Ring out your bells, let mourning shows be spread,
For Love is dead:
All Love is dead, infected
With plague of deep disdain:
Worth, as nought worth, rejected,
And faith fair scorn doth gain.
From so ungrateful fancy;
From such a female frenzy;
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us.

Weep, neighbours, weep, do you not hear it said
That Love is dead:
His death-bed, peacock's folly:
His winding-sheet is shame;
His will, false-seeming holy,
His sole executor, blame.
From so ungrateful fancy;
From such a female frenzy;
From them that use men thus,
Good Lord, deliver us.

Let dirge be sung, and trentals rightly read,
For Love is dead:
Sir Wrong his tomb ordaineth
My mistress' marble heart;
Which epitaph ...

O little feet! that such long years
Must wander on through hopes and fears,
    Must ache and bleed beneath your load;
I, nearer to the wayside inn
Where toil shall cease and rest begin,
    Am weary, thinking of your road!

O little hands! that, weak or strong,
Have still to serve or rule so long,
    Have still so long to give or ask;
I, who so much with book and pen
Have toiled among my fellow-men,
    Am weary, thinking of your task.

O little hearts! that throb and beat
With such impatient, feverish heat,
    Such limitless and strong desires;
Mine that so long has glowed and burned,
With passions into ashes turned
    Now covers and conceals its fires.

O little souls! as pure and white
And crystalline as rays of light
...

Which, in the Arabic language, is to the following purport[570]


1.

The Moorish King rides up and down.
Through Granada's royal town:
From Elvira's gates to those
Of Bivarambla on he goes.
Woe is me, Alhama![hv][571]

2.

Letters to the Monarch tell
How Alhama's city fell:
In the fire the scroll he threw,
And the messenger he slew.
Woe is me, Alhama!

3.

He quits his mule, and mounts his horse,
And through the street directs his course;
Through the street of Zacatin
To the Alhambra spurring in.
Woe is me, Alhama!

4.

When the Alhambra walls he gained,
On the moment he ordained
That the trumpet straight should sound
With the silver clarion...

        This, then, is she,
        My mother as she looked at seventeen,
        When she first met my father. Young incredibly,
        Younger than spring, without the faintest trace
        Of disappointment, weariness, or tean
        Upon the childlike earnestness and grace
        Of the waiting face.
        These close-wound ropes of pearl
        (Or common beads made precious by their use)
        Seem heavy for so slight a throat to wear;
        But the low bodice leaves the shoulders bare
        And half the glad swell of the breast, for news
        That now the woman stirs within the girl.
        And yet,
        Even so, the loops and globes
        Of beaten gold
        And jet
        Hung, in the stately way of old,
        Fro...

The night was bright and beautiful,
    The dew was on the flower,
The stars were keeping watch, it was
    The lover's parting hour.

The night wind rippled o'er the wave,
    The moon shone on the two,
The boat was waiting, part they must,
    "Eliza, love, adieu!"

"You know how fondly I have loved,
    How long, how true, how dear,
And though fate sends me far away
    My heart will linger here.

"Bright hope, the lover's comfort, can
    Alone my heart console,
Or soothe the pain of parting with
    The empress of my soul.

"When other suitors vainly talk
    Of fondly loving you,
Remember him who truly loved
    As no one else can do.

"I'll think upon the place contains
    My dark-eyed source of bliss,<...

All day the clouds hung ashen with the cold;
And through the snow the muffled waters fell;
The day seemed drowned in grief too deep to tell,
Like some old hermit whose last bead is told.
At eve the wind woke, and the snow clouds rolled
Aside to leave the fierce sky visible;
Harsh as an iron landscape of wan hell
The dark hills hung framed in with gloomy gold.
And then, towards night, the wind seemed some one at
My window wailing: now a little child
Crying outside my door; and now the long
Howl of some starved beast down the flue. I sat
And knew 'twas Winter with his madman song
Of miseries on which he stared and smiled.

In my garden, O Beloved!
Many pleasant trees are growing,
Peach, and apricot, and apple,
Myrtle, lilac, and laburnum.

Fair are they, but midst them lonely,
Like an exiled Eastern Princess
In a strange land far from kindred,
Stands a lonely fair Pomegranate.

Dreaming of its native Orient
Always is the fair Pomegranate,
And beneath it I lie dreaming
Of thine eyes and thee, Beloved!

Overhead its red globes, gleaming
Like red moons, old tales recall of
Eastern moons and songs of Hafiz,
Nightingales, and wine, and roses.

And at times it seems a mystic
Tree Circéan, whose red fruit is
Broken hearts of old-time lovers,
Thus their secrets sad revealing.

And within each red sun-cloven
Glossy globe, like little rosy...

Lying in me, as though it were a white
Stone in the depths of a well, is one
Memory that I cannot, will not, fight:
It is happiness, and it is pain.
Anyone looking straight into my eyes
Could not help seeing it, and could not fail
To become thoughtful, more sad and quiet
Than if he were listening to some tragic tale.

I know the gods changed people into things,
Leaving their consciousness alive and free.
To keep alive the wonder of suffering,
You have been metamorphosed into me.

Since, Moggy, I mun bid adieu,
How can I help despairing?
Let cruel Fate us still pursue,
There's nought more worth my caring.

'Twas she alone could calm my soul
When racking thoughts did grieve me;
Her eyes my trouble could control,
And into joys deceive me.

Farewell ye brooks! no more along
Your banks mun I be walking;
No more you'll hear my pipe or song,
Or pretty Moggy's talking.

But I by death an end will give
To grief since we mun sever;
For who can after parting live,
Ought to be wretched ever.

A Far bell tinkles in the hollow,
And heart and soul are fain to follow:
Gone is the rose and gone the swallow:
Autumn is here.

The wild geese draw at dusk their harrow
Above the 'Squam the ebb leaves narrow:
The sea-winds chill you to the marrow:
Sad goes the year.

Among the woods the crows are calling:
The acorns and the leaves are falling:
At sea the fishing-boats are trawling:
Autumn is here.

The jay among the rocks is screaming,
And every way with crimson streaming:
Far up the shore the foam is creaming:
Sleep fills the Year.

The chipmunk on the stones is barking;
The red leaf every path is marking,
Where hills lean to the ocean harking:
Autumn is here.

The fields are starry with the aster,
Where Beau...

Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes
To pace the ground, if path be there or none,
While a fair region round the traveler lies
Which he forbears again to look upon;
Pleased rather with some soft ideal scene,
The work of Fancy, or some happy tone
Of meditation, slipping in between
The beauty coming and the beauty gone.
If Thought and Love desert us, from that day
Let us break off all commerce with the Muse:
With Thought and Love companions of our way,
Whate’er the senses take or may refuse,
The Mind’s internal heaven shall shed her dews
Of inspiration on the humblest lay.

From Bolton's old monastic tower
The bells ring loud with gladsome power;
The sun shines bright; the fields are gay
With people in their best array
Of stole and doublet, hood and scarf,
Along the banks of crystal Wharf,
Through the Vale retired and lowly,
Trooping to that summons holy.
And, up among the moorlands, see
What sprinklings of blithe company!
Of lasses and of shepherd grooms,
That down the steep hills force their way,
Like cattle through the budded brooms;
Path, or no path, what care they?
And thus in joyous mood they hie
To Bolton's mouldering Priory.
What would they there? Full fifty years
That sumptuous Pile, with all its peers,
Too harshly hath been doomed to taste
The bitterness of wrong and waste:
Its courts are ravaged; bu...

Perchè quel che mi trasse ad amar prima.

HE WILL ALWAYS LOVE HER, THOUGH DENIED THE SIGHT OF HER.


    Though cruelty denies my view
Those charms which led me first to love;
To passion yet will I be true,
Nor shall my will rebellious prove.
Amid the curls of golden hair
That wave those beauteous temples round,
Cupid spread craftily the snare
With which my captive heart he bound:
And from those eyes he caught the ray
Which thaw'd the ice that fenced my breast,
Chasing all other thoughts away,
With brightness suddenly imprest.
But now that hair of sunny gleam,
Ah me! is ravish'd from my sight;
Those beauteous eyes withdraw their beam,
And change to sadness past delight.
A glorious death by all is prized;
Tis death alone sha...

What is the secret of your life, browsing ox,
Ox the sweet grass eating?
Who strung the mighty sinews in your flesh?
Who set that great heart beating?

What is the secret of your death, soulless ox,
Ox so patiently waiting?
Why hath pain wove her net for your brain’s anguish
If for you Death will gain no life’s creating?

Is there a power that can sustain and cheer
The captive chieftain, by a tyrant's doom,
Forced to descend into his destined tomb
A dungeon dark! where he must waste the year,
And lie cut off from all his heart holds dear;
What time his injured country is a stage
Whereon deliberate Valour and the rage
Of righteous Vengeance side by side appear,
Filling from morn to night the heroic scene
With deeds of hope and everlasting praise:
Say can he think of this with mind serene
And silent fetters? Yes, if visions bright
Shine on his soul, reflected from the days
When he himself was tried in open light.

These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.

There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.

Secretary of the Boston young men's anti-slavery society.


Gone before us, O our brother,
To the spirit-land!
Vainly look we for another
In thy place to stand.
Who shall offer youth and beauty
On the wasting shrine
Of a stern and lofty duty,
With a faith like thine?

Oh, thy gentle smile of greeting
Who again shall see?
Who amidst the solemn meeting
Gaze again on thee?
Who when peril gathers o'er us,
Wear so calm a brow?
Who, with evil men before us,
So serene as thou?

Early hath the spoiler found thee,
Brother of our love!
Autumn's faded earth around thee,
And its storms above!
Evermore that turf lie lightly,
And, with future showers,
O'er thy slumbers fresh and brightly
Blow the summer flow...

"Put up the sword!" The voice of Christ once more
Speaks, in the pauses of the cannon's roar,
O'er fields of corn by fiery sickles reaped
And left dry ashes; over trenches heaped
With nameless dead; o'er cities starving slow
Under a rain of fire; through wards of woe
Down which a groaning diapason runs
From tortured brothers, husbands, lovers, sons
Of desolate women in their far-off homes
Waiting to hear the step that never comes!
O men and brothers! let that voice be heard.
War fails, try peace; put up the useless sword!

Fear not the end. There is a story told
In Eastern tents, when autumn nights grow cold,
And round the fire the Mongol shepherds sit
With grave responses listening unto it:
Once, on the errands of his mercy bent,
Buddha, the holy an...