How few are they that voyage through the night
    On that eternal quest,
For that strange light beyond our light,
    That rest beyond our rest.

And they who, seeking beauty, once descry
    Her face, to most unknown;
Thenceforth like changelings from the sky
    Must walk their road alone.

So once I dreamed. So idle was my mood;
    But now, before these eyes,
From those foul trenches, black with blood,
    What radiant legions rise!

And loveliness over the wounded earth awakes
    Like wild-flowers in the Spring.
Out of the mortal chrysalis breaks
    Immortal wing on wing.

They rise like flowers, they wander on wings of light,
    Through realms beyond our ken.
The loneliest soul is companied tonight
    By hosts of u...

        In the midnight of darkness and terror,
    When I would grope nearer to God,
        With my back to a record of error
    And the highway of sin I have trod,
        There come to me shapes I would banish -
    The shapes of the deeds I have done;
        And I pray and I plead till they vanish -
    All vanish and leave me, save one.

        That one with a smile like the splendor
    Of the sun in the middle-day skies -
        That one with a spell that is tender -
    That one with a dream in her eyes -
        Cometh close, in her rare Southern beauty,
    Her languor, her indolent grace;
        And my soul turns its back on its duty,
    To live in the light of her face.

        She touches my cheek, and I quiver -
    I tremb...

("Ceux-ci partent.")

[Bk. III. v., February, 1843.]


We pass - these sleep
Beneath the shade where deep-leaved boughs
Bend o'er the furrows the Great Reaper ploughs,
And gentle summer winds in many sweep
Whirl in eddying waves
The dead leaves o'er the graves.

And the living sigh:
Forgotten ones, so soon your memories die.
Ye never more may list the wild bird's song,
Or mingle in the crowded city-throng.
Ye must ever dwell in gloom,
'Mid the silence of the tomb.

And the dead reply:
God giveth us His life. Ye die,
Your barren lives are tilled with tears,
For glory, ye are clad with fears.
Oh, living ones! oh, earthly shades!
We live; your beauty clouds and fades.

If these brief Records, by the Muses' art
Produced as lonely Nature or the strife
That animates the scenes of public life
Inspired, may in thy leisure claim a part;
And if these Transcripts of the private heart
Have gained a sanction from thy falling tears;
Then I repent not. But my soul hath fears
Breathed from eternity; for, as a dart
Cleaves the blank air, Life flies: now every day
Is but a glimmering spoke in the swift wheel
Of the revolving week. Away, away,
All fitful cares, all transitory zeal!
So timely Grace the immortal wing may heal,
And honour rest upon the senseless clay.

Is there a secret Joy, that may not weep,
For every flower that ends its little span,
For every child that groweth up to man,
For every captive bird a cage doth keep,
For every aching eye that went to sleep
Long ages back, when other eyes began
To see and know and love as now they can,
Unravelling God's wonders heap by heap?
Or doth the Past lie 'mid Eternity
In charnel dens that rot and reek alway,
A dismal light for those that go astray,
A pit of foul deformity--to be,
Beauty, a dreadful source of growth for thee
When thou wouldst lift thine eyes to greet the day?

Each year cometh with all his days,
Some are shadowed and some are bright;
He beckons us on until he stays
Kneeling with us 'neath Christmas night.

Kneeling under the stars that gem
The holy sky, o'er the humble place,
When the world's sweet Child of Bethlehem
Rested on Mary, full of grace.

Not only the Bethlehem in the East,
But altar Bethlehem everywhere,
When the ~Gloria~ of the first great feast
Rings forth its gladness on the air.

Each year seemeth loath to go,
And leave the joys of Christmas day;
In lands of sun and in lands of snow,
The year still longs awhile to stay.

A little while, 'tis hard to part
From this Christ blessed here below,
Old year! and in thy aged heart
I hear thee sing so sweet and low.

        The little loves and sorrows are my song:
            The leafy lanes and birthsteads of my sires,
            Where memory broods by winter's evening fires
        O'er oft-told joys, and ghosts of ancient wrong;
        The little cares and carols that belong
            To home-hearts, and old rustic lutes and lyres,
            And spreading acres, where calm-eyed desires
        Wake with the dawn, unfevered, fair, and strong.

        If words of mine might lull the bairn to sleep,
            And tell the meaning in a mother's eyes;
        Might counsel love, and teach their eyes to weep
            Who, o'er their dead, question unanswering skies,
        More worth than legions in the dust of strife,
        Time, looking back at last, should count my ...

Sometimes the Saviour sleeps, and it is dark;
For, oh! His eyes are this world's only light,
And when they close wild waves rush on His bark,
And toss it through the dead hours of the night.

So He slept once upon an eastern lake,
In Peter's bark, while wild waves raved at will;
A cry smote on Him, and when He did wake,
He softly whispered, and the sea grew still.

It is a mystery: but He seems to sleep
As erst he slept in Peter's waved-rocked bark;
A storm is sweeping all across the deep,
While Pius prays, like Peter, in the dark.

The sky is darkened, and the shore is far,
The tempest's strength grows fiercer every hour:
Upon the howling deep there shines no star --
Why sleeps He still? Why does He hide His power?

Fear not! a holy hand i...

Within thine eyes two spirits dwell,
The sweetest and the purest
That ever wove Love's mystic spell,
Or plied his arts the surest:
        No smile of morn,
        Though heaven-born,
Nor sunshine earthward straying,
        E'er charmed the sight
        With half the light
That round thy lips is playing.

The stars may shine, the moon may smile,
The earth in beauty languish,
Life's sorrows these can but beguile,
But thou canst heal its anguish.
        Thy voice, like rills
        Of silver, trills
Such sounds of liquid sweetness,
        Each accent rolls
        Along our souls,
In lyrical completeness.

If Friendship lend thee such a grace,
That men nor gods may slight it,
How blest the one who views thy face

Agatha, tell me, could your heart take flight
From this black city, from this filthy sea
Off to some other sea, where splendour might
Burst blue and clear-a new virginity?
Agatha, tell me, could your heart take flight?

The vast sea offers comfort in our pain!
What demon lets the ocean's raucous cry
Above the great wind-organ's grumbling strain
Perform the holy rite of lullaby?
The vast sea offers comfort in our pain!

Frigate or wagon, carry me away!
Away from where the mud is made of tears!
Agatha, can your sad heart sometimes say:
Far from the crimes, remorse, the grief of years,
Frigate or wagon, carry me away!

How distant are you, perfumed paradise,
Where lovers play beneath the blue above,
Where hearts may drown themselves in pure de...

So well I knew your habits and your ways,
That like a picture painted on the skies,
At the sweet closing of the summer days,
    You stand before my eyes.

I see you on the old verandah there,
While slow the shadows of the twilight fall,
I see the very carving on the chair
    You tilt against the wall.

The West grows dim.    The faithful evening star
Comes out and sheds its tender patient beam.
I almost catch the scent of your cigar,
    As you sit there and dream.

But dream of what?    I know your outward life -
Your ways, your habits; know they have not changed.
But has one thought of me survived the strife
    Since we two were estranged?

I know not of the workings of your heart;
And yet I sometimes make myself believe
That...

        I wonder can this be the world it was
        At sunset? I remember the sky fell
        Green as pale meadows, at the long street-ends,
        But overhead the smoke-wrack hugged the roofs
        As if to shut the city from God's eyes
        Till dawn should quench the laughter and the lights.
        Beneath the gas flare stolid faces passed,
        Too dull for sin; old loosened lips set hard
        To drain the stale lees from the cup of sense;
        Or if a young face yearned from out the mist
        Made by its own bright hair, the eyes were wan
        With desolate fore-knowledge of the end.
        My life lay waste about me: as I walked,
        From the gross dark of unfrequented streets
        The face of my own youth peered forth at me,

Oh how oft I wake and find
    I have been forgetting thee!
I am never from thy mind:
    Thou it is that wakest me.

The birds are pirates of her notes,
The blossoms steal her face's light;
The stars in ambush lie all day,
To take her glances for the night.
Her voice can shame rain-pelted leaves;
Young robin has no notes as sweet
In autumn, when the air is still,
And all the other birds are mute.

When I set eyes on ripe, red plums
That seem a sin and shame to bite,
Such are her lips, which I would kiss,
And still would keep before my sight.
When I behold proud gossamer
Make silent billows in the air,
Then think I of her head's fine stuff,
Finer than gossamer's, I swear.

The miser has his joy, with gold
Beneath his pillow in the night;
My head shall lie on soft warm hair,
And miser's know not that delight.
Captains that own their ships can boas...

If I should see your eyes again,
I know how far their look would go
Back to a morning in the park
With sapphire shadows on the snow.

Or back to oak trees in the spring
When you unloosed my hair and kissed
The head that lay against your knees
In the leaf shadow's amethyst.

And still another shining place
We would remember, how the dun
Wild mountain held us on its crest
One diamond morning white with sun.

But I will turn my eyes from you
As women turn to put away
The jewels they have worn at night
And cannot wear in sober day.

Love, that is first and last of all things made,
The light that has the living world for shade,
The spirit that for temporal veil has on
The souls of all men woven in unison,
One fiery raiment with all lives inwrought
And lights of sunny and starry deed and thought,
And alway through new act and passion new
Shines the divine same body and beauty through,
The body spiritual of fire and light
That is to worldly noon as noon to night;
Love, that is flesh upon the spirit of man
And spirit within the flesh whence breath began;
Love, that keeps all the choir of lives in chime;
Love, that is blood within the veins of time;
That wrought the whole world without stroke of hand,
Shaping the breadth of sea, the length of land,
And with the pulse and motion of his breath

Sweep thy faint Strings, Musician,
    With thy long lean hand;
Downward the starry tapers burn,
    Sinks soft the waning sand;
The old hound whimpers couched in sleep,
    The embers smoulder low;
Across the walls the shadows
    Come, and go.

Sweep softly thy strings, Musician,
    The minutes mount to hours;
Frost on the windless casement weaves
    A labyrinth of flowers;
Ghosts linger in the darkening air,
    Hearken at the open door;
Music hath called them, dreaming,
    Home once more.

    What art thou doing here, O Imagination?    Go away I entreat thee by the gods, as thou didst come, for I want thee not.    But thou art come according to thy old fashion.    I am not angry with thee - only go away.
    - Marcus Antoninus

Lilac hazes veil the skies.
    Languid sighs
Breathes the mild, caressing air.
Pink as coral's branching sprays,
    Orchard ways
With the blossomed peach are fair.


Sunshine, cordial as a kiss,
    Poureth bliss
In this craving soul of mine,
And my heart her flower-cup
    Lifteth up,
Thirsting for the draught divine.


Swift the liquid golden flame
    Through my frame
Sets my throbbing veins afire.
Bright, alluring dreams arise,
    Brim mine eyes
With the tears of strong desi...