List, ye who pass by Lyulph's Tower
At eve; how softly then
Doth Aira-force, that torrent hoarse,
Speak from the woody glen!
Fit music for a solemn vale!
And holier seems the ground
To him who catches on the gale
The spirit of a mournful tale,
Embodied in the sound.

Not far from that fair site whereon
The Pleasure-house is reared,
As story says, in antique days
A stern-browed house appeared;
Foil to a Jewel rich in light
There set, and guarded well;
Cage for a Bird of plumage bright,
Sweet-voiced, nor wishing for a flight
Beyond her native dell.

To win this bright Bird from her cage,
To make this Gem their own,
Came Barons bold, with store of gold,
And Knights of high renown;
But one She prized, and only one;
Sir ...

Let me not die for ever when I'm laid
    In the cold earth! but let my memory
Live still among ye, like the evening shade,
    That o'er the sinking day steals placidly.
Let me not be forgotten! though the knell
    Has tolled for me its solemn lullaby;
Let me not be forgotten! though I dwell
    For ever now in death's obscurity.
Yet oh! upon the emblazoned leaf of fame,
    Trace not a record, not a line for me,
But let the lips I loved oft breathe my name,
    And in your hearts enshrine my memory!

And live I still to see relations gone,
And yet survive to sound this wailing tone;
Ah, woe is me, to write thy Funeral Song,
Who might in reason yet have lived long,
I saw the branches lopt the Tree now fall,
I stood so nigh, it crusht me down withal;
My bruised heart lies sobbing at the Root,
That thou dear Son hath lost both Tree and fruit:
Thou then on Seas sailing to forreign Coast;
Was ignorant what riches thou hadst lost.
But ah too soon those heavy tydings fly,
To strike thee with amazing misery;
Oh how I simpathize with thy sad heart,
And in thy griefs still bear a second part:
I lost a daughter dear, but thou a wife,
Who lov'd thee more (it seem'd) then her own life.
Thou being gone, she longer could not be,
Because her Soul she'd sent along wit...

And now the verse proceeds to torments new,
Fit argument of this the twentieth strain
Of the first song, whose awful theme records
The spirits whelm'd in woe. Earnest I look'd
Into the depth, that open'd to my view,
Moisten'd with tears of anguish, and beheld
A tribe, that came along the hollow vale,
In silence weeping: such their step as walk
Quires chanting solemn litanies on earth.

As on them more direct mine eye descends,
Each wondrously seem'd to be revers'd
At the neck-bone, so that the countenance
Was from the reins averted: and because
None might before him look, they were compell'd
To' advance with backward gait. Thus one perhaps
Hath been by force of palsy clean transpos'd,
But I ne'er saw it nor believe it so.

Now, reader! think wit...

FROM 'REJECTED ADDRESSES.'



Balmy Zephyrs, lightly flitting,
Shade me with your azure wing;
On Parnassus' summit sitting,
Aid me, Clio, while I sing.

Softly slept the dome of Drury
O'er the empyreal crest,
When Alecto's sister-fury
Softly slumb'ring sunk to rest.

Lo! from Lemnos limping lamely,
Lags the lowly Lord of Fire,
Cytherea yielding tamely
To the Cyclops dark and dire.

Clouds of amber, dreams of gladness,
Dulcet joys and sports of youth,
Soon must yield to haughty sadness;
Mercy holds the veil to Truth.

See Erostratas the second
Fires again Diana's fane;
By the Fates from Orcus beckon'd,
Clouds envelop Drury Lane.

Where is Cupid's crimson motion?
Billowy ecstasy of woe,
B...

BARINE, to thy always broken vows
    Were slightest punishment ordain'd;
    Hadst thou less charming been
By one grey hair upon thy polish'd brows;
    If but a single tooth were stain'd,
    A nail discolour'd seen,
Then might I nurse the hope that, faithful grown,
The FUTURE might, at length, the guilty PAST atone.

But ah! no sooner on that perjur'd head,
    With pomp, the votive wreaths are bound,
    In mockery of truth,
Than lovelier grace thy faithless beauties shed;
    Thou com'st, with new-born conquest crown'd,
    The care of all our Youth,
Their public care; - and murmur'd praises rise
Where'er the beams are shot of those resistless eyes.

Thy Mother's buried dust; - the midnight train,
    Of silent stars, - the rolling s...

Fee! faw! fum!
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Dead or alive, I will have some.

Fe! fau! fum!
Sanguinem odoror Anglicum.
Seu vivum seu mortuum,
Bibendum est mihi aliquantum.

And like a dying lady, lean and pale,
Who totters forth, wrapped in a gauzy veil,
Out of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The moon arose up in the murky East,
A white and shapeless mass -

Ever since man was man a Fiend has stood
Outside his House of Good,
War, with his terrible toys, that win men's hearts
To follow murderous arts.

His spurs, death-won, are but of little use,
Except as old refuse
Of Life; to hang and testify with rust
Of deeds, long one with dust.

A rotting fungus on a log, a tree,
A toiling worm, or bee,
Serves God's high purpose here on Earth to build
More than War's maimed and killed.

The Hebetude of asses, following still
Some Emperor's will to kill,
Is that of men who give their lives for what?
The privilege to be shot!

Grant men more vision, Lord! to read thy words,
That are not guns and swords,
But trees and flowers, lovely forms of Earth,
And all fair things of worth.

So ...

When this, our rose, is faded,
And these, our days, are done,
In lands profoundly shaded
From tempest and from sun:
Ah, once more come together,
Shall we forgive the past,
And safe from worldly weather
Possess our souls at last?

Or in our place of shadows
Shall still we stretch an hand
To green, remembered meadows,
Of that old pleasant land?
And vainly there foregathered,
Shall we regret the sun?
The rose of love, ungathered?
The bay, we have not won?

Ah, child! the world's dark marges
May lead to Nevermore,
The stately funeral barges
Sail for an unknown shore,
And love we vow to-morrow,
And pride we serve to-day:
What if they both should borrow
Sad hues of yesterday?

Our pride! Ah, should we miss it,

You were a red rose then, I know,
    Red as her wine--yea, redder still,--
Say rather her blood; and ages ago
    (You know how destiny hath its will)
I placed you deep in her gorgeous hair,
And left you to wither there.

Wine and blood and a red, red rose,--
    Feast and song and a long, long sleep;--
And which of us dreamed at the drama's close
    That the unforgetful years would keep
Our sin and their vengeance laid away
As a gift to this bitter day?

Now you are white as the mountain snow,
    White as the hand that I fold you in,
And none but the angels of God may know
    That either has once been stained with sin;
It was blood and wine in the old, old years,
But now it is only tears.

And so at the end of our several ways

I Saw the day like some great monarch die,
Gold-couched, behind the clouds' rich tapestries.
Then, purple-sandaled, clad in silences
Of sleep, through halls of skyey lazuli,
The twilight, like a mourning queen, trailed by,
Dim-paged of dreams and shadowy mysteries;
And now the night, the star-robed child of these,
In meditative loveliness draws nigh.
Earth, like to Romeo, deep in dew and scent,
Beneath Heaven's window, watching till a light,
Like some white blossom, in its square be set,
Lifts a faint face unto the firmament,
That, with the moon, grows gradually bright,
Bidding him climb and clasp his Juliet.

May! Be thou never grac'd with birds that sing,
        Nor Flora's pride!
In thee all flowers and roses spring,
        Mine only died.

W. B.

Yes, holy be thy resting place
Wherever thou may'st lie;
The sweetest winds breathe on thy face,
The softest of the sky.

And will not guardian Angles send
Kind dreams and thoughts of love,
Though I no more may watchful bend
Thy longed repose above?

And will not heaven itself bestow
A beam of glory there
That summer's grass more green may grow,
And summer's flowers more fair?

Farewell, farewell, 'tis hard to part
Yet, loved one, it must be:
I would not rend another heart
Not even by blessing thee.

Go! We must break affection's chain,
Forget the hopes of years:
Nay, grieve not - willest thou remain
To waken wilder tears

This herald breeze with thee and me,
Roved in the dawning day:
And thou shouldest be...

Each on his own strict line we move,
And some find death ere they find love.
So far apart their lives are thrown
From the twin soul that halves their own.

And sometimes, by still harder fate,
The lovers meet, but meet too late.
Thy heart is mine! True, true! ah, true!
Then, love, thy hand! Ah, no! adieu!

Tread lightly, she is near
Under the snow,
Speak gently, she can hear
The daisies grow.

All her bright golden hair
Tarnished with rust,
She that was young and fair
Fallen to dust.

Lily-like, white as snow,
She hardly knew
She was a woman, so
Sweetly she grew.

Coffin-board, heavy stone,
Lie on her breast,
I vex my heart alone,
She is at rest.

Peace, Peace, she cannot hear
Lyre or sonnet,
All my life's buried here,
Heap earth upon it.

AVIGNON

I thought it pleasant when a manly sire
Weary of foreign travel, at the door
Of his own cottage left his dusty staff,
And entering in, sat down with those he loved
Beside the hearth of home; - and pleasant, too,
When a fond mother, absent for a day,
At eve returning, from the sunset hill
That overlooked her cot, descried her boys
Flying with joyous feet along the path
To greet her coming; and, with clasping hands
Of baby welcome, lead her through the gate
Of her sweet home.

                                    Pleasant I deemed it, too,
When a young man, a wanderer for years
From those he loved, at length sat down again
With sire and mother in the twilight hour
At home; - and when a gentle daughter, long
From mother's kiss and father's blessing far,<...

And Emer took the head of Cuchulain in her hands, and she washed it clean, and put a silk cloth about it, and she held it to her breast, and she began to cry heavily over it, and she made this complaint:

Och, head! Ochone, O head! you gave death to great heroes, to many hundreds; my head will lie in the same grave, the one stone will be made for both of us.

Och, hand! Ochone, hand, that was once gentle. It is often it was put under my head; it is dear that hand was to me.

Dear mouth! Ochone, kind mouth that was sweet-voiced telling stories; since the time love first came on your face, you never refused either weak or strong.

Dear the man, dear the man, that would kill the whole of a great army; dear his cold bright hair, and dear his bright cheeks!

Dear the king, dear the king, that n...