I

We cannot choose our sorrows.    One there was
Who, reverent of soul, and strong with trust,
Cried, 'God, though Thou shouldst bow me to the dust,
Yet will I praise thy everlasting laws.
Beggared, my faith would never halt or pause,
But sing Thy glory, feasting on a crust.
Only one boon, one precious boon I must
Demand of Thee, O opulent great Cause.
Let Love stay with me, constant to the end,
Though fame pass by and poverty pursue.'
With freighted hold her life ship onward sailed;
The world gave wealth, and pleasure, and a friend,
Unmarred by envy, and whose heart was true.
But ere the sun reached midday, Love had failed.

II

Then from the depths, in bitterness she cried,
'Hell is on earth, and heaven is but a dream;
And human lif...

    "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up.

    "That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have eternal life."

    St. John, 3:14, 15.


What means that cry of anguish,
That strikes the distant ear;
The loud and piercing wailing,
In desert wilds we hear?

From Israel's camp it cometh,
For Israel hath rebelled;
And these are cries of anguish,
By wrath of God impelled.

It is no common sorrow,
Extorts that bitter groan;
'Tis from the broken hearted,
And caused by sin alone.

Lo! in the far off desert,
Upon that tented ground,
Are many hundred thousands
Of weary travellers found.

In desert of Arabia,
Near forty years they roam;
...

Heart-sick of his journey was the Wanderer;
Footsore and sad was he;
And a Witch who long had lurked by the wayside,
Looked out of sorcery.

'Lift up your eyes, you lonely Wanderer,'
She peeped from her casement small;
'Here's shelter and quiet to give you rest, young man,
And apples for thirst withal.'

And he looked up out of his sad reverie,
And saw all the woods in green,
With birds that flitted feathered in the dappling,
The jewel-bright leaves between.

And he lifted up his face towards her lattice,
And there, alluring-wise,
Slanting through the silence of the long past,
Dwelt the still green Witch's eyes.

And vaguely from the hiding-place of memory
Voices seemed to cry;
'What is the darkness of one brief life-time
To ...

1.
Like the ghost of a dear friend dead
Is Time long past.
A tone which is now forever fled,
A hope which is now forever past,
A love so sweet it could not last,
Was Time long past.

2.
There were sweet dreams in the night
Of Time long past:
And, was it sadness or delight,
Each day a shadow onward cast
Which made us wish it yet might last -
That Time long past.

3.
There is regret, almost remorse,
For Time long past.
'Tis like a child's beloved corse
A father watches, till at last
Beauty is like remembrance, cast
From Time long past.

There is strange music in the stirring wind,
When lowers the autumnal eve, and all alone
To the dark wood's cold covert thou art gone,
Whose ancient trees on the rough slope reclined
Rock, and at times scatter their tresses sere.
If in such shades, beneath their murmuring,
Thou late hast passed the happier hours of spring,
With sadness thou wilt mark the fading year;
Chiefly if one, with whom such sweets at morn
Or evening thou hast shared, afar shall stray.
O Spring, return! return, auspicious May!
But sad will be thy coming, and forlorn,
If she return not with thy cheering ray,
Who from these shades is gone, far, far away.

"Ah! pity all the pangs I feel,
    If pity e'er ye knew;--
An aged father's wounds to heal,
    Thro' scenes of death I flew.

Perhaps my hast'ning steps are vain,
    Perhaps the warrior dies!--
Yet let me sooth each parting pain--
    Yet lead me where he lies."

Thus to the list'ning band she calls,
    Nor fruitless her desire,
They lead her, panting, to the walls
    That hold her captive sire.

"And is a daughter come to bless
    These aged eyes once more?
Thy father's pains will now be less--
    His pains will now be o'er!"

"My father! by this waining lamp
    Thy form I faintly trace:--
Yet sure thy brow is cold, and damp,
    And pale thy honour'd face.

In vain thy wretched child is come,
    She ...

When Cupid sees how thickly now,
The snows of Time fall o'er my brow,
Upon his wing of golden light.
He passes with an eaglet's flight,
And flitting onward seems to say,
"Fare thee well, thou'st had thy day!"

Cupid, whose lamp has lent the ray,
That lights our life's meandering way,
That God, within this bosom stealing,
Hath wakened a strange, mingled feeling.
Which pleases, though so sadly teasing,
And teases, though so sweetly pleasing!

            *            *            *            *            *

Let me resign this wretched breath
    Since now remains to me
No other balm than kindly death,
    To soothe my misery!

            *            *            *            *            *

I know thou lovest a brimming meas...

At the hole where he went in
Red-Eye called to Wrinkle-Skin.
Hear what little Red-Eye saith:
"Nag, come up and dance with death! "

Eye to eye and head to head,
(Keep the measure, Nag.)
This shall end when one is dead;
(At thy pleasure, Nag.)

Turn for turn and twist for twist,
(Run and hide thee, Nag.)
Hah! The hooded Death has missed!
(Woe betide thee, Nag!)

        On the white throat of the' useless passion
    That scorched my soul with its burning breath
        I clutched my fingers in murderous fashion,
    And gathered them close in a grip of death;
        For why should I fan, or feed with fuel,
    A love that showed me but blank despair?
        So my hold was firm, and my grasp was cruel -
    I meant to strangle it then and there!

        I thought it was dead. But with no warning,
    It rose from its grave last night, and came
        And stood by my bed till the early morning,
    And over and over it spoke your name.
        Its throat was red where my hands had held it;
    It burned my brow with its scorching breath;
        And I said, the moment my eyes beheld it,
    "A love like this can kn...

We are born at sunset and we die ere morn,
And the whole darkness of the world we know,
How can we guess its truth, to darkness born,
The obscure consequence of absent glow?
Only the stars do teach us light. We grasp
Their scattered smallnesses with thoughts that stray,
And, though their eyes look through night's complete mask,
Yet they speak not the features of the day.
Why should these small denials of the whole
More than the black whole the pleased eyes attract?
Why what it calls «worth» does the captive soul
Add to the small and from the large detract?
    So, put of light's love wishing it night's stretch,
    A nightly thought of day we darkly reach.

She did not know that she was dead,
But, when the pang was o'er,
Sat down to wait her Master's tread
Upon the Golden Floor,

With ears full-cock and anxious eye
Impatiently resigned;
But ignorant that Paradise
Did not admit her kind.

Persons with Haloes, Harps, and Wings
Assembled and reproved;
Or talked to her of Heavenly things,
But Dinah never moved.

There was one step along the Stair
That led to Heaven's Gate;
And, till she heard it, her affair
Was, she explained, to wait.

And she explained with flattened ear,
Bared lip and milky tooth,
Storming against Ithuriel's Spear
That only proved her truth!

Sudden, far down the Bridge of Ghosts
That anxious spirits clomb,
She caught that step in all the host...

The Future, and its gifts, alone we prize,
    Few joys the Present brings, and those alloy'd;
    Th' expected fulness leaves an aching void;
    But HOPE stands by, and lifts her sunny eyes
That gild the days to come. - She still relies
    The Phantom HAPPINESS not thus shall glide
    Always from life. - Alas! - yet ill betide
    Austere Experience, when she coldly tries
In distant roses to discern the thorn!
    Ah! is it wise to anticipate our pain?
    Arriv'd, it then is soon enough to mourn.
Nor call the dear Consoler false and vain,
    When yet again, shining through april-tears,
    Those fair enlight'ning eyes beam on advancing Years.

The last look is taken, the last word is said
Haste away o'er the waves, then, glad tidings to spread;
Thy Master has called thee, no longer delay,
His work it is glorious, haste, haste thee away.
Come, set the sails, mariner, now we're off shore,
Then weep for the loved ones thou leavest no more;
He is faithful who promised, thou heard'st Him declare
That all thou intrusts to his fatherly care
He will keep in the sheltering fold of his love,
Where nothing shall harm them and nothing shall move.
He will suffer no plague nigh thy dwelling to come,
And His angels shall guard thee wherever thou roam;
No weapon shall prosper that's formed against thee,
For the truth thou hast loved, shield and buckler shall be.
This the heritage is of the child of the Lord,
Of him who ...

Unfolding gazes
throw over
the little reality
surly door.
The dumb
clatter
of ripples
shudder the better life.

    Sitting in the spendthrift dark
    lilting pennies away,
    deciphering fate ... .
    The bed, a warm reach past
    the pillow
    like personal mortality in the
    incest breath of life.

    Warm stuff of dreams -
    the calender with its days mesh &
    march like soldiers
    dearly departed
    (cindered and bludgeoned)
    or the old sea-faring chest
    where all men are sailors
    past light's corner.

    Sturdy trudgeons,
    clock bursts thru the room
    mindful of time and aching,
    decaying things.

    Hallow's Eve in movements of the curtains -
    a remembered Rembrandt,
    self-portrait of the old man
    standing alone in a clammy room,
    idling the seconds, with drab

The world was in its day of peril dark
Wont to believe the dotage of fond love
From the fair Cyprian deity, who rolls
In her third epicycle, shed on men
By stream of potent radiance: therefore they
Of elder time, in their old error blind,
Not her alone with sacrifice ador'd
And invocation, but like honours paid
To Cupid and Dione, deem'd of them
Her mother, and her son, him whom they feign'd
To sit in Dido's bosom: and from her,
Whom I have sung preluding, borrow'd they
The appellation of that star, which views,
Now obvious and now averse, the sun.

I was not ware that I was wafted up
Into its orb; but the new loveliness
That grac'd my lady, gave me ample proof
That we had entered there. And as in flame
A sparkle is distinct, or voice in voice

Silent I sat, dejected, and alone,
Making in thought the public woes my own,
When, first, arose the image in my breast
Of England's sufferings by that scourge, the pest.[3]
How death, his fun'ral torch and scythe in hand,
Ent'ring the lordliest mansions of the land,
Has laid the gem-illumin'd palace low,
And level'd tribes of Nobles at a blow.
I, next, deplor'd the famed fraternal pair[4]
Too soon to ashes turn'd and empty air,    
The Heroes next, whom snatch'd into the skies
All Belgia saw, and follow'd with her sighs;
But Thee far most I mourn'd, regretted most,
Winton's chief shepherd and her worthiest boast;
Pour'd out in tears I thus complaining said--
Death, next in pow'r to Him who rules the Dead!
Is't not enough that all the wood...

The peace which others seek they find;
The heaviest storms not longest last;
Heaven grants even to the guiltiest mind
An amnesty for what is past;
When will my sentence be reversed?
I only pray to know the worst;
And wish as if my heart would burst.

O weary struggle! silent year
Tell seemingly no doubtful tale;
And yet they leave it short, and fear
And hopes are strong and will prevail.
My calmest faith escapes not pain;
And, feeling that the hope in vain,
I think that He will come again.