Of the terrible doubt of appearances,
Of the uncertainty after all - that we may be deluded,
That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only,
May-be the things I perceive - the animals, plants, men, hills, shining and flowing waters,
The skies of day and night - colors, densities, forms - May-be these are, (as doubtless they are,) only apparitions, and the real something has yet to be known;
(How often they dart out of themselves, as if to confound me and mock me!
How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of them;)
May-be seeming to me what they are, (as doubtless they indeed but seem,) as from my present point of view - And might prove, (as of course they would,) naught of what they appear, or naught any ...

Love is the sunlight of the soul,
That, shining on the silken-tressèd head
Of her we love, around it seems to shed
A golden angel-aureole.

And all her ways seem sweeter ways
Than those of other women in that light:
She has no portion with the pallid night,
But is a part of all fair days.

Joy goes where she goes, and good dreams,
Her smile is tender as an old romance
Of Love that dies not, and her soft eye’s glance
Like sunshine set to music seems.

Queen of our fate is she, but crowned
With purple hearts-ease for her womanhood.
There is no place so poor where she has stood
But evermore is holy ground.

An angel from the heaven above
Would not be fair to us as she is fair:
She holds us in a mesh of silken hair,
This one swee...

I.

    Ah, fading joy! how quickly art thou past!
        Yet we thy ruin haste.
    As if the cares of human life were few,
        We seek out new:
    And follow Fate, which would too fast pursue.
    See how on every bough the birds express,
    In their sweet notes, their happiness.
    They all enjoy, and nothing spare;
    But on their mother Nature lay their care:
    Why then should man, the lord of all below,
        Such troubles choose to know,
    As none of all his subjects undergo?
    Hark, hark, the waters fall, fall, fall,
    And with a murmuring sound
    Dash, dash upon the ground,
        To gentle slumbers call.

II.

    I look'd, and saw within the book of fate,
        When many days did lour,
     ...

The scent of honeysuckle,
Drugging the twilight
With its sweet opiate of lovers' dreams!
The last red glow of the setting sun
On the red brick wall
Of the neighboring house,
And the scramble of red roses over it!

Slowly, slowly
The night smokes up from the city to the stars,
The faint foreshadowed stars;
The smouldering night
Breathes upward like the breath
Of a woman asleep
With dim breast rising and falling
And a smile of delicate dreams.

Softly, softly
The wind comes into the garden,
Like a lover that fears lest he waken his love,
And his hands drip with the scent of the roses
And his locks weep with the opiate odor of honeysuckle.
Sighing, sighing
As a lover that yearns for the lips of his love,
In a torment of bli...

I’ll say and maybe dream I have drawn content—
Seeing that time has frozen up the blood,
The wick of youth being burned and the oil spent—
From beauty that is cast out of a mould
In bronze, or that in dazzling marble appears,
Appears, and when we have gone is gone again,
Being more indifferent to our solitude
Than ’twere an apparition. O heart, we are old,
The living beauty is for younger men,
We cannot pay its tribute of wild tears.

The round red sun heaves darkly out of the sea.
The walls and towers are warmed and gleam.
Sounds go drowsily up from streets and wharves.
The city stirs like one that is half in dream.

And the mist flows up by dazzling walls and windows,
Where one by one we wake and rise.
We gaze at the pale grey lustrous sea a moment,
We rub the darkness from our eyes,

And face our thousand devious secret mornings . . .
And do not see how the pale mist, slowly ascending,
Shaped by the sun, shines like a white-robed dreamer
Compassionate over our towers bending.

There, like one who gazes into a crystal,
He broods upon our city with sombre eyes;
He sees our secret fears vaguely unfolding,
Sees cloudy symbols shape to rise.

Each gleaming point of light i...

Poetry, music, I have loved, and yet
Because of those new dead
That come into my soul and escape
Confusion of the bed,
Or those begotten or unbegotten
Perning in a band,

Or those begotten or unbegotten,
For I would not recall
Some that being unbegotten
Are not individual,
But copy some one action,
Moulding it of dust or sand,

An old ghost's thoughts are lightning,
To follow is to die;
Poetry and music I have banished,
But the stupidity
Of root, shoot, blossom or clay
Makes no demand.

        The débutantes are in force to-night,
            Sweet as their roses, pure as truth;
        Dreams of beauty in clouds of tulle;
            Blushing, fair in their guileless youth.
        Flashing bright glances carelessly
            Carelessly, think you! Wait and see
        How their sweetest smile is kept for him
            Whom "mother" considers a good parti.

        For the matrons watch and guard them well
            Little for youth or love care they;
        The man they seek is the man with gold,
            Though his heart be black, and his hair be gray.
        "Nellie, how could you treat him so!
            You know very well he is Goldmore's heir,"
        "Jennie, look modest! Glance down and blush,
     ...

Sometimes we feel so spent for want of rest,
We have no thought beyond. I know to-day,
When tired of bitter lips and dull delay
With faithless words, I cast mine eyes upon
The shadows of a distant mountain-crest,
And said “That hill must hide within its breast
Some secret glen secluded from the sun.
Oh, mother Nature! would that I could run
Outside to thee; and, like a wearied guest,
Half blind with lamps, and sick of feasting, lay
An aching head on thee. Then down the streams
The moon might swim, and I should feel her grace,
While soft winds blew the sorrows from my face,
So quiet in the fellowship of dreams.”

This morning how grand is the space!
Without bridle or spurs, in our haste
Let us set out by horseback on wine,
For the heavens-enchanted, divine!

Like two angels gone insane
With delirium of the brain,
In the crystal blue of the sky
To the distant mirage we will fly!

Gently swinging within the wing
Of the whirlwind who gives us a ride,
My sister who swims by my side,

In a parallel ecstasy,
Without truce or repose we are bound
For the heaven my dreaming has found!

Do I see a contest yonder?
See I miracles or pastimes?
Beauteous urchins, five in number,
'Gainst five sisters fair contending,
Measured is the time they're beating
At a bright enchantress' bidding.
Glitt'ring spears by some are wielded,
Threads are others nimbly twining,

So that in their snares, the weapons
One would think, must needs be captured,
Soon, in truth, the spears are prison'd;
Yet they, in the gentle war-dance,
One by one escape their fetters
In the row of loops so tender,
That make haste to seize a free one
Soon as they release a captive.

So with contests, strivings, triumphs,
Flying now, and now returning,
Is an artful net soon woven,
In its whiteness like the snow-flakes,
That, from light amid the darkness,
D...

    "O last days of the year!" she whispered low,
    "You fly too swiftly past. Ah, you might stay
    A while, a little while. Do you not know
    What tender things you bear with you away?

    "I'm thinking, sitting in the soft gloom here,
    Of all the riches that were mine the day
    There crept down on the world the soft New Year,
    A rosy thing with promise filled, and gay.

    "But twelve short months ago! a little space
    In which to lose so much - a whole life's wealth
    Of love and faith, youth and youth's tender grace -
    Things that are wont to go from us by stealth.

    "Laughter and blushes, and the rapture strong,
    The clasp of clinging hands, the ling'ring kiss,
    The joy of living, and the glorious song
    That dr...

There is a place I search for still,
Sequestered as the world of dreams,
A bushy hollow, and a hill
That whispers with descending streams,
Cool, careless waters, wandering down,
Like Innocence who runs to town,
Leaving the wildwood and its dreams,
And prattling like the forest streams.

But still in dreams I meet again
The child who bound me, heart and hand,
And led me with a wildflower chain
Far from our world, to Faeryland:
Who made me see and made me know
The lovely Land of Long-Ago,
Leading me with her little hand
Into the world of Wonderland.

The years have passed: how far away
The day when there I met the child,
The little maid, who was a fay,
Whose eyes were dark and undefiled
And crystal as a woodland well,
That hold...

Ah, from out this valley hollow,
By cold fogs always oppressed,
Could I but the outpath follow--
Ah, how were my spirit blest!
Hills I see there, glad dominions,
Ever young, and green for aye!
Had I wings, oh, had I pinions,
To the hills were I away!

Harmonies I hear there ringing,
Tones of sweetest heavenly rest;
And the gentle winds are bringing
Balmy odours to my breast!
Golden fruits peep out there, glowing
Through the leaves to Zephyr's play;
And the flowers that there are blowing
Will become no winter's prey!

Oh, what happy things are meeting
There, in endless sunshine free!
And the airs on those hills greeting,
How reviving must they be!
But me checks yon raving river
That betwixt doth chafe and roll;
And its da...

    Would that by Hindu magic we became
    Dark monks of jeweled India long ago,
    Sitting at Prince Siddartha's feet to know
    The foolishness of gold and love and station,
    The gospel of the Great Renunciation,
    The ragged cloak, the staff, the rain and sun,
    The beggar's life, with far Nirvana gleaming:
    Lord, make us Buddhas, dreaming.

1.
Swiftly walk o'er the western wave,
Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave,
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
'Which make thee terrible and dear, -
Swift be thy flight!

2.
Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
Star-inwrought!
Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day;
Kiss her until she be wearied out,
Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand -
Come, long-sought!

3.
When I arose and saw the dawn,
I sighed for thee;
When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary Day turned to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest, I sighed for thee.

4.
Thy brother Death came, and cried,

    When the bright eyes of the day
        Open on the dusk, to see
    Mist and shadow fade away
        And the sun shine merrily,
    Then I leave my bed and run
    Out to frolic in the sun.

    Through the sunny hours I play
        Where the stream is wandering,
    Plucking daisies by the way;
        And I laugh and dance and sing,
    While the birds fly here and there
    Singing on the sunny air.

    When the night comes, cold and slow,
        And the sad moon walks the sky,
    When the whispering wind says "Boh,
        Little boy!" and makes me cry,
    By my mother I am led
    Home again and put to bed.

Here is a banquet-table of delights,
A sumptuous feast of true ambrosial food;
Here is a journey among goodly sights,
In choice society or solitude;
Here is a treasury of gems and gold -
Of purest gold and gems of brightest sheen;
Here is a landscape gloriously unroll'd,
Of heights sublime and pleasant vales between.

Here is the realm of Thought, diverse and wide,
To Genius and her sovereign sons assign'd;
The universal church, o'er which preside
The heaven-anointed hierarchy of mind
And spirit; the imperishable pride
And testament and promise of mankind.