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, ...

What is there in those distant hills
My fancy longs to see,
That many a mood of joy instils?
Say what can fancy be?

Do old oaks thicken all the woods,
With weeds and brakes as here?
Does common water make the floods,
That's common everywhere?

Is grass the green that clothes the ground?
Are springs the common springs?
Daisies and cowslips dropping round,
Are such the flowers she brings?

*    *    *    *    *

Are cottages of mud and stone,
By valley wood and glen,
And their calm dwellers little known
Men, and but common men,

That drive afield with carts and ploughs?
Such men are common here,
And pastoral maidens milking cows
Are dwelling everywhere.

If so my fancy idly clings
To notions far away,<...

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...

When I am tired of earnest men,
    Intense and keen and sharp and clever,
Pursuing fame with brush or pen
    Or counting metal disks forever,
Then from the halls of Shadowland
    Beyond the trackless purple sea
Old Martin's ghost comes back to stand
    Beside my desk and talk to me.

Still on his delicate pale face
    A quizzical thin smile is showing,
His cheeks are wrinkled like fine lace,
    His kind blue eyes are gay and glowing.
He wears a brilliant-hued cravat,
    A suit to match his soft grey hair,
A rakish stick, a knowing hat,
    A manner blithe and debonair.

How good that he who always knew
    That being lovely was a duty,
Should have gold halls to wander through
    And should himself inhabit beauty.
How like ...

Evening was in the wood, louring with storm.
A time of drought had sucked the weedy pool
And baked the channels; birds had done with song.
Thirst was a dream of fountains in the moon,
Or willow-music blown across the water
Leisurely sliding on by weir and mill.

Uneasy was the man who wandered, brooding,
His face a little whiter than the dusk.
A drone of sultry wings flicker'd in his head.

The end of sunset burning thro' the boughs
Died in a smear of red; exhausted hours
Cumber'd, and ugly sorrows hemmed him in.

He thought: 'Somewhere there's thunder,' as he strove
To shake off dread; he dared not look behind him,
But stood, the sweat of horror on his face.

He blundered down a path, trampling on thistles,
In sudden race to leave the ghos...

    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...

I, who was always counted, they say,
Rather a bad stick any way,
Splintered all over with dodges and tricks,
Known as "the worst of the Deacon's six;"
I, the truant, saucy and bold,
The one black sheep in my father's fold,
"Once on a time," as the stories say,
Went over the hill on a winter's day -
Over the hill to the poor-house.

Tom could save what twenty could earn;
But givin' was somethin' he ne'er would learn;
Isaac could half o' the Scriptur's speak -
Committed a hundred verses a week;
Never forgot, an' never slipped;
But "Honor thy father and mother" he skipped;
So over the hill to the poor-house.

As for Susan, her heart was kind
An' good - what there was of it, mind;
Nothin' too big, an' nothin' too nice,
Nothin' she w...

        (Being the philosophy of many Soldiers.)



    Sit on the bed; I'm blind, and three parts shell,
    Be careful; can't shake hands now; never shall.
    Both arms have mutinied against me--brutes.
    My fingers fidget like ten idle brats.

    I tried to peg out soldierly--no use!
    One dies of war like any old disease.
    This bandage feels like pennies on my eyes.
    I have my medals?--Discs to make eyes close.
    My glorious ribbons?--Ripped from my own back
    In scarlet shreds. (That's for your poetry book.)

    A short life and a merry one, my brick!
    We used to say we'd hate to live dead old,--
    Yet now . . . I'd willingly be puffy, bald,
    And patriotic. Buffers catch from boys
    At least the jokes hurled ...

    We catch a glimpse of it, gaunt and gray,
    When the golden sunbeams are all abroad;
    We sober a moment, then softly say:
    The world still lies in the hand of God.

    We watch it stealthily creeping o'er
    The threshold leading to somebody's soul;
    A shadow, we cry, it cannot be more
    When faith is one's portion and Heaven one's goal.

    A ghost that comes stealing its way along,
    Affrighting the weak with its gruesome air,
    But who that is young and glad and strong
    Fears for a moment to meet Despair?

    To this heart of ours we have thought so bold
    All uninvited it comes one day -
    Lo! faith grows wan, and love grows cold,
    And the heaven of our dreams lies far away.

About the time of Michael's feast
And all his angels,
There comes a word to man and beast
By dark evangels.

Then hearing what the wild things say
To one another,
Those creatures first born of our gray
Mysterious Mother,

The greatness of the world's unrest
Steals through our pulses;
Our own life takes a meaning guessed
From the torn dulse's.

The draft and set of deep sea-tides
Swirling and flowing,
Bears every filmy flake that rides,
Grandly unknowing.

The sunlight listens; thin and fine
The crickets whistle;
And floating midges fill the shine
Like a seeding thistle.

The hawkbit flies his golden flag
From rocky pasture,
Bidding his legions never lag
Through morning's vasture.

Soon we sh...

At nine in the morning there passed a church,
At ten there passed me by the sea,
At twelve a town of smoke and smirch,
At two a forest of oak and birch,
And then, on a platform, she:

A radiant stranger, who saw not me.
I queried, "Get out to her do I dare?"
But I kept my seat in my search for a plea,
And the wheels moved on. O could it but be
That I had alighted there!

(Time Night. Scene the woods.)


Where shall I turn me? whither shall I bend
My weary way? thus worn with toil and faint
How thro' the thorny mazes of this wood
Attain my distant dwelling? that deep cry
That rings along the forest seems to sound
My parting knell: it is the midnight howl
Of hungry monsters prowling for their prey!
Again! oh save me--save me gracious Heaven!
I am not fit to die!
                Thou coward wretch
Why heaves thy trembling heart? why shake thy limbs
Beneath their palsied burden? is there ought
So lovely in existence? would'st thou drain
Even to its dregs the bitter draught of life?
Dash down the loathly bowl! poor outcast slave
Stamp'd with the brand of Vice and Infamy
Why should the villain Frederic shrink from Dea...

I

To think that men of former days
In naked truth deserved the praise
Which, fain to have in flesh and blood
An image of imagined good,
Poets have sung and men received,
And all too glad to be deceived,
Most plastic and most inexact,
Posterity has told for fact;
To say what was, was not as we,
This also is a vanity.

II

Ere Agamemnon, warriors were,
Ere Helen, beauties equalling her,
Brave ones and fair, whom no one knows,
And brave or fair as these or those.
The commonplace whom daily we
In our dull streets and houses see,
To think of other mould than these
Were Cato, Solon, Socrates,
Or Mahomet or Confutze,
This also is a vanity.

III

Hannibal, Cæsar, Charlemain,
And he before, who back on S...

Nay, Traveller! rest. This lonely Yew-tree stands
Far from all human dwelling: what if here
No sparkling rivulet spread the verdant herb?
What if the bee love not these barren boughs?
Yet, if the wind breathe soft, the curling waves,
That break against the shore, shall lull thy mind
By one soft impulse saved from vacancy.
                Who he was
That piled these stones and with the mossy sod
First covered, and here taught this aged Tree
With its dark arms to form a circling bower,
I well remember. He was one who owned
No common soul. In youth by science nursed,
And led by nature into a wild scene
Of lofty hopes, he to the world went forth
A favoured Being, knowing no desire
Which genius did not hallow; 'gainst the taint
Of dissolute tongues, and jealou...

Cold, my dear, - cold and quiet.
    In their cups on yonder lea,
Cowslips fold the brown bee's diet;
    So the moss enfoldeth thee.
"Plant me, plant me, O love, a lily flower -
    Plant at my head, I pray you, a green tree;
And when our children sleep," she sighed, "at the dusk hour,
    And when the lily blossoms, O come out to me!"

        Lost, my dear? Lost! nay deepest
    Love is that which loseth least;
        Through the night-time while thou sleepest,
    Still I watch the shrouded east.
Near thee, near thee, my wife that aye liveth,
    "Lost" is no word for such a love as mine;
Love from her past to me a present giveth,
    And love itself doth comfort, making pain divine.
        Rest, my dear, rest. Fair showeth
    That which was, ...

    All sights and sounds of every year,
All groups and forms, each leaf and gem,
Are thine, O God, nor need I fear
To speak to Thee of them.

    Too great thy heart is to despise;
Thy day girds centuries about;
From things which we count small, thine eyes
See great things looking out.

    Therefore this prayerful song I sing
May come to Thee in ordered words;
Therefore its sweet sounds need not cling
In terror to their chords.

            *            *            *            *            *

    I know that nothing made is lost;
That not a moon hath ever shone,
That not a cloud my eyes hath crost,
But to my soul hath gone.

    That all the dead years garnered lie
In this gem-casket, my dim soul;
And that thy hand m...

Through still, bare streets, and cold moonshine
    His homeward way he bent;
The clocks gave out the midnight sign
    As lost in thought he went
Along the rampart's ocean-line,
Where, high above the tossing brine,
    Seaward his lattice leant.

He knew not why he left the throng,
    Why there he could not rest,
What something pained him in the song
    And mocked him in the jest,
Or why, the flitting crowd among,
A moveless moonbeam lay so long
    Athwart one lady's breast!

He watched, but saw her speak to none,
    Saw no one speak to her;
Like one decried, she stood alone,
    From the window did not stir;
Her hair by a haunting gust was blown,
Her eyes in the shadow strangely shown,
    She looked a wanderer.

H...

There pass the careless people
That call their souls their own:
Here by the road I loiter,
How idle and alone.

Ah, past the plunge of plummet,
In seas I cannot sound,
My heart and soul and senses,
World without end, are drowned.

His folly has not fellow
Beneath the blue of day
That gives to man or woman
His heart and soul away.

There flowers no balm to sain him
From east of earth to west
That's lost for everlasting
The heart out of his breast.

Here by the labouring highway
With empty hands I stroll:
Sea-deep, till doomsday morning,
Lie lost my heart and soul.