Sadness

O truant Muse what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dy’d?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
So dost thou too, and therein dignified.
Make answer Muse: wilt thou not haply say,
‘Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix’d;
Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay;
But best is best, if never intermix’d’?
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?
Excuse not silence so, for’t lies in thee
To make him much outlive a gilded tomb
And to be prais’d of ages yet to be.
Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how
To make him seem long hence as he shows now.

    I. Edwin Booth

An old actor at the Player's Club told me that Edwin Booth first impersonated Hamlet when a barnstormer in California. There were few theatres, but the hotels were provided with crude assembly rooms for strolling players.


The youth played in the blear hotel.
The rafters gleamed with glories strange.
And winds of mourning Elsinore
Howling at chance and fate and change;
Voices of old Europe's dead
Disturbed the new-built cattle-shed,
The street, the high and solemn range.

The while the coyote barked afar
All shadowy was the battlement.
The ranch-boys huddled and grew pale,
Youths who had come on riot bent.
Forgot were pranks well-planned to sting.
Behold there rose a ghostly king,
And veils of smoking Hell were rent.

Come, walk with me and Memory;
And let us see what we shall see:
A wild green lane of stones and weeds
That to a wilder woodland leads.
An old board gate, the lichens crust,
Whose ancient hinges croak with rust.
A vale; a creek; and a bridge of planks,
And the wild sunflowers that wall its banks:
A path that winds through shine and shade
To a ferned and wildflowered forest glade;
Where, out of a grotto, a voice replies
With a faint hollo to your voice that cries:
And every wind that passes seems
A foot that follows from Lands o' Dreams.
A voice, a foot, and a shadow, too,
That whispers of things your childhood knew:
A girl that waited, a boy that came,
And an old beech tree where he carved her name;
Where still he sees her, whom still he hears
B...

Why did you give no hint that night
That quickly after the morrow's dawn,
And calmly, as if indifferent quite,
You would close your term here, up and be gone
    Where I could not follow
    With wing of swallow
To gain one glimpse of you ever anon!

    Never to bid good-bye,
    Or give me the softest call,
Or utter a wish for a word, while I
Saw morning harden upon the wall,
    Unmoved, unknowing
    That your great going
Had place that moment, and altered all.

Why do you make me leave the house
And think for a breath it is you I see
At the end of the alley of bending boughs
Where so often at dusk you used to be;
    Till in darkening dankness
    The yawning blankness
Of the perspective sickens me!

    You were sh...

        Wae worth thy power, thou cursed leaf,
        Fell source o' a' my woe an' grief;
        For lack o' thee I've lost my lass,
        For lack o' thee I scrimp my glass.
        I see the children of affliction
        Unaided, through thy cursed restriction
        I've seen the oppressor's cruel smile
        Amid his hapless victim's spoil:
        And for thy potence vainly wished,
        To crush the villain in the dust.
    For lack o' thee, I leave this much-lov'd shore,
    Never, perhaps, to greet old Scotland more.

R. B.

Here in the silent doorway let me linger
One moment, for the porch is still and lonely;
That shadow's but the rose vine in the moonlight;
All are asleep in peace, I waken only,
And he I wait, by my own heart's beating
I know how slow to him the tide creeps by,
Nor life, nor death, could bar our hearts from meeting;
Were worlds between, his soul to mine would fly.

Oh, shame! to think a heap of paltry metal
Should overbalance manhood's noblest graces;
A film of gold had gilt his worth and honor,
Warming to smiles the coldness of their faces;
Gentle to me, they rise in condemnation,
And plead with me than words more powerfully.
Oh! well I love them - but they have wealth and station
To fill their hearts, and he has only me.

But oh, my roses, how their...

‘Number four, the girl who died on the table,
The girl with golden hair,’
The purpling body lies on the polished marble.
We open the throat, and lay the thyroid bare . . .

One, who held the ether-cone, remembers
Her dark blue frightened eyes.
He heard the sharp breath quiver, and saw her breast
More hurriedly fall and rise.
Her hands made futile gestures, she turned her head
Fighting for breath; her cheeks were flushed to scarlet,
And, suddenly, she lay dead.

And all the dreams that hurried along her veins
Came to the darkness of a sudden wall.
Confusion ran among them, they whirled and clamored,
They fell, they rose, they struck, they shouted,
Till at last a pallor of silence hushed them all.

What was her name? Where had she walked that morn...

Dead! and all the haughty fate
Fair on throat and face of wax,
White, calm hands crossed still and lax,
Cold, impassionate!

Dead! and no word whispered low
At the dull ear now could wake
One responsive chord or make
One wan temple glow.

Dead! and no hot tear would stir
All that woman sweet and fair,
Woman soul from feet to hair
Which was once of her.

God! and thus to die! and I -
I must live though life be but
One long, hard, monotonous rut,
There to plod and - die!

Creeds are well in such a case;
But no sermon could have wrought
More of faith than you have taught
With your pale, dead face.

And I see it as you see -
One mistake, so very small!
Yet so great it mangled all,
Left you this and me!

"In the fair land o'erwatched by Ischia's mountains,
Across the charmed bay
Whose blue waves keep with Capri's silver fountains
Perpetual holiday,

A king lies dead, his wafer duly eaten,
His gold-bought masses given;
And Rome's great altar smokes with gums to sweeten
Her foulest gift to Heaven.

And while all Naples thrills with mute thanksgiving,
The court of England's queen
For the dead monster so abhorred while living
In mourning garb is seen.

With a true sorrow God rebukes that feigning;
By lone Edgbaston's side
Stands a great city in the sky's sad raining,
Bareheaded and wet-eyed!

Silent for once the restless hive of labor,
Save the low funeral tread,
Or voice of craftsman whispering to his neighbor
The good deeds of ...

Dear mother, dry those flowing tears,
    They grieve me much to see;
And calm, oh! calm thine anxious fears -
    What dost thou dread for me?
'Tis true that tempests wild oft ride
    Above the stormy main,
But, then, in Him I will confide
    Who doth their bounds ordain.

I go to win renown and fame
    Upon the glorious sea;
But still my heart will be the same -
    I'll ever turn to thee!
See, yonder wait our gallant crew,
    So, weep not, mother dear;
My father was a sailor too -
    What hast thou then to fear?

Is it not better I should seek
    To win the name he bore,
Than waste my youth in pastimes weak
    Upon the tiresome shore?
Then, look not thus so sad and wan,
For yet your son you'll see
Return with w...

Below me half a world I see outspread;
        Above, blue heaven; around, peaks of snow;
And yet the happy pulse of life is slow,
        I dream of distant places, pleasures dead.
The woods of Lithuania I would tread
        Where happy-throated birds sing songs I know;
Above the trembling marshland I would go
        Where chill-winged curlews dip and call o'er head.

A tragic, lonely terror grips my heart,
        A longing for some peaceful, gentle place,
And memories of youthful love I trace.
        Unto my childhood home I long to start,
And yet if all the leaves my name could cry
        She would not pause nor heed as she passed by.

    I

    The sea moans and the stars are bright,
    The leaves lisp 'neath a rolling moon.
    I shut my eyes against the night
    And make believe the time is June,
    The June that left us over-soon.

    This is the path and this the place
    We sat and watched the moving sea,
    And I the moonlight on your face.
    We were not happy, woe is me,
    Happiness is but memory!

    It seemeth, now that you are gone,
    My heart a measured pain doth keep:
    Are you now, as I am, alone?
    Do you make merry, do you weep?
    In whose arms are you now asleep?

Tha bonny little pooasy! aw'm inclined
To tak thee wi' me:
But yet aw think if tha could spaik thi mind,
Tha'd ne'er forgie me;
For i' mi jacket button-hoil tha'd quickly dee,
An life is short enuff, booath for mi-sen an thee.

Here, if aw leeav thee bi th' rooadside to flourish,
Whear scoors may pass thee;
Some heart 'at has few other joys to cherish
May stop an bless thee:
Then bloom, mi little pooasy! Tha'rt a beauty!
Sent here to bless: Smile on - tha does thi duty.

Aw wodn't rob another of a joy
Sich as tha's gien me;
For aw felt varry sad, mi little doy
Until aw'd seen thee.
An may each passin, careworn, lowly brother,
Feel cheered like me, an leeav thee for another.

Between two pillared clouds of gold
The beautiful gates of evening swung --
And far and wide from flashing fold
The half-furled banners of light, that hung
O'er green of wood and gray of wold
And over the blue where the river rolled,
The fading gleams of their glory flung.

The sky wore not a frown all day
To mar the smile of the morning tide;
The soft-voiced winds sang joyous lay --
You never would think they had ever sighed;
The stream went on its sunlit way
In ripples of laughter; happy they
As the hearts that met at Riverside.

No cloudlet in the sky serene!
Not a silver speck in the golden hue!
But where the woods waved low and green,
And seldom would let the sunlight through,
Sweet shadows fell, and in their screen,
The faces of ...

    Along the branches of the laden tree
        The ripe fruit smiling hang.    The afternoon
    Is emptied of all things done and things to be.
        Low in the sky the inconspicuous moon
    Stares enviously upon the mellow earth,
    That mocks her barren girth.

    Ripe blackberries and long green trailing grass
        Are motionless beneath the heavy light:
    The happy birds and creeping things that pass
        Go fitfully and stir as if in fright,
    That they have broken on some mystery
    In bramble or in tree.

    This is no hour for beings that are maiden;
        The spring is virgin, lightly afraid and cold,
    But now the whole round earth is ripe and laden
        And stirs beneath her coverlet of gold
    And in her agony ...

Autumn, I love thy parting look to view
In cold November's day, so bleak and bare,
When, thy life's dwindled thread worn nearly thro',
With ling'ring, pott'ring pace, and head bleach'd bare,
Thou, like an old man, bidd'st the world adieu.
I love thee well: and often, when a child,
Have roam'd the bare brown heath a flower to find;
And in the moss-clad vale, and wood-bank wild
Have cropt the little bell-flowers, pearly blue,
That trembling peep the shelt'ring bush behind.
When winnowing north-winds cold and bleaky blew,
How have I joy'd, with dithering hands, to find,
Each fading flower; and still how sweet the blast,
Would bleak November's hour restore the joy that's past.

        Only until this cigarette is ended,
        A little moment at the end of all,
        While on the floor the quiet ashes fall,
        And in the firelight to a lance extended,
        Bizarrely with the jazzing music blended,
        The broken shadow dances on the wall,
        I will permit my memory to recall
        The vision of you, by all my dreams attended.
        And then adieu,--farewell!--the dream is done.
        Yours is a face of which I can forget
        The color and the features, every one,
        The words not ever, and the smiles not yet;
        But in your day this moment is the sun
        Upon a hill, after the sun has set.

O the old wall here! How I could pass
Life in a long midsummer day,
My feet confined to a plot of grass,
My eyes from a wall not once away!

And lush and lithe do the creepers clothe
Yon wall I watch, with a wealth of green:
Its bald red bricks draped, nothing loath,
In lappets of tangle they laugh between.

Now, what is it makes pulsate the robe?
Why tremble the sprays? What life o'erbrims
The body, the house no eye can probe,
Divined, as beneath a robe, the limbs?

And there again! But my heart may guess
Who tripped behind; and she sang, perhaps:
So the old wall throbbed, and it's life's excess
Died out and away in the leafy wraps.

Wall upon wall are between us: life
And song should away from heart to heart!
I prison-bird, with...