See him quake and see him tremble,
    See him gasp for breath.
Nay, dear, he does not dissemble,
    This is really Death.
He is weak, and worn, and wasted,
    Bear him to his bier.
All there is of life he's tasted -
    He has lived a year.

He has passed his day of glory,
    All his blood is cold,
He is wrinkled, thin, and hoary,
    He is very old.
Just a leaf's life in the wild wood,
    Is a love's life, dear.
He has reached his second childhood
    When he's lived a year.

Long ago he lost his reason,
    Lost his trust and faith -
Better far in his first season
    Had he met with death.
Let us have no pomp or splendour,
    No vain pretence here.
As we bury, grave, yet tender,
    Love that's lived a year...

To H.W.M.


Between the springs of six and seven,
Two fresh years' fountains, clear
Of all but golden sand for leaven,
Child, midway passing here,
As earth for love's sake dares bless heaven,
So dare I bless you, dear.
Between two bright well-heads, that brighten
With every breath that blows
Too loud to lull, too low to frighten,
But fain to rock, the rose,
Your feet stand fast, your lit smiles lighten,
That might rear flowers from snows.
You came when winds unleashed were snarling
Behind the frost-bound hours,
A snow-bird sturdier than the starling,
A storm-bird fledged for showers,
That spring might smile to find you, darling,
First born of all the flowers.
Could love make worthy things of worthless,
My song were worth an...

("Si j'étais la feuille.")

[XXII., September, 1828.]


Oh! were I the leaf that the wind of the West,
His course through the forest uncaring;
To sleep on the gale or the wave's placid breast
In a pendulous cradle is bearing.

All fresh with the morn's balmy kiss would I haste,
As the dewdrops upon me were glancing;
When Aurora sets out on the roseate waste,
And round her the breezes are dancing.

On the pinions of air I would fly, I would rush
Thro' the glens and the valleys to quiver;
Past the mountain ravine, past the grove's dreamy hush,
And the murmuring fall of the river.

By the darkening hollow and bramble-bush lane,
To catch the sweet breath of the roses;
Past the land would I speed, where the sand-driven plain

(For Aline)



Because the road was steep and long
    And through a dark and lonely land,
God set upon my lips a song
    And put a lantern in my hand.

Through miles on weary miles of night
    That stretch relentless in my way
My lantern burns serene and white,
    An unexhausted cup of day.

O golden lights and lights like wine,
    How dim your boasted splendors are.
Behold this little lamp of mine;
    It is more starlike than a star!

Dear, think not that they will forget you:
If craftsmanly art should be mine
I will build up a temple, and set you
Therein as its shrine.

They may say: "Why a woman such honour?"
Be told, "O, so sweet was her fame,
That a man heaped this splendour upon her;
None now knows his name."

    Love, thou gayest fancy-weaver,
    Heart-betrayer, soul-deceiver,
    Come with all thy clinging kisses;
    Bringing all thy beaming blisses;
    It may serve the cynic's parts,
        If he curse and if he scout thee,
    But, O, where were gentle hearts,
        If they had to live without thee!

    Weave the spells of thy beguiling
    'Round and 'round me with thy smiling,
    Till the ashen cheek is beaming,
    And the faded eye is gleaming;
    Millions may endure the fight
        In the battle vain to end thee,
    But when taste they thy delight
        They will serve thee and defend thee.

    Bring thy little winsome graces
    And the sweets of glad embraces,
    Till the pleasures all are dancing
    Into mazy wh...

    O life has its seasons joyous and drear,
    Its summer sun and its winter snow,
    But the fairest of all, I tell you, dear,
    Was the sweet old spring of the long ago -
            The ever and ever so long ago -

    When we walked together among the flowers,
    When the world with beauty was all aglow.
    O the rain and dew! O the shine and showers
    Of the sweet old spring of the long ago!
            The ever and ever so long ago.

    A hunger for all of the past delight
    Is stirred by the winds that softly blow.
    Can you spare me a thought from heaven to-night
    For the sweet old spring of the long ago? -
            The ever and ever so long ago.

There is a flower I wish to wear,
But not until first worn by you,
Heartsease of all earth’s flowers most rare;
Bring it; and bring enough for two.

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-season’d showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As ’twixt a miser and his wealth is found.
Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then better’d that the world may see my pleasure:
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,
And by and by clean starved for a look;
Possessing or pursuing no delight,
Save what is had, or must from you be took.
Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away.

These are the things I pray Heaven send us still,
To blow the ashes of the years away,
Or keep aglow forever 'neath their gray
The fire that warms when Life's old house grows chill:
First Faith, that gazed into our youth's bright eyes;
Courage, that helped us onward, rain or sun;
Then Hope, who captained all our deeds well done;
And, last, the dream of Love that never dies.

Nor time nor all his minions
Of sorrow or of pain,
Shall dash with vulture pinions
The cup she fills again
Within the dream-dominions
Of life where she doth reign.

Clothed on with bright desire
And hope that makes her strong,
With limbs of frost and fire,
She sits above all wrong,
Her heart, a living lyre,
Her love, its only song.

And in the waking pauses
Of weariness and care,
And when the dark hour draws his
Black weapon of despair,
Above effects and causes
We hear its music there.

The longings life hath near it
Of love we yearn to see;
The dreams it doth inherit
Of immortality;
Are callings of her spirit
To something yet to be.

A Sense of sadness in the golden air,
A pensiveness, that has no part in care,
As if the Season, by some woodland pool,
Braiding the early blossoms in her hair,
Seeing her loveliness reflected there,
Had sighed to find herself so beautiful.

A breathlessness, a feeling as of fear,
Holy and dim as of a mystery near,
As if the World about us listening went,
With lifted finger, and hand-hollowed ear,
Hearkening a music that we cannot hear,
Haunting the quickening earth and firmament.

A prescience of the soul that has no name,
Expectancy that is both wild and tame,
As if the Earth, from out its azure ring
Of heavens, looked to see, as white as flame,
As Perseus once to chained Andromeda came,
The swift, divine revealment of the Spring.

Then its O! for a wife, sich a wife as aw know!
Who's thowts an desires are pure as the snow,
Who nivver thinks virtue a reason for praise,
An who shudders when tell'd ov this world's wicked ways.

Shoo isn't a gossip, shoo keeps to her hooam,
Shoo's a welcome for friends if they happen to come;
Shoo's tidy an cleean, let yo call when yo may,
Shoo's nivver upset or put aght ov her way.

At morn when her husband sets off to his wark,
Shoo starts him off whistlin, as gay as a lark;
An at neet if he's weary he hurries straight back,
An if worried forgets all his cares in a crack.

If onny naybor is sick or distressed,
Shoe sends what shoo can an allus her best;
An if onny young fowk chonce to fall i' disgrace,
They fly straight to her and they tell her ...

As on a waveless sea, a vessel strikes
Upon a treacherous rock;
Waking the sailors from their happy dreams
By the swift, terrible shock.

Dreaming of shaded village streets, and home,
Forgetting the cruel sea
Till the shock came - so woke I, yet I know
'Twas Love, I loved, not he.

'Tis not the star the wave so wildly clasps,
Only its form reflected in the stream;
'Tis not a broken heart I mourn,
Only a broken dream.

I should have died when he was brought so low,
Had it been him I loved,
Died clinging to him, as to the blasted oak
The ivy clings unmoved.

'Twas Love that looked on me with strange, sweet eyes
Burning with marvellous flame;
Love was the idol that I worshipped, though
I gave to it his name.

I gave to...

Nay, lady, one frown is enough
In a life as soon over as this,
And though minutes seem long in a huff,
They’re minutes ’tis pity to miss!
The smiles you imprison so lightly
Are reckon’d, like days in eclipse;
And though you may smile again brightly,
You’ve lost so much light from your lips!
Pray, lady, smile!

The cup that is longest untasted
May be with our bliss running o’er,
And, love when we will, we have wasted
An age in not loving before!
Perchance Cupid’s forging a fetter
To tie us together some day,
And, just for the chance, we had better
Be laying up love, I should say!
Nay, lady, smile!

    The storm hath passed;
    I hear the birds rejoice; the hen,
    Returned into the road again,
    Her cheerful notes repeats. The sky serene
    Is, in the west, upon the mountain seen:
    The country smiles; bright runs the silver stream.
    Each heart is cheered; on every side revive
    The sounds, the labors of the busy hive.
    The workman gazes at the watery sky,
    As standing at the door he sings,
    His work in hand; the little wife goes forth,
    And in her pail the gathered rain-drops brings;
    The vendor of his wares, from lane to lane,
    Begins his daily cry again.
    The sun returns, and with his smile illumes
    The villas on the neighboring hills;
    Through open terraces and balconies,
    The genial light pervades the ...

Think on that look whose melting ray
    For one sweet moment mixt with mine,
And for that moment seemed to say,
    "I dare not, or I would be thine!"

Think on thy every smile and glance,
    On all thou hast to charm and move;
And then forgive my bosom's trance,
    Nor tell me it is sin to love.

Oh, not to love thee were the sin;
    For sure, if Fate's decrees be done,
Thou, thou art destined still to win,
    As I am destined to be won!

The rain set early in to-night,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how sh...