When mid-autumn's moan shook the night-time,
And sedges were horny,
And summer's green wonderwork faltered
On leaze and in lane,

I fared Yell'ham-Firs way, where dimly
Came wheeling around me
Those phantoms obscure and insistent
That shadows unchain.

Till airs from the needle-thicks brought me
A low lamentation,
As 'twere of a tree-god disheartened,
Perplexed, or in pain.

And, heeding, it awed me to gather
That Nature herself there
Was breathing in aerie accents,
With dirgeful refrain,

Weary plaint that Mankind, in these late days,
Had grieved her by holding
Her ancient high fame of perfection
In doubt and disdain . . .

- "I had not proposed me a Creature
(She soughed) so excelling
All else of my king...

From other men he stands apart,
    Wrapped in sublimity of thought
    Where futile fancies enter not;
    With starlike purpose pressing on
    Where Agassiz and Audubon
Labored, and sped that noble art
    Yet in its pristine dawn.

Something to conquer, to achieve,
    Makes life well worth the struggle hard;
    Its petty ills to disregard,
    In high endeavor day by day
    With this incentive - that he may
Somehow mankind the richer leave
    When he has passed away.

Forest and field he treads alone,
    Finding companionship in birds,
    In reptiles, rodents, yea, in herds
    Of drowsy cattle fat and sleek;
    For these to him a language speak
To common multitudes unknown
    As tones of classic Greek.

Unth...

There’s a wind up that licks like a flame,
And the sun is a porthole of hell.
Now evanish prim notions of shame,
And the craving to look rather well,
In pyjamas you’re never a swell,
And you’ve chosen some roomily made.
Oh! for ices these pangs to dispel,
It’s one hundred and nine in the shade!

We have limped in from tennis.That game !,
I’d as soon with the damned where they dwell
Stoke a furnace and bathe in the same!
There’s no drink human craving to quell,
Not thin chablis nor sweet muscatel.
Never more shall we see, I’m afraid,
The cool shallows, the pale asphodel.
It’s one hundred and nine in the shade.

You recline an invertebrate frame
In the moisture your atoms expel,
‘Gainst the fates very feebly declaim,
All too limp to rise...

Night comes upon the earth; and fearfully
Arise the mighty winds, and sweep along
In the full chorus of their midnight song.
The waste of heavy clouds, that veil the sky,
Roll like a murky scroll before them driven,
And show faint glimpses of a darker heaven.
No ray is there of moon, or pale-eyed star,
Darkness is on the universe; save where
The western sky lies glimmering, faint and far,
With day's red embers dimly glowing there.
Hark! how the wind comes gathering in its course,
And sweeping onward, with resistless force,
Howls through the silent space of starless skies,
And on the breast of the swol'n ocean dies.
Oh, though art terrible, thou viewless power!
That rid'st destroying at the midnight hour!
We hear thy mighty pinion, but the eye
Knows nothin...

Mother, don't hold me,
Mother, your caress hurts me,
See through my face,
How I glow and wane.
Give the last kiss.    Let me go.
Send a prayer after me.
That I broke your life,
Mother, forgive me.

SPRING.

Muse of the pastoral reed and sylvan reign,
Divine inspirer of each tuneful swain,
Who taught the Doric Shepherd to portray
Primeval nature in his simple lay;
And him of Mantua, in a nicer age,
To form the graces of his artful page;
O, come! where crystal Avon winds serene,
And with thy presence bless the brightening scene;
Now, while I rove his willowy banks along,
With fond intent to wake the rural song,
Inspire me, Goddess! to my strains impart
The force of nature, and the grace of art.

Now has the Night her dusky veil withdrawn,
And, softly blushing, peeps the smiling Dawn;
The lark, on quivering wings, amid the skies
Pours his shrill song, inviting her to rise;
The breathing Zephyrs just begin to play,
Waking the flowers to s...

"And Ireland, like a bastinadoed elephant, kneeling to receive the paltry rider." - [Life of Curran, ii. 336.]


1.

Ere the daughter of Brunswick is cold in her grave,[593]
And her ashes still float to their home o'er the tide,
Lo! George the triumphant speeds over the wave,
To the long-cherished Isle which he loved like his - bride.

2.

True, the great of her bright and brief Era are gone,
The rain-bow-like Epoch where Freedom could pause
For the few little years, out of centuries won,
Which betrayed not, or crushed not, or wept not her cause.

3.

True, the chains of the Catholic clank o'er his rags,
The Castle still stands, and the Senate's no more,
And the Famine which dwelt on her freedomless crags
Is exte...

Nor scorn the aid which Fancy oft doth lend
The Soul's eternal interests to promote:
Death, darkness, danger, are our natural lot;
And evil Spirits 'may' our walk attend
For aught the wisest know or comprehend;
Then be 'good' Spirits free to breathe a note
Of elevation; let their odours float
Around these Converts; and their glories blend,
The midnight stars outshining, or the blaze
Of the noon-day. Nor doubt that golden cords
Of good works, mingling with the visions, raise
The Soul to purer worlds: and 'who' the line
Shall draw, the limits of the power define,
That even imperfect faith to man affords?

O slumber on, untaught to feel
The weight of care and sorrow's blight.
Here have I often loved to steal
And o'er thee breathe a soft "good night."

And gentle as thy beauty's ray
Be all the visions of thy dreams,
Thy years be joyous as to-day,
And life be always what it seems.

Ah, may it ne'er be thine to know
The sleepless eye, the tossing head;
May He above ordain it so,
And guardian angels shield thy bed.

Now o'er thy cheek the smile betrays
Some sweetness in thy dreaming eye,
Alas that thou must wake and gaze
On things that cause thy breast a sigh!

So placid is thy pillow here,
'Tis sweet, indeed, to know thy peace,
To smoothe thy locks and drop a tear,
To clasp a hand I must release.

Ah, dost thou dream of ...

In the cedar shadow sleeping,
Where cool grass and fragrant glooms
Oft at noon have lur’d me, creeping
From your darken’d palace rooms:
I, who in your train at morning
Stroll’d and sang with joyful mind,
Heard, at evening, sounds of warning;
Heard the hoarse boughs labour in the wind.

Who are they, O pensive Graces,
For I dream’d they wore your forms
Who on shores and sea-wash’d places
Scoop the shelves and fret the storms?
Who, when ships are that way tending,
Troop across the flushing sands.
To all reefs and narrows wending,
With blown tresses, and with beckoning hands

Yet I see, the howling levels
Of the deep are not your lair;
And your tragic-vaunted revels
Are less lonely than they were.
In a Tyrian galley steering
Fro...

Our journey had advanced;
Our feet were almost come
To that odd fork in Being's road,
Eternity by term.

Our pace took sudden awe,
Our feet reluctant led.
Before were cities, but between,
The forest of the dead.

Retreat was out of hope, --
Behind, a sealed route,
Eternity's white flag before,
And God at every gate.

’Tis a new thing for Australia that the waters to her bear
One who seeks not strength of sunshine, or the breath of healing air;
One who reeks not of her riches, nor remembers she is fair;
One who land and houses, henceforth, holdeth not, for evermore;
Coming for such narrow dwelling as the dead need, to the shore
Named aforetime by the spirit to receive the garb it wore.

’Tis a strange thing for Australia that her name should be the name
Breathed ere death by one who loved her, claiming, with a patriot’s claim,
Earth of her as chosen grave-place; rather than the lands of fame;
Rather than the Sacred City where a sepulchre was sought
For the noblest hearts of Europe; rather than the Country fraught
With the incense of the altars whence our household gods were brought.

Me tho' in life's sequester'd vale
The Almighty sire ordain'd to dwell,
Remote from glory's toilsome ways,
And the great scenes of public praise;
Yet let me still with grateful pride
Remember how my infant frame
He temper'd with prophetic flame,
And early music to my tongue supply'd.
'Twas then my future fate he weigh'd,
And, This be thy concern, he said,
At once with Passion's keen alarms,
And Beauty's pleasurable charms,
And sacred Truth's eternal light,
To move the various mind of Man;
Till under one unblemish'd plan,
His Reason, Fancy, and his Heart unite.

Tranquil as a sage and gentle as one who’s cursed. I said:
I love you, oh my beauty, my charmer

many a time
your debauches without thirst, your soul-less loves,
your longing for the infinite
which proclaims itself everywhere, even in evil,

your bombs, knives, victory marches, public feasts,
your melancholy suburbs,
your furnished rooms,
your gardens full of sighs and intrigue,
your churches vomiting prayer as music,
your childish despairs, mad hags’ games,
your discouragements:

and your fireworks, eruptions of joy,
that make the dumb and gloomy sky smile.
Your venerable vice dressed in silk,
and laughable virtue, with sad gaze,
gentle, delighting in the luxury it shows.

Your saved principles and flouted laws,
your proud m...

The clouds that promise a glorious morrow
    Are fading slowly, one by one;
The earth no more bright rays may borrow
    From her loved Lord, the golden sun;
Gray evening shadows are softly creeping,
    With noiseless steps, o'er vale and hill;
The birds and flowers are calmly sleeping;
    And all around is fair and still.

Once loved I dearly, at this sweet hour,
    With loitering steps to careless stray,
To idly gather an opening flower,
    And often pause upon my way, -
Gazing around me with joyous feeling,
    From sunny earth to azure sky,
Or bending over the streamlet, stealing
    'Mid banks of flowers and verdure by.

You wond'ring ask me why sit I lonely
    Within my quiet, curtain'd room,
So idly seeking and clinging only

O Time and Change, they range and range
From sunshine round to thunder!
They glance and go as the great winds blow,
And the best of our dreams drive under:
For Time and Change estrange, estrange,
And, now they have looked and seen us,
O we that were dear we are all-too near
With the thick of the world between us.

O Death and Time, they chime and chime
Like bells at sunset falling!
They end the song, they right the wrong,
They set the old echoes calling:
For Death and Time bring on the prime
Of God's own chosen weather,
And we lie in the peace of the Great Release
As once in the grass together.

Io son sì stanco sotto 'l fascio antico.

HE CONFESSES HIS ERRORS, AND THROWS HIMSELF ON THE MERCY OF GOD.


    Evil by custom, as by nature frail,
I am so wearied with the long disgrace,
That much I dread my fainting in the race
Should let th' original enemy prevail.
Once an Eternal Friend, that heard my cries,
Came to my rescue, glorious in his might,
Arm'd with all-conquering love, then took his flight,
That I in vain pursued Him with my eyes.
But his dear words, yet sounding, sweetly say,
"O ye that faint with travel, see the way!
Hopeless of other refuge, come to me."
What grace, what kindness, or what destiny
Will give me wings, as the fair-feather'd dove,
To raise me hence and seek my rest above?

BASIL KENNET.

If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way;
For then despite of space I would be brought,
From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.
No matter then although my foot did stand
Upon the farthest earth remov’d from thee;
For nimble thought can jump both sea and land,
As soon as think the place where he would be.
But, ah! thought kills me that I am not thought,
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that so much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend, time’s leisure with my moan;
Receiving nought by elements so slow
But heavy tears, badges of either’s woe.