Sadness

Warm perfumes like a breath from vine and tree
Drift down the darkness. Plangent, hidden from eyes
Somewhere an 'eukaleli' thrills and cries
And stabs with pain the night's brown savagery.
And dark scents whisper; and dim waves creep to me,
Gleam like a woman's hair, stretch out, and rise;
And new stars burn into the ancient skies,
Over the murmurous soft Hawaian sea.

And I recall, lose, grasp, forget again,
And still remember, a tale I have heard, or known,
An empty tale, of idleness and pain,
Of two that loved, or did not love, and one
Whose perplexed heart did evil, foolishly,
A long while since, and by some other sea.

That melancholy phrase "It might have been,"
    However sad, doth in its heart enfold
    A hidden germ of promise! for I hold
WHATEVER MIGHT HAVE BEEN SHALL BE.
    Though in
Some other realm and life, the soul must win
    The goal that erst was possible.    But cold
    And cruel as the sound of frozen mould
Dropped on a coffin, are the words "Has been."

"She has been beautiful" -"he has been great,"
    "Rome has been powerful," we sigh and say.
    It is the pitying crust we toss decay,
The dirge we breathe o'er some degenerate state,
An epitaph for fame's unburied dead.
God pity those who live to hear it said!

There are three fine devils eating my heart--
They left me, my grief! without a thing;
Sickness wrought, and Love wrought,
And an empty pocket, my ruin and my woe.
Poverty left me without a shirt,
Barefooted, barelegged, without any covering;
Sickness left me with my head weak
And my body miserable, an ugly thing.
Love left me like a coal upon the floor,
Like a half-burned sod that is never put out.
Worse than the cough, worse than the fever itself,
Worse than any curse at all under the sun,
Worse than the great poverty
Is the devil that is called "Love" by the people.
And if I were in my young youth again
I would not take, or give, or ask for a kiss!

I

The moving sun-shapes on the spray,
The sparkles where the brook was flowing,
Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May,
These were the things we wished would stay;
But they were going.

II

Seasons of blankness as of snow,
The silent bleed of a world decaying,
The moan of multitudes in woe,
These were the things we wished would go;
But they were staying.

III

Then we looked closelier at Time,
And saw his ghostly arms revolving
To sweep off woeful things with prime,
Things sinister with things sublime
Alike dissolving.

The day, all fierce with carmine, turns
An Indian face towards Earth and dies;
The west, like some gaunt vase, inurns
Its ashes under smouldering skies,
Athwart whose bowl one red cloud streams,
Strange as a shape some Aztec dreams.

Now shadows mass above the world,
And night comes on with wind and rain;
The mulberry-colored leaves are hurled
Like frantic hands against the pane.
And through the forests, bending low,
Night stalks like some gigantic woe.

In hollows where the thistle shakes
A hoar bloom like a witch's-light,
From weed and flower the rain-wind rakes
Dead sweetness as a wildman might,
From out the leaves, the woods among,
Dig some dead woman, fair and young.

Now let me walk the woodland ways,
Alone! except for thoug...

So all things come to our mind at last,
He is close by your side in the twilight gloom,
And you two are alone in the dim old room,
Yet he is mute, as you bade him be, time past.

You bade him to weary you, never again
With his idle love, in truth he was wise,
For he spake no more, although in his eyes
You read, you fancied, a language of pain.

But this is past, and vex you he never will,
With loving glance, or look of sad reproach;
His lips move not, smile not at your approach;
The flowers he clasps are not more calm and still.

Your favorite flowers he has heard you praise,
Purple pansies, and lilies creamy white;
But he offers them not to you to-night,
He troubles you not, he has learned "his place."

You wished to teach him that lesson,...

Who looked for thee, thou little song of mine?
    This winter of a silent poet's heart
    Is suddenly sweet with thee, but what thou art,
Mid-winter flower, I would I could divine.

Art thou a last one, orphan of thy line?
    Did the dead summer's last warmth foster thee?
    Or is Spring folded up unguessed in me,
And stirring out of sight,-and thou the sign?

Where shall I look-backwards or to the morrow
    For others of thy fragrance, secret child?
    Who knows if last things or if first things claim thee?

-Whether thou be the last smile of my sorrow,
    Or else a joy too sweet, a joy too wild?
    How, my December violet, shall I name thee?

Late-born and woman-souled I dare not hope,
The freshness of the elder lays, the might
Of manly, modern passion shall alight
Upon my Muse's lips, nor may I cope
(Who veiled and screened by womanhood must grope)
With the world's strong-armed warriors and recite
The dangers, wounds, and triumphs of the fight;
Twanging the full-stringed lyre through all its scope.
But if thou ever in some lake-floored cave
O'erbrowed by hard rocks, a wild voice wooed and heard,
Answering at once from heaven and earth and wave,
Lending elf-music to thy harshest word,
Misprize thou not these echoes that belong
To one in love with solitude and song.

Lately our poets loiter'd in green lanes,
Content to catch the ballads of the plains;
I fancied I had strength enough to climb
A loftier station at no distant time,
And might securely from intrusion doze
Upon the flowers thro' which Ilissus flows.
In those pale olive grounds all voices cease,
And from afar dust fills the paths of Greece.
My sluber broken and my doublet torn,
I find the laurel also bears a thorn.

It worn't for her winnin ways,
Nor for her bonny face
But shoo wor th' only lass we had,
An that quite alters th' case.

We'd two fine lads as yo need see,
An' weel we love 'em still;
But shoo war th' only lass we had,
An' we could spare her ill.

We call'd her bi mi mother's name,
It saanded sweet to me;
We little thowt ha varry sooin
Awr pet wod have to dee.

Aw used to watch her ivery day,
Just like a oppenin bud;
An' if aw couldn't see her change,
Aw fancied' at aw could.

Throo morn to neet her little tongue
Wor allus on a stir;
Awve heeard a deeal o' childer lisp,
But nooan at lispt like her.

Sho used to play all sooarts o' tricks,
'At childer shouldn't play;
But then, they wor soa nicely done,

Friend whom I never saw, yet dearest friend,
    Be with me travelling on the byeway now
In April's month and mood: our steps shall bend
    By the shut smithy with its penthouse brow
    Armed round with many a felly and crackt plough:
And we will mark in his white smock the mill
    Standing aloof, long numbed to any wind,
That in his crannies mourns, and craves him still;
    But now there is not any grain to grind,
    And even the master lies too deep for winds to find.

Grieve not at these: for there are mills amain
    With lusty sails that leap and drop away
On further knolls, and lads to fetch the grain.
    The ash-spit wickets on the green betray
    New games begun and old ones put away.
Let us fare on, dead friend, O deathless friend,
    Whe...

I.

Many a hearth upon our dark globe sighs

after many a vanish’d face,

Many a planet by many a sun may roll

with the dust of a vanish’d race.



II.

Raving politics, never at rest–as this poor

earth’s pale history runs,–

What is it all but a trouble of ants in the

gleam of a million million of suns?



III.

Lies upon this side, lies upon that side,

truthless violence mourn’d by the Wise,

Thousands of voices drowning his own in a

popular torrent of lies upon lies;



IV.

Stately purposes, valour in battle, glorious

annals of army and fleet,

Death for the right cause, death for the wrong cause,

trumpets of vi...

Yet, yet, Biscayans! we must meet our Foes
With firmer soul, yet labour to regain
Our ancient freedom; else 'twere worse than vain
To gather round the bier these festal shows.
A garland fashioned of the pure white rose
Becomes not one whose father is a slave:
Oh, bear the infant covered to his grave!
These venerable mountains now enclose
A people sunk in apathy and fear.
If this endure, farewell, for us, all good!
The awful light of heavenly innocence
Will fail to illuminate the infant's bier;
And guilt and shame, from which is no defense,
Descend on all that issues from our blood.

1.
Far, far away, O ye
Halcyons of Memory,
Seek some far calmer nest
Than this abandoned breast!
No news of your false spring
To my heart's winter bring,
Once having gone, in vain
Ye come again.

2.
Vultures, who build your bowers
High in the Future's towers,
Withered hopes on hopes are spread!
Dying joys, choked by the dead,
Will serve your beaks for prey
Many a day.

A little while, a little while,
The weary task is put away,
And I can sing and I can smile,
Alike, while I have holiday.

Why wilt thou go, my harassed heart,
What thought, what scene invites thee now?
What spot, or near or far,
Has rest for thee, my weary brow?

There is a spot, mid barren hills,
Where winter howls, and driving rain;
But if the dreary tempest chills,
There is a light that warms again.

The house is old, the trees are bare,
Moonless above bends twilight’s dome;
But what on earth is half so dear,
So longed for, as the hearth of home?

The mute bird sitting on the stone,
The dank moss dripping from the wall,
The thorn-trees gaunt, the walks o’ergrown,
I love them, how I love them all!

Still, as I mus...

I

Between two sister moorland rills
There is a spot that seems to lie
Sacred to flowerets of the hills,
And sacred to the sky.
And in this smooth and open dell
There is a tempest-stricken tree;
A corner-stone by lightning cut,
The last stone of a lonely hut;
And in this dell you see
A thing no storm can e'er destroy,
The shadow of a Danish Boy.

II

In clouds above, the lark is heard,
But drops not here to earth for rest;
Within this lonesome nook the bird
Did never build her nest.
No beast, no bird hath here his home;
Bees, wafted on the breezy air,
Pass high above those fragrant bells
To other flowers:to other dells
Their burthens do they bear;
The Danish Boy walks here alone:
The lovely dell is all his own....

The last sunbeam
Lightly falls from the finish'd Sabbath,
On the pavement here--and there beyond, it is looking,
Down a new-made double grave.


Lo! the moon ascending!
Up from the east, the silvery round moon;
Beautiful over the house tops, ghastly phantom moon;
Immense and silent moon.


I see a sad procession,
And I hear the sound of coming full-key'd bugles;
All the channels of the city streets they're flooding,
As with voices and with tears.


I hear the great drums pounding,
And the small drums steady whirring;
And every blow of the great convulsive drums,
Strikes me through and through.


For the son is brought with the father;
In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell;
Two veterans, son and ...

I' vo pensando, e nel pensier m' assale.

SELF-CONFLICT.


    Ceaseless I think, and in each wasting thought
So strong a pity for myself appears,
That often it has brought
My harass'd heart to new yet natural tears;
Seeing each day my end of life draw nigh,
Instant in prayer, I ask of God the wings
With which the spirit springs,
Freed from its mortal coil, to bliss on high;
But nothing, to this hour, prayer, tear, or sigh,
Whatever man could do, my hopes sustain:
And so indeed in justice should it be;
Able to stay, who went and fell, that he
Should prostrate, in his own despite, remain.
But, lo! the tender arms
In which I trust are open to me still,
Though fears my bosom fill
Of others' fate, and my own heart alarms,
Which...