From Cypress and from laurel boughs
    Are twined, in sorrow and in pride,
The leaves that deck the mouldering brows
    Of those who for their country died:
In sorrow, that the sable pall
    Enfolds the valiant and the brave;
In pride that those who nobly fall
    Win garlands that adorn the grave.

The onset--the pursuit--the roar
    Of victory o'er the routed foe--
Will startle from their rest no more
    The fallen brave of Mexico.
To God alone such spirits yield!
    He took them in their strength and bloom,
When gathering, on the tented field,
    The garlands woven for the tomb.

The shrouded flag--the drooping spear--
    The muffled drum--the solemn bell--
The funeral train--the dirge--the bier--
    The mourners' sad and l...

To A. C.



Not to the staring Day,
For all the importunate questionings he pursues
In his big, violent voice,
Shall those mild things of bulk and multitude,
The Trees - God's sentinels
Over His gift of live, life-giving air,
Yield of their huge, unutterable selves.
Midsummer-manifold, each one
Voluminous, a labyrinth of life,
They keep their greenest musings, and the dim dreams
That haunt their leafier privacies,
Dissembled, baffling the random gapeseed still
With blank full-faces, or the innocent guile
Of laughter flickering back from shine to shade,
And disappearances of homing birds,
And frolicsome freaks
Of little boughs that frisk with little boughs.

But at the word
Of the ancient, sacerdotal Night,
Night of the m...

The dews drop slowly and dreams gather: unknown spears
Suddenly hurtle before my dream-awakened eyes,
And then the clash of fallen horsemen and the cries
Of unknown perishing armies beat about my ears.
We who still labour by the cromlec on the shore,
The grey cairn on the hill, when day sinks drowned in dew,
Being weary of the world’s empires, bow down to you
Master of the still stars and of the flaming door.

Avenge O lord thy slaughter'd Saints, whose bones
Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold,
Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old
When all our Fathers worship't Stocks and Stones,
Forget not: in thy book record their groanes
Who were thy Sheep and in their antient Fold
Slayn by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd
Mother with Infant down the Rocks.    Their moans
The Vales redoubl'd to the Hills, and they
To Heav'n.    Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow
O're all th'Italian fields where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant: that from these may grow
A hunder'd-fold, who having learnt thy way
Early may fly the Babylonian wo.

See an old unhappy bull,
Sick in soul and body both,
Slouching in the undergrowth
Of the forest beautiful,
Banished from the herd he led,
Bulls and cows a thousand head.

Cranes and gaudy parrots go
Up and down the burning sky;
Tree-top cats purr drowsily
In the dim-day green below;
And troops of monkeys, nutting, some,
All disputing, go and come;

And things abominable sit
Picking offal buck or swine,
On the mess and over it
Burnished flies and beetles shine,
And spiders big as bladders lie
Under hemlocks ten foot high;

And a dotted serpent curled
Round and round and round a tree,
Yellowing its greenery,
Keeps a watch on all the world,
All the world and this old bull
In the forest beautiful.

Bravel...

Oh ye whose hearts are resonant, and ring to War's romance,
Hear ye the story of a boy, a peasant boy of France;
A lad uncouth and warped with toil, yet who, when trial came,
Could feel within his soul upleap and soar the sacred flame;
Could stand upright, and scorn and smite, as only heroes may:
Oh, harken! Let me try to tell the tale of Jean Desprez.

With fire and sword the Teuton horde was ravaging the land,
And there was darkness and despair, grim death on every hand;
Red fields of slaughter sloping down to ruin's black abyss;
The wolves of war ran evil-fanged, and little did they miss.
And on they came with fear and flame, to burn and loot and slay,
Until they reached the red-roofed croft, the home of Jean Desprez.

"Rout out the village, one and all!" the Uhlan C...

CLoud-Puffball, torn tufts, tossed pillows | flaunt forth, then chevy on an air-
built thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers, in gay-gangs | they throng; they glitter in marches.
Down roughcast, down dazzling whitewash, | wherever an elm arches,
Shivelights and shadowtackle in long | lashes lace, lance, and pair.
Delightfully the bright wind boisterous | ropes, wrestles, beats earth bare
Of yestertempest's creases; in pool and rut peel parches
Squandering ooze to squeezed | dough, crust, dust; stanches, starches
Squadroned masks and manmarks | treadmire toil there
Footfretted in it. Million-fuelèd, | nature's bonfire burns on.
But quench her bonniest, dearest | to her, her clearest-selvèd spark
Man, how fast his firedint, | his mark on mind, is gone!
Both are in an unfathomable, all is in a...

"Who is Blackmouth?" Well, that's hard to say.
Mebbe he might ha' told you, 't other day,
If you'd been here. Now, - he's gone away.
Come to think on, 't wouldn't ha' been no use
If you'd called here earlier. His excuse
Always was, whenever folks would ask him
Where he hailed from, an' would tease an' task him; -
What d' you s'pose? He just said, "I don' know."

That was truth. He came here long ago;
But, before that, he'd been born somewhere:
The conundrum started first, right there.
Little shaver - afore he knew his name
Or the place from whereabouts he came -
On a wagon-train the Apaches caught him.
Killed the old folks! But this cus' - they brought him
Safe away from fire an' knife an' arrows.
So'thin' 'bout him must have touched their marrows:...

I love and love not: Lord, it breaks my heart
    To love and not to love.
Thou veiled within Thy glory, gone apart
    Into Thy shrine, which is above,
Dost Thou not love me, Lord, or care
    For this mine ill? -
I love thee here or there,
    I will accept thy broken heart, lie still.

Lord, it was well with me in time gone by
    That cometh not again,
When I was fresh and cheerful, who but I?
    I fresh, I cheerful: worn with pain
Now, out of sight and out of heart;
    O Lord, how long? -
I watch thee as thou art,
    I will accept thy fainting heart, be strong.

'Lie still,' 'be strong,' to-day; but, Lord, to-morrow,
    What of to-morrow, Lord?
Shall there be rest from toil, be truce from sorrow,
    Be living gr...

Lord, I am waiting, weeping, watching for Thee:
My youth and hope lie by me buried and dead,
My wandering love hath not where to lay its head
Except Thou say "Come to Me."

My noon is ended, abolished from life and light,
My noon is ended, ended and done away,
My sun went down in the hours that still were day,
And my lingering day is night.

How long, O Lord, how long in my desperate pain
Shall I weep and watch, shall I weep and long for Thee?
Is Thy grace ended, Thy love cut off from me?
How long shall I long in vain?

O God Who before the beginning hast seen the end,
Who hast made me flesh and blood, not frost and not fire,
Who hast filled me full of needs and love and desire
And a heart that craves a friend,

Who hast said "Come to Me an...

Upon the borderlands of being,
Where life draws hardly breath
Between the lights and shadows fleeing
Fast as a word one saith,
Two flowers rejoice our eyesight, seeing
The dawns of birth and death.

Behind the babe his dawn is lying
Half risen with notes of mirth
From all the winds about it flying
Through new-born heaven and earth:
Before bright age his day for dying
Dawns equal-eyed with birth.

Equal the dews of even and dawn,
Equal the sun’s eye seen
A hand’s breadth risen and half withdrawn
But no bright hour between
Brings aught so bright by stream or lawn
To noonday growths of green.

Which flower of life may smell the sweeter
To love’s insensual sense,
Which fragrance move with offering meeter
His soothed omnipote...

FROM ORCUS, HIGH PRIEST OF MEMPHIS, TO DECIUS, THE PRAETORIAN PREFECT.


Rejoice, my friend, rejoice;--the youthful Chief
Of that light Sect which mocks at all belief,
And gay and godless makes the present hour
Its only heaven, is now within our power.
Smooth, impious school!--not all the weapons aimed,
At priestly creeds, since first a creed was framed,
E'er struck so deep as that sly dart they wield,
The Bacchant's pointed spear in laughing flowers concealed.
And oh, 'twere victory to this heart, as sweet
As any thou canst boast--even when the feet
Of thy proud war-steed wade thro' Christian blood,
To wrap this scoffer in Faith's blinding hood,
And bring him tamed and prostrate to implore
The vilest gods even Egypt's saints adore.
What!--do these...

Sad o'er the hills the poppy sunset died.
Slow as a fungus breaking through the crusts
Of forest leaves, the waning half-moon thrusts,
Through gray-brown clouds, one milky silver side;
In her vague light the dogwoods, vale-descried,
Seem nervous torches flourished by the gusts;
The apple-orchards seem the restless dusts
Of wind-thinned mists upon the hills they hide.
It is a night of omens whom late May
Meets, like a wraith, among her train of hours;
An apparition, with appealing eye
And hesitant foot, that walks a willowed way,
And, speaking through the fading moon and flowers,
Bids her prepare her gentle soul to die.

"He was always the one to figure things," remarked Humboldt. "Always the smart ass type, big jawed lazy bones - couldn't make a good farmer out of that sort. Didn't want to do much of anything 'cept run. All his money went on his car. Drinking in the Richelieu most every night. I suspect that's where he were coming from when it happened."

Humboldt leaned back against the store front. Twice weekly he'd take a cab into town to fetch sundry articles as he said - one day went for shopping t'other for visitin'. Retirement had given him the necessary time to concentrate almost exclusively on the latter. This was the first trip in this week and already the day was abuzz with talk of the recent mishap.

"Now let me get this straight," Russell was interjecting. "According to what Humboldt says, the car just plain left the high...

A shadow glided down the way
Where sunset groped among the trees,
And all the woodland bower, asway
With trouble of the evening breeze.

A shape, it moved with head held down;
I knew it not, yet seemed to know
Its form, its carriage of a clown,
Its raiment of the long-ago.

It never turned or spoke a word,
But fixed its gaze on something far,
As if within its heart it heard
The summons of the evening star.

I turned to it and tried to speak;
To ask it of the thing it saw,
Or heard, beyond Earth's outmost peak
The dream, the splendor, and the awe.

What beauty or what terror there
Still bade its purpose to ascend
Above the sunset's sombre glare,
The twilight and the long day's end.

It looked at me but said no word:<...

This world is all a fleeting show,
    For man's illusion given;
The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow--
    There's nothing true but Heaven!

And false the light on glory's plume,
    As fading hues of even;
And love and hope, and beauty's bloom,
Are blossoms gathered for the tomb--
    There's nothing bright but Heaven!

Poor wanderers of a stormy day,
    From wave to wave we're driven,
And fancy's flash and reason's ray
Serve but to light the troubled way--
    There's nothing calm but Heaven!

Erected By Their Father The Lord Digby, In The Church Of Sherborne, In Dorsetshire, 1727.

Go! fair example of untainted youth,
Of modest wisdom, and pacific truth:
Composed in sufferings, and in joy sedate,
Good without noise, without pretension great.
Just of thy word, in every thought sincere,
Who knew no wish but what the world might hear:
Of softest manners, unaffected mind,
Lover of peace, and friend of human kind:
Go live! for Heaven's eternal year is thine,[1]
Go, and exalt thy moral to divine.

And thou, bless'd maid! attendant on his doom,
Pensive hast follow'd to the silent tomb,
Steer'd the same course to the same quiet shore,
Not parted long, and now to part no more!
Go then, where only bliss sincere is known!
Go, where to lov...

Fear not that, while around thee
    Life's varied blessings pour,
One sigh of hers shall wound thee,
    Whose smile thou seek'st no more.
No, dead and cold for ever
    Let our past love remain;
Once gone, its spirit never
    Shall haunt thy rest again.

May the new ties that bind thee
    Far sweeter, happier prove,
Nor e'er of me remind thee,
    But by their truth and love.
Think how, asleep or waking,
    Thy image haunts me yet;
But, how this heart is breaking
    For thy own peace forget.