Sadness

It was but some few nights ago
I wandered down this quiet lane;
I pray that I may never know
The feelings then I felt, again.
The leaves were shining all about,
You might almost have seen them springing;
I heard the cuckoo’s simple shout,
And all the little birds were singing.
It was not dull, the air was clear,
All lovely sights and sounds to deal,
My eyes could see, my ears could hear,
Only my heart, it would not feel;
And yet that it should not be so,
My mind kept telling me within;
Though nought was wrong that I did know,
I thought I must have done some sin.
For I am sure as I can be,
That they who have been wont to look
On all in Nature’s face they see,
Even as in the Holy Book;
They who with pure and humble eyes
Have gazed and re...

Dry light reverberates, colour withdrawing
Into a sky so white, sight cannot follow it.
While in the shadows cast, rich hues, intenser
Far than in light spaces, offer me gladness.
Sun reigns triumphantly, thinning all vapour
Into translucency, through which the foliage
Bears out in sparkles of full golden greenery.
O'er this, short dashes of keen grey-green masses lie;
Even the cooler tints, pitched in this higher key -
Purpling and greening greys - are fierce as fires.
All the vast universe lives in one beautiful
Summer - made lambent light, offering gladness.
Who can accept of it? Hearts where no echo rings
Wildly recalling deeds done by old Destiny -
Deeds of finality, darkening the spirit -
Rousing the echoes of thought to reverberate
Ever and ever "Alas!"...

I.


A spirit haunts the year’s last hours
Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers:
To himself he talks;
For at eventide, listening earnestly,
At his work you may hear him sob and sigh
In the walks;
Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks
Of the mouldering flowers:
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
Over its grave i’ the earth so chilly;
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.



II.

The air is damp, and hush’d, and close,
As a sick man’s room when he taketh repose
An hour before death;
My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves
At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves,
And the breath
Of the fading edges of box beneath,
And the year’s last rose.
Heavily hangs the broad sunflower<...

Thy dewy looks sink in my breast;
Thy gentle words stir poison there;
Thou hast disturbed the only rest
That was the portion of despair!
Subdued to Duty's hard control,
I could have borne my wayward lot:
The chains that bind this ruined soul
Had cankered then - but crushed it not.

(A LEGEND OF THE PACIFIC COAST)

There are fires on Lulu Island, and the sky is opalescent
    With the pearl and purple tinting from the smouldering of peat.
And the Dream Hills lift their summits in a sweeping, hazy crescent,
    With the Capilano canyon at their feet.

There are fires on Lulu Island, and the smoke, uplifting, lingers
    In a faded scarf of fragrance as it creeps across the day,
And the Inlet and the Narrows blur beneath its silent fingers,
    And the canyon is enfolded in its grey.

But the sun its face is veiling like a cloistered nun at vespers;
    As towards the alter candles of the night a censer swings,
And the echo of tradition wakes from slumbering and whispers,
    Where the Capilano river sobs and sings.

It was Yaada, love...

    The damsel from the field returns,
    The sun is sinking in the west;
    Her bundle on her head she sets,
    And in her hand she bears
    A bunch of roses and of violets.
    To-morrow is a holiday,
    And she, as usual, must them wear
    Upon her bodice, in her hair.
    The old crone sits among her mates,
    Upon the stairs, and spins;
    And, looking at the fading light,
    Of good old-fashioned times she prates,
    When she, too, dressed for holidays,
    And with light heart, and limb as light,
    Would dance at night
    With the companions of her merry days.
    The twilight shades around us close,
    The sky to deepest blue is turned;
    From hills and roofs the shadows fall,
    And the new moon her face of silver shows...

The air is dark, the sky is gray,
The misty shadows come and go,
And here within my dusky room
Each chair looks ghostly in the gloom.
Outside the rain falls cold and slow--
Half-stinging drops, half-blinding spray.

Each slightest sound is magnified,
For drowsy quiet holds her reign;
The burnt stick in the fireplace breaks,
The nodding cat with start awakes,
And then to sleep drops off again,
Unheeding Towser at her side.

I look far out across the lawn,
Where huddled stand the silly sheep;
My work lies idle at my hands,
My thoughts fly out like scattered strands
Of thread, and on the verge of sleep--
Still half awake--I dream and yawn.

What spirits rise before my eyes!
How various of kind and form!
Sweet memories of days lo...

The typewriter ticketh no more in the twilight;
The mother of poets is sitting alone;
Only the katydid teases the noonday;
Where are the good-for-naught wanderbirds flown?

Tom's in the North with his purple impressions;
Dickon's in London a-building his fame;
Fred's in the mountains a-minding his cattle;
Kavanagh's teaching and preaching and game.

Over in Kingscroft a toiler is writing,
The boyish Old Man whom no fate ever floored;
Karl's in New York with his briefs and his logic,
That subtile mind like a velvet-sheathed sword.

Blomidon welcomes his brother in silence;
Grand Pré is luring him back to her breast;
Faint and far off are the cries of the city,
There in the country of infinite rest.

All of them turn in their wide vagabondage...

Bountiful Givers,
I look along the years
And see the flowers you threw...
Anemones
And sprigs of gray
Sparse heather of the rocks,
Or a wild violet
Or daisy of a daisied field...
But each your best.

I might have worn them on my breast
To wilt in the long day...
I might have stemmed them in a narrow vase
And watched each petal sallowing...
I might have held them so - mechanically -
Till the wind winnowed all the leaves
And left upon my hands
A little smear of dust.

Instead
I hid them in the soft warm loam
Of a dim shadowed place...
Deep
In a still cool grotto,
Lit only by the memories of stars
And the wide and luminous eyes
Of dead poets
That love me and that I love...
Deep... deep...
Where none...

The heavens look down with chilly frown,
The sun blinks oot wi' watery e'e,
The drift flies fast upon the blast,
The naked trees moan shiveringly.

The sun is gone, by mists withdrawn,
Muffling his head in snow-clouds grey,
The earth turns white, against the night,
The laden winds drive furiously.

The flowers are slain that graced the plain,
The earth is locked wi' bitter frost;
And my heart cries to stormy skies
After the dreary loved and lost.

The spring will come, the flowers will bloom,
The leaves in beauty clothe the tree,
But never more, oh, never more,
Will my lost darling come to me.

Beyond the skies her happy eyes
Look fearlessly in eyes Divine;
The bitter smart, the hungry heart,
Waiting with empty arms, is mine.

What shall we talk of? Li Po? Hokusai?
You narrow your long dark eyes to fascinate me;
You smile a little. . . .Outside, the night goes by.
I walk alone in a forest of ghostly trees . . .
Your pale hands rest palm downwards on your knees.

‘These lines, converging, they suggest such distance!
The soul is drawn away, beyond horizons.
Lured out to what? One dares not think.
Sometimes, I glimpse these infinite perspectives
In intimate talk (with such as you) and shrink . . .

‘One feels so petty! One feels such, emptiness!’
You mimic horror, let fall your lifted hand,
And smile at me; with brooding tenderness . . .
Alone on darkened waters I fall and rise;
Slow waves above me break, faint waves of cries.

‘And then these colors . . . but who would dare ...

Mourn, Mourn, ye Muses, all your loss deplore,
The Young, the Noble Strephon is no more.
Yes, yes, he fled quick as departing Light,
And ne're shall rise from Deaths eternal Night,
So rich a Prize the Stygian Gods ne're bore,
Such Wit, such Beauty, never grac'd their Shore.
He was but lent this duller World t'irnprove
In all the charms of Poetry, and Love;
Both were his gift, which freely he bestow'd,
And like a God, dealt to the wond'ring Crowd.
Scorning the little Vanity of Fame,
Spight of himself attain'd a Glorious name.
But oh! in vain was all his peevish Pride,
The Sun as soon might his vast Lustre hide,
As piercing, pointed, and more lasting bright,
As suffering no vicissitudes of Night.

Mourn, Mourn, ye Muses, all your loss deplore,
The Youn...

Farewell, Life! My senses swim,
And the world is growing dim;
Thronging shadows cloud the light,
Like the advent of the night, -
Colder, colder, colder still,
Upward steals a vapor chill -
Strong the earthy odor grows -
I smell the mould above the rose!

Welcome, Life! the Spirit strives!
Strength returns, and hope revives;
Cloudy fears and shapes forlorn
Fly like shadows at the morn, -
O'er the earth there comes a bloom -
Sunny light for sullen gloom,
Warm perfume for vapor cold -
smell the rose above the mould!

February 1845.

When my arms wrap you round I press
My heart upon the loveliness
That has long faded from the world;
The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled
In shadowy pools, when armies fled;
The love-tales wrought with silken thread
By dreaming ladies upon cloth
That has made fat the murderous moth;
The roses that of old time were
Woven by ladies in their hair,
The dew-cold lilies ladies bore
Through many a sacred corridor
Where such grey clouds of incense rose
That only God's eyes did not close:
For that pale breast and lingering hand
Come from a more dream-heavy land,
A more dream-heavy hour than this;
And when you sigh from kiss to kiss
I hear white Beauty sighing, too,
For hours when all must fade like dew.
But flame on flame, and deep on deep,

    The tree, with its leaves in luxuriance shading
        My path in the tune-yielding time of the year,
    Now sighs in its dirge, while its foliage, fading,
        Descends to its sepulchre withered and sere.

    And yet I regard it with feelings the fonder,
        With feelings of mingled compassion and pain,
    As in pity I gaze on its branches, and ponder
        Of once fragrant beauty what fragments remain.

    For that barren tree with adornment so fleeting,
        That blows in the autumn wind bleak and forlorn,
    Bespeaks the sad state of a heart that is beating,
        Bereft of the pleasures that once it has borne.

As they who watch by sick-beds find relief
Unwittingly from the great stress of grief
And anxious care, in fantasies outwrought
From the hearth’s embers flickering low, or caught
From whispering wind, or tread of passing feet,
Or vagrant memory calling up some sweet
Snatch of old song or romance, whence or why
They scarcely know or ask, so, thou and I,
Nursed in the faith that Truth alone is strong
In the endurance which outwearies Wrong,
With meek persistence baffling brutal force,
And trusting God against the universe,
We, doomed to watch a strife we may not share
With other weapons than the patriot’s prayer,
Yet owning, with full hearts and moistened eyes,
The awful beauty of self-sacrifice,
And wrung by keenest sympathy for all
Who give their loved on...

    Still anxious to secure your partial favour,
    And not less anxious, sure, this night than ever,
    A Prologue, Epilogue, or some such matter,
    'Twould vamp my bill, said I, if nothing better;
    So sought a Poet, roosted near the skies,
    Told him I came to feast my curious eyes;
    Said nothing like his works was ever printed;
    And last, my Prologue-business slyly hinted!
    "Ma'am, let me tell you," quoth my man of rhymes,
    "I know your bent, these are no laughing times:
    Can you, but, Miss, I own I have my fears,
    Dissolve in pause, and sentimental tears;
    With laden sighs, and solemn-rounded sentence,
    Rouse from his sluggish slumbers, fell Repentance;
    Paint Vengeance as he takes his horrid stand,
    Waving on high the des...

Poor broken flower! what art can now recover thee?
    Torn from the stem that fed thy rosy breath--
        In vain the sunbeams seek
        To warm that faded cheek;
The dews of heaven, that once like balm fell over thee;
    Now are but tears, to weep thy early death.

So droops the maid whose lover hath forsaken her,--
    Thrown from his arms, as lone and lost as thou;
        In vain the smiles of all
        Like sunbeams round her fall:
The only smile that could from death awaken her,
    That smile, alas! is gone to others now.