The twentieth year is well nigh past
Since first our sky was overcast;
Ah! would that this might be the last!
My Mary!


Thy spirits have a fainter flow
I see thee daily weaker grow
‘Twas my distress that brought thee low,
My Mary!


Thy needles, once a shining store,
For my sake restless heretofore,
Now rust disused, and shine no more;
My Mary!


For, though thou gladly wouldst fulfil
The same kind office for me still,
Thy sight now seconds not thy will,
My Mary!


But well thou play’dst the housewife’s part,
And all thy threads with magic art
Have wound themselves about this heart,
My Mary!


Thy indistinct expressions seem
Like language utter’d in a dream:
Yet me they charm, wha...

I will confess
With cheerfulness,
Love is a thing so likes me,
That, let her lay
On me all day,
I'll kiss the hand that strikes me.

I will not, I,
Now blubb'ring cry,
It, ah!too late repents me
That I did fall
To love at all
Since love so much contents me.

No, no, I'll be
In fetters free;
While others they sit wringing
Their hands for pain,
I'll entertain
The wounds of love with singing.

With flowers and wine,
And cakes divine,
To strike me I will tempt thee;
Which done, no more
I'll come before
Thee and thine altars empty.

In that dark silent hour
When the wind wants power,
And in the black height
The sky wants light,
Stirless and black
In utter lack,
And not a sound
Escapes from that untroubled round:--

To wake then
In the dark, and ache then
Until the dark is gone--
Lonely, yet not alone;
Hearing another's breath
All the quiet beneath,
Knowing one sleeps near
That day held dear

And dreams held dear; but now
In this sharp moment--how
Share the moment's sweetness,
Forgo its completeness,
Nor be alone
Now the dark is grown
Spiritual and deep
More than in dreams and sleep?

O, it is pain, 'tis need
That so will plead
For a little loneliness.
If it be pain to miss
Loved touch, look and lip,
Companions...

Not like a daring, bold, aggressive boy,
    Is inspiration, eager to pursue,
But rather like a maiden, fond, yet coy,
    Who gives herself to him who best doth woo.

Once she may smile, or thrice, thy soul to fire,
    In passing by, but when she turns her face,
Thou must persist and seek her with desire,
    If thou wouldst win the favor of her grace.

And if, like some winged bird she cleaves the air,
    And leaves thee spent and stricken on the earth,
Still must thou strive to follow even there,
    That she may know thy valor and thy worth.

Then shall she come unveiling all her charms,
    Giving thee joy for pain, and smiles for tears;
Then shalt thou clasp her with possessing arms,
    The while she murmurs music in thine ears.

B...

I

Serene and beautiful and very wise,
Most erudite in curious Grecian lore,
You lay and read your learned books, and bore
A weight of unshed tears and silent sighs.
The song within your heart could never rise
Until love bade it spread its wings and soar.
Nor could you look on Beauty's face before
A poet's burning mouth had touched your eyes.

Love is made out of ecstasy and wonder;
Love is a poignant and accustomed pain.
It is a burst of Heaven-shaking thunder;
It is a linnet's fluting after rain.
Love's voice is through your song; above and under
And in each note to echo and remain.


II

Because Mankind is glad and brave and young,
Full of gay flames that white and scarlet glow,
All joys and passions that Mankind may know<...

    to -----.

    E'en the fair orb on which I gaze
    Suggests thy radiance by its rays:
    That silvery, soft, and dreamy light,
    So soft, and yet so beauteous bright,
    Falling in glowing tints so faint, -
    The hues which artists love to paint;
    Around whose sphere the fancies claim
    That angels float, and fan the flame:
    The lover's choice, it doth belong
    To lover's lute and poet's song.
    That light, though native to the skies,
    Is all reflected in thine eyes.

You are my God, and I would fain adore You
    With sweet and secret rites of other days.
Burn scented oil in silver lamps before You,
    Pour perfume on Your feet with prayer and praise.

Yet are we one; Your gracious condescension
    Granted, and grants, the loveliness I crave.
One, in the perfect sense of Eastern mention,
    "Gold and the Bracelet, Water and the Wave."

        He who wills life wills its condition sweet,
        Having made love its mother, joy its quest,
        That its perpetual sequence might not rest
        On reason's dictum, cold and too discreet;

        For reason moves with cautious, careful feet,
        Debating whether life or death were best,
        And why pale pain, not ruddy mirth, is guest
        In many a heart which life hath set to beat.

        But I will cast my fate with love, and trust
        Her honeyed heart that guides the pollened bee
        And sets the happy wing-seeds fluttering free;

        And I will bless the law which saith, Thou must!
        And, wet with sea or shod with weary dust,
        Will follow back and back and back to thee!

Farewell has long been said; I have forgone thee;
    I never name thee even.
But how shall I learn virtues and yet shun thee?
    For thou art so near Heaven
That heavenward meditations pause upon thee.

Thou dost beset the path to every shrine;
    My trembling thoughts discern
Thy goodness in the good for which I pine;
    And if I turn from but one sin, I turn
Unto a smile of thine.

How shall I thrust thee apart
    Since all my growth tends to thee night and day--
To thee faith, hope, and art?
    Swift are the currents setting all one way;
They draw my life, my life, out of my heart.

Febrile perfumes as of faded roses
In the old house speak of love to-day,
Love long past; and where the soft day closes,
Down the west gleams, golden-red, a ray.

Pointing where departed splendor perished,
And the path that night shall walk, and hang,
On blue boughs of heaven, gold, long cherished
Fruit Hesperian, that the ancients sang.

And to him, who sits there dreaming, musing,
At the window in the twilight wan,
Like old scent of roses interfusing,
Comes a vision of a day that's gone.

And he sees Youth, walking brave but dimly
'Mid the roses, in the afterglow;
And beside him, like a star seen slimly,
Love, who used to meet him long-ago.

And again he seems to hear the flowers
Whispering faintly of what no one knows
Of the dr...

Excuse is needless when with love sincere
Of occupation, not by fashion led,
Thou turn'st the Wheel that slept with dust o'erspread;
'My' nerves from no such murmur shrink, tho' near,
Soft as the Dorhawk's to a distant ear,
When twilight shades darken the mountain's head.
Even She who toils to spin our vital thread
Might smile on work, O Lady, once so dear
To household virtues. Venerable Art,
Torn from the Poor! yet shall kind Heaven protect
Its own; though Rulers, with undue respect,
Trusting to crowded factory and mart
And proud discoveries of the intellect,
Heed not the pillage of man's ancient heart.

They're all buildin nests for thersen,
One bi one they goa fleetin away;
A suitable mate comes, - an then,
I'th' old nest they noa longer can stay.
Well, - it's folly for th' old en's to freeat,
Tho' it's hard to see loved ones depart, -
An we sigh, - let a tear drop, - an yet,
We bless 'em, an give 'em a start.

They've battles to feight 'at we've fowt,
They've trubbles an trials to face;
I'th' futer they luk an see nowt
'At can hamper ther coorse i' life's race.
Th' sun's shinin soa breetly, they think
Sorrow's claads have noa shadow for them,
They walk on uncertainty's brink,
An they see in each teardrop a gem.

Happy dreams 'at they had long ago,
Too sweet to believe - -could be true,
Are realized nah, for they know
Th' worl...

Through the half-curtained window stole
An Autumn sunset's glow,
As languid on my couch I lay
With pulses weak and low.

And then methought a presence stood,
With shining feet and fair,
Amid the waves of golden light
That rippled through the air,

And laid upon my heaving breast,
With earnest glance and true,
A babe, whose fair and gentle brow
No shade of sorrow knew.

A solemn joy was in my heart,--
Immortal life was given
To Earth, upon her battle-field
To discipline for Heaven.

Soft music thrilled the quiet room,--
An unseen host were nigh,
Who left the infant pilgrim at
The threshold of our sky.

A new, strange love woke in my heart,
Defying all control,
As on the soft air rose and fell
That birt...

It may be for the world of weeds and tares
And dearth in Nature of sweet Beauty's rose
That oft as Fortune from ten thousand shows
One from the train of Love's true courtiers
Straightway on him who gazes, unawares,
Deep wonder seizes and swift trembling grows,
Reft by that sight of purpose and repose,
Hardly its weight his fainting breast upbears.
Then on the soul from some ancestral place
Floods back remembrance of its heavenly birth,
When, in the light of that serener sphere,
It saw ideal beauty face to face
That through the forms of this our meaner Earth
Shines with a beam less steadfast and less clear.

What subtle charm is in thy voice,
That ever, when I hear its tone,
My heart doth pleasantly rejoice,
And fondly turns to thee alone?

The mem'ries of a toilsome life
Are banish'd by its potent spell,
And earthly care, and earthly strife,
No whisper'd sorrows dare to tell.

Where hope had fled, new hope inspires;
Comes life, where lately life had gone;
New purposes my bosom fires,
To battle hard and bravely on.

What charm dwells in thine eye of blue,
That thus, by its magnetic pow'r,
The world to me hath brighter hue,
And happier grows each passing hour?

With virtuous thought, and pure desire,
Thine eyes look forth from lofty soul;
Contagious, then, my thoughts aspire
To reach, with thee, thy lofty goal.

Thine ey...

Se 'l troppo indugio.


What though long waiting wins more happiness
        Than petulant desire is wont to gain,
        My luck in latest age hath brought me pain,
        Thinking how brief must be an old man's bliss.
Heaven, if it heed our lives, can hardly bless
        This fire of love when frosts are wont to reign:
        For so I love thee, lady, and my strain
        Of tears through age exceeds in tenderness.
Yet peradventure though my day is done,--
        Though nearly past the setting mid thick cloud
        And frozen exhalations sinks my sun,--
If love to only mid-day be allowed,
        And I an old man in my evening burn,
        You, lady, still my night to noon may turn.

            TO E.M. II.

Dear friend, you love the poet's song,
    And here is one for your regard.
    You know the "melancholy bard,"
Whose grief is wise as well as strong;

Already something understand
    For whom he mourns and what he sings,
    And how he wakes with golden strings
The echoes of "the silent land;"

How, restless, faint, and worn with grief,
    Yet loving all and hoping all,
    He gazes where the shadows fall,
And finds in darkness some relief;

And how he sends his cries across,
    His cries for him that comes no more,
    Till one might think that silent shore
Full of the burden of his loss;

And how there comes sublimer cheer--
    Not darkness solacing sad eyes,
    Not the wild joy of mournf...

S' onesto amor può meritar mercede.

HE PRAYS THAT, IN REWARD FOR HIS LONG AND VIRTUOUS ATTACHMENT, SHE WILL VISIT HIM IN DEATH.


    If Mercy e'er rewardeth virtuous love,
If Pity still can do, as she has done,
I shall have rest, for clearer than the sun
My lady and the world my faith approve.
Who fear'd me once, now knows, yet scarce believes
I am the same who wont her love to seek,
Who seek it still; where she but heard me speak,
Or saw my face, she now my soul perceives.
Wherefore I hope that e'en in heaven she mourns
My heavy anguish, and on me the while
Her sweet face eloquent of pity turns,
And that when shuffled off this mortal coil,
Her way to me with that fair band she'll wend,
True follower of Christ and virtue's friend.