When the nights are gittin' chilly and the leaves begin to fade,
An' the mercury's down to thirty, 'stead o' ninety in the shade,
There's a happy kind o' feelin' takes possession o' the soul--
With the smoke house full o' middlin', and the coal house full o' coal!

When the wintry winds are whistlin' through the branches o' the trees,
An' the dead leaves are a-flyin' and a-rustlin' in the breeze,
You kin feel the vast contentment that over you will roll--
If the barn is full o' fodder, and the coal house full o' coal!

When the 'skeeter's ceased from troublin' and the fly is chilled to death,
An' the window-pane is written with the Frost King's icy breath,
You kin dream about the Summer-time, an' that old fishin' pole--
If the pantry's full o' victuals, an' the coal house fu...

I saw him pass as the new day dawned,
Murmuring some musical phrase;
Horses were drinking and floundering in the pond,
And the tired stars thinned their gaze;
Yet these were not the spectacles at all that he conned,
But an inner one, giving out rays.

Such was the thing in his eye, walking there,
The very and visible thing,
A close light, displacing the gray of the morning air,
And the tokens that the dark was taking wing;
And was it not the radiance of a purpose rare
That might ripe to its accomplishing?

What became of that light? I wonder still its fate!
Was it quenched ere its full apogee?
Did it struggle frail and frailer to a beam emaciate?
Did it thrive till matured in verity?
Or did it travel on, to be a new young dreamer's freight,
And ...

IN MEMORY OF EVA GORE-BOOTH AND CON MARKIEWICZ

The light of evening, Lissadell,
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.
But a raving autumn shears
Blossom from the summer's wreath;
The older is condemned to death,
Pardoned, drags out lonely years
Conspiring among the ignorant.
I know not what the younger dreams --
Some vague Utopia -- and she seems,
When withered old and skeleton-gaunt,
An image of such politics.
Many a time I think to seek
One or the other out and speak
Of that old Georgian mansion, mix
pictures of the mind, recall
That table and the talk of youth,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.
Dear shadows, now you know it all,
All the folly of ...

Last night a thief came to me
    And struck at me with something dark.
I cried, but no one could hear me,
    I lay dumb and stark.

When I awoke this morning
    I could find no trace;
Perhaps 'twas a dream of warning,
    For I've lost my peace.

Skyscrapers... remote, unpartisan...
Turning neither to the right nor left
Your imperturbable fronts....
Austerely greeting the sun
With one chilly finger of stone....
I know your secrets... better than all the policemen like fat blue mullet along the avenues.

Love is maintain'd by wealth; when all is spent,
Adversity then breeds the discontent.

They dropped like flakes, they dropped like stars,
Like petals from a rose,
When suddenly across the June
A wind with fingers goes.

They perished in the seamless grass, --
No eye could find the place;
But God on his repealless list
Can summon every face.

Over the meadows, and down the stream,

And through the garden-walks straying,
He plucks the flowers that fairest seem;

His throbbing heart brooks no delaying.
His maiden then comes oh, what ecstasy!
Thy flowers thou giv'st for one glance of her eye!

The gard'ner next door o'er the hedge sees the youth:
"I'm not such a fool as that, in good truth;
My pleasure is ever to cherish each flower,
And see that no birds my fruit e'er devour.
But when 'tis ripe, your money, good neighbour!
'Twas not for nothing I took all this labour!"
And such, methinks, are the author-tribe.

The one his pleasures around him strews,

That his friends, the public, may reap, if they choose;
The other would fain make them all subscribe,

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 pe...

I broke the spell that held me long,
The dear, dear witchery of song.
I said, the poet's idle lore
Shall waste my prime of years no more,
For Poetry, though heavenly born,
Consorts with poverty and scorn.

I broke the spell, nor deemed its power
Could fetter me another hour.
Ah, thoughtless! how could I forget
Its causes were around me yet?
For wheresoe'er I looked, the while,
Was nature's everlasting smile.

Still came and lingered on my sight
Of flowers and streams the bloom and light,
And glory of the stars and sun;
And these and poetry are one.
They, ere the world had held me long,
Recalled me to the love of song.

What is a poet's love? -
To write a girl a sonnet,
To get a ring, or some such thing,
And fustianize upon it.

What is a poet's fame? -
Sad hints about his reason,
And sadder praise from garreteers,
To be returned in season.

Where go the poet's lines? -
Answer, ye evening tapers!
Ye auburn locks, ye golden curls,
Speak from your folded papers!

Child of the ploughshare, smile;
Boy of the counter, grieve not,
Though muses round thy trundle-bed
Their broidered tissue weave not.

The poet's future holds
No civic wreath above him;
Nor slated roof, nor varnished chaise,
Nor wife nor child to love him.

Maid of the village inn,
Who workest woe on satin,
(The grass in black, the graves in green,
The epitaph...

The daisy follows soft the sun,
And when his golden walk is done,
    Sits shyly at his feet.
He, waking, finds the flower near.
"Wherefore, marauder, art thou here?"
    "Because, sir, love is sweet!"

We are the flower, Thou the sun!
Forgive us, if as days decline,
    We nearer steal to Thee, --
Enamoured of the parting west,
The peace, the flight, the amethyst,
    Night's possibility!

Back to the flower-town, side by side,
The bright months bring,
New-born, the bridegroom and the bride,
Freedom and spring.

The sweet land laughs from sea to sea,
Filled full of sun;
All things come back to her, being free;
All things but one.

In many a tender wheaten plot
Flowers that were dead
Live, and old suns revive; but not
That holier head.

By this white wandering waste of sea,
Far north, I hear
One face shall never turn to me
As once this year:

Shall never smile and turn and rest
On mine as there,
Nor one most sacred hand be prest
Upon my hair.

I came as one whose thoughts half linger,
Half run before;
The youngest to the oldest singer
That England bore.

I found him whom I shal...

When I am dead a few poor souls shall grieve
As I grieved for my brother long ago.
Scarce did my eyes grow dim,
I had forgotten him;
I was far-off hearing the spring winds blow,
And many summers burned
When, though still reeling with my eyes aflame,
I heard that faded name
Whispered one Spring amid the hurrying world
From which, years gone, he turned.

I looked up at my windows and I saw
The trees, thin spectres sucked forth by the moon.
The air was very still
Above a distant hill;
It was the hour of night's full silver moon.
'O are thou there my brother?' my soul cried;
And all the pale stars down bright rivers wept,
As my heart sadly crept
About the empty hills, bathed in that light
That lapped him when he died.

Ah! it was cold...

Your trail runs to the westward,
And mine to my own place;
There is water between our lodges,
And I have not seen your face.

But since I have read your verses
'Tis easy to guess the rest,
Because in the hearts of the children
There is neither East nor West.

Born to a thousand fortunes
Of good or evil hap,
Once they were kings together,
Throned in a mother's lap.

Surely they know that secret,
Yellow and black and white,
When they meet as kings together
In innocent dreams at night.

By a moon they all can play with,
Grubby and grimed and unshod,
Very happy together,
And very near to God.

Your trail runs to the westward,
And mine to my own place:
There is water between our lodges,
And you cannot see ...

L' ultimo, lasso! de' miei giorni allegri.

HE REVERTS TO THEIR LAST MEETING.


    The last, alas! of my bright days and glad
--Few have been mine in this brief life below--
Had come; I felt my heart as tepid snow,
Presage, perchance, of days both dark and sad.
As one in nerves, and pulse, and spirits bad,
Who of some frequent fever waits the blow,
E'en so I felt--for how could I foreknow
Such near end of the half-joys I have had?
Her beauteous eyes, in heaven now bright and bless'd
With the pure light whence health and life descends,
(Wretched and beggar'd leaving me behind,)
With chaste and soul-lit beams our grief address'd:
"Tarry ye here in peace, beloved friends,
Though here no more, we yet shall there be join'd."

MACGREGOR.<...

(An epistle from a narrow-minded old gentleman to a young artist of superior intellect and intense realism.)


Your thoughts are for the poor and weak?
    Ah, no, the picturesque's your passion!
Your tongue is always in your cheek
    At poverty that's not in fashion.

You like a ploughman's rugged face,
    Or painted eyes in Piccadilly;
But bowler hats are commonplace,
    And thread-bare tradesmen simply silly.

The clerk that sings "God save the King,"
    And still believes his Tory paper,--
You hate the anæmic fool? I thought
    You loved the weak! Was that all vapour?

Ah, when you sneer, dear democrat,
    At such a shiny-trousered Tory
Because he doffs his poor old hat
    To what he thinks his country's glory,
<...

Oh banquet not in those shining bowers,
    Where Youth resorts, but come to me:
For mine's a garden of faded flowers,
    More fit for sorrow, for age, and thee.
And there we shall have our feast of tears,
    And many a cup in silence pour;
Our guests, the shades of former years,
    Our toasts to lips that bloom no more.

There, while the myrtle's withering boughs
    Their lifeless leaves around us shed,
We'll brim the bowl to broken vows,
    To friends long lost, the changed, the dead.
Or, while some blighted laurel waves
    Its branches o'er the dreary spot,
We'll drink to those neglected graves,
    Where valor sleeps, unnamed, forgot.