When lilacs last in the door-yard bloom’d,
And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,
I mourn’d—and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring;
Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.


O powerful, western, fallen star!
O shades of night! O moody, tearful night!
O great star disappear’d! O the black murk that hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless! O helpless soul of me!
O harsh surrounding cloud, that will not free my soul!


In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the white-wash’d palings,
Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
With many a pointed blossom, rising, de...

On the hill they are crowding together,
In the stand they are crushing for room,
Like midge-flies they swarm on the heather,
They gather like bees on the broom;
They flutter like moths round a candle,
Stale similes, granted, what then?
I've got a stale subject to handle,
A very stale stump of a pen.


Hark! the shuffle of feet that are many,
Of voices the many-tongued clang,
"Has he had a bad night?" "Has he any
Friends left?"    How I hate your turf slang;
'Tis stale to begin with, not witty,
But dull, and inclined to be coarse,
But bad men can't use (more's the pity)
Good words when they slate a good horse.


Heu! heu! quantus equis (that's Latin
For "bellows to mend" with the weeds),
They're off! lights and shades! silk and sat...

Hasten thee, Kronos!
On with clattering trot
Downhill goeth thy path;
Loathsome dizziness ever,
When thou delayest, assails me.
Quick, rattle along,
Over stock and stone let thy trot
Into life straightway lead

Now once more
Up the toilsome ascent
Hasten, panting for breath!
Up, then, nor idle be,
Striving and hoping, up, up!

Wide, high, glorious the view
Gazing round upon life,
While from mount unto mount
Hovers the spirit eterne,
Life eternal foreboding.

Sideways a roof's pleasant shade
Attracts thee,
And a look that promises coolness
On the maidenly threshold.
There refresh thee! And, maiden,
Give me this foaming draught also,
Give me this health-laden look!

Down, now! quicker still, down!<...

'Weak is the will of Man, his judgment blind;
'Remembrance persecutes, and Hope betrays;
'Heavy is woe; and joy, for human-kind,
'A mournful thing, so transient is the blaze!'
Thus might 'he' paint our lot of mortal days
Who wants the glorious faculty assigned
To elevate the more-than-reasoning Mind,
And colour life's dark cloud with orient rays.
Imagination is that sacred power,
Imagination lofty and refined;
'Tis hers to pluck the amaranthine flower
Of Faith, and round the Sufferer's temples bind
Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower,
And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind.

When will the grave shelter thy few gray hairs,
O aged man! Thy sand is almost run,
And many a year, in vain, to meet the sun,
Thine eyes have rolled in darkness; want and cares
Have been thy visitants from morn to morn.
While trembling on existence thou dost live,
Accept what human charity can give;
But standing thus, time-palsied, and forlorn,
Like a scathed oak, of all its boughs bereft,
God and the grave are thy best refuge left.
When the bells rung, and summer's smiling ray
Welcomed again the merry Whitsuntide,
And all my humble villagers were gay;
I saw thee sitting on the highway side,
To feel once more the warm sun's blessed beam:
Didst thou then think upon thy own gay prime,
On such a holiday, and the glad time
When thou wert young and happy, lik...

PART SECOND

We left our Hero in a trance,
Beneath the alders, near the river;
The Ass is by the river-side,
And, where the feeble breezes glide,
Upon the stream the moonbeams quiver.

A happy respite! but at length
He feels the glimmering of the moon;
Wakes with glazed eve. and feebly signing
To sink, perhaps, where he is lying,
Into a second swoon!

He lifts his head, he sees his staff;
He touches 'tis to him a treasure!
Faint recollection seems to tell
That he is yet where mortals dwell
A thought received with languid pleasure!

His head upon his elbow propped,
Becoming less and less perplexed,
Sky-ward he looks to rock and wood
And then upon the glassy flood
His wandering eye is fixed.

Thought he, that is ...

I am afraid to think about my death,
When it shall be, and whether in great pain
I shall rise up and fight the air for breath
Or calmly wait the bursting of my brain.

I am no coward who could seek in fear
A folklore solace or sweet Indian tales:
I know dead men are deaf and cannot hear
The singing of a thousand nightingales.

I know dead men are blind and cannot see
The friend that shuts in horror their big eyes,
And they are witless--O I'd rather be
A living mouse than dead as a man dies.

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.

Ah, how the Human Mind wearies herself
With her own wand'rings, and, involved in gloom
Impenetrable, speculates amiss!
Measuring, in her folly, things divine
By human, laws inscrib'd on adamant
By laws of Man's device, and counsels fix'd
For ever, by the hours, that pass, and die.
How?--shall the face of Nature then be plow'd
Into deep wrinkles, and shall years at last
On the great Parent fix a sterile curse?
Shall even she confess old age, and halt
And, palsy-smitten, shake her starry brows?
Shall foul Antiquity with rust and drought
And famine vex the radiant worlds above?
Shall Time's unsated maw crave and engulf
The very heav'ns that regulate his flight?
And was the Sire of all able to fence
His works, and to uphold the circling worlds,
But throu...

Oh, where's the slave so lowly,
Condemned to chains unholy,
    Who, could he burst
    His bonds at first,
Would pine beneath them slowly?
What soul, whose wrongs degrade it,
Would wait till time decayed it,
    When thus its wing
    At once may spring
To the throne of Him who made it?

Farewell, Erin.--farewell, all,
Who live to weep our fall!

Less dear the laurel growing,
Alive, untouched and blowing,
    Than that, whose braid
    Is plucked to shade
The brows with victory glowing
We tread the land that bore us,
Her green flag glitters o'er us,
    The friends we've tried
    Are by our side,
And the foe we hate before us.

Farewell, Erin,--farewell, all,
Who live to weep our fall!

It was the stalwart butcher man,
That knit his swarthy brow,
And said the gentle Pig must die,
And sealed it with a vow.

And oh! it was the gentle Pig
Lay stretched upon the ground,
And ah! it was the cruel knife
His little heart that found.

They took him then, those wicked men,
They trailed him all along;
They put a stick between his lips,
And through his heels a thong;

And round and round an oaken beam
A hempen cord they flung,
And, like a mighty pendulum,
All solemnly he swung!

Now say thy prayers, thou sinful man,
And think what thou hast done,
And read thy catechism well,
Thou bloody-minded one;

For if his sprite should walk by night,
It better were for thee,
That thou wert mouldering in the grou...

            I.

The fight was o'er; the flashing through the gloom,
Which robes the cannon as he wings a tomb,
Had ceased; and sulphury vapours upward driven
Had left the Earth, and but polluted Heaven:
The rattling roar which rung in every volley
Had left the echoes to their melancholy;
No more they shrieked their horror, boom for boom;
The strife was done, the vanquished had their doom;
The mutineers were crushed, dispersed, or ta'en,
Or lived to deem the happiest were the slain.
Few, few escaped, and these were hunted o'er
The isle they loved beyond their native shore.
No further home was theirs, it seemed, on earth,
Once renegades to that which gave them birth;
Tracked like wild beasts, like them they sought the wild,
As to a Mother's bosom flies the ...

Realms quake by turns: proud Arbitress of grace,
The Church, by mandate shadowing forth the power
She arrogates o'er heaven's eternal door,
Closes the gates of every sacred place.
Straight from the sun and tainted air's embrace
All sacred things are covered: cheerful morn
Grows sad as night, no seemly garb is worn,
Nor is a face allowed to meet a face
With natural smiles of greeting. Bells are dumb;
Ditches are graves, funereal rites denied;
And in the churchyard he must take his bride
Who dares be wedded! Fancies thickly come
Into the pensive heart ill fortified,
And comfortless despairs the soul benumb.

        In this dense hall of green and gold,
        Mirrors and lights and steam, there sit
        Two hundred munching men;
        While several score of others flit
        Like scurrying beetles over a fen,
        With plates in fanlike spread; or fold
        Napkins, or jerk the corks from bottles,
        Ministers to greedy throttles.
        Some make noises while they eat,
        Pick their teeth or shuffle their feet,
        Wipe their noses 'neath eyes that range
        Or frown whilst waiting for their change.
        Gobble, gobble, toil and trouble.
        Soul! this life is very strange,
        And circumstances very foul
        Attend the belly's stormy howl.
    How horrible this noise! this air how thick!
    It is disgusting ...

Down the blue night the unending columns press
In noiseless tumult, break and wave and flow,
Now tread the far South, or lift rounds of snow
Up to the white moon's hidden loveliness.
Some pause in their grave wandering comradeless,
And turn with profound gesture vague and slow,
As who would pray good for the world, but know
Their benediction empty as they bless.

They say that the Dead die not, but remain
Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth.
I think they ride the calm mid-heaven, as these,
In wise majestic melancholy train,
And watch the moon, and the still-raging seas,
And men, coming and going on the earth.

        (To a Young Heir.)


        No sooner was thy father's death
        Proclaimed to some, with bated breath,
        Than every gambler was agog
        To win your rents and gorge your prog.

        One counted how much income clear
        You had in "ready" - by the year.

        Another cast his eyelid dark
        Over the mansion and the park.
        Some weighed the jewels and the plate,
        And all the unentailed estate:
        So much in land from mortgage free,
        So much in personality.

        Would you to highwaymen abroad
        Display your treasures on the road?
        Would you abet their raid of stealth
        By the display of hoarded wealth?
        And are you yet with blacklegs...

I saw a staring virgin stand
Where holy Dionysus died,
And tear the heart out of his side.
And lay the heart upon her hand
And bear that beating heart away;
Of Magnus Annus at the spring,
As though God's death were but a play.
Another Troy must rise and set,
Another lineage feed the crow,
Another Argo's painted prow
Drive to a flashier bauble yet.
The Roman Empire stood appalled:
It dropped the reins of peace and war
When that fierce virgin and her Star
Out of the fabulous darkness called.
In pity for man's darkening thought
He walked that room and issued thence
In Galilean turbulence;
The Babylonian starlight brought
A fabulous, formless darkness in;
Odour of blood when Christ was slain
Made all platonic tolerance vain
And vain a...

The circumstance related in the following Ballad happened about forty years ago in a village adjacent to Bristol. A person who was present at the funeral, told me the story and the particulars of the interment, as I have versified them.




THE CROSS ROADS.


    There was an old man breaking stones
    To mend the turnpike way,
    He sat him down beside a brook
    And out his bread and cheese he took,
    For now it was mid-day.

    He lent his back against a post,
    His feet the brook ran by;
    And there were water-cresses growing,
    And pleasant was the water's flowing
    For he was hot and dry.

    A soldier with his knapsack on
    Came travelling o'er the down,
    The sun was strong and he was tired,
    And...