Better trust all, and be deceived,
    And weep that trust, and that deceiving;
Than doubt one heart, that if believed,
    Had blessed one's life with true believing.

Oh, in this mocking world, too fast
    The doubting fiend o'ertakes our youth!
Better be cheated to the last,
    Than loose the blessed hope of truth.

There was a strife ’twixt man and maid
Oh that was at the birth of time!
But what befall ’twixt man and maid,,
Oh that’s beyond the grip of rhyme.
’Twas, “Sweet, I must not bide with you,”
And “Love, I cannot bide alone”;
For both were young and both were true,
And both were hard as the nether stone.



Beware the man who’s crossed in love;
For pent-up steam must find its vent.
Stand back when he is on the move,
And lend him all the Continent.



Your patience, Sirs. The Devil took me up
To the burned mountain over Sicily
(Fit place for me) and thence I saw my Earth,
(Not all Earth’s splendour, ’twas beyond my need, )
And that one spot I love, all Earth to me,
And her I love, my Heaven. What said I?
My love was safe from...

Farewell! a long farewell! O Poverty,
Affection's fondest dream how hast thou reft!
But though, on thy stern brow no trace is left
Of youthful joys, that on the cold heart die,
With thee a sad companionship I seek,
Content, if poor; for patient wretchedness,
Tearful, but uncomplaining of distress,
Who turns to the rude storm her faded cheek;
And Piety, who never told her wrong;
And calm Content, whose griefs no more rebel;
And Genius, warbling sweet, his saddest song,
When evening listens to some village knell,
Long banished from the world's insulting throng;
With thee, and thy unfriended children dwell.

    Dweller in yon dungeon dark,
    Hangman of creation, mark!
    Who in widow-weeds appears,
    Laden with unhonoured years,
    Noosing with care a bursting purse,
    Baited with many a deadly curse?

Strophe.

    View the wither'd beldam's face,
    Can thy keen inspection trace
    Aught of Humanity's sweet melting grace?
    Note that eye, 'tis rheum o'erflows,
    Pity's flood there never rose.
    See these hands, ne'er stretch'd to save,
    Hands that took, but never gave.
    Keeper of Mammon's iron chest,
    Lo, there she goes, unpitied and unblest
    She goes, but not to realms of everlasting rest!

Antistrophe.

    Plunderer of armies, lift thine eyes,
    (Awhile forbear, ye tort'ring fiends;)
    S...

Died at Hartford, May 22d, 1860, aged 87.


One saintly man the less, to teach us how
Wisely to live,--one blest example more
To teach us how to die.
                    Fourscore and seven,
Swept not the beauty of his brow away,
Nor quell'd his voice of music, nor impair'd
The social feeling that through all his life
Ran like a thread of gold.
                    In filial arms
Close wrapp'd with watchful tenderness, he trod
Jordan's cold brink.
                    The world was beautiful,
But Christ's dear love so wrought within his heart
That to depart seem'd better.
                    Many a year
He lent his influence to the church he loved,
For unity and peace, and countless gems
Dropp'd from his lips when the last sickness came,

(Time, Morning. Scene, the Shore.[1])

Once more to daily toil--once more to wear
The weeds of infamy--from every joy
The heart can feel excluded, I arise
Worn out and faint with unremitting woe;
And once again with wearied steps I trace
The hollow-sounding shore. The swelling waves
Gleam to the morning sun, and dazzle o'er
With many a splendid hue the breezy strand.
Oh there was once a time when ELINOR
Gazed on thy opening beam with joyous eye
Undimm'd by guilt and grief! when her full soul
Felt thy mild radiance, and the rising day
Waked but to pleasure! on thy sea-girt verge
Oft England! have my evening steps stole on,
Oft have mine eyes surveyed the blue expanse,
And mark'd the wild wind swell the ruffled surge,
And seen the upheaved billows boso...

In faded chairs, the pale old courtesans,
Eyebrows painted, eye of fatal calm,
Smirking, and letting drop from skinny ears
Those jingling sounds of metal and of stone;

Around green cloth, the faces without lips,
Lips without colour over toothless jaws,
And fingers twisted by infernal fires,
Digging in pockets, or in panting breast;

Under the filthy ceilings, chandeliers
And lamps of oil doling out their glow
Over the brilliant poets' gloomy brows,
Who come to squander here their bloody sweat;

This is the black tableau that in my dream
I see unroll before my prescient eye.
There in an idle corner of that den
I see myself-cold, mute, and envying,

Envious of these men's tenacious lust,
The morbid gaiety of these old whores,
Traff...

In yonder old cathedral
Two lovely coffins lie;
In one, the head of the state lies dead,
And a singer sleeps hard by.

Once had that King great power
And proudly ruled the land--
His crown e'en now is on his brow
And his sword is in his hand.

How sweetly sleeps the singer
With calmly folded eyes,
And on the breast of the bard at rest
The harp that he sounded lies.

The castle walls are falling
And war distracts the land,
But the sword leaps not from that mildewed spot
There in that dead king's hand.

But with every grace of nature
There seems to float along--
To cheer again the hearts of men
The singer's deathless song.

Lines written by the late A. L. Gordon
On 4th August, 1853,
Being three days before he sailed for Australia.

Across the trackless seas I go,
No matter when or where,
And few my future lot will know,
And fewer still will care.
My hopes are gone, my time is spent,
I little heed their loss,
And if I cannot feel content,
I cannot feel remorse.

My parents bid me cross the flood,
My kindred frowned at me;
They say I have belied my blood,
And stained my pedigree.
But I must turn from those who chide,
And laugh at those who frown;
I cannot quench my stubborn pride,
Nor keep my spirits down.

I once had talents fit to win
Success in life’s career,
And if I chose a part of sin,
My choice has cost me dear.
But th...

(My Soul) I summon to the winding ancient stair;
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,
Upon the breathless starlit air,
"Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;
Fix every wandering thought upon
That quarter where all thought is done:
Who can distinguish darkness from the soul

(My Self). The consecretes blade upon my knees
Is Sato's ancient blade, still as it was,
Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass
Unspotted by the centuries;
That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn
From some court-lady's dress and round
The wodden scabbard bound and wound
Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn

(My Soul.) Why should the imagination of a man
Long past his prime remember things that are
Emblematica...

At court I met it, in clothes brave enough
To be a courtier, and looks grave enough
To seem a statesman: as I near it came,
It made me a great face. I asked the name.
"A lord," it cried, "buried in flesh and blood,
And such from whom let no man hope least good,
For I will do none; and as little ill,
For I will dare none." Good lord, walk dead still.

    SCENE: A moonlit glade on a summer midnight


    THE POET

    What consummation of the toiling moon
    O'ercomes the midnight blue with violet,
    Wherein the stars turn grey! The summer's green,
    Edgèd and strong by day, is dull and faint
    Beneath the moon's all-dominating mood,
    That in this absence of the impassioned sun,
    Sways to a sleep of sound and calm of color
    The live and vivid aspect of the world -
    Subdued as with the great expectancy
    Which blurs beginning features of a dream,
    Things and events lost 'neath an omening
    Of central and oppressive bulk to come.
    Here were the theatre of a miracle,
    If such, within a world long alienate
    From its first dreams, and shut with skeptic yea...

‘This envelope you say has something in it
Which once belonged to your dead son, or something
He knew, was fond of? Something he remembers?
The soul flies far, and we can only call it
By things like these . . . a photograph, a letter,
Ribbon, or charm, or watch . . . ‘

. . . Wind flows softly, the long slow even wind,
Over the low roofs white with snow;
Wind blows, bearing cold clouds over the ocean,
One by one they melt and flow,

Streaming one by one over trees and towers,
Coiling and gleaming in shafts of sun;
Wind flows, bearing clouds; the hurrying shadows
Flow under them one by one . . .

‘ . . . A spirit darkens before me . . . it is the spirit
Which in the flesh you called your son . . . A spirit
Young and strong and beautiful . . .

We shall surely die:
Must we needs grow old?
Grow old and cold,
And we know not why?

O, the By-and-By,
And the tale that's told!
We shall surely die:
Must we needs grow old?

Grow old and sigh,
Grudge and withhold,
Resent and scold? . . .
Not you and I?
We shall surely die!

One's ardour, Nature, makes you bright,
One finds within you mourning, grief!
What speaks to one of tombs and death
Says to the other, Splendour! Life!

Mystical Hermes, help to me,
Intimidating though you are,
You make me Midas' counterpart,
No sadder alchemist than he;

My gold is iron by your spell,
And paradise turns into hell;
I see in winding-sheets of clouds

A dear cadaver in its shroud,
And there upon celestial strands
I raise huge tombs above the sands.

Softly the feathery Palm-trees fade in the violet Distance,
Faintly the lingering light touches the edge of the sea,
Sadly the Music of Waves, drifts, faint as an Anthem's insistence,
Heard in the aisles of a dream, over the sandhills, to me.

Now that the Lights are reversed, and the Singing changed into sighing,
Now that the wings of our fierce, fugitive passion are furled,
Take I unto myself, all alone in the light that is dying,
Much of the sorrow that lies hid at the Heart of the World.

Sad am I, sad for your loss: for failing the charm of your presence,
Even the sunshine has paled, leaving the Zenith less blue.
Even the ocean lessens the light of its green opalescence,
Since, to my sorrow I loved, loved and grew weary of, you.

Why was our passion so fleetin...

Job xiv. 13-15.

RONDEL.

Would that thou hid me in the grave
And kept me with death's gaoler-care;
Until thy wrath away should wear
A sentence fixed thy prisoner gave!
I would endure with patience brave
So thou remembered I was there!
Would that thou hid me in the grave,
And kept me with death's gaoler-care!

To see thy creature thou wouldst crave--
Desire thy handiwork so fair;
Then wouldst thou call through death's dank air
And I would answer from the cave!
Would that thou hid me in the grave,
And kept me with death's gaoler-care!

    Sitting patient in the shadow
    Till the blessed light shall come,
    A serene and saintly presence
    Sanctifies our troubled home.
    Earthly joys and hopes and sorrows
    Break like ripples on the strand
    Of the deep and solemn river
    Where her willing feet now stand.


    O my sister, passing from me,
    Out of human care and strife,
    Leave me, as a gift, those virtues
    Which have beautified your life.
    Dear, bequeath me that great patience
    Which has power to sustain
    A cheerful, uncomplaining spirit
    In its prison-house of pain.


    Give me, for I need it sorely,
    Of that courage, wise and sweet,
    Which has made the path of duty
    Green beneath your willing feet.
    Gi...