"War ends, and he's returning
Early; yea,
The evening next to-morrow's!" -
- This I say
To her, whom I suspiciously survey,

Holding my husband's letter
To her view. -
She glanced at it but lightly,
And I knew
That one from him that day had reached her too.

There was no time for scruple;
Secretly
I filched her missive, conned it,
Learnt that he
Would lodge with her ere he came home to me.

To reach the port before her,
And, unscanned,
There wait to intercept them
Soon I planned:
That, in her stead, I might before him stand.

So purposed, so effected;
At the inn
Assigned, I found her hidden:-
O that sin
Should bear what she bore when I entered in!

Her heavy lids grew laden
With ...

Ah! know ye not in Israel
A prince is fallen to-day,
A just man, from the ills to come,
In mercy called away!

The Church is clothed in mourning,
Who shall supply her loss?
A standard bearer's quit the field,
A soldier of the cross.

On mission high and holy
He braved the watery main,
And many a faithful heart rejoiced
To welcome him again.

Thrice had the veteran warrior
Nobly forsaken all,
And trod our western wilderness
Obedient to His call,

Whose voice he knew from childhood,
And followed where it led,
For perfect love reigned over him,
And banished fear and dread.

Meekly he journeyed onward,
Unmoved by praise or blame;
The mark was always kept in view,
And steady was his aim.

Unfalte...

Be void of feeling!
A heart that soon is stirr'd,
Is a possession sad
Upon this changing earth.

Behrisch, let spring's sweet smile
Never gladden thy brow!
Then winter's gloomy tempests
Never will shadow it o'er.

Lean thyself ne'er on a maiden's
Sorrow-engendering breast.
Ne'er on the arm,
Misery-fraught, of a friend.

Already envy
From out his rocky ambush
Upon thee turns
The force of his lynx-like eyes,

Stretches his talons,
On thee falls,
In thy shoulders
Cunningly plants them.

Strong are his skinny arms,
As panther-claws;
He shaketh thee,
And rends thy frame.

Death 'tis to part,
'Tis threefold death
To part, not hoping
Ever to meet again.

Thou wouldst rejoic...

On his death-bed poor Lubin lies:
His spouse is in despair;
With frequent cries, and mutual sighs,
They both express their care.

"A different cause," says Parson Sly,
"The same effect may give:
Poor Lubin fears that he may die;
His wife, that he may live."

I.

I dreamed a mighty dream. It seemed mine eyes
Sealed for the moment were to things terrene,
And then there came a strange, great wind that blew
From undiscovered lands, and took my soul
And set it on an uttermost peak of Hell
Amid the gloom and fearful silences.
Slowly the darkness paled, and a weird dawn
Broke on my wondering vision, and there grew
Uncanny phosphorescence in the air
Which seemed to throb with some great vital spell
Of mystery and doom. With aching eyes
I gazed, and lo! the dreadful scene evolved,
Black and chaotic, like an awful birth
To Desolation, of a lifeless world!
My soul in agony cried out to God,
When of a sudden all the place grew calm,
Save for the trembling of the mountain peaks
And the low moaning of the billowy...

TO THEODORE WATTS



I.

The heavenly bay, ringed round with cliffs and moors,
Storm-stained ravines, and crags that lawns inlay,
Soothes as with love the rocks whose guard secures
The heavenly bay.

O friend, shall time take ever this away,
This blessing given of beauty that endures,
This glory shown us, not to pass but stay?

Though sight be changed for memory, love ensures
What memory, changed by love to sight, would say -
The word that seals for ever mine and yours
The heavenly bay.

II.

My mother sea, my fostress, what new strand,
What new delight of waters, may this be,
The fairest found since time's first breezes fanned
My mother sea?

Once more I give me body and soul to thee,
Who hast...

I heard the strokes of the midnight bell
As they thrilled the quiet air,
And saw the soft, white curtains wave
In the lamp's uncertain glare;
And felt the breath of the July night,
Laden with fragrance and warmth and blight.

I knew that scarcely an hour before,
With plaintive and feeble wail,
A spirit had entered the gates of time,
A being helpless and frail;
That cradled beside me the stranger lay,
Though I had not dared o'er her face to pray.

But roused by the voice of the midnight chime,
O'er the little one I bent,
And soft, sweet eyes were upraised to mine,
As blue as the firmament, -
Eyes that had never beheld the day,
Or the chastened light of the moonbeam's ray.

O wonderful meeting, on the verge
Of Life and the dark BEYO...

Lying apart now, each in a separate bed,
He with a book, keeping the light on late,
She like a girl dreaming of childhood,
All men elsewhere, it is as if they wait
Some new event: the book he holds unread,
Her eyes fixed on the shadows overhead.

Tossed up like flotsam from a former passion,
How cool they lie. They hardly ever touch,
Or if they do it is like a confession
Of having little feeling, or too much.
Chastity faces them, a destination
For which their whole lives were a preparation.

Strangely apart, yet strangely close together,
Silence between them like a thread to hold
And not wind in. And time itself's a feather
Touching them gently. Do they know they're old,
These two who are my father and my mother
Whose fire from which I came, has...

Lo! 'tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Wo!

That motley drama oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul ...

    All I could see from where I stood
    Was three long mountains and a wood;
    I turned and looked another way,
    And saw three islands in a bay.
    So with my eyes I traced the line
    Of the horizon, thin and fine,
    Straight around till I was come
    Back to where I'd started from;
    And all I saw from where I stood
    Was three long mountains and a wood.
    Over these things I could not see;
    These were the things that bounded me;
    And I could touch them with my hand,
    Almost, I thought, from where I stand.
    And all at once things seemed so small
    My breath came short, and scarce at all.
    But, sure, the sky is big, I said;
    Miles and miles above my head;
    So here upon my back I'll lie
    And look my f...

Ah! little thought she, when, with wild delight,
By many a torrent's shining track she flew,
When mountain-glens and caverns full of night
O'er her young mind divine enchantment threw,

That in her veins a secret horror slept,
That her light footsteps should be heard no more,
That she should die--nor watch'd, alas, nor wept
By thee, unconscious of the pangs she bore.

Yet round her couch indulgent Fancy drew
The kindred, forms her closing eye requir'd.
There didst thou stand--there, with the smile she knew.
She mov'd her lips to bless thee, and expir'd.

And now to thee she comes; still, still the same
As in the hours gone unregarded by!
To thee, how chang'd, comes as she ever came;
Health on her cheek, and pleasure in her eye!

Nor less, l...

They are so sad to say: no poem tells
The agony of hearts that dwells
In lone and last farewells.

They are like deaths: they bring a wintry chill
To summer's roses, and to summer's rill;
And yet we breathe them still.

For pure as altar-lights hearts pass away;
Hearts! we said to them, "Stay with us! stay!"
And they said, sighing as they said it, "Nay."

The sunniest days are shortest; darkness tells
The starless story of the night that dwells
In lone and last farewells.

Two faces meet here, there, or anywhere:
Each wears the thoughts the other face may wear;
Their hearts may break, breathing, "Farewell fore'er."

When the embalmer closed my eyes,
And all the family went in black,
And shipped me off to Paradise,
I had no thought of coming back;
I dreamed of undisturbed repose
Until the Judgment Day went crack,
Tucked safely in from top to toes.

"I've done my bit," I said. "I've earned
The right to take things at my ease!"
When folk declared the dead returned,
I called it all tomfooleries.
"They are too glad to get to bed,
To stretch their weary limbs in peace;
Done with it all - the lucky dead!"

But scarcely had I laid me down,
When comes a voice: "Is that you, Joe?
I'm calling you from Williamstown!
Knock once for 'yes,' and twice for 'no.'"
Then, hornet-mad, I knocked back two -
The table shook, I banged it so -
"Not Joe!" they said, "T...

W. W. Swain

Behold - not him we knew!
This was the prison which his soul looked through,
Tender, and brave, and true.

His voice no more is heard;
And his dead name - that dear familiar word -
Lies on our lips unstirred.

He spake with poet's tongue;
Living, for him the minstrel's lyre was strung:
He shall not die unsung.

Grief tried his love, and pain;
And the long bondage of his martyr-chain
Vexed his sweet soul, - in vain!

It felt life's surges break,
As, girt with stormy seas, his island lake,
Smiling while tempests wake.

How can we sorrow more?
Grieve not for him whose heart had gone before
To that untrodden shore!

Lo, through its leafy screen,
A gleam of sunlight on a ring of green,
Untrodd...

Out of the west a voice--a shudder of horror and pity;
    Quivers along the pulses of all the winds that blow;--
Woe for the fallen queen, for the proud and beautiful city.
    Out of the North a cry--lamentation and mourning and woe.

Dust and ashes and darkness her splendour and brightness cover,
    Like clouds above the glory of purple mountain peaks;
She sits with her proud head bowed, and a mantle of blackness over--
    She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks.

The city of gardens and palaces, stately and tall pavilions,
    Roofs flashing back the sunlight, music and gladness and mirth,
Whose streets were full of the hum and roar of the toiling millions,
    Whose merchantmen were princes, and the honourable of the earth:

Whose trad...

Come, kings, and listen to my song:
When Gwin, the son of Nore,
Over the nations of the North
His cruel sceptre bore;

The nobles of the land did feed
Upon the hungry poor;
They tear the poor man's lamb, and drive
The needy from their door.

`The land is desolate; our wives
And children cry for bread;
Arise, and pull the tyrant down!
Let Gwin be humblèd!'

Gordred the giant rous'd himself
From sleeping in his cave;
He shook the hills, and in the clouds
The troubl'd banners wave.

Beneath them roll'd, like tempests black,
The num'rous sons of blood;
Like lions' whelps, roaring abroad,
Seeking their nightly food.

Down Bleron's hills they dreadful rush,
Their cry ascends the clouds;
The trampling horse and c...

Though I waste watches framing words to fetter
Some spirit to mine own in clasp and kiss,
Out of the night there looms a sense 'twere better
To fail obtaining whom one fails to miss.

For winning love we win the risk of losing,
And losing love is as one's life were riven;
It cuts like contumely and keen ill-using
To cede what was superfluously given.

Let me then feel no more the fateful thrilling
That devastates the love-worn wooer's frame,
The hot ado of fevered hopes, the chilling
That agonizes disappointed aim!
So may I live no junctive law fulfilling,
And my heart's table bear no woman's name.

1866.

Inner not outer, without gnash of teeth
Or weeping, save quiet sobs of some who pray
And feel the Everlasting Arms beneath, -
Blackness of darkness this, but not for aye;
Darkness that even in gathering fleeteth fast,
Blackness of blackest darkness close to day.
Lord Jesus, through Thy darkened pillar cast,
Thy gracious eyes all-seeing cast on me
Until this tyranny be overpast.
Me, Lord, remember who remember Thee,
And cleave to Thee, and see Thee without sight,
And choose Thee still in dire extremity,
And in this darkness worship Thee my Light,
And Thee my Life adore in shadow of death,
Thee loved by day, and still beloved by night.
It is the Voice of my Beloved that saith:
"I am the Way, the Truth, the Life, I go
Whither that soul knows well that follow...