Lost Youth, come back again!
Laugh at weariness and pain.
Come not in dreams, but come in truth,
            Lost Youth.

Sweetheart of long ago,
Why do you haunt me so?
Were you not glad to part,
            Sweetheart?

Still Death, that draws so near,
Is it hope you bring, or fear?
Is it only ease of breath,
            Still Death?

Heart-sick of his journey was the Wanderer;
    Footsore and parched was he;
And a Witch who long had lurked by the wayside,
    Looked out of sorcery.

"Lift up your eyes, you lonely Wanderer,"
    She peeped from her casement small;
"Here's shelter and quiet to give you rest, young man,
    And apples for thirst withal."

And he looked up out of his sad reverie,
    And saw all the woods in green,
With birds that flitted feathered in the dappling,
    The jewel-bright leaves between.

And he lifted up his face towards her lattice,
    And there, alluring-wise,
Slanting through the silence of the long past,
    Dwelt the still green Witch's eyes.

And vaguely from the hiding-place of memory
    Voices seemed to cry;
"What is the ...

Long loving, all our love was husbanded
Until one morning on the brown hillside,
One misty Autumn morn when Sun did hide
His radiance, yet was felt. No words we said,
But in one flash transfigured, glorified,
All her heart's tumult beating white and red,
She fell prone on her face and hid her wide
Over-brimmed eyes in dewy fern.
    I prayed,
Then spake, "In us two now is manifest
That throbbing kindred whereof thou art graft
And I the grafted, in this holy place."
She, turning half, with sober shame confest
Discovery, then hid her rosy face.
I read her wilding heart, and my heart laught.

Turn thine eyes from me, Angel of Heaven--
    Read not my soul, Angel of Heaven--
Sorrow is steeping my pale cheeks with weeping,
    Evermore keeping her wand on my heart,
    On my cold stony heart, while the tear-fountains start
To purge it from leaven too sinful for Heaven--
    Read not my soul, yet, Angel of Heaven!

Why hast thou ta'en her, Angel of Heaven?
    Ta'en her so soon, Angel of Heaven?
Yearning to gain her, hast thou thus slain her
    Ere sin could stain her--borne her away,
    Borne her far, far away, into eternal day,
    Left me alone to stay--left me to weep and pray?
Why hast thou ta'en her, Angel of Heaven?
    Ta'en her so soon, Angel of Heaven?

Shines the place brighter, Angel of Heaven?
    Brighter for her, Angel of He...

Dead? or is it a dream
Only the voice of a dream?
Dead in the prime of his years,
And laid in the lap of the dust;
Only a handful of ashes
Moldering down into dust.

Strong and manly was he,
Strong and tender and true;
Proud in the prime of his years;
Strong in the strength of the just:
A heart that was half a lion's,
And half the heart of a girl;
Tender to all that was tender,
And true to all that was true;
Bold in the battle of life,
And bold on the bloody field;
First at the call of his country,
First in the front of the foe.
Hope of the years was his
The golden and garnered sheaves;
Fair on the hills of autumn
Reddened the apples of peace.

Dead? or is it a dream?
Dead in the prime of his years,
And laid in...

Stop Not to me, at this bitter departing,
Speak of the sure consolations of Time.
Fresh be the wound, still-renew’d be its smarting,
So but thy image endure in its prime.

But, if the stedfast commandment of Nature
Wills that remembrance should always decay;
If the lov’d form and the deep-cherish’d feature
Must, when unseen, from the soul fade away

Me let no half-effac’d memories cumber!
Fled, fled at once, be all vestige of thee
Deep be the darkness, and still be the slumber
Dead be the Past and its phantoms to me!

Then, when we meet, and thy look strays towards me,
Scanning my face and the changes wrought there,
Who, let me say, is this Stranger regards me,
With the grey eyes, and the lovely brown hair?

When winter's pulse seems dead beneath the snow,
    And has no throb to give,
Warm your cold heart at mine, beloved, and so
    Shall your heart live.

For mine is fire - a furnace strong and red;
    Look up into my eyes,
There shall you see a flame to make the dead
    Take life and rise.

My eyes are brown, and yours are still and grey,
    Still as the frostbound lake
Whose depths are sleeping in the icy sway,
    And will not wake.

Soundless they are below the leaden sky,
    Bound with that silent chain;
Yet chains may fall, and those that fettered lie
    May live again.

Yes, turn away, grey eyes, you dare not face
    In mine the flame of life;
When frost meets fire, 'tis but a little space
    That ends the strife...

And, O beloved voices, upon which
Ours passionately call because erelong
Ye brake off in the middle of that song
We sang together softly, to enrich
The poor world with the sense of love, and witch,
The heart out of things evil, I am strong,
Knowing ye are not lost for aye among

The hills, with last year's thrush. God keeps a niche
In Heaven to hold our idols; and albeit
He brake them to our faces and denied
That our close kisses should impair their white,
I know we shall behold them raised, complete,
The dust swept from their beauty, glorified
New Memnons singing in the great God-light.

The Day was dying; his breath
Wavered away in a hectic gleam;
And I said, if Life's a dream, and Death
And Love and all are dreams - I'll dream.

A mist came over the bay
Like as a dream would over an eye.
The mist was white and the dream was grey
And both contained a human cry,

The burthen whereof was "Love",
And it filled both mist and dream with pain,
And the hills below and the skies above
Were touched and uttered it back again.

The mist broke: down the rift
A kind ray shot from a holy star.
Then my dream did waver and break and lift -
Through it, O Love, shone thy face, afar.

So Boyhood sets: comes Youth,
A painful night of mists and dreams;
That broods till Love's exquisite truth,
The star of a morn-clear manhood, be...

Love, do not count your labour lost
    Though I turn sullen, grim, retired
Even at your side; my thought is crossed
    With fancies by old longings fired.

And when I answer you, some days
    Vaguely and wildly, do not fear
That my love walks forbidden ways,
    Breaking the ties that hold it here.

If I speak gruffly, this mood is
    Mere indignation at my own
Shortcomings, plagues, uncertainties;
    I forget the gentler tone.

'You,' now that you have come to be
    My one beginning, prime and end,
I count at last as wholly 'me,'
    Lover no longer nor yet friend.

Friendship is flattery, though close hid;
    Must I then flatter my own mind?
And must (which laws of shame forbid)
    Blind love of you make self-love b...

Standomi un giorno solo alla finestra.

UNDER VARIOUS ALLEGORIES HE PAINTS THE VIRTUE, BEAUTY, AND UNTIMELY DEATH OF LAURA.


    While at my window late I stood alone,
So new and many things there cross'd my sight,
To view them I had almost weary grown.
A dappled hind appear'd upon the right,
In aspect gentle, yet of stately stride,
By two swift greyhounds chased, a black and white,
Who tore in the poor side
Of that fair creature wounds so deep and wide,
That soon they forced her where ravine and rock
The onward passage block:
Then triumph'd Death her matchless beauties o'er,
And left me lonely there her sad fate to deplore.

Upon the summer wave a gay ship danced,
Her cordage was of silk, of gold her sails,
Her sides with ivory and...

"'He cometh not,' she said."

Mariana


It will not be to-day and yet
I think and dream it will; and let
The slow uncertainty devise
So many sweet excuses, met
With the old doubt in hope's disguise.

The panes were sweated with the dawn;
Yet through their dimness, shriveled drawn,
The aigret of one princess-feather,
One monk's-hood tuft with oilets wan,
I glimpsed, dead in the slaying weather.

This morning, when my window's chintz
I drew, how gray the day was! Since
I saw him, yea, all days are gray!
I gazed out on my dripping quince,
Defruited, gnarled; then turned away

To weep, but did not weep: but felt
A colder anguish than did melt
About the tearful-visaged year!
Then flung the lattice wide, and smelt

Fareweel, ye bughts, an' all your ewes,
An' fields whare bIoomin' heather grows;
Nae mair the sportin' lambs I'll see
Since my true love's forsaken me.


CHORUS.
Nae mair I'll hear wi' pleasure sing
The cheerfu' lav'rock in the Spring,
But sad in grief now I maun mourn,
Far, far frae her, o'er Logan-burn.


Alas! nae mair we'll meetings keep
At bughts, whan herds ca' in their sheep;
Nae mair amang the threshes green
We'll row, where we hae aften been.
CHORUS

Nae mair for me , ye vi'lets blaw,
Or lilies whiter than the snaw;
Nae mair your pleasures I can bear,
While I am absent frae my dear.
CHORUS

I ken the cause of my hard fate;
In courtin' her I was too blate;
I never kiss'd my las...

God from our eyes all tears hereafter wipes,
And gives His children kisses then, not stripes.

There is a charm in footing slow across a silent plain,
Where patriot battle has been fought, where glory had the gain;
There is a pleasure on the heath where Druids old have been,
Where mantles grey have rustled by and swept the nettles green;
There is a joy in every spot made known by times of old,
New to the feet, although each tale a hundred times be told;
There is a deeper joy than all, more solemn in the heart,
More parching to the tongue than all, of more divine a smart,
When weary steps forget themselves upon a pleasant turf,
Upon hot sand, or flinty road, or sea-shore iron scurf,
Toward the castle or the cot, where long ago was born
One who was great through mortal days, and died of fame unshorn.
Light heather-bells may tremble then, but they are far away;
Wood-lark...

So let it be. Thou wilt not say 't was I!
Here in life's temple, where thy soul may see,
Look how the beauty of our love doth lie,
Shattered in shards, a dead divinity!
Approach: kneel down: yea, render up one sigh!
This is the end. What need to tell it thee!
So let it be.

So let it be. Care, who hath stood with him,
And sorrow, who sat by him deified,
For whom his face made comfort, lo! how dim
They heap his altar which they can not hide,
While memory's lamp swings o'er it, burning slim.
This is the end. What shall be said beside?
So let it be.

So let it be. Did we not drain the wine,
Red, of love's sacramental chalice, when
He laid sweet sanction on thy lips and mine?
Dash it aside! Lo, who will fill again
Now it is empty of the god div...

1852

Where, oh where are the visions of morning,
Fresh as the dews of our prime?
Gone, like tenants that quit without warning,
Down the back entry of time.

Where, oh where are life's lilies and roses,
Nursed in the golden dawn's smile?
Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses,
On the old banks of the Nile.

Where are the Marys, and Anns, and Elizas,
Loving and lovely of yore?
Look in the columns of old Advertisers, -
Married and dead by the score.

Where the gray colts and the ten-year-old fillies,
Saturday's triumph and joy?
Gone, like our friend ( - Greek - ) Achilles,
Homer's ferocious old boy.

Die-away dreams of ecstatic emotion,
Hopes like young eagles at play,
Vows of unheard-of and endless devotion,
How ye...

The days grow shorter, the nights grow longer;
The headstones thicken along the way;
And life grows sadder, but love grows stronger,
For those who walk with us day by day.

The tear comes quicker, the laugh comes slower;
The courage is lesser to do and dare;
And the tide of joy in the heart falls lower,
And seldom covers the reefs of care.

But all true things in the world seem truer;
And the better things of earth seem best;
And friends are dearer, as friends are fewer,
And love is all, as our sun dips west.

Then let us clasp hands as we walk together,
And let us speak softly in love's sweet tone;
For no man knows on the morrow whether
We two pass on - or but one alone.