My heart was heavy, for its trust had been
Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong;
So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men,
One summer Sabbath day I strolled among
The green mounds of the village burial-place;
Where, pondering how all human love and hate
Find one sad level; and how, soon or late,
Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face,
And cold hands folded over a still heart,
Pass the green threshold of our common grave,
Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,
Awed for myself, and pitying my race,
Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave,
Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave

Now a new day just begun,
    I'll try to spend it well;
That I may have, when eveningcomes,
    No naughty deeds to tell.

So through my life may every day
    Be better than the past;
That God may take me, when I die,
    To live in heaven at last.

WHO knows the world will never feel surprise,
When men are duped by artful women's eyes;
Though death his weapon freely will unfold;
Love's pranks, we find, are ever ruled by gold.
To vain coquettes I doubtless here allude;
But spite of arts with which they're oft endued;
I hope to show (our honour to maintain,)
We can, among a hundred of the train,
Catch one at least, and play some cunning trick: -
For instance, take blithe Gulphar's wily nick,
Who gained (old soldier-like) his ardent aim,
And gratis got an avaricious dame.

LOOK well at this, ye heroes of the sword,
Howe'er with wily freaks your heads be stored,
Beyond a doubt, at court I now could find,
A host of lovers of the Gulphar kind.

To Gasperin's so often went our wight,
The wife at ...

I sought the trails of South and North,
I wandered East and West;
But pride and passion drove me forth
And would not let me rest.

And still I seek, as still I roam,
A snug roof overhead;
Four walls, my own; a quiet home. . . .
"You'll have it - when you're dead."

Jenny, Jenny, dry thi ee,
An' dunnot luk soa sad;
It grieves me varry mich to see
Tha freeats abaat yon lad;
For weel tha knows, withaat a daat,
Whearivver he may be,
Tho fond o' rammellin' abaat,
He's allus true to thee.

Tha'll learn mooar sense, lass, in a while,
For wisdom comes wi' time,
An' if tha lives tha'll leearn to smile
At troubles sich as thine;
A faithful chap is better far,
Altho' he likes to rooam,
Nor one 'at does what isn't reight,
An' sits o'th' hearth at hooam.

Tha needn't think 'at wedded life
Noa disappointment brings;
Tha munnot think to keep a chap
Teed to thi appron strings.
Soa dry thi een, they're varry wet,
An' let thi heart be glad,
For tho' tha's wed a rooamer, yet,
Tha's wed a honest ...

Letter I. Prelude.


I.

    Teach me to love thee as a man, in prayer,
    May love the picture of a sainted nun,
    And I will woo thee, when the day is done,
    With tears and vows, and fealty past compare,
    And seek the sunlight in thy golden hair,
    And kiss thy hand to claim thy benison.


II.

    I shall not need to gaze upon the skies,
    Or mark the message of the morning breeze,
    Or heed the notes of birds among the trees,
    If, taught by thee to yearn for Paradise,
    I may confront thee with adoring eyes
 ...

When Jessie comes with her soft breast,
And yields the golden keys,
Then is it as if God caress'd
Twin babes upon His knees,
Twin babes that, each to other press'd,
Just feel the Father's arms, wherewith they both are bless'd.

But when I think if we must part,
And all this personal dream be fled,
O then my heart! O then my useless heart!
Would God that thou wert dead,
A clod insensible to joys and ills,
A stone remote in some bleak gully of the hills!

I.
I said, Then, dearest, since ’tis so,
Since now at length my fate I know,
Since nothing all my love avails,
Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails,
Since this was written and needs must be
My whole heart rises up to bless
Your name in pride and thankfulness!
Take back the hope you gave, I claim
Only a memory of the same,
And this beside, if you will not blame,
Your leave for one more last ride with me.

II.
My mistress bent that brow of hers;
Those deep dark eyes where pride demurs
When pity would be softening through,
Fixed me, a breathing-while or two,
With life or death in the balance: right!
The blood replenished me again;
My last thought was at least not vain:
I and my mistress, side by side
Shall be together, breathe ...

O Merlin, how the magic from your eyes
Bids the world flame about your idle feet,
And makes a marvel of the humming street,
The watchful bush, the starry-haunted skies!
Dear, do you know that all such magic dies
In foolish hearts that regularly beat?
Blinded with dust, the elders in retreat
Shake their thin locks to prove that they are wise.
God help them in their tameness: you are wild.
Hold fast your faith, for love has mightier spells
Than yet your mouth has chattered, sung or laughed;
Be drunk still with th’ enchanted wine you’ve quaffed.
Awe spreads her wings above the hut where dwells,
Rapt in his glow of gramarye, the child.

    THE ONE

    The dead man's gone, the live man's sad, the dying leaf shakes on the tree,
    The wind constrains the window-panes and moans like moaning of the sea,
    And sour's the taste now culled in haste of lovely things I won too late,
    And loud and loud above the crowd the Voice of One more strong than we.


    THE OTHER

    This Voice you hear, this call you fear, is it unprophesied or new?
    Were you so insolent to think its rope would never circle you?
    Did you then beastlike live and walk with ears and eyes that would not turn?
    Who bade you hope your service 'scape in that eternal retinue?


    THE ONE

    No; for I swear now bare's the tree and loud the moaning of the wind,
    I walked no rut with eyelids shut, ...

Upon his sculptured judgment throne the Roman Ruler sate;
His glittering minions stood around in all their gorgeous state;
But proud as were the noble names that flashed upon each shield -
Names known in lofty council halls as well as tented field -
None dared approach to break the spell of deep and silent gloom
That hover'd o'er his haughty brow, like shadow of the tomb.

While still he mused the air was rent with loud and deaf'ning cry,
And angry frown and darker smile proclaimed the victim nigh.
No traitor to his native land, no outlaw fierce was there,
'Twas but a young and gentle girl, as opening rose bud fair,
Who stood alone among those men, so dark and full of guile,
And yet her cheek lost not its bloom, her lips their gentle smile.

At length he spoke, that rut...

Friend, for the sake of loves we hold in common,
The love of books, of paintings, rhyme and fiction;
And for the sake of that divine affliction,
The love of art, passing the love of woman;
By which all life's made nobler, superhuman,
Lifting the soul above, and, without friction
Of Time, that puts failure in his prediction,
Works to some end through hearts that dreams illumine:
To you I pour this Cup of Dreams a striver,
And dreamer too in this sad world, unwitting
Of that you do, the help that still assureth,
Lifts up the heart, struck down by that dark driver,
Despair, who, on Life's pack-horse effort sitting,
Rides down Ambition through whom Art endureth.

Motions and Means, on land and sea at war
With old poetic feeling, not for this,
Shall ye, by Poets even, be judged amiss!
Nor shall your presence, howsoe'er it mar
The loveliness of Nature, prove a bar
To the Mind's gaining that prophetic sense
Of future change, that point of vision, whence
May be discovered what in soul ye are.
In spite of all that beauty may disown
In your harsh features, Nature doth embrace
Her lawful offspring in Man's art; and Time,
Pleased with your triumphs o'er his brother Space,
Accepts from your bold hands the proffered crown
Of hope, and smiles on you with cheer sublime.

Not into these dark cities,
These sordid marts and streets,
That the sun in his rising pities,
And the moon with sorrow greets,
Does she, with her dreams and flowers,
For whom our hearts are dumb,
Does she of the golden hours,
Earth's heaven-born Beauty, come.

Afar 'mid the hills she tarries,
Beyond the farthest streams,
In a world where music marries
With color that blooms and beams;
Where shadow and light are wedded,
Whose children people the Earth,
The fair, the fragrant-headed,
The pure, the wild of birth.

Where Morn with rosy kisses
Wakes ever the eyes of Day;
And, winds in her radiant tresses,
Haunts every wildwood way:
Where Eve, with her mouth's twin roses,
Her kisses sweet with balm,
The eyes of the glad Day c...

As Adam did in Paradise,
To-day the primal right we claim
Fair mirror of the woods and skies,
We give to thee a name.

Lake of the pickerel! let no more
The echoes answer back, "Great Pond,"
But sweet Kenoza, from thy shore
And watching hills beyond,

Let Indian ghosts, if such there be
Who ply unseen their shadowy lines,
Call back the ancient name to thee,
As with the voice of pines.

The shores we trod as barefoot boys,
The nutted woods we wandered through,
To friendship, love, and social joys
We consecrate anew.

Here shall the tender song be sung,
And memory's dirges soft and low,
And wit shall sparkle on the tongue,
And mirth shall overflow,

Harmless as summer lightning plays
From a low, hidden cloud by n...

The groundflame of the crocus breaks the mould,
Fair Spring slides hither o'er the Southern sea,
Wavers on her thin stem the snowdrop cold
That trembles not to kisses of the bee:
Come Spring, for now from all the dripping eaves
The spear of ice has wept itself away,
And hour by hour unfolding woodbine leaves
O'er his uncertain shadow droops the day.
She comes! The loosen'd rivulets run;
The frost-bead melts upon her golden hair;
Her mantle, slowly greening in the Sun,
Now wraps her close, now arching leaves her bar
To breaths of balmier air;

Up leaps the lark, gone wild to welcome her,
About her glance the tits, and shriek the jays,
Before her skims the jubilant woodpecker,
The linnet's bosom blushes at her gaze,
While round her brows a woodland cul...

Over the silent sea of sleep,
    Far away! far away!
Over a strange and starlit deep
    Where the beautiful shadows sway;
    Dim in the dark,
    Glideth a bark,
Where never the waves of a tempest roll --
Bearing the very "soul of a soul",
    Alone, all alone --
Far away -- far away
    To shores all unknown
In the wakings of the day;
To the lovely land of dreams,
Where what is meets with what seems
Brightly dim, dimly bright;
Where the suns meet stars at night,
Where the darkness meets the light
    Heart to heart, face to face,
    In an infinite embrace.

    *    *    *    *    *

    Mornings break,
    And we wake,
And we wonder where we went
    In the bark
    Thro' the dark,
But our wonder is ...

Weave cunningly the web
Of twilight, O thou subtle-fingered Eve!
And at the slow day's ebb
With small blue stars the purple curtain weave.
If any wind there be,
Bid it but breathe lightly as woodland violets o'er the sea;
If any moon, be it no more than a white fluttering feather.
Call the last birds together.

O Eve, and let no wisp
Of day's distraction thine enchantment mar;
Thy soft spell lisp
And lure the sweetness down of each blue star.
Then let that low moan be
A while more easeful, trembling remote and strange, far oversea;
So shall the easeless heart of love rest then, or only sigh,
Hearing the swallows cry!