The sun's red pulses beat,
Full prodigal of heat,
Full lavish of its lustre unrepressed;
But we have drifted far
From where his kisses are,
And in this landward-lying shade we let our paddles rest.

The river, deep and still,
The maple-mantled hill,
The little yellow beach whereon we lie,
The puffs of heated breeze,
All sweetly whisper - These
Are days that only come in a Canadian July.

So, silently we two
Lounge in our still canoe,
Nor fate, nor fortune matters to us now:
So long as we alone
May call this dream our own,
The breeze may die, the sail may droop, we care not when or how.

Against the thwart, near by,
Inactively you lie,
And all too near my arm your temple bends.
Your indolently crude,
Abandoned attitu...

When stern Misfortune, monitress severe!
Dissolves Prosperity's enchanting dreams,
And, chased from Man's probationary sphere,
Fair Hope withdraws her vivifying beams.

If then, untaught to bend at Heaven's high will,
The desp'rate mortal dares the dread unknown,
To future fate appeals from present ill,
And stands, uncall'd, before th' Eternal throne!

Shall justice there immutably decide?
Dread thought! which Reason trembles to explore,
She feels, be mercy granted or denied,
'Tis her's in dumb submission to adore.

Yet, could the self-doom'd victim be forgiven
His final error, for his merits past;
Could virtuous life, propitiating Heaven
With former deeds, extenuate the last:

Then GOLDSMID! Mercy, to thy humble shrine,
Angel o...

That day--it was the last of many days,
Nor could we know when such days might be given
Again--we read how Dante trod the ways
Of utmost Hell, and how his heart was riven
By sad Francesca, whose sin was forgiven
So far that, on her Paolo fixing gaze,
She supt on his again, and thought it Heaven,
She knew her gentler fate and felt it praise.

We read that lovers' tale; each lookt at each;
But one was fearless, innocent of guile;
So did the other learn what she could teach:
We read no more, we kiss'd not, but a smile
Of proud possession flasht, hover'd a while
'Twixt soul and soul. There was no need for speech.

Hard by the road, where on that little mound
    The high grass rustles to the passing breeze,
    The child of Misery rests her head in peace.
Pause there in sadness. That unhallowed ground
Inshrines what once was Isabel. Sleep on
    Sleep on, poor Outcast! lovely was thy cheek,
    And thy mild eye was eloquent to speak
The soul of Pity. Pale and woe-begone
Soon did thy fair cheek fade, and thine eye weep
    The tear of anguish for the babe unborn,
    The helpless heir of Poverty and Scorn.
She drank the draught that chill'd her soul to sleep.
I pause and wipe the big drop from mine eye,
Whilst the proud Levite scowls and passes by.

Eight of 'em hyeah all tol' an' yet
Dese eyes o' mine is wringin' wet;
My haht's a-achin' ha'd an' so',
De way hit nevah ached befo';
My soul's a-pleadin', "Lawd, give back
Dis little lonesome baby black,
Dis one, dis las' po' he'pless one
Whose little race was too soon run."

Po' Little Jim, des fo' yeahs ol'
A-layin' down so still an' col'.
Somehow hit don' seem ha'dly faih,
To have my baby lyin' daih
Wi'dout a smile upon his face,
Wi'dout a look erbout de place;
He ust to be so full o' fun
Hit don' seem right dat all's done, done.

Des eight in all but I don' caih,
Dey wa'nt a single one to spaih;
De worl' was big, so was my haht,
An' dis hyeah baby owned hit's paht;
De house was po', dey clothes was rough,
But daih was me...

All through the summer night, down the long lane in flower,
            The moon-white lane,
All through the summer night,--dim as a shower,
            Glimmer and fade the Twain:
Over the cricket hosts, throbbing the hour by hour,
            Young voices bloom and wane.

Down the long lane they go, and past one window, pale
            With visions silver-blurred;
Stirring the heart that waits,--the eyes that fail
            After a spring deferred.
Query, and hush, and Ah!--dim through a moon-lit veil,
            The same one word.

Down the long lane, entwined with all the fragrance there;
            The lane in flower somehow
With youth, and plighted hands, and star-strewn air,
            And muted 'Thee' and 'Thou':--
All the wild bloom an...

Far from our home by Grasmere's quiet Lake,
From the Vale's peace which all her fields partake,
Here on the bleakest point of Cumbria's shore
We sojourn stunned by Ocean's ceaseless roar;
While, day by day, grim neighbour! huge Black Comb
Frowns deepening visibly his native gloom,
Unless, perchance rejecting in despite
What on the Plain 'we' have of warmth and light,
In his own storms he hides himself from sight.
Rough is the time; and thoughts, that would be free
From heaviness, oft fly, dear Friend, to thee;
Turn from a spot where neither sheltered road
Nor hedge-row screen invites my steps abroad;
Where one poor Plane-tree, having as it might
Attained a stature twice a tall man's height,
Hopeless of further growth, and brown and sere
Through half the summer...

Love and forgetting might have carried them
A little further up the mountain side
With night so near, but not much further up.
They must have halted soon in any case
With thoughts of a path back, how rough it was
With rock and washout, and unsafe in darkness;
When they were halted by a tumbled wall
With barbed-wire binding. They stood facing this,
Spending what onward impulse they still had
In One last look the way they must not go,
On up the failing path, where, if a stone
Or earthslide moved at night, it moved itself;
No footstep moved it. 'This is all,' they sighed,
Good-night to woods.' But not so; there was more.
A doe from round a spruce stood looking at them
Across the wall, as near the wall as they.
She saw them in their field, they her in hers.
T...

Mother, sit down, for I have much to say
Anent this widespread ever-growing theme
Of woman and her virtues and her rights.

I left you for the large, loud world of men,
When I had lived one little score of years.
I judged all women by you, and my heart
Was filled with high esteem and reverence
For your angelic sex; and for the wives,
The sisters, daughters, mothers of my friends
I held but holy thoughts.    To fallen stars
(Of whom you told me in our last sweet talk,
Warning me of the dangers in my path)
I gave wide pity as you bade me to,
Saying their sins harked back to my base sex.

Now listen, mother mine:    Ten years have passed
Since that clean-minded and pure-bodied youth,
Thinking to write his name upon the stars,
Went from your presenc...

Who does not feel desire unending
    To solace through his daily strife,
With some mysterious Mental Blending,
    The hungry loneliness of life?

Until, by sudden passion shaken,
    As terriers shake a rat at play,
He finds, all blindly, he has taken
    The old, Hereditary way.

Yet, in the moment of communion,
    The very heart of passion's fire,
His spirit spurns the mortal union,
    "Not this, not this, the Soul's desire!"

    *    *    *    *

Oh You, by whom my life is riven,
    And reft away from my control,
Take back the hours of passion given!
    Love me one moment from your soul.

Although I once, in ardent fashion,
    Implored you long to give me this;
(In hopes to stem, or stifle, passion)
    Y...

A little, rudely sculptured bed,
With shadowing folds of marble lace,
And quilt of marble, primly spread
And folded round a baby's face.

Smoothly the mimic coverlet,
With royal blazonries bedight,
Hangs, as by tender fingers set
And straightened for the last good-night.

And traced upon the pillowing stone
A dent is seen, as if to bless
The quiet sleep some grieving one
Had leaned, and left a soft impress.

It seems no more than yesterday
Since the sad mother down the stair
And down the long aisle stole away,
And left her darling sleeping there.

But dust upon the cradle lies,
And those who prized the baby so,
And laid her down to rest with sighs,
Were turned to dust long years ago.

Above the peaceful pillowed hea...

As we look back at our lost Used-to-Be,
'The light that never was on land or sea'
    Touches the distant mountain peaks with gold,
    And through the glass of memory we behold
Such blossoms as grow not on any lea.

The double leaf upon the poplar tree
Turns up its silver side to you and me,
And glow-worm lanterns light the lonely wold
    As we look back.

No sounds we hear but echoes of young glee;
No winds we feel but west winds blowing free,
    From those fair isles that seem a thousandfold
    More beautiful than in the days of old;
And all the clouds that hang above them flee,
        As we look back.

Se 'l pensier che mi strugge.

HE SEEKS IN VAIN TO MITIGATE HIS WOE.


    Oh! that my cheeks were taught
By the fond, wasting thought
To wear such hues as could its influence speak;
Then the dear, scornful fair
Might all my ardour share;
And where Love slumbers now he might awake!
Less oft the hill and mead
My wearied feet should tread;
Less oft, perhaps, these eyes with tears should stream;
If she, who cold as snow,
With equal fire would glow--
She who dissolves me, and converts to flame.

Since Love exerts his sway,
And bears my sense away,
I chant uncouth and inharmonious songs:
Nor leaves, nor blossoms show,
Nor rind, upon the bough,
What is the nature that thereto belongs.
Love, and those beauteous eyes,

I look into my glass,
And view my wasting skin,
And say, "Would God it came to pass
My heart had shrunk as thin!"

For then, I, undistrest
By hearts grown cold to me,
Could lonely wait my endless rest
With equanimity.

But Time, to make me grieve;
Part steals, lets part abide;
And shakes this fragile frame at eve
With throbbings of noontide.

Fair flower! that fall'n beneath the angry blast,
Which marks with wither'd sweets its fearful way,
I grieve to see thee on the low earth cast,
While beauty's trembling tints fade fast away.
But who is she, that from the mountain's head
Comes gaily on, cheering the child of earth;
The walks of woe bloom bright beneath her tread,
And nature smiles with renovated mirth?
'Tis Health! she comes, and hark! the vallies ring.
And hark! the echoing hills repeat the sound;
She sheds the new-blown blossoms of the spring,
And all their fragrance floats her footsteps round.
And hark! she whispers in the zephyr's voice,
Lift up thy head, fair flower! rejoice! rejoice!

All day long there has haunted me
    A spectre out of my lost youth-land.
Because I happened last night to see
    A woman's beautiful snow-white hand.

Like part of a statue broken away,
    And carefully kept in a velvet case,
On the crimson rim of her box it lay;
    The folds of the curtain hid her face.

Years had drifted between us two,
    In another clime, in another land,
We had lived and parted, and yet I knew
    That cruelly beautiful perfect hand.

The ringless beauty of fingers fine,
    The sea-shell tint of their taper tips,
The sight of them stirred my blood like wine,
    Oh, to hold them again to my lips!

To feel their tender touch on my hair,
    Their mute caress, and their clinging hold;
Oh for the past tha...

So quietly I seem to sit apart;
I think she does not know or guess at all,
How dear this certain hour to my old heart,
When in our quiet street the shadows fall.

She leans and listens at the little gate.
I sit so still, not any eye might see
How watchfully before her there I wait
For that one step that brings my world to me.

She does not know that long before they meet
(So eagerly must go a love athirst),
My heart outstrips the flying of her feet,
And meets and greets him first--and greets him first.

O flower of all that springs from gentle blood,
And all that generous nurture breeds to make
Youth amiable; O friend so true of soul
To fair Aglaia; by what envy moved,
Lelius! has death cut short thy brilliant day
In its sweet opening? and what dire mishap
Has from Savona torn her best delight?
For thee she mourns, nor e'er will cease to mourn;
And, should the out-pourings of her eyes suffice not
For her heart's grief, she will entreat Sebeto
Not to withhold his bounteous aid, Sebeto
Who saw thee, on his margin, yield to death,
In the chaste arms of thy beloved Love!
What profit riches? what does youth avail?
Dust are our hopes; I, weeping bitterly,
Penned these sad lines, nor can forbear to pray
That every gentle Spirit hither led
May read them, not wit...