Like flowers sequestered from the sun
And wind of summer, day by day
I dwindled paler, whilst my hair
Showed the first tinge of grey.

"Oh, what is life, that we should live?
Or what is death, that we must die?
A bursting bubble is our life:
I also, what am I?"

"What is your grief? now tell me, sweet,
That I may grieve," my sister said;
And stayed a white embroidering hand
And raised a golden head:

Her tresses showed a richer mass,
Her eyes looked softer than my own,
Her figure had a statelier height,
Her voice a tenderer tone.

"Some must be second and not first;
All cannot be the first of all:
Is not this, too, but vanity?
I stumble like to fall.

"So yesterday I read the acts
Of Hector and each clangorous ...

Sweet guardian of the rosy cheek!
Whene'er to thee I raise my hands
Upon the mountain's breezy peak,
Or on the yellow winding sands,

If thou hast deign'd, by Pity mov'd,
This fev'rish phantom to prolong,
I've touch'd my lute, for ever lov'd,
And bless'd thee with its earliest song!

And oh! if in thy gentle ear
Its simple notes have sounded sweet,
May the soft breeze, to thee so dear,
Now bear them to thy rose-wreath'd seat!

For thou hast dried the dew of grief,
And Friendship feels new ecstacy:
To Pollio thou hast stretch'd relief,
And, raising him, hast cherish'd me.

So, whilst some treasur'd plant receives
Th' admiring florist's partial show'r,
The drops that tremble from its leaves
Oft feed some near uncultur'd flow'r....

I

Over the broken world, the dark gone by,
Horror of outcast darkness torn with wars;
And timeless agony
Of the white fire, heaped high by blinded Stars,
Unfaltering, unaghast;--
Out of the midmost Fire
At last,--at last,--
Cry! ...
O darkness' one desire,--
O darkness, have you heard?--
Black Chaos, blindly striving towards the Word?
--The Cry!

Behold thy conqueror, Death!
Behold, behold from whom
It flutters forth, that triumph of First-Breath,
Victorious one that can but breathe and cling,--
This pulsing flower,--this weaker than a wing,
Halcyon thing!--
Cradled above unfathomable doom.


II

Under my feet, O Death,
Under my trembling feet!
Back, through the gates of hell, now give me way.
I...

Your birthday, sweetheart, is my birthday too,
For, had you not been born,
I who began to live beholding you
Up early as the morn,
That day in June beside the rose-hung stream,
Had never lived at all -
We stood, do you remember? in a dream
There by the water-fall.

You were as still as all the other flowers
Under the morning's spell;
Sudden two lives were one, and all things "ours" -
How we can never tell.
Surely it had been fated long ago -
What else, dear, could we think?
It seemed that we had stood for ever so,
There by the river's brink.

And all the days that followed seemed as days
Lived side by side before,
Strangely familiar all your looks and ways,
The very frock you wore;
Nothing seemed strange, yet all divinely new;

Reach out your arms, and hold me close and fast,
Tell me you have no memories of your past
That mar this love of ours, so great, so vast.

Some truths are cheapened when too oft averred -
Does not the deed speak louder than the word?
(Dear Christ! that old dream woke again and stirred.)

As you love me, you never loved before?
Though oft you say it - say it yet once more;
My heart is jealous of those days of yore.

Sweet wife, dear comrade, mother of my child,
My life is yours, by memory undefiled.
(It stirs again, that passion brief and wild.)

You never knew such happy hours as this,
We two alone, our hearts surcharged with bliss,
Nor other kisses sweet as my own kiss?

I was the thirsty field, long parched wit...

I've had the heart-ache many times,
At the mere mention of a name
I've never woven in my rhymes,
Though from it inspiration came.
It is in truth a holy thing,
Life-cherished from the world apart--
A dove that never tries its wing,
But broods and nestles in the heart.

That name of melody recalls
Her gentle look and winning ways
Whose portrait hangs on memory's walls,
In the fond light of other days.
In the dream-land of Poetry,
Reclining in its leafy bowers,
Her bright eyes in the stars I see,
And her sweet semblance in the flowers.

Her artless dalliance and grace--
The joy that lighted up her brow--
The sweet expression of her face--
Her form--it stands before me now!
And I can fancy that I hear
The woodland songs she used ...

Oh love! that stronger art than Wine,
Pleasing Delusion, Witchery divine,
Wont to be priz'd above all Wealth,
Disease that has more Joys than Health;
Though we blaspheme thee in our Pain,
And of Tyranny complain,
We are all better'd by thy Reign.

What Reason never can bestow,
We to this useful Passion owe:
Love wakes the dull from sluggish ease,
And learns a Clown the Art to please:
Humbles the Vain, kindles the Cold,
Makes Misers free, and Cowards bold;
And teaches airy Fops to think.

When full brute Appetite is fed,
And choaked the Glutton lies and dead;
Thou new Spirits dost dispense,
And fine'st the gross Delights of Sense.

Virtue's unconquerable Aid
That against Nature can persuade;
And makes a roving Mind retire

Thank God for life: life is not sweet always.
Hands may he heavy-laden, hearts care full,
Unwelcome nights follow unwelcome days,
And dreams divine end in awakenings dull.
Still it is life, anil life is cause for praise.
This ache, this restlessness, this quickening sting,
Prove me no torpid and inanimate thing,
Prove me of Him who is of life the Spring.
I am alive!--and that is beautiful.

Thank God for Love: though Love may hurt and wound
Though set with sharpest thorns its rose may be,
Roses are not of winter, all attuned
Must be the earth, full of soft stir, and free
And warm ere dawns the rose upon its tree.
Fresh currents through my frozen pulses run;
My heart has tasted summer, tasted sun,
And I can thank Thee, Lord, although not one
Of all th...

Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower
Of beauty is thy earthly dower!
Twice seven consenting years have shed
Their utmost bounty on thy head:
And these grey rocks; that household lawn;
Those trees, a veil just half withdrawn;
This fall of water that doth make
A murmur near the silent lake;
This little bay; a quiet road
That holds in shelter thy Abode,
In truth together do ye seem
Like something fashioned in a dream;
Such Forms as from their covert peep
When earthly cares are laid asleep!
But, O fair Creature! in the light
Of common day, so heavenly bright,
I bless Thee, Vision as thou art,
I bless thee with a human heart;
God shield thee to thy latest years!
Thee, neither know I, nor thy peers;
And yet my eyes are filled with tears.
With ...

Two things thou shalt not long for, if thou love a mind serene;--
A woman to thy wife, though she were a crowned queen;
And the second, borrowed money,--though the smiling lender say
That he will not demand the debt until the Judgment Day.

Love reckons not by time - its May days of delight
Are swifter than the falling stars that pass beyond our sight.

Love reckons not by time - its moments of despair
Are years that march like prisoners, who drag the chains they wear.

Love counts not by the sun - it hath no night or day -
'Tis only light when love is near - 'tis dark with love away.

Love hath no measurements of height, or depth, or space,
But yet within a little grave it oft hath found a place.

Love is its own best law - its wrongs seek no redress;
Love is forgiveness - and it only knoweth how to bless.

Like clouds that flit across the sky,
    So follow hopes and fears.
What in these clouds see you and me
    Dear Sweetheart, smiles or tears?

This little airy fleecy wing,
    That flits across the blue,
What message Sweetheart does it bring
    Of hope or fear to you?

Pray God it brings you sunny hours
    And haply some few tears
To bless like showers your summer flowers
    In the long coming years.

I
I wonder do you feel to-day
As I have felt since, hand in hand,
We sat down on the grass, to stray
In spirit better through the land,
This morn of Rome and May?

II
For me, I touched a thought, I know,
Has tantalized me many times,
(Like turns of thread the spiders throw
Mocking across our path) for rhymes
To catch at and let go.

III
Help me to hold it! First it left
The yellowing fennel, run to seed
There, branching from the brickwork’s cleft,
Some old tomb’s ruin: yonder weed
Took up the floating weft,

IV
Where one small orange cup amassed
Five beetles, blind and green they grope
Among the honey-meal: and last,
Everywhere on the grassy slope
I traced it. Hold it fast!

V
The champaign with ...

Crown her with stars, this angel of our planet,
Cover her with morning, this thing of pure delight,
Mantle her with midnight till a mortal cannot
See her for the garments of the light and the night.

How far I wandered, worlds away and far away,
Heard a voice but knew it not in the clear cold,
Many a wide circle and many a wan star away,
Dwelling in the chambers where the worlds were growing old.

Saw them growing old and heard them falling
Like ripe fruit when a tree is in the wind;
Saw the seraphs gather them, their clarion voices calling
In rounds of cheering labour till the orchard floor was thinned.

Saw a whole universe turn to its setting,
Old and cold and weary, gray and cold as death,
But before mine eyes were veiled in forgetting,
Something...

        The home of love is her blue eyes,
        Wherein all joy, all beauty lies,
        More sweet than hopes of paradise,
                She being young.

        Speak of her with a miser's praise;
        She craves no golden speech; her ways
        Wind through charmed nights and magic days,
                She being young.

        She is so far from pain and death,
        So warm her cheek, so sweet her breath
        Glad words are all the words she saith,
                She being young.

        Seeing her face, it seems not far
        To Troy's heroic field of war,
        To Troy and all great things that are,
                She being young.

Amid my treasures once I found
    A simple faded flower;
A flower with all its beauty fled,
    The darling of an hour.

With bitterness I gazed awhile,
    Then flung it from my sight;
For with it all came back to me
    the pain and heedless blight.

But, moved with pity and regret
    I took it up again;
For oh, so long and wearily
    In darkness it had lain.

Ah, purple pansy, once I kissed
    Your dewy petals fair;
For then, indeed, I had no thought
    Of earthly pain or care.

Your faded petals now I touch
    With sacred love and awe;
For never will my heart kneel down
    To earthly will or law.

Your velvet beauty still is dear,
    Though faded now you seem;
You drooped and died, yet still yo...

"Father!" a youthful hero said, bending his lofty brow
"On the world wide I must go forth - then bless me, bless me, now!
And, ere I shall return oh say, what goal must I have won -
What is the aim, the prize, that most thou wishest for thy son?"

Proudly the father gazed upon his bearing brave and high,
The dauntless spirit flashing forth from his dark brilliant eye:
"My son, thou art the eldest hope of a proud honored name,
Then, let thy guiding star through life - thy chief pursuit - be fame!"

"'Tis well! thou'st chosen, father, well - it is a glorious part!"
And the youth's glance told the wish chimed well with that brave ardent heart.
"Now, brother, thou'lt have none to share thy sports till I return, -
Say, what shall be the glitt'ring prize that I afar must earn?"

I.

My Sister! my sweet Sister! if a name
Dearer and purer were, it should be thine.
Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim
No tears, but tenderness to answer mine:
Go where I will, to me thou art the same -
A loved regret which I would not resign.[z]
There yet are two things in my destiny, -
A world to roam through, and a home with thee.[84]

II.

The first were nothing - had I still the last,
It were the haven of my happiness;
But other claims and other ties thou hast,[aa]
And mine is not the wish to make them less.
A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past[ab]
Recalling, as it lies beyond redress;
Reversed for him our grandsire's[85] fate of yore, -
He had no rest at sea, nor...