There is no break in all the wide grey sky,
Nor light on any field, and the wind grieves,
And talks of death. Where cold grey waters lie
Round greyer stones, and the new-fallen leaves
Heap the chill hollows of the naked woods,
A lisping moan, an inarticulate cry,
Creeps far among the charnel solitudes,
Numbing the waste with mindless misery.
In these bare paths, these melancholy lands,
What dream, or flesh, could ever have been young?
What lovers have gone forth with linkèd hands?
What flowers could ever have bloomed, what birds have sung?
Life, hopes, and human things seem wrapped away,
With shrouds and spectres, in one long decay.

1.

Oh! had my Fate been join'd with thine, [1]
As once this pledge appear'd a token,
These follies had not, then, been mine,
For, then, my peace had not been broken.


2.

To thee, these early faults I owe,
To thee, the wise and old reproving:
They know my sins, but do not know
'Twas thine to break the bonds of loving.


3.

For once my soul, like thine, was pure,
And all its rising fires could smother;
But, now, thy vows no more endure,
Bestow'd by thee upon another. [1]


4.

Perhaps, his peace I could destroy,
And spoil the blisses that await him;
Yet let my Rival smile in joy,
For thy dear sake, I cannot hate him.


5.

Ah! since thy angel form ...

Cities and Thrones and Powers
Stand in Time's eye,
Almost as long as flowers,
Which daily die:
But, as new buds put forth
To glad new men,
Out of the spent and unconsidered Earth
The Cities rise again.

This season's Daffodil,
She never hears
What change, what chance, what chill,
Cut down last year's;
But with bold countenance,
And knowledge small,
Esteems her seven days' continuance,
To be perpetual.

So Time that is o'er-kind
To all that be,
Ordains us e'en as blind,
As bold as she:
That in our very death,
And burial sure,
Shadow to shadow, well persuaded, saith,
"See how our works endure!"

Thy dewy looks sink in my breast;
Thy gentle words stir poison there;
Thou hast disturbed the only rest
That was the portion of despair!
Subdued to Duty's hard control,
I could have borne my wayward lot:
The chains that bind this ruined soul
Had cankered then - but crushed it not.

I had a comrade who was my adversary; not in pursuits, nor in service, nor in love, but our views were never alike on any subject, and whenever we met, endless argument arose between us.

We argued about everything: about art, and religion, and science, about life on earth and beyond the grave, especially about life beyond the grave.

He was a person of faith and enthusiasm. One day he said to me, 'You laugh at everything; but if I die before you, I will come to you from the other world.... We shall see whether you will laugh then.'

And he did, in fact, die before me, while he was still young; but the years went by, and I had forgotten his promise, his threat.

One night I was lying in bed, and could not, and, indeed, would not sleep.

In the room it was neither dark nor light. I fell to ...

We laugh when our souls are the saddest,
We shroud all our griefs in a smile;
Our voices may warble their gladdest,
And our souls mourn in anguish the while.

And our eyes wear a summer's bright glory,
When winter is wailing beneath;
And we tell not the world the sad story
Of the thorn hidden back of the wreath.

Ah! fast flow the moments of laughter,
And bright as the brook to the sea
But ah! the dark hours that come after
Of moaning for you and for me.

Yea, swift as the sunshine, and fleeting
As birds, fly the moments of glee!
And we smile, and mayhap grief is sleeting
Its ice upon you and on me.

And the clouds of the tempest are shifting
O'er the heart, tho' the face may be bright;
And the snows of woe's winter are drifting

Half-hidden in a graveyard,
In the blackness of a yew,
Where never living creature stirs,
Nor sunbeam pierces through,

Is a tombstone green and crooked,
Its faded legend gone,
And but one rain-worn cherub's head
To sing of the unknown.

There, when the dusk is falling,
Silence broods so deep
It seems that every wind that breathes
Blows from the fields of sleep?

Day breaks in heedless beauty,
Kindling each drop of dew,
But unforsaking shadow dwells
Beneath this lonely yew.

And, all else lost and faded,
Only this listening head
Keeps with a strange unanswering smile
Its secret with the dead.

Quelle pietose rime, in ch' io m' accorsi.

TO ANTONIO OF FERRARA, WHO, IN A POEM, HAD LAMENTED PETRARCH'S SUPPOSED DEATH.


    Those pious lines wherein are finely met
Proofs of high genius and a spirit kind,
Had so much influence on my grateful mind
That instantly in hand my pen I set
To tell you that death's final blow--which yet
Shall me and every mortal surely find--
I have not felt, though I, too, nearly join'd
The confines of his realm without regret;
But I turn'd back again because I read
Writ o'er the threshold that the time to me
Of life predestinate not all was fled,
Though its last day and hour I could not see.
Then once more let your sad heart comfort know,
And love the living worth which dead it honour'd so.

MACGREGOR...

There are some qualities, some incorporate things,
That have a double life, which thus is made
A type of that twin entity which springs
From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.
There is a two-fold Silence, sea and shore,
Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,
Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces,
Some human memories and tearful lore,
Render him terrorless: his name's "No More."
He is the corporate Silence: dread him not!
No power hath he of evil in himself;
But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)
Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,
That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod
No foot of man,) commend thyself to God!

        Heap not on this mound
            Roses that she loved so well;
        Why bewilder her with roses,
            That she cannot see or smell?
        She is happy where she lies
            With the dust upon her eyes.

Tra quantunque leggiadre donne e belle.

ALL NATURE WOULD BE IN DARKNESS WERE SHE, ITS SUN, TO PERISH.


    Where'er she moves, whatever dames among,
Beauteous or graceful, matchless she below.
With her fair face she makes all others show
Dim, as the day's bright orb night's starry throng.
And Love still whispers, with prophetic tongue,--
"Long as on earth is seen that glittering brow,
Shall life have charms: but she shall cease to glow
And with her all my power shall fleet along,
Should Nature from the skies their twin-lights wrest;
Hush every breeze, each herb and flower destroy;
Strip man of reason--speech; from Ocean's breast
His tides, his tenants chase--such, earth's annoy;
Yea, still more darken'd were it and unblest,
Had she, thy Laur...

A Sense of something that is sad and strange;
Of something that is felt as death is felt,
As shadows, phantoms, in a haunted grange,
Around me seems to melt.

It rises, so it seems, from the decay
Of the dim woods; from withered leaves and weeds,
And dead flowers hanging by the woodland way
Sad, hoary heads of seeds.

And from the cricket's song, so feeble now
'T is like a sound heard in the heart, a call
Dreamier than dreams; and from the shaken bough,
From which the acorns fall.

From scents and sounds it rises, sadly slow,
This presence, that hath neither face nor form;
That in the woods sits like demented woe,
Whispering of wreck and storm.

A presence wrought of melancholy grief,
And dreams that die; that, in the streaming night,<...

(A Warning)

I saw my fellows
In Poverty Street,--
Bitter and black with life's defeat,
Ill-fed, ill-housed, of ills complete.
            And I said to myself,--
"Surely death were sweet
To the people who live in Poverty Street."

I saw my fellows
In Market Place,--
Avid and anxious, and hard of face,
Sweating their souls in the Godless race.
            And I said to myself,--
"How shall these find grace
Who tread Him to death in the Market Place?"

I saw my fellows
In Vanity Fair,--
Revelling, rollicking, debonair,
Life all a Gaudy-Show, never a care.
            And I said to myself,--
"Is there place for these
In my Lord's well-appointed policies?"

I saw my fellows
In Old Church Row,--
Hot in di...

Vago augelletto che cantando vai.

THE PLAINTIVE SONG OF A BIRD RECALLS TO HIM HIS OWN KEENER SORROW.


    Poor solitary bird, that pour'st thy lay;
Or haply mournest the sweet season gone:
As chilly night and winter hurry on,
And day-light fades and summer flies away;
If as the cares that swell thy little throat
Thou knew'st alike the woes that wound my rest.
Ah, thou wouldst house thee in this kindred breast,
And mix with mine thy melancholy note.
Yet little know I ours are kindred ills:
She still may live the object of thy song:
Not so for me stern death or Heaven wills!
But the sad season, and less grateful hour,
And of past joy and sorrow thoughts that throng
Prompt my full heart this idle lay to pour.

DACRE.


...

"O Dionysos! Dionysos! the ivy-crowned!
O let me sing thy triumph ere I die!"

Within my sleep a Maenad came to me:
A harp of crimson agate strung with gold
Wailed 'neath her waxen fingers, and her heart
'Neath the white gauze, thro' which a moonlight shone,
Kept time with its wild throbbings to her song.

"Aegeus sleeps, O Dionysos! sleeps
Pale 'neath the tumbling waves that sing his name
Eternally at my dew-glist'ning feet.
And so he died, O Dionysos! died!
O let me sing thy triumph ere I die!

"With the shrill syrinx and the kissing clang
Of silver cymbals clashed by Ethiopes swart,
O, pard-drawn youth, thou didst awake the world
To joy and pleasure with thy sunny wine!
Mad'st India bow and the dun, flooding Nile
Grow purple in the radia...

Wise men tell me thou, O Fate,
Art invincible and great.

Well, I own thy prowess; still
Dare I flout thee with my will

Thou canst shatter in a span
All the earthly pride of man.

Outward things thou canst control;
But stand back - I rule my soul!

Death?    'Tis such a little thing -
Scarcely worth the mentioning.

What has death to do with me,
Save to set my spirit free?

Something in me dwells, O Fate,
That can rise and dominate

Loss, and sorrow, and disaster, -
How, then, Fate, art thou my master?

In the great primeval morn
My immortal will was born,

Part of that stupendous Cause
Which conceived the Solar Laws,

Lit the suns and filled the seas,
Royalest of pedigrees.

The night was dark and dreary,
    And the autumn-wind went by
With a sound like Sorrow's wailing
    In its sadly mournful cry; -
The yew trees, old and drooping,
    Shook in the angry blast,
And the moon looked, pale and tearful,
    Through the clouds that hurried past.

In a dreary room and fireless,
    With mouldy walls and damp,
A grey, old man was seated
    Beside a flickering lamp; -
An old man, worn and wasted,
    With bent and shivering form,
And haggard looks, sat trembling
    At the moaning of the storm.

The casements, old and creaking,
    Shook in the angry blast;
And the pale, thin face grew paler,
    As the shrieking winds went past;
For hovering fiends seemed clutching
    His treasures from his grasp,...

(ARNOLD'S MARCH TO CANADA, 1775)


I

The trumpet, with a giant sound,
Its harsh war-summons wildly sings;
And, bursting forth like mountain-springs,
Poured from the hillside camping-ground,
Each swift battalion shouting flings
Its force in line; where you may see
The men, broad-shouldered, heavily
Sway to the swing of the march; their heads
Dark like the stones in river-beds.

Lightly the autumn breezes
Play with the shining dust-cloud
Rising to the sunset rays
From feet of the moving column.
Soft, as you listen, comes
The echo of iterant drums,
Brought by the breezes light
From the files that follow the road.
A moment their guns have glowed
Sun-smitten: then out of sight
They suddenly sink,
Like men who touch...