Each life converges to some centre
Expressed or still;
Exists in every human nature
A goal,

Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,
Too fair
For credibility's temerity
To dare.

Adored with caution, as a brittle heaven,
To reach
Were hopeless as the rainbow's raiment
To touch,

Yet persevered toward, surer for the distance;
How high
Unto the saints' slow diligence
The sky!

Ungained, it may be, by a life's low venture,
But then,
Eternity enables the endeavoring
Again.

Oh! say, shall those ties, now so sacred and dear,
That with rainbow hues tint all our wanderings here,
Be regarded no more in that heavenly sphere
Whose portal's the grave?

When, "washed and forgiven," our spirits ascend
To the home of the blest where all sorrowings end,
O, will not a parent, a sister, a friend,
Haste to welcome us there?

Shall we see no loved form we have gazed on before,
To commune with of times that are faded and o'er?
Will the "dear chosen few" be remembered no more
In that haven of bliss?

O my heart must believe, 'mid ethereal chimes
A gloom would steal over my spirit sometimes,
If the friends I have loved, in these heavenly climes,
Seemed to know me no more.

But hope fondly whispers it shall not be so;
Each ...

O month when they who love must love and wed!
Were one to go to worlds where May is naught,
And seek to tell the memories he had brought
From earth of thee, what were most fitly said?
I know not if the rosy showers shed
From apple-boughs, or if the soft green wrought
In fields, or if the robin's call be fraught
The most with thy delight. Perhaps they read
Thee best who in the ancient time did say
Thou wert the sacred month unto the old:
No blossom blooms upon thy brightest day
So subtly sweet as memories which unfold
In aged hearts which in thy sunshine lie,
To sun themselves once more before they die.

Wait for the morning! Ah! We wait indeed
For daylight, we who toss about through stress
Of vacant-armed desires and emptiness
Of all the warm, warm touches that we need,
And the warm kisses upon which we feed
Our famished lips in fancy! May God bless
The starved lips of us with but one caress
Warm as the yearning blood our poor hearts bleed...!
A wild prayer! Bite thy pillow, praying so -
Toss this side, and whirl that, and moan for dawn;
Let the clock's seconds dribble out their woe,
And Time be drained of sorrow! Long ago
We heard the crowing cock, with answer drawn
As hoarsely sad at throat as sobs... Pray on!

    I know what beauty is, for thou
        Hast set the world within my heart;
        Of me thou madest it a part;
    I never loved it more than now.

    I know the Sabbath afternoons;
        The light asleep upon the graves:
        Against the sky the poplar waves;
    The river murmurs organ tunes.

    I know the spring with bud and bell;
        The hush in summer woods at night;
        Autumn, when trees let in more light;
    Fantastic winter's lovely spell.

    I know the rapture music gives,
        Its mystery of ordered tones:
        Dream-muffled soul, it loves and moans,
    And, half-alive, comes in and lives.

    And verse I know, whose concord high
        Of thought and music lifts the soul
        Where ...

With how sad steps, O Moone, thou climbst the skies!
How silently, and with how wanne a face!
What, may it be that euen in heau'nly place
That busie archer his sharpe arrowes tries?
Sure, if that long-with-loue-acquainted eyes
Can iudge of loue, thou feel'st a louers case,
I reade it in thy lookes: thy languist grace,
To me that feele the like, thy state discries.
Then, eu'n of fellowship, O Moone, tell me,
Is constant loue deem'd there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they aboue loue to be lou'd, and yet
Those louers scorn whom that loue doth possesse?
Do they call vertue there vngratefulnesse?

The world grows green on a thousand hills -
    By a thousand willows the bees are humming,
And a million birds by a million rills,
    Sing of the golden season coming.
But, gazing out on the sun-kist lea,
    And hearing a thrush and a blue-bird singing,
I feel that the summer is all for me,
    And all for me are the joys it is bringing.

All for me the bumble-bee
    Drones his song in the perfect weather;
And, just on purpose to sing to me,
    Thrush and blue-bird came North together.
Just for me, in red and white,
    Bloom and blossom the fields of clover;
And all for me and my delight
    The wild Wind follows and plays the lover.

The mighty sun, with a scorching kiss
    (I have read, and heard, and do not doubt it)
Has burned up...

Ah, hast thou gone from him whose breast
Bleeds with the thought we are apart,
Whose tears fall vainly and unblest,
Whose all--a crushed--a broken heart!

Thou hastenest on Life's thorny way
Where torrid suns the mountains burn,
Where parch the thirsty plains--yet say,
Oh, say thou wilt to me return.

Beyond the rolling wave art thou
O'er which I waft a sigh to thee,
Beyond the lurid sunset now
Ablaze upon the western sea.

Oh, think of him whose only thought
That thought which Friendship cannot tell,
While flows the burning tear unsought,
He loved, alas, he loved too well.

Farewell to thee than whom all joy
No brighter vision e'er can lend,
Go, he will be to thee, my boy,
A brother--more than that--a friend.

I touch but the things which are near;
    The heavens are too high for my reach:
        In shadow and symbol and creed,
        I discern not the soul from the deed,
    Nor the thought hidden under, from speech;
And the thing which I know not I fear.

I dare not despair nor despond,
    Though I grope in the dark for the dawn:
        Birth and laughter, and bubbles of breath,
        And tears, and the blank void of death,
    Round each its penumbra is drawn,--
I touch them,--I see not beyond.

What voice speaking solemn and slow,
    Before the beginning for me,
        From the mouth of the primal First Cause,
        Shall teach me the thing that I was,
    Shall point out the thing I shall be,
And show me the path that I go?

...

"O Thou!" her words she thus without delay
Resuming, turn'd their point on me, to whom
They but with lateral edge seem'd harsh before,
"Say thou, who stand'st beyond the holy stream,
If this be true. A charge so grievous needs
Thine own avowal." On my faculty
Such strange amazement hung, the voice expir'd
Imperfect, ere its organs gave it birth.

A little space refraining, then she spake:
"What dost thou muse on? Answer me. The wave
On thy remembrances of evil yet
Hath done no injury." A mingled sense
Of fear and of confusion, from my lips
Did such a "Yea" produce, as needed help
Of vision to interpret. As when breaks
In act to be discharg'd, a cross-bow bent
Beyond its pitch, both nerve and bow o'erstretch'd,
The flagging weapon feebly hits the mark...

Night, with all thine eyes look down!
Darkness shed its holiest dew!
When ever smiled the inconstant moon
On a pair so true?
Hence, coy hour! and quench thy light,
Lest eyes see their own delight!
Hence, swift hour! and thy loved flight
Oft renew.

BOYS:
O joy! O fear! what may be done
In the absence of the sun?
Come along!
The golden gates of sleep unbar!
When strength and beauty meet together,
Kindles their image like a star
In a sea of glassy weather.
Hence, coy hour! and quench thy light,
Lest eyes see their own delight!
Hence, swift hour! and thy loved flight
Oft renew.

GIRLS:
O joy! O fear! what may be done
In the absence of the sun?
Come along!
Fairies! sprites! and angels, keep her!
Holiest powers...

Now to my lips lift then some opiate
Of black forgetfulness! while in thy gaze
Still lures the loveless beauty that betrays,
And in thy mouth the music that is hate.
No promise more hast thou to make me wait;
No smile to cozen my sick heart with praise!
Far, far behind thee stretch laborious days,
And far before thee, labors soon and late.
Thine is the fen-fire that we deem a star,
Flying before us, ever fugitive,
Thy mocking policy still holds afar:
And thine the voice, to which our longings give
Hope's siren face, that speaks us sweet and fair,
Only to lead us captives to Despair.

1.

In thee, I fondly hop'd to clasp
A friend, whom death alone could sever;
Till envy, with malignant grasp,
Detach'd thee from my breast for ever.


2.

True, she has forc'd thee from my breast,
Yet, in my heart, thou keep'st thy seat;
There, there, thine image still must rest,
Until that heart shall cease to beat.


3.

And, when the grave restores her dead,
When life again to dust is given,
On thy dear breast I'll lay my head -
Without thee! where would be my Heaven?

    "It is good-bye," she said; "the world is wide,
    There's space for you and me to walk apart.
    Though we have walked together side by side,
    My thoughts all yours, my resting-place your heart,
    We now will go our different ways. Forget
    The happy past. I would not have you keep
    One thought of me. Ah, yes, my eyes are wet;
    My love is great, my grief must needs be deep.

    "Yet I have strength to look at you, and say:
    Forget it all, forget our souls were stirred,
    Forget the sweetness of each dear, dead day,
    The warm, impassioned kiss, the tender word,
    The clinging handclasp, and the love-filled eyes -
    Forget all these; but, when we walk apart
    Remember this, though wilful and unwise,
    No word of mine did ever...

Joy came in youth as a humming-bird,
    (Sing hey! for the honey and bloom of life!)
And it made a home in my summer bower
With the honeysuckle and the sweet-pea flower.
    (Sing hey! for the blossoms and sweets of life!)

Joy came as a lark when the years had gone,
    (Ah! hush, hush still, for the dream is short!)
And I gazed far up to the melting blue
Where the rare song dropped like a golden dew.
    (Ah! sweet is the song tho' the dream be short!)

Joy hovers now in a far-off mist,
    (The night draws on and the air breathes snow!)
And I reach, sometimes, with a trembling hand
To the red-tipped cloud of the joy-bird's land.
    (Alas! for the days of the storm and the snow!)

    I should be busy with words
    but light distracts me
    makes for me, in the sowing of its waves,
    neutral observances, a chilled awareness
    that the sublime is contained herein
    the wonders of the commonplace.

When the bright sun back on his yearly road
    Comes towards us, his great glory seems to me,
As from the sky he pours it all abroad,
    A golden herald, my beloved, of thee.

When from the south the gentle winds do blow,
    Calling the flowers that sleep beneath the earth,
It sounds like sweetest music, that doth go
    Before thy coming, full of love and mirth.

When one by one the violets appear,
    Opening their purple vests so modestly,
To greet the virgin daughter of the year,
    Each seems a fragrant prophecy of thee.

For with the spring thou shalt return again;
    Therefore the wind, the flower, and clear sunshine,
A double worship from my heart obtain,
    A love and welcome not their own, but thine.

The joy of man, the pride of brutes,
Domestic subject for disputes,
Of plenty thou the emblem fair,
Adorn'd by nymphs with all their care!
I saw thee raised to high renown,
Supporting half the British crown;
And often have I seen thee grace
The chaste Diana's infant face;
And whensoe'er you please to shine,
Less useful is her light than thine:
Thy numerous fingers know their way,
And oft in Celia's tresses play.
    To place thee in another view,
I'll show the world strange things and true;
What lords and dames of high degree
May justly claim their birth from thee!
The soul of man with spleen you vex;
Of spleen you cure the female sex.
Thee for a gift the courtier sends
With pleasure to his special friends:
He gives, and with a generous pri...