I found that ivory image there
Dancing with her chosen youth,
But when he wound her coal-black hair
As though to strangle her, no scream
Or bodily movement did I dare,
Eyes under eyelids did so gleam;
Love is like the lion's tooth.

When She, and though some said she played
I said that she had danced heart's truth,
Drew a knife to strike him dead,
I could but leave him to his fate;
For no matter what is said
They had all that had their hate;
Love is like the lion's tooth.

Did he die or did she die?
Seemed to die or died they both?
God be with the times when I
Cared not a thraneen for what chanced
So that I had the limbs to try
Such a dance as there was danced -
Love is like the lion's tooth.

When our two souls have left this mortal clay
And, seeking mine, you think that mine is lost -
Look for me first in that Elysian glade
Where Lesbia is, for whom the birds sing most.

What happy hearts those feathered mortals have,
That sing so sweet when they're wet through in spring!
For in that month of May when leaves are young,
Birds dream of song, and in their sleep they sing.

And when the spring has gone and they are dumb,
Is it not fine to watch them at their play:
Is it not fine to see a bird that tries
To stand upon the end of every spray?

See how they tilt their pretty heads aside:
When women make that move they always please.
What cosy homes birds make in leafy walls
That Nature's love has ruined - and the trees.

Oft have I se...

Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies,
Let them live upon their praises;
Long as there's a sun that sets,
Primroses will have their glory;
Long as there are violets,
They will have a place in story:
There's a flower that shall be mine,
'Tis the little Celandine.

Eyes of some men travel far
For the finding of a star;
Up and down the heavens they go,
Men that keep a mighty rout!
I'm as great as they, I trow,
Since the day I found thee out,
Little Flower! I'll make a stir,
Like a sage astronomer.

Modest, yet withal an Elf
Bold, and lavish of thyself;
Since we needs must first have met
I have seen thee, high and low,
Thirty years or more, and yet
'Twas a face I did not know;
Thou hast now, go where I may,
Fifty greetings...

Mother says, "Be in no hurry,
Marriage oft means care and worry."

Auntie says, with manner grave,
"Wife is synonym for slave."

Father asks, in tones commanding,
"How does Bradstreet rate his standing?"

Sister crooning to her twins,
Sighs, "With marriage care begins."

Grandma, near life's closing days,
Murmurs, "Sweet are girlhood's ways."

Maud, twice widowed ("sod and grass")
Looks at me and moans "Alas!"

They are six, and I am one,
Life for me has just begun.

They are older, calmer, wiser:
Age should aye be youth's adviser.

They must know - and yet, dear me,
When in Harry's eyes I see

All the world of love there burning -
On my six advisers turning,

I make answer, "Oh, but Harry

    Dead, why defend thee, who in life
    For thy worst foe hadst died;
    Who, thy own name a word of strife,
    Didst silent stand aside?

    Grand in forgiveness, what to thee
    The big world's puny prate!
    Or thy great heart hath ceased to be
    Or loveth still its mate!

Whatever you want, if you wish for it long,
    With constant yearning and fervent desire,
If your wish soars upward on wings so strong
    That they never grow languid and never tire, -

Why, over the storm clouds and out of the dark
    It shall come flying some day to you.
As the dove with the olive branch flew to the ark,
    And the dream you have cherished -it shall come true.

But lest much rapture shall make you mad,
    Or too bright sunshine should strike you blind,
Along with your blessing a something sad
    Shall come like a shadow that follows behind.

Something unwelcome and unforeseen,
    Yet of your hope and your wish, a part,
Shall stand like a sentinel in between
    The perfect joy and the human heart.

I wished for a c...

It was the pleasant harvest time,
When cellar-bins are closely stowed,
And garrets bend beneath their load,

And the old swallow-haunted barns
Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams
Through which the moted sunlight streams,

And winds blow freshly in, to shake
The red plumes of the roosted cocks,
And the loose hay-mow's scented locks

Are filled with summer's ripened stores,
Its odorous grass and barley sheaves,
From their low scaffolds to their eaves.

On Esek Harden's oaken floor,
With many an autmn threshing worn,
Lay the heaped ears of unhusked corn.

And thither came young men and maids,
Beneath a moon that, large and low,
Lit that sweet eve of long ago.

They took their places; some by chance,
And others by a m...

    I

First, London, for its myriads; for its height,
Manhattan heaped in towering stalagmite;
But Paris for the smoothness of the paths
That lead the heart unto the heart's delight. . . .

Fair loiterer on the threshold of those days
When there's no lovelier prize the world displays
Than, having beauty and your twenty years,
You have the means to conquer and the ways,

And coming where the crossroads separate
And down each vista glories and wonders wait,
Crowning each path with pinnacles so fair
You know not which to choose, and hesitate -

Oh, go to Paris. . . . In the midday gloom
Of some old quarter take a little room
That looks off over Paris and its towers
From Saint Gervais round to the Emperor's Tomb, -

So high that you ...

Rose-colour
Rose Pink am I, the colour gleams and glows
    In many a flower; her lips, those tender doors
By which, in time of love, love's essence flows
    From him to her, are dyed in delicate Rose.
Mine is the earliest Ruby light that pours
    Out of the East, when day's white gates unclose.

On downy peach, and maiden's downier cheek
    I, in a flush of radiant bloom, alight,
Clinging, at sunset, to the shimmering peak
    I veil its snow in floods of Roseate light.

Azure
Mine is the heavenly hue of Azure skies,
    Where the white clouds lie soft as seraphs' wings,
Mine the sweet, shadowed light in innocent eyes,
    Whose lovely looks light only on lovely things.

Mine the Blue Distance, delicate and clear,
    Mine...

The dew falls and the stars fall,
The sun falls in the west,
But never more
Through the closed door,
Shall the one that I loved best
Return to me:
A salt tear is the sea,
All earth's air is a sigh,
But they never can mourn for me
With my heart's cry,
For the one that I loved best
Who caressed me with her eyes,
And every morning came to me,
With the beauty of sunrise,
Who was health and wealth and all,
Who never shall answer my call,
While the sun falls in the west,
The dew falls and the stars fall.

Buttercups and daisies growing everywhere,
In the field of clover, on the hillside fair,
And in lovely valley, tilled with greatest care.

Naught but weeds and rubbish, in the farmer's eyes,
Drawing off the nurture from the grain they prize,
And their great luxuriance sore their patience tries.

But the dews of heaven give them richest bloom,
And their smiling beauty drives away our gloom;
For such little beauties surely there is room.

In this world of sorrow flowers ne'er bloom in vain,
Though they in their blooming sap the golden grain,
And drink in the moisture of the latter rain;

For our Heavenly Father deemed it wise and good
To diffuse this beauty with the grain for food.
And this wise arrangement He has never rued.

Teaching us thi...

My eyes have seen another spring
    In floral beauty rise,
And happy birds on gladsome wing
    Flit through the azure skies.
Though sickness bowed my feeble frame
    Through winter's cheerless hours,
Life's sinking torch resumes its flame
    With renovated powers.

Once more on nature's ample shrine,
    Beneath the spreading boughs,
With lifted hands and hopes divine
    I offer up my vows.
My incense is the breath of flowers,
    Perfuming all the air;
My pillared fane these woodland bowers,
    A heaven-built house of prayer;

My fellow-worshippers, the gay,
    Free songsters of the grove,
Who to the closing eye of day
    Warble their hymns of love.
The low and dulcet lyre of spring,
    Swept by the vagrant breeze,<...

Before I lost my love, he said to me:
    'Sweetheart, I like deep azure tints on you.'
But I, perverse as any girl will be
    Who has too many lovers, wore not blue.

He said, 'I love to see my lady's hair
    Coiled low like Clytie's -with no wanton curl.'
But I, like any silly, wilful girl,
    Said, 'Donald likes it high,' and wore it there.

He said, 'I wish, love, when you sing to me,
    You would sing sweet, sad things -they suit your voice.'
I tossed my head, and sung light strains of glee -
    Saying, 'This song, or that, is Harold's choice.'

But now I wear no colour -none but blue.
    Low in my neck I coil my silken hair.
He does not know it, but I strive to do
    Whatever in his eyes would make me fair.

I sing no songs but...

It lies amongst the sleeping stones,
Far down the hidden mountain glade;
And past its brink the torrent moans
For ever in a dreamy shade.

A little patch of dark-green moss,
Whose softness grew of quiet ways
(With all its deep, delicious floss)
In slumb’rous suns of summer days.

You know the place? With pleasant tints
The broken sunset lights the bowers;
And then the woods are full with hints
Of distant, dear, voluptuous flowers!

’Tis often now the pilgrim turns
A faded face towards that seat,
And cools his brow amongst the ferns;
The runnel dabbling at his feet.

There fierce December seldom goes,
With scorching step and dust and drouth;
But, soft and low, October blows
Sweet odours from her dewy mouth.

And Autu...

In placid hours well-pleased we dream
Of many a brave unbodied scheme.
But form to lend, pulsed life create,
What unlike things must meet and mate:
A flame to melt--a wind to freeze;
Sad patience--joyous energies;
Humility--yet pride and scorn;
Instinct and study; love and hate;
Audacity--reverence. These must mate,
And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart,
To wrestle with the angel--Art.

O Beautiful white Angels! who control
The inner workings of each poet soul,
Thou who hast touched my mind with tender graces
Come near to me that I may see thy faces.

Me, didst thou bless before I came to earth;
Me, hast thou kissed, and dowered at my birth,
With such a wealth of sweet imaginings,
That, even in sleep, my dreaming fancy sings.

Sometimes when seeing snow-white clouds at noon,
Or watching silver shadows from the moon,
Within my soul has stirred a joy like fear,
As if some kindred spirit lingered near.

Come closer, Angels! thou whose haloed wings
Do gild for me the meanest ways and things,
With beauty borrowed from the Infinite -
Stand forth, let me behold thee in the light.

O thought supreme!    O death!    O life! unknown...

Thought is a garden wide and old
For airy creatures to explore,
Where grow the great fantastic flowers
With truth for honey at the core.

There like a wild marauding bee
Made desperate by hungry fears,
From gorgeous If to dark Perhaps
I blunder down the dusk of years.

(Macmillan's Magazine, May 1865.)


Where were you last night? I watched at the gate;
I went down early, I stayed down late.
    Were you snug at home, I should like to know,
Or were you in the coppice wheedling Kate?

She's a fine girl, with a fine clear skin;
Easy to woo, perhaps not hard to win.
    Speak up like a man and tell me the truth:
I'm not one to grow downhearted and thin.

If you love her best speak up like a man;
It's not I will stand in the light of your plan:
    Some girls might cry and scold you a bit,
And say they couldn't bear it; but I can.

Love was pleasant enough, and the days went fast;
Pleasant while it lasted, but it needn't last;
    Awhile on the wax and awhile on the wane,
Now dropped away into the...