Sadness

I'd a dream last night of my boyhood's days,
And the scenes where my youth was spent;
And I roamed the old woods where the squirrel plays,
Full of frolicsome merriment.
And I walked by the brook, and its silvery tone,
Seemed to soothe me again as of yore;
And I stood by the cottage with moss overgrown
And the woodbine that trailed round the door.

No change could I see in the garden plot,
The flowers bloomed brightly around,
And one little bed of forget-me-not
In its own little corner I found.
The sky had a home-look, the breeze seemed to sigh,
In the strain I remembered so well,
And the little brown sparrows looked cunning and shy,
As though anxious some story to tell.

But as quietness reigned and a loneliness fell,
O'er the place that had onc...

I've had the heart-ache many times,
At the mere mention of a name
I've never woven in my rhymes,
Though from it inspiration came.
It is in truth a holy thing,
Life-cherished from the world apart--
A dove that never tries its wing,
But broods and nestles in the heart.

That name of melody recalls
Her gentle look and winning ways
Whose portrait hangs on memory's walls,
In the fond light of other days.
In the dream-land of Poetry,
Reclining in its leafy bowers,
Her bright eyes in the stars I see,
And her sweet semblance in the flowers.

Her artless dalliance and grace--
The joy that lighted up her brow--
The sweet expression of her face--
Her form--it stands before me now!
And I can fancy that I hear
The woodland songs she used ...

    Over the mountains, under the snow
Lieth a valley cold and low,
'Neath a white, immovable pall,
Desolate, dreary, soulless all,
And soundless, save when the wintry blast
Sweeps with funeral music past.

    Yet was that valley not always so,
For I trod its summer-paths long ago;
And I gathered flowers of fairest dyes
Where now the snow-drift heaviest lies;
And I drank from rills that, with murmurous song,
Wandered in golden light along
Through bowers, whose ever-fragrant air
Was heavy with perfume of flowrets fair, -
Through cool, green meadows where, all day long,
The wild bee droned his voluptuous song;
While over all shone the eye of Love
In the violet-tinted heavens above.

    And through that valley ran veins of gold,
And the...

I read, before my eyelids dropt their shade,
‘The Legend of Good Women,’ long ago
Sung by the morning star of song, who made
His music heard below;

Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath
Preluded those melodious bursts that fill
The spacious times of great Elizabeth
With sounds that echo still.

And, for a while, the knowledge of his art
Held me above the subject, as strong gales
Hold swollen clouds from raining, tho’ my heart,
Brimful of those wild tales,

Charged both mine eyes with tears. In every land
I saw, wherever light illumineth,
Beauty and anguish walking hand in hand
The downward slope to death.

Those far-renowned brides of ancient song
Peopled the hollow dark, like burning stars,
And I heard sounds of ins...

In drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity:
The north cannot undo them
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.


In drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne'er remember
Apollo's summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.


Ah! would 'twere so with many
A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writhed not at passed joy?
The feel of not to feel it,
When there is none to heal it
Nor numbed sense to steel it,
Was never said in rhyme.

Towards the hills of Jamberoo
Some few fantastic shadows haste,
Uplit with fires
Like castle spires
Outshining through a mirage waste.
Behold, a mournful glory sits
On feathered ferns and woven brakes,
Where sobbing wild like restless child
The gusty breeze of evening wakes!
Methinks I hear on every breath
A lofty tone go passing by,
That whispers “Weave,
Though wood winds grieve,
The fadeless blooms of Poesy!”

A spirit hand has been abroad
An evil hand to pluck the flowers
A world of wealth,
And blooming health
Has gone from fragrant seaside bowers.
The twilight waxeth dim and dark,
The sad waves mutter sounds of woe,
But the evergreen retains its sheen,
And happy hearts exist below;
But pleasure sparkles on the sward,...

There’s music wafting on the air,
The evening winds are sighing
Among the trees and yonder stream
Is mournfully replying,
Lamenting loud the sunny light
That in the west is dying.

The moon is rising o’er the hill,
Her slanting rays are creeping
Where Nature lies profoundly still
In happy quiet sleeping,
And resting on her face, they’ll find
The earth is wet with weeping.

She mourneth for the lovely day,
Now deep in darkness shaded;
She sheds the dewy tear because
Of morning’s mantle faded;
She misses from her breast the garb
In which the moon array’d it.

The evening queen will strive in vain
To break the spell which bound her;
A million stars can never throw
Departed warmth around her;
They all must pass away and...

They tell me, Lucy, thou art dead,
That all of thee we loved and cherished
Has with thy summer roses perished;
And left, as its young beauty fled,
An ashen memory in its stead,
The twilight of a parted day
Whose fading light is cold and vain,
The heart's faint echo of a strain
Of low, sweet music passed away.
That true and loving heart, that gift
Of a mind, earnest, clear, profound,
Bestowing, with a glad unthrift,
Its sunny light on all around,
Affinities which only could
Cleave to the pure, the true, and good;
And sympathies which found no rest,
Save with the loveliest and best.
Of them, of thee, remains there naught
But sorrow in the mourner's breast?
A shadow in the land of thought?
No! Even my weak and trembling faith
Can lift for...

Hills where once my love and I
Let the hours go laughing by!
All your woods and dales are sad,--
You have lost your Oread.
Falling leaves! Silent woodlands!
Half your loveliness is fled.
Golden-rod, wither now!
Winter winds, come hither now!
All the summer joy is dead.

There's a sense of something gone
In the grass I linger on.
There's an under-voice that grieves
In the rustling of the leaves.
Pine-clad peaks! Rushing waters!
Glens where we were once so glad!
There's a light passed from you,
There's a joy outcast from you,--
You have lost your Oread.

The full-orbed Paschal moon; dark shadows flung
On the brown Lenten earth; tall spectral trees
Stand in their huge and naked strength erect,
And stretch wild arms towards the gleaming sky.
A motionless girl-figure, face upraised
In the strong moonlight, cold and passionless.

    *    *    *    *    *

A proud spring sunset; opal-tinted sky,
Save where the western purple, pale and faint
With longing for her fickle Love, - content
Had merged herself into his burning red.
A fair young maiden, clad in velvet robe
Of sombre green, stands in the golden glow,
One hand held up to shade her dazzled eyes,
A bunch of white Narcissus at her throat.

    *    *    *    *    *

November's day, dark, leaden, lowering, -
Grey purple shadows fading on...

I dwell alone - I dwell alone, alone,
    Whilst full my river flows down to the sea,
Gilded with flashing boats
    That bring no friend to me:
O love-songs, gurgling from a hundred throats,
    O love-pangs, let me be.

Fair fall the freighted boats which gold and stone
    And spices bear to sea:
Slim, gleaming maidens swell their mellow notes,
    Love-promising, entreating -
    Ah! sweet, but fleeting -
    Beneath the shivering, snow-white sails.
    Hush! the wind flags and fails -
Hush! they will lie becalmed in sight of strand -
    Sight of my strand, where I do dwell alone;
Their songs wake singing echoes in my land -
    They cannot hear me moan.

    One latest, solitary swallow flies
    Across the sea, rough autumn-tempest t...

I

That children in their loveliness should die
Before the dawning beauty, which we know
Cannot remain, has yet begun to go;
That when a certain period has passed by,
People of genius and of faculty,
Leaving behind them some result to show,
Having performed some function, should forego
The task which younger hands can better ply,
Appears entirely natural. But that one
Whose perfectness did not at all consist
In things towards forming which time can have done
Anything, whose sole office was to exist,
Should suddenly dissolve and cease to be
Is the extreme of all perplexity.

II

That there are better things within the womb
Of Nature than to our unworthy view
She grants for a possession, may be true:
The cycle of the birthplace and ...

Yon nightingale who mourns so plaintively
Perchance his fledglings or his darling mate,
Fills sky and earth with sweetness, warbling late,
Prophetic notes of melting melody.
All night, he, as it were, companions me,
Reminding me of my so cruel fate,
Mourning no other grief save mine own state,
Who knew not Death reigned o'er divinity.
How easy 't is to dupe the soul secure!
Those two fair lamps, even than the sun more bright,
Who ever dreamed to see turn clay obscure?
But Fortune has ordained, I now am sure,
That I, midst lifelong tears, should learn aright,
Naught here can make us happy, or endure.

Beguiled into forgetfulness of care
Due to the day's unfinished task; of pen
Or book regardless, and of that fair scene
In Nature's prodigality displayed
Before my window, oftentimes and long
I gaze upon a Portrait whose mild gleam
Of beauty never ceases to enrich
The common light; whose stillness charms the air,
Or seems to charm it, into like repose;
Whose silence, for the pleasure of the ear,
Surpasses sweetest music. There she sits
With emblematic purity attired
In a white vest, white as her marble neck
Is, and the pillar of the throat would be
But for the shadow by the drooping chin
Cast into that recess, the tender shade,
The shade and light, both there and everywhere,
And through the very atmosphere she breathes,
Broad, clear, and toned harmon...

(For Eleanor Rogers Cox)



For blows on the fort of evil
That never shows a breach,
For terrible life-long races
To a goal no foot can reach,
For reckless leaps into darkness
With hands outstretched to a star,
There is jubilation in Heaven
Where the great dead poets are.

There is joy over disappointment
And delight in hopes that were vain.
Each poet is glad there was no cure
To stop his lonely pain.
For nothing keeps a poet
In his high singing mood
Like unappeasable hunger
For unattainable food.

So fools are glad of the folly
That made them weep and sing,
And Keats is thankful for Fanny Brawne
And Drummond for his king.
They know that on flinty sorrow
And failure and desire
The steel of their souls...

My heart to-day is like a southern wood,
    Through summer months it has been drunk with heat;
    And slumbered on unmindful of the beat
Of life beyond it: sleep alone seemed good.

Now milder Autumn's tints are in the sky;
    The fervid heats of summer noons depart;
    And backward to the old haunts in my heart
The golden robins and the blue birds fly.

I hear the flutter of their airy wings,
    They flock about the Spring's deserted nest,
    And suddenly I feel within my breast
The stirring of sweet half-forgotten things.

Bright sunny mornings -golden growing hours -
    The building of glad birds among the trees;
    Wide open windows and the kindly breeze
Bringing the perfume of half-open flowers.

A blithe face at the window fai...

Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted,
Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome and unfrequented spot, seating myself, leaning my face in my hands;
Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go forth, speeding swiftly the country roads, or through the city streets, or pacing miles and miles, stifling plaintive cries;
Hours discouraged, distracted--for the one I cannot content myself without, soon I saw him content himself without me;
Hours when I am forgotten, (O weeks and months are passing, but I believe I am never to forget!)
Sullen and suffering hours! (I am ashamed--but it is useless--I am what I am;)
Hours of my torment--I wonder if other men ever have the like, out of the like feelings?
Is there even one other like me--distracted--his friend, his lover, lost to him?
Is he too ...

Oh think not with love's soft token,
Or music my heart to thrill
For its strings its strings are broken,
And the chords would fain be still!

Oh think not to waken the measure
Of joy on a ruined lute
Think not to waken pleasure,
Where grief sits mourning and mute.

The pearls that gleam in the billow,
But darken the gloom of the deep
And laughter plants the pillow
With thorns, where sorrow would sleep.

The gems that gleam on the finger
Of her who is sleeping and cold,
But wring the hearts that linger.
And dream of the love they told.

My bosom is but a grave,
My breast a voiceless choir
Speak not to the echoless cave,
Touch not the broken lyre!