I

        I had forgotten how the frogs must sound
        After a year of silence, else I think
        I should not so have ventured forth alone
        At dusk upon this unfrequented road.


        II

        I am waylaid by Beauty.    Who will walk
        Between me and the crying of the frogs?
        Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass,
        That am a timid woman, on her way
        From one house to another!

A truth that has long lain buried
    At Superstition's door,
I see, in the dawn uprising
    In all its strength once more.

Hidden away in the darkness,
    By Ignorance crucified,
Crushed under stones of dogmas -
    Yet lo! it has not died.

It stands in the light transfigured,
    It speaks from the heights above,
"EACH SOUL IS ITS OWN REDEEMER;
    THERE IS NO LAW BUT LOVE."

And the spirits of men are gladdened
    As they welcome this Truth re-born
With its feet on the grave of Error
    And its eyes to the Easter Morn.

Of a thousand things that the Year snowed under -
    The busy Old Year who has gone away -
How many will rise in the Spring, I wonder,
    Brought to life by the sun of May?
Will the rose-tree branches, so wholly hidden
    That never a rose-tree seems to be,
At the sweet Spring's call come forth unbidden,
    And bud in beauty, and bloom for me?

Will the fair, green Earth, whose throbbing bosom
    Is hid like a maid's in her gown at night,
Wake out of her sleep, and with blade and blossom
    Gem her garments to please my sight?
Over the knoll in the valley yonder
    The loveliest buttercups bloomed and grew;
When the snow has gone that drifted them under,
    Will they shoot up sunward, and bloom anew?

When wild winds blew, and a sleet-storm p...

Sad thoughts, avaunt! partake we their blithe cheer
Who gathered in betimes the unshorn flock
To wash the fleece, where haply bands of rock,
Checking the stream, make a pool smooth and clear
As this we look on. Distant Mountains hear,
Hear and repeat, the turmoil that unites
Clamour of boys with innocent despites
Of barking dogs, and bleatings from strange fear.
And what if Duddon's spotless flood receive
Unwelcome mixtures as the uncouth noise
Thickens, the pastoral River will forgive
Such wrong; nor need 'we' blame the licensed joys,
Though false to Nature's quiet equipoise:
Frank are the sports, the stains are fugitive.

Stand with thy graces forth, brave man, and rise
High with thine own auspicious destinies:
Nor leave the search, and proof, till thou canst find
These, or those ends, to which thou wast design'd.
Thy lucky genius and thy guiding star
Have made thee prosperous in thy ways thus far:
Nor will they leave thee till they both have shown
Thee to the world a prime and public one.
Then, when thou see'st thine age all turn'd to gold,
Remember what thy Herrick thee foretold,
When at the holy threshold of thine house
He boded good luck to thy self and spouse.
Lastly, be mindful, when thou art grown great,
That towers high rear'd dread most the lightning's threat:
Whenas the humble cottages not fear
The cleaving bolt of Jove the thunderer.

As the lone, frighted user of a night-road
Suddenly turns round, nothing to detect,
Yet on his fear's sense keepeth still the load
Of that brink-nothing he doth but suspect;
And the cold terror moves to him more near
Of something that from nothing casts a spell,
That, when he moves, to fright more is not there,
And's only visible when invisible
So I upon the world turn round in thought,
And nothing viewing do no courage take,
But my more terror, from no seen cause got,
To that felt corporate emptiness forsake,
    And draw my sense of mystery's horror from
    Seeing no mystery's mystery alone.

Long, too long, O land,
Traveling roads all even and peaceful, you learn'd from joys and prosperity only;
But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish--advancing, grappling with direst fate, and recoiling not;
And now to conceive, and show to the world, what your children en-masse really are;
(For who except myself has yet conceiv'd what your children en-masse really are?)

Through snowy woods and shady
    We went to play a tune
To the lonely manor-lady
    By the light of the Christmas moon.

We violed till, upward glancing
    To where a mirror leaned,
We saw her airily dancing,
    Deeming her movements screened;

Dancing alone in the room there,
    Thin-draped in her robe of night;
Her postures, glassed in the gloom there,
    Were a strange phantasmal sight.

She had learnt (we heard when homing)
    That her roving spouse was dead;
Why she had danced in the gloaming
    We thought, but never said.

    Thou happy, happy elf!
(But stop, - first let me kiss away that tear) -
    Thou tiny image of myself!
(My love, he's poking peas into his ear!)
    Thou merry, laughing sprite!
    With spirits feather-light,
Untouch'd by sorrow, and unsoil'd by sin -
(Good heav'ns! the child is swallowing a pin!)

    Thou little tricksy Puck!
With antic toys so funnily bestuck,
Light as the singing bird that wings the air -
(The door! the door! he'll tumble down the stair!)

    Thou darling of thy sire!
(Why, Jane, he'll set his pinafore a-fire!)
    Thou imp of mirth and joy!
In Love's dear chain so strong and bright a link,
Thou idol of thy parents - (Drat the boy!
    There goes my ink!)

    Thou cherub - but of earth;
Fit playfellow f...

Down through the woods, along the way
That fords the stream; by rock and tree,
Where in the bramble-bell the bee
Swings; and through twilights green and gray
The redbird flashes suddenly,
My thoughts went wandering to-day.

I found the fields where, row on row,
The blackberries hang dark with fruit;
Where, nesting at the elder's root,
The partridge whistles soft and low;
The fields, that billow to the foot
Of those old hills we used to know.

There lay the pond, all willow-bound,
On whose bright face, when noons were hot,
We marked the bubbles rise; some plot
To lure us in; while all around
Our heads, - like faery fancies, - shot
The dragonflies without a sound.

The pond, above which evening bent
To gaze upon her gypsy face;

In evening as the sun goes down
She twists and dances mindlessly
Life, in her brash effrontery.
But also, when above the town

The night has risen, charming, vast,
Blessing the hungry with its peace,
Obliterating all disgrace,
The Poet tells himself: 'At last!

My spirit, like my backbone, seems
Intent on finding its repose;
The heart so full of mournful dreams,

I'll stretch out on my weary back
And roll up in your curtains, those
Consoling comforters of black!'

Look westward o'er the steaming rain-washed slopes,
    Now satisfied with sunshine, and behold
Those lustrous clouds, as glorious as our hopes,
    Softened with feathery fleece of downy gold,
    In all fantastic, huddled shapes uprolled,
Floating like dreams, and melting silently,
In the blue upper regions of pure sky.


The eye is filled with beauty, and the heart
    Rejoiced with sense of life and peace renewed;
And yet at such an hour as this, upstart
    Vague myriad longing, restless, unsubdued,
    And causeless tears from melancholy mood,
Strange discontent with earth's and nature's best,
Desires and yearnings that may find no rest.

I saw a light on yester-night
A low light on the misty lea;
The stars were dim and silence grim
Sat brooding on the sullen sea.

From out the silence came a voice
A voice that thrilled me through and through,
And said, "Alas, is this your choice?
For he is false and I was true."

And in my ears the passing years
Will sadly whisper words of rue:
Forget and yet can I forget
That one was false and one was true?

These few brief lines, my reverend friend,
By a safe, private hand I send
(Fearing lest some low Catholic wag
Should pry into the Letter-bag),
To tell you, far as pen can dare
How we, poor errant martyrs, fare;--
Martyrs, not quite to fire and rack,
As Saints were, some few ages back.
But--scarce less trying in its way--
To laughter, wheresoe'er we stray;
To jokes, which Providence mysterious
Permits on men and things so serious,
Lowering the Church still more each minute,
And--injuring our preferment in it.

Just think, how worrying 'tis, my friend,
To find, where'er our footsteps bend,
    Small jokes, like squibs, around us whizzing;
And bear the eternal torturing play
Of that great engine of our day,
    Unknown to the Inquisition--quiz...

How does the Autumn in her mind conclude
The tragic masque her frosty pencil writes,
Broad on the pages of the days and nights,
In burning lines of orchard, wold, and wood?
What lonelier forms, that at the year's door stood
At spectral wait, with wildly wasted lights
Shall enter? and with melancholy rites
Inaugurate their sadder sisterhood?
Sorrow, who lifts a signal hand, and slow
The green leaf fevers, falling ere it dies;
Regret, whose pale lips summon, and gaunt Woe
Wakes the wild-wind harps with sonorous sighs;
And Sleep, who sits with poppied eyes and sees
The earth and sky grow dream-accessories.

    There lies the trail to Sunnydale,
    Amid the lure of laughter.
    Oh, how can we unhappy be
    Beneath its leafy rafter!
    Each perfect hour is like a flower,
    Each day is like a posy.
    How can you say the skies are grey?
    You're wrong, my friend, they're rosy.

    With right good will let's climb the hill,
    And leave behind all sorrow.
    Oh, we'll be gay! a bright to-day
    Will make a bright to-morrow.
    Oh, we'll be strong! the way is long
    That never has a turning;
    The hill is high, but there's the sky,
    And how the West is burning!

    And if through chance of circumstance
    We have to go bare-foot, sir,
    We'll not repine - a friend of mine
    Has got no feet to boot, sir.
    Thi...

Not all thy flushing suns are set,
Herrick, as yet;
Nor doth this far-drawn hemisphere
Frown and look sullen ev'rywhere.
Days may conclude in nights, and suns may rest
As dead within the west;
Yet, the next morn, regild the fragrant east.

Alas ! for me, that I have lost
E'en all almost;
Sunk is my sight, set is my sun,
And all the loom of life undone:
The staff, the elm, the prop, the shelt'ring wall
Whereon my vine did crawl,
Now, now blown down; needs must the old stock fall.

Yet, Porter, while thou keep'st alive,
In death I thrive:
And like a phoenix re-aspire
From out my nard and fun'ral fire;
And as I prune my feathered youth, so I
Do mar'l how I could die
When I had thee, my chief preserver, by.

I'm up, I'm up, ...

    The Dreamer visioned Life as it might be,
    And from his dream forthright a picture grew,
    A painting all the people thronged to see,
    And joyed therein - till came the Man Who Knew,
    Saying: "'Tis bad! Why do ye gape, ye fools!
    He painteth not according to the schools."

    The Dreamer probed Life's mystery of woe,
    And in a book he sought to give the clue;
    The people read, and saw that it was so,
    And read again - then came the Man Who Knew,
    Saying: "Ye witless ones! this book is vile:
    It hath not got the rudiments of style."

    Love smote the Dreamer's lips, and silver clear
    He sang a song so sweet, so tender true,
    That all the market-place was thrilled to hear,
    And listened rapt - till came the Man W...