Oh, what so subtle as the spell
    The silvery moonlight weaves?
Oh, what so sad and what so glad,
    And what so soon deceives.

A vision of the long ago--
    Long years of pain between;
A mocking dream of happier days--
    A veil of silver sheen.

A passing gleam of falling stars--
    An idle summer's dream;
The sudden waking of a heart--
    Things are not as they seem.

Oh, silver moon, indeed you hold
    The secrets of the heart;
And none can know and none can guess
    The mystery of thy art.

A silver length of rippling waves,
    A glance from happy eyes;
A strain of music low and sweet--
    The heart in rapture lies.

Yet, ah, how faithless are the vows
    Made 'neath the summer moon;
As c...

O'er the Campagna it is dim warm weather;
    The Spring comes with a full heart silently,
    And many thoughts; a faint flash of the sea
Divides two mists; straight falls the falling feather.

With wild Spring meanings hill and plain together
    Grow pale, or just flush with a dust of flowers.
    Rome in the ages, dimmed with all her towers,
Floats in the midst, a little cloud at tether.

I fain would put my hands about thy face,
    Thou with thy thoughts, who art another Spring,
            And draw thee to me like a mournful child.

Thou lookest on me from another place;
    I touch not this day's secret, nor the thing
            That in the silence makes thy sweet eyes wild.

How many between east and west
Disgrace their parent earth,
Whose deeds constrain us to detest
The day that gave them birth!
Not so when Stella’s natal morn
Revolving months restore,
We can rejoice that she was born,
And wish her born once more!

Knight, a true sister-love
This heart retains;
Ask me no other love,
That way lie pains!

Calm must I view thee come,
Calm see thee go;
Tale-telling tears of thine
I must not know!

Perchè la vita è breve.

IN PRAISE OF LAURA'S EYES: THE DIFFICULTY OF HIS THEME.


    Since human life is frail,
And genius trembles at the lofty theme,
I little confidence in either place;
But let my tender wail
There, where it ought, deserved attention claim,
That wail which e'en in silence we may trace.
O beauteous eyes, where Love doth nestling stay!
To you I turn my insufficient lay,
Unapt to flow; but passion's goad I feel:
And he of you who sings
Such courteous habit by the strain is taught,
That, borne on amorous wings,
He soars above the reach of vulgar thought:
Exalted thus, I venture to reveal
What long my cautious heart has labour'd to conceal.

Yes, well do I perceive
To you how wrongful is my scanty praise;

When you were born, beloved, was your soul
New made by God to match your body's flower,
And were they both at one same precious hour
Sent forth from heaven as a perfect whole?
Or had your soul since dim creation burned,
A star in some still region of the sky,
That leaping earthward, left its place on high
And to your little new-born body yearned?
No words can tell in what celestial hour
God made your soul and gave it mortal birth,
Nor in the disarray of all the stars
Is any place so sweet that such a flower
Might linger there until thro' heaven's bars,
It heard God's voice that bade it down to earth.

My fayre, looke from those turrets of thine eyes,
Into the Ocean of a troubled minde,
Where my poor soule, the Barke of sorrow, lyes,
Left to the mercy of the waues and winde.
See where she flotes, laden with purest loue,
Which those fayre Ilands of thy lookes affoord,
Desiring yet a thousand deaths to proue,
Then so to cast her Ballase ouerboard.
See how her sayles be rent, her tacklings worne,
Her Cable broke, her surest Anchor lost:
Her Marryners doe leaue her all forlorne,
Yet how shee bends towards that blessed Coast!
    Loe! where she drownes in stormes of thy displeasure,
    Whose worthy prize should haue enricht thy treasure.

Is there a bitter pang for love removed,
O God! The dead love doth not cost more tears
Than the alive, the loving, the beloved -
Not yet, not yet beyond all hopes and fears!
        Would I were laid
        Under the shade
Of the calm grave, and the long grass of years, -

That love might die with sorrow: - I am sorrow;
And she, that loves me tenderest, doth press
Most poison from my cruel lips, and borrow
Only new anguish from the old caress;
        Oh, this world's grief
        Hath no relief

In being wrung from a great happiness.
Would I had never filled thine eyes with love,
For love is only tears: would I had never
Breathed such a curse-like blessing as we prove;
Now, if "Farewell" could bless thee, I would sever!
        Wo...

When Time who steals our years away
    Shall steal our pleasures too,
The memory of the past will stay
    And half our joys renew,
Then, Julia, when thy beauty's flower
    Shall feel the wintry air,
Remembrance will recall the hour
    When thou alone wert fair.
Then talk no more of future gloom;
    Our joys shall always last;
For Hope shall brighten days to come,
    And Memory gild the past.

Come, Chloe, fill the genial bowl,
    I drink to Love and thee:
Thou never canst decay in soul,
    Thou'lt still be young for me.
And as thy; lips the tear-drop chase,
    Which on my cheek they find,
So hope shall steal away the trace
    That sorrow leaves behind.
Then fill the bowl--away with gloom!
    Our joys shall always last;<...

Non so se s' é l' immaginata luce.


I know not if it be the fancied light
        Which every man or more or less doth feel;
        Or if the mind and memory reveal
        Some other beauty for the heart's delight;

Or if within the soul the vision bright
        Of her celestial home once more doth steal,
        Drawing our better thoughts with pure appeal
        To the true Good above all mortal sight:

This light I long for and unguided seek;
        This fire that burns my heart, I cannot find;
        Nor know the way, though some one seems to lead.

This, since I saw thee, lady, makes me weak:
        A bitter-sweet sways here and there my mind;
        And sure I am thine eyes this mischief breed.

The stars are twinkling in the skies,
The earth is lost in slumbers deep;
So hush, my sweet, and close thine eyes,
And let me lull thy soul to sleep.
Compose thy dimpled hands to rest,
And like a little birdling lie
Secure within thy cozy nest
Upon my loving mother breast,
And slumber to my lullaby,
So hushaby--O hushaby.

The moon is singing to a star
The little song I sing to you;
The father sun has strayed afar,
As baby's sire is straying too.
And so the loving mother moon
Sings to the little star on high;
And as she sings, her gentle tune
Is borne to me, and thus I croon
For thee, my sweet, that lullaby
Of hushaby--O hushaby.

There is a little one asleep
That does not hear his mother's song;
But angel watchers--as I...

    Given, not lent,
    And not withdrawn - once sent -
This Infant of mankind, this One,
Is still the little welcome Son.

    New every year,
    New-born and newly dear,
He comes with tidings and a song,
The ages long, the ages long.

    Even as the cold
    Keen winter grows not old;
As childhood is so fresh, foreseen,
And spring in the familiar green;

    Sudden as sweet
    Come the expected feet.
All joy is young, and new all art,
And He, too, Whom we have by heart.

I hate the very noise of troublous man
Who did and does me all the harm he can.
Free from the world I would a prisoner be
And my own shadow all my company;
And lonely see the shooting stars appear,
Worlds rushing into judgment all the year.
O lead me onward to the loneliest shade,
The darkest place that quiet ever made,
Where kingcups grow most beauteous to behold
And shut up green and open into gold.
Farewell to poesy--and leave the will;
Take all the world away--and leave me still
The mirth and music of a woman's voice,
That bids the heart be happy and rejoice.

    Love comes to all soon or late,
    And maketh gay or sad;
    For every bird will find its mate,
    And every lass a lad,

I.

Only a ringlet of flaxen hair,
    Tied with a ribbon blue,
Laid by the hand of a mother there--
    Cherished with love so true!


II.

Only a soft and silken curl,
    Bound with a knotted bow;
Worn on the head of a little girl
    Lost in the long-ago.


III.

Only a hallowed treasure kept
    From the grave's decay and mold,
Over which her eyes have wept
    With anguish all untold!


IV.

Only a link in the golden chain,
    By Death's cold hand unbroken,
Which leads to where she'll meet again
    The wearer of this token.


V.

Only a relic undefiled,
    Enshrined in a broken heart--
Rent in twain when a darling child
    And a loving mother part...

The sunshine of thine eyes,
(O still, celestial beam!)
Whatever it touches it fills
With the life of its lambent gleam.

The sunshine of thine eyes,
O let it fall on me!
Though I be but a mote of the air,
I could turn to gold for thee!

I just had turned the classic page.
    And traced that happy period over,
When blest alike were youth and age,
And love inspired the wisest sage,
    And wisdom graced the tenderest lover.

Before I laid me down to sleep
    Awhile I from the lattice gazed
Upon that still and moonlight deep,
    With isles like floating gardens raised,
For Ariel there his sports to keep;
While, gliding 'twixt their leafy shores
The lone night-fisher plied his oars.

I felt,--so strongly fancy's power
Came o'er me in that witching hour,--
As if the whole bright scenery there
    Were lighted by a Grecian sky,
And I then breathed the blissful air
    That late had thrilled to Sappho's sigh.

Thus, waking, dreamt I,--and when Sleep
    Came o'er my ...

Quel sempre acerbo ed onorato giorno.

HE RECALLS HER AS HE SAW HER WHEN IN TEARS.


    That ever-painful, ever-honour'd day
So left her living image on my heart
Beyond or lover's wit or poet's art,
That oft to it will doting memory stray.
A gentle pity softening her bright mien,
Her sorrow there so sweet and sad was heard,
Doubt in the gazer's bosom almost stirr'd
Goddess or mortal, which made heaven serene.
Fine gold her hair, her face as sunlit snow,
Her brows and lashes jet, twin stars her eyne,
Whence the young archer oft took fatal aim;
Each loving lip--whence, utterance sweet and low
Her pent grief found--a rose which rare pearls line,
Her tears of crystal and her sighs of flame.

MACGREGOR.


    That ever-hon...