Sadness

Alone alone!
With a heart like a stone,
She maketh her moan
At the feet of the trees,
With her face on her knees,
And her hair streaming over;
Wildly, and wildly, and wildly;
For she misses the tracks of her lover!
Do you hear her, Ulmarra?
Oh, where are the tracks of her lover?

Go by go by!
They have told her a lie,
Who said he was nigh,
In the white-cedar glen
In the camps of his men:
And she sitteth there weeping
Weeping, and weeping, and weeping,
For the face of a warrior sleeping!
Do you hear her, Ulmarra?
Oh! where is her warrior sleeping?

A dream! a dream!
That they saw a bright gleam
Through the dusk boughs stream,
Where wild bees dwell,
And a tomahawk fell,
In moons which have faded;
Faded,...

O Native scenes, nought to my heart clings nearer
Than you, ye Edens of my youthful hours;
Nought in this world warms my affections dearer
Than you, ye plains of white and yellow flowers;
Ye hawthorn hedge-rows, and ye woodbine bowers,
Where youth has rov'd, and still where manhood roves
The pasture-pathway 'neath the willow groves.
Ah, as my eye looks o'er those lovely scenes,
All the delights of former life beholding;
Spite of the pain, the care that intervenes,--
When lov'd remembrance is her bliss unfolding,
Picking her childish posies on your greens,--
My soul can pause o'er its distress awhile,
And Sorrow's cheek find leisure for a smile.

Ah! why, because the dazzling sun
Restored our Earth to joy,
Have you departed, every one,
And left a desert sky?

All through the night, your glorious eyes
Were gazing down in mine,
And, with a full heart's thankful sighs,
I blessed that watch divine.

I was at peace, and drank your beams
As they were life to me;
And revelled in my changeful dreams,
Like petrel on the sea.

Thought followed thought, star followed star,
Through boundless regions, on;
While one sweet influence, near and far,
Thrilled through, and proved us one!

Why did the morning dawn to break
So great, so pure, a spell;
And scorch with fire the tranquil cheek,
Where your cool radiance fell?

Blood-red, he rose, and, arrow-straight,
His fierce...

The Bard of ancient lore! Like one forlorn,
He turned, enamoured, to the silent Past;
And searching down its mazes gray and vast,
As you might find the blossom by the thorn,
He found fair things in barren places cast
And brought them up into the light of morn.
Lo! Truth, resplendent, as a tropic dawn,
Shines always through his wond’rous pictures! Hence
The many quick emotions which are born
Of an Imagination so intense!
The chargers’ hoofs come tearing up the sward
The claymores rattle in the restless sheath;
You close his page, and almost look abroad
For Highland glens and windy leagues of heath.

Thou unrelenting Past!
Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain,
And fetters, sure and fast,
Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.

Far in thy realm withdrawn
Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom,
And glorious ages gone
Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb.

Childhood, with all its mirth,
Youth, Manhood, Age, that draws us to the ground,
And last, Man's Life on earth,
Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound.

Thou hast my better years,
Thou hast my earlier friends, the good, the kind,
Yielded to thee with tears,
The venerable form, the exalted mind.

My spirit yearns to bring
The lost ones back, yearns with desire intense,
And struggles hard to wring
Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence.

...

I look at the swaling sunset
And wish I could go also
Through the red doors beyond the black-purple bar.

I wish that I could go
Through the red doors where I could put off
My shame like shoes in the porch,
My pain like garments,
And leave my flesh discarded lying
Like luggage of some departed traveller
Gone one knows not where.

Then I would turn round,
And seeing my cast-off body lying like lumber,
I would laugh with joy.

They met each other in the glade -
    She lifted up her eyes;
Alack the day! Alack the maid!
    She blushed in swift surprise.
Alas! alas! the woe that comes from lifting up the eyes.

The pail was full, the path was steep -
    He reached to her his hand;
She felt her warm young pulses leap,
    But did not understand.
Alas! alas! the woe that comes from clasping hand with hand.

She sat beside him in the wood -
    He wooed with words and sighs;
Ah! love in spring seems sweet and good,
    And maidens are not wise.
Alas! alas! the woe that comes from listing lovers' sighs.

The summer sun shone fairly down,
    The wind blew from the south;
As blue eyes gazed in eyes of brown,
    His kiss fell on her mouth.
Alas! alas! the wo...

        Go tell Amynta, gentle swain,
        I would not die, nor dare complain:
        Thy tuneful voice with numbers join,
        Thy words will more prevail than mine.
        To souls oppress'd and dumb with grief,
        The gods ordain this kind relief;
        That music should in sounds convey,
        What dying lovers dare not say.

        A sigh or tear perhaps she'll give,
        But love on pity cannot live.
        Tell her that hearts for hearts were made,
        And love with love is only paid.
        Tell her my pains so fast increase,
        That soon they will be past redress;
        But ah! the wretch that speechless lies,
        Attends but death to close his eyes.

Like drifts of balm from cedared glens, those darling memories come,
With soft low songs, and dear old tales, familiar to our home.
Then breathe again that faint refrain, so tender, sad, and true,
My soul turns round with listening eyes unto the harp and you!
The fragments of a broken Past are floating down the tide,
And she comes gleaming through the dark, my love, my life, my bride!
Oh! sit and sing I know her well, that phantom deadly fair
With large surprise, and sudden sighs, and streaming midnight hair!
I know her well, for face to face we stood amongst the sheaves,
Our voices mingling with a mist of music in the leaves!
I know her well, for hand in hand we walked beside the sea,
And heard the huddling waters boom beneath this old Figtree.

God help the man that goes a...

The dead woman lay in her first night's grave,
And twilight fell from the clouds' concave,
And those she had asked to forgive forgave.

The woman passing came to a pause
By the heaped white shapes of wreath and cross,
And looked upon where the other was.

And as she mused there thus spoke she:
"Never your countenance did I see,
But you've been a good good friend to me!"

Rose a plaintive voice from the sod below:
"O woman whose accents I do not know,
What is it that makes you approve me so?"

"O dead one, ere my soldier went,
I heard him saying, with warm intent,
To his friend, when won by your blandishment:

"'I would change for that lass here and now!
And if I return I may break my vow
To my present Love, and contrive somehow

The daylight is dying
Away in the west,
The wild birds are flying
in silence to rest;
In leafage and frondage
Where shadows are deep,
They pass to its bondage,
The kingdom of sleep
And watched in their sleeping
By stars in the height,
They rest in your keeping,
O wonderful night.
When night doth her glories
Of starshine unfold,
'Tis then that the stories
Of bush-land are told.

Unnumbered I told them
In memories bright,
But who could unfold them,
Or read them aright?
Beyond all denials
The stars in their glories,
The breeze in the myalls,
Are part of these stories.

The waving of grasses,
The song of the river
That sings as it passes
For ever and ever,
The hobble-chains' rattle,
The cal...

Far as the eye can see the land is grey,
And desolation sits among the stones
Looking on ruin who, from rocks like bones,
Stares with a dead face at the dying day.
Mounds, where the barberry and bay hold sway,
Show where homes rose once; where the village crones
Gossiped, and man, with many sighs and groans,
Laboured and loved and went its daily way.
Only the crow now, like a hag returned,
Croaks on the common that its hoarse voice mocks.
Meseems that here the sorrow of the earth
Has lost herself, and, with the past concerned,
Sits with the ghosts of dreams that haunt these rocks,
And old despairs to which man's soul gave birth.

Places I love come back to me like music,
Hush me and heal me when I am very tired;
I see the oak woods at Saxton's flaming
In a flare of crimson by the frost newly fired;

And I am thirsty for the spring in the valley
As for a kiss ungiven and long desired.
I know a bright world of snowy hills at Boonton,
A blue and white dazzling light on everything one sees,

The ice-covered branches of the hemlocks sparkle
Bending low and tinkling in the sharp thin breeze,
And iridescent crystals fall and crackle on the snow-crust
With the winter sun drawing cold blue shadows from the trees.

Violet now, in veil on veil of evening
The hills across from Cromwell grow dreamy and far;
A wood-thrush is singing soft as a viol
In the heart of the hollow where the dark ...

I have written, long years I have written,
For the sake of my people and right,
I was true when the iron had bitten
Deep into my soul in the night;
I wrote not for praise nor for money,
I craved but the soul and the pen,
And I felt not the sting in the honey
Of writing the kindness of men.

You read and you saw without seeing,
My work seemed a trifle apart,
While the truth of things thrilled through my being,
And the wrong of things murdered my heart!
Cast out, and despised and neglected,
And weak, and in fear, and in debt,
My songs, mutilated! rejected!
Shall ring through the Commonwealth yet!

And you to the pure and the guileless,
And the peace of your comfort and pride,
You have mocked at my bodily vileness,
You have tempted and ca...

I'm twenty-two - I'm twenty-two -
    They gaily give me joy,
As if I should be glad to hear
    That I was less a boy.
They do not know how carelessly
    Their words have given pain,
To one whose heart would leap to be
    A happy boy again.

I had a light and careless heart
    When this brief year began,
And then I pray'd that I might be
    A grave and perfect man.
The world was like a blessed dream
    Of joyous coming years -
I did not know its manliness
    Was but to wake in tears.

A change has on my spirit come,
    I am forever sad;
The light has all departed now
    My early feelings had;
I used to love the morning grey,
    The twilight's quiet deep,
But now like shadows on the sea,
    Upon my thought...

In a garb that was guiltless of colors
    She stood, with a dull, listless air -
A creature of dumps and of dolors,
    But most undeniably fair.

The folds of her garment fell round her,
    Revealing the curve of each limb;
Well proportioned and graceful I found her,
    Although quite alarmingly slim.

From the hem of her robe peeped one sandal -
    "High art" was she down to her feet;
And though I could not understand all
    She said, I could see she was sweet.

Impressed by her limpness and languor,
    I proffered a chair near at hand;
She looked back a mild sort of anger -
    Posed anew, and continued to stand.

Some praises I next tried to mutter
    Of the fan that she held to her face;
She said it was "utterly utter,...

When the beautiful mountain ash is turning -
    As lovely a sight as the eyes desire;
When the leaves of the sumac bush are burning,
    Like the steady flame of a winter fire;
When the weeds by the roadside all grow golden,
    When maples are glowing and asters gleam,
It is then that the new is changed to the olden,
    And back to my heart comes the past like a dream.

Like a mirage I see the blue haze o'er me,
    The City of Youth that I left behind.
Oh! whitely its turrets are gleaming before me,
    And out of the window lean faces kind.
And I hear the echo of jubilant voices;
    There are cheeks of beauty and eyes of truth:
And every pulse in my heart rejoices -
    There's no other place like the City of Youth.

And lo! the City is full of...

I know, although when looks meet
I tremble to the bone,
The more I leave the door unlatched
The sooner love is gone,
For love is but a skein unwound
Between the dark and dawn.

A lonely ghost the ghost is
That to God shall come;
I - love's skein upon the ground,
My body in the tomb -
Shall leap into the light lost
In my mother's womb.

But were I left to lie alone
In an empty bed,
The skein so bound us ghost to ghost
When he turned his head
passing on the road that night,
Mine must walk when dead.