The Winter Wind, the wind of death,
Who knocked upon my door,
Now through the keyhole entereth,
Invisible and hoar:
He breathes around his icy breath
And treads the flickering floor.

I heard him, wandering in the night,
Tap at my windowpane;
With ghostly fingers, snowy white,
I heard him tug in vain,
Until the shuddering candlelight
Did cringe with fear and strain.

The fire, awakened by his voice,
Leapt up with frantic arms,
Like some wild babe that greets with noise
Its father home who storms,
With rosy gestures that rejoice,
And crimson kiss that warms.

Now in the hearth he sits and, drowned
Among the ashes, blows;
Or through the room goes stealing round
On cautious-creeping toes,
Deep-mantled in the drowsy sou...

Beyond the pale of memory,
In some mysterious dusky grove;
A place of shadows utterly,
Where never coos the turtle-dove,
A world forgotten of the sun:
I dreamed we met when day was done,
And marvelled at our ancient love.

Met there by chance, long kept apart,
We wandered through the darkling glades;
And that old language of the heart
We sought to speak: alas! poor shades!
Over our pallid lips had run
The waters of oblivion,
Which crown all loves of men or maids.

In vain we stammered: from afar
Our old desire shone cold and dead:
That time was distant as a star,
When eyes were bright and lips were red.
And still we went with downcast eye
And no delight in being nigh,
Poor shadows most uncomforted.

Ah, Lalage! while lif...

        I hear the beat of the unresting tide
    On either shore as swiftly on I glide
    With eager haste the narrow channel o'er,
    Which links the floods behind with those before.
    I hear behind me as I onward glide,
    Faint, farewell voices blending with the tide,
    While from beyond, now near, now far away,
    Come stronger voices chiding each delay;
    And drowning, oft, with wild, discordant burst,
    The melancholy minor of the first

"Farewell! farewell! - ye leave us far behind you!" -
    Tis thus the bright-winged Hours sigh from the Past -
"Ye leave us, and the coming ones will find you
    Still vainly dreaming they will ever last, -
Still trifling with the gifts all fresh and glowing,
    Each in its turn will scatter in your way, ...

1.

If Fate should seal my Death to-morrow,
(Though much I hope she will postpone it,)
I've held a share Joy and Sorrow,
Enough for Ten; and here I own it.


2.

I've lived, as many others live,
And yet, I think, with more enjoyment;
For could I through my days again live,
I'd pass them in the 'same' employment.


3.

That 'is' to say, with 'some exception',
For though I will not make confession,
I've seen too much of man's deception
Ever again to trust profession.


4.

Some sage 'Mammas' with gesture haughty,
Pronounce me quite a youthful Sinner -
But 'Daughters' say, "although he's naughty,
You must not check a 'Young Beginner'!"


5.

I've loved, and many damsels know...

Try to remember some details. Remember the clothing
of the one you love
so that on the day of loss you'll be able to say: last seen
wearing such-and-such, brown jacket, white hat.
Try to remember some details. For they have no face
and their soul is hidden and their crying is the same as their laughter,
and their silence and their shouting rise to one height
and their body temperature is between 98 and 104 degrees
and they have no life outside this narrow space
and they have no graven image, no likeness, no memory
and they have paper cups on the day of their rejoicing
and paper cups that are used once only.

Try to remember some details. For the world
is filled with people who were torn from their sleep with no one to mend the tear,
and unlike wild beasts they live...

Oh, straight, white road that runs to meet,
    Across green fields, the blue green sea,
You knew the little weary feet
    Of my child bride that was to be!

Her people brought her from the shore
    One golden day in sultry June,
And I stood, waiting, at the door,
    Praying my eyes might see her soon.

With eager arms, wide open thrown,
    Now never to be satisfied!
Ere I could make my love my own
    She closed her amber eyes and died.

Alas! alas! they took no heed
    How frail she was, my little one,
But brought her here with cruel speed
    Beneath the fierce, relentless sun.

We laid her on the marriage bed
    The bridal flowers in her hand,
A maiden from the ocean led
    Only, alas! to die inland.

I w...

    Fate says, and flaunts her stores of gold,
    "I'll loan you happiness untold.
    What is it you desire of me?"
    A perfect hour in which to be
    In love with life, and glad, and good,
    The bliss of being understood,
    Amid life's cares a little space
    To feast your eyes upon a face,
    The whispered word, the love-filled tone,
    The warmth of lips that meet your own,
        To-day of Fate you borrow;
        In hunger of the heart, and pain,
        In loneliness, and longing vain,
        You pay the debt to-morrow!

    Prince, let grim Fate take what she will
    Of treasures rare, of joys that thrill,
    Enact the cruel usurer's part,
    Leave empty arms and hungry heart,
    Take what she can of love and trust,

And I have thought of youth which strains
Nearer its God to rise, -
What were ambition and its pains
Were life a cowardice!

The grander souls that rose above
Thought's noblest heights to tread,
Found their endeavor in their love,
And truth behind the dead.

A secret glory in the tomb,
A night that dawns in light,
An intense presence veiled with gloom,
And not an endless night....

Nepenthe of this struggling world,
Thou who dost stay mad Care
When her fury's scourge above is curled
And we see her writhing hair!

[Clare's note:--"Scraps from my father and mother, completed."]

    Here's a sad good bye for thee, my love,
    To friends and foes a smile:
    I leave but one regret behind,
    That's left with thee the while,
    But hopes that fortune is our friend
    Already pays the toil.

    Force bids me go, your friends to please.
    Would they were not so high!
    But be my lot on land or seas,
    It matters not where by,
    For I shall keep a thought for thee,
    In my heart's core to lie.

    Winter shall lose its frost and snow,
    The spring its blossomed thorn,
    The summer all its bloom forego,
    The autumn hound and horn
    Ere I will lose that thought of thee,
    Or ever prove forsworn.

    The dove shall ...

("Dérision! que cet amour boiteux.")

[HERNANI, Act III.]


O mockery! that this halting love
That fills the heart so full of flame and transport,
Forgets the body while it fires the soul!
If but a youthful shepherd cross my path,
He singing on the way - I sadly musing,
He in his fields, I in my darksome alleys -
Then my heart murmurs: "O, ye mouldering towers!
Thou olden ducal dungeon! O how gladly
Would I exchange ye, and my fields and forests,
Mine ancient name, mine ancient rank, my ruins -
My ancestors, with whom I soon shall lie,
For his thatched cottage and his youthful brow!"
His hair is black - his eyes shine forth like thine.
Him thou might'st look upon, and say, fair youth,
Then turn to me, and think that I am old...

In my dream, methought I trod,
Yesternight, a mountain road;
Narrow as Al Sirat's span,
High as eagle's flight, it ran.

Overhead, a roof of cloud
With its weight of thunder bowed;
Underneath, to left and right,
Blankness and abysmal night.

Here and there a wild-flower blushed,
Now and then a bird-song gushed;
Now and then, through rifts of shade,
Stars shone out, and sunbeams played.

But the goodly company,
Walking in that path with me,
One by one the brink o'erslid,
One by one the darkness hid.

Some with wailing and lament,
Some with cheerful courage went;
But, of all who smiled or mourned,
Never one to us returned.

Anxiously, with eye and ear,
Questioning that shadow drear,
Never hand in token stirr...

We meet in an evil land
That is near to the gates of hell.
I wait for thy command
To serve, to speed or withstand.
And thou sayest, I do not well?

Oh Love, the flowers so red
Are only tongues of flame,
The earth is full of the dead,
The new-killed, restless dead.
There is danger beneath and o'erhead.
And I guard thy gates in fear
Of words thou canst not hear,
Of peril and jeopardy,
Of signs thou canst not see,
And thou sayest 'tis ill that I came?

When I was dead, my spirit turned
    To seek the much-frequented house:
I passed the door, and saw my friends
    Feasting beneath green orange boughs;
From hand to hand they pushed the wine,
    They sucked the pulp of plum and peach;
They sang, they jested, and they laughed,
    For each was loved of each.

I listened to their honest chat:
    Said one: 'To-morrow we shall be
Plod plod along the featureless sands,
    And coasting miles and miles of sea.'
Said one: 'Before the turn of tide
    We will achieve the eyrie-seat.'
Said one: 'To-morrow shall be like
    To-day, but much more sweet.'

'To-morrow,' said they, strong with hope,
    And dwelt upon the pleasant way:
'To-morrow,' cried they, one and all,
    While no one spoke ...

    Henry got me with child,
    Knowing that I could not bring forth life
    Without losing my own.
    In my youth therefore I entered the portals of dust.
    Traveler, it is believed in the village where I lived
    That Henry loved me with a husband's love
    But I proclaim from the dust
    That he slew me to gratify his hatred.

I.

Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.
Weep no more! oh, weep no more!
Young buds sleep in the root's white core.
Dry your eyes! oh, dry your eyes!
For I was taught in Paradise
To ease my breast of melodies,
Shed no tear.

Overhead! look overhead!
'Mong the blossoms white and red
Look up, look up! I flutter now
On this fresh pomegranate bough.
See me! 'tis this silvery bill
Ever cures the good man's ill.
Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.
Adieu, adieu, I fly adieu!
I vanish in the heaven’s blue,
Adieu, adieu!

II.

Ah! woe is me! poor silver-wing!
That I must chant thy lady's dirge,
And death to this fair haunt of spring,
Of melody, and...

    I.

    The dreary wind of night is out,
    Homeless and wandering slow;
    O'er pale seas moaning like a doubt,
    It breathes, but will not blow.

    It sighs from out the helpless past,
    Where doleful things abide;
    Gray ghosts of dead thought sail aghast
    Across its ebbing tide.

    O'er marshy pools it faints and flows,
    All deaf and dumb and blind;
    O'er moor and mountain aimless goes--
    The listless woesome wind!

    Nay, nay!--breathe on, sweet wind of night!
    The sigh is all in me;
    Flow, fan, and blow, with gentle might,
    Until I wake and see.


    II.

    The west is broken into bars
    Of orange, gold, and gray;
    Gone is the sun, fast come the stars,

The town, the churchyard, and the setting sun,
The clouds, the trees, the rounded hills all seem,
Though beautiful, cold, strange, as in a dream
I dreamed long ago, now new begun.
The short-liv'd, paly summer is but won
From winter's ague for one hour's gleam;
Through sapphire warm their stars do never beam:
All is cold Beauty; pain is never done.
For who has mind to relish, Minos-wise,
The real of Beauty, free from that dead hue
Sickly imagination and sick pride
Cast wan upon it? Burns! with honour due
I oft have honour'd thee. Great shadow, hide
Thy face; I sin against thy native skies.

O years!and age!    farewell:
Behold I go,
Where I do know
Infinity to dwell.

And these mine eyes shall see
All times, how they
Are lost i' th' sea
Of vast eternity:

Where never moon shall sway
The stars; but she,
And night, shall be
Drown'd in one endless day.