Who is Lydia, pray, and who
Is Hypatia? Softly, dear,
Let me breathe it in your ear--
They are you, and only you.
And those other nameless two
Walking in Arcadian air--
She that was so very fair?
She that had the twilight hair?--
They were you, dear, only you.
If I speak of night or day,
Grace of fern or bloom of grape,
Hanging cloud or fountain spray,
Gem or star or glistening dew,
Or of mythologic shape,
Psyche, Pyrrha, Daphne, say--
I mean you, dear, you, just you.

                Art thou not sweet,
Oh world, and glad to the inmost heart of thee!
        All creatures rejoice
        With one rapturous voice.
    As I, with the passionate beat
    Of my over-full heart feel thee sweet,
And all things that live, and are part of thee!

                Light, light as a cloud
Swimming, and trailing its shadow under me
        I float in the deep
        As a bird-dream in sleep,
    And hear the wind murmuring loud,
    Far down, where the tree-tops are bowed,--
And I see where the secret place of the thunders be

                Oh! the sky free and wide,
With all the cloud-banners flung out in it
        Its singing wind blows
        As a grand river flows,
    And I swim down its rhythmical tide,

The splendor of the kindling day,
The splendor of the setting sun,
These move my soul to wend its way,
And have done
With all we grasp and toil amongst and say.

The paling roses of a cloud,
The fading bow that arches space,
These woo my fancy toward my shroud;
Toward the place
Of faces veiled, and heads discrowned and bowed.

The nation of the awful stars,
The wandering star whose blaze is brief,
These make me beat against the bars
Of my grief;
My tedious grief, twin to the life it mars.

O fretted heart tossed to and fro,
So fain to flee, so fain to rest!
All glories that are high or low,
East or west,
Grow dim to thee who art so fain to go.

Thou art my lute, by thee I sing,--
My being is attuned to thee.
Thou settest all my words a-wing,
And meltest me to melody.

Thou art my life, by thee I live,
From thee proceed the joys I know;
Sweetheart, thy hand has power to give
The meed of love--the cup of woe.

Thou art my love, by thee I lead
My soul the paths of light along,
From vale to vale, from mead to mead,
And home it in the hills of song.

My song, my soul, my life, my all,
Why need I pray or make my plea,
Since my petition cannot fall;
For I 'm already one with thee!

    I saw Lord Buddha towering by my gate
    Saying:    "Once more, good youth, I stand and wait."
    Saying:    "I bring you my fair Law of Peace
    And from your withering passion full release;
    Release from that white hand that stabbed you so.
    The road is calling.    With the wind you go,
    Forgetting her imperious disdain -
    Quenching all memory in the sun and rain."

    "Excellent Lord, I come.    But first," I said,
    "Grant that I bring her these twelve roses red.
    Yea, twelve flower kisses for her rose-leaf mouth,
    And then indeed I go in bitter drouth
    To that far valley where your river flows
    In Peace, that once I found in every rose."

When the hours of Day are numbered,
    And the voices of the Night
Wake the better soul, that slumbered,
    To a holy, calm delight;

Ere the evening lamps are lighted,
    And, like phantoms grim and tall,
Shadows from the fitful firelight
    Dance upon the parlour wall;

Then the forms of the departed
    Enter at the open door;
The beloved, the true-hearted,
    Come to visit me once more;

He, the young and strong, who cherished
    Noble longings for the strife,
By the road-side fell and perished,
    Weary with the march of life!

They, the holy ones and weakly,
    Who the cross of suffering bore,
Folded their pale hands so meekly,
    Spake with us on earth no more!

And with them the Being Beauteous,

Ye shadowy forms, again ye're drawing near,

So wont of yore to meet my troubled gaze!
Were it in vain to seek to keep you here?

Loves still my heart that dream of olden days?
Oh, come then! and in pristine force appear,

Parting the vapor mist that round me plays!
My bosom finds its youthful strength again,
Feeling the magic breeze that marks your train.

Ye bring the forms of happy days of yore,

And many a shadow loved attends you too;
Like some old lay, whose dream was well nigh o'er,

First-love appears again, and friendship true;
Upon life's labyrinthine path once more

Is heard the sigh, and grief revives anew;
The friends are told, who, in their hour of pride,
Deceived by fortune, vanish'd from my side.

No long...

She loved him--but she heeded not--
    Her heart had only room for pride:
All other feelings were forgot,
    When she became another's bride.
As from a dream she then awoke,
    To realize her lonely state,
And own it was the vow she broke
    That made her drear and desolate!

She loved him--but the sland'rer came,
    With words of hate that all believed;
A stain thus rested on his name--
    But he was wronged and she deceived;
Ah! rash the act that gave her hand,
    That drove her lover from her side--
Who hied him to a distant land,
    Where, battling for a name, he died!

She loved him--and his memory now
    Was treasured from the world apart:
The calm of thought was on her brow,
    The seeds of death were in her heart.

The Shape alone let others prize,
The Features of the Fair;
I look for Spirit in her Eyes,
And Meaning in her Air.
A Damask Cheek, an Iv'ry Arm,
Shall ne'er my Wishes win,
Give me an animated Form,
That speaks a Mind within.
A Face where awful Honour shines,
Where Sense and Sweetness move,
And Angel Innocence refines,
The Tenderness of Love.

These are the Soul of Beauty's frame,
Without whose vital Aid,
Unfinish'd all her Features seem,
And all her Roses dead.
But ah! where both their Charms unite,
How perfect is the View,
With ev'ry Image of Delight,
With Graces ever new.
Of Pow'r to charm the greatest Woe,
The wildest Rage control,
Diffusing Mildness o'er the Brow,
And Rapture thro' the Soul.
Their Pow'r but fain...

To a Lady who wrote under my likeness as Juliet, "Lieti giorni e felice."

Whence should they come, lady! those happy days
That thy fair hand and gentle heart invoke
Upon my head?    Alas! such do not rise
On any, of the many, who with sighs
Bear through this journey-land of wo, life's yoke.
The light of such lives not in thine own lays;
Such were not hers, that girl, so fond, so fair,
Beneath whose image thou hast traced thy pray'r.
Evil, and few, upon this darksome earth,
Must be the days of all of mortal birth;
Then why not mine?    Sweet lady! wish again,
Not more of joy to me, but less of pain;
Calm slumber, when life's troubled hours are past,
And with thy friendship cheer them while they last.

Quando mi vene innanzi il tempo e 'l loco.

RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY LOVE.


    The time and scene where I a slave became
When I remember, and the knot so dear
Which Love's own hand so firmly fasten'd here,
Which made my bitter sweet, my grief a game;
My heart, with fuel stored, is, as a flame
Of those soft sighs familiar to mine ear,
So lit within, its very sufferings cheer;
On these I live, and other aid disclaim.
That sun, alone which beameth for my sight,
With his strong rays my ruin'd bosom burns
Now in the eve of life as in its prime,
And from afar so gives me warmth and light,
Fresh and entire, at every hour, returns
On memory the knot, the scene, the time.

MACGREGOR.

I sit in the shadow of apple-boughs,
In the fragrant orchard close,
And around me floats the scented air,
With its wave-like tidal flows.
I close my eyes in a dreamy bliss,
And call no king my peer;
For is not this the rare, sweet time,
The blossoming time of the year?

I lie on a couch of downy grass,
With delicate blossoms strewn,
And I feel the throb of Nature's heart
Responsive to my own.
Oh, the world is fair, and God is good,
That maketh life so dear;
For is not this the rare, sweet time,
The blossoming time of the year?

I can see, through the rifts of the apple-boughs,
The delicate blue of the sky,
And the changing clouds with their marvellous tints
That drift so lazily by.
And strange, sweet thoughts sing through my brain...

I see fair women all the day,
They pass and pass - and go;
I almost dream that they are shades
Within a shadow-show.

Their beauty lays no hand on me,
They talk - - I hear no word;
I ask my eyes if they have seen,
My ears if they have heard.

For why - within the north countree
A little maid, I know,
Is waiting through the days for me,
Drear days so long and slow.

SPRING.

Muse of the pastoral reed and sylvan reign,
Divine inspirer of each tuneful swain,
Who taught the Doric Shepherd to portray
Primeval nature in his simple lay;
And him of Mantua, in a nicer age,
To form the graces of his artful page;
O, come! where crystal Avon winds serene,
And with thy presence bless the brightening scene;
Now, while I rove his willowy banks along,
With fond intent to wake the rural song,
Inspire me, Goddess! to my strains impart
The force of nature, and the grace of art.

Now has the Night her dusky veil withdrawn,
And, softly blushing, peeps the smiling Dawn;
The lark, on quivering wings, amid the skies
Pours his shrill song, inviting her to rise;
The breathing Zephyrs just begin to play,
Waking the flowers to s...

Go, happy Rose, and interwove
With other flowers, bind my Love.
Tell her, too, she must not be
Longer flowing, longer free,
That so oft has fetter'd me.

Say, if she's fretful, I have bands
Of pearl and gold, to bind her hands;
Tell her, if she struggle still,
I have myrtle rods at will,
For to tame, though not to kill.

Take thou my blessing thus, and go
And tell her this, but do not so!
Lest a handsome anger fly
Like a lightning from her eye,
And burn thee up, as well as I!

    What doest thou in heaven, O moon?
    Say, silent moon, what doest thou?
    Thou risest in the evening; thoughtfully
    Thou wanderest o'er the plain,
    Then sinkest to thy rest again.
    And art thou never satisfied
    With going o'er and o'er the selfsame ways?
    Art never wearied? Dost thou still
    Upon these valleys love to gaze?
    How much thy life is like
    The shepherd's life, forlorn!
    He rises in the early dawn,
    He moves his flock along the plain;
    The selfsame flocks, and streams, and herbs
    He sees again;
    Then drops to rest, the day's work o'er;
    And hopes for nothing more.
    Tell me, O moon, what signifies his life
    To him, thy life to thee? Say, whither tend
    My weary, short-lived pilgr...

Beato in sogno, e di languir contento.

THOUGH SO LONG LOVE'S FAITHFUL SERVANT, HIS ONLY REWARD HAS BEEN TEARS.


    Happy in visions, and content to pine,
Shadows to clasp, to chase the summer gale,
On shoreless and unfathom'd sea to sail,
To build on sand, and in the air design,
The sun to gaze on till these eyes of mine
Abash'd before his noonday splendour fail,
To chase adown some soft and sloping vale,
The wingèd stag with maim'd and heavy kine;
Weary and blind, save my own harm to all,
Which day and night I seek with throbbing heart,
On Love, on Laura, and on Death I call.
Thus twenty years of long and cruel smart,
In tears and sighs I've pass'd, because I took
Under ill stars, alas! both bait and hook.

MACGREGOR.

A fresh young voice that sings to me
So often many a simple thing,
Should surely not unanswered be
By all that I can sing.

Dear voice, be happy every way
A thousand changing tones among,
From little child's unfinished lay
To angel's perfect song.

In dewy woods--fair, soft, and green
Like morning woods are childhood's bower--
Be like the voice of brook unseen
Among the stones and flowers;

A joyful voice though born so low,
And making all its neighbours glad;
Sweet, hidden, constant in its flow
Even when the winds are sad.

So, strengthen in a peaceful home,
And daily deeper meanings bear;
And when life's wildernesses come
Be brave and faithful there.

Try all the glorious magic range,
Worship, forgive, consol...