Far in the purple valleys of illusion
I see her waiting, like the soul of music,
With deep eyes, lovelier than cerulean pansies,
Shadow and fire, yet merciless as poison;
With red lips sweeter than Arabian storax,
Yet bitterer than myrrh. O tears and kisses!
O eyes and lips, that haunt my soul for ever!
Again Spring walks transcendent on the mountains:
The woods are hushed: the vales are blue with shadows:
Above the heights, steeped in a thousand splendours,
Like some vast canvas of the gods, hangs burning
The sunset's wild sciography: and slowly
The moon treads heaven's proscenium, night's stately
White queen of love and tragedy and madness.
Again I know forgotten dreams and longings;
Ideals lost; desires dead and buried
Beside the altar sacrifice erected

    A woman with a heart of gold
    I heard her called before I knew
    How noble was that heart and true,
    How full of tenderness untold.

    Her sympathies both broad and sure,
    Her one desire to do the right -
    Clear visioned from the inner light
    God gives to souls unworldly, pure.

    A heart of gold that loves and gives,
    God's almoner from day to day,
    Of her there is but this to say:
    The world is better that she lives.

So sweet the hour, so calm the time,
I feel it more than half a crime,
When Nature sleeps and stars are mute,
To mar the silence ev'n with lute.
At rest on ocean's brilliant dyes
An image of Elysium lies:
Seven Pleiades entranced in Heaven,
Form in the deep another seven:
Endymion nodding from above
Sees in the sea a second love.
Within the valleys dim and brown,
And on the spectral mountain's crown,
The wearied light is dying down,
And earth, and stars, and sea, and sky
Are redolent of sleep, as I
Am redolent of thee and thine
Enthralling love, my Adeline.
But list, O list, so soft and low
Thy lover's voice tonight shall flow,
That, scarce awake, thy soul shall deem
My words the music of a dream.
Thus, while no single sound too rude

My very dear friend
Should never depend
Upon anything clever or witty,
From a poor country wight
When attempting to write,
To one in your far famous city.
Indeed I'm inclined,
To fear that you'll find
These lines heavy, and quite out of joint;
And now I declare,
It's no more than fair,
Should this prove a dull letter,
That you write me a better;
And something that's quite to the point.
This having premised
As at present advised,
I'll indulge in the thoughts that incline,
Not with curious eye
The dim future to spy,
But glance backward to "Auld Lang Syne."
If I recollect right,
It was a cold day quite,
And not far from night
When the Boarding School famous I entered.
Now what could I do?
Scarce above my own sho...

What sort of man is coming
To lie between your feet?
What matter, we are but women.
Wash; make your body sweet;
I have cupboards of dried fragrance.
I can strew the sheet.
i(The Lord have mercy upon us.)

He shall love my soul as though
Body were not at all,
He shall love your body
Untroubled by the soul,
Love cram love's two divisions
Yet keep his substance whole.
i(The Lord have mercy upon us.)

Soul must learn a love that is
proper to my breast,
Limbs a Love in common
With every noble beast.
If soul may look and body touch,
Which is the more blest?
i(The Lord have mercy upon us.)

Though she depart, a vision flitting,
If I these thoughts in words exhale:
I love you, you blonde maiden, sitting
Within your pure white beauty's veil.
I love you for your blue eyes dreaming,
    Like moonlight moving over snow,
And 'mid the far-off forests beaming
    On something hid I may not know.

I love this forehead's fair perfection
Because it stands so starry-clear,
In flood of thought sees its reflection
And wonders at the image near.
I love these locks in riot risen
    Against the hair-net's busy bands;
To free them from their pretty prison
    Their sylphs entice my eyes and hands.

I love this figure's supple swinging
In rhythm of its bridal song,
Of strength and life-joy daily singing
With youthful yearnings deep ...

Take of English earth as much
As either hand may rightly clutch.
In the taking of it breathe
Prayer for all who lie beneath.
Not the great nor well-bespoke,
But the mere uncounted folk
Of whose life and death is none
Report or lamentation.
Lay that earth upon thy heart,
And thy sickness shall depart!

It shall sweeten and make whole
Fevered breath and festered soul.
It shall mightily restrain
Over-busied hand and brain.
It shall ease thy mortal strife
'Gainst the immortal woe of life,
Till thyself, restored, shall prove
By what grace the Heavens do move.

Take of English flowers these,
Spring's full-faced primroses,
Summer's wild wide-hearted rose,
Autumn's wall-flower of the close,
And, thy darkness to illume,
Wint...

When Want, with wasted mien and haggard eye,
Retires in silence to her cell to die;
When o'er her child she hangs with speechless dread,
Faint and despairing of to-morrow's bread;
Who shall approach to bid the conflict cease,
And to her parting spirit whisper peace!
Who thee, poor infant, that with aspect bland
Dost stretch forth innocent thy helpless hand,
Shall pitying then protect, when thou art thrown
On the world's waste, unfriended and alone!
O hapless Infancy! if aught could move
The hardest heart to pity and to love
'Twere surely found in thee: dim passions mark
Stern manhood's brow, where age impresses dark
The stealing line of sorrow; but thine eye
Wears not distrust, or grief, or perfidy.
Though fortune's storms with dismal shadow lower,
Thy he...

Streams ever limpid, fresh, and clear,
Where Delia's charms renew'd appear,
Ye flow'rs that touch'd her snowy breast,
Ye trees whereon she lov'd to rest,
Ye scenes adorn'd where'er she flies,
If grief shall close these woe-worn eyes,
May some kind form, with hand benign,
My body with this earth enshrine,
That, when the fairest nymph shall deign
To visit this delightful plain,
That, when she views my silent shade,
And marks the change her love has made,
The tear may tremble down her face,
As show'rs the lily's leaves embrace;
Then, like the infant at the breast,
That feels a sorrow unexprest,
That pang shall gentle Delia know,
And silent treasure up her woe.

(Macmillan's Magazine, Dec. 1864.)


Two days ago with dancing glancing hair,
    With living lips and eyes:
    Now pale, dumb, blind, she lies;
So pale, yet still so fair.

We have not left her yet, not yet alone;
    But soon must leave her where
    She will not miss our care,
Bone of our bone.

Weep not; O friends, we should not weep:
    Our friend of friends lies full of rest;
    No sorrow rankles in her breast,
Fallen fast asleep.

She sleeps below,
    She wakes and laughs above:
    To-day, as she walked, let us walk in love;
To-morrow follow so.

O, the lasses, the lasses, God bless 'em!
His heart must be hard as a stooan
'At could willingly goa an distress 'em,
For withaat 'em man's lot 'ud be looan.

Tho' th' pooasies i' paradise growin
For Adam, wor scented soa sweet,
He ne'er thank'd 'em for odour bestowin,
He trampled 'em under his feet.

He long'd to some sweet one to whisper;
An wol sleepin Eve came to his home;
He wakken'd, an saw her, an kuss'd her,
An ne'er ax'd her a word ha shoo'd come.

An tho' shoo, like her sex, discontented,
An anxious fowk's saycrets to know,
Pluck'd an apple, - noa daat shoo repented
When shoo saw at it made sich a row.

Tho' aw know shoo did wrang, aw forgie her;
For aw'm fairly convinced an declare,
'At aw'd rayther ha sin an be wi' her...

To me not only does her soul suggest
Palms and the peace of tropic shore and wood,
But, oceaned far beyond the golden West,
The Fortunate Islands of true Womanhood.

Monsignore,
Right Reverend Bishop Valentinus,
Sometime of Interamna, which is called Ferni,
Now of the delightful Court of Heaven,
I respectfully salute you,
I genuflect
And I kiss your episcopal ring.

It is not, Monsignore,
The fragrant memory of your holy life,
Nor that of your shining and joyous martyrdom,
Which causes me now to address you.
But since this is your august festival, Monsignore,
It seems appropriate to me to state
According to a venerable and agreeable custom,
That I love a beautiful lady.
Her eyes, Monsignore,
Are so blue that they put lovely little blue reflections
On everything that she looks at,
Such as a wall
Or the moon
Or my heart.
It is like the light coming through blue stained glass,
Yet not quite ...

Word of a little one born in the West,--
How like a sea-bird it comes from the sea,
Out of the league-weary waters' unrest
Blown with white wings, for a token, to me!

Blown with a skriel and a flurry of plumes
(Sea-spray and flight-rapture whirled in a gleam!)
Here for a sign of the comrade that looms
Large in the mist of my love as I dream.

He with the heart of an old violin,
Vibrant at every least stir in the place,
Lyric of woods where the thrushes begin,
Wave-questing wanderer, still for a space,--

What will the child of his be (so I muse),
Wood-flower, sea-flower, star-flower rare?
Worlds here to choose from, and which will she choose,
She whose first world is an armsweep of air?

Baby Karlene, you are wondering now
Why you can...