One night, while peaceful in my bed
I lay, unwitting what befell,
By Morpheus' arms clasped close,
In blissful rest, I slumber'd well.

When suddenly, unto my ears
There came a dreadful, piercing sound,
So strange unto my startl'd mind,
I left my bed with single bound.

And then, transfix'd unto the floor,
I stood, in terror pinion'd there,
With drops of sweat upon my brow,
And eyes with fix'd and rigid stare.

I listen'd for the dreadful sound,
Which brought such terror to my brain;
And then, with wildly beating heart,
I heard the fearful noise again.

Affrighted yet, I heard the noise,
Which, tho' 'twas modified in tone,
It terror brought unto my heart,
And from my lips it drew a groan.

For horror yet was in the ...

Purged, with the life they left, of all
That makes life paltry and mean and small,
In their new dedication charged
With something heightened, enriched, enlarged,
That lends a light to their lusty brows
And a song to the rhythm of their tramping feet,
These are the men that have taken vows,
These are the hardy, the flower, the elite, -
These are the men that are moved no more
By the will to traffic and grasp and store
And ring with pleasure and wealth and love
The circles that self is the center of;
But they are moved by the powers that force
The sea forever to ebb and rise,
That hold Arcturus in his course,
And marshal at noon in tropic skies
The clouds that tower on some snow-capped chain
And drift out over the peopled plain.
They are big with the b...

Night! the horrible wizard Night!
    The dumb and terrible Night
Hath drawn his circle of magic, round
Over the sky, and over the ground,
        Without a sound.
Ah me, what woeful phantoms rise,
With ice-cold hands and pitiless eyes,
As stars grow out of the summer skies,
Tangible things to mortal sight,
Under the hands of the wizard Night!

Night! the mystical prophet, Night!
    The haunted and awful Night!
With the trail of his garment's shadowy fall,
Soundless and black as a funeral pall,
Now enters his dread laboratory.
A wan, and faint, and wavering glory
Shines from a veiled lamp somewhere hidden.
        Like a lily in a grave:
And things unholy, and things forbidden,--
Hands that have long been the earth-worm's prey,
And sh...

I.
Stop, let me have the truth of that!
Is that all true? I say, the day
Ten years ago when both of us
Met on a morning, friends as thus
We meet this evening, friends or what?

II.
Did you because I took your arm
And sillily smiled, “A mass of brass
That sea looks, blazing underneath!”
While up the cliff-road edged with heath,
We took the turns nor came to harm

III.
Did you consider “Now makes twice
“That I have seen her, walked and talked
“With this poor pretty thoughtful thing,
“Whose worth I weigh: she tries to sing;
“Draws, hopes in time the eye grows nice;

IV.
“Reads verse and thinks she understands;
“Loves all, at any rate, that’s great,
“Good, beautiful; but much as we
“Down at the bath-house love the sea,<...

"Cross my hands upon my breast,"
Read her last behest.
"Turn my cheek upon the pillow,
As resting from life's stormy billow
With sleep's fine zest!"

"Cross my hands upon my breast,"
Read her last behest,
"That the patient bones may lie
In form of thanks eternally,
Grimly expressed!"

We clasped her hands upon her breast:
Oh mockery at misery's hest!
We hid in flowers her body's grief, -
Counting by many a rose and leaf
Her days unblessed!

Tread, sirs, as lightly as ye can
Upon the grave of this old man.
Twice forty, bating but one year
And thrice three weeks, he lived here.
Whom gentle fate translated hence
To a more happy residence.
Yet, reader, let me tell thee this,
Which from his ghost a promise is,
If here ye will some few tears shed,
He'll never haunt ye now he's dead.

Youth that trafficked long with Death,
And to second life returns,
Squanders little time or breath
On his fellow man's concerns.
Earned peace is all he asks
To fulfill his broken tasks.

Yet, if he find war at home
(Waspish and importunate),
He hath means to overcome
Any warrior at his gate;
For the past he buried brings
Back unburiable things.

Nights that he lay out to spy,
Whence and when the raid might start;
Or prepared in secrecy
Sudden blows to break its heart,
All the lore of No-Man's Land
Steels his soul and arms his hand.

So, if conflict vex his life
Where he thought all conflict done,
He, resuming ancient strife,
Springs his mine or trains his gun;
And, in mirth more dread than wrath,
Wipes the nuis...

They say that poison-sprinkled flowers
Are sweeter in perfume
Than when, untouched by deadly dew,
They glowed in early bloom.

They say that men condemned to die
Have quaffed the sweetened wine
With higher relish than the juice
Of the untampered vine.

They say that in the witch’s song,
Though rude and harsh it be,
There blends a wild, mysterious strain
Of weirdest melody.

And I believe the devil’s voice
Sinks deeper in our ear
Than any whisper sent from Heaven,
However sweet and clear.

I.

It is not early spring and yet
Of bloodroot blooms along the stream,
And blotted banks of violet,
My heart will dream.
Is it because the windflower apes
The beauty that was once her brow,
That the white memory of it shapes
The April now?
Because the wild-rose wears the blush
That once made sweet her maidenhood,
Its thought makes June of barren bush
And empty wood?
And then I think how young she died
Straight, barren Death stalks down the trees,
The hard-eyed Hours by his side,
That kill and freeze.

II.

When orchards are in bloom again
My heart will bound, my blood will beat,
To hear the redbird so repeat,
On boughs of rosy stain,
His blithe, loud song, like some far strain
From out the past, among the blo...

More towers must yet be built, more towers destroyed,
Great rocks hoisted in air;
And he must seek his bread in high pale sunlight
With gulls about him, and clouds just over his eyes . . .
And so he did not mention his dream of falling
But drank his coffee in silence, and heard in his ears
That horrible whistle of wind, and felt his breath
Sucked out of him, and saw the tower flash by
And the small tree swell beneath him . . .
He patted his boy on the head, and kissed his wife,
Looked quickly around the room, to remember it,
And so went out . . . For once, he forgot his pail.

Something had changed, but it was not the street,
The street was just the same, it was himself.
Puddles flashed in the sun. In the pawn-shop door
The same old black cat winked green ambe...

Gilbert had sailed to India's shore,
And I was all alone:
My lord came in at my open door
And said, "O fairest one!"

He leant upon the slant bureau,
And sighed, "I am sick for thee!"
"My lord," said I, "pray speak not so,
Since wedded wife I be."

Leaning upon the slant bureau,
Bitter his next words came:
"So much I know; and likewise know
My love burns on the same!

"But since you thrust my love away,
And since it knows no cure,
I must live out as best I may
The ache that I endure."

When Michaelmas browned the nether Coomb,
And Wingreen Hill above,
And made the hollyhocks rags of bloom,
My lord grew ill of love.

My lord grew ill with love for me;
Gilbert was far from port;
And - so it was - that time d...

For He knoweth our frame, He remembereth that we are dust. - PSALM CIII. 14.


    Oh Lord, when all our bones are thrust
        Beyond the gaze of all but Thine;
    And these blaspheming tongues are dust
        Which babbled of Thy name divine,
    How helpless then to carp or rail
        Against the canons of Thy word;
    Wilt Thou, when thus our spirits fail,
    Have mercy, Lord?

    Here from this ebon speck that floats
        As but a mote within Thine eye,
    Vain sneers and curses from our throats
        Rise to the vault of Thy fair sky:
    Yet when this world of ours is still
        Of this all-wondering, tortured horde,
    And none is left for Thee to kill -
    Have mercy, Lord!

    Thou knowest that our...

The noontide sun streamed brightly down
    Moriah's mountain crest,
The golden blaze of his vivid rays
    Tinged sacred Jordan's breast;
While towering palms and flowerets sweet,
Drooped low 'neath Syria's burning heat.

In the sunny glare of the sultry air
    Toiled up the mountain side
The Patriarch sage in stately age,
    And a youth in health's gay pride,
Bearing in eyes and in features fair
The stamp of his mother's beauty rare.

She had not known when one rosy dawn,
    Ere they started on their way,
She had smoothed with care his clustering hair,
    And knelt with him to pray,
That his father's hand and will alike
Were nerved at his young heart to strike.

The Heavenly Power that with such dower
    Of love fills a mot...

Unfathomable Night! how dost thou sweep
Over the flooded earth, and darkly hide
The mighty city under thy full tide;
Making a silent palace for old Sleep,
Like his own temple under the hush'd deep,
Where all the busy day he doth abide,
And forth at the late dark, outspreadeth wide

His dusky wings, whence the cold waters sweep!
How peacefully the living millions lie!
Lull'd unto death beneath his poppy spells;
There is no breath - no living stir - no cry
No tread of foot - no song - no music-call -
Only the sound of melancholy bells -
The voice of Time - survivor of them all!

    Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene?
        How I so found it full of pleasing charms?
    Some drops of joy with draughts of ill between:
        Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms:
    Is it departing pangs my soul alarms?
        Or Death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode?
    For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms;
        I tremble to approach an angry God,
    And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod.

    Fain would I say, "Forgive my foul offence!"
        Fain promise never more to disobey;
    But, should my Author health again dispense,
        Again I might desert fair virtue's way:
    Again in folly's path might go astray;
        Again exalt the brute and sink the man;
    Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray,

        "The parting Genius is with sighing sent."
        MILTON.


It is o'er, it is o'er, my reign is o'er;
I hear a Voice, from shore to shore,
From Dunfanaghy to Baltimore,
And it saith, in sad, parsonic tone,
"Great Tithe and Small are dead and gone!"

Even now I behold your vanishing wings,
Ye Tenths of all conceivable things,
Which Adam first, as Doctors deem,
Saw, in a sort of night-mare dream,[1]
After the feast of fruit abhorred--
First indigestion on record!--
Ye decimate ducks, ye chosen chicks,
Ye pigs which, tho' ye be Catholics,
Or of Calvin's most select depraved,
In the Church must have your bacon saved;--
Ye fields, where Labor counts his sheaves,
And, whatsoever himself believes,
Must bow to t...

Why sleeps the future, as a snake enrolled,
Coil within coil, at noon-tide? For the WORD
Yields, if with unpresumptuous faith explored,
Power at whose touch the sluggard shall unfold
His drowsy rings. Look forth! that Stream behold,
That stream upon whose bosom we have passed
Floating at ease while nations have effaced
Nations, and Death has gathered to his fold
Long lines of mighty Kings look forth, my Soul!
(Nor in this vision be thou slow to trust)
The living Waters, less and less by guilt
Stained and polluted, brighten as they roll,
Till they have reached the eternal City built
For the perfected Spirit of the just!

1

Father of Light! great God of Heaven!
Hear'st thou the accents of despair?
Can guilt like man's be e'er forgiven?
Can vice atone for crimes by prayer?


2

Father of Light, on thee I call!
Thou see'st my soul is dark within;
Thou, who canst mark the sparrow's fall,
Avert from me the death of sin.


3

No shrine I seek, to sects unknown;
Oh, point to me the path of truth!
Thy dread Omnipotence I own;
Spare, yet amend, the faults of youth.


4

Let bigots rear a gloomy fane,
Let Superstition hail the pile,
Let priests, to spread their sable reign,
With tales of mystic rites beguile.


5

Shall man confine his Maker's sway
To Gothic domes of mouldering stone?
Th...