Elenor Murray landing in New York,
    After a weary voyage, none too well,
    Staid in the city for a week and then
    Upon a telegram from Irma Leese,
    Born Irma Fouche, her aunt who lived alone
    This summer in the Fouche house near LeRoy,
    Came west to visit Irma Leese and rest.

    For Elenor Murray had not been herself
    Since that hard spring when in the hospital,
    Caring for soldiers stricken with the flu,
    She took bronchitis, after weeks in bed
    Rose weak and shaky, crept to health again
    Through egg-nogs, easy strolls about Bordeaux.
    And later went to Nice upon a furlough
    To get her strength again.

    But while she saw
    Her vital flame burn brightly, as of old
    On favored days, yet for the ...

    All night had shout of men and cry
                Of woeful women filled His way;
    Until that noon of sombre sky
                On Friday, clamour and display
    Smote Him; no solitude had He,
    No silence, since Gethsemane.

    Public was Death; but Power, but Might,
                But Life again, but Victory,
    Were hushed within the dead of night,
                The shutter’d dark, the secrecy.
    And all alone, alone, alone
    He rose again behind the stone.

The times they had kissed and parted
That night were over a score;
Each time that the cavalier started,
Each time she would swear him o'er,

"Thou art going to Barcelona!
To make Naxera thy bride!
Seduce the Lady Yöna!
And thy lips have lied! have lied!

"I love thee! I love thee, thou knowest!
And thou shalt not give away
The love to my life thou owest;
And my heart commands thee stay!

"I say thou hast lied and liest!
For where is there war in the state?
Thou goest, by Heaven the highest!
To choose thee a fairer mate.

"Wilt thou go to Barcelona
When thy queen in Toledo is?
To wait on the haughty Yöna,
When thou hast these lips to kiss?"

And they stood in the balcony over
The old Toledo square:
And weep...

See Plutarch.
Serene, and fitted to embrace,
Where'er he turned, a swan-like grace
Of haughtiness without pretence,
And to unfold a still magnificence,
Was princely Dion, in the power
And beauty of his happier hour.
And what pure homage then did wait
On Dion's virtues, while the lunar beam
Of Plato's genius, from its lofty sphere,
Fell round him in the grove of Academe,
Softening their inbred dignity austere
That he, not too elate
With self-sufficing solitude,
But with majestic lowliness endued,
Might in the universal bosom reign,
And from affectionate observance gain
Help, under every change of adverse fate.

Five thousand warriors O the rapturous day!
Each crowned with flowers, and armed with spear and shield,
Or ruder weapon which t...

I know myself no more, my child,
Since thou art come to me,
Pity so tender and so wild
Hath wrapped my thoughts of thee.

These thoughts, a fiery gentle rain,
Are from the Mother shed,
Where many a broken heart hath lain
And many a weeping head.

        The band was playing a waltz-quadrille,
    I felt as light as a wind-blown feather,
        As we floated away, at the caller's will,
    Through the intricate, mazy dance together.
        Like mimic armies our lines were meeting,
        Slowly advancing, and then retreating,
    All decked in their bright array;
        And back and forth to the music's rhyme
        We moved together, and all the time
    I knew you were going away.

        The fold of your strong arm sent a thrill
    From heart to brain as we gently glided
        Like leaves on the wave of that waltz-quadrille;
    Parted, met, and again divided -
        You drifting one way, and I another,
        Then suddenly turning and facing each other,
    Then off in the blithe c...

Perhaps, long hence, when I have passed away,
Some other's feature, accent, thought like mine,
Will carry you back to what I used to say,
And bring some memory of your love's decline.

Then you may pause awhile and think, "Poor jade!"
And yield a sigh to me as ample due,
Not as the tittle of a debt unpaid
To one who could resign her all to you -

And thus reflecting, you will never see
That your thin thought, in two small words conveyed,
Was no such fleeting phantom-thought to me,
But the Whole Life wherein my part was played;
And you amid its fitful masquerade
A Thought as I in yours but seem to be.

1866.

Blow harder, wind, and drive
My blood from hands and face back to the heart.
Cry over ridges and down tapering coombs,
Carry the flying dapple of the clouds
Over the grass, over the soft-grained plough,
Stroke with ungentle hand the hill's rough hair
        Against its usual set.
Snatch at the reins in my dead hands and push me
Out of my saddle, blow my labouring pony
Across the track. You only drive my blood
Nearer the heart from face and hands, and plant there,
Slowly burning, unseen, but alive and wonderful,
        A numb, confusèd joy!
This little world's in tumult. Far away
The dim waves rise and wrestle with each other
And fall down headlong on the beach. And here
Quick gusts fly up the funnels of the valleys
And meet their raging fellows on the h...

No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed;
Lay that on your heart,
My young angry dear;
This truth, this hard and precious stone,
Lay it on your hot cheek,
Let it hide your tear.
Hold it like a crystal
When you are alone
And gaze in the depths of the icy stone.
Long, look long and you will be blessed:
No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed.

How beautiful a new sun is when it rises,
flashing out its greeting, like an explosion!
Happy, whoever hails with sweet emotion
its descent, nobler than a dream, to our eyes!


I remember! I’ve seen all, flower, furrow, fountain,
swoon beneath its look, like a throbbing heart
Let’s run quickly, it’s late, towards the horizon,
to catch at least one slanting ray as it departs!


But I pursue the vanishing God in vain:
irresistible Night establishes its sway,
full of shudders, black, dismal, cold:


an odour of the tomb floats in the shadow,
at the swamp’s edge, feet faltering I go,
bruising damp slugs, and unexpected toads.

Roses are sweet to smell and see,
And lilies on the stem;
But rarer, stranger buds there be,
And she was like to them.

The little moon that April brings,
More lovely shade than light,
That, setting, silvers lonely hills
Upon the verge of night -

Close to the world of my poor heart
So stole she, still and clear;
Now that she's gone, O dark, and dark,
The solitude, the fear.

To roll the rock you fought
takes your courage, Sisyphus!
No matter what effort from us,
Art is long, and Time is short.

Far from the grave of celebrity,
my heart, like a muffled drum,
taps out its funereal thrum
towards some lonely cemetery.

Many a long-buried gem
sleeps in shadowy oblivion
far from pickaxes and drills:

in profound solitude set,
many a flower, with regret,
its sweet perfume spills.

Hear the loud swell of it, mighty pell mell of it,
Thousands of voices all blent into one:
See “hell for leather” now trooping together, now
Down the long slope of the range at a run,
Dust in the wake of ’em: see the wild break of ’em,
Spear-horned and curly, red, spotted and starred:
See the lads bringing ’em, blocking ’em, ringing ’em.
Fetching ’em up to the wings of the yard.

Mark that red leader now: what a fine bleeder now,
Twelve hundred at least if he weighs half a pound,
None go ahead of him. Mark the proud tread of him,
See how he bellows and paws at the ground.
Watch the mad rush of ’em, raging and crush of ’em.
See when they struck how the corner post jarred.
What a mad chasing and wheeling and racing and
Turbulent talk ’twixt the wings of the yard...

While Time a grim old lion gnawing lay,
    And mumbled with his teeth yon regal tomb,
Like some immortal tear undimmed for aye,
    This gem was dropped among the dust of doom.

Dropped, haply, by a sad, forgotten queen,
    A tear to outlast name, and fame, and tongue:
Her other tears, and ours, all tears terrene,
    For great new griefs to be hereafter sung.

Take it, - a goddess might have wept such tears,
    Or Dame Electra changed into a star,
That waxed so dim because her children's years
    In leaguered Troy were bitter through long war.

Not till the end to end grow dull or waste, -
    Ah, what a little while the light we share!
Hand after hand shall yet with this be graced,
    Signing the Will that leaves it to an heir.

A story is told in Spain, of a woman, who, by a sudden shock of domestic calamity, became insane, and ever after looked up incessantly to the sky.


O'er her infant's couch of death,
Bent a widowed mother low;
And the quick, convulsive breath
Marked the inward weight of woe.

Round the fair child's forehead clung
Golden tresses, damp and bright;
While Death's pinion o'er it hung,
And the parted lips grew white.

Reason left the mother's eye,
When the latest pang was o'er;
Then she raised her gaze on high,
Turned it earthward nevermore.

By the dark and silent tomb,
Where they laid the dead to rest;
By the empty cradle's gloom,
And the fireside once so blest;

In the lone and narrow cell,
Fettered by the clanking chain,

1.
Let those who pine in pride or in revenge,
Or think that ill for ill should be repaid,
Who barter wrong for wrong, until the exchange
Ruins the merchants of such thriftless trade,
Visit the tower of Vado, and unlearn
Such bitter faith beside Marenghi's urn.

2.
A massy tower yet overhangs the town,
A scattered group of ruined dwellings now...

...

3.
Another scene are wise Etruria knew
Its second ruin through internal strife
And tyrants through the breach of discord threw
The chain which binds and kills. As death to life,
As winter to fair flowers (though some be poison)
So Monarchy succeeds to Freedom's foison.

4.
In Pisa's church a cup of sculptured gold
Was brimming with the blood of feuds forsworn:
A Sacram...

Never the time and the place
And the loved one all together!
This path, how soft to pace!
This May, what magic weather!
Where is the loved one's face?
In a dream that loved one's face meets mine,
But the house is narrow, the place is bleak
Where, outside, rain and wind combine
With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak,
With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,
With a malice that marks each word, each sign!
O enemy sly and serpentine,
Uncoil thee from the waking man!
Do I hold the Past
Thus firm and fast
Yet doubt if the Future hold I can?
This path so soft to pace shall lead
Thro' the magic of May to herself indeed!
Or narrow if needs the house must be,
Outside are the storms and strangers: we
Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she,
I and...

Ah, empty are the mother's arms
    Which clasp a vanished form;
A darling spared from life's alarms,
    And safe from earthly storm.

In absent reverie, she hears
    That voice, nor can forget;
The fond illusion disappears,--
    Her arms are empty, yet.