The summer rose the sun has flushed
With crimson glory may be sweet;
'Tis sweeter when its leaves are crushed
Beneath the wind's and tempest's feet.

The rose that waves upon its tree,
In life sheds perfume all around;
More sweet the perfume floats to me
Of roses trampled on the ground.

The waving rose with every breath
Scents carelessly the summer air;
The wounded rose bleeds forth in death
A sweetness far more rich and rare.

It is a truth beyond our ken --
And yet a truth that all may read --
It is with roses as with men,
The sweetest hearts are those that bleed.

The flower which Bethlehem saw bloom
Out of a heart all full of grace,
Gave never forth its full perfume
Until the cross became its vase.

Her moods are like the fountain's, changing ever,
    That spouts aloft a sudden, watery dome,
    Only to fall again in shattering foam,
Just where the wedded jets themselves dissever,
And palpitating downward, downward quiver,
    Unfolded like a swift ethereal flower,
    That sheds white petals in a blinding shower,
And straightway soars anew with blithe endeavor.

The sun may kindle it with healthful fire;
    Upon it falls the cloud-gray's leaden load;
At night the stars shall haunt the whirling spire:
    Yet these have but a transient garb bestowed.
So her glad life, whate'er the hours impart,
Plays still 'twixt heaven's cope and her own clear heart.

The blight of life, the demon, Thought - BYRON.


With demon's shriek or angel's voice,
'Mid hellish gloom, or heav'nly light,
Thought haunts our path o'er land and sea,
And dwells with us, by day and night.

In roomy hall, or narrow hut,
It withers, blasts and kills with gloom,
Or gently onward smooths the path
Of him, who gives the tyrant room.

With siren voice it soothes our woe;
It dwells with us in blissful dreams;
But when we wake, it tells us then,
That it is far from what it seems.

Rebellious o'er its prostrate slave,
Its iron chain of bondage swings,
Or, govern'd by a master hand,
In numbers loud and strong, it sings.

And, with its keys of rarest mould,
Its stores of hoarded wealth unlocks,
It dives for ...

The night lamp is faintly gleaming
    Within my chamber still,
And the heavy shades of midnight
    Each gloomy angle fill,
And my worn and weary watchers
    Scarce dare to move or weep,
For they think that I am buried
    In deep and quiet sleep.

But, hush! what are those voices
    Heard on the midnight air,
Of strange celestial sweetness,
    Breathing of love and prayer?
Nearer they grow and clearer,
    I hear now what they say -
To the Kingdom of God's glory,
    They're calling me away!

See my gentle mother softly
    To me approaches now,
What is the change she readeth
    Upon my pale damp brow?
She clasps her hands in anguish
    Whose depth no words might say?
Has she, too, heard the voices
    That a...

Bid adieu, adieu, adieu,
Bid adieu to girlish days,
Happy Love is come to woo
Thee and woo thy girlish ways,
The zone that doth become thee fair,
The snood upon thy yellow hair,

When thou hast heard his name upon
The bugles of the cherubim
Begin thou softly to unzone
Thy girlish bosom unto him
And softly to undo the snood
That is the sign of maidenhood.

The Day was dying; his breath
Wavered away in a hectic gleam;
And I said, if Life's a dream, and Death
And Love and all are dreams - I'll dream.

A mist came over the bay
Like as a dream would over an eye.
The mist was white and the dream was grey
And both contained a human cry,

The burthen whereof was "Love",
And it filled both mist and dream with pain,
And the hills below and the skies above
Were touched and uttered it back again.

The mist broke: down the rift
A kind ray shot from a holy star.
Then my dream did waver and break and lift -
Through it, O Love, shone thy face, afar.

So Boyhood sets: comes Youth,
A painful night of mists and dreams;
That broods till Love's exquisite truth,
The star of a morn-clear manhood, be...

O beautiful woman, too well we know
The terrible weight of thy woman's woe,
So great that the world, in its careless way,
Remembered thy beauty for more than a day.
In the name of the truth from thy brow is torn
The crown of redemption thou long hast worn,
And into the valley of sin thou art hurled
To be trampled anew by the feet of the world.

The beautiful picture is thine no more
That hangs in the palace on Italy's shore;
The tear-stained eyes where the shadow lies,
Like a darksome cloud in the summer skies,
Will tell thy story to men no more,
For all untrue is the tale of yore;
And the far-famed picture that hangs on the wall
Is a painter's fancy--that is all.

Italia's shore is a land of light
Where the sunlight of day drowns the shadows of...

TIRED.

I.

O, I would tell you more, but I am tired;
For I have longed, and I have had my will;
I pleaded in my spirit, I desired:
"Ah! let me only see him, and be still
All my days after."
    Rock, and rock, and rock,
Over the falling, rising watery world,
Sail, beautiful ship, along the leaping main;
The chirping land-birds follow flock on flock
To light on a warmer plain.
White as weaned lambs the little wavelets curled,
    Fall over in harmless play,
    As these do far away;
Sail, bird of doom, along the shimmering sea,
All under thy broad wings that overshadow thee.

II.

    I am so tired,
If I would comfort me, I know not how,
For I have seen thee, lad, as I desired,
And I have nothing left to long for no...

This Advent moon shines cold and clear,
    These Advent nights are long;
Our lamps have burned year after year
    And still their flame is strong.
'Watchman, what of the night?' we cry,
    Heart-sick with hope deferred:
'No speaking signs are in the sky,'
    Is still the watchman's word.

The Porter watches at the gate,
    The servants watch within;
The watch is long betimes and late,
    The prize is slow to win.
'Watchman, what of the night?' But still
    His answer sounds the same:
'No daybreak tops the utmost hill,
    Nor pale our lamps of flame.'

One to another hear them speak
    The patient virgins wise:
'Surely He is not far to seek' -
    'All night we watch and rise.'
'The days are evil looking back,
    The...

Like emerald lakes the meadows lie,
And daisies dot the main;
The sunbeams from the deep blue sky
Drop down in golden rain,
And gild the lily's silver bell,
And coax buds apart,
But I miss the sunshine of my youth,
The summer of my heart.

The wild birds sing the same glad song
They sang in days of yore;
The laughing rivulet glides along,
Low whispering to the shore,
And its mystic water turns to gold
The sunbeam's quivering dart,
But I miss the sunshine of my youth,
The summer of my heart.

The south wind murmurs tenderly
To the complaining leaves;
The Flower Queen gorgeous tapestry
Of rose and purple weaves.
Yes, Nature's smile, the wary while,
Wears all its olden truth,
But I miss the sunshine of my heart,
The su...

Here is the height of land:
The watershed on either hand
Goes down to Hudson Bay
Or Lake Superior;
The stars are up, and far away
The wind sounds in the wood, wearier
Than the long Ojibway cadence
In which Potàn the Wise
Declares the ills of life
And Chees-que-ne-ne makes a mournful sound
Of acquiescence. The fires burn low
With just sufficient glow
To light the flakes of ash that play
At being moths, and flutter away
To fall in the dark and die as ashes:
Here there is peace in the lofty air,
And Something comes by flashes
Deeper than peace; -
The spruces have retired a little space
And left a field of sky in violet shadow
With stars like marigolds in a water-meadow.

Now the Indian guides are dead asleep;
There is no sound u...

Well, it was two days after my husband died,
Two days! And the earth still raw above him.
And I was sweeping the carpet in their hall.
In number four, the room with the red wall-paper,
Some chorus girls and men were singing that song
‘They’ll soon be lighting candles
Round a box with silver handles’ and hearing them sing it
I started to cry. Just then he came along
And stopped on the stairs and turned and looked at me,
And took the cigar from his mouth and sort of smiled
And said, ‘Say, what’s the matter?’ and then came down
Where I was leaning against the wall,
And touched my shoulder, and put his arm around me . . .
And I was so sad, thinking about it,
Thinking that it was raining, and a cold night,
With Jim so unaccustomed to being dead,
That I was happy to...

    A poet of my native land has said -
    The life the good and virtuous lead on earth
    Is like the black-eyed maiden of the East,
    Who paints the lids to look more bright and fair.
    The eyes may smart and water, but withal
    She loves to please them that behold her face.
    E'en so, my Master, thine own life has been.
    Thy songs have pleased the world, thy thoughts divine
    Have purified, likewise ennobled man.
    And what are they, those songs and thoughts divine,
    But sad experience of thy life, dipt deep
    In thine own tears, and traced on nature's page?
    To please and teach the world for two dear ones
    You mourned - a friend in youth, a son in age
    'Tis said the life that gives one moment's joy
    To one lone mortal is not li...

I go through wet spring woods alone,
Through sweet green woods with heart of stone,
My weary foot upon the grass
Falls heavy as I pass.
The cuckoo from the distance cries,
The lark a pilgrim in the skies;
But all the pleasant spring is drear.
I want you, dear!

I pass the summer meadows by,
The autumn poppies bloom and die;
I speak alone so bitterly
For no voice answers me.
“O lovers parting by the gate,
O robin singing to your mate,
Plead you well, for she will hear
‘I love you, dear!’”

I crouch alone, unsatisfied,
Mourning by winter’s fireside.
O Fate, what evil wind you blow.
Must this be so?
No southern breezes come to bless,
So conscious of their emptiness
My lonely arms I spread in woe,
I want you so.

Last evening's huge lax clouds of turbid white
Grew dark and louring, burthened with the rain
Which that long wind monotonous all night
Swept clashing loud through Dreamland's still domain,

Until my spirit in fatigue's despite
Was driven to weary wakefulness again:
With such wild dirge and ceaseless streaming tears
Died out the last of all my ill-used years.

The morn his risen pure and fresh and keen;
Its perfect vault of bright blue heaven spreads bare
Above the earth's wide laughter twinkling green.
The sun, long climbing up with lurid glare
Athwart the storm-rack's rent and hurrying screen,
Leapt forth at dawn to breathe this stainless air;
The strong west wind still streams on full and high,
Inspiring fresher life through earth and sky.

Y...

Unquiet Childhood here by special grace
Forgets her nature, opening like a flower
That neither feeds nor wastes its vital power
In painful struggles. Months each other chase,
And nought untunes that Infant's voice; no trace
Of fretful temper sullies her pure cheek;
Prompt, lively, self-sufficing, yet so meek
That one enrapt with gazing on her face
(Which even the placid innocence of death
Could scarcely make more placid, heaven more bright)
Might learn to picture, for the eye of faith,
The Virgin, as she shone with kindred light;
A nursling couched upon her mother's knee,
Beneath some shady palm of Galilee.

We are not always glad when we smile:
    Though we wear a fair face and are gay,
        And the world we deceive
        May not ever believe
    We could laugh in a happier way. -
Yet, down in the deeps of the soul,
    Ofttimes, with our faces aglow,
        There's an ache and a moan
        That we know of alone,
    And as only the hopeless may know.

We are not always glad when we smile, -
    For the heart, in a tempest of pain,
        May live in the guise
        Of a smile in the eyes
    As a rainbow may live in the rain;
And the stormiest night of our woe
    May hang out a radiant star
        Whose light in the sky
        Of despair is a lie
    As black as the thunder-clouds are.

We are not always glad when we ...

The Clock! a sinister, impassive god
Whose threatening finger says to us: 'Remember!
Soon in your anguished heart, as in a target,
Quivering shafts of Grief will plant themselves;

Vaporous Joy glides over the horizon
The way a sylphid flits into the wings;
Each instant eats a piece of the delight
A man is granted for his earthly season.

Three thousand and six hundred times an hour
The Second sighs, Remember! Suddenly
That droning insect Now says: I am Past
And I have sucked your life into my nostril!

Esto memor! Remember! Souviens-toi!
(My metal throat speaks out in a every language)
Don't let the minutes, prodigal, be wasted
They are the ore you must refine for gold!

Remember, Time is greedy at the game
And wins on every roll! per...