This is the place where they all were bred;
Some of the rafters are standing still;
Now they are scattered and lost and dead,
Every one from the old nest fled,
Out of the shadow of Kiley's Hill.

Better it is that they ne'er came back,
Changes and chances are quickly rung;
Now the old homestead is gone to rack,
Green is the grass on the well-worn track
Down by the gate where the roses clung.

Gone is the garden they kept with care;
Left to decay at its own sweet will,
Fruit trees and flower-beds eaten bare,
Cattle and sheep where the roses were,
Under the shadow of Kiley's Hill.

Where are the children that strove and grew
In the old homestead in days gone by?
One is away on the far Barcoo
Watching his cattle the long year through,

I

Blind

When first the shadows fell, like prison bars,
And darkness spread before me, like a pall,
I cried out for the sun, the earth, the stars,
And beat the air, as madmen beat a wall,
Till, impotent, and broken with despair,
I turned my vision inward.    Lo, a spark -
A light - a torch; and all my world grew bright;
For God's dear eyes were shining through the dark.
Then, bringing to me gifts of recompense,
Came keener hearing, finer taste, and touch;
And that oft unappreciated sense,
Which finds sweet odours, and proclaims them such;
And not until my mortal eyes were blind
Did I perceive how kind the world, how kind.

II

Deaf

I can recall a time, when on mine ears
There fell chaotic sounds of earthly life,
S...

The circumstance related in the following Ballad happened about forty years ago in a village adjacent to Bristol. A person who was present at the funeral, told me the story and the particulars of the interment, as I have versified them.




THE CROSS ROADS.


    There was an old man breaking stones
    To mend the turnpike way,
    He sat him down beside a brook
    And out his bread and cheese he took,
    For now it was mid-day.

    He lent his back against a post,
    His feet the brook ran by;
    And there were water-cresses growing,
    And pleasant was the water's flowing
    For he was hot and dry.

    A soldier with his knapsack on
    Came travelling o'er the down,
    The sun was strong and he was tired,
    And...

        What are the mortal facts
    With which we deal? The man is thirty years,
    Most vital, in a richness physical,
    Of musical heart and feeling; and the woman
    Is twenty-eight, a cradle warm and rich
    For life to grow in.

    And the time is this:
    This Henry Murray has a mood of peace,
    A splendor as of June, has for the time
    Quelled anarchy within him, come to law,
    Sees life a thing of beauty, happiness,
    And fortune glow before him. And the mother,
    Sunning her feathers in his genial light,
    Takes longing and has hope. For body's season
    The blood of youth leaps in them like a fountain,
    And splashes musically in the crystal pool
    Of quiet days and hours. They rise refreshed,
    Feel all the sun'...

Oh! take, young Seraph, take thy harp,
And play to me so cheerily;
For grief is dark, and care is sharp,
And life wears on so wearily.
Oh! take thy harp!
Oh! sing as thou wert wont to do,
When, all youth's sunny season long,
I sat and listened to thy song,
And yet 'twas ever, ever new,
With magic in its heaven-tuned string--
The future bliss thy constant theme.
Oh! then each little woe took wing
Away, like phantoms of a dream;
    As if each sound
    That flutter'd round,
Had floated over Lethe's stream!

By all those bright and happy hours
We spent in life's sweet eastern bow'rs,
Where thou wouldst sit and smile, and show,
Ere buds were come, where flowers would blow,
And oft anticipate the rise
Of life's warm sun that scaled th...

The sandy spits, the shore-lock’d lakes,
Melt into open, moonlit sea;
The soft Mediterranean breaks
At my feet, free.

Dotting the fields of corn and vine
Like ghosts, the huge, gnarl’d olives stand;
Behind, that lovely mountain-line!
While by the strand

Cette, with its glistening houses white,
Curves with the curving beach away
To where the lighthouse beacons bright
Far in the bay.

Ah, such a night, so soft, so lone,
So moonlit, saw me once of yore
Wander unquiet, and my own
Vext heart deplore!

But now that trouble is forgot;
Thy memory, thy pain, to-night,
My brother! and thine early lot,
Possess me quite.

The murmur of this Midland deep
Is heard to-night around thy grave
There where Gibraltar’s cann...

        I

    Happy are men who yet before they are killed
    Can let their veins run cold.
    Whom no compassion fleers
    Or makes their feet
    Sore on the alleys cobbled with their brothers.
    The front line withers,
    But they are troops who fade, not flowers
    For poets' tearful fooling:
    Men, gaps for filling
    Losses who might have fought
    Longer; but no one bothers.


        II

    And some cease feeling
    Even themselves or for themselves.
    Dullness best solves
    The tease and doubt of shelling,
    And Chance's strange arithmetic
    Comes simpler than the reckoning of their shilling.
    They keep no check on Armies' decimation.


        III

    Happy are thes...

In the mildest, greenest grove
Blest by sprite or fairy,
Where the melting echoes rove,
Voices sweet and airy;
    Where the streams
    Drink the beams
    Of the Sun,
    As they run
    Riverward
    Through the sward,
A shepherd went astray -
E'en gods have lost their way.

Every bird had sought its nest,
And each flower-spirit
Dreamed of that delicious rest
Mortals ne'er inherit;
    Through the trees
    Swept the breeze,
    Bringing airs
    Unawares
    Through the grove,
    Until love
Came down upon his heart,
Refusing to depart.

Hungrily he quaffed the strain,
Sweeter still, and clearer,
Drenched with music's mellow rain,
Nearer - nearer - dearer!

    Chains of sound
...

One bright star in the firmament,
One wild rose in the dew,
And a girl, like the sparkling two,
Following the cows that went
Through roses wet with dew,
Roses, two by two.

Shy she was as the twilight skies
When they hesitate with stars,
As she stood to wait at the pasture bars,
Gazing with far-off eyes
At the slowly coming stars
Over the pasture bars.

She hummed a tune while the cattle passed,
And the bells in the dusk clanged clear;
Then a whistle caught her ear,
And she knew 'twas love at last,
While the bells in the dusk clanged clear,
And his whistle caught her ear.

The smell of the hay came warm and sweet
From the field there where he stood,
The field by the old beech wood,
Where a bird sang, "Sweet! oh, sweet!"<...

Its a long time sin thee an' me have met befoor, owd lad, -
Soa pull up thi cheer, an sit daan, for ther's noabdy moor welcome nor thee:
Thi toppin's grown whiter nor once, - yet mi heart feels glad,
To see ther's a rooas o' thi cheek, an a bit ov a leet i' thi e'e.

Thi limbs seem to totter an shake, like a crazy owd fence,
'At th' wind maks to tremel an creak; but tha still fills thi place;
An it shows 'at tha'rt bless'd wi' a bit o' gradely gooid sense,
'At i' spite o' thi years an thi cares, tha still wears a smile o' thi face.

Come fill up thi pipe - for aw knaw tha'rt reight fond ov a rick, -
An tha'll find a drop o' hooam-brew'd i' that pint up o'th' hob, aw dar say;
An nah, wol tha'rt tooastin thi shins, just scale th' foir, an aw'll side thi owd stick,
Then aw'll t...

Where to-day would a dainty buyer
Imbibe your scented juice,
Pale ruin with a heart of fire;
Drain your succulence with her lips,
Grown sapless from much use...
Make minister of her desire
A chalice cup where no bee sips -
        Where no wasp wanders in?

Close to her white flesh housed an hour,
        One held you... her spent form
Drew on yours for its wasted dower -
What favour could she do you more?
        Yet, of all who drink therein,
        None know it is the warm
Odorous heart of a ravished flower
Tingles so in her mouth's red core...

    I.

    I cannot rest o' the night, Mother,
        For my heart is cold and wan:
    I fear the return o' light, Mother,
        Since my own true love is gone.
    O winsome aye was his face, Mother,
        And tender his bright blue eye;
    But his beauty and manly grace, Mother,
        Beneath the dark earth do lie.


    II.

    They tell me that I am young, Mother,
        That joy will return once more;
    But sorrow my heart has wrung, Mother,
        And I feel the wound full sore.
    The tree at the root frost-bitten
        Will flourish never again,
    And the woe that my life hath smitten
        Hath frozen each inmost vein.


    III.

    Whene'er the moon's shining clear, Mother,

Must I believe this beauty wholly gone
    That in her picture here so deathless seems,
And must I henceforth speak of her as one
    Tells of some face of legend or of dreams,
Still here and there remembered - scarce believed,
Or held the fancy of a heart bereaved.

So beautiful she - was; ah! "was," say I,
    Yet doubt her dead - I did not see her die.
Only by others borne across the sea
Came the incredible wild blasphemy
They called her death - as though it could be true
Of such an immortality as you!

True of these eyes that from her picture gaze,
    Serene, star-steadfast, as the heaven's own eyes;
Of that deep bosom, white as hawthorn sprays,
    Where my world-weary head forever lies;
True of these quiet hands, so marble-cool,
Still on ...

Ianthe! you are call'd to cross the sea!
A path forbidden me!
Remember, while the Sun his blessing sheds
Upon the mountain-heads,
How often we have watcht him laying down
His brow, and dropt our own
Against each other's, and how faint and short
And sliding the support!
What will succeed it now? Mine is unblest,
Ianthe! nor will rest
But on the very thought that swells with pain.
O bid me hope again!
O give me back what Earth, what (without you)
Not Heaven itself can do,
One of the golden days that we have past,
And let it be my last!
Or else the gift would be, however sweet,
Fragile and incomplete.

A violet grew by the river-side,
And gladdened all hearts with its bloom;
While over the fields, on the scented air,
It breathed a rich perfume.
But the clouds grew dark in the angry sky,
And its portals were opened wide;
And the heavy rain beat down the flower
That grew by the river-side.

Not far away in a pleasant home,
There lived a little boy,
Whose cheerful face and childish grace
Filled every heart with joy.
He wandered one day to the river's verge,
With no one near to save;
And the heart that we loved with a boundless love
Was stilled in the restless wave.

The sky grew dark to our tearful eyes,
And we bade farewell to joy;
For our hearts were bound by a sorrowful tie
To the grave of the little boy.
The birds still sing in...

Exceeding sorrow
Consumeth my sad heart!
Because to-morrow
We must depart,
Now is exceeding sorrow
All my part!

Give over playing,
Cast thy viol away:
Merely laying
Thine head my way:
Prithee, give over playing,
Grave or gay.

Be no word spoken;
Weep nothing: let a pale
Silence, unbroken
Silence prevail!
Prithee, be no word spoken,
Lest I fail!

Forget to-morrow!
Weep nothing: only lay
In silent sorrow
Thine head my way:
Let us forget to-morrow,
This one day!


Ah, dans ces mornes séjours
Les jamais sont les toujours

After you left me
I let a dog smell at
My chest and my belly. It will fill its nose
And set out to find you.

I hope it will tear the
Testicles of your lover and bite off his penis
Or at least
Will bring me your stockings between his teeth.

The Summer lightning comes and goes
In one pale cloud above the hill,
As if within its soft repose
A burning heart were never still -
As in my bosom pulses beat
Before the coming of his feet.

All drugged with odorous sleep, the rose
Breathes dewy balm about the place,
As if the dreams the garden knows
Took immaterial form and face -
As in my heart sweet thoughts arise
Beneath the ardour of his eyes.

The moon above the darkness shows
An orb of silvery snow and fire,
As if the night would now disclose
To heav'n her one divine desire -
As in the rapture of his kiss
All of my soul is drawn to his.

The cloud, it knows not that it glows;
The rose knows nothing of its scent;
Nor knows the moon that it bestows
Light on...