A light departed from the hearth of home,
    Leaving a shadow where its radiance shone, -
A flower just bursting into life and bloom,
    Lopped from its stem, the bower left sad and lone, -
A golden link dropped from love's precious chain, -
    Gem from affection's sacred casket riven, -
Of music's richest tones a missing strain, -
    A bird-note hushed in the blue summer heaven!

That light is gathered to its Source again,
    Though long its radiance will be missed on earth,
That flower, transplanted to a sunnier plain,
    Bloometh immortal where no blight has birth;
That missing link gleams in Love's chain above, -
    That lost gem sparkles on the Saviour's breast, -
That music-uttrance, tuned to holier love,
    Swells richly 'mid the anthems of the ...

Say little: where she lies, so let her rest:
What cares she now for Fame, and what for Art?
What for applause? She has played out her part.
Her hands are folded calmly on her breast,
God knows the best!

She has gone down, as all must go, to where
The players of the past are lying low,
Players who played their parts out long ago,
With the life-hue still bright on lips and hair
And forehead fair.

Cheek’s colour, poise of head, and flash of eye
Who will remember them when we are dead?
Whom that is dead have we rememberèd?
The end is one although we smile or sigh,
We live; we die.

Bitter to some is Death, to some is sweet,
Sweetest to youth and bitterest to age;
But simple is the costume for the stage,
The darkened stage of death, and v...

Once, once only, sweet and lovable woman,
you leant your smooth arm on mine
(that memory has never faded a moment
from the shadowy depths of my mind):


it was late: the full moon spread its light
like a freshly minted disc,
and like a river, the solemnity of night
flowed over sleeping Paris.


Along the houses, under carriage gates,
cats crept past furtively,
ears pricked, or else like familiar shades,
accompanied us slowly.


Suddenly, in our easy intimacy,
that flower of the pale light,
from you, rich, sonorous instrument, eternally
quivering gaily, bright,


from you, clear and joyous as a fanfare
in the glittering dawn
a strange, plaintive sigh escaped
a faltering tone


as from some st...

Why be at pains that I should know
You sought not me?
Do breezes, then, make features glow
So rosily?
Come, the lit port is at our back,
And the tumbling sea;
Elsewhere the lampless uphill track
To uncertainty!

O should not we two waifs join hands?
I am alone,
You would enrich me more than lands
By being my own.
Yet, though this facile moment flies,
Close is your tone,
And ere to-morrow's dewfall dries
I plough the unknown.

Where hast thou been since round the walls of Troy
The sons of God fought in that great emprise?
Why dost thou walk our common earth again?
Hast thou forgotten that impassioned boy,
His purple galley and his Tyrian men
And treacherous Aphrodite's mocking eyes?
For surely it was thou, who, like a star
Hung in the silver silence of the night,
Didst lure the Old World's chivalry and might
Into the clamorous crimson waves of war!

Or didst thou rule the fire-laden moon?
In amorous Sidon was thy temple built
Over the light and laughter of the sea
Where, behind lattice scarlet-wrought and gilt,
Some brown-limbed girl did weave thee tapestry,
All through the waste and wearied hours of noon;
Till her wan cheek with flame of passion burned,
And she rose up th...

        Poi disse un altro.... "Io son Buonconte:
        Giovanna o altri non ha di me cura;
        Per ch' io vo tra costor con bassa fronte."

        Seguito il terzo spirito al secondo,
        "Ricorditi di me, che son la Pia;
        Siena mi fe, disfecemi Maremma.
        Salsi colui che inannellata pria
        Disposata m' avea colla sua gemma."

                    PURGATORIO, CANTO V.


        I

        BUONCONTE

        Sister, the sun has ceased to shine;
        By companies of twain and trine
        Stars gather; from the sea
        The moon comes momently.

        On all the roads that ring our hill
        The sighing and the hymns are still:
        It is our time to gain
    ...

    Silent, with hands crost meekly on his breast,
        Long time, with keen and meditative eye,
        Stood the old painter of Siena by
    A canvas, whose sign manual him confest.

    His head droopt low, his eye ceased from its quest,
        As tears filled full the fountains long since dry;
        And from his lips there broke the haunting cry:
    "May God forgive me - I did not my best!"

Heavily lay the warm sunlight
Upon the green blades shining bright,
    An outspread grassy sea:
She through the burnished yellow flowers
Went walking in the golden hours
    That slept upon the lea.

The bee went past her with a hum;
The merry gnats did go and come
    In complicated dance;
Like a blue angel, to and fro,
The splendid dragon-fly did go,
    Shot like a seeking glance.

She never followed them, but still
Went forward with a quiet will,
    That got, but did not miss;
With gentle step she passed along,
And once a low, half-murmured song
    Uttered her share of bliss.

It was a little maiden-child;
You see, not frolicsome and wild,
    As such a child should be;
For though she was just nine, no more,
...

How long ago it is since we went Maying!
Since she and I went Maying long ago! -
The years have left my forehead lined, I know,
Have thinned my hair around the temples graying.
Ah, time will change us: yea, I hear it saying -
"She too grows old: the face of rose and snow
Has lost its freshness: in the hair's brown glow
Some strands of silver sadly, too, are straying.
The form you knew, whose beauty so enspelled,
Has lost the litheness of its loveliness:
And all the gladness that her blue eyes held
Tears and the world have hardened with distress." -
"True! true!" I answer, "O ye years that part!
These things are chaned - but is her heart, her heart?"

    That mirror
Which makes of men a transparency,
    Who holds that mirror
And bids us such a breast-bare spectacle see
    Of you and me?

    That mirror
Whose magic penetrates like a dart,
    Who lifts that mirror
And throws our mind back on us, and our heart,
    Until we start?

    That mirror
Works well in these night hours of ache;
    Why in that mirror
Are tincts we never see ourselves once take
    When the world is awake?

    That mirror
Can test each mortal when unaware;
    Yea, that strange mirror
May catch his last thoughts, whole life foul or fair,
    Glassing it - where?

The wan light of a stormy dawn
Gleamed on a tossing ship:
It was the In Memoriam
Upon a mourning trip.

Wild waves were on the windward bow,
And breakers on the lee;
And through her sides the women heard
The seething of the sea.

“O Captain!” cried a widow fair,
Her plump white hands clasped she,
“Thinkst thou, if drowned in this dread storm,
That savèd we shall be?”

“You speak in riddles, lady dear,
How savèd can we be
If we are drowned?” “Alas, I mean
In Paradise!” said she.

“O I’ve sailed North, and I’ve sailed South”
(He was a godless wight),
“But boy or man, since my days began,
That shore I ne’er did sight!”

The Captain told the First Mate bold
What that fair lady said;
The First Mate sneered in h...

All the heavy days are over;
Leave the body's coloured pride
Underneath the grass and clover,
With the feet laid side by side.
Bathed in flaming founts of duty
She'll not ask a haughty dress;
Carry all that mournful beauty
To the scented oaken press.
Did the kiss of Mother Mary
Put that music in her face?
Yet she goes with footstep wary,
Full of earth's old timid grace.
'Mong the feet of angels seven
What a dancer glimmering!
All the heavens bow down to Heaven,
Flame to flame and wing to wing.

The human heart will never change,
The human dream will still go on,
The enchanted earth be ever strange
With moonlight and the morning sun,
And still the seas shall shout for joy,
And swing the stars as in a glass,
The girl be angel for the boy,
The lad be hero for the lass.

The fashions of our mortal brains
New names for dead men's thoughts shall give,
But we find not for all our pains
Why 'tis so wonderful to live;
The beauty of a meadow-flower
Shall make a mock of all our skill,
And God, upon his lonely tower
Shall keep his secret - secret still.

The old magician of the skies,
With coloured and sweet-smelling things,
Shall charm the sense and trance the eyes,
Still onward through a million springs;
And nothing old and nothin...

Oh why is heaven built so far,
Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
That hangs afloat.

I would not care to reach the moon,
One round monotonous of change;
Yet even she repeats her tune
Beyond my range.

I never watch the scattered fire
Of stars, or sun's far-trailing train,
But all my heart is one desire,
And all in vain:

For I am bound with fleshly bands,
Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;
I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
And catch at hope.

The pale discrowned stacks of maize,
Like spectres in the sun,
Stand shivering nigh Avonaise,
Where all is dead and gone.

The sere leaves make a music vain,
With melancholy chords;
Like cries from some old battle-plain,
Like clash of phantom swords.

But when the maize was lush and green
With musical green waves,
She went, its plumed ranks between,
Unto the hill of graves.

There you may see sweet flowers set
O’er damsels and o’er dames,
Rose, Ellen, Mary, Margaret,
The sweet old quiet names.

The gravestones show in long array,
Though white or green with moss,
How linked in Life and Death are they,
The Shamrock and the Cross.

The gravestones face the Golden East,
And in the morn they take
The blessing o...

What of the days when we two dreamed together?
    Days marvellously fair,
As lightsome as a skyward floating feather
    Sailing on summer air -
Summer, summer, that came drifting through
Fate's hand to me, to you.

What of the days, my dear? I sometimes wonder
    If you too wish this sky
Could be the blue we sailed so softly under,
    In that sun-kissed July;
Sailed in the warm and yellow afternoon,
With hearts in touch and tune.

Have you no longing to re-live the dreaming,
    Adrift in my canoe?
To watch my paddle blade all wet and gleaming
    Cleaving the waters through?
To lie wind-blown and wave-caressed, until
Your restless pulse grows still?

Do you not long to listen to the purling
    Of foam athwart the keel?
...

Ah, that Time could touch a form
That could show what Homer’s age
Bred to be a hero’s wage.
‘Were not all her life but storm,
Would not painters paint a form
Of such noble lines’ I said,
‘Such a delicate high head,
All that sternness amid charm,
All that sweetness amid strength?’
Ah, but peace that comes at length,
Came when Time had touched her form.

The day is ending,
The night is descending;
The marsh is frozen,
The river dead.

Through clouds like ashes
The red sun flashes
On village windows
That glimmer red.

The snow recommences;
The buried fences
Mark no longer
The road o'er the plain;

While through the meadows,
Like fearful shadows,
Slowly passes
A funeral train.

The bell is pealing,
And every feeling
Within me responds
To the dismal knell;

Shadows are trailing,
My heart is bewailing
And tolling within
Like a funeral bell.