As rivers seek the sea,
Much more deep than they,
So my soul seeks thee
Far away:
As running rivers moan
On their course alone
So I moan
Left alone.

As the delicate rose
To the sun's sweet strength
Doth herself unclose,
Breadth and length:
So spreads my heart to thee
Unveiled utterly,
I to thee
Utterly.

As morning dew exhales
Sunwards pure and free,
So my spirit fails
After thee:
As dew leaves not a trace
On the green earth's face;
I, no trace
On thy face.

Its goal the river knows,
Dewdrops find a way,
Sunlight cheers the rose
In her day:
Shall I, lone sorrow past,
Find thee at the last?
Sorrow past,
Thee at last?

If hap it must, that I must see thee lie
Absyrtus-like, all torn confusedly:
With solemn tears, and with much grief of heart,
I'll recollect thee, weeping, part by part;
And having wash'd thee, close thee in a chest
With spice; that done, I'll leave thee to thy rest.

        "He healeth the broken in heart and bindeth up their wounds,"
        --Psalm. cxlvii. 3.


Oh Thou who dry'st the mourner's tear,
    How dark this world would be,
If, when deceived and wounded here,
    We could not fly to Thee.
The friends who in our sunshine live,
    When winter comes, are flown;
And he who has but tears to give,
    Must weep those tears alone.
But Thou wilt heal that broken heart,
    Which, like the plants that throw
Their fragrance from the wounded part,
    Breathes sweetness out of woe.

When joy no longer soothes or cheers,
    And even the hope that threw
A moment's sparkle o'er our tears
    Is dimmed and vanished too,
Oh, who would bear life's stormy doom,
    Did not thy Wing of Love...

L' alto signor, dinanzi a cui non vale.

HIS SORROW FOR THE ILLNESS OF LAURA INCREASES, NOT LESSENS, HIS FLAME.


    The sovereign Lord, 'gainst whom of no avail
Concealment, or resistance is, or flight,
My mind had kindled to a new delight
By his own amorous and ardent ail:
Though his first blow, transfixing my best mail
Were mortal sure, to push his triumph quite
He took a shaft of sorrow in his right,
So my soft heart on both sides to assail.
A burning wound the one shed fire and flame,
The other tears, which ever grief distils,
Through eyes for your weak health that are as rills.
But no relief from either fountain came
My bosom's conflagration to abate,
Nay, passion grew by very pity great.

MACGREGOR.

I could have painted pictures like that youth’s
Ye praise so. How my soul springs up! No bar
Stayed me, ah, thought which saddens while it soothes!
Never did fate forbid me, star by star,
To outburst on your night, with all my gift
Of fires from God: nor would my flesh have shrunk
From seconding my soul, with eyes uplift
And wide to heaven, or, straight like thunder, sunk
To the centre, of an instant; or around
Turned calmly and inquisitive, to scan
The license and the limit, space and bound,
Allowed to Truth made visible in man.
And, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw,
Over the canvas could my hand have flung,
Each face obedient to its passion’s law,
Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue:
Whether Hope rose at once in all the blood,
A tip-to...

Thou hast entered the land without shadows,
    Thou who, 'neath the shadow, so long
Hast sat with thy white hands close-folded,
    And lips that could utter no song;
Through a rift in the cloud, for an instant,
    Thine eyes caught a glimpse of that shore,
And Earth with its gloom was forgotten,
    And Heaven is thine own evermore!

We see not the glorious vision,
    Nor the welcoming melodies hear,
That, from bowers of beauty Elysian,
    Float tenderly sweet to thine ear;
Round us, lie Earth's desolate midnight,
    Her winter-plains bare and untrod, -
Round thee, is the glad, morning sunlight
    That beams from the City of God!

Our eyes have grown heavy with weeping, -
    Thine, "the King in his beauty" behold
And thou leanest th...

Lo! where the Moon along the sky
Sails with her happy destiny;
Oft is she hid from mortal eye
Or dimly seen,
But when the clouds asunder fly
How bright her mien!

Far different we, a froward race,
Thousands though rich in Fortune's grace
With cherished sullenness of pace
Their way pursue,
Ingrates who wear a smileless face
The whole year through.

If kindred humours e'er would make
My spirit droop for drooping's sake,
From Fancy following in thy wake,
Bright ship of heaven!
A counter impulse let me take
And be forgiven.

Lo! where the Moon along the sky
Sails with her happy destiny;
Oft is she hid from mortal eye
Or dimly seen,
But when the clouds asunder fly
How bright her mien!

Far different we, a froward race,
Thousands though rich in Fortune's grace
With cherished sullenness of pace
Their way pursue,
Ingrates who wear a smileless face
The whole year through.

If kindred humours e'er would make
My spirit droop for drooping's sake,
From Fancy following in thy wake,
Bright ship of heaven!
A counter impulse let me take
And be forgiven.

O strange, dim other-world revealed to us,
Beginning there where ends reality,
Lying 'twixt life and death, and populous


With souls from either sphere! now enter we
Thy twisted paths.    Barred is the silver gate,
But the wild-carven doors of ivory


Spring noiselessly apart: between them straight
Flies forth a cloud of nameless shadowy things,
With harpies, imps, and monsters, small and great,


Blurring the thick air with darkening wings.
All humors of the blood and brain take shape,
And fright us with our own imaginings.


A trouble weighs upon us: no escape
From this unnatural region can there be.
Fixed eyes stare on us, wide mouths grin and gape,


Familiar faces out of reach we see.
Fain would we scream...

The Fascination of what’s difficult
Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
Spontaneous joy and natural content
Out of my heart. There’s something ails our colt
That must, as if it had not holy blood,
Nor on an Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud,
Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt
As though it dragged road metal. My curse on plays
That have to be set up in fifty ways,
On the day’s war with every knave and dolt,
Theatre business, management of men.
I swear before the dawn comes round again
I’ll find the stable and pull out the bolt.

Mary, the day of love's pleasures has been,
And the day is o'erclouded and gone;
These eyes all their fulness of pleasure have seen,
What they never again shall look on.
The sun has oft risen and shrunk from the heaven,
And flowers with the night have been wet;
And many a smile on another's been given,
Since the first smile of Mary I met.

And eyes have been won with thy charms when thou smil'd,
As ripe blossoms tempting the bee;
And kisses the sweets of thy lips have defiled,
Since last they breath'd heaven on me.
Their honey's first tasting was lovely and pleasant,
But others have rifled the cell:
Love sickens to think of the past and the present,
Bidding all that was Mary--farewel!

The blushes of rose-blossoms shortly endure,
Though sweet is...

Thou hast no wealth, nor any pride of power,
Thy life is offered on affection's altar.
Small sacrifices claim thee, hour by hour,
Yet on the tedious path thou dost not falter.

To the unknowing, well thy days might seem
Circled by solitude and tireless duty,
Yet is thy soul made radiant by a dream
Of delicate and rainbow-coloured beauty.

Never a flower trembles in the wind,
Never a sunset lingers on the sea,
But something of its fragrance joins thy mind,
Some sparkle of its light remains with thee.

Thus when thy spirit enters on its rest,
Thy lips shall say, "I too have known the best!"

i(A certain poet in outlandish clothes)
i(Gathered a crowd in some Byzantine lane,)
i(Talked1 of his country and its people, sang)
i(To some stringed instrument none there had seen,)
i(A wall behind his back, over his head)
i(A latticed window. His glance went up at time)
i(As though one listened there, and his voice sank)
i(Or let its meaning mix into the strings.)

MAEVE the great queen was pacing to and fro,
Between the walls covered with beaten bronze,
In her high house at Cruachan; the long hearth,
Flickering with ash and hazel, but half showed
Where the tired horse-boys lay upon the rushes,
Or on the benches underneath the walls,
In comfortable sleep; all living slept
But that great queen, who more than half the night
Had paced from door to fire and...

Thou, oh, thou!
Thou of the chorded shell and golden plectrum! thou
Of the dark eyes and pale pacific brow!
Music, who by the plangent waves,
Or in the echoing night of labyrinthine caves,
Or on God's mountains, lonely as the stars,
Touchest reverberant bars
Of immemorial sorrow and amaze;--
Keeping regret and memory awake,
And all the immortal ache
Of love that leans upon the past's sweet days
In retrospection!--now, oh, now,
Interpreter and heart-physician, thou,
Who gazest on the heaven and the hell
Of life, and singest each as well,
Touch with thy all-mellifluous finger-tips,
Or thy melodious lips,
This sickness named my soul,
Making it whole,
As is an echo of a chord,
Or some symphonic word,
Or sweet vibrating sigh,
That deep...

Rank Poverty! dost thou my joys assail,
And with thy threat'nings fright me from my rest?
I once had thoughts, that with a Bloomfield's tale,
And leisure hours, I surely should be blest;
But now I find the sadly-alter'd scene,
From these few days I fondly thought my own,
Hoping to spend them private and alone,
But, lo! thy troop of spectres intervene:
Want shows his face, with Idleness between,
Next Shame's approaching step, that hates the throng,
Comes sneaking on, with Sloth that fetters strong.
Are these the joys my leisure hours must glean?
Then I decline:--but know where'er we meet,
Ye ne'er shall drive me from the Muses' seat.

We came to the dividing line,
    Then he passed over and I am here,
Sad and sore is this heart of mine
    That has no power to shed a tear,
For, like one who rises and walks in sleep,
I am lost in a dream--I cannot weep.

Yet he was good and fair to see
    I know in my heart he loved me well,
What separated him from me,
    I cannot tell, oh! I cannot tell,
For the blow came sudden, and sharp, and sore,
And I am alone now for evermore.

I thought to walk through all our time
    Together, linked to a lofty aim;
With sudden wrench I'm left behind--
    My heart is slain! oh, my heart is slain!
And the ghost of my heart within me cries,
Why, alas! was I made a sacrifice?

My royal eagle ordained to soar--
    Breast to the storm,...

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;

Comes the broken flower -
Comes the cheated maid -
Though the tempest lower,
Rain and cloud will fade!
Take, O maid, these posies:
Though thy beauty rare
Shame the blushing roses,
They are passing fair!
Wear the flowers till they fade;
Happy be thy life, O maid!

O'er the season vernal,
Time may cast a shade;
Sunshine, if eternal,
Makes the roses fade:
Time may do his duty;
Let the thief alone -
Winter hath a beauty
That is all his own.
Fairest days are sun and shade:
Happy be thy life, O maid!