Withered and gray as winter; gnarled and old,
With bony hands he crouches by the coals;
His beggar's coat is patched and worn in holes;
Rags are his shoes: clutched in his claw-like hold
A chest he hugs wherein he hoards his gold.
Far-heard a bell of midnight slowly tolls:
The bleak blasts shake his hut like wailing souls,
And door and window chatter with the cold.
Nor sleet nor snow he heeds, nor storm nor night.
Let the wind howl! and let the palsy twitch
His rheum-racked limbs! here 's that will make them glow
And warm his heart! here 's comfort joy and light!
How the gold glistens! Rich he is; how rich
Only the death that knocks outside shall know.

One man lights you with his ardour
one decks you in mourning, Nature!
What says to the first: ‘A Sepulchre!’
To the other cries: ‘Life and splendour!’


Unknown Hermes, who assists,
yet intimidates me as well,
you make me Midas’ equal,
the saddest of alchemists:


You help me change gold to iron,
paradise to hell’s kingdom:
in the shrouded atmosphere


I find a dear corpse, and on
the celestial shores, it’s there,
I build a mighty sepulcher.

I

The mellow smell of hollyhocks
And marigolds and pinks and phlox
Blends with the homely garden scents
Of onions, silvering into rods;
Of peppers, scarlet with their pods;
And (rose of all the esculents)
Of broad plebeian cabbages,
Breathing content and corpulent ease.

II

The buzz of wasp and fly makes hot
The spaces of the garden-plot;
And from the orchard, - where the fruit
Ripens and rounds, or, loosed with heat,
Rolls, hornet-clung, before the feet, -
One hears the veery's golden flute,
That mixes with the sleepy hum
Of bees that drowsily go and come.

III

The podded musk of gourd and vine
Embower a gate of roughest pine,
That leads into a wood where day
Sits, leaning o'er a forest pool,
Watc...

When I was in my teens,
I loved dear Margaretta:
I know not what it means,
I can not now forget her!
That vision of the past
My head is ever crazing;
Yet, when I saw her last,
I could not speak for gazing!
Oh, lingering bud of May!
Dear as when first I met her;
Worn in my heart always,
Life-cherished Margaretta!

We parted near the stile,
As morn was faintly breaking:
For many a weary mile
Oh how my heart was aching!
But distance, time, and change,
Have lost me Margaretta;
And yet 'tis sadly strange
That I can not forget her!
O queen of rural maids--
My dark-eyed Magaretta--
The heart the mind upbraids
That struggles to forget her!

My love, I know, will seem
A wayward, boyish folly;
But, ah! it was a...

Qual più diversa e nova.

HE COMPARES HIMSELF TO ALL THAT IS MOST STRANGE IN CREATION.


    Whate'er most wild and new
Was ever found in any foreign land,
If viewed and valued true,
Most likens me 'neath Love's transforming hand.
Whence the bright day breaks through,
Alone and consortless, a bird there flies,
Who voluntary dies,
To live again regenerate and entire:
So ever my desire,
Alone, itself repairs, and on the crest
Of its own lofty thoughts turns to our sun,
There melts and is undone,
And sinking to its first state of unrest,
So burns and dies, yet still its strength resumes,
And, Phoenix-like, afresh in force and beauty blooms.

Where Indian billows sweep,
A wondrous stone there is, before whose strength
Stou...

This statue of Liberty, busy man,
Here erect in the city square,
I have watched while your scrubbings, this early morning,
Strangely wistful,
And half tristful,
Have turned her from foul to fair;

With your bucket of water, and mop, and brush,
Bringing her out of the grime
That has smeared her during the smokes of winter
With such glumness
In her dumbness,
And aged her before her time.

You have washed her down with motherly care -
Head, shoulders, arm, and foot,
To the very hem of the robes that drape her -
All expertly
And alertly,
Till a long stream, black with soot,

Flows over the pavement to the road,
And her shape looms pure as snow:
I read you are hired by the City guardians -
May be yearly,
Or once merely -...

A child,
Curious and innocent,
Slips from his Nurse, and rejoicing
Loses himself in the Fair.

Thro' the jostle and din
Wandering, he revels,
Dreaming, desiring, possessing;
Till, of a sudden
Tired and afraid, he beholds
The sordid assemblage
Just as it is; and he runs
With a sob to his Nurse
(Lighting at last on him),
And in her motherly bosom
Cries him to sleep.

Thus thro' the World,
Seeing and feeling and knowing,
Goes Man:    till at last,
Tired of experience, he turns
To the friendly and comforting breast
Of the old nurse, Death.

1876

Bonny little Blue-bells
Mid young brackens green,
'Neath the hedgerows peeping
Modestly between;
Telling us that Summer
Is not far away,
When your beauties blend with
Blossoms of the May.

Sturdy, tangled hawthorns,
Fleck'd with white or red,
Whilst their nutty incense,
All around is shed.
Bonny drooping Blue-bells,
Happy you must be
With your beauties sheltered
'Neath such fragrant tree.

You need fear no rival, -
Other blossoms blown,
With their varied beauties
But enhance your own.
Steals the soft wind gently,
'Round th' enchanted spot,
Sets your bells a-ringing
Though we hear them not.

Idle Fancy wanders
As you shake and swing,
Our hearts shape the message
We would have you bring.
...

A languid atmosphere, a lazy breeze,
    With labored respiration, moves the wheat
From distant reaches, till the golden seas
    Break in crisp whispers at my feet.

My book, neglected of an idle mind,
    Hides for a moment from the eyes of men;
Or lightly opened by a critic wind,
    Affrightedly reviews itself again.

Off through the haze that dances in the shine
    The warm sun showers in the open glade,
The forest lies, a silhouette design
    Dimmed through and through with shade.

A dreamy day; and tranquilly I lie
    At anchor from all storms of mental strain;
With absent vision, gazing at the sky,
    "Like one that hears it rain."

The Katydid, so boisterous last night,
    Clinging, inverted, in uneasy poise,
Beneath...

Young love, all rainbows in the lane,
    Brushed by the honeysuckle vines,
Scattered the wild rose in a dream:
    A sweeter thing his arm entwines.

Ah, redder lips than any rose!
    Ah, sweeter breath than any bee
Sucks from the heart of any flower;
    Ah, bosom like the Summer sea!

A fairy creature made of dew
    And moonrise and the songs of birds,
And laughter like the running brook,
    And little soft, heart-broken words.

Haunted as marble in the moon,
    Her whiteness lies on young love's breast.
And living frankincense and myrrh
    Her lips that on his lips are pressed.

Her eyes are lost within his eyes,
    His eyes in hers are fathoms deep;
Death is not stiller than these twain
    That smile as in a magic...

The skies are strown with stars,
The streets are fresh with dew
A thin moon drifts to westward,
The night is hushed and cheerful.
My thought is quick with you.

Near windows gleam and laugh,
And far away a train
Clanks glowing through the stillness:
A great content's in all things,
And life is not in vain.

1877

I am the only being whose doom
No tongue would ask no eye would mourn
I never caused a thought of gloom
A smile of joy since I was born

In secret pleasure, secret tears
This changeful life has slipped away
As friendless after eighteen years
As lone as on my natal day

There have been times I cannot hide
There have been times when this was drear
When my sad soul forgot its pride
And longed for one to love me here

But those were in the early glow
Of feelings since subdued by care
And they have died so long ago
I hardly now believe they were

First melted off the hope of youth
Then Fancy's rainbow fast withdrew
And then experience told me truth
In mortal bosoms never grew

'Twas grief enough to think mankind
All...

1.

Away, ye gay landscapes, ye gardens of roses!
In you let the minions of luxury rove:
Restore me the rocks, where the snow-flake reposes,
Though still they are sacred to freedom and love:
Yet, Caledonia, belov'd are thy mountains,
Round their white summits though elements war:
Though cataracts foam 'stead of smooth-flowing fountains,
I sigh for the valley of dark Loch na Garr.


2.

Ah! there my young footsteps in infancy, wander'd:
My cap was the bonnet, my cloak was the plaid; [2]
On chieftains, long perish'd, my memory ponder'd,
As daily I strode through the pine-cover'd glade;
I sought not my home, till the day's dying glory
Gave place to the rays of the bright polar star;
For fancy was cheer'd, by traditional story,
...

The winds out of the west land blow,
My friends have breathed them there;
Warm with the blood of lads I know
Comes east the sighing air.

It fanned their temples, filled their lungs,
Scattered their forelocks free;
My friends made words of it with tongues
That talk no more to me.

Their voices, dying as they fly,
Thick on the wind are sown;
The names of men blow soundless by,
My fellows' and my own.

Oh lads, at home I heard you plain,
But here your speech is still,
And down the sighing wind in vain
You hollo from the hill.

The wind and I, we both were there,
But neither long abode;
Now through the friendless world we fare
And sigh upon the road.

How many buds in this warm light
    Have burst out laughing into leaves!
And shall a day like this be gone
    Before I seek the wood that holds
The richest music known?

Too many times have nightingales
    Wasted their passion on my sleep,
And brought repentance soon:
    But this one night I'll seek the woods,
The nightingale, and moon.

My familiar ghost again
Comes to see what he can see,
Critic, son of Conscious Brain,
Spying on our privacy.

Slam the window, bolt the door,
Yet he'll enter in and stay;
In tomorrow's book he'll score
Indiscretions of today.

Whispered love and muttered fears,
How their echoes fly about!
None escape his watchful ears,
Every sigh might be a shout.

No kind words nor angry cries
Turn away this grim spoilsport;
No fine lady's pleading eyes,
Neither love, nor hate, nor ... port.

Critics wears no smile of fun,
Speaks no word of blame nor praise,
Counts our kisses one by one,
Notes each gesture, every phrase.

My familiar ghost again
Stands or squats where suits him best;
Critic, son of Conscious Brain,
L...

Part of the work remains; one part is past:
And here my ship rides, having anchor cast.

Night waneth fast, the morning star
    Saddens with light the glimmering sea,
Whose waves shall soon to realms afar
    Waft me from hope, from love, and thee.
Coldly the beam from yonder sky
    Looks o'er the waves that onward stray;
But colder still the stranger's eye
    To him whose home is far away

Oh, not at hour so chill and bleak,
    Let thoughts of me come o'er thy breast;
But of the lost one think and speak,
    When summer suns sink calm to rest.
So, as I wander, Fancy's dream
    Shall bring me o'er the sunset seas,
Thy look in every melting beam,
    Thy whisper in each dying breeze.