How many verses have I thrown
Into the fire because the one
Peculiar word, the wanted most,
Was irrecoverably lost!

When cold in the earth lies the friend thou hast loved,
    Be his faults and his follies forgot by thee then;
Or, if from their slumber the veil be removed,
    Weep o'er them in silence, and close it again.
And oh! if 'tis pain to remember how far
    From the pathways of light he was tempted to roam,
Be it bliss to remember that thou wert the star
    That arose on his darkness and guided him home.

From thee and thy innocent beauty first came
    The revealings, that taught him true love to adore,
To feel the bright presence, and turn him with shame
    From the idols he blindly had knelt to before.
O'er the waves of a life, long benighted and wild,
    Thou camest, like a soft golden calm o'er the sea;
And if happiness purely and glowingly smiled
    On h...

As I lay awake in the white moonlight,
I heard a sweet singing in the wood -
        'Out of bed,
        Sleepyhead,
        Put your white foot now,
        Here are we,
        'Neath the tree,
        Singing round the root now!'

I looked out of window in the white moonlight,
The trees were like snow in the wood -
        'Come away
        Child and play,
        Light wi' the gnomies;
        In a mound,
        Green and round,
        That's where their home is!
        'Honey sweet,
        Curds to eat,
        Cream and frumènty,
        Shells and beads,
        Poppy seeds,
        You shall have plenty.'

But soon as I stooped in the dim moonlight
To put on my stocking and my shoe,
The sweet, swe...

You have builded your ships in the sun-lands,
    And launched them with song and wine;
They are boweled with your stanchest engines,
    And masted with bravest pine;
You have met in your closet councils,
    With your plans and your prayers to God
For a fortunate wind to waft you
    Where never a foot has trod.

And now you follow the polar star
    To the seat of the old Norse Kings,
Past the death-white halls of Valhalla,
    Where the Norn to the tempest sings--
Follow the steady needle
    That cleaves to its steady star
To the uttermost realms of Odin
    And the warlike thunderer, Thor.

Far through the icy silence,
    Where the glacier's teeth hang white,
And even the sun-god Baldur,
    Looks down in vague affright,
Yo...

At the golden gate of song
Stood I, knocking all day long,
But the Angel, calm and cold,
Still refused and bade me, "Hold."

Then a breath of soft perfume,
Then a light within the gloom;
Thou, Love, camest to my side,
And the gates flew open wide.

Long I dwelt in this domain,
Knew no sorrow, grief, or pain;
Now you bid me forth and free,
Will you shut these gates on me?

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule,
From a wild clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of space, out of time.

Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the tears that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead,
Their still waters, still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.

By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead,
Their ...

I

My life has been like a bee that roves
Through a scented garden close,
And 'tis I who have kept the honey of love,
The hoarded sweetness and scent thereof,
For all I forget the rose.

Oh, exquisite gardens long forgot
That have made my store complete,
Though winter fall upon blossom and bee,
Yet the kisses I garnered remain with me
Forever and ever sweet.


II

The Priest hath had his word and said his say--
A word i' faith more honest than beguiling--
But now he turns upon his gloomy way--
Good soul, he leaves me smiling.

I may not ponder much on future wrath;
Of all those loves of mine, some six or seven,
Surely ere this have climbed that thorny path
That leads at last to Heaven.

My bold, brown beau...

(See Note 52)

And that was Olaf Trygvason,
Going o'er the North Sea grim,
Straight for his home and kingdom steering,
Where none awaited him.
Now the first mountains tower;
Are they walls, on the ocean that lower?

And that was Olaf Trygvason,
Fast the land seemed locked at first,
All of his youthful, kingly longings
Doomed on the cliffs to burst, -
Until a skald discovered
Shining domes in the cloud-mists, that hovered.

And that was Olaf Trygvason,
Seemed to see before his eyes
Mottled and gray some timeless temple
Lifting white domes to the skies.
Sorely he longed to win it,
Stand and hallow his young faith within it.

I.

Thou sit'st among the sunny silences
Of terraced hills and woodland galleries,
Thou utterance of all calm melodies,
Thou lutanist of Earth's most affluent lute,
Where no false note intrudes
To mar the silent music, branch and root,
Charming the fields ripe, orchards and deep woods,
To song similitudes
Of flower and seed and fruit.

II.

Oft have I seen thee, in some sensuous air,
Bewitch the broad wheat-acres everywhere.,
To imitated gold of thy deep hair:
The peach, by thy red lips' delicious trouble,
Blown into gradual dyes
Of crimson; and beheld thy magic double
Dark-blue with fervid influence of thine eyes
The grapes' rotundities,
Bubble by purple bubble.

III.

Deliberate uttered into life intense,

How thick the shades of evening close!
How pale the sky with weight of snows!
Haste, light the tapers, urge the fire,
And bid the joyless day retire.
Alas, in vain I try within
To brighten the dejected scene,
While rouz'd by grief these fiery pains
Tear the frail texture of my veins;
While winter's voice, that storms around,
And yon deep death-bell's groaning sound
Renew my mind's oppressive gloom,
Till starting horror shakes the room.

Is there in nature no kind power
To sooth affliction's lonely hour?
To blunt the edge of dire disease,
And teach these wintry shades to please?
Come, Cheerfulness, triumphant fair,
Shine through the hovering cloud of care:
O sweet of language, mild of mien,
O virtue's friend and pleasure's queen,
Asswag...

In soft sad nights, when all the still lagoon
Lolls in a wealth of golden radiance,
I sit like one enchanted in a trance,
And see them 'twixt the haunted mist and moon.

Lascivious eyes 'neath snow-pale sensual brows,
Flashing hot, killing lust, and tresses light,
Lose, satin streaming, purple as the night,
Night when the storm sings and the forest bows.

And then, meseems, along the wild, fierce hills
A whisper and a rustle of fleet feet,
As if tempestuous troops of Mænads meet
To drain deep bowls and shout and have their wills.

And once I see large, lustrous limbs revealed,
Moth-white and lawny, 'twixt sonorous trees;
And then a song, faint as of fairy seas,
Lulls all my senses till my eyes are sealed.

The world has just begun to steal
    Each hope that led me lightly on;
I felt not, as I used to feel,
    And life grew dark and love was gone.

No eye to mingle sorrow's tear,
    No lip to mingle pleasure's breath,
No circling arms to draw me near--
    'Twas gloomy, and I wished for death.

But when I saw that gentle eye,
    Oh! something seemed to tell me then,
That I was yet too young to die,
    And hope and bliss might bloom again.

With every gentle smile that crost
    Your kindling cheek, you lighted home
Some feeling which my heart had lost
    And peace which far had learned to roam.

'Twas then indeed so sweet to live,
    Hope looked so new and Love so kind.
That, though I mourn, I yet forgive
    The ruin the...

Fade off the ridges, rosy light,
Fade slowly from the last gray height,
And leave no gloomy cloud to grieve
The heart of this enchanted eve!

All things beneath the still sky seem
Bound by the spell of a sweet dream;
In the dusk forest, dreamingly,
Droops slowly down each plumèd head;
The river flowing softly by
Dreams of the sea; the quiet sea
Dreams of the unseen stars; and I
Am dreaming of the dreamless dead.

The river has a silken sheen,
But red rays of the sunset stain
Its pictures, from the steep shore caught,
Till shades of rock, and fern, and tree
Glow like the figures on a pane
Of some old church by twilight seen,
Or like the rich devices wrought
In mediaeval tapestry.

All lonely in a drifting boat
Through shi...

Up and down the village streets
Strange are the forms my fancy meets,
For the thoughts and things of to-day are hid,
And through the veil of a closed lid
The ancient worthies I see again
I hear the tap of the elder's cane,
And his awful periwig I see,
And the silver buckles of shoe and knee.
Stately and slow, with thoughtful air,
His black cap hiding his whitened hair,
Walks the Judge of the great Assize,
Samuel Sewall the good and wise.
His face with lines of firmness wrought,
He wears the look of a man unbought,
Who swears to his hurt and changes not;
Yet, touched and softened nevertheless
With the grace of Christian gentleness,
The face that a child would climb to kiss!
True and tender and brave and just,
That man might honor and woman trust....

    The man, in life wherever plac'd,
        Hath happiness in store,
    Who walks not in the wicked's way,
        Nor learns their guilty lore!

    Nor from the seat of scornful pride
        Casts forth his eyes abroad,
    But with humility and awe
        Still walks before his GOD.

    That man shall flourish like the trees
        Which by the streamlets grow;
    The fruitful top is spread on high,
        And firm the root below.

    But he whose blossom buds in guilt
        Shall to the ground be cast,
    And, like the rootless stubble, tost
        Before the sweeping blast.

    For why? that GOD the good adore
        Hath giv'n them peace and rest,
    But hath decreed that wicked men
        Shall ne'er ...

What tale is this which stirs a world of knaves
Out of its grubbing to throw greasy pence
Forth to the hat, and choke with eloquence
In boastful prose and verse of doubtful staves?
Four men have died, gentlemen, heroes, braves;
Snows wrap them round eternally. From thence
They may no more return to life or sense
And a steel moon aches down on their chill graves.

"They died for England." It is excellent
To die for England. Death is oft the prize
Of him who bears the burden and the load.
So with a glory let our lives be spent --
We may be noble in the Minories
And die for England in the Camden Road.

Roses, brier on brier,
Like a hedge of fire,
Walled it from the world and rolled
Crimson 'round it; manifold
Blossoms, 'mid which once of old
Walked my Heart's Desire.

There the golden Hours
Dwelt; and 'mid the bowers
Beauty wandered like a maid;
And the Dreams that never fade
Sat within its haunted shade
Gazing at the flowers.

There the winds that vary
Melody and marry
Perfume unto perfume, went,
Whispering to the buds, that bent,
Messages whose wonderment
Made them sweet to carry.

There the waters hoary
Murmured many a story
To the leaves that leaned above,
Listening to their tales of love,
While the happiness thereof
Flushed their green with glory.

There the sunset's shimmer
'Mid the bower...

I Wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hoürs we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.

I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.