Upon the City Ramparts, lit up by sunset gleam,
The Blue eyes that conquer, meet the Darker eyes that dream.

The Dark eyes, so Eastern, and the Blue eyes from the West,
The last alight with action, the first so full of rest.

Brown, that seem to hold the Past; its magic mystery,
Blue, that catch the early light, of ages yet to be.

Meet and fall and meet again, then linger, look, and smile,
Time and distance all forgotten, for a little while.

Happy on the city wall, in the warm spring weather,
All the force of Nature's laws, drawing them together.

East and West so gaily blending, for a little space,
All the sunshine seems to centre, round th' Enchanted place!

One rides down the dusty road, one watches from the wall,
Azure eyes would fain ret...

Buried in childhood's cloudless dreams, a fair-haired nursling lay,
A soft smile hovered round the lips as if still oped to pray;
And then a vision came to him, of beauty, strange and mild,
Such as may only fill the dreams of a pure sinless child.

Stood by his couch an angel fair, with radiant, glitt'ring wings
Of hues as bright as the living gems the fount to Heaven flings;
With loving smile he bent above the fair child cradled there,
While sounds of sweet seraphic power stole o'er the fragrant air.

"Child, list to me," he softly said, "on mission high I'm here:
Sent by that Glorious One to whom Heav'n bows in loving fear;
I seek thee now, whilst thou art still on the threshold of earth's strife,
To speak of what thou knowest not yet, this new and wond'rous life.

Act first, this Earth, a stage so gloom’d with woe
You all but sicken at the shifting scenes.
And yet be patient. Our Playwright may show
In some fifth Act what this wild Drama means.

Not ours, where battle smoke upcurls,
And battle dews lie wet,
To meet the charge that treason hurls
By sword and bayonet.

Not ours to guide the fatal scythe
The fleshless Reaper wields;
The harvest moon looks calmly down
Upon our peaceful fields.

The long grass dimples on the hill,
The pines sing by the sea,
And Plenty, from her golden horn,
Is pouring far and free.

O brothers by the farther sea!
Think still our faith is warm;
The same bright flag above us waves
That swathed our baby form.

The same red blood that dyes your fields
Here throbs in patriot pride,
The blood that flowed when Lander fell,
And Baker’s crimson tide.

And thus apart our hearts keep time
With every pulse ye feel,
And Mercy’s rin...

I caught this morning morning's minion, kingdom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Fal- con, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstacy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, - the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

That is work of waste and ruin
Do as Charles and I are doing!
Strawberry-blossoms, one and all,
We must spare them here are many:
Look at it the flower is small,
Small and low, though fair as any:
Do not touch it! summers two
I am older, Anne, than you.

Pull the primrose, sister Anne!
Pull as many as you can.
Here are daisies, take your fill;
Pansies, and the cuckoo-flower:
Of the lofty daffodil
Make your bed, or make your bower;
Fill your lap, and fill your bosom;
Only spare the strawberry-blossom!

Primroses, the Spring may love them
Summer knows but little of them:
Violets, a barren kind,
Withered on the ground must lie;
Daisies leave no fruit behind
When the pretty flowerets die;
Pluck them, and another year
As...

You smiled, you spoke, and I believed,
By every word and smile deceived.
Another man would hope no more;
Nor hope I what I hoped before:
But let not this last wish be vain;
Deceive, deceive me once again!

Within me are two souls that pity each
The other for the ends they seek, yet smile
Forgiveness, as two friends that love the while
The folly against which each feigns to preach.

And while one barters in the market-place,
Or drains the cup before the tavern fire,
The other, winged with a divine desire,
searches the solitary wastes of space.

And if o'ercome with pleasure this one sleeps,
The other steals away to lay its ear
Upon some lip just cold, perchance to hear
Those wondrous secrets which it knows and keeps!

Give me the wreath of friendship true,
Whose flowerets fade not in a breath:
From memory gaining many a hue,
To bloom beyond the touch of death.

And I will send it to thy home--
Thy home beloved, my faithful friend!
And pray for its perpetual bloom
And every bliss that earth can send.

Within its magic wreath I'd place
Hearts'-ease and every lovely flower;
To win thee by their matchless grace,
And cheer and bless the lonely hour.

When at the world's unkind return
Of all thy worth, and all thy care,
Thou may'st in spite of manhood turn,
And shed the sad, the bitter, tear.

Then, midst this holy grief of thine,
The thought of some true friend may bless,
And cheer the gloom like angel's smile,
Or sunbeam in a wilderness.
...

Power that is not of God, however great,
Is but the downward rushing and the glare
Of a swift meteor that hath lost its share
In the one impulse which doth animate
The parent mass: emblem to me of fate!
Which through vast nightly wastes doth onward fare,
Wild-eyed and headlong, rent away from prayer--
A moment brilliant, then most desolate!
And, O my brothers, shall we ever learn
From all the things we see continually
That pride is but the empty mockery
Of what is strong in man! Not so the stern
And sweet repose of soul which we can earn
Only through reverence and humility!

'Tis done! - I saw it in my dreams:
No more with Hope the future beams;
My days of happiness are few:
Chill'd by Misfortune's wintry blast,
My dawn of Life is overcast;
Love, Hope, and Joy, alike adieu!
Would I could add Remembrance too!

("En ce temps-là du ciel les portes.")

[Bk. I. v., December, 1822.]


The golden gates were opened wide that day,
All through the unveiled heaven there seemed to play
Out of the Holiest of Holy, light;
And the elect beheld, crowd immortal,
A young soul, led up by young angels bright,
Stand in the starry portal.

A fair child fleeing from the world's fierce hate,
In his blue eye the shade of sorrow sate,
His golden hair hung all dishevelled down,
On wasted cheeks that told a mournful story,
And angels twined him with the innocent's crown,
The martyr's palm of glory.

The virgin souls that to the Lamb are near,
Called through the clouds with voices heavenly clear,
God hath prepared a glory for thy brow,
Rest in his arms, and...

Those delicate wanderers,
The wind, the star, the cloud,
Ever before mine eyes,
As to an altar bowed,
Light and dew-laden airs
Offer in sacrifice.

The offerings arise:
Hazes of rainbow light,
Pure crystal, blue, and gold,
Through dreamland take their flight;
And 'mid the sacrifice
God moveth as of old.

In miracles of fire
He symbols forth his days;
In gleams of crystal light
Reveals what pure pathways
Lead to the soul's desire,
The silence of the height.

Lov'st thou not, Alice, with the early tide
To see the hardy Fisher hoist his mast,
And stretch his sail towards the ocean wide, -
Like God's own beadsman going forth to cast
His net into the deep, which doth provide
Enormous bounties, hidden in its vast
Bosom like Charity's, for all who seek
And take its gracious boon thankful and meek?

The sea is bright with morning, - but the dark
Seems still to linger on his broad black sail,
For it is early hoisted, like a mark
For the low sun to shoot at with his pale
And level beams: All round the shadowy bark
The green wave glimmers, and the gentle gale
Swells in her canvas, till the waters show
The keel's new speed, and whiten at the bow.

Then look abaft - (for thou canst understand
That phrase) - and...

What would I ask the kindly fates to give
    To crown her life, if I could have my way?
My strongest wishes would be negative,
    If they would but obey.

Give her not greatness.    For great souls must stand
    Alone and lonely in this little world:
Cleft rocks that show the great Creator's hand,
    Thither by earthquakes hurled.

Give her not genius.    Spare her the cruel pain
    Of finding her whole life a prey for daws;
Of hearing with quickened sense and burning brain
    The world's sneer-tinged applause.

Give her not perfect beauty's gifts.    For then
    Her truthful mirror would infuse her mind
With love for self, and for the praise of men,
    That lowers woman-kind.

But make her fair and comely to the sight,
    Giv...

Ha! snow
Upon the crags!
How slow
The winter lags
Ha, little lamb upon the crags,
How fearlessly you go!
Take care
Up there,
You little woolly atom! On and on
He goes . . . ‘tis steep . . . Hillo!
My friend is gone,
Friend orthodoxo-logical,
He could not argue with a waterfall!
And here it is, my Aber . . . Stay!
I’ll cross
This way:
The moss
Upon these stones is dripping with the spray,
And now one turn, left hand,
And I shall stand
Before the very rock: not yet . . . not yet!
O let me think ! No, no ! I don’t forget
(Forget!) but this is sacred . . . peace, then, peace!
Release
From all dead things, that serve not to present
At my soul’s grate the lovely innocent.
He had heard some idle talk
Of how his f...

"Uncovenanted Mercies" - From "Limits and Renewals" [1930]


Lo! The Wild Cow of the Desert, her yeanling estrayed from her,
Lost in the wind-plaited sand-dunes, athirst in the maze of them.
Hot-foot she follows those foot-prints, the thrice-tangled ways of them.
Her soul is shut save to one thing, the love-quest consuming her
Fearless she lows past the camp, our fires affright her not.
Ranges she close to the tethered ones, the mares by the lances held.
Noses she softly apart the veil in the women's tent.
Next, withdrawn under moonlight, a shadow afar off,
Fades. Ere men cry, "Hold her fast! darkness recovers her.
She the all-crazed and forlorn, when the dogs threaten her,
Only a side-tossed horn, as though a fly troubled her,
Shows she hath heard, till a lance in the ...

O sweet sincerity! -
Where modern methods be
What scope for thine and thee?

Life may be sad past saying,
Its greens for ever graying,
Its faiths to dust decaying;

And youth may have foreknown it,
And riper seasons shown it,
But custom cries: "Disown it:

"Say ye rejoice, though grieving,
Believe, while unbelieving,
Behold, without perceiving!"

- Yet, would men look at true things,
And unilluded view things,
And count to bear undue things,

The real might mend the seeming,
Facts better their foredeeming,
And Life its disesteeming.

February 1899.