1.

        LORD, I do choose the higher than my will.
        I would be handled by thy nursing arms
        After thy will, not my infant alarms.
        Hurt me thou wilt--but then more loving still,
        If more can be and less, in love's perfect zone!
        My fancy shrinks from least of all thy harms,
        But do thy will with me--I am thine own.

        2.

        Some things wilt thou not one day turn to dreams?
        Some dreams wilt thou not one day turn to fact?
        The thing that painful, more than should be, seems,
        Shall not thy sliding years with them retract--
        Shall fair realities not counteract?
        The thing that was well dreamed of bliss and joy--
        Wilt thou not breathe thy life int...

("Qu'avez-vous, mes frères?")

[XI., September, 18288.]

"Have you prayed tonight, Desdemona?"


THE SISTER

What has happened, my brothers? Your spirit to-day
Some secret sorrow damps
There's a cloud on your brow. What has happened? Oh, say,
For your eyeballs glare out with a sinister ray
Like the light of funeral lamps.
And the blades of your poniards are half unsheathed
In your belt - and ye frown on me!
There's a woe untold, there's a pang unbreathed
In your bosom, my brothers three!

ELDEST BROTHER.

Gulnara, make answer! Hast thou, since the dawn,
To the eye of a stranger thy veil withdrawn?

THE SISTER.

As I came, oh, my brother! at noon - from the bath -
As I came - it was noon, my lords -<...

Helen of Troy has sprung from Hell
To claim her ancient throne,
So we have bidden friends farewell
To follow her alone.

The Lady of the laurelled brow,
The Queen of pride and power,
Looks rather like a phantom now,
And rather like a flower.

Deep in her eyes the lamp of night
Burns with a secret flame,
Where shadows pass that have no sight,
And ghosts that have no name.

For mute is battle's brazen horn
That rang for Priest and King,
And she who drank of that brave morn
Is pale with evening.

An hour there is when bright words flow,
A little hour for sleep,
An hour between, when lights are low,
And then she seems to weep,

But no less lovely than of old
She shines, and almost hears
The horns that blew in ...

O lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros
Ducentium ortus ex animo; quater
    Felix! in imo qui scatentem
        Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit. [1]

Gray, 'Alcaic Fragment'.



1.

When Friendship or Love
Our sympathies move;
When Truth, in a glance, should appear,
The lips may beguile,
With a dimple or smile,
But the test of affection's a Tear.


2.

Too oft is a smile
But the hypocrite's wile,
To mask detestation, or fear;
Give me the soft sigh,
Whilst the soul-telling eye
Is dimm'd, for a time, with a Tear.


3.

Mild Charity's glow,
To us mortals below,
Shows the soul from barbarity clear;
Compassion will melt,
Where this virtue is felt,
And its dew is...

They are ashamed who leave so soon
The Inn of Grief--who thought to stay
Through many a faithful sun and moon,
Yet tarry but a day.

Shame-faced I watch them pay the score,
Then straight with eager footsteps press
Where waits beyond its rose-wreathed door
The Inn of Happiness.

I wish I did not know that here,
Here too--where they have dreamed to stay
So many and many a golden year
They lodge but for a day.

As the shadows of evening around me are falling,
With its dark sombre curtain outspread,
And night's just at hand, chilly night so appalling,
And day's brilliant sunshine hath fled,

It is e'en so with me, for the eve of my day
Has arrived, yet I scarcely know how;
Bright morn hath departed, and noon passed away,
And 'tis evening, pale eve with me now.

Oh! where are the friends who in life's early morn,
With me did their journey commence;
Some are estranged, while some few still remain,
And others departed long since.

And when I too, like them, shall be summoned away,
And the shadows of death on me fall,
Be thou the Great Shepherd of Israel but near,
My Saviour, my God, and my all.

And though the "dark valley" we all must pass thr...

I
i(Ancestral Houses)
Surely among a rich man s flowering lawns,
Amid the rustle of his planted hills,
Life overflows without ambitious pains;
And rains down life until the basin spills,
And mounts more dizzy high the more it rains
As though to choose whatever shape it wills
And never stoop to a mechanical
Or servile shape, at others' beck and call.
Mere dreams, mere dreams! Yet Homer had not Sung
Had he not found it certain beyond dreams
That out of life's own self-delight had sprung
The abounding glittering jet; though now it seems
As if some marvellous empty sea-shell flung
Out of the obscure dark of the rich streams,
And not a fountain, were the symbol which
Shadows the inherited glory of the rich.
Some violent bitter man, some powerful man
...

Farewel dear babe, my hearts too much content,
Farewel sweet babe, the pleasure of mine eye,
Farewel fair flower that for a space was lent,
Then ta'en away unto Eternity.
Blest babe why should I once bewail thy fate,
Or sigh the dayes so soon were terminate;
Sith thou art setled in an Everlasting state.

By nature Trees do rot when they are grown,
And Plumbs and Apples throughly ripe do fall,
And Corn and grass are in their season mown,
And time brings down what is both strong and tall.
But plants new set to be eradicate,
And buds new blown to have so short a date,
Is by his hand alone that guides nature and fate.

The flame crept up the portrait line by line
As it lay on the coals in the silence of night's profound,
And over the arm's incline,
And along the marge of the silkwork superfine,
And gnawed at the delicate bosom's defenceless round.

Then I vented a cry of hurt, and averted my eyes;
The spectacle was one that I could not bear,
To my deep and sad surprise;
But, compelled to heed, I again looked furtive-wise
Till the flame had eaten her breasts, and mouth, and hair.

"Thank God, she is out of it now!" I said at last,
In a great relief of heart when the thing was done
That had set my soul aghast,
And nothing was left of the picture unsheathed from the past
But the ashen ghost of the card it had figured on.

She was a woman long hid amid packs of years,<...

The sun is dying; space and room.
Serenity, vast sense of rest,
Lie bosomed in the orange west
Of Orient waters. Hear the boom
Of long, strong billows; wave on wave,
Like funeral guns above a grave.

Long had I grieved at what I deemed abuse;
But now I am as grain within the mill.
If so be thou must crush me for thy use,
Grind on, O potent God, and do thy will!

I


The summer is over!
'Tis windy and chilly.
The flowers are dead in the dale.
All beauty has faded,
The rose and the lily
In death-sleep lie withered and pale.

Now hurries the stormwind
A mournful procession
Of leaves and dead flowers along,
Now murmurs the forest
Its dying confession,
And hushed is the holiest song.

Their "prayers of departure"
The wild birds are singing,
They fly to the wide stormy main.
Oh tell me, ye loved ones,
Whereto are ye winging?
Oh answer: when come ye again?

Oh hark to the wailing
For joys that have vanished!
The answer is heavy with pain:
Alas! We know only
That hence we are banished--
But God knows of coming again!


II


The Tkiy...

I

IN CHURCH

Thou whose birth on earth
Angels sang to men,
While thy stars made mirth,
Saviour, at thy birth,
This day born again;

As this night was bright
With thy cradle-ray,
Very light of light,
Turn the wild world’s night
To thy perfect day.

God whose feet made sweet
Those wild ways they trod,
From thy fragrant feet
Staining field and street
With the blood of God;

God whose breast is rest
In the time of strife,
In thy secret breast
Sheltering souls opprest
From the heat of life;

God whose eyes are skies
Love-lit as with spheres
By the lights that rise
To thy watching eyes,
Orbed lights of tears;

God whose heart hath part
In all grief that is,
Was not m...

    It was the month of May, and glorious rose
    The sun on Jinji, bathing in his light
    Her lofty hills, her ancient walls and towers,
    Her battlements, and all the glittering scene
    That bade the stranger tell - "here lives a prince;"
    And greeting late, as if too long he slept
    Upon his ocean bed, the eager crowd
    That in their best attire at early dawn
    Fast gathered from their hamlets far and wide,
    And like a hive swarmed on the castled hills.

    Perhaps some village poet waited there,
    Who day and night toiled hard in metres rare
    To sing the deeds and virtues of his prince
    And trace them on the leaves of that lone palm
    Which stood close by his humble cottage home.
    Perhaps with faces that bespoke deep grief<...

        ". . . with two other priests; the same night he died,
        and was buried by the shores of the lake that bears his name."
                                Chronicle.


        "Nay, grieve not that ye can no honour give
        To these poor bones that presently must be
        But carrion; since I have sought to live
        Upon God's earth, as He hath guided me,
        I shall not lack!    Where would ye have me lie?
        High heaven is higher than cathedral nave:
        Do men paint chancels fairer than the sky?"
        Beside the darkened lake they made his grave,
        Below the altar of the hills; and night
        Swung incense clouds of mist in creeping lines
        That twisted through the tree-trunks, where the light
        Grop...

    One, Nature! burns and makes thee bright,
        One gives thee weeds to mourn withal;
        And what to one is burial
    Is to the other life and light.

    The unknown Hermes who assists
        And alway fills my heart with fear
        Makes me the mighty Midas' peer
    The saddest of the alchemists.

    Through him I make gold changeable
    To dross, and paradise to hell;
    Clouds for its corpse-cloths I descry.

    A stark dead body I love well,
        And in the gleaming fields on high
        I build immense sarcophagi.

The day is done, the winter sun
Is setting in its sullen sky;
And drear the course that has been run,
And dim the hearts that slowly die.

No star will light my coming night;
No morn of hope for me will shine;
I mourn not heaven would blast my sight,
And I ne'er longed for joys divine.

Through life's hard task I did not ask
Celestial aid, celestial cheer;
I saw my fate without its mask,
And met it too without a tear.

The grief that pressed my aching breast
Was heavier far than earth can be;
And who would dread eternal rest
When labour's hour was agony?

Dark falls the fear of this despair
On spirits born of happiness;
But I was bred the mate of care,
The foster-child of sore distress.

No sighs for me, no sympathy...

Two Suns of Love make day of human life,
Which else with all its pains, and griefs, and deaths,
Were utter darkness–one, the Sun of dawn
That brightens thro’ the Mother’s tender eyes,
And warms the child’s awakening world–and one
The later-rising Sun of spousal Love,
Which from her household orbit draws the child
To move in other spheres. The Mother weeps
At that white funeral of the single life,
Her maiden daughter’s marriage; and her tears
Are half of pleasure, half of pain–the child
Is happy–even in leaving her! but thou,
True daughter, whose all-faithful, filial eyes
Have seen the loneliness of earthly thrones,
Wilt neither quit the widow’d Crown, nor let
This later light of Love have risen in vain,
But moving thro’ the Mother’s home, between
The two ...