"With a cold and wintry noon-light.
On its roofs and steeples shed,
Shadows weaving with t e sunlight
From the gray sky overhead,
Broadly, vaguely, all around me, lies the half-built town outspread.
Through this broad street, restless ever,
Ebbs and flows a human tide,
Wave on wave a living river;
Wealth and fashion side by side;
Toiler, idler, slave and master, in the same quick current glide.
Underneath yon dome, whose coping
Springs above them, vast and tall,
Grave men in the dust are groping.
For the largess, base and small,
Which the hand of Power is scattering, crumbs which from its table fall.
Base of heart! They vilely barter
Honor's wealth for party's place;
Step by step on Freedom's charter
Leaving footprints of disgrace;
For to-day's ...

If after rude and boisterous seas
My wearied pinnace here finds ease;
If so it be I've gain'd the shore,
With safety of a faithful oar;
If having run my barque on ground,
Ye see the aged vessel crown'd;
What's to be done?but on the sands
Ye dance and sing, and now clap hands.
The first act's doubtful, but (we say)
It is the last commends the Play.

Many years have I still to burn, detained
Like a candle flame on this body; but I enshrine
A darkness within me, a presence which sleeps contained
In my flame of living, her soul enfolded in mine.

And through these years, while I burn on the fuel of life,
What matter the stuff I lick up in my living flame,
Seeing I keep in the fire-core, inviolate,
A night where she dreams my dreams for me, ever the same.

Not long ago, I prayed for dying grace,
For then I thought to see Thee face to face.

And now I ask (Lord, 'tis a weakling's cry)
That Thou wilt give me grace to live, not die.

Such foolish prayers! I know. Yet pray I must.
Lord help me -- help me not to see the dust!

And not to nag, nor fret because the blind
Hangs crooked, and the curtain sags behind.

But, oh! The kitchen cupboards! What a sight!
'T'will take at least a month to get them right.

And that last cocoa had a smoky taste,
And all the milk has boiled away to waste!

And -- no, I resolutely will not think
About the saucepans, nor about the sink.

These light afflictions are but temporal things --
To rise above them, wilt Thou lend me wings?

Then I shall s...

I know the garden-close of sin,
    The cloying fruits, the noxious flowers,
    I long have roamed the walks and bowers,
Desiring what no man shall win:

A secret place to shelter in,
    When soon or late the angry powers
    Come down to seek the wretch who cowers,
Expecting judgment to begin.

The pleasure long has passed away
    From flowers and fruit, each hour I dread
            My doom will find me where I lie.
I dare not go, I dare not stay.
    Without the walks, my hope is dead,
            Within them, I myself must die.

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 bred the fear our own misdeeds maintain
To-day.

Of all the wind-blown dust of faces fair,
Had I a god's re-animating breath,
Thee, like a perfumed torch in the dim air
Lethean and the eyeless halls of death,
Would I relume; the cresset of thine hair,
Furiously bright, should stream across the gloom,
And thy deep violet eyes again should bloom.

Methinks that but a pinch of thy wild dust,
Blown back to flame, would set our world on fire;
Thy face amid our timid counsels thrust
Would light us back to glory and desire,
And swords flash forth that now ignobly rust;
Maenad and Muse, upon thy lips of flame.
Madness too wise might kiss a clod to fame.

Like musk the charm of thee in the gray mould
That lies on by-gone traffickings of state,
Transformed a moment by that head of gold,
Touching the pal...

Upon his sculptured judgment throne the Roman Ruler sate;
His glittering minions stood around in all their gorgeous state;
But proud as were the noble names that flashed upon each shield -
Names known in lofty council halls as well as tented field -
None dared approach to break the spell of deep and silent gloom
That hover'd o'er his haughty brow, like shadow of the tomb.

While still he mused the air was rent with loud and deaf'ning cry,
And angry frown and darker smile proclaimed the victim nigh.
No traitor to his native land, no outlaw fierce was there,
'Twas but a young and gentle girl, as opening rose bud fair,
Who stood alone among those men, so dark and full of guile,
And yet her cheek lost not its bloom, her lips their gentle smile.

At length he spoke, that rut...

THE husband's dire mishap, and silly maid,
In ev'ry age, have proved the fable's aid;
The fertile subject never will be dry:
'Tis inexhaustible, you may rely.
No man's exempt from evils such as these: -
Who thinks himself secure, but little sees.
One laughs at sly intrigues who, ere 'tis long,
May, in his turn, be sneered at by the throng:
With such vicissitudes, to be cast down,
Appears rank nonsense worthy Folly's crown.
He, whose adventures I'm about to write,
In his mischances, - found what gave delight.

A CERTAIN Citizen, with fortune large,
When settled with a handsome wife in charge,
Not long attended for the marriage fruit:
The lady soon put matters 'yond dispute;
Produced a girl at first, and then a boy,
To fill th' expecting parent's breas...

The moon is broken in twain, and half a moon
Before me lies on the still, pale floor of the sky;
The other half of the broken coin of troth
Is buried away in the dark, where the still dead lie.
They buried her half in the grave when they laid her away;
I had pushed it gently in among the thick of her hair
Where it gathered towards the plait, on that very last day;
And like a moon in secret it is shining there.

My half shines in the sky, for a general sign
Of the troth with the dead I pledged myself to keep;
Turning its broken edge to the dark, it shines indeed
Like the sign of a lover who turns to the dark of sleep.
Against my heart the inviolate sleep breaks still
In darkened waves whose breaking echoes o'er
The wondering world of my wakeful day, till I'm lost

ON WHICH THE JEWS WERE FORCED TO ATTEND AN ANNUAL CHRISTIAN SERMON IN ROME.

[“Now was come about Holy-Cross Day, and now must my lord preach his first sermon to the Jews: as it was of old cared for in tine merciful bowels of the Church, that, so to speak, a crumb at least from her conspicuous table here in Rome should be, though but once yearly, cast to the famishing dogs, under-trampled and bespitten-upon beneath the feet of the guests. And a moving sight in truth, this, of so many of the besotted blind restif and ready-to-perish Hebrews! now maternally brought, nay (for He saith, ‘Compel them to come in’) haled, as it were, by the head and hair, and against their obstinate hearts, to partake of the heavenly grace. What awakening, what striving with tears, what working of a yeasty conscience! Nor was my lord wanting ...