Your own fair youth, you care so little for it,
    Smiling towards Heaven, you would not stay the advances
    Of time and change upon your happiest fancies.
I keep your golden hour, and will restore it.

If ever, in time to come, you would explore it--
    Your old self whose thoughts went like last year's pansies,
    Look unto me; no mirror keeps its glances;
In my unfailing praises now I store it.

To keep all joys of yours from Time's estranging,
    I shall be then a treasury where your gay,
            Happy, and pensive past for ever is.

I shall be then a garden charmed from changing,
    In which your June has never passed away.
            Walk there awhile among my memories.

Where sunless rivers weep
Their waves into the deep,
She sleeps a charmèd sleep:
    Awake her not.
Led by a single star,
She came from very far
To seek where shadows are
    Her pleasant lot.

She left the rosy morn,
She left the fields of corn,
For twilight cold and lorn
    And water springs.
Through sleep, as through a veil,
She sees the sky look pale,
And hears the nightingale
    That sadly sings.

Rest, rest, a perfect rest
Shed over brow and breast;
Her face is toward the west,
    The purple land.
She cannot see the grain
Ripening on hill and plain;
She cannot feel the rain
    Upon her hand.

Rest, rest, for evermore
Upon a mossy shore;
Rest, rest at the heart's core
    Till time ...

Who is this who gently slips
Through my door, and stands and sighs,
Hovering in a soft eclipse,
With a finger on her lips
And a meaning in her eyes?

Once she came to visit me
In white robes with festal airs,
Glad surprises, songs of glee;
Now in silence cometh she,
And a sombre garb she wears.

Once I waited and was tired,
Chid her visits as too few;
Crownless now and undesired,
She to seek me is inspired
Oftener than she used to do.

Grave her coming is and still,
Sober her appealing mien,
Tender thoughts her glances fill;
But I shudder, as one will
When an open grave is seen.

Wherefore, friend,--for friend thou art,--
Should I wrong thee thus and grieve?
Wherefore push thee from my heart?
Of my morning...

La sera desiar, odiar l' aurora.

CONTRARY TO THE WONT OF LOVERS, HE PREFERS MORN TO EVE.


    Tranquil and happy loves in this agree,
The evening to desire and morning hate:
On me at eve redoubled sorrows wait--
Morning is still the happier hour for me.
For then my sun and Nature's oft I see
Opening at once the orient's rosy gate,
So match'd in beauty and in lustre great,
Heaven seems enamour'd of our earth to be!
As when in verdant leaf the dear boughs burst
Whose roots have since so centred in my core,
Another than myself is cherish'd more.
Thus the two hours contrast, day's last and first:
Reason it is who calms me to desire,
And fear and hate who fiercer feed my fire.

MACGREGOR.

1

Hangs stormed with stars the night,
Deep over deep,
A majesty, a might,
To feel and keep.


2

Ah! what is such and such,
Love, canst thou tell?
That shrinks - though 'tis not much -
To weep farewell.


3

That hates the dawn and lark;
Would have the wail, -
Sobbed through the ceaseless dark, -
O' the nightingale.


4

Yes, earth, thy life were worth
Not much to me,
Were there not after earth
Eternity.


5

God gave thee life to keep -
And what hath life? -
Love, faith, and care, and sleep
Where dreams are rife.


6

Death's sleep, whose shadows start
The tears in eyes
Of love, that fill the heart
That breaks and d...

Last night for the first time, O Heart's Delight,
    I held your hand a moment in my own,
    The dearest moment which my soul has known,
Since I beheld and loved you at first sight.

I left you, and I wandered in the night,
    Under the rain, beside the ocean's moan.
    All was black dark, but in the north alone
There was a glimmer of the Northern Light.

My heart was singing like a happy bird,
    Glad of the present, and from forethought free,
Save for one note amid its music heard:
    God grant, whatever end of this may be,
That when the tale is told, the final word
    May be of peace and benison to thee.

Gaze not on thy beauty's pride,
Tender maid, in the false tide
That from lovers' eyes doth slide.

Let thy faithful crystal show
How thy colours come and go:
Beauty takes a foil from woe.

Love, that in those smooth streams lies
Under pity's fair disguise,
Will thy melting heart surprise.

Nets of passion's finest thread,
Snaring poems, will be spread,
All to catch thy maidenhead.

Then beware! for those that cure
Love's disease, themselves endure
For reward a calenture.

Rather let the lover pine,
Than his pale cheek should assign
A perpetual blush to thine.

        One idle day --
A mile or so of sunlit waves off shore --
        In a breezeless bay,
        We listless lay --
Our boat a "dream of rest" on the still sea --
        And -- we were four.

        The wind had died
That all day long sang songs unto the deep;
        It was eventide,
        And far and wide
Sweet silence crept thro' the rifts of sound
        With spells of sleep.

        Our gray sail cast
The only cloud that flecked the foamless sea;
        And weary at last
        Beside the mast
One fell to slumber with a dreamy face,
        And -- we were three.

        No ebb! no flow!
No sound! no stir in the wide, wondrous calm;
        In the sunset's glow
        The shore shelved low
And sn...

Grant me, I cried, some spell of art,
To turn with all a lover's care,
That spotless page, my Eva's heart,
And write my burning wishes there.

But Love, by faithless Laia taught
How frail is woman's holiest vow,
Look'd down, while grace attempered thought
Sate serious on his baby brow.

"Go! blot her album," cried the sage,
"There none but bards a place may claim;
But woman's heart's a worthless page,
Where every fool may write his name."

Until by time or fate decayed,
That line and leaf shall never part;
Ah! who can tell how soon shall fade
The lines of love from woman's heart.

Ah! why, because the dazzling sun
Restored our Earth to joy,
Have you departed, every one,
And left a desert sky?

All through the night, your glorious eyes
Were gazing down in mine,
And, with a full heart's thankful sighs,
I blessed that watch divine.

I was at peace, and drank your beams
As they were life to me;
And revelled in my changeful dreams,
Like petrel on the sea.

Thought followed thought, star followed star,
Through boundless regions, on;
While one sweet influence, near and far,
Thrilled through, and proved us one!

Why did the morning dawn to break
So great, so pure, a spell;
And scorch with fire the tranquil cheek,
Where your cool radiance fell?

Blood-red, he rose, and, arrow-straight,
His fierce...

I love the warm bare earth and all
That works and dreams thereon:
I love the seasons yet to fall:
I love the ages gone,

The valleys with the sheeted grain,
The river's smiling might,
The merry wind, the rustling rain,
The vastness of the night.

I love the morning's flame, the steep
Where down the vapour clings:
I love the clouds that float and sleep,
And every bird that sings.

I love the purple shower that pours
On far-off fields at even:
I love the pine-wood dusk whose floors
Are like the courts of heaven.

I love the heaven's azure span,
The grass beneath my feet:
I love the face of every man
Whose thought is swift and sweet.

I let the wrangling world go by,
And like an idle breath
Its echoes and its...

Come [Harriet]! sweet is the hour,
Soft Zephyrs breathe gently around,
The anemone's night-boding flower,
Has sunk its pale head on the ground.

'Tis thus the world's keenness hath torn,
Some mild heart that expands to its blast,
'Tis thus that the wretched forlorn,
Sinks poor and neglected at last. -

The world with its keenness and woe,
Has no charms or attraction for me,
Its unkindness with grief has laid low,
The heart which is faithful to thee.
The high trees that wave past the moon,
As I walk in their umbrage with you,
All declare I must part with you soon,
All bid you a tender adieu! -

Then [Harriet]! dearest farewell,
You and I love, may ne'er meet again;
These woods and these meadows can tell
How soft and how sweet was t...

Apollo never smote a lovelier strain,
When swan-necked Hebe paused her thirsty bowl
A-sparkle with its wealth of nectar-draughts
To lend a list'ners ear and smile on him,
As that the Tritons blew on wreathed horns
When Aphrodite, the cold ocean-foam
Bursting its bubbles, from the hissing snow
Whirled her nude form on Hyperion's gaze,
Naked and fresh as Indian Ocean shell
Dashed landward from its bed of sucking sponge
And branching corals by the changed monsoon.
Wind-rocked she swung her white feet on the sea,
And music raved down the slant western winds;
With swollen jowls the Tritons puffed the conch,
Where, breasting with cold bosoms the green waves,
That laughed in ripples at Love's misty feet,
Oceanids with dimple-dented palms
Smote sidewise the pale ...

When panting sighs the bosom fill,
And hands by chance united thrill
At once with one delicious pain
The pulses and the nerves of twain;
When eyes that erst could meet with ease,
Do seek, yet, seeking, shyly shun
Extatic conscious unison,
The sure beginnings, say, be these
Prelusive to the strain of love
Which angels sing in heaven above?

Or is it but the vulgar tune,
Which all that breathe beneath the moon
So accurately learn so soon?
With variations duly blent;
Yet that same song to all intent,
Set for the finer instrument;
It is; and it would sound the same
In beasts, were not the bestial frame,
Less subtly organised, to blame;
And but that soul and spirit add
To pleasures, even base and bad,
A zest the soulless never had.

The night is come, but not too soon;
    And sinking silently,
All silently, the little moon
    Drops down behind the sky.

There is no light in earth or heaven
    But the cold light of stars;
And the first watch of night is given
    To the red planet Mars.

Is it the tender star of love?
    The star of love and dreams?
O no! from that blue tent above,
    A hero's armor gleams.

And earnest thoughts within me rise,
    When I behold afar,
Suspended in the evening skies,
    The shield of that red star.

O star of strength! I see thee stand
    And smile upon my pain;
Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand,
    And I am strong again.

Within my breast there is no light
    But the cold light of stars;
I g...

Di pensier in pensier, di monte in monte.

DISTANCE AND SOLITUDE.


    From hill to hill I roam, from thought to thought,
With Love my guide; the beaten path I fly,
For there in vain the tranquil life is sought:
If 'mid the waste well forth a lonely rill,
Or deep embosom'd a low valley lie,
In its calm shade my trembling heart's still;
And there, if Love so will,
I smile, or weep, or fondly hope, or fear.
While on my varying brow, that speaks the soul,
The wild emotions roll,
Now dark, now bright, as shifting skies appear;
That whosoe'er has proved the lover's state
Would say, He feels the flame, nor knows his future fate.

On mountains high, in forests drear and wide,
I find repose, and from the throng'd resort
Of man turn fea...

1.
Summer was dead and Autumn was expiring,
And infant Winter laughed upon the land
All cloudlessly and cold; - when I, desiring
More in this world than any understand,
Wept o'er the beauty, which, like sea retiring,
Had left the earth bare as the wave-worn sand
Of my lorn heart, and o'er the grass and flowers
Pale for the falsehood of the flattering Hours.

2.
Summer was dead, but I yet lived to weep
The instability of all but weeping;
And on the Earth lulled in her winter sleep
I woke, and envied her as she was sleeping.
Too happy Earth! over thy face shall creep
The wakening vernal airs, until thou, leaping
From unremembered dreams, shalt ... see
No death divide thy immortality.

3.
I loved - oh, no, I mean not one of ye,
Or an...

Dear little Hut by the rice-fields circled,
That cocoa-nuts shade above.
I hear the voices of children singing,
And that means love.

When shall the traveller's march be over,
When shall his wandering cease?
This little homestead is bare and simple,
And that means peace.

Nay! to the road I am not unfaithful;
In tents let my dwelling be!
I am not longing for Peace or Passion
From any one else but thee,
My Krishna,
Any one else but thee!