Bountiful Givers,
I look along the years
And see the flowers you threw...
Anemones
And sprigs of gray
Sparse heather of the rocks,
Or a wild violet
Or daisy of a daisied field...
But each your best.

I might have worn them on my breast
To wilt in the long day...
I might have stemmed them in a narrow vase
And watched each petal sallowing...
I might have held them so - mechanically -
Till the wind winnowed all the leaves
And left upon my hands
A little smear of dust.

Instead
I hid them in the soft warm loam
Of a dim shadowed place...
Deep
In a still cool grotto,
Lit only by the memories of stars
And the wide and luminous eyes
Of dead poets
That love me and that I love...
Deep... deep...
Where none...

        To you, dear mother heart, whose hair is gray
        Above this page to-day,
        Whose face, though lined with many a smile and care,
        Grows year by year more fair,

        Be tenderest tribute set in perfect rhyme,
        That haply passing time
        May cull and keep it for strange lips to pay
        When we have gone our way;

        And, to strange men, weary of field and street,
        Should this, my song, seem sweet,
        Yours be the joy, for all that made it so
        You know, dear heart, you know.

    "Alas! how oft does goodness wound itself!
    And sweet affection prove the spring of woe."

Home.


I.

    O thou pale orb, that silent shines,
        While care-untroubled mortals sleep!
    Thou seest a wretch who inly pines,
        And wanders here to wail and weep!
    With woe I nightly vigils keep,
        Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam,
    And mourn, in lamentation deep,
        How life and love are all a dream.

II.

    A joyless view thy rays adorn
        The faintly marked distant hill:
    I joyless view thy trembling horn,
        Reflected in the gurgling rill:
    My fondly-fluttering heart, be still:
        Thou busy pow'r, Remembrance, cease!
    Ah! must the agonizing thrill
    ...

Ah! sweet is the moonbeam that sleeps on yon fountain,
And sweet the mild rush of the soft-sighing breeze,
And sweet is the glimpse of yon dimly-seen mountain,
'Neath the verdant arcades of yon shadowy trees.

But sweeter than all was thy tone of affection,
Which scarce seemed to break on the stillness of eve,
Though the time it is past! - yet the dear recollection,
For aye in the heart of thy [Percy] must live.

Yet he hears thy dear voice in the summer winds sighing,
Mild accents of happiness lisp in his ear,
When the hope-winged moments athwart him are flying,
And he thinks of the friend to his bosom so dear. -

And thou dearest friend in his bosom for ever
Must reign unalloyed by the fast rolling year,
He loves thee, and dearest one never, Oh! never

Friend of mine! whose lot was cast
With me in the distant past;
Where, like shadows flitting fast,

Fact and fancy, thought and theme,
Word and work, begin to seem
Like a half-remembered dream!

Touched by change have all things been,
Yet I think of thee as when
We had speech of lip and pen.

For the calm thy kindness lent
To a path of discontent,
Rough with trial and dissent;

Gentle words where such were few,
Softening blame where blame was true,
Praising where small praise was due;

For a waking dream made good,
For an ideal understood,
For thy Christian womanhood;

For thy marvellous gift to cull
From our common life and dull
Whatsoe'er is beautiful;

Thoughts and fancies, Hybla's bees
Droppi...

            Sweetheart Spring

    Our Sweetheart, Spring, came softly,
    Her gliding hands were fire,
    Her lilac breath upon our cheeks
    Consumed us with desire.

    By her our God began to build,
    Began to sow and till.
    He laid foundations in our loves
    For every good and ill.
    We asked Him not for blessing,
    We asked Him not for pain -
    Still, to the just and unjust
    He sent His fire and rain.


            Sweetheart Summer

    We prayed not, yet she came to us,
    The silken, shining one,
    On Jacob's noble ladder
    Descended from the sun.
    She reached our town of Every Day,
    Our dry and dusty sod -
    We prayed not, yet she brought to us
    The misty wine of Go...

From heaven there fell upon the foaming wave

A timid drop; the flood with anger roared,

But God, its modest boldness to reward,
Strength to the drop and firm endurance gave.
Its form the mussel captive took,

And to its lasting glory and renown,

The pearl now glistens in our monarch's crown,
With gentle gleam and loving look.

                    1819.*
-
BULBUL'S song, through night hours cold,

Rose to Allah's throne on high;

To reward her melody,
Giveth he a cage of gold.
Such a cage are limbs of men,

Though at first she feels confin'd,

Yet when all she brings to mind,
Straight the spirit sings again.

                    1819.*
-
IN the Koran with strange delight
A peacock's f...

Come blest Spirit from above,
Come and fill my heart with love;
Love to God, and love to man,
Love to do the good I can;
Love to high, and love to low,
Love to friend, and love to foe.
Love to rich, and love to poor,
Love to beggar at my door.
Love to young, and love to old,
Love to hardened heart and cold.
Love, true love, my heart within
For the sinner, not the sin;
Love to holy Sabbath day,
Love to meditate and pray,
Love for love, for hatred even;
Love like this, is born of Heaven.

Young Love lies sleeping
    In May-time of the year,
Among the lilies,
    Lapped in the tender light:
White lambs come grazing,
    White doves come building there:
And round about him
    The May-bushes are white.

Soft moss the pillow
    For oh, a softer cheek;
Broad leaves cast shadow
    Upon the heavy eyes:
There winds and waters
    Grow lulled and scarcely speak;
There twilight lingers
    The longest in the skies.

Young Love lies dreaming;
    But who shall tell the dream?
A perfect sunlight
    On rustling forest tips;
Or perfect moonlight
    Upon a rippling stream;
Or perfect silence,
    Or song of cherished lips.

Burn odours round him
    To fill the drowsy air;
Weave silent dan...

1.

Unfelt unheard, unseen,
I've left my little queen,
Her languid arms in silver slumber lying:
Ah! through their nestling touch,
Who, who could tell how much
There is for madness, cruel, or complying?

2.

Those faery lids how sleek!
Those lips how moist! they speak,
In ripest quiet, shadows of sweet sounds:
Into my fancy's ear
Melting a burden dear,
How "Love doth know no fullness, nor no bounds."

3.

True, tender monitors!
I bend unto your laws:
This sweetest day for dalliance was born!
So, without more ado,
I'll feel my heaven anew,
For all the blushing of the hasty morn.

O loveliest face, on which we look our last -
Not without hope we may again behold
Somewhere, somehow, when we ourselves have passed
Where, Lucy, you have gone, this face so dear,
That gathered beauty every changing year,
And made Youth dream of some day being old.

Some knew the girl, and some the woman grown,
And each was fair, but always 'twas your way
To be more beautiful than yesterday,
To win where others lose; and Time, the doom
Of other faces, brought to yours new bloom.
Now, even from Death you snatch mysterious grace,
This last perfection for your lovely face.

So with your spirit was it day by day,
That spirit unextinguishably gay,
That to the very border of the shade
Laughed on the muttering darkness unafraid.
We shall be lonely for ...

I stood tip-toe upon a little hill,
The air was cooling, and so very still,
That the sweet buds which with a modest pride
Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside,
Their scantly leaved, and finely tapering stems,
Had not yet lost those starry diadems
Caught from the early sobbing of the morn.
The clouds were pure and white as flocks new shorn,
And fresh from the clear brook; sweetly they slept
On the blue fields of heaven, and then there crept
A little noiseless noise among the leaves,
Born of the very sigh that silence heaves:
For not the faintest motion could be seen
Of all the shades that slanted o’er the green.
There was wide wand’ring for the greediest eye,
To peer about upon variety;
Far round the horizon’s crystal air to skim,
And trace the dwindle...

All that thou art, I thrillingly
    And sensibly do feel;
For my eye doth see, and my ear doth hear,
    And my heart is not of steel;
I meet thee in the festal hall -
    I turn thee in the dance -
And I wait, as would a worshipper,
    The giving of thy glance.

Thy beauty is as undenied
    As the beauty of a star;
And thy heart beats just as equally,
    Whate'er thy praises are;
And so long without a parallel
    Thy loveliness hath shone,
That, follow'd like the tided moon,
    Thou mov'st as calmly on.

Thy worth I, for myself, have seen -
    I know that thou art leal;
Leal to a woman's gentleness,
    And thine own spirit's weal;
Thy thoughts are deeper than a dream,
    And holier than gay;
And thy mind is a h...

The pledge of Friendship! it is still divine,
Though watery floods have quenched its burning wine;
Whatever vase the sacred drops may hold,
The gourd, the shell, the cup of beaten gold,
Around its brim the hand of Nature throws
A garland sweeter than the banquet's rose.
Bright are the blushes of the vine-wreathed bowl,
Warm with the sunshine of Anacreon's soul,
But dearer memories gild the tasteless wave
That fainting Sidney perished as he gave.
'T is the heart's current lends the cup its glow,
Whate'er the fountain whence the draught may flow, -
The diamond dew-drops sparkling through the sand,
Scooped by the Arab in his sunburnt hand,
Or the dark streamlet oozing from the snow,
Where creep and crouch the shuddering Esquimaux;
Ay, in the stream that, ere agai...

When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,
We hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago,
    And etched on vacant places
    Are half-forgotten faces
Of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know -
When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow.

Uprising from the ocean of the present surging near,
We see, with strange emotion, that is not free from fear,
    That continent Elysian
    Long vanished from our vision,
Youth's lovely lost Atlantis, so mourned for and so dear,
Uprising from the ocean of the present surging near.

When gloomy, gray Decembers are roused to Christmas mirth,
The dullest life remembers there once was joy on earth,
    And draws from youth's recesses
    Some memory it possesses,
...

Ancient Person, for whom I
All the flattering youth defy,
Long be it e'er thou grow old,
Aching, shaking, crazy cold;
But still continue as thou art,
Ancient Person of my heart.

On thy withered lips and dry,
Which like barren furrows lie,
Brooding kisses I will pour,
Shall thy youthful heart restore,
Such kind show'rs in autumn fall,
And a second spring recall;
Nor from thee will ever part,
Ancient Person of my heart.

Thy nobler parts, which but to name
In our sex would be counted shame,
By ages frozen grasp possest,
From their ice shall be released,
And, soothed by my reviving hand,
In former warmth and vigour stand.
All a lover's wish can reach,
For thy joy my love shall teach;
And for thy pleasure shall improve

I was reading a letter of yours to-day,
The date - O a thousand years ago!
The postmark is there - the month was May:
How, in God's name, did I let you go?
What wonderful things for a girl to say!
And to think that I hadn't the sense to know -
What wonderful things for a man to hear!
O still beloved, O still most dear.

"Duty" I called it, and hugged the word
Close to my side, like a shirt of hair;
You laughed, I remember, laughed like a bird,
And somehow I thought that you didn't care.
Duty! - and Love, with her bosom bare!
No wonder you laughed, as we parted there -
Then your letter came with this last good-by -
And I sat splendidly down to die.

Nor Duty, nor Death, would have aught of me:
"He is Love's," they said, "he cannot be ours;"
...

Light, light,--the last:
Till the night be done,
Keep the watch for stars and sun, and eyelids over-cast.

Once there seemed a sky,
Brooding over men.
Now no stars have come again, since their bright good-bye!

Once my dreams were wise.
Now I nothing know;
Fasting and the dark have so put out my heart's eyes.

But thy golden breath
Burns against my cheek.
I can feel and love, and seek all the rune it saith.

Do not thou be spent,
Holy thing of fire,--
Only hope of heart's desire dulled with wonderment!

While there bide these two
Hands to bar the wind;
Though such fingers chill and thinned, shed no roses through.

While this body bends
Only for thy guard;
Like a tower, to ward and worship all the light it sends...