August is gone and now this is September,
        Softer the sun in a cloudier sky;
    Yellow the leaves grow and apples grow golden,
        Blackberries ripen and hedges undress.
    Watch and you'll see the departure of summer,
        Here is the end, this the last month of all:
    Pause and look back and remember its promise,
        All that looked open and easy in May.

    Nothing will stay them, the seasons go onward,
        Lightly the bright months fly out of my hand,
    Softly the leading note calls a new octave;
        Autumn is coming and what have I done?
    Even as summer my young days go over,
        No day to pause on and nowhere to rest:
    Slowly they go but implacably onwards,
        Ah! and my dreams, alas, still they are dre...

The hope I dreamed of was a dream,
    Was but a dream; and now I wake,
Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old,
    For a dream's sake.

I hang my harp upon a tree,
    A weeping willow in a lake;
I hang my silent harp there, wrung and snapt
    For a dream's sake.

Lie still, lie still, my breaking heart;
    My silent heart, lie still and break:
Life, and the world, and mine own self, are changed
    For a dream's sake.

You who have gone gathering
Cornflowers and meadowsweet,
Heard the hazels glancing down
On September eves,
Seen the homeward rooks on wing
Over fields of golden wheat,
And the silver cups that crown
Water-lily leaves;

You who know the tenderness
Of old men at eve-tide,
Coming from the hedgerows,
Coming from the plough,
And the wandering caress
Of winds upon the woodside,
When the crying yaffle goes
Underneath the bough;

You who mark the flowing
Of sap upon the May-time,
And the waters welling
From the watershed,
You who count the growing
Of harvest and hay-time,
Knowing these the telling
Of your daily bread;

You who cherish courtesy
With your fellows at your gate,
And about your hearthstone si...

By vain affections unenthralled,
Though resolute when duty called
To meet the world's broad eye,
Pure as the holiest cloistered nun
That ever feared the tempting sun,
Did Fermor live and die.
This Tablet, hallowed by her name,
One heart-relieving tear may claim;
But if the pensive gloom
Of fond regret be still thy choice,
Exalt thy spirit, hear the voice
Of Jesus from her tomb!

"I Am The Way, The Truth, And The Life"

A face in the mist, with rain around,
clings to bare leaves frowning.
A face through the mist, convulsed,
plays stationary, perching from twigs.
A face, not knowing it, trust it is good.

Rorate Coeli desuper, et nubes pluant Justum.
Aperiatur Terra, et germinet Salvatorem.

No sudden thing of glory and fear
    Was the Lord's coming; but the dear
Slow Nature's days followed each other
To form the Saviour from his Mother
-One of the children of the year.

The earth, the rain, received the trust,
-The sun and dews, to frame the Just.
    He drew his daily life from these,
    According to his own decrees
Who makes man from the fertile dust.

Sweet summer and the winter wild,
These brought him forth, the Undefiled.
    The happy Springs renewed again
    His daily bread, the growing grain,
The food and raiment of the Child.

("Le cheval galopait toujours.")

[Bk. XV. ii. 10.]


The good steed flew o'er river and o'er plain,
Till far away, - no need of spur or rein.
The child, half rapture, half solicitude,
Looks back anon, in fear to be pursued;
Shakes lest some raging brother of his sire
Leap from those rocks that o'er the path aspire.

On the rough granite bridge, at evening's fall,
The white horse paused by Compostella's wall,
('Twas good St. James that reared those arches tall,)
Through the dim mist stood out each belfry dome,
And the boy hailed the paradise of home.

Close to the bridge, set on high stage, they meet
A Christ of stone, the Virgin at his feet.
A taper lighted that dear pardoning face,
More tender in the shade that wrapped the pla...

I have no happiness in dreaming of Brycelinde,
Nor Avalon the grass-green hollow, nor Joyous Isle,
Where one found Lancelot crazed and hid him for a while;
Nor Uladh, when Naoise had thrown a sail upon the wind;
Nor lands that seem too dim to be burdens on the heart:
Land-under-Wave, where out of the moon's light and the sun's
Seven old sisters wind the threads of the long-lived ones,
Land-of-the-Tower, where Aengus has thrown the gates apart,
And Wood-of-Wonders, where one kills an ox at dawn,
To find it when night falls laid on a golden bier.
Therein are many queens like Branwen and Guinevere;
And Niamh and Laban and Fand, who could change to an otter or fawn,
And the wood-woman, whose lover was changed to a blue-eyed hawk;
And whether I go in my dreams by woodland, or dun...

The soul should always stand ajar,
That if the heaven inquire,
He will not be obliged to wait,
Or shy of troubling her.

Depart, before the host has slid
The bolt upon the door,
To seek for the accomplished guest, --
Her visitor no more.

I would be a torch unto your hand,
A lamp upon your forehead, Labor,
In the wild darkness before the Dawn
That I shall never see...

We shall advance together, my Beloved,
Awaiting the mighty ushering...
Together we shall make the last grand charge
And ride with gorgeous Death
With all her spangles on
And cymbals clashing...
And you shall rush on exultant as I fall -
Scattering a brief fire about your feet...

Let it be so...
Better - while life is quick
And every pain immense and joy supreme,
And all I have and am
Flames upward to the dream...
Than like a taper forgotten in the dawn,
Burning out the wick.

"Happy, happy it is to be
Where the greenwood hangs o'er the dark blue sea;
To roam in the moonbeams clear and still
And dance with the elves
Over dale and hill;
To taste their cups, and with them roam
The field for dewdrops and honeycomb.
Climb then, and come, as quick as you can,
And dwell with the fairies, Elizabeth Ann!

"Never, never, comes tear or sorrow,
In the mansions old where the fairies dwell;
But only the harping of their sweet harp-strings,
And the lonesome stroke of a distant bell,
Where upon hills of thyme and heather,
The shepherd sits with his wandering sheep;
And the curlew wails, and the skylark hovers
Over the sand where the conies creep;
Climb then, and come, as quick as you can,
And dwell with the fairies, Elizabeth Ann!"

How countlessly they congregate
O'er our tumultuous snow,
Which flows in shapes as tall as trees
When wintry winds do blow!

As if with keenness for our fate,
Our faltering few steps on
To white rest, and a place of rest
Invisible at dawn,

And yet with neither love nor hate,
Those starts like some snow-white
Minerva's snow-white marble eyes
Without the gift of sight.

    (F.T.)


    The cord broke, and the tent
    Slipped, and the silken roof
    Lay prone beneath the viewless hoof
    Of the deliberate firmament.
    Yet cared we not; how should we care?
    Knowing that labourless now he breathes
    A golden paradisal air
    Where with more certain craft he wreathes
    Bright braids of words more wise and fair
    Than ever his earthly fabrics were,
    That his unwavering eyes made fresh,
    Purged and regarbed in fadeless flesh,
    What he then darkly guessed behold,
    And watch with an abiding joy
        The eternal mysteries unfold
    Which do his now transfigured songs evermore employ.

        Brother, yet great thy power;
        Thou stood'st as on a tower
    Small 'neath...

Yet in the darksome crypt I left so late,
Whose only altar is its rusted grate, -
Sepulchral, rayless, joyless as it seems,
Shamed by the glare of May's refulgent beams, -
While the dim seasons dragged their shrouded train,
Its paler splendors were not quite in vain.
From these dull bars the cheerful firelight's glow
Streamed through the casement o'er the spectral snow;
Here, while the night-wind wreaked its frantic will
On the loose ocean and the rock-bound hill,
Rent the cracked topsail from its quivering yard,
And rived the oak a thousand storms had scarred,
Fenced by these walls the peaceful taper shone,
Nor felt a breath to slant its trembling cone.

Not all unblest the mild interior scene
When the red curtain spread its falling screen;
O'er some lig...

How are thy servants blest, O Lord!
How sure is their defence!
Eternal wisdom is their guide,
Their help Omnipotence.

In foreign realms, and lands remote,
Supported by Thy care,
Through burning climes I pass'd unhurt,
And breath'd in tainted air.

Thy mercy sweeten'd every soil,
Made every region please;
The hoary Alpine hills it warm'd,
And smooth'd the Tyrrhene seas.

Thin, O my soul, devoutly think,
How, with affrighted eyes,
Thou saw'st the wide-extended deep
In all its horrors rise.

Confusion dwelt in every face,
And fear in every heart,
When waves on waves, and gulfs in gulfs,
O'ercame the pilot's art.

Yet then from all my griefs, O Lord!
Thy mercy set me free;
Whilst in the confidence of prayer,<...

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.
...

Ireland is now our royal care,
We lately fix'd our viceroy there.
How near was she to be undone,
Till pious love inspired her son!
What cannot our vicegerent do,
As poet and as patriot too?
Let his success our subjects sway,
Our inspirations to obey,
And follow where he leads the way:
Then study to correct your taste;
Nor beaten paths be longer traced.
    No simile shall be begun,
With rising or with setting sun;
And let the secret head of Nile
Be ever banish'd from your isle.
    When wretched lovers live on air,
I beg you'll the chameleon spare;
And when you'd make a hero grander,
Forget he's like a salamander.[1]
    No son of mine shall dare to say,
Aurora usher'd in the day,
Or ever name the milky-way.
You all agree, I make ...

Men said at vespers: "All is well!"
In one wild night the city fell;
Fell shrines of prayer and marts of gain
Before the fiery hurricane.

On threescore spires had sunset shone,
Where ghastly sunrise looked on none.
Men clasped each other's hands, and said
"The City of the West is dead!"

Brave hearts who fought, in slow retreat,
The fiends of fire from street to street,
Turned, powerless, to the blinding glare,
The dumb defiance of despair.

A sudden impulse thrilled each wire
That signalled round that sea of fire;
Swift words of cheer, warm heart-throbs came;
In tears of pity died the flame!

From East, from West, from South and North,
The messages of hope shot forth,
And, underneath the severing wave,
The world, full-hande...