High on his Patmos of the Southern Seas
Our northern dreamer sleeps,
Strange stars above him, and above his grave
Strange leaves and wings their tropic splendours wave,
While, far beneath, mile after shimmering mile,
The great Pacific, with its faery deeps,
Smiles all day long its silken secret smile.

Son of a race nomadic, finding still
Its home in regions furthest from its home,
Ranging untired the borders of the world,
And resting but to roam;
Loved of his land, and making all his boast
The birthright of the blood from which he came,
Heir to those lights that guard the Scottish coast,
And caring only for a filial fame;
Proud, if a poet, he was Scotsman most,
And bore a Scottish name.

Death, that long sought our poet, finds at last,
Dea...

January, 1854


Come, when no graver cares employ,
Godfather, come and see your boy:
Your presence will be sun in winter,
Making the little one leap for joy.

For, being of that honest few,
Who give the Fiend himself his due,
Should eighty-thousand college-councils
Thunder ‘Anathema,’ friend, at you;

Should all our churchmen foam in spite
At you, so careful of the right,
Yet one lay-hearth would give you welcome
(Take it and come) to the Isle of Wight;

Where, far from noise and smoke of town,
I watch the twilight falling brown
All round a careless-order’d garden
Close to the ridge of a noble down.

You’ll have no scandal while you dine,
But honest talk and wholesome wine,
And only hear the magpie gossip
Garru...

O thicker, deeper, darker growing,
The solemn vista to the tomb
Must know henceforth another shadow,
And give another cypress room.

In love surpassing that of brothers,
We walked, O friend, from childhood’s day;
And, looking back o’er fifty summers,
Our footprints track a common way.

One in our faith, and one our longing
To make the world within our reach
Somewhat the better for our living,
And gladder for our human speech.

Thou heard’st with me the far-off voices,
The old beguiling song of fame,
But life to thee was warm and present,
And love was better than a name.

To homely joys and loves and friendships
Thy genial nature fondly clung;
And so the shadow on the dial
Ran back and left thee always young.

And wh...

Come to the casement, we'll watch the snow
Softly descending on earth below,
Fairer and whiter than spotless down
Or the pearls that gleam in a monarch's crown,
Clothing the earth in its robe's bright flow;
Is it not lovely - the pure white snow?

See, as it falls o'er the landscape wide,
How kindly it seeks all blots to hide,
Shrouding each black, unsightly nook,
The miry banks of the little brook,
Robing bare branches in ermine white,
Making all lovely, spotless and bright.

In the farm-yard see with what magic skill
Its marvels of beauty it works at will:
The well-house now is a fairy hall,
And the rough, rude fence is a marble wall;
While gates and hillocks where barn fowl ranged
To ramparts and bastions now are changed.

How softl...

When on the sandy shore I sit,
Beside the salt sea-wave,
And fall into a weeping fit
Because I dare not shave
A little whisper at my ear
Enquires the reason of my fear.

I answer "If that ruffian Jones
Should recognise me here,
He'd bellow out my name in tones
Offensive to the ear:
He chaffs me so on being stout
(A thing that always puts me out)."

Ah me! I see him on the cliff!
Farewell, farewell to hope,
If he should look this way, and if
He's got his telescope!
To whatsoever place I flee,
My odious rival follows me!

For every night, and everywhere,
I meet him out at dinner;
And when I've found some charming fair,
And vowed to die or win her,
The wretch (he's thin and I am stout)
Is sure to come and cut me o...

    How well my heart remembers
    Beside these camp-fire embers
The eyes that smiled so far away, -
    The joy that was November's.

    Her voice to laughter moving,
    So merrily reproving, -
We wandered through the autumn woods,
    And neither thought of loving.

    The hills with light were glowing,
    The waves in joy were flowing, -
It was not to the clouded sun
    The day's delight was owing.

    Though through the brown leaves straying,
    Our lives seemed gone a-Maying;
We knew not Love was with us there,
    No look nor tone betraying.

    How unbelief still misses
    The best of being's blisses!
Our parting saw the first and last
    Of love's imagined kisses.

    Now 'mid these scenes the dr...

Why do you break upon this old, cool peace,
This painted peace of ours,
With harsh dress hissing like a flock of geese,
With garish flowers?
Why do you churn smooth waters rough again,
Selfish old skin-and-bone?
Leave us to quiet dreaming and slow pain,
Leave us alone.

Briar and fennel and chinquapin,
And rue and ragweed everywhere;
The field seemed sick as a soul with sin,
Or dead of an old despair,
Born of an ancient care.

The cricket's cry and the locust's whirr,
And the note of a bird's distress,
With the rasping sound of a grasshoppér,
Clung to the loneliness
Like burrs to a ragged dress.

So sad the field, so waste the ground,
So curst with an old despair,
A woodchuck's burrow, a blind mole's mound,
And a chipmunk's stony lair,
Seemed more than it could bear.

So solemn too, so more than sad,
So droning-lone with bees
I wondered what more could Nature add
To the sum of its miseries
And then I saw the trees.

Skeletons gaunt, that gnarled the place,
Twisted and torn they ros...

    I come upon it suddenly, alone -
        A little pathway winding in the weeds
    That fringe the roadside; and with dreams my own,
        I wander as it leads.

    Full wistfully along the slender way,
        Through summer tan of freckled shade and shine,
    I take the path that leads me as it may -
        Its every choice is mine.

    A chipmunk, or a sudden-whirring quail,
        Is startled by my step as on I fare -
    A garter-snake across the dusty trail
        Glances and - is not there.

    Above the arching jimson-weeds flare twos
        And twos of sallow-yellow butterflies,
    Like blooms of lorn primroses blowing loose
        When autumn winds arise.

    The trail dips - dwindles - broadens then, and lifts

I put by the half-written poem,
While the pen, idly trailed in my hand,
Writes on, "Had I words to complete it,
Who'd read it, or who'd understand?"
But the little bare feet on the stairway,
And the faint, smothered laugh in the hall,
And the eerie-low lisp on the silence,
Cry up to me over it all.

So I gather it up - where was broken
The tear-faded thread of my theme,
Telling how, as one night I sat writing,
A fairy broke in on my dream,
A little inquisitive fairy -
My own little girl, with the gold
Of the sun in her hair, and the dewy
Blue eyes of the fairies of old.

'Twas the dear little girl that I scolded -
"For was it a moment like this,"
I said, "when she knew I was busy,
To come romping in for a kiss?
Come rowdying up fr...

Oh tell me not of the lands so old
Where the Orient treasures its hills of gold,
And the rivers lie in the sun's bright rays
Forever singing the old world's praise.
Nor proudly boast of the gardens grand
That spring to earth at a king's command;
There are treasures here in the far great West
That rival the hills on the Orient's crest.

Far from the sight of the dusty town
Like a perfect gem in a golden crown,
Lies a beautiful garden vast and fair,
Where the wild birds sing in the evening air,
And the dews fall down in a silent shower
On the fragrant head of each beaming flower;
While far and near o'er the land sun-kissed,
Hangs the roseate veil of the sunset mist.

Under the shade of the western wall
There's a glimmer of roses fair and tall,

He felt scant need
Of church or creed,
He took small share
In saintly prayer,
His eyes found food for his love;
He could pity poor devils condemned to hell,
But sadly neglected endeavours to dwell
With the angels in luck above:
To save one's precious peculiar soul
He never could understand is the whole
Of a mortal's business in life,
While all about him his human kin
With loving and hating and virtue and sin
Reel overmatched in the strife.
“The heavens for the heavens,
and the earth for the earth!
I am a Man, I'll be true to my birth,
Man in my joys, in my pains.”
So fearless, stalwart, erect and free,
He gave to his fellows right royally
His strength, his heart, his brains;
For proud and fiery and swift and bold
Wine of life from...

    Do what I will, I cannot chant so well
    As other men; and yet my soul is true.
    My hopes are bold; my thoughts are hard to tell,
    But thou can'st read them, and accept them, too,
    Though, half-abash'd, they seem to hide from view.
    I strike the lyre, I sound the hollow shell;
    And why? For comfort, when my thoughts rebel,
    And when I count the woes that must ensue.
    But for this reason, and no other one,
    I dare to look thy way, and bow my head
    To thy sweet name, as sunflower to the sun,
    Though, peradventure, not so wisely fed
    With garden fancies. Tears must now be shed,
    Unnumber'd tears, till life or love be done!

(An Incident Of Froom Valley)



"Thy husband poor, poor Heart! is dead
Dead, out by Moreford Rise;
A bull escaped the barton-shed,
Gored him, and there he lies!"

- "Ha, ha go away! 'Tis a tale, methink,
Thou joker Kit!" laughed she.
"I've known thee many a year, Kit Twink,
And ever hast thou fooled me!"

- "But, Mistress Damon I can swear
Thy goodman John is dead!
And soon th'lt hear their feet who bear
His body to his bed."

So unwontedly sad was the merry man's face -
That face which had long deceived -
That she gazed and gazed; and then could trace
The truth there; and she believed.

She laid a hand on the dresser-ledge,
And scanned far Egdon-side;
And stood; and you heard the wind-swept sedge
And the...

Rise, household gods, and let us go;
But whither I myself not know.
First, let us dwell on rudest seas;
Next, with severest savages;
Last, let us make our best abode
Where human foot as yet ne'er trod:
Search worlds of ice, and rather there
Dwell than in loathed Devonshire.

    A poet of my native land has said -
    The life the good and virtuous lead on earth
    Is like the black-eyed maiden of the East,
    Who paints the lids to look more bright and fair.
    The eyes may smart and water, but withal
    She loves to please them that behold her face.
    E'en so, my Master, thine own life has been.
    Thy songs have pleased the world, thy thoughts divine
    Have purified, likewise ennobled man.
    And what are they, those songs and thoughts divine,
    But sad experience of thy life, dipt deep
    In thine own tears, and traced on nature's page?
    To please and teach the world for two dear ones
    You mourned - a friend in youth, a son in age
    'Tis said the life that gives one moment's joy
    To one lone mortal is not li...

What was is... since 1930;
the boys in my old gang
are senior partners. They start up
bald like baby birds
to embrace retirement.

At the altar of surrender,
I met you
in the hour of credulity.
How your misfortune came out clearly
to us at twenty.

At the gingerbread casino,
how innocent the nights we made it
on our Vesuvio martinis
with no vermouth but vodka
to sweeten the dry gin,

the lash across my face
that night we adored...
soon every night and all,
when your sweet, amorous
repetition changed.

Fertility is not to the forward,
or beauty to the precipitous,
things gone wrong
clothe summer
with gold leaf.

Sometimes
I catch my mind
circling for you with glazed eye,
my los...

Lo! where the four mimosas blend their shade
In calm repose at last is Landor laid;
For ere he slept he saw them planted here
By her his soul had ever held most dear,
And he had liv’d enough when he had dried her tear.