My heart was slain, and none but you and I;
Who should I think the murder should commit?
Since but yourself there was no creature by
But only I, guiltless of murdering it.
    It slew itself; the verdict on the view
Do quit the dead, and me not accessary.
Well, well, I fear it will be proved by you,
The evidence so great a proof doth carry.
    But O see, see, we need inquire no further!
Upon your lips the scarlet drops are found,
And in your eye the boy that did the murder,
Your cheeks yet pale since first he gave the wound!
    By this I see, however things be past,
    Yet heaven will still have murder out at last.

Wizened the wood is, and wan is the way through it;
White as a corpse is the face of the fen;
Only blue adders abide in and stray through it
Adders and venom and horrors to men.
Here is the “ghost of a garden” whose minister
Fosters strange blossoms that startle and scare.
Red as man’s blood is the sun that, with sinister
Flame, is a menace of hell in the air.
Wrinkled and haggard the hills are the jags of them
Gape like to living and ominous things:
Storm and dry thunder cry out in the crags of them
Fire, and the wind with a woe in its wings.

Never a moon without clammy-cold shroud on it
Hitherward comes, or a flower-like star!
Only the hiss of the tempest is loud on it
Hiss, and the moan of a bitter sea bar.
Here on this waste, and to left and to right...

The years go by, but they little seem
Like those within our dream;
The years that stood in such luring guise,
Beckoning us into Paradise,
To jailers turn as time goes by
Guarding that fair land, By-and-By,
Where we thought to blissfully rest,
The sound of whose forests' balmy leaves
Swaying to dream winds strangely sweet,
We heard in our bed 'neath the cottage eaves,
Whose towers we saw in the western skies
When with eager eyes and tremulous lip,
We watched the silent, silver ship
Of the crescent moon, sailing out and away
O'er the land we would reach some day, some day.

But years have flown, and our weary feet
Have never reached that Isle of the Blest;
But care we have felt, and an aching breast,
A lifelong struggle, grief, unrest,
That h...

1.
The cold earth slept below,
Above the cold sky shone;
And all around, with a chilling sound,
From caves of ice and fields of snow,
The breath of night like death did flow
Beneath the sinking moon.

2.
The wintry hedge was black,
The green grass was not seen,
The birds did rest on the bare thorn's breast,
Whose roots, beside the pathway track,
Had bound their folds o'er many a crack
Which the frost had made between.

3.
Thine eyes glowed in the glare
Of the moon's dying light;
As a fen-fire's beam on a sluggish stream
Gleams dimly, so the moon shone there,
And it yellowed the strings of thy raven hair,
That shook in the wind of night.

4.
The moon made thy lips pale, beloved -
The wind made thy bosom chill -<...

    I

    Beneath my skull-bone and my hair,
    Covered like a poisonous well,
    There is a land: if you looked there
    What you saw you'd quail to tell.
    You that sit there smiling, you
    Know that what I say is true.

    My head is very small to touch,
    I feel it all from front to back,
    An earèd round that weighs not much,
    Eyes, nose-holes, and a pulpy crack:
    Oh, how small, how small it is!
    How could countries be in this?

    Yet, when I watch with eyelids shut,
    It glimmers forth, now dark, now clear,
    The city of Cis-Occiput,
    The marshes and the writhing mere,
    The land that every man I see
    Knows in himself but not in me.


    II

    Upon the borders of the...

Ah! this wild desolated spot,
Calls forth the plaintive tear;
Remembrance paints my little cot,
Which once did flourish here.

No more the early lark and thrush
Shall hail the rising day,
Nor warble on their native bush,
Nor charm me with their lay.

No more the foliage of the oak
Shall spread its wonted shade;
Now fell'd beneath the hostile stroke
Of red destruction's blade.

Beneath its bloom when summer smil'd,
How oft the rural train
The lingering hours with tales beguil'd,
Or danc'd to Colin's strain.

And, when Aurora with the dawn
Dispell'd the midnight shade,
Her flocks to the accustom'd lawn
Would lovely Phillis lead.

Delusive grandeur never wreath'd
Around Contentment's head,
'Till war its flami...

Rabbi, begone! Thy powers
Bring loss to us and ours.
Our ways are not as Thine.
Thou lovest men, we--swine.
Oh, get you hence, Omnipotence,
And take this fool of Thine!
His soul? What care we for his soul?
What good to us that Thou hast made him whole,
Since we have lost our swine?

And Christ went sadly.
He had wrought for them a sign
Of Love, and Hope, and Tenderness divine;
They wanted--swine.
Christ stands without your door and gently knocks;
But if your gold, or swine, the entrance blocks,
He forces no man's hold--he will depart,
And leave you to the treasures of your heart.

No cumbered chamber will the Master share,
But one swept bare
By cleansing fires, then plenished fresh and fair
With meekness, and humility, and ...

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 ...

Her planted eye to-day controls,
Is in the morrow most at home,
And sternly calls to being souls
That curse her when they come.

Short is the time the oldest Being lives,
    Nor has Longevity one hour to waste;
    Life's duties are proportion'd to the haste
    With which it fleets away; - each day receives
Its task, that if neglected, surely gives
    The morrow double toil. - Ye, who have pass'd
    In idle sport the days that fled so fast,
    Days, that nor Grief recalls, nor Care retrieves,
At length be wise, and think, that of the part
    Remaining in that vital period given,
How short the date, and at the prospect start,
Ere to the extremest verge your steps be driv'n!
    Nor let a moment unimprov'd depart,
    But view it as the latest trust of Heav'n!

So ancient to myself I seem,
I might have crossed grave Styx's stream
A year ago; -
My word, 'tis so; -
And now be wandering with my sires
In that rare world we wonder o'er,
Half disbelieve, and prize the more!

Yet spruce I am, and still can mix
My wits with all the sparkling tricks,
A youth and girl
At twenty's whirl
Play round each other's bosom fires,
On this brisk earth I once enjoyed: -
But now I'm otherwise employed!

Am I a thing without a name;
A sort of dummy in the game?
"Not young, not old:"
A world is told
Of misery in that lengthened phrase;
Yet, gad, although my coat be smooth,
My forehead's wrinkled, - that's the truth!

I hardly know which road to go.
With youth? Perhaps. With age? Oh no!
Well,...

(From 'A Faun's Holiday')

'Be warned! I feel the world grow old,
And off Olympus fades the gold
Of the simple passionate sun;
And the Gods wither one by one:
Proud-eyed Apollo's bow is broken,
And throned Zeus nods nor may be woken
But by the song of spirits seven
Quiring in the midnight heaven
Of a new world no more forlorn,
Sith unto it a Babe is born,
That in a propped, thatched stable lies,
While with darkling, reverent eyes
Dusky Emperors, coifed in gold,
Kneel mid the rushy mire, and hold
Caskets of rubies, urns of myrrh,
Whose fumes enwrap the thurifer
And coil toward the high dim rafters
Where, with lutes and warbling laughters,
Clustered cherubs of rainbow feather,
Fanning the fragrant air together,
Flit in jubilant holy...

Tho', Julia, we are doom'd to part,
Tho' unknown pangs invade this heart,
For thee the light of love shall burn,
To thee my soul in secret turn:
Upon this bosom, swell'd with care,
The thought of thee shall tremble there
'Till Time shall close these weeping eyes,
And close the soothing source of sighs.
So, in the silence of the night,
Shines on the wave the lunar light;
With its soft image, bright, imprest,
It heaves, and seems to know no rest:
Its agitation soon is o'er;
It sighs, and dies along the shore!

A grievous day of wrathful winds,
Of low-hung clouds, which scud and fly,
And drop cold rains, then lift and show
A sullen realm of upper sky.

The sea is black as night; it roars
From lips afoam with cruel spray,
Like some fierce, many-throated pack
Of wolves, which scents and chases prey.

Crouched in my little wind-swept nook,
I hear the menacing voices call,
And shudder, as above the deck
Topples and swings the weltering wall.

It seems a vast and restless grave,
Insatiate, hungry, beckoning
With dreadful gesture of command
To every free and living thing.

"O Lord," I cry, "Thou makest life
And hope and all sweet things to be;
Rebuke this hovering, following Death,--
This horror never born of Thee."

A sudden gl...

When the hours of Day are numbered,
    And the voices of the Night
Wake the better soul, that slumbered,
    To a holy, calm delight;

Ere the evening lamps are lighted,
    And, like phantoms grim and tall,
Shadows from the fitful firelight
    Dance upon the parlour wall;

Then the forms of the departed
    Enter at the open door;
The beloved, the true-hearted,
    Come to visit me once more;

He, the young and strong, who cherished
    Noble longings for the strife,
By the road-side fell and perished,
    Weary with the march of life!

They, the holy ones and weakly,
    Who the cross of suffering bore,
Folded their pale hands so meekly,
    Spake with us on earth no more!

And with them the Being Beauteous,

Persephone, Persephone!
Still I fancy I can see
Thee amid the daffodils.
Golden wealth thy basket fills;
Golden blossoms at thy breast;
Golden hair that shames the West;
Golden sunlight round thy head!
Ah! the golden years have fled;
Thee have reft, and me have left
Here alone, thy loss to mourn.

Persephone, Persephone!
Still I fancy I can see
Her, as white and still she lies:
Death has woo'd and won his prize.
White the blossoms at her breast;
White and still her face at rest;
White the moonbeams round her head.
Ah! the wintry years have fled;
Comfort lent and patience sent,
And my grief is easier borne.

Persephone, Persephone!
Still in dreams thou com'st to me;
Every night art at my side,
Half my bride, and half...

What lively lad most pleasured me
Of all that with me lay?
I answer that I gave my soul
And loved in misery,
But had great pleasure with a lad
That I loved bodily.

Flinging from his arms I laughed
To think his passion such
He fancied that I gave a soul
Did but our bodies touch,
And laughed upon his breast to think
Beast gave beast as much.

I gave what other women gave
That stepped out of their clothes.
But when this soul, its body off,
Naked to naked goes,
He it has found shall find therein
What none other knows,

And give his own and take his own
And rule in his own right;
And though it loved in misery
Close and cling so tight,
There’s not a bird of day that dare
Extinguish that delight.

    Have you seen walking through the village
    A Man with downcast eyes and haggard face?
    That is my husband who, by secret cruelty
    Never to be told, robbed me of my youth and my beauty;
    Till at last, wrinkled and with yellow teeth,
    And with broken pride and shameful humility,
    I sank into the grave.
    But what think you gnaws at my husband's heart?
    The face of what I was, the face of what he made me!
    These are driving him to the place where I lie.
    In death, therefore, I am avenged.