The day fades fast;
And backward ebbs the tide of light
From the far hills in billows bright,
    Scattering foam, as they sweep past,
O'er the low clouds that bank the sky,
And barrier day off solemnly.

        Above the land
Grey shadows stretch out, still and cold,
Flinging o'er water, wood, and wold,
    Mysterious shapes, whose ghastly hand
    Presses down sorrow on the heart,
And silence on the lips that part.

        The dew-mist broods
Heavy and low o'er field and fen,
Like gloom above the souls of men;
    And through the forest solitudes
The fitful night-wind rustles by,
Breathing many a wailing sigh--

        O Day! O Life!
Ending in gloom together here--
Though not one star of Hope appear,
    Sti...

Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost in his house in Berkeley Square,
And a Spirit came to his bedside and gripped him by the hair
A Spirit gripped him by the hair and carried him far away,
Till he heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford the roar of the Milky Way:
Till he heard the roar of the Milky Way die down and drone and cease,
And they came to the Gate within the Wall where Peter holds the keys.
"Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high
The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die
The good that ye did for the sake of men in little earth so lone!"
And the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as a rain-washed bone.
"O I have a friend on earth," he said, "that was my priest and guide,
And well would he answer all for me if he were by my side."
"For ...

I

Lo, a shadow of horror is risen
In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific!
Self-closd, all-repelling: what Demon
Hath form'd this abominable void
This soul-shudd'ring vacuum?--Some said
"It is Urizen", But unknown, abstracted
Brooding secret, the dark power hid.

II

Times on times he divided, & measur'd
Space by space in his ninefold darkness
Unseen, unknown! changes appeard
In his desolate mountains rifted furious
By the black winds of perturbation

III

For he strove in battles dire
In unseen conflictions with shapes
Bred from his forsaken wilderness,
Of beast, bird, fish, serpent & element
Combustion, blast, vapour and cloud.

IV

Dark revolving in silent activity:
Unseen in tormenting pass...

Oh, I am weak to serve thee as I ought;
My shroud of flesh obscures thy deity,
So thy sweet Spirit that should embolden me
To shake my wings out wide, serves me for nought,
But receives tarnish, vile dishonour, wrought
By that thou earnest to bless--O agony
And unendurable shame! that, loving thee,
I dare not love, fearing my poisonous thought!

Man is too vile for any such high grace,
For that he seeks to honour he can but mar;
So had I rather shun thy starry face
And fly the exultation to know thee near--
For if one glance from me wrought thee a scar
'Twould not be death, but life that I should fear.

Sing, mountain-wind, thy strong, superior song
Thy haughty alpine anthem, over tracts
Whose passes and whose swift, rock-straitened streams
Catch mighty life and voice from thee, and make
A lordly harmony on sea-chafed heights.
Sing, mountain-wind, and take thine ancient tone,
The grand, austere, imperial utterance.
Which drives my soul before it back to days
In one dark hour of which, when Storm rode high
Past broken hills, and when the polar gale
Roared round the Otway with the bitter breath
That speaks for ever of the White South Land
Alone with God and Silence in the cold,
I heard the touching tale of Basil Moss,

A story shining with a woman’s love!
And who that knows that love can ever doubt
How dear, divine, sublime a thing it is;
For while th...

("Ainsi, lorsqu'un mortel!")

[XXXIV., May, 1828.]

As when a mortal - Genius' prize, alack!
Is, living, bound upon thy fatal back,
Thou reinless racing steed!
In vain he writhes, mere cloud upon a star,
Thou bearest him as went Mazeppa, far
Out of the flow'ry mead, -
So - though thou speed'st implacable, (like him,
Spent, pallid, torn, bruised, weary, sore and dim,
As if each stride the nearer bring
Him to the grave) - when comes the time,
After the fall, he rises - KING!

H.L. WILLIAMS

He saw her from the bottom of the stairs
Before she saw him. She was starting down,
Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.
She took a doubtful step and then undid it
To raise herself and look again. He spoke
Advancing toward her: 'What is it you see
From up there always for I want to know.'
She turned and sank upon her skirts at that,
And her face changed from terrified to dull.
He said to gain time: 'What is it you see,'
Mounting until she cowered under him.
'I will find out now you must tell me, dear.'
She, in her place, refused him any help
With the least stiffening of her neck and silence.
She let him look, sure that he wouldn't see,
Blind creature; and awhile he didn't see.
But at last he murmured, 'Oh,' and again, 'Oh.'

'What is it what?...

Enough of thought, philosopher!
Too long hast thou been dreaming
Unlightened, in this chamber drear,
While summer's sun is beaming!
Space-sweeping soul, what sad refrain
Concludes thy musings once again?

"Oh, for the time when I shall sleep
Without identity.
And never care how rain may steep,
Or snow may cover me!
No promised heaven, these wild desires
Could all, or half fulfil;
No threatened hell, with quenchless fires,
Subdue this quenchless will!"

"So said I, and still say the same;
Still, to my death, will say,
Three gods, within this little frame,
Are warring night; and day;
Heaven could not hold them all, and yet
They all are held in me;
And must be mine till I forget
My present entity!
Oh, for the time, when in ...

In Collins-street standeth a statue tall,*
A statue tall on a pillar of stone,
Telling its story, to great and small,
Of the dust reclaimed from the sand waste lone.
Weary and wasted, and worn and wan,
Feeble and faint, and languid and low,
He lay on the desert a dying man,
Who has gone, my friends, where we all must go.

There are perils by land, and perils by water,
Short, I ween, are the obsequies
Of the landsman lost, but they may be shorter
With the mariner lost in the trackless seas;
And well for him when the timbers start,
And the stout ship reels and settles below,
Who goes to his doom with as bold a heart
As that dead man gone where we all must go.

Man is stubborn his rights to yield,
And redder than dews at eventide
Are the dews ...

Rude winter's come, the sky's o'ercast,
The night is cold and loud the blast,
The mingling snow comes driving down,
Fast whitening o'er the flinty ground.
Severe their lots whose crazy sheds
Hang tottering o'er their trembling heads:
Whilst blows through walls and chinky door
The drifting snow across the floor,
Where blinking embers scarcely glow,
And rushlight only serves to show
What well may move the deepest sigh,
And force a tear from pity's eye.
You there may see a meagre pair,
Worn out with labour, grief, and care:
Whose naked babes, in hungry mood,
Complain of cold and cry for food;
Whilst tears bedew the mother's cheek,
And sighs the father's grief bespeak;
For fire or raiment, bed or board,
Their dreary shed cannot afford.

Wi...

    [Aaron Ben Mier "loquitur."]


If I remember Raschi? An I live,
Grandson, to bless thy grandchild, I'll forget
Never that youth and what he did for Prague.
Aye, aye, I know! he slurred a certain verse
In such and such a prayer; omitted quite
To stand erect there where the ritual
Commands us rise and bow towards the East;
Therefore, the ingrates brand him heterodox,
Neglect his memory whose virtue saved
Each knave of us alive. Not I forget,
No more does God, who wrought a miracle
For his dear sake. The Passover was here.
Raschi, just wedded with the fair Rebekah,
Bode but the lapsing of the holy week
For homeward journey with his bride to France.
The sacred meal was spread. All sat at board
Within the house of Rabbi Jochanan:
The kind ol...

(The Priests within the Temple)
She was wrinkled and huge and hideous? She was our Mother.
She was lustful and lewd? but a God; we had none other.
In the day She was hidden and dumb, but at nightfall moaned in the shade;
We shuddered and gave Her Her will in the darkness; we were afraid.

(The People without)
She sent us pain,
And we bowed before Her;
She smiled again
And bade us adore Her.
She solaced our woe
And soothed our sighing;
And what shall we do
Now God is dying?

(The Priests within)
She was hungry and ate our children; how should we stay Her?
She took our young men and our maidens; ours to obey Her.
We were loathed and mocked and reviled of all nations; that was our pride.
She fed us, protected us, loved us, and killed us; now S...

Sacred to Pity! is upraised this stone,
The humble tribute of a friend unknown;
To grant the beauteous wreck its hallow'd claim,
And add to misery's scroll another name.
Poor lost MATILDA! now in silence laid
Within the early grave thy sorrows made.
Sleep on!--his heart still holds thy image dear,
Who view'd, through life, thy errors with a tear;
Who ne'er with stoic apathy repress'd
The heartfelt sigh for loveliness distress'd.
That sigh for thee shall ne'er forget to heave;
'Tis all he now can give, or thou receive.
When last I saw thee in thy envied bloom,
That promised health and joy for years to come,
Methought the lily nature proudly gave,
Would never wither in th' untimely grave.

Ah, sad reverse! too soon the fated hour
Saw the dire tempest '...

I.
Doubt no longer that the Highest is the wisest and the best,
Let not all that saddens Nature blight thy hope or break thy rest,
Quail not at the fiery mountain, at the shipwreck, or the rolling
Thunder, or the rending earthquake, or the famine, or the pest!

II.
Neither mourn if human creeds be lower than the heart’s desire!
Thro’ the gates that bar the distance comes a gleam of what is higher.
Wait till Death has flung them open, when the man will make the Maker
Dark no more with human hatreds in the glare of deathless fire!

I closed my hands upon a moth
        And when I drew my palms apart,
Instead of dusty, broken wings
        I found a bleeding human heart.

I crushed my foot upon a worm
        That had my garden for its goal,
But when I drew my foot aside
        I found a dying human soul.

Blythe bell, that calls to bridal halls,
Tolls deep a darker day;
The very shower that feeds the flower
Weeps also its decay.

Upon the utmost verge of a high bank,
By craggy rocks environ'd round, we came,
Where woes beneath more cruel yet were stow'd:
And here to shun the horrible excess
Of fetid exhalation, upward cast
From the profound abyss, behind the lid
Of a great monument we stood retir'd,

Whereon this scroll I mark'd: "I have in charge
Pope Anastasius, whom Photinus drew
From the right path.--Ere our descent behooves
We make delay, that somewhat first the sense,
To the dire breath accustom'd, afterward
Regard it not." My master thus; to whom
Answering I spake: "Some compensation find
That the time past not wholly lost." He then:
"Lo! how my thoughts e'en to thy wishes tend!
My son! within these rocks," he thus began,
"Are three close circles in gradation plac'd,

    Silent before the jury
    Returning no word to the judge when he asked me
    If I had aught to say against the sentence,
    Only shaking my head.
    What could I say to people who thought
    That a woman of thirty-five was at fault
    When her lover of nineteen killed her husband?
    Even though she had said to him over and over,
    "Go away, Elmer, go far away,
    I have maddened your brain with the gift of my body:
    You will do some terrible thing."
    And just as I feared, he killed my husband;
    With which I had nothing to do, before
    God Silent for thirty years in prison
    And the iron gates of Joliet
    Swung as the gray and silent trusties
    Carried me out in a coffin.