And you are the poet, and so you want
Something what is it? a theme, a fancy?
Something or other the Muse won’t grant
To your old poetical necromancy;
Why, one half you poets you can’t deny
Don’t know the Muse when you chance to meet her,
But sit in your attics and mope and sigh
For a faineant goddess to drop from the sky,
When flesh and blood may be standing by
Quite at your service, should you but greet her.

What if I told you my own romance?
Women are poets, if you so take them,
One third poet, the rest what chance
Of man and marriage may choose to make them.
Give me ten minutes before you go,
Here at the window we’ll sit together,
Watching the currents that ebb and flow;
Watching the world as it drifts below
Up the hot Avenue’s dusty glow:<...

    Aye Charles! I knew that this would fix thine eye,
    This woodbine wreathing round the broken porch,
    Its leaves just withering, yet one autumn flower
    Still fresh and fragrant; and yon holly-hock
    That thro' the creeping weeds and nettles tall
    Peers taller, and uplifts its column'd stem
    Bright with the broad rose-blossoms. I have seen
    Many a fallen convent reverend in decay,
    And many a time have trod the castle courts
    And grass-green halls, yet never did they strike
    Home to the heart such melancholy thoughts
    As this poor cottage. Look, its little hatch
    Fleeced with that grey and wintry moss; the roof
    Part mouldered in, the rest o'ergrown with weeds,
    House-leek and long thin grass and greener moss;
    So Natur...

Silently -- shadowly -- some lives go,
And the sound of their voices is all unheard;
Or, if heard at all, 'tis as faint as the flow
Of beautiful waves which no storm hath stirred.
    Deep lives these
    As the pearl-strewn seas.

Softly and noiselessly some feet tread
Lone ways on earth, without leaving a mark;
They move 'mid the living, they pass to the dead,
As still as the gleam of a star thro' the dark.
    Sweet lives those
    In their strange repose.

Calmly and lowly some hearts beat,
And none may know that they beat at all;
They muffle their music whenever they meet
A few in a hut or a crowd in a hall.
    Great hearts those --
    God only knows!

Soundlessly -- shadowly -- such move on,
Dim as the dream of a child asl...

How should I know? The enormous wheels of will
Drove me cold-eyed on tired and sleepless feet.
Night was void arms and you a phantom still,
And day your far light swaying down the street.
As never fool for love, I starved for you;
My throat was dry and my eyes hot to see.
Your mouth so lying was most heaven in view,
And your remembered smell most agony.

Love wakens love! I felt your hot wrist shiver
And suddenly the mad victory I planned
Flashed real, in your burning bending head. . . .
My conqueror's blood was cool as a deep river
In shadow; and my heart beneath your hand
Quieter than a dead man on a bed.

In these rapid, restless shadows,
Once I walked at eventide,
When a gentle, silent maiden,
Walked in beauty at my side.
She alone there walked beside me
All in beauty, like a bride.

Pallidly the moon was shining
On the dewy meadows nigh;
On the silvery, silent rivers,
On the mountains far and high,,
On the ocean’s star-lit waters,
Where the winds a-weary die.

Slowly, silently we wandered
From the open cottage door,
Underneath the elm’s long branches
To the pavement bending o’er;
Underneath the mossy willow
And the dying sycamore.

With the myriad stars in beauty
All bedight, the heavens were seen,
Radiant hopes were bright around me,
Like the light of stars serene;
Like the mellow midnight splendor
Of the Nig...

Send out the singers,let the room be still;
They have not eased my pain nor brought me sleep.
Close out the sun, for I would have it dark
That I may feel how black the grave will be.
The sun is setting, for the light is red,
And you are outlined in a golden fire,
Like Ursula upon an altar-screen.
Come, leave the light and sit beside my bed,
For I have had enough of saints and prayers.
Strange broken thoughts are beating in my brain,
They come and vanish and again they come.
It is the fever driving out my soul,
And Death stands waiting by the arras there.

Ornella, I will speak, for soon my lips
Shall keep a silence till the end of time.
You have a mouth for loving,listen then:
Keep tryst with Love before Death comes to tryst;
For I, who die, could wi...

A baby played with the surplice sleeve
Of a gentle priest; while in accents low,
The sponsors murmured the grand "I believe,"
And the priest bade the mystic waters to flow
In the name of the Father, and the Son,
And Holy Spirit -- Three in One.

Spotless as a lily's leaf,
Whiter than the Christmas snow;
Not a sign of sin or grief,
And the babe laughed, sweet and low.

A smile flitted over the baby's face:
Or was it the gleam of its angel's wing
Just passing then, and leaving a trace
Of its presence as it soared to sing?
A hymn when words and waters win
To grace and life a child of sin.

Not an outward sign or token,
That a child was saved from woe;
But the bonds of sin were broken,
And the babe laughed, sweet and low.

A...

Some kind angel, gently flying,
Moved with pity at my pain,
Tell Corinna I am dying
Till with joy we meet again.

Tell Corinna, since we parted
I have never known delight,
And shall soon be broken-hearted
If I longer want her sight.

Tell her how her lover, mourning,
Thinks each lazy day a year,
Cursing every morn returning,
Since Corinna is not here.

Tell her, too, not distant places,
Will she be but true and kind,
Join'd with time and change of faces,
E'er shall shake my constant mind.

There is a place hung o'er with summer boughs
And drowsy skies wherein the gray hawk sleeps;
Where waters flow, within whose lazy deeps,
Like silvery prisms that the winds arouse,
The minnows twinkle; where the bells of cows
Tinkle the stillness, and the bob-white keeps
Calling from meadows where the reaper reaps,
And children's laughter haunts an old-time house;
A place where life wears ever an honest smell
Of hay and honey, sun and elder-bloom -
Like some dear, modest girl - within her hair:
Where, with our love for comrade, we may dwell
Far from the city's strife whose cares consume -
Oh, take my hand and let me lead you there.

    Look! look there!
Send your eyes across the gray
By my finger-point away
Through the vaporous, fumy air.
Beyond the air, you see the dark?
Beyond the dark, the dawning day?
On its horizon, pray you, mark
Something like a ruined heap
Of worlds half-uncreated, that go back:
Down all the grades through which they rose
Up to harmonious life and law's repose,
Back, slow, to the awful deep
Of nothingness, mere being's lack:
On its surface, lone and bare,
Shapeless as a dumb despair,
Formless, nameless, something lies:
Can the vision in your eyes
Its idea recognize?

    'Tis a poor lost soul, alack!--
Half he lived some ages back;
But, with hardly opened eyes,
Thinking him already wise,
Down he sat and wrote a book;
Drew h...

        I hear the beat of the unresting tide
    On either shore as swiftly on I glide
    With eager haste the narrow channel o'er,
    Which links the floods behind with those before.
    I hear behind me as I onward glide,
    Faint, farewell voices blending with the tide,
    While from beyond, now near, now far away,
    Come stronger voices chiding each delay;
    And drowning, oft, with wild, discordant burst,
    The melancholy minor of the first

"Farewell! farewell! - ye leave us far behind you!" -
    Tis thus the bright-winged Hours sigh from the Past -
"Ye leave us, and the coming ones will find you
    Still vainly dreaming they will ever last, -
Still trifling with the gifts all fresh and glowing,
    Each in its turn will scatter in your way, ...

Where art thou gone, light-ankled Youth?
With wing at either shoulder,
And smile that never left thy mouth
Until the Hours grew colder:

Then somewhat seem’d to whisper near
That thou and I must part;
I doubted it; I felt no fear,
No weight upon the heart.

If aught befell it, Love was by
And roll’d it off again;
So, if there ever was a sigh,
’T was not a sigh of pain.

I may not call thee back; but thou
Returnest when the hand
Of gentle Sleep waves o’er my brow
His poppy-crested wand;

Then smiling eyes bend over mine,
Then lips once press’d invite;
But sleep hath given a silent sign,
And both, alas! take flight.

    A false knight wooed a maiden poor,
    And his high halls left he
    To stoop in at her cottage door,
    When night left none to see.

    And, well-a-day, it is a tale
    For pity too severe--
    A tale would melt the sternest eye,
    And wake the deafest ear.

    He stole her heart, he stole her love,
    'T was all the wealth she had;
    Her truth and fame likewise stole he,

    *    *    *    *

    And they rode on, and they rode on;
    Far on this pair did ride,
    Till the maiden's heart with fear and love
    Beat quick against her side.

    And on they rode till rocks grew high.
    "Sir Knight, what have we here?"
    "Unsaddle, maid, for here we stop:"
    And death's tongue smote her ear.

Evening is grey on the hills. The
north wind resounds through the
woods. White clouds rise on the sky: the
trembling snow descends. The river howls
afar, along its winding course. Sad,
by a hollow rock, the grey-hair'd Carryl
sat. Dry fern waves over his head; his
seat is in an aged birch. Clear to the
roaring winds he lifts his voice of woe.

Tossed on the wavy ocean is He,
the hope of the isles; Malcolm, the
support of the poor; foe to the proud
in arms! Why hast thou left us behind?
why live we to mourn thy fate? We
might have heard, with thee, the voice
of the deep; have seen the oozy rock.

Sad on the sea-beat shore thy spouse
looketh for thy return. The time of
thy promise is come; the night is gathering
around. But no white sail...

1.
Dar'st thou amid the varied multitude
To live alone, an isolated thing?
To see the busy beings round thee spring,
And care for none; in thy calm solitude,
A flower that scarce breathes in the desert rude
To Zephyr's passing wing?

2.
Not the swart Pariah in some Indian grove,
Lone, lean, and hunted by his brother's hate,
Hath drunk so deep the cup of bitter fate
As that poor wretch who cannot, cannot love:
He bears a load which nothing can remove,
A killing, withering weight.

3.
He smiles - 'tis sorrow's deadliest mockery;
He speaks - the cold words flow not from his soul;
He acts like others, drains the genial bowl, -
Yet, yet he longs - although he fears - to die;
He pants to reach what yet he seems to fly,
Dull life's extre...

The Sky Line.

Like black fangs in a cruel ogre's jaw
    The grim piles lift against the sunset sky;
Down drops the night, and shuts the horrid maw--
    I listen, breathless, but there comes no cry.


Defeat.

He sits and looks into the west
    Where twilight gathers, wan and gray,
A knight who quit the Golden Quest,
    And flung Excalibur away.


To an Amazon.

O! twain in spirit, we shall know
    Thy like no more, so fierce, so mild,
One breast shorn clean to rest the bow,
    One milk-full for thy warrior child.


The Old Mother.

Life is like an old mother whom trouble and toil
Have sufficed the best part of her nature to spoil,
Whom her children, the Passions, so ...

It was a little budding rose,
Round like a fairy globe,
And shyly did its leaves unclose
Hid in their mossy robe,
But sweet was the slight and spicy smell
It breathed from its heart invisible.

The rose is blasted, withered, blighted,
Its root has felt a worm,
And like a heart beloved and slighted,
Failed, faded, shrunk its form.
Bud of beauty, bonnie flower,
I stole thee from thy natal bower.

I was the worm that withered thee,
Thy tears of dew all fell for me;
Leaf and stalk and rose are gone,
Exile earth they died upon.
Yes, that last breath of balmy scent
With alien breezes sadly blent!

(To M. E. H.)


When you wake in your crib,
You, an inch of experience,
Vaulted about
With the wonder of darkness;
Wailing and striving
To reach from your feebleness
Something you feel
Will be good to and cherish you,
Something you know
And can rest upon blindly:
O then a hand
(Your mother's, your mother's!)
By the fall of its fingers
All knowledge, all power to you,
Out of the dreary,
Discouraging strangenesses
Comes to and masters you,
Takes you, and lovingly
Woos you and soothes you
Back, as you cling to it,
Back to some comforting
Corner of sleep.

So you wake in your bed,
Having lived, having loved:
But the shadows are there,
And the world and its kingdoms
Incredibly faded;
And you...