Thine emulous fond flowers are dead, too,
And the daft sun-assaulter, he
That frightened thee so oft, is fled or dead:
Save only me
(Nor is it sad to thee!)
Save only me
There is none left to mourn thee in the fields.

The gray grass is scarce dappled with the snow;
Its two banks have not shut upon the river;
But it is long ago,
It seems forever,
Since first I saw thee glance,
With all thy dazzling other ones,
In airy dalliance,
Precipitate in love,
Tossed, tangled, whirled and whirled above,
Like a linp rose-wreath in a fairy dance.

When that was, the soft mist
Of my regret hung not on all the land,
And I was glad for thee,
And glad for me, I wist.

Thou didst not know, who tottered, wandering on high,
That fate h...

    Between two common days this day was hung
    When Love went to the ending that was his;
    His seamless robe was rent, his brow was wrung,
    He took at last the sponge's bitter kiss.

    A simple day the dawn had watched unfold
    Before the night had borne the death of love;
    You took the bread I blessed, and love was sold
    Upon your lips, and paid the price thereof.

    I changed then, as when soul from body slips,
    And casts its passion and its pain aside;
    I pledged you with most spiritual lips,
    And gave you hands that you had crucified.
    You who betrayed, kissed, crucified, forgot,
    You walked with Christ, poor fool, and knew it not!

Tears, tears,
With wifely fears
Immixed - I held my breath,
My boy!
As down the street
The drums did beat
That led you to your death,
My boy!

Oh! Oh!
Where'er I go,
And soldier boys I see,
My jo!
I wis', I wis',
For him whose kiss
Was blessedness to me,
My jo!

Still, still,
By wish and will,
The land you saved, I love,
My boy!
Beneath a stone,
It holds your bone,
I'll clasp your soul above,
My boy!

Eyes not down-dropt nor over-bright, but fed
With the clear-pointed flame of chastity,
Clear, without heat, undying, tended by
Pure vestal thoughts in the translucent fane
Of her still spirit; locks not wide-dispread,
Madonna-wise on either side her head;
Sweet lips whereon perpetually did reign
The summer calm of golden charity,
Were fixed shadows of thy fixed mood,
Revered Isabel, the crown and head,
The stately flower of female fortitude,
Of perfect wifehood and pure lowlihead.

The intuitive decision of a bright
And thorough-edged intellect to part
Error from crime; a prudence to withhold;
The laws of marriage character’d in gold
Upon the blanched tablets of her heart;
A love still burning upward, giving light
To read those laws; an accent v...

There is nothing that eases my heart so much
As the wind that blows from the purple hills;
'Tis a hand of balsam whose healing touch
Unburdens my bosom of ills.

There is nothing that causes my soul to rejoice
Like the sunset flaming without a flaw:
'Tis a burning bush whence God's own voice
Addresses my spirit with awe.

There is nothing that hallows my mind, meseems,
Like the night with its moon and its stars above;
'Tis a mystical lily whose golden gleams
Fulfill my being with love.

There is nothing, no, nothing, we see and feel,
That speaks to our souls some beautiful thought,
That was not created to help us, and heal
Our lives that are overwrought.

Here, where precipitate Spring, with one light bound
Into hot Summer's lusty arms, expires,
And where go forth at morn, at eve, at night,
Soft airs that want the lute to play with 'em,
And softer sighs that know not what they want,
Aside a wall, beneath an orange-tree,
Whose tallest flowers could tell the lowlier ones
Of sights in Fiesole right up above,
While I was gazing a few paces off
At what they seem'd to show me with their nods,
Their frequent whispers and their pointing shoots,
A gentle maid came down the garden-steps
And gathered the pure treasure in her lap.
I heard the branches rustle, and stept forth
To drive the ox away, or mule, or goat,
Such I believed it must be. How could I
Let beast o'erpower them? When hath wind or rain
Borne hard upon ...

Upon a day, a merry day,
When summer in her best,
Like Sunday belles, prepares for play,
And joins each merry guest,
A maid, as wild as is a bird
That never knew a cage,
Went out her parents' kine to herd,
And Jocky, as her page,

Must needs go join her merry toils;

A silly shepherd he,
And little thought the aching broils
That in his heart would be;
For he as yet knew nought of love,
And nought of love knew she;
Yet without learning love can move
The wildest to agree.

The wind, enamoured of the maid,
Around her drapery swims,
And moulds in luscious masquerade
Her lovely shape and limbs.
Smith's "Venus stealing Cupid's bow"
In marble hides as fine;
But hers were life and soul, whose glow
Makes meaner things d...

Through the pauses of thy fervid singing
        Fell crystal sound
That thy fingers from the keys were flinging
        Lightly around:
I felt the vine-like harmonies close clinging
        About my soul;
And to my eyes, as fruit of their sweet bringing,
        The full tear stole!

Lying in me, as though it were a white
Stone in the depths of a well, is one
Memory that I cannot, will not, fight:
It is happiness, and it is pain.
Anyone looking straight into my eyes
Could not help seeing it, and could not fail
To become thoughtful, more sad and quiet
Than if he were listening to some tragic tale.

I know the gods changed people into things,
Leaving their consciousness alive and free.
To keep alive the wonder of suffering,
You have been metamorphosed into me.

I.

The storm that snapped our fate's one ship in twain
Hath blown my half o' the wreck from thine apart.
O Love! O Love! across the gray-waved main
To thee-ward strain my eyes, my arms, my heart.
I ask my God if e'en in His sweet place,
Where, by one waving of a wistful wing,
My soul could straightway tremble face to face
With thee, with thee, across the stellar ring -
Yea, where thine absence I could ne'er bewail
Longer than lasts that little blank of bliss
When lips draw back, with recent pressure pale,
To round and redden for another kiss -
Would not my lonesome heart still sigh for thee
What time the drear kiss-intervals must be?


II.

So do the mottled formulas of Sense
Glide snakewise through our dreams of Aftertime;
So er...

With kindly thoughts full oft we've met,
And bow'd at Friendship's sacred shrine;
Oh, may we ne'er those thoughts forget,
But may they still our hearts entwine.

May both retain those feelings long,
Which prompt the words of friendly tongue,
May I not fail to think of thee,
Nor you to think of T. F. Young.

A clamour by day and a whisper by night,
And the Summer comes with the shining noons,
With the ripple of leaves, and the passionate light
Of the falling suns and the rising moons.

And the ripple of leaves and the purple and red
Die for the grapes and the gleam of the wheat,
And then you may pause with the splendours, or tread
On the yellow of Autumn with lingering feet.

You may halt with the face to a flying sea,
Or stand like a gloom in the gloom of things,
When the moon drops down and the desolate lea
Is troubled with thunder and desolate wings.

But alas for the grey of the wintering eves,
And the pondering storms and the ruin of rains;
And alas for the Spring like a flame in the leaves,
And the green of the woods and the gold of the lanes!

Amor fra l' orbe una leggiadra rete.

HE COMPARES HIMSELF TO A BIRD CAUGHT IN A NET.


    Love 'mid the grass beneath a laurel green--
The plant divine which long my flame has fed,
Whose shade for me less bright than sad is seen--
A cunning net of gold and pearls had spread:
Its bait the seed he sows and reaps, I ween
Bitter and sweet, which I desire, yet dread:
Gentle and soft his call, as ne'er has been
Since first on Adam's eyes the day was shed:
And the bright light which disenthrones the sun
Was flashing round, and in her hand, more fair
Than snow or ivory, was the master rope.
So fell I in the snare; their slave so won
Her speech angelical and winning air,
Pleasure, and fond desire, and sanguine hope.

MACGREGOR.

"Well, Robert! what's th' matter! nah mun,
Aw see 'at ther's summat nooan sweet;
Thi een luk as red as a sun -
Aw saw that across th' width of a street;
Aw hope 'at yor Lily's noa war -
Surelee - th' little thing is'nt deead?
Tha wod roor, aw think, if tha dar -
What means ta bi shakin thi heead?
Well, aw see bi thi sorrowful e'e
At shoo's gooan, an' aw'm soory, but yet,
When youngens like her hap ta dee,
They miss troubles as some live to hit.
Tha mun try an' put up wi' thi loss,
Tha's been praad o' that child, aw mun say,
But give over freatin, becoss
It's for th' best if shoo's been taen away."
"A'a! Daniel, it's easy for thee
To talk soa, becoss th' loss is'nt thine;
But its ommost deeath-blow to me,
Shoo wor prized moor nor owt else 'at's m...

Just at the time when Jasmins bloom, most sweetly in the summer weather,
Lost in the scented Jungle gloom, one sultry night we spent together
We, Love and Night, together blent, a Trinity of tranced content.

Yet, while your lips were wholly mine, to kiss, to drink from, to caress,
We heard some far-off faint distress; harsh drop of poison in sweet wine
Lessening the fulness of delight, -    Some quivering note of human pain,
Which rose and fell and rose again, in plaintive sobs throughout the night,

Spoiling the perfumed, moonless hours
We spent among the Jasmin flowers.

I knew an old man at a Fair
Who made it his twice-yearly task
To clamber on a cider cask
And cry to all the yokels there:,

"Lovers to-day and for all time
    Preserve the meaning of my rhyme:
    Love is not kindly nor yet grim
    But does to you as you to him.

"Whistle, and Love will come to you,
    Hiss, and he fades without a word,
    Do wrong, and he great wrong will do,
    Speak, he retells what he has heard.

"Then all you lovers have good heed
    Vex not young Love in word or deed:
    Love never leaves an unpaid debt,
    He will not pardon nor forget."

The old man's voice was sweet yet loud
And this shows what a man was he,
He'd scatter apples to the crowd
And give great draughts of cider, free.

"To one who teaches me
The sweetness and the beauty
Of doing faithfully
And cheerfully my duty."

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...