For thee the birds shall never sing again,
    Nor fresh green leaves come out upon the tree,
The brook shall no more murmur the refrain
            For thee.

Thou liest underneath the windswept lea,
    Thou dreamest not of pleasure or of pain,
Thou dreadest no to-morrow that shall be.

Deep rest is thine, unbroken by the rain,
    Ay, or the thunder.    Brother, canst thou see
The tears that night and morning fall in vain
            For thee?

He took the color of his vest
From rabbit's coat or grouse's breast;
For, as the wood-kinds lurk and hide,
So walks the woodman, unespied.

I have seen a pathway shaded by green great trees,
A road bordered by thickets light with flowers.

My eyes have entered in under the green shadow,
And made a cool journey far along the road.

But I shall not take the road,
Because it does not lead to her house.

When she was born
They shut her little feet in iron boxes,
So that my beloved never walks the roads.

When she was born
They shut her heart in a box of iron,
So that my beloved shall never love me.

From the Chinese.

(See Note)

Wonder I must, what I once may see
Over the lofty mountains!
Eyes shall meet only snow, may be;
Standing here, each evergreen tree
Over the heights is yearning; -
Will it be long in learning?

Pinions strong bear the eagle away
Over the lofty mountains
Forth to the young and vigorous day;
There he exults in the swift, wild play,
Rests where his spirit orders, -
Sees all the wide world's borders.

Full-leaved the apple-tree wishes naught
Over the lofty mountains!
Spreading, when summer hither is brought,
Waiting till next time in its thought;
Many a bird it is swinging,
Knowing not what they are singing.

He who has longed for twenty years
Over the lofty mountains,
He who knows that he never nears,
S...

The Muse said, Let us sing a little song
    Wherein no hint of wrong,
No echo of the great world need, or pain,
    Shall mar the strain.
Lock fast the swinging portal of thy heart;
    Keep sympathy apart.
Sing of the sunset, of the dawn, the sea;
    Of any thing or nothing, so there be
No purpose to thy art.
    Yea, let us make, art for Art's sake.
And sing no more unto the hearts of men,
    But for the critic's pen.
With songs that are but words, sweet sounding words,
    Like joyous jargon of the birds.
Tune now thy lyre, O Poet, and sing on.
    Sing of

The Dawn

The Virgin Night, all languorous with dreams
    Of her beloved Darkness, rose in fear,
    Feeling the presence of another near.
Outside her curtained casement...

Life is bitter. All the faces of the years,
Young and old, are grey with travail and with tears.
Must we only wake to toil, to tire, to weep?
In the sun, among the leaves, upon the flowers,
Slumber stills to dreamy death the heavy hours . . .
Let me sleep.

Riches won but mock the old, unable years;
Fame's a pearl that hides beneath a sea of tears;
Love must wither, or must live alone and weep.
In the sunshine, through the leaves, across the flowers,
While we slumber, death approaches though the hours! . . .
Let me sleep.

1872

I see you, refulgent ones,
Burning so steadily
Like big white arc lights...
There are so many of you.
I like to watch you weaving -
Altogether and with precision
Each his ray -
Your tracery of light,
Making a shining way about America.

I note your infinite reactions -
In glassware
And sequin
And puddles
And bits of jet -
And here and there a diamond...

But you do not yet see me,
Who am a torch blown along the wind,
Flickering to a spark
But never out.

In words like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
    Like coarsest clothes against the cold;
    But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.
                        - TENNYSON.

The bells that lift their yawning throats
    And lolling tongues with wrangling cries
Flung up in harsh, discordant notes,
    As though in anger, at the skies, -
Are filled with echoings replete,
    With purest tinkles of delight -
So I would have a something sweet
    Ring in the song I sing to-night.

As when a blotch of ugly guise
    On some poor artist's naked floor
Becomes a picture in his eyes,
    And he forgets that he is poor, -
So I look out upon the night,
    That ushers in the dawning year,
And in a vacant blur of light

Out of the cloud that covers me
And blots the stars and seldom lifts,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my indubitable gifts.

Under the whip, upon the setts,
Men drive me many a galling mile;
My stock of editors' regrets
Would fill a barrow, but -- I smile.

Fast by this trade of wind and wit
I mean to hold till life be done,
And every year I stay in it
Finds, and shall find me, tugging on.

It matters not how stiff and sheer
The climb -- how difficult the sum,
I am the man they've got to hear!
I am the man that's bound to come!

Through many lands and over many seas
I come, my Brother, to thine obsequies,
To pay thee the last honours that remain,
And call upon thy voiceless dust, in vain.
Since cruel fate has robbed me even of thee,
Unhappy Brother, snatched away from me,
Now none the less the gifts our fathers gave,
The melancholy honours of the grave,
Wet with my tears I bring to thee, and say
Farewell! farewell! for ever and a day.

1.

Adieu, thou Hill! [1] where early joy
Spread roses o'er my brow;
Where Science seeks each loitering boy
With knowledge to endow.
Adieu, my youthful friends or foes,
Partners of former bliss or woes;
No more through Ida's paths we stray;
Soon must I share the gloomy cell,
Whose ever-slumbering inmates dwell
Unconscious of the day.

2.

Adieu, ye hoary Regal Fanes,
Ye spires of Granta's vale,
Where Learning robed in sable reigns.
And Melancholy pale.
Ye comrades of the jovial hour,
Ye tenants of the classic bower,
On Cama's verdant margin plac'd,
Adieu! while memory still is mine,
For offerings on Oblivion's shrine,
These scenes must be effac'd.


3

Adieu, ye mountains of the clime<...

Old October's purt' nigh gone,
And the frosts is comin' on
Little heavier every day -
Like our hearts is thataway!
Leaves is changin' overhead
Back from green to gray and red,
Brown and yeller, with their stems
Loosenin' on the oaks and e'ms;
And the balance of the trees
Gittin' balder every breeze -
Like the heads we're scratchin' on!
Old October's purt' nigh gone.

I love Old October so,
I can't bear to see her go -
Seems to me like losin' some
Old-home relative er chum -
'Pears like sorto' settin' by
Some old friend 'at sigh by sigh
Was a-passin' out o' sight
Into everlastin' night!
Hickernuts a feller hears
Rattlin' down is more like tears
Drappin' on the leaves below -
I love Old October so!

Can't tell wh...

There's a regret
So grinding, so immitigably sad,
Remorse thereby feels tolerant, even glad. . . .
Do you not know it yet?

For deeds undone
Rankle, and snarl, and hunger for their due
Till there seems naught so despicable as you
In all the grin o' the sun.

Like an old shoe
The sea spurns and the land abhors, you lie
About the beach of Time, till by-and-by
Death, that derides you too,

Death, as he goes
His ragman's round, espies you, where you stray,
With half-an-eye, and kicks you out of his way;
And then--and then, who knows

But the kind Grave
Turns on you, and you feel the convict Worm,
In that black bridewell working out his term,
Hanker and grope and crave?

'Poor fool that might,
That might, yet would ...

        'Mong silver hills of Nevada
        There is many a wild bravado,
        Who oft indulge in lawless vice,
        And there are pearls of great price.

        Rough hearts, but true at the core,
        There is the genuine silver ore,
        But it needs skill of the refiner
        To find pure gems in the miner.

        Far from their home two children stray,
        Among the mountains far away,
        The eldest of these travellers bold,
        Jack Smith he was but six years old.

        So far poor children went abroad,
        That both at last they lost their road,
        But their good dog the trusty Rover,
        By scent and search doth them discover.

        Their friends they search for them in vain,
  ...

Unseal the city fountains,
    And let the waters flow
In coolness from the mountains
    Unto the plains below.
My brain is parched and erring,
    The pavement hot and dry,
And not a breath is stirring
    Beneath the burning sky.

The belles have all departed--
    There does not linger one!
Of course the mart's deserted
    By every mother's son,
Except the street musician
    And men of lesser note,
Whose only earthly mission
    Seems but to toil and vote!

A woman--blessings on her!--
    Beneath my window see;
She's singing--what an honor!--
    Oh! "Woodman, spare that tree!"
Her "man" the air is killing--
    His organ's out of tune--
They're gone, with my last shilling, [See Notes (1)]
    To Florence's s...

I must
Not trust
Here to any;
Bereav'd,
Deceiv'd
By so many:
As one
Undone
By my losses;
Comply
Will I
With my crosses;
Yet still
I will
Not be grieving,
Since thence
And hence
Comes relieving.
But this
Sweet is
In our mourning;
Times bad
And sad
Are a-turning:
And he
Whom we
See dejected,
Next day
We may
See erected.

What's in a 'Name'?
. . . . .
Brutus will start a Spirit as soon as Caesar!

PROLOGUE

There's something in a flying horse,
There's something in a huge balloon;
But through the clouds I'll never float
Until I have a little Boat,
Shaped like the crescent-moon.

And now I 'have' a little Boat,
In shape a very crescent-moon
Fast through the clouds my boat can sail;
But if perchance your faith should fail,
Look up and you shall see me soon!

The woods, my Friends, are round you roaring,
Rocking and roaring like a sea;
The noise of danger's in your ears,
And ye have all a thousand fears
Both for my little Boat and me!

Meanwhile untroubled I admire
The pointed horns of my canoe;
And, did not pity touch my breast,

Solea lontana in sonno consolarme.

SHE ANNOUNCES TO HIM, IN A VISION, THAT HE WILL NEVER SEE HER MORE.


    To soothe me distant far, in days gone by,
With dreams of one whose glance all heaven combined,
Was mine; now fears and sorrow haunt my mind,
Nor can I from that grief, those terrors fly:
For oft in sleep I mark within her eye
Deep pity with o'erwhelming sadness join'd;
And oft I seem to hear on every wind
Accents, which from my breast chase peace and joy.
"That last dark eve," she cries, "remember'st thou,
When to those doting eyes I bade farewell,
Forced by the time's relentless tyranny?
I had not then the power, nor heart to tell,
What thou shalt find, alas! too surely true--
Hope not again on earth thy Laura's face to see."