Sadness

Among the myrtles as I walk'd
Love and my sighs thus intertalk'd:
Tell me, said I, in deep distress,
Where I may find my Shepherdess?
Thou fool, said Love, know'st thou not this?
In every thing that's sweet she is.
In yond' carnation go and seek,
There thou shalt find her lip and cheek;
In that enamell'd pansy by,
There thou shalt have her curious eye;
In bloom of peach and rose's bud,
There waves the streamer of her blood.
'Tis true, said I; and thereupon
I went to pluck them one by one,
To make of parts an union;
But on a sudden all were gone.
At which I stopp'd; Said Love, these be
The true resemblances of thee;
For as these flowers, thy joys must die;
And in the turning of an eye;
And all thy hopes of her must wither,
Like those sh...

How fond the rustic's ear at leisure dwells
On the soft soundings of his village bells,
As on a Sunday morning at his ease
He takes his rambles, just as fancies please,
Down narrow balks that intersect the fields,
Hid in profusion that its produce yields:
Long twining peas, in faintly misted greens;
And wing'd-leaf multitudes of crowding beans;
And flighty oatlands of a lighter hue;
And speary barley bowing down with dew;
And browning wheat-ear, on its taper stalk,
With gentle breezes bending o'er the balk,
Greeting the parting hand that brushes near
With patting welcomes of a plenteous year.
Or narrow lanes, where cool and gloomy-sweet
Hedges above-head in an arbour meet,
Meandering down, and resting for awhile
Upon a moss-clad molehill or a stile;
...

Ay, thou art for the grave; thy glances shine
Too brightly to shine long; another Spring
Shall deck her for men's eyes, but not for thine,
Sealed in a sleep which knows no wakening.
The fields for thee have no medicinal leaf,
And the vexed ore no mineral of power;
And they who love thee wait in anxious grief
Till the slow plague shall bring the fatal hour.
Glide softly to thy rest then; Death should come
Gently, to one of gentle mould like thee,
As light winds wandering through groves of bloom
Detach the delicate blossom from the tree.
Close thy sweet eyes, calmly, and without pain;
And we will trust in God to see thee yet again.

With sweet Regret—(the dearest thing that Yesterday has left us)—
We often turn our homeless eyes to scenes whence Fate has reft us.
Here sitting by a fading flame, wild waifs of song remind me
Of Annie with her gentle ways, the Girl I left behind me.

I stood beside the surging sea, with lips of silent passion—
I faced you by the surging sea, O brows of mild repression!
I never said—“My darling, stay!”—the moments seemed to bind me
To something stifling all my words for the Girl I left behind me.

The pathos worn by common things—by every wayside flower,
Or Autumn leaf on lonely winds, revives the parting hour.
Ye swooning thoughts without a voice—ye tears which rose to blind me,
Why did she fade into the Dark, the Girl I left behind me.

At night they always come...

A month or twain to live on honeycomb
Is pleasant; but one tires of scented time,
Cold sweet recurrence of accepted rhyme,
And that strong purple under juice and foam
Where the wine’s heart has burst;
Nor feel the latter kisses like the first.

Once yet, this poor one time; I will not pray
Even to change the bitterness of it,
The bitter taste ensuing on the sweet,
To make your tears fall where your soft hair lay
All blurred and heavy in some perfumed wise
Over my face and eyes.

And yet who knows what end the scythèd wheat
Makes of its foolish poppies’ mouths of red?
These were not sown, these are not harvested,
They grow a month and are cast under feet
And none has care thereof,
As none has care of a divided love.

I know each shadow ...

That was the sound of the wicket!
That was the latch as it rose!
    No--the wind that through the thicket
    Of the poplars whirring goes.

Put on thy beauty, foliage-vaulted roof,
Her to receive: with silent welcome grace her;
Ye branches build a shadowy room, eye-proof,
With lovely night and stillness to embrace her,
Ye airs caressing, wake, nor keep aloof,
In sport and gambol turning still to face her,
As, with its load of beauty, lightly borne,
Glides in the fairy foot, and dawns my morn.

What is that rustling the hedges?
She, with her hurrying pace?
    No, a bird among the sedges,
    Startled from its hiding-place!

Quench thy sunk torch, O Day! Steal out, appear,
Dim, ghostly Night, with dumbness us entrancing!
Spread thy ro...

On the lone waters' shore
    Wander I yet;
Brooding those moments o'er
    I should forget.
'Till the broad foaming surge
    Warns me to fly,
While despair's whispers urge
    To stay and die.
When the night's solemn watch
    Falls on the seas,
'Tis thy voice that I catch
    In the low breeze;
When the moon sheds her light
    On things below,
Beams not her ray so bright,
    Like thy young brow?
Spirit immortal! say,
    When wilt thou come,
To marshal me the way
    To my long home?

O'er the wide heath now moon-tide horrors hung,
And night's dark pencil dimm'd the tints of spring;
The boding minstrel now harsh omens sung,
And the bat spread his dark nocturnal wing.

At that still hour, pale Cynthia oft had seen
The fair Eliza (joyous once and gay),
With pensive step, and melancholy mien,
O'er the broad plain in love-born anguish stray.

Long had her heart with Henry's been entwined,
And love's soft voice had waked the sacred blaze
Of Hymen's altar; while, with him combined,
His cherub train prepared the torch to raise:

When, lo! his standard raging war uprear'd,
And honour call'd her Henry from her charms.
He fought, but ah! torn, mangled, blood-besmear'd,
Fell, nobly fell, amid his conquering arms!

In her sad bosom,...

The punctual tide draws up the bay,
With ripple of wave and hiss of spray,
And the great red flower of the light-house tower
Blooms on the headland far away.

Petal by petal its fiery rose
Out of the darkness buds and grows;
A dazzling shape on the dim, far cape,
A beckoning shape as it comes and goes.

A moment of bloom, and then it dies
On the windy cliff 'twixt the sea and skies.
The fog laughs low to see it go,
And the white waves watch it with cruel eyes.

Then suddenly out of the mist-cloud dun,
As touched and wooed by unseen sun,
Again into sight bursts the rose of light
And opens its petals one by one.

Ah, the storm may be wild and the sea be strong,
And man is weak and the darkness long,
But while blossoms the flower on ...

Of all the blessings which my life has known,
I value most, and most praise God for three:
Want, Loneliness, and Pain, those comrades true,

Who masqueraded in the garb of foes
For many a year, and filled my heart with dread.
Yet fickle joys, like false, pretentious friends,
Have proved less worthy than this trio.    First,

Want taught me labour, led me up the steep
And toilsome paths to hills of pure delight,
Trod only by the feet that know fatigue,
And yet press on until the heights appear.

Then loneliness and hunger of the heart
Sent me upreaching to the realms of space,
Till all the silences grew eloquent,
And all their loving forces hailed me friend.

Last, pain taught prayer! placed in my hand the staff
Of close communion with the o...

    I evaded capture today
    with only a handful of dust
    to escape that Old Sandman Death.

    Certainly, those maroon berries,
    so large & luscious,
    crowded on their fat stems
    had something to do with it
    as did the ground fog
    leaving its burrow as so many boll-weevils
    their crowded nests.

    And there might be something to the fact
    the moonlight sat
    fat & confidant in the night sky
    as surely
    as my head rests on this pillow
    and the poem invites itself
    into my lair of thoughts,
    much as nestlings charge the
    entrance to the runway
    of a tree.

    I walked flat out
    in an instance
    as standing urine
    held its own stench
    an...

Now must I these three praise,
Three women that have wrought
What joy is in my days;
One that no passing thought,
Nor those unpassing cares,
No, not in these fifteen
Many times troubled years,
Could ever come between
Heart and delighted heart;
And one because her hand
Had strength that could unbind
What none can understand,
What none can have and thrive,
Youth’s dreamy load, till she
So changed me that I live
Labouring in ecstasy.
And what of her that took
All till my youth was gone
With scarce a pitying look?
How could I praise that one?
When day begins to break
I count my good and bad,
Being wakeful for her sake,
Remembering what she had,
What eagle look still shows,
While up from my heart’s root
So great a s...

        I.

Oh, to see in the night in a May moon's light
A nymph from siren caves,
With a crown of pearl, sea-gems in each curl
Dance down white, star-stained waves!
Oh, to list in the gloam by the pearly foam
Of a sad, far-sounding shore
The strain of the shell of an ocean belle
From caves where the waters roar!
With a hollow shell drift up in the moon
To sigh in my ears this ocean tune: -


        II.

"Wilt follow, wilt follow to caverns hollow,
That echo the tumbling spry?
Wilt follow thy queen to islands green,
Vague islands of witchery?
O follow, follow to grottoes hollow,
And isles in a purple sea,
Where rich roses twine and the lush woodbine
Weaves a musky canopy!"


        III.

Oh, to flo...

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning my pilot sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;
Over ea...

I.

    Now Nature hangs her mantle green
        On every blooming tree,
    And spreads her sheets o' daisies white
        Out o'er the grassy lea:
    Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,
        And glads the azure skies;
    But nought can glad the weary wight
        That fast in durance lies.

II.

    Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn,
        Aloft on dewy wing;
    The merle, in his noontide bow'r,
        Makes woodland echoes ring;
    The mavis wild wi' mony a note,
        Sings drowsy day to rest:
    In love and freedom they rejoice,
        Wi' care nor thrall opprest.

III.

    Now blooms the lily by the bank,
        The primrose down the brae;
    The hawthorn's budding in the glen,

There will come soft rains and the
smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

An as it's going often at love's breaking,
The ghost of first days came again to us,
The silver willow through window then stretched in,
The silver beauty of her gentle branches.
The bird began to sing the song of light and pleasure
To us, who fears to lift looks from the earth,
Who are so lofty, bitter and intense,
About days when we were saved together.

Come to me soft-eyed sleep,
With your ermine sandalled feet;
Press the pain from my troubled brow
With your kisses cool and sweet;
Lull me with slumbrous song,
Song of your clime, the blest,
While on my heavy eyelids
Your dewy fingers rest.

Come with your native flowers,
Heartsease and lotus bloom,
Enwrap my weary senses
With the cloud of their perfume;
For the whispers of thought tire me,
Their constant, dull repeat,
Like low waves throbbing, sobbing,
With endless, endless beat.