Are friends delight or pain?
Could bounty but remain
Riches were good.

But if they only stay
Bolder to fly away,
Riches are sad.

Now that we've done our best and worst, and parted,
I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend.
(O heart, I do not dare go empty-hearted)
I'll think of Love in books, Love without end;
Women with child, content; and old men sleeping;
And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain;
And babes that weep, and so forget their weeping;
And the young heavens, forgetful after rain;
And evening hush, broken by homing wings;
And Song's nobility, and Wisdom holy,
That live, we dead. I would think of a thousand things,
Lovely and durable, and taste them slowly,
One after one, like tasting a sweet food.
I have need to busy my heart with quietude.

I.

Titan! to whose immortal eyes
The sufferings of mortality,
Seen in their sad reality,
Were not as things that gods despise;
What was thy pity's recompense?[65]
A silent suffering, and intense;
The rock, the vulture, and the chain,
All that the proud can feel of pain,
The agony they do not show,
The suffocating sense of woe,
Which speaks but in its loneliness,
And then is jealous lest the sky
Should have a listener, nor will sigh
Until its voice is echoless.

II.

Titan! to thee the strife was given
Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot kill;
And the inexorable Heaven,[66]
And the deaf tyranny of Fate,
The ruling principle of Hate,
Which for its pleasure doth cr...

    "Alas! how oft does goodness wound itself!
    And sweet affection prove the spring of woe."

Home.


I.

    O thou pale orb, that silent shines,
        While care-untroubled mortals sleep!
    Thou seest a wretch who inly pines,
        And wanders here to wail and weep!
    With woe I nightly vigils keep,
        Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam,
    And mourn, in lamentation deep,
        How life and love are all a dream.

II.

    A joyless view thy rays adorn
        The faintly marked distant hill:
    I joyless view thy trembling horn,
        Reflected in the gurgling rill:
    My fondly-fluttering heart, be still:
        Thou busy pow'r, Remembrance, cease!
    Ah! must the agonizing thrill
    ...

Rest, rest - there is no rest,
Until the quiet grave
Comes with its narrow arch
The heart to save
From life's long cankering rust,
From torpor, cold and still -
The loveless, saddened dust,
The jaded will.

And yet, be far the hour
Whose haven calls me home;
Long be the arduous day
Till evening come;
What sureness now remains
But that through livelong strife
Only the loser gains
An end to life?

Then in the soundless deep
Of even the shallowest grave
Childhood and love he'll keep,
And his soul save;
All vext desire, all vain
Cries of a conflict done
Fallen to rest again;
Death's refuge won.

A tender child of summers three,
Seeking her little bed at night,
Paused on the dark stair timidly.
"Oh, mother! Take my hand," said she,
"And then the dark will all be light."

We older children grope our way
From dark behind to dark before;
And only when our hands we lay,
Dear Lord, in Thine, the night is day,
And there is darkness nevermore.

Reach downward to the sunless days
Wherein our guides are blind as we,
And faith is small and hope delays;
Take Thou the hands of prayer we raise,
And let us feel the light of Thee

How the sumac banners bent, dripping as if with blood,
What a mournful presence brooded upon the slumbrous air;
A mocking-bird screamed noisily in the depth of the silent wood,
And in my heart was crying the raven of despair,
Thrilling my being through with its bitter, bitter cry -
"It were better to die, it were better to die."

For she, my love, my fate, she sat by my side
On a fallen oak, her cheek all flushed with a bashful shame,
Telling me what her innocent heart had hid -
"For was not I her brother, her dear brother, all but in name."
I listened to her low words, but turned my face away -
Away from her eyes' soft light, and the mocking light of the day.

"He was noble and proud," she said, "and had chosen her from all
The haughty ladies, and great; she didn'...

How will Christ come back again,
How will He be seen, and where,
    Where His chosen way?
Will He come in dead of night,
Shining in His robes of light,
    Or at dawn of day?

Will it be at Christmas time,
When the bells are all achime,
    That He is re-born?
Or will He return and bring
Wide and wondrous wakening
    On some Easter morn?

When will this sad world rejoice,
Listening to that golden voice
    Speaking unto men?
Lives there one who yet shall cry
Loud to startled passers-by -
    'Christ has come again?'

List the answer - Christ is here!
Seek and you shall find him near -
    Dwelling on the earth.
By the world's awakened thought,
This great miracle is wrought,
    This the second birth.

Beauty walked over the hills and made them bright.
She in the long fresh grass scattered her rains
Sparkling and glittering like a host of stars,
But not like stars cold, severe, terrible.
Hers was the laughter of the wind that leaped
Arm-full of shadows, flinging them far and wide.
Hers the bright light within the quick green
Of every new leaf on the oldest tree.
It was her swimming made the river run
Shining as the sun;
Her voice, escaped from winter's chill and dark,
Singing in the incessant lark....
All this was hers--yet all this had not been
Except 'twas seen.
It was my eyes, Beauty, that made thee bright;
My ears that heard, the blood leaping in my veins,
The vehemence of transfiguring thought--
Not lights and shadows, birds, grasses and rains--

The World hath set its heavy yoke
Upon the old white-bearded folk
Who strive to please the King.
God's mercy is upon the young,
God's wisdom in the baby tongue
That fears not anything.

When thy heart, love-filled, grows graver,
    And eternal bliss looks nearer,
Ask thy heart, nor show it favour,
    Is the gift or giver dearer?

Love, love on; love higher, deeper;
    Let love's ocean close above her;
Only, love thou more love's keeper,
    More, the love-creating lover.

What shall be done for sorrow
With love whose race is run?
Where help is none to borrow,
What shall be done?

In vain his hands have spun
The web, or drawn the furrow:
No rest their toil hath won.

His task is all gone thorough,
And fruit thereof is none:
And who dare say to-morrow
What shall be done?

Good. I have done. My heart weighs. I am sad.
The outer day, void statue of lit blue,
Is altogether outward, other, glad
At mere being not-I (so my aches construe).
I, that have failed in everything, bewail
Nothing this hour but that I have bewailed,
For in the general fate what is't to fail?
Why, fate being past for Fate, 'tis but to have failed.
Whatever hap-or stop, what matters it,
Sith to the mattering our will bringeth nought?
With the higher trifling let us world our wit,
Conscious that, if we do't, that was the lot
    The regular stars bound us to, when they stood
    Godfathers to our birth and to our blood.

Last night, just as the tints of autumn’s sky
Of sunset faded from our hills and streams,
I sat, vague listening, lapped in twilight dreams,
To the leaf’s rustle, and the cricket’s cry.

Then, like that basket, flush with summer fruit,
Dropped by the angels at the Prophet’s foot,
Came, unannounced, a gift of clustered sweetness,
Full-orbed, and glowing with the prisoned beams
Of summery suns, and rounded to completeness
By kisses of the south-wind and the dew.
Thrilled with a glad surprise, methought I knew
The pleasure of the homeward-turning Jew,
When Eshcol’s clusters on his shoulders lay,
Dropping their sweetness on his desert way.

I said, “This fruit beseems no world of sin.
Its parent vine, rooted in Paradise,
O’ercrept the wall, and never pai...

Between the erect and solemn trees
I will go down upon my knees;
    I shall not find this day
    So meet a place to pray.

Haply the beauty of this place
May work in me an answering grace,
    The stillness of the air
    Be echoed in my prayer.

The worshipping trees arise and run,
With never a swerve, towards the sun;
    So may my soul's desire
    Turn to its central fire.

With single aim they seek the light,
And scarce a twig in all their height
    Breaks out until the head
    In glory is outspread.

How strong each pillared trunk; the bark
That covers them, how smooth; and hark,
    The sweet and gentle voice
    With which the leaves rejoice!

May a like strength and sweetness fill
Desire, and thoug...

        I care not what his name for God may be,
            Nor what his wisdom holds of heaven and hell,
            The alphabet whereby he strives to spell
        His lines of life, nor where he bends his knee,
        Since, with his grave before him, he can see
            White Peace above it, while the churchyard bell
            Poised in its tower, poised now, to boom his knell,
        Seems but the waiting tongue of liberty.

        For names and knowledge, idle breed of breath,
            And cant and creed, the progeny of strife,
            Thronging the safe, companioned streets of life,
        Shrink trembling from the cold, clear eye of death,
            And learn too late why dying lips can smile:
            That goodness is the only creed worth...

HERMANN AND DOROTHEA.

So tow'rd the sun, now fast sinking to rest, the two walk'd together,
Whilst he veil'd himself deep in clouds which thunder portended.
Out-of his veil now here, now there, with fiery glances
Beaming over the plain with rays foreboding and lurid.
"May this threatening weather," said Hermann, "not bring to us shortly
Hail and violent rain, for well does the harvest now promise."
And they both rejoiced in the corn so lofty and waving,
Well nigh reaching the heads of the two tall figures that walk'd there.
Then the maiden spoke to her friendly leader as follows
"Generous youth, to whom I shall owe a kind destiny shortly,
Shelter and home, when so many poor exiles must weather the tempest,
In the first place tell me all about your good parents,
Whom I ...

Hush, mourning mother, wan and pale!
    No sobs - no grieving now:
No burning tears must thou let fall
    Upon that cold still brow;
No look of anguish cast above,
    Nor smite thine aching breast,
But clasp thy hands and thank thy God -
    Thy darling is at rest.

Close down those dark-fringed, snowy lids
    Over the violet eyes,
Whose liquid light was once as clear
    As that of summer skies.
Is it not bliss to know what e'er
    Thy future griefs and fears,
They will be never dimmed like thine
    By sorrow's scalding tears?

Enfold the tiny fingers fair,
    From which life's warmth has fled,
For ever freed from wearing toil -
    The toil for daily bread:
Compose the softly moulded limbs,
    The little waxen feet,...