My graveyard holds no once-loved human forms,
Grown hideous and forgotten, left alone,
But every agony my heart has known, -
The new-born trusts that died, the drift of storms.

I visit every day the shadowy grove;
I bury there my outraged tender thought;
I bring the insult for the love I sought,
And my contempt, where I had tried to love.

Ill-fated hour! oft as thy annual reign
Leads on th' autumnal tide, my pinion'd joys
Fade with the glories of the fading year;
"Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train,"
And bids affection heave the heart-drawn sigh
O'er the cold tomb, rich with the spoils of death,
And wet with many a tributary tear!

Eight times has each successive season sway'd
The fruitful sceptre of our milder clime
Since my loved----died! but why, ah! why
Should melancholy cloud my early years?
Religion spurns earth's visionary scene,
Philosophy revolts at misery's chain:
Just Heaven recall'd its own; the pilgrim call'd
From human woes: from sorrow's rankling worm--
Shall frailty then prevail?

Oh! be it mine
To curb the sigh which bursts o'er Heaven's decree;
To t...

The shore hath blent with the distant skies,
O'er the bend of the crested seas,
And the leaning ship in her pathway flies,
On the sweep of the freshened breeze.

Swift be its flight! for a dying guest
It bears across the billow,
And she fondly sighs in her native West
To find a peaceful pillow.

There, o'er the tide, her kindred sleep,
And she would sleep beside them
It may not be! for the sea is deep,
And the waves the waves divide them!

It may not be! for the flush is flown,
That lighted her lily cheek
'Twas the passing beam, ere the sun goes down.
Life's last and loveliest streak.

'Tis gone, and a dew is o'er her now
The dew of the mornless eve
No morrow will shine on that pallid brow,
For the spirit hath ta'en its leave...

There's no replying
To the Wind's sighing,
Telling, foretelling,
Dying, undying,
Dwindling and swelling,
Complaining, droning,
Whistling and moaning,
Ever beginning,
Ending, repeating,
Hinting and dinning,
Lagging and fleeting -
We've no replying
Living or dying
To the Wind's sighing.

What are you telling,
Variable Wind-tone?
What would be teaching,
O sinking, swelling,
Desolate Wind-moan?
Ever for ever
Teaching and preaching,
Never, ah never
Making us wiser -
The earliest riser
Catches no meaning,
The last who hearkens
Garners no gleaning
Of wisdom's treasure,
While the world darkens: -
Living or dying,
In pain, in pleasure,
We've no replying
To wordless flying
Wind's s...

It is dark... so dark, I remember the sun on Chios...
It is still... so still, I hear the beat of our paddles on the Aegean...

Ten times we had watched the moon
Rise like a thin white virgin out of the waters
And round into a full maternity...
For thrice ten moons we had touched no flesh
Save the man flesh on either hand
That was black and bitter and salt and scaled by the sea.

The Athenian boy sat on my left...
His hair was yellow as corn steeped in wine...
And on my right was Phildar the Carthaginian,
Grinning Phildar
With his mouth pulled taut as by reins from his black gapped teeth.
Many a whip had coiled about him
And his shoulders were rutted deep as wet ground under chariot wheels,
And his skin was red and tough as a bull's hide cured in the sun....

My heart was heavy, for its trust had been
Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong;
So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men,
One summer Sabbath day I strolled among
The green mounds of the village burial-place;
Where, pondering how all human love and hate
Find one sad level; and how, soon or late,
Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face,
And cold hands folded over a still heart,
Pass the green threshold of our common grave,
Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,
Awed for myself, and pitying my race,
Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave,
Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave

On the storm-cloven Cape
The bitter waves roll,
With the bergs of the Pole,
And the darks and the damps of the Northern Sea:
For the storm-cloven Cape
Is an alien Shape
With a fearful face; and it moans, and it stands
Outside all lands
Everlastingly!

When the fruits of the year
Have been gathered in Spain,
And the Indian rain
Is rich on the evergreen lands of the Sun,
There comes to this Cape
To this alien Shape,
As the waters beat in and the echoes troop forth,
The Wind of the North,
Euroclydon!

And the wilted thyme,
And the patches past
Of the nettles cast
In the drift of the rift, and the broken rime,
Are tumbled and blown
To every zone
With the famished glede, and the plovers thinned
By this fourfold...

Now Minnie was a pretty girl,
Her hair so gracefully did curl;
She had a slender figure, too,
And rosy cheeks, and eyes of blue.
And yet, with all those beauties rare,
Those angel eyes and curly hair,
Oh! many, many faults had she,
The worst of which was jealousy.
When on the brilliant Christmas tree
St. Nicholas hung his gifts so free,
The envious Minnie could not bear
With any one those gifts to share.
And when her sisters' birthdays came
Minnie (it must be told with shame)
Would envy every pretty thing
Which dear Mamma to them would bring.


Sometimes great tears rolled from her eyes,
Sometimes she pierced the air with cries,
For hours together she would fret
Because their toys she could not get.
Ah, then! how changed this pret...

Mirando 'l sol de' begli occhi sereno.

THE SWEETS AND BITTERS OF LOVE.


    Marking of those bright eyes the sun serene
Where reigneth Love, who mine obscures and grieves,
My hopeless heart the weary spirit leaves
Once more to gain its paradise terrene;
Then, finding full of bitter-sweet the scene,
And in the world how vast the web it weaves.
A secret sigh for baffled love it heaves,
Whose spurs so sharp, whose curb so hard have been.
By these two contrary and mix'd extremes,
With frozen or with fiery wishes fraught,
To stand 'tween misery and bliss she seems:
Seldom in glad and oft in gloomy thought,
But mostly contrite for its bold emprize,
For of like seed like fruit must ever rise!

MACGREGOR.

Passing events, - tell, what are they I pray?
Are they some novelty? - Nay, nay, nay!
Ever since the world its course began,
Since the breath of life was breathed into man,
Still rolling on with the wane of time,
Through every nation, in every clime;
In every spot where man has his home,
Ever they long for events to come.

Hours or days or years it may be,
Before hopes realization they see;
And no sooner it comes than it hastes away,
And others rush after no longer to stay.
And there scarcely is time to know its in sight,
E'er its found to be leaving with marvellous flight,
And what had been longed for with eager intent,
Is chronicled but as a passing event.

Hope's joys are uncertain; - anxiety rules,
Expectancy's paradise, peopled by fools;

Intent on gathering wool from hedge and brake
Yon busy Little-ones rejoice that soon
A poor old Dame will bless them for the boon:
Great is their glee while flake they add to flake
With rival earnestness; far other strife
Than will hereafter move them, if they make
Pastime their idol, give their day of life
To pleasure snatched for reckless pleasure's sake.
Can pomp and show allay one heart-born grief?
Pains which the World inflicts can she requite?
Not for an interval however brief;
The silent thoughts that search for steadfast light,
Love from her depths, and Duty in her might,
And Faith, these only yield secure relief.

Three fatal sisters wait upon each sin;
First, fear and shame without, then guilt within.

MAY 23, 1864

How beautiful it was, that one bright day
    In the long week of rain!
Though all its splendor could not chase away
    The omnipresent pain.

The lovely town was white with apple-blooms,
    And the great elms o'erhead
Dark shadows wove on their aerial looms
    Shot through with golden thread.

Across the meadows, by the gray old manse,
    The historic river flowed:
I was as one who wanders in a trance,
    Unconscious of his road.

The faces of familiar friends seemed strange;
    Their voices I could hear,
And yet the words they uttered seemed to change
    Their meaning to my ear.

For the one face I looked for was not there,
    The one low voice was mute;
Only an unseen presence filled the air,

I

Beyond the years the answer lies,
Beyond where brood the grieving skies
And Night drops tears.
Where Faith rod-chastened smiles to rise
And doff its fears,
And carping Sorrow pines and dies--
Beyond the years.


II

Beyond the years the prayer for rest
Shall beat no more within the breast;
The darkness clears,
And Morn perched on the mountain's crest
Her form uprears--
The day that is to come is best,
Beyond the years.


III

Beyond the years the soul shall find
That endless peace for which it pined,
For light appears,
And to the eyes that still were blind
With blood and tears,
Their sight shall come all unconfined
Beyond the years.

("Le soleil s'est couché")

[XXXV. vi., April, 1829.]


The sun set this evening in masses of cloud,
The storm comes to-morrow, then calm be the night,
Then the Dawn in her chariot refulgent and proud,
Then more nights, and still days, steps of Time in his flight.
The days shall pass rapid as swifts on the wing.
O'er the face of the hills, o'er the face of the seas,
O'er streamlets of silver, and forests that ring
With a dirge for the dead, chanted low by the breeze;
The face of the waters, the brow of the mounts
Deep scarred but not shrivelled, and woods tufted green,
Their youth shall renew; and the rocks to the founts
Shall yield what these yielded to ocean their queen.
But day by day bending still lower my head,
Still chilled in the sunlig...

Presentiments! they judge not right
Who deem that ye from open light
Retire in fear of shame;
All 'heaven-born' Instincts shun the touch
Of vulgar sense, and, being such,
Such privilege ye claim.

The tear whose source I could not guess,
The deep sigh that seemed fatherless,
Were mine in early days;
And now, unforced by time to part
With fancy, I obey my heart,
And venture on your praise.

What though some busy foes to good,
Too potent over nerve and blood,
Lurk near you, and combine
To taint the health which ye infuse;
This hides not from the moral Muse
Your origin divine.

How oft from you, derided Powers!
Comes Faith that in auspicious hours
Builds castles, not of air:
Bodings unsanctioned by the will
Flow from y...

To the Mourners.


The bridal garland falls upon the bier,
The shadow of a crown, that o’er him hung,
Has vanish’d in the shadow cast by Death.
So princely, tender, truthful, reverent, pure—
Mourn! That a world-wide Empire mourns with you,
That all the Thrones are clouded by your loss,
Were slender solace. Yet be comforted;
For if this earth be ruled by Perfect Love,
Then, after his brief range of blameless days,
The toll of funeral in an Angel ear
Sounds happier than the merriest marriage-bell.
The face of Death is toward the Sun of Life,
His shadow darkens earth: his truer name
Is ‘Onward,’ no discordance in the roll
And march of that Eternal Harmony
Whereto the worlds beat time, tho’ faintly heard
Until the great Hereafter. Mourn in hope!

Standomi un giorno solo alla finestra.

UNDER VARIOUS ALLEGORIES HE PAINTS THE VIRTUE, BEAUTY, AND UNTIMELY DEATH OF LAURA.


    While at my window late I stood alone,
So new and many things there cross'd my sight,
To view them I had almost weary grown.
A dappled hind appear'd upon the right,
In aspect gentle, yet of stately stride,
By two swift greyhounds chased, a black and white,
Who tore in the poor side
Of that fair creature wounds so deep and wide,
That soon they forced her where ravine and rock
The onward passage block:
Then triumph'd Death her matchless beauties o'er,
And left me lonely there her sad fate to deplore.

Upon the summer wave a gay ship danced,
Her cordage was of silk, of gold her sails,
Her sides with ivory and...