Enchantress, farewell, who so oft hast decoy'd me,
At the close of the evening through woodlands to roam,
Where the forester, 'lated, with wonder espied me
Explore the wild scenes he was quitting for home.
Farewell and take with thee thy numbers wild speaking
The language alternate of rapture and woe:
Oh! none but some lover, whose heartstrings are breaking
The pang that I feel at our parting can know.

Each joy thou couldst double, and when there came sorrow,
Or pale disappointment to darken my way,
What voice was like thine, that could sing of tomorrow,
Till forgot in the strain was the grief of today!
But when friends drop around us in life's weary waning,
The grief, Queen of Numbers, thou canst not assuage;
Nor the gradual estrangement of those yet remaining,

To J. A. C.


Fresh from his fastnesses
Wholesome and spacious,
The North Wind, the mad huntsman,
Halloas on his white hounds
Over the grey, roaring
Reaches and ridges,
The forest of ocean,
The chace of the world.
Hark to the peal
Of the pack in full cry,
As he thongs them before him,
Swarming voluminous,
Weltering, wide-wallowing,
Till in a ruining
Chaos of energy,
Hurled on their quarry,
They crash into foam!

Old Indefatigable,
Time's right-hand man, the sea
Laughs as in joy
From his millions of wrinkles:
Laughs that his destiny,
Great with the greatness
Of triumphing order,
Shows as a dwarf
By the strength of his heart
And the might of his hands.

Master of masters,
O make...

I'll rest me in this sheltered bower,
And look upon the clear blue sky
That smiles upon me through the trees,
Which stand so thickly clustering by;

And view their green and glossy leaves,
All glistening in the sunshine fair;
And list the rustling of their boughs,
So softly whispering through the air.

And while my ear drinks in the sound,
My winged soul shall fly away;
Reviewing long departed years
As one mild, beaming, autumn day;

And soaring on to future scenes,
Like hills and woods, and valleys green,
All basking in the summer's sun,
But distant still, and dimly seen.

Oh, list! 'tis summer's very breath
That gently shakes the rustling trees,
But look! the snow is on the ground,
How can I think of scenes like these?

"Write me a rhyme of the present time".
    And the poet took his pen
And wrote such lines as the miser minds
    Hide in the hearts of men.

He grew enthused, as the poets used
    When their fingers kissed the strings
Of some sweet lyre, and caught the fire
    True inspiration brings,

And sang the song of a nation's wrong -
    Of the patriot's galling chain,
And the glad release that the angel, Peace,
    Has given him again.

He sang the lay of religion's sway,
    Where a hundred creeds clasp hands
And shout in glee such a symphony
    That the whole world understands.

He struck the key of monopoly,
    And sang of her swift decay,
And traveled the track of the railway back
    With a blithesome roundelay -

The summer dawn came over-soon,
The earth was like hot iron at noon
In Nazareth;
There fell no rain to ease the heat,
And dusk drew on with tired feet
And stifled breath.

The shop was low and hot and square,
And fresh-cut wood made sharp the air,
While all day long
The saw went tearing thru the oak
That moaned as tho’ the tree’s heart broke
Beneath its wrong.

The narrow street was full of cries,
Of bickering and snarling lies
In many keys
The tongues of Egypt and of Rome
And lands beyond the shifting foam
Of windy seas.

Sometimes a ruler riding fast
Scattered the dark crowds as he passed,
And drove them close
In doorways, drawing broken breath
Lest they be trampled to their death
Where the dust rose.

    Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie,
    O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
    Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
        Wi' bickering brattle!
    I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
        Wi' murd'ring pattle!

    I'm truly sorry man's dominion
    Has broken nature's social union,
    An' justifies that ill opinion,
        Which makes thee startle
    At me, thy poor earth-born companion,
        An' fellow-mortal!

    I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
    What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
    A daimen icker in a thrave
        'S a sma' request:
    I'll get a blessin' wi' the lave,
        And never miss't!

    Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin;
    Its silly wa's the win's are strewin'!
  ...

Past ruin'd Ilion Helen lives,
Alcestis rises from the shades;
Verse calls them forth; 'tis verse that gives
Immortal youth to mortal maids.

Soon shall Oblivion's deepening veil
Hide all the peopled hills you see,
The gay, the proud, while lovers hail
These many summers you and me.

The singers are gone from the Cornmarket-place
With their broadsheets of rhymes,
The street rings no longer in treble and bass
With their skits on the times,
And the Cross, lately thronged, is a dim naked space
That but echoes the stammering chimes.

From Clock-corner steps, as each quarter ding-dongs,
Away the folk roam
By the "Hart" and Grey's Bridge into byways and "drongs,"
Or across the ridged loam;
The younger ones shrilling the lately heard songs,
The old saying, "Would we were home."

The shy-seeming maiden so mute in the fair
Now rattles and talks,
And that one who looked the most swaggering there
Grows sad as she walks,
And she who seemed eaten by cankering care
In statuesque sturdiness stalks.

And midnight clears High Stree...

In Bruges town is many a street
Whence busy life hath fled;
Where, without hurry, noiseless feet
The grass-grown pavement tread.
There heard we, halting in the shade
Flung from a Convent-tower,
A harp that tuneful prelude made
To a voice of thrilling power.

The measure, simple truth to tell,
Was fit for some gay throng;
Though from the same grim turret fell
The shadow and the song.
When silent were both voice and chords,
The strain seemed doubly dear,
Yet sad as sweet, for 'English' words
Had fallen upon the ear.

It was a breezy hour of eve;
And pinnacle and spire
Quivered and seemed almost to heave,
Clothed with innocuous fire;
But, where we stood, the setting sun
Showed little of his state;
And, if the glory reached ...

I wonder what he is thinking
    In the ploughing field all day.
He watches the heads of his oxen,
    And never looks this way.

And the furrows grow longer and longer,
    Around the base of the hill,
And the valley is bright with the sunset,
    Yet he ploughs and whistles still.

I am tired of counting the ridges,
    Where the oxen come and go,
And of thinking of all the blossoms
    That are trampled down below.

I wonder if ever he guesses
    That under the ragged brim
Of his torn straw hat I am peeping
    To steal a look at him.

The spire of the church and the windows
    Are all ablaze in the sun.
He has left the plough in the furrow,
    His summer day's work is done.

And I hear him carolling softly

Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods,
And day by day the dead leaves fall and melt,
And night by night the monitory blast
Wails in the key-hold, telling how it pass'd
O'er empty fields, or upland solitudes,
Or grim wide wave; and now the power is felt
Of melancholy, tenderer in its moods
Than any joy indulgent summer dealt.
Dear friends, together in the glimmering eve,
Pensive and glad, with tones that recognise
The soft invisible dew in each one's eyes,
It may be, somewhat thus we shall have leave
To walk with memory, when distant lies
Poor Earth, where we were wont to live and grieve

Verses of Hippolyta to her Husband.


They tell me thou'rt the favored guest
    Of every fair and brilliant throng;
No wit like thine to wake the jest,
    No voice like thine to breathe the song.
And none could guess, so gay thou art,
That thou and I are far apart.
Alas, alas! how different flows,
    With thee and me the time away!
Not that I wish thee sad, heaven knows--
    Still if thou canst, be light and gay;
I only know that without thee
The sun himself is dark for me.

Do I put on the jewels rare
Thou'st always loved to see me wear?
Do I perfume the locks that thou
So oft hast braided o'er my brow,
Thus deckt thro' festive crowds to run,
    And all the assembled world to see,--
All but the one, the absent one,

What boots it on the Gods to call?
Since, answered or unheard,
We perish with the Gods and all
Things made except the Word.

Ere certain Fate had touched a heart
By fifty years made cold,
I judged thee, Lyde, and thy art
O'erblown and over-bold.

But he, but he, of whom bereft
I suffer vacant days,
He on his shield not meanly left
He cherished all thy lays.

Witness the magic coffer stocked
With convoluted runes
Wherein thy very voice was locked
And linked to circling tunes.

Witness thy portrait, smoke-defiled,
That decked his shelter-place.
Life seemed more present, wrote the child,
Beneath thy well-known face.

And when the grudging days restored
Him for a breath to home,
He, with fresh crowds of youth,...

Just when the gentle hand of spring
Came fringing the trees with bud and leaf,
And when the blades the warm suns bring
Were given glad promise of golden sheaf;
Just when the birds began to sing
Joy hymns after their winter's grief,
I wandered weary to a place;
Tired of toil, I sought for rest,
Where Nature wore her mildest grace --
I went where I was more than guest.
Strange, tall trees rose as if they fain
Would wear as crowns the clouds of skies;
The sad winds swept with low refrain
Through branches breathing softest sighs;
And o'er the field and down the lane
Sweet flowers, the dreams of Paradise,
Bloomed up into this world of pain,
Where all that's fairest soonest dies;
And 'neath the trees a little stream
Went winding slowly round and round...

'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.' - PSALM CXXI. 1.


Æons ago ye were,
Before the struggling changeful race of man
Wrought into being, ere the tragic stir
Of human toil and deep desire began:
So shall ye still remain,
Lords of an elder and immutable race,
When many a broad metropolis of the plain,
Or thronging port by some renownèd shore,
Is sunk in nameless ruin, and its place
Recalled no more.

Empires have come and gone,
And glorious cities fallen in their prime;
Divine, far-echoing, names once writ in stone
Have vanished in the dust and void of time;
But ye, firm-set, secure,
Like Treasure in the hardness of God's palm,
Are yet the same for ever; ye endure
By virtue of an old slow-ripening word,...

“The poets pour us wine”
Said the dearest poet I ever knew,
Dearest and greatest and best to me.
You clamor athirst for poetry
We pour. “But when shall a vintage be”
You cry, “strong grape, squeezed gold from screw.
Yet sweet juice, flavored flowery-fine?
That were indeed the wine!”

One pours your cup, stark strength,
Meat for a man; and you eye the pulp
Strained, turbid still, from the viscous blood
Of the snaky bough: and you grumble “Good!
For it swells resolve, breeds hardihood;
Dispatch it, then, in a single gulp!”
So, down, with a wry face, goes at length
The liquor: stuff for strength.

One pours your cup, sheer sweet,
The fragrant fumes of a year condensed:
Suspicion of all that’s ripe or rathe,
From the bud on branch to the g...

I.

    A little mound of earth
    Is all the land I own:
    Death gave it me, - five feet by three,
    And mark'd it with a stone.


II.

    My home, my garden-grave,
    Where most I long to go!
    The ground is mine by right divine,
    And Heaven will have it so.


III.

    For here my darling sleeps,
    Unseen, - arrayed in white, -
    And o'er the grass the breezes pass,
    And stars look down at night.


IV.

    Here Beauty, Love, and Joy,
    With her in silence dwell,
    As Eastern slaves are thrown in graves
    Of kings remember'd well.


V.

    But here let no man come,
    My mourning rights to sever.
    Who lieth here is cold and dumb....

Quanta invidia ti porto, avara terra.

HE ENVIES EARTH, HEAVEN, AND DEATH THEIR POSSESSION OF HIS TREASURE.


    O earth, whose clay-cold mantle shrouds that face,
And veils those eyes that late so brightly shone,
Whence all that gave delight on earth was known,
How much I envy thee that harsh embrace!
O heaven, that in thy airy courts confined
That purest spirit, when from earth she fled,
And sought the mansions of the righteous dead;
How envious, thus to leave my panting soul behind!
O angels, that in your seraphic choir
Received her sister-soul, and now enjoy
Still present, those delights without alloy,
Which my fond heart must still in vain desire!
In her I lived--in her my life decays;
Yet envious Fate denies to end my hapless days.