Sadness

(Song of the uncommunicated Ideal.)

I.

I opened the eyes of my soul.
    And behold,
A white river-lily: a lily awake, and aware, -
For she set her face upward, - aware how in scarlet and gold
A long wrinkled cloud, left behind of the wandering air,
    Lay over with fold upon fold,
    With fold upon fold.

And the blushing sweet shame of the cloud made her also ashamed,
The white river-lily, that suddenly knew she was fair;
And over the far-away mountains that no man hath named,
    And that no foot hath trod,
Flung down out of heavenly places, there fell, as it were,
A rose-bloom, a token of love, that should make them endure,
Withdrawn in snow silence forever, who keep themselves pure,
    And look up to God.
Then I said, "In r...

My wind is turned to bitter north,
That was so soft a south before;
My sky, that shone so sunny bright,
With foggy gloom is clouded o’er
My gay green leaves are yellow-black,
Upon the dank autumnal floor;
For love, departed once, comes back
No more again, no more.
A roofless ruin lies my home,
For winds to blow and rains to pour;
One frosty night befell, and lo,
I find my summer days are o’er:
The heart bereaved, of why and how
Unknowing, knows that yet before
It had what e’en to Memory now
Returns no more, no more.

The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere
Each vapour that obscured the sunset's ray;
And pallid Evening twines its beaming hair
In duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day:
Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men,
Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.

They breathe their spells towards the departing day,
Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea;
Light, sound, and motion own the potent sway,
Responding to the charm with its own mystery.
The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass
Knows not their gentle motions as they pass.

Thou too, aereal Pile! whose pinnacles
Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire,
Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells,
Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire,
Around whose lessening ...

There is a wind where the rose was;
Cold rain where sweet grass was;
And clouds like sheep
Stream o'er the steep
Grey skies where the lark was.

Nought gold where your hair was;
Nought warm where your hand was;
But phantom, forlorn,
Beneath the thorn,
Your ghost where your face was.

Sad winds where your voice was;
Tears, tears where my heart was;
And ever with me,
Child, ever with me,
Silence where hope was.

An old lane, an old gate, an old house by a tree;
A wild wood, a wild brook they will not let me be:
In boyhood I knew them, and still they call to me.

Down deep in my heart's core I hear them and my eyes
Through tear-mists behold them beneath the oldtime skies,
'Mid bee-boom and rose-bloom and orchardlands arise.

I hear them; and heartsick with longing is my soul,
To walk there, to dream there, beneath the sky's blue bowl;
Around me, within me, the weary world made whole.

To talk with the wild brook of all the long-ago;
To whisper the wood-wind of things we used to know
When we were old companions, before my heart knew woe.

To walk with the morning and watch its rose unfold;
To drowse with the noontide lulled on its heart of gold;
To lie with th...

SPRING

A sudden softness in the wind;
    A glint of song, a-wing;
A fragrant sound that trails behind,
    And joy in everything.

A sudden flush upon the cheek,
    The teardrop quick to start;
A hope too delicate to speak,
    And heaven within the heart.

SUMMER

A riotous dawn and the sea's great wonder;
    The red, red heart of a rose uncurled;
And beauty tearing her veil asunder,
    In sight of a swooning world.

A call of the soul, and the senses blended;
    The Springtime lost in the glow of the sun,
And two lives rushing, as God intended,
    To meet and mingle as one.

AUTUMN

The world is out in gala dress;
    And yet it is not gay.
Its splendour hides a loneliness
    For someth...

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charactry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love; then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

Ah, often do I wait and watch,
And look up, straining through the Real
With longing eyes, my friend, to catch
Faint glimpses of your white Ideal.

I know she loved to rest her feet
By slumbrous seas and hidden strand;
But mostly hints of her I meet
On moony spots of mountain land.

I’ve never reached her shining place,
And only cross at times a gleam;
As one might pass a fleeting face
Just on the outside of a Dream.

But you may climb, her happy Choice!
She knows your step, the maiden true,
And ever when she hears your voice,
She turns and sits and waits for you.

How sweet to rest on breezy crest
With such a Love, what time the Morn
Looks from his halls of rosy rest,
Across green miles of gleaming corn!

How sweet ...

Softly, softly, Niccolo Amati!
What can put such fancies in your head?
There, go dream of your blue-skied Cremona,
While I ponder something you have said.

Something in that last low lovely cadence
Piercing the green dusk alone and far,
Named a new room in the house of knowledge,
Waiting unfrequented, door ajar.

While you dream then, let me unmolested
Pass in childish wonder through that door,--
Breathless, touch and marvel at the beauties
Soon my wiser elders must explore.

Ah, my Niccolo, it's no great science
We shall ever conquer, you and I.
Yet, when you are nestled at my shoulder,
Others guess not half that we descry.

As all sight is but a finer hearing,
And all color but a finer sound,
Beauty, but the reach of lyric freed...

    A well-thumbed book
    like a well-thumbed life,
    "whilst you walk this earth"
    yet nothing is "afoot",
    as so many small boys
    throwing stones through the funeral parlour
    glass door.

    A cake-walk? Being alive and interacting
    across the face of the multitude is terrible
    algebra running into unfathomable sums.
    "Doing your sums", my grade school teacher
    used to say and I still am. Whippersnapper,
    learning lessons in a strange stamina
    sort of way.

    One of the multitude died last night &
    is now "resting" in a large, Victorian parlour.
    Even the walls grimace. I went by, caught a peek
    at the assemblage chasing thru rain to see his
    last hurrah. Look, "parlour" can be deadly s...

Far in the purple valleys of illusion
I see her waiting, like the soul of music,
With deep eyes, lovelier than cerulean pansies,
Shadow and fire, yet merciless as poison;
With red lips, sweeter than Arabian storax,
Yet bitterer than myrrh.--O tears and kisses!
O eyes and lips, that haunt my soul forever!

Again Spring walks transcendent on the mountains:
The woods are hushed: the vales are blue with shadows:
Above the heights, steeped in a thousand splendors,
Like some vast canvas of the gods, hangs burning
The sunset's wild sciography: and slowly
The moon treads heaven's proscenium,--night's stately
White queen of love and tragedy and madness.

Again I know forgotten dreams and longings;
Ideals lost; desires dead and buried
Beside the altar sacrific...

I.

Take Heart

Take heart again. Joy may be lost awhile.
It is not always Spring.
And even now from some far Summer Isle
Hither the birds may wing.

II.

Touchstones

Hearts, that have cheered us ever, night and day,
With words that helped us on the rugged way,
The hard, long road of life to whom is due
More than the heart can ever hope to pay
Are they not touchstones, soul-transmuting true
All thoughts to gold, refining thus the clay?

III.

Fortune

Fortune may pass us by:
Follow her flying feet.
Love, all we ask, deny:
Never admit defeat.
Take heart again and try.
Never say die.

IV

Be Glad

Be glad, just for to-day!
O heart, be glad!
Cast all your car...

Soft as a cloud is yon blue Ridge, the Mere
Seems firm as solid crystal, breathless, clear,
And motionless; and, to the gazer's eye,
Deeper than ocean, in the immensity
Of its vague mountains and unreal sky!
But, from the process in that still retreat,
Turn to minuter changes at our feet;
Observe how dewy Twilight has withdrawn
The crowd of daisies from the shaven lawn,
And has restored to view its tender green,
That, while the sun rode high, was lost beneath their dazzling sheen.

An emblem this of what the sober Hour
Can do for minds disposed to feel its power!
Thus oft, when we in vain have wished away
The petty pleasures of the garish day,
Meek eve shuts up the whole usurping host
(Unbashful dwarfs each glittering at his post)
And leaves the dise...

The sun is sinking where the western hills
    The vision bounds with rugged summits old,
And with his latest beam he brightly gilds
    And crowns with amethyst and gold.

The distant music of a tinkling bell
    Is floating o'er the meadow's gentle sweep--
No discords mar the magic of the spell,
    And stealthily the twilight shadows creep.

And gently falls upon the listening ear--
    Like tones from voices of the long-ago--
The cadence of the murmuring waters near--
    With rhythmic ripplings soft and low.

Now grow apace the shadows' slanting shapes
    And fade the rugged hills to misty gray,
As dying day its calm departure takes
    And yields to coming night her sable sway.

The vaulted dome above now glows afar
    With man...

Once, once only, sweet and lovable woman,
you leant your smooth arm on mine
(that memory has never faded a moment
from the shadowy depths of my mind):


it was late: the full moon spread its light
like a freshly minted disc,
and like a river, the solemnity of night
flowed over sleeping Paris.


Along the houses, under carriage gates,
cats crept past furtively,
ears pricked, or else like familiar shades,
accompanied us slowly.


Suddenly, in our easy intimacy,
that flower of the pale light,
from you, rich, sonorous instrument, eternally
quivering gaily, bright,


from you, clear and joyous as a fanfare
in the glittering dawn
a strange, plaintive sigh escaped
a faltering tone


as from some st...

            All night a slow soft rain,
A shadowy stranger from a cloudy land,
Sighing and sobbing, with unsteady hand
    Beat at the lattice, ceased, and beat again,
And fled like some wild startled thing pursued
By demons of the night and solitude,
    Returning ever--wistful--timid--fain--
            The intermittent rain.

            And still the sad hours crept
Within uncounted, the while hopes and fears
Swayed our full hearts, and overflowed in tears
    That fell in silence, as she waked or slept,
Still drawing nearer to that unknown shore
Whence foot of mortal cometh nevermore,
    And still the rain was as a pulse that kept
            Time as the slow hours crept.

            The plummet of the night
Sank through the hollow dark t...

Mid-noon is past; upon the sultry mead
No zephyr breathes, no cloud its shadow throws:
If we advance unstrengthened by repose,
Farewell the solace of the vagrant reed!
This Nook with woodbine hung and straggling weed
Tempting recess as ever pilgrim chose,
Half grot, half arbour, proffers to enclose
Body and mind, from molestation freed,
In narrow compass, narrow as itself:
Or if the Fancy, too industrious Elf,
Be loth that we should breathe awhile exempt
From new incitements friendly to our task,
Here wants not stealthy prospect, that may tempt
Loose Idless to forego her wily mask.

The waterfall is calling me
    With its merry gleesome flow,
And the green boughs are beckoning me,
    To where the wild flowers grow:

I may not go, I may not go,
To where the sunny waters flow,
To where the wild wood flowers blow;
        I must stay here
        In prison drear,
Oh, heavy life, wear on, wear on,
Would God that thou wert done!

The busy mill-wheel round and round
Goes turning, with its reckless sound,
And o'er the dam the wafers flow
Into the foaming stream below,
And deep and dark away they glide,
To meet the broad, bright river's tide;
And all the way
They murmuring say:
"Oh, child! why art thou far away?
Come back into the sun, and stray
Upon our mossy side!"

I may not go, I may not go,