The boat cast loose her moorings;
"Good-by" was all we said.
"Good-by, Old World," we said with a smile,
And never looked back as we sped,
A shining wake of foam behind,
To the heart of the sunset red.

Heavily drove our plunging keel
The warring waves between;
Heavily strove we night and day,
Against the west-wind keen,
Bent, like a foe, to bar our path,--
A foe with an awful mien.

Never a token met our eyes
From the dear land far away;
No storm-swept bird, no drifting branch,
To tell us where it lay.
Wearily searched we, hour by hour,
Through the mist and the driving spray,

Till, all in a flashing moment,
The fog-veils rent and flew,
And a blithesome south-wind caught the sails
And whistled the cordage through,
...

We meet in peace, though from our native East
The sun that sparkles on our birthday feast
Glanced as he rose on fields whose dews were red
With darker tints than those Aurora spread.
Though shorn his rays, his welcome disk concealed
In the dim smoke that veiled each battlefield,
Still striving upward, in meridian pride,
He climbed the walls that East and West divide,
Saw his bright face flashed back from golden sand,
And sapphire seas that lave the Western land.

Strange was the contrast that such scenes disclose
From his high vantage o’er eternal snows;
There War’s alarm the brazen trumpet rings
Here his love-song the mailed cicala sings;
There bayonets glitter through the forest glades
Here yellow cornfields stack their peaceful blades;
There the deep t...

A radiance in the midnight sky
No white moon gave, nor yellow star;
We thought its red glow mounted high
Where fire and forest fought afar,

Half questioning if the township blazed,
Perchance, beyond the boundary hill;
Then, finding what it was, we gazed
And wondered till we shivered chill.

And Fancy showed the sister-glow
Of our Aurora, sending lines
Of lustre forth to tint the snow
That lodges in Norwegian pines.

And South and North alternate swept
In vision past us, to and fro;
While stealthy winds of midnight crept
About us, whispering fast and low.

The North, whose star burns steadily,
High set in heaven long ago:
The South, new-risen on the sea,
A tremulous horizon-glow.

We mused, “Shall there be gallant g...

Introduction To A Collection Of Poems By different Authors

An usher standing at the door
I show my white rosette;
A smile of welcome, nothing more,
Will pay my trifling debt;
Why should I bid you idly wait
Like lovers at the swinging gate?

Can I forget the wedding guest?
The veteran of the sea?
In vain the listener smites his breast, -
"There was a ship," cries he!
Poor fasting victim, stunned and pale,
He needs must listen to the tale.

He sees the gilded throng within,
The sparkling goblets gleam,
The music and the merry din
Through every window stream,
But there he shivers in the cold
Till all the crazy dream is told.

Not mine the graybeard's glittering eye
That held his captive still
To hold my silent prisone...

We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly! - yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.

We rest. - A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise. - One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:

It is the same! - For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.

NOTES:
_15 may 1816; can Lo...

Plain Tales From the Hills

Look, you have cast out Love! What Gods are these
You bid me please?
The Three in One, the One in Three?Not so!
To my own Gods I go.
It may be they shall give me greater ease
Than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities.
- Lispeth.

When the earth was sick and the skies were grey,
And the woods were rotted with rain,
The Dead Man rode through the autumn day
To visit his love again.

His love she neither saw nor heard,
So heavy was her shame;
And tho' the babe within her stirred
She knew not that he came.
- The Other Man.

Cry "Murder" in the market-place, and each
Will turn upon his neighbour anxious eyes
Asking: "Art thou the man?" We hunted Cain
Some centuries ago across the world.
This ...

Now when the primrose makes a splendid show,
And lilies face the March-winds in full blow,
And humbler growths as moved with one desire
Put on, to welcome spring, their best attire,
Poor Robin is yet flowerless; but how gay
With his red stalks upon this sunny day!
And, as his tufts of leaves he spreads, content
With a hard bed and scanty nourishment,
Mixed with the green, some shine not lacking power
To rival summer's brightest scarlet flower;
And flowers they well might seem to passers-by
If looked at only with a careless eye;
Flowers or a richer produce (did it suit
The season) sprinklings of ripe strawberry fruit.
But while a thousand pleasures come unsought,
Why fix upon his wealth or want a thought?
Is the string touched in prelude to a lay
Of pretty...

FOUNDED ON AN ANECDOTE OF THE FIRST FRENCH REVOLUTION.


Johnny had a golden head
Like a golden mop in blow,
Right and left his curls would spread
In a glory and a glow,
And they framed his honest face
Like stray sunbeams out of place.

Long and thick, they half could hide
How threadbare his patched jacket hung;
They used to be his Mother's pride;
She praised them with a tender tongue,
And stroked them with a loving finger
That smoothed and stroked and loved to linger.

On a doorstep Johnny sat,
Up and down the street looked he;
Johnny did not own a hat,
Hot or cold tho' days might be;
Johnny did not own a boot
To cover up his muddy foot.

Johnny's face was pale and thin,
Pale with hunger and with crying;
For h...

I would to God that mine old age might have
Before my last, but here a living grave,
Some one poor almshouse; there to lie, or stir
Ghostlike, as in my meaner sepulchre;
A little piggin and a pipkin by,
To hold things fitting my necessity,
Which rightly used, both in their time and place,
Might me excite to fore and after-grace.
Thy Cross, my Christ, fix'd 'fore mine eyes should be,
Not to adore that, but to worship Thee.
So, here the remnant of my days I'd spend,
Reading Thy Bible, and my Book; so end.

Once, methought, in the night hours cold,

That I saw the moon in my sleep;
But as soon as I waken'd, behold

Unawares rose the sun from the deep.

THAT Suleika's love was so strong

For Joseph, need cause no surprise;

He was young, youth pleaseth the eyes,

He was fair, they say, beyond measure

Fair was she, and so great was their pleasure.
But that thou, who awaitedst me long,
Youthful glances of fire dost throw me,
Soon wilt bless me, thy love now dost show me,
This shall my joyous numbers proclaim,
Thee I for ever Suleika shall name.

                    1815.
-
Suleika Name. - Book Of Suleika. HATEM.

NOT occasion makes the thief;

She's the greatest of the whole;
For Love's relics, to my ...

What shall I be?--I will be a knight
    Walled up in armour black,
With a sword of sharpness, a hammer of might.
    And a spear that will not crack--
So black, so blank, no glimmer of light
    Will betray my darkling track.

Saddle my coal-black steed, my men,
    Fittest for sunless work;
Old Night is steaming from her den,
    And her children gather and lurk;
Bad things are creeping from the fen,
    And sliding down the murk.

Let him go!--let him go! Let him plunge!--Keep away!
    He's a foal of the third seal's brood!
Gaunt with armour, in grim array
    Of poitrel and frontlet-hood,
Let him go, a living castle, away--
    Right for the evil wood.

I and Ravenwing on the course,
    Heavy in fighting gear--
Woe to t...

    Most sweet, most powerful,
    Controller of my inmost soul;
    The terrible, yet precious gift
    Of heaven, companion kind
    Of all my days of misery,
    O thought, that ever dost recur to me;

    Of thy mysterious power
    Who speaketh not? Who hath not felt
    Its subtle influence?
    Yet, when one is by feeling deep impelled
    Its secret joys and sorrows to unfold,
    The theme seems ever new however old.

    How isolated is my mind,
    Since thou in it hast come to dwell!
    As by some magic spell,
    My other thoughts have all,
    Like lightning, disappeared;
    And thou, alone, like some huge tower,
    In a deserted plain,
    Gigantic, solitary, dost remain.

    How worthless quite,
    S...

    Men sought, ambition's thirst to slake,
    The lost elixir old
    Whose magic touch should instant make
    The meaner metals gold.

    A nobler alchymy is thine
    Which love from pain doth press:
    Gold in thy hand becomes divine,
    Grows truth and tenderness.

Come, tell me where the maid is found.
    Whose heart can love without deceit,
And I will range the world around,
    To sigh one moment at her feet.

Oh! tell me where's her sainted home,
    What air receives her blessed sigh,
A pilgrimage of years I'll roam
    To catch one sparkle of her eye!

And if her cheek be smooth and bright,
    While truth within her bosom lies,
I'll gaze upon her morn and night,
    Till my heart leave me through my eyes.

Show me on earth a thing so rare,
    I'll own all miracles are true;
To make one maid sincere and fair,
    Oh, 'tis the utmost Heaven can do!

Bright are the countless isles which crest
With waving woods wide Huron's breast,--
Her countless isles, that love too well
The crystal waters whence they rise,
Far from her azure depths to swell,
Or wanton with the wooing skies;

Nor, jealous, soar to keep the Day
From laughing in each rippling bay,
But floating on the flood they love,
Soft whispering, kiss her breast, and seek
No passions of the air above,
No fires that burn the thunder-peak.

Algoma o'er Ontario throws
Fair forest heights and mountain snows;
Strong Erie shakes the orchard plain
At great Niagara's defiles,
And river-gods o'er Lawrence reign,
But Love is king in Huron's isles.

    I see the work of others, and my heart
    Sinks as my own achievement I compare.
    I will not be irresolute, nor despair,
    But battle strongly for my struggling art

    Convinced against conviction that my part
    Equally with my masters I can bear;
    Although their monuments are very fair,
    Enriched with statues, and I stand apart

    And gaze upon my little heap of stones
    Which I was given to build with, very few
    As yet laid into place, but I will lay

    Blind to these marble monuments and thrones,
    Building as though I confidently knew
    My ultimate end,, a stone in place each day.

Fashion! Lovely Dame!
Pledge in sparkling wine!
Let us add her name
To the Muses' nine!

Though the lovely Nin
All should pass away
Why should Woman pine,
If but Fashion stay?

Tho' the Muses' lore
Molder on the shelf,
Still may She adore
In Fashion's glass--Herself.

Immortal Love, forever full,
Forever flowing free,
Forever shared, forever whole,
A never-ebbing sea!

Our outward lips confess the name
All other names above;
Love only knoweth whence it came
And comprehendeth love.

Blow, winds of God, awake and blow
The mists of earth away!
Shine out, O Light Divine, and show
How wide and far we stray!

Hush every lip, close every book,
The strife of tongues forbear;
Why forward reach, or backward look,
For love that clasps like air?

We may not climb the heavenly steeps
To bring the Lord Christ down
In vain we search the lowest deeps,
For Him no depths can drown.

Nor holy bread, nor blood of grape,
The lineaments restore
Of Him we know in outward shape
And in the...