Sadness

My crippled sense fares bow'd along
His uncompanioned way,
And wronged by death pays life with wrong
And I wake by night and dream by day.

And the Morning seems but fatigued Night
That hath wept his visage pale,
And the healthy mark 'twixt dark and light
In sickly sameness out doth fail.

And the woods stare strange, and the wind is dumb,
- O Wind, pray talk again -
And the Hand of the Frost spreads stark and numb
As Death's on the deadened window-pane.

Still dumb, thou Wind, old voluble friend?
And the middle of the day is cold,
And the heart of eve beats lax i' the end
As a legend's climax poorly told.

Oh vain the up-straining of the hands
In the chamber late at night,
Oh vain the complainings, the hot demands,
The praye...

Far up in the wild and wintery hills in the heart of the cliff-broken woods,
Where the mounded drifts lie soft and deep in the noiseless solitudes,
The hut of the lonely woodcutter stands, a few rough beams that show
A blunted peak and a low black line, from the glittering waste of snow.
In the frost-still dawn from his roof goes up in the windless, motionless air,
The thin, pink curl of leisurely smoke; through the forest white and bare
The woodcutter follows his narrow trail, and the morning rings and cracks
With the rhythmic jet of his sharp-blown breath and the echoing shout of his axe.
Only the waft of the wind besides, or the stir of some hardy bird -
The call of the friendly chickadee, or the pat of the nuthatch - is heard;
Or a rustle comes from a dusky clump, where the busy siskin...

I still walk slowly on the river bank
Where I came singing,
And where I saw your boat pass up beyond the sun
Setting red in the river.
I want Autumn,
I want the leaves to begin falling at once,
So that the cold time may bring us close again
Like K'ien Niü and Chik Nü, the two stars.

Each year when Autumn comes
The crows make a black bridge across the milky sea,
And then these two poor stars
Can run together in gold and be at peace.
Darling, for my sake work hard
And be received with honour at the Examinations.

Since I saw your boat pass up beyond the sun
I have forgotten how to sing
And how to paddle the canoe across the lake.
I know how to sit down and how to be sad,
And I know how to say nothing;
But every other art has slipped awa...

Love one day, in childish anger,
Tired of his divinity,
Sick of rapture, sick of languor,
Threw his arrows in the sea.
Since then Ocean, like a woman,
Variable of nature seems:
Smiling; cruel; kind; inhuman;
Gloomed with grief and drowned in dreams.

[W. L. C.]


Sit closer, friends, around the board!
    Death grants us yet a little time.
Now let the cheering cup be poured,
    And welcome song and jest and rhyme.
Enjoy the gifts that fortune sends.
            Sit closer, friends!

And yet, we pause. With trembling lip
    We strive the fitting phrase to make;
Remembering our fellowship,
    Lamenting Destiny's mistake.
We marvel much when Fate offends,
            And claims our friends.

Companion of our nights of mirth,
    Where all were merry who were wise;
Does Death quite understand your worth,
    And know the value of his prize?
I doubt me if he comprehends -
            He knows no friends.

And in that realm is there no joy
    Of comrades and the j...

The springtime's pallid landscape
Will glow like bright bouquet,
Though drifted deep in parian
The village lies to-day.

The lilacs, bending many a year,
With purple load will hang;
The bees will not forget the tune
Their old forefathers sang.

The rose will redden in the bog,
The aster on the hill
Her everlasting fashion set,
And covenant gentians frill,

Till summer folds her miracle
As women do their gown,
Or priests adjust the symbols
When sacrament is done.

Go, foolish thoughts, and join the throng
Of myriads gone before;
To flutter and flap and flit along
The airy limbo shore.

Go, words of sport and words of wit,
Sarcastic point and fine,
And words of wisdom, wholly fit
With folly’s to combine.

Go, words of wisdom, words of sense,
Which, while the heart belied,
The tongue still uttered for pretence,
The inner blank to hide.

Go, words of wit, so gay, so light,
That still were meant express
To soothe the smart of fancied slight
By fancies of success.

Go, broodings vain o’er fancied wrong;
Go, love-dreams vainer still;
And scorn that’s not, but would be, strong;
And Pride without a Will.

Go, foolish thoughts, and find your way
Where myriads went before,
To...

By scattered rocks and turbid waters shifting,
By furrowed glade and dell,
To feverish men thy calm, sweet face uplifting,
Thou stayest them to tell

The delicate thought that cannot find expression,
For ruder speech too fair,
That, like thy petals, trembles in possession,
And scatters on the air.

The miner pauses in his rugged labor,
And, leaning on his spade,
Laughingly calls unto his comrade-neighbor
To see thy charms displayed.

But in his eyes a mist unwonted rises,
And for a moment clear
Some sweet home face his foolish thought surprises,
And passes in a tear,

Some boyish vision of his Eastern village,
Of uneventful toil,
Where golden harvests followed quiet tillage
Above a peaceful soil.

One moment only; f...

Oh that a Song would sing itself to me
    Out of the heart of Nature, or the heart
    Of man, the child of Nature, not of Art,
    Fresh as the morning, salt as the salt sea,
With just enough of bitterness to be
    A medicine to this sluggish mood, and start
    The life-blood in my veins, and so impart
    Healing and help in this dull lethargy!
Alas! not always doth the breath of song
    Breathe on us.    It is like the wind that bloweth
    At its own will, not ours, nor tarries long;
We hear the sound thereof, but no man knoweth
    From whence it comes, so sudden and swift and strong,
    Nor whither in its wayward course it goeth.

A handsome woman's tantalizing gaze
Gliding our way as softly as the beam
The sinuous moon sends out in silver sheen
Across the lake to bathe her careless rays;

His purse of cash, the gambler's last relief;
A flaming kiss from slender Adeline;.
Music, which sounds a faint, unnerving whine
That seems the distant cry of human grief,

Great jug, all these together are not worth
The penetrating balms within your girth
Saved for the pious poet's thirsting soul;

You pour out for him youth, and life, and hope
And pride, the treasure of the beggar folk,
Which makes us like the Gods, triumphant, whole!

Piovonmi amare lagrime dal viso.

HIS STATE WHEN LAURA IS PRESENT, AND WHEN SHE DEPARTS.


    Down my cheeks bitter tears incessant rain,
And my heart struggles with convulsive sighs,
When, Laura, upon you I turn my eyes,
For whom the world's allurements I disdain,
But when I see that gentle smile again,
That modest, sweet, and tender smile, arise,
It pours on every sense a blest surprise;
Lost in delight is all my torturing pain.
Too soon this heavenly transport sinks and dies:
When all thy soothing charms my fate removes
At thy departure from my ravish'd view.
To that sole refuge its firm faith approves
My spirit from my ravish'd bosom flies,
And wing'd with fond remembrance follows you.

CAPEL LOFFT.


    Tears, b...

Bonny little Blue-bells
Mid young brackens green,
'Neath the hedgerows peeping
Modestly between;
Telling us that Summer
Is not far away,
When your beauties blend with
Blossoms of the May.

Sturdy, tangled hawthorns,
Fleck'd with white or red,
Whilst their nutty incense,
All around is shed.
Bonny drooping Blue-bells,
Happy you must be
With your beauties sheltered
'Neath such fragrant tree.

You need fear no rival, -
Other blossoms blown,
With their varied beauties
But enhance your own.
Steals the soft wind gently,
'Round th' enchanted spot,
Sets your bells a-ringing
Though we hear them not.

Idle Fancy wanders
As you shake and swing,
Our hearts shape the message
We would have you bring.
...

The Knight had ridden down from Wensley Moor
With the slow motion of a summer's cloud,
And now, as he approached a vassal's door,
"Bring forth another horse!" he cried aloud.

"Another horse!" That shout the vassal heard
And saddled his best Steed, a comely grey;
Sir Walter mounted him; he was the third
Which he had mounted on that glorious day.

Joy sparkled in the prancing courser's eyes;
The horse and horseman are a happy pair;
But, though Sir Walter like a falcon flies,
There is a doleful silence in the air.

A rout this morning left Sir Walter's Hall,
That as they galloped made the echoes roar;
But horse and man are vanished, one and all;
Such race, I think, was never seen before.

Sir Walter, restless as a veering wind,
Calls to ...

O Dearly loved!
And worthy of our love! No more
Thy aged form shall rise before
The bushed and waiting worshiper,
In meek obedience utterance giving
To words of truth, so fresh and living,
That, even to the inward sense,
They bore unquestioned evidence
Of an anointed Messenger!
Or, bowing down thy silver hair
In reverent awfulness of prayer,
The world, its time and sense, shut out
The brightness of Faith's holy trance
Gathered upon thy countenance,
As if each lingering cloud of doubt,
The cold, dark shadows resting here
In Time's unluminous atmosphere,
Were lifted by an angel's hand,
And through them on thy spiritual eye
Shone down the blessedness on high,
The glory of the Better Land!

The oak has fallen!
While, meet for no ...

An Ode. 1685.


I.

    Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,
    Made in the last promotion of the blest;
    Whose palms, new pluck'd from Paradise,
    In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
    Rich with immortal green above the rest:
    Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star,
    Thou roll'st above us, in thy wandering race,
        Or, in procession fix'd and regular,
        Mov'st with the heavens' majestic pace;
        Or, call'd to more superior bliss,
    Thou tread'st, with seraphims, the vast abyss:

    Whatever happy region is thy place,
    Cease thy celestial song a little space;
    Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,
        Since Heaven's eternal year is thine.
    Hear then a mortal Muse th...

Tune - "Where'll bonnie Ann lie."

I.

    O stay, sweet warbling woodlark, stay!
    Nor quit for me the trembling spray;
    A hapless lover courts thy lay,
        Thy soothing fond complaining.

II.

    Again, again that tender part,
        That I may catch thy melting art;
    For surely that would touch her heart,
        Wha kills me wi' disdaining.

III.

    Say, was thy little mate unkind,
    And heard thee as the careless wind?
    Oh, nocht but love and sorrow join'd,
        Sic notes o' woe could wauken.

IV.

    Thou tells o' never-ending care;
    O' speechless grief and dark despair:
    For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae mair!
        Or my poor heart is broken!

River! that in silence windest
Through the meadows, bright and free,
Till at length thy rest thou findest
In the bosom of the sea!

Four long years of mingled feeling,
Half in rest, and half in strife,
I have seen thy waters stealing
Onward, like the stream of life.

Thou hast taught me, Silent River!
    Many a lesson, deep and long;
Thou hast been a generous giver;
    I can give thee but a song.

Oft in sadness and in illness,
    I have watched thy current glide,
Till the beauty of its stillness
    Overflowed me, like a tide.

And in better hours and brighter,
    When I saw thy waters gleam,
I have felt my heart beat lighter,
    And leap onward with thy stream.

Not for this alone I love thee,
    Nor be...

Thin, chisel-fine a cricket chipped
The crystal silence into sound;
And where the branches dreamed and dripped
A grasshopper its dagger stripped
And on the humming darkness ground.

A bat, against the gibbous moon,
Danced, imp-like, with its lone delight;
The glow-worm scrawled a golden rune
Upon the dark; and, emerald-strewn,
The firefly hung with lamps the night.

The flowers said their beads in prayer,
Dew-syllables of sighed perfume;
Or talked of two, soft-standing there,
One like a gladiole, straight and fair,
And one like some rich poppy-bloom.

The mignonette and feverfew
Laid their pale brows together:" See!"
One whispered. "Did their step thrill through
Your roots?"" Like rain."" I touched the two
And a new bud was born i...