands,
And those we love the most, and best, ah they
In vain will cling to us with pleading hands!

He will not wait for us to gird our robes,
And be they white as saints, or soiled and dim,
We can but gather them around our form,
And take his icy hand and follow him.

Oh! will our palm cling to another palm
Loath, loath to loose our hold of love's warm grasp.
Or shall we free our hand from the hand of grief,
And reach it gladly out to meet his clasp?

Sometimes I marvel when we two shall m...

    "It is only just
        To laud good wine:
    If I sit in the dust,
        So sits the vine."

Abu Midjan sang, as he sat in chains,
For the blood of the grape was the juice of his veins.
The prophet had said, "O Faithful, drink not"--
Abu Midjan drank till his heart was hot;
Yea, he sang a song in praise of wine,
And called it good names, a joy divine.
And Saad assailed him with words of blame,
And left him in irons, a fettered flame;
But he sang of the wine as he sat in chains,
For the blood of the grape ran fast in his veins.

    "I will not think
        That the Prophet said,
    Ye shall not drink
        Of the flowing red.

    "But some weakling head,
        In its after pain,
    Moaning said,
 ...

Give me a cell
To dwell,
Where no foot hath
A path;
There will I spend,
And end,
My wearied years
In tears.

Upon the "table-rock" I stand,
And gaze into the depths profound,
In ecstacy at sights so grand,
And deafened by the sound
Of rushing waters, as they leap
Like maddened steeds, down hillside steep.

The falling spray my head bedews,
As gently as a vernal shower;
Or, as the Holy Ghost imbues
In consecrated hour,
The soul that inly yearns for love,
And seeks it from the throne above.

But I see more than chasm deep,
Than falling spray and rushing tide.
Sublime, indeed, the awful leap;
The awe will long abide--
God's rainbow hangs in colors bright,
A thing of beauty in my sight.

Our cousins on the other side
And we too often disagree;
Puffed up, I fear, at times, with pride,
Each strong, and brave, and free;
But we fo...