("Dans les vieilles forêts.")

[X., April 20, 1837.]


Through ancient forests - where like flowing tide
The rising sap shoots vigor far and wide,
Mounting the column of the alder dark
And silv'ring o'er the birch's shining bark -
Hast thou not often, Albert Dürer, strayed
Pond'ring, awe-stricken - through the half-lit glade,
Pallid and trembling - glancing not behind
From mystic fear that did thy senses bind,
Yet made thee hasten with unsteady pace?
Oh, Master grave! whose musings lone we trace
Throughout thy works we look on reverently.
Amidst the gloomy umbrage thy mind's eye
Saw clearly, 'mong the shadows soft yet deep,
The web-toed faun, and Pan the green-eyed peep,
Who deck'd with flowers the cave where thou might'st rest,
Leaf...

Say, Townshend, what can London boast
To pay thee for the pleasures lost,
The health to-day resign'd,
When spring from this her favorite seat
Bade winter hasten his retreat,
And met the western wind.

Oh knew'st thou how the balmy air,
The sun, the azure heavens prepare
To heal thy languid frame,
No more would noisy courts ingage;
In vain would lying faction's rage
Thy sacred leisure claim.
Oft I look'd forth, and oft admir'd;
Till with the studious volume tir'd
I sought the open day;
And, sure, I cry'd, the rural gods
Expect me in their green abodes,
And chide my tardy lay.
But ah in vain my restless feet
Trac'd every silent shady seat
Which knew their forms of old:
Nor Naiad by her fountain laid,
Nor Wood-nymph tripping thr...

    I

    I took the clock down from the shelf;
    "At eight," said I, "I shoot myself."
    It lacked a MINUTE of the hour,
    And as I waited all a-cower,
    A skinful of black, boding pain,
    Bits of my life came back again. . . .

    "Mother, there's nothing more to eat -
    Why don't you go out on the street?
    Always you sit and cry and cry;
    Here at my play I wonder why.
    Mother, when you dress up at night,
    Red are your cheeks, your eyes are bright;
    Twining a ribband in your hair,
    Kissing good-bye you go down-stair.
    Then I'm as lonely as can be.
    Oh, how I wish you were with me!
    Yet when you go out on the street,
    Mother, there's always lots to eat. . . ."


    I...

Barren age and withered World!
Oh! the dying leaves,
Like a drizzling rain,
Falling round the roof
Pattering on the pane!
Frosty Age and cold, cold World!
Ghosts of other days,
Trooping past the faded fire,
Flit before the gaze.
Now the wind goes soughing wild
O’er the whistling Earth;
And we front a feeble flame,
Sitting round the hearth!
Sitting by the fire,
Watching in its glow,
Ghosts of other days
Trooping to and fro.

.    .    .    .    .

Oh, the nights the nights we’ve spent,
Sitting by the fire,
Cheerful in its glow;
Twenty summers back
Twenty years ago!
If the days were days of toil
Wherefore should we mourn;
There were shadows near the shine,
Flowers with the thorn?
And we still can r...

Se l' onorata fronde, che prescrive.

TO STRAMAZZO OF PERUGIA, WHO INVITED HIM TO WRITE POETRY.


    If the world-honour'd leaf, whose green defies
The wrath of Heaven when thunders mighty Jove,
Had not to me prohibited the crown
Which wreathes of wont the gifted poet's brow,
I were a friend of these your idols too,
Whom our vile age so shamelessly ignores:
But that sore insult keeps me now aloof
From the first patron of the olive bough:
For Ethiop earth beneath its tropic sun
Ne'er burn'd with such fierce heat, as I with rage
At losing thing so comely and beloved.
Resort then to some calmer fuller fount,
For of all moisture mine is drain'd and dry,
Save that which falleth from mine eyes in tears.

MACGREGOR.

It was spring the first time that I saw her, for her papa and mamma moved in
Next door, just as skating was over, and marbles about to begin;
For the fence in our back yard was broken, and I saw, as I peeped through the slat,
There were “Johnny-jump-ups” all around her, and I knew it was spring just by that.

I never knew whether she saw me, for she didn’t say nothing to me,
But “Ma! here’s a slat in the fence broke, and the boy that is next door can see.”
But the next day I climbed on our wood-shed, as you know Mamma says I’ve a right,
And she calls out, “Well, peekin’ is manners!” and I answered her, “Sass is perlite!”

But I wasn’t a bit mad, no, Papa, and to prove it, the very next day,
When she ran past our fence in the morning I happened to get in her way,
For you know I am...

'Tis not for the unfeeling, the falsely refined,
The squeamish in taste, and the narrow of mind,
And the small critic wielding his delicate pen,
That I sing of old Adam, the pride of old men.

He dwells in the centre of London's wide Town;
His staff is a sceptre, his grey hairs a crown;
And his bright eyes look brighter, set off by the streak
Of the unfaded rose that still blooms on his cheek.

'Mid the dews, in the sunshine of morn, 'mid the joy
Of the fields, he collected that bloom, when a boy,
That countenance there fashioned, which, spite of a stain
That his life hath received, to the last will remain.

A Farmer he was; and his house far and near
Was the boast of the country for excellent cheer:
How oft have I heard in sweet Tilsbury Vale
Of the...

This is the path he used to take,
That ended at a rose-porched door:
He takes it now for oldtime's sake;
And love of yore.

The blue mertensia, by the stone,
Lifts questioning eyes, that seem to say,
'Why is it now you walk alone
On this dim way?"

And then a wild bird, from a bough,
Out of his heart the answer takes:
"He walks alone with memory now
And heart that breaks.

"And Loss and Longing, witches, who
Usurp the wood and change to woe
The dream of happiness he knew
Long, long ago.

"The faery princess, from whose gaze
The blue mertensia learned that look,
Retaining still beside these ways
The joy it took."

He listens, conscious of no part
In wildwood question and reply
The wood, from out its mighty ...

There was one Mrs. Cameron of 50 years of age and the fattest woman in all Inverness-shire who got up this Mountain some few years ago, true she had her servants, but then she had her self.    She ought to have hired Sisyphus,, "Up the high hill he heaves a huge round, Mrs. Cameron." 'Tis said a little conversation took place between the mountain and the Lady. After taking a glass of Whiskey as she was tolerably seated at ease she thus began,


Mrs. C.
Upon my Life Sir Nevis I am pique'd
That I have so far panted tugg'd and reek'd
To do an honour to your old bald pate
And now am sitting on you just to bate,
Without your paying me one compliment.
Alas 'tis so with all, when our intent
Is plain, and in the eye of all Mankind
We fair ones show a preference, too blind!
You Gen...

I

But our Great Turks in wit must reign alone
And ill can bear a Brother on the Throne.


II

Wit is like faith by such warm Fools profest
Who to be saved by one, must damn the rest.


III

Some who grow dull religious strait commence
And gain in morals what they lose in sence.


IV

Wits starve as useless to a Common weal
While Fools have places purely for their Zea.

V

Now wits gain praise by copying other wits
As one Hog lives on what another sh---.


VI

Wou'd you your writings to some Palates fit
Purged all you verses from the sin of wit
For authors now are so conceited grown
They praise no works but what are like their own.

Where went the feet that hitherto have come?
    Here yawns no gulf to quench the flowing past!
With lengthening pauses broke, the path grows dumb;
    The grass floats in; the gazer stands aghast.

Tremble not, maiden, though the footprints die;
    By no air-path ascend the lark's clear notes;
The mighty-throated when he mounts the sky
    Over some lowly landmark sings and floats.

Be of good cheer. Paths vanish from the wave;
    There all the ships tear each its track of gray;
Undaunted they the wandering desert brave:
    In each a magic finger points the way.

No finger finely touched, no eye of lark
    Hast thou to guide thy steps where footprints fail?
Ah, then, 'twere well to turn before the dark,
    Nor dream to find thy dreams in yonder...

I.

    While winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw,
    And bar the doors wi' driving snaw,
        And hing us owre the ingle,
    I set me down to pass the time,
    And spin a verse or twa o' rhyme,
        In hamely westlin jingle.
    While frosty winds blaw in the drift,
        Ben to the chimla lug,
    I grudge a wee the great folks' gift,
        That live sae bien an' snug:
            I tent less and want less
                Their roomy fire-side;
            But hanker and canker
                To see their cursed pride.

II.

    It's hardly in a body's power
    To keep, at times, frae being sour,
        To see how things are shar'd;
    How best o' chiels are whiles in want.
    While coofs on countless thousands...

When in the early dawn I hear the thrushes,
    And like a flood of waters o'er my heart
The memory of another summer rushes,
    How can I rise up, and perform my part?

When in the languid eve I hear the wailing
    Of the uncomforted sad mourning dove,
Whose grief, like mine, seems deep as unavailing,
    What will I do with all this wealth of love?

When the sweet rain falls over hills and meadows,
    And the tall poplar's silver leaves are wet,
And, like my soul, the world seems draped in shadow,
    How shall I hush this passionate regret?

When the wild bee is wooing the red clover,
    And the fair rose smiles on the butterfly,
Missing thy smile and kiss, O love, my lover,
    Who on God's earth so desolate as I?

My tortured sense...

This great purple butterfly,
In the prison of my hands,
Has a learning in his eye
Not a poor fool understands.

Once he lived a schoolmaster
With a stark, denying look,
A string of scholars went in fear
Of his great birch and his great book.

Like the clangour of a bell,
Sweet and harsh, harsh and sweet,
That is how he learnt so well
To take the roses for his meat.

Eternal cold of silence, where each sound
Dies in its birth, and Death’s pale henchmen meet
With soft Lethean traps unwary feet
Or ride with hell’s white steed and slavering hound;
Which of us, searching selfward, has not found
This desolate realm, and long black seams, that greet
Our souls with recollections of defeat,
And torrid fossils in the frozen ground?
Not he, who comes among us as a king;
Strange were the secret waste and granite walls
To him whose reverent feet have travelled far
Where duty beckons and adventure calls.
He steers his course, by one red tropic star,
Where ripples the green robe of the lilting spring.

Passato è 'l tempo omai, lasso! che tanto.

HIS ONLY DESIRE IS AGAIN TO BE WITH HER.


    Fled--fled, alas! for ever--is the day,
Which to my flame some soothing whilom brought;
And fled is she of whom I wept and wrote:
Yet still the pang, the tear, prolong their stay!
And fled that angel vision far away;
But flying, with soft glance my heart it smote
('Twas then my own) which straight, divided, sought
Her, who had wrapp'd it in her robe of clay.
Part shares her tomb, part to her heaven is sped;
Where now, with laurel wreathed, in triumph's car
She reaps the meed of matchless holiness:
So might I, of this flesh discumberèd,
Which holds me prisoner here, from sorrow far
With her expatiate free 'midst realms of endless bliss!

WRANGHA...

Her love is like the hardy flower
That blooms amid the Alpine snows;
Deep-rooted in an icy bower,
No blast can chill its sweet repose;
But fresh as is the tropic rose,
Drenched in mellowest sunny beams,
It has as sweet delicious dreams
As any flower that grows.

And though an avalanche came down
And robbed it of the light of day,
That which withstood the tempest's frown
In grief would never pine away.
Hope might withhold her feeblest ray,
Within her bosom's snowy tomb
Love still would wear its everbloom,
The gayest of the gay.

I have eaten your bread and salt,
I have drunk your water and wine,
The deaths ye died I have watched be-side,
And the lives that ye led were mine.

Was there aught that I did not share
In vigil or toil or ease,
One joy or woe that I did not know,
Dear hearts across the seas?

I have written the tale of our life
For a sheltered people’s mirth,
In jesting guise, but ye are wise,
And ye know what the jest is worth.