Sometimes, slow moving through unlovely days,
The need to look on beauty falls on me
As on the blind the anguished wish to see,
As on the dumb the urge to rage or praise;
Beauty of marble where the eyes may gaze
Till soothed to peace by white serenity,
Or canvas where one master hand sets free
Great colours that like angels blend and blaze.

O, there be many starved in this strange wise--
For this diviner food their days deny,
Knowing beyond their vision beauty stands
With pitying eyes--with tender, outstretched hands,
Eager to give to every passer-by
The loveliness that feeds a soul's demands.

"For he looked for a city that hath foundations, whose Maker and Builder is God."


I.

Somewhere, I know, there waits for me
    A home that mocks the pomp of Earth,
Eye hath not seen its majesty,
    Nor heart conceived its priceless worth, -
Talk not of crystal, gems, or gold,
    Or towers that flame in changeless light,
Imagination, weak and cold,
    Faints far below the unmeasured height!
And through its open doors for aye,
    As ages after ages glide,
Without a moment's pause or stay,
    Flows grandly in the living tide -
Brothers, redeemed ones, pressing home
    From every clime, from every shore,
Beneath that fair celestial dome
    Meet to be parted nevermore!


II.

Somewhere, I know, there waits for ...

An old sweetheart of mine! - Is this her presence here with me,
Or but a vain creation of a lover's memory?
A fair, illusive vision that would vanish into air
Dared I even touch the silence with the whisper of a prayer?

Nay, let me then believe in all the blended false and true -
The semblance of the OLD love and the substance of the NEW, -
The THEN of changeless sunny days - the NOW of shower and shine -
But Love forever smiling - as that old sweetheart of mine.

This ever-restful sense of HOME, though shouts ring in the hall. -
The easy chair - the old book-shelves and prints along the wall;
The rare HABANAS in their box, or gaunt church-warden-stem
That often wags, above the jar, derisively at them.

As one who cons at evening o'er an album, all alone,
And...

Sometimes, from the far-away,
Wing a little thought to me;
In the night or in the day,
It will give a rest to me.

I have praise of many here,
And the world gives me renown;
Let it go -- give me one tear,
'Twill be a jewel in my crown.

What care I for earthly fame?
How I shrink from all its glare!
I would rather that my name
Would be shrined in some one's prayer.

Many hearts are all too much,
Or too little in their praise;
I would rather feel the touch
Of one prayer that thrills all days.

Long through the night hours sorrow was my guest
And would not let my fainting body rest,
Till just ere dawn from out its slow dominions
Flew sleep to wrap me in its dear dusk pinions.
And then it was my mother did appear
Before mine eyes in vision doubly dear;
For in her arms she held my darling one,
My Ursula, just as she used to run
To me at dawn to say her morning prayer,
In her white nightgown, with her curling hair
Framing her rosy face, her eyes about
To laugh, like flowers only halfway out.
        "Art thou still sorrowing, my son?" Thus spoke
My mother. Sighing bitterly, I woke,
Or seemed to wake, and heard her say once more:
        "It is thy weeping brings me to this shore:
Thy lamentations, long uncomforted,
Have reached the hidden chambers ...

I


"No, no! Leave me not in this dark hour,"
She cried. And I,
"Thou foolish dear, but call not dark this hour;
What night doth lour?"
And nought did she reply,
But in her eye
The clamorous trouble spoke, and then was still.

O that I heard her once more speak,
Or even with troubled eye
Teach me her fear, that I might seek
Poppies for misery.
The hour was dark, although I knew it not,
But when the livid dawn broke then I knew,
How while I slept the dense night through
Treachery's worm her fainting fealty slew.

O that I heard her once more speak
As then--so weak--
"No, no! Leave me not in this dark hour."
That I might answer her,
"Love, be at rest, for nothing now shall stir
Thy heart, but my heart beating there."<...

I stood far off above the haunts of men
    Somewhere, I know not, when the sky was dim
    From some worn glory, and the morning hymn
Of the gay oriole echoed from the glen.
    Wandering, I felt earth's peace, nor knew I sought
    A visioned face, a voice the wind had caught.

I passed the waking things that stirred and gazed,
    Thought-bound, and heeded not; the waking flowers
    Drank in the morning mist, dawn's tender showers,
And looked forth for the Day-god who had blazed
    His heart away and died at sundown. Far
    In the gray west faded a loitering star.

It seemed that I had wandered through long years,
    A life of years, still seeking gropingly
    A thing I dared not name; now I could see
In the still dawn a hope, in the soft tears

Perchè la vita è breve.

IN PRAISE OF LAURA'S EYES: THE DIFFICULTY OF HIS THEME.


    Since human life is frail,
And genius trembles at the lofty theme,
I little confidence in either place;
But let my tender wail
There, where it ought, deserved attention claim,
That wail which e'en in silence we may trace.
O beauteous eyes, where Love doth nestling stay!
To you I turn my insufficient lay,
Unapt to flow; but passion's goad I feel:
And he of you who sings
Such courteous habit by the strain is taught,
That, borne on amorous wings,
He soars above the reach of vulgar thought:
Exalted thus, I venture to reveal
What long my cautious heart has labour'd to conceal.

Yes, well do I perceive
To you how wrongful is my scanty praise;

A tiny drop of crystal dew
That fell from baby eyes of blue;
A shining treasure, there it lay
For grandma's love to wipe away.

A tear of sorrow, pure and meek
It graced our darling's dimpled cheek;
A gem so fair, that angels smiled
And claimed the treasure undefiled.

A sunbeam came with winsome grace
And chased the shadow from her face;
A smile fell from its wings of light
And baby eyes laughed at the sight.

The wee bright tear was kissed away,
Yet in our hearts its sorrow lay;
For like a shadow came the thought,
With pain and sorrow life is wrought.

Oh, baby heart, what will you do
When life's unrest is given you;
And mother-love no more like this
Each tear can banish with a kiss?

The love you brought, oh, bab...

    Fair one! embodiment of Loveliness!
    Angelic beauty beams upon thy countenance,
    And from its image of Lucretian purity
    Thine inborn virtue shines divinely forth.

    Thy sparkling eyes of bright cerulean blue,
    Rich sapphire gems, flash with Arcadian artlessness,
    Impelling Cupid's arrows, passion-fraught,
    Discharged from bow of myrtle 'gainst my heart,
    Which throbs and flutters, quivering from the thrust.

Let us make a leap, my dear,
In our love, of many a year,
And date it very far away,
On a bright clear summer day,
When the heart was like a sun
To itself, and falsehood none;
And the rosy lips a part
Of the very loving heart,
And the shining of the eye
But a sign to know it by; -
When my faults were all forgiven,
And my life deserved of Heaven.
Dearest, let us reckon so,
And love for all that long ago;
Each absence count a year complete,
And keep a birthday when we meet.

We are thine, O Love, being in thee and made of thee,
As thóu, Lóve, were the déep thóught
And we the speech of the thought; yea, spoken are we,
            Thy fires of thought out-spoken:

But burn'd not through us thy imagining
Like fiérce móod in a sóng cáught,
We were as clamour'd words a fool may fling,
            Loose words, of meaning broken.

For what more like the brainless speech of a fool,
The lives travelling dark fears,
And as a boy throws pebbles in a pool
            Thrown down abysmal places?

Hazardous are the stars, yet is our birth
And our journeying time theirs;
As words of air, life makes of starry earth
            Sweet soul-delighted faces;

As voices are we in the worldly wind;
The great wind of the world's...

When first we met she seemed so white
    I feared her;
As one might near a spirit bright
    I neared her;
An angel pure from heaven above
    I dreamed her,
And far too good for human love
    I deemed her.
A spirit free from mortal taint
    I thought her,
And incense as unto a saint
    I brought her.

Well, incense burning did not seem
    To please her,
And insolence I feared she’d deem
    To squeeze her;
Nor did I dare for that same why
    To kiss her,
Lest, shocked, she’d cause my eager eye
    To miss her.
I sickened thinking of some way
    To win her,
When lo! she asked me, one fine day,
    To dinner!

Twas thus that made of common flesh
    I found her,
And in a mortal lover’s mesh

I miss thee from my side, beloved,
    I miss thee from my side;
And wearily and drearily
    Flows Time's resistless tide.
The world, and all its fleeting joys,
    To me are worse than vain,
Until I clasp thee to my heart,
    Beloved one, again.

The wildwood and the forest-path,
    We used to thread of yore,
With bird and bee have flown with thee,
    And gone for ever more!
There is no music in the grove,
    No echo on the hill;
But melancholy boughs are there--
    And hushed the whip-poor-will.

I miss thee in the town, beloved,
    I miss thee in the town;
From morn I grieve till dewy eve
    Spreads wide its mantle brown.
My spirit's wings, that once could soar
    In Fancy's world of air,
Are crushed and beat...

I.

The storm that snapped our fate's one ship in twain
Hath blown my half o' the wreck from thine apart.
O Love! O Love! across the gray-waved main
To thee-ward strain my eyes, my arms, my heart.
I ask my God if e'en in His sweet place,
Where, by one waving of a wistful wing,
My soul could straightway tremble face to face
With thee, with thee, across the stellar ring -
Yea, where thine absence I could ne'er bewail
Longer than lasts that little blank of bliss
When lips draw back, with recent pressure pale,
To round and redden for another kiss -
Would not my lonesome heart still sigh for thee
What time the drear kiss-intervals must be?


II.

So do the mottled formulas of Sense
Glide snakewise through our dreams of Aftertime;
So er...

(Macmillan's Magazine, March 1864.)


Like flowers sequestered from the sun
    And wind of summer, day by day
I dwindled paler, whilst my hair
    Showed the first tinge of grey.

'Oh what is life, that we should live?
    Or what is death, that we must die?
A bursting bubble is our life:
    I also, what am I?'

'What is your grief? now tell me, sweet,
    That I may grieve,' my sister said;
And stayed a white embroidering hand
    And raised a golden head:

Her tresses showed a richer mass,
    Her eyes looked softer than my own,
Her figure had a statelier height,
    Her voice a tenderer tone.

'Some must be second and not first;
    All cannot be the first of all:
Is not this, too, but vanity?
    I...

When unto thee I sent the page all white,

Instead of first thereon inscribing aught,

The space thou doubtless filledst up in sport.
And sent it me, to make my joy grow bright.

As soon as the blue cover met my sight,

As well becomes a woman, quick as thought

I tore it open, leaving hidden nought,
And read the well-known words of pure delight:

MY ONLY BEING! DEAREST HEART! SWEET CHILD!

How kindly thou my yearning then didst still

With gentle words, enthralling me to thee.

In truth methought I read thy whispers mild

Wherewith thou lovingly my soul didst fill,

E'en to myself for aye ennobling me.

The tide of love swells in me with such force,
    It sweeps away all hate and all distrust.
As eddying straws and particles of dust
    Are lost by some swift river in its course.

So much I love my friends, my life, my art,
    Each shadow flies; the light dispels the gloom.
Love is so fair, I find I have no room
    For anything less worthy in my heart.

Love is a germ which we can cultivate -
    To grace and perfume sweeter than the rose,
Or leave neglected while our heart soil grows
    Rank with that vile and poison thistle, hate.

Love is a joyous thrush, that one can teach
    To sing sweet lute-like songs which all may hear.
Or we can silence him and tune the ear
    To caw of crows, or to the vulture's screech.

Love is a feast; ...