LATE OF IPSWICH, AND ONE OF THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.


From thy sad sire and weeping kindred torn,
    Thine is the crown of everlasting life;
On thy closed eye has burst a brighter morn,
    In realms where joy and peace alone are rife;
Thy soul, in Christ, enlightened and new-born,
    Has meekly triumphed over nature's strife,
And passed the dreary portals of the grave,
Strong in the faith of Him who died to save!

Soldier of Christ! thy warfare now is o'er,
    Thy toils accomplished and thy trials done,
And thou shalt weep and sigh, young saint, no more;
    With thee the scene is closed, the race is run.
Death heaved the bar of that eternal door;
    The palm is gained,--the victory is won,
And earthly sorrows shall no more alloy
Thy soul's...

Above the ruin of God's holy place,
Where man-forsaken lay the bleeding rood,
Whose hands, when men had craved substantial food,
Gave not, nor folded when they cried, Embrace,
I saw exalted in the latter days
Her whom west winds with natal foam bedewed,
Wafted toward Cyprus, lily-breasted, nude,
Standing with arms out-stretched and flower-like face.
And, sick with all those centuries of tears
Shed in the penance for factitious woe,
Once more I saw the nations at her feet,
For Love shone in their eyes, and in their ears
Come unto me, Love beckoned them, for lo!
The breast your lips abjured is still as sweet.

Yes, we knew we must lose him, - though friendship may claim
To blend her green leaves with the laurels of fame;
Though fondly, at parting, we call him our own,
'T is the whisper of love when the bugle has blown.

As the rider that rests with the spur on his heel,
As the guardsman that sleeps in his corselet of steel,
As the archer that stands with his shaft on the string,
He stoops from his toil to the garland we bring.

What pictures yet slumber unborn in his loom,
Till their warriors shall breathe and their beauties shall bloom,
While the tapestry lengthens the life-glowing dyes
That caught from our sunsets the stain of their skies!

In the alcoves of death, in the charnels of timid,
Where flit the gaunt spectres of passion and crime,
There are triumph...

                    IN THE DORIC MANNER


Shepherd.    Echo, I ween, will in the woods reply,
                And quaintly answer questions: shall I try?
Echo.                                Try.
Shepherd.    What must we do our passion to express?
Echo.                                Press.
Shepherd.    How shall I please her, who ne'er loved before?
Echo.                                Before.
Shepherd.    What most moves women when we them address?
Echo.                                A dress.
Shepherd.    Say, what can keep her chaste whom I adore?
Echo.                                A door.
Shepherd.    If music softens rocks, love tunes my lyre.
Echo.                         ...

Oh, would that she were here,
These hills and dales among,
Where vocal groves are gayly mocked
By Echo's airy tongue:
Where jocund nature smiles
In all her boon attire,
And roams the deeply-tangled wilds
Of hawthorn and sweet-brier.
Oh, would that she were here--
The gentle maid I sing,
Whose voice is cheerful as the songs
Of forest-birds in spring!

Oh, would that she were here,
Where the free waters leap,
Shouting in sportive joyousness
Adown the rocky steep:
Where zephyrs crisp and cool
The fountains as they play,
With health upon their wings of light,
And gladness on their way.
Oh, would that she were here,
With these balm-breathing trees,
The sylvan daughters of the sun,
The rain-cloud, and the breeze!

Oh...

Dear Child of Nature, let them rail!
There is a nest in a green dale,
A harbour and a hold;
Where thou, a Wife and Friend, shalt see
Thy own heart-stirring days, and be
A light to young and old.

There, healthy as a shepherd boy,
And treading among flowers of joy
Which at no season fade,
Thou, while thy babes around thee cling,
Shalt show us how divine a thing
A Woman may be made.

Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die,
Nor leave thee, when grey hairs are nigh,
A melancholy slave;
But an old age serene and bright,
And lovely as a Lapland night,
Shall lead thee to thy grave.

Good morrow to the golden morning,
Good morrow to the world's delight -
I've come to bless thy life's beginning,
Since it makes my own so bright!

I have brought no roses, sweetest,
I could find no flowers, dear, -
It was when all sweets were over
Thou wert born to bless the year.

But I've brought thee jewels, dearest,
In thy bonny locks to shine, -
And if love shows in their glances,
They have learn'd that look of mine!

'Tis difficult to feel that she is dead.
Her presence, like the shadow of a wing
That is just given to the upward sky,
Lingers upon us. We can hear her voice,
And for her step we listen, and the eye
Looks for her wonted coming with a strange,
Forgetful earnestness. We cannot feel
That she will no more come - that from her cheek
The delicate flush has faded, and the light
Dead in her soft dark eye, and on her lip,
That was so exquisitely pure, the dew
Of the damp grave has fallen! Who, so lov'd,
Is left among the living? Who hath walk'd
The world with such a winning loveliness,
And on its bright, brief journey, gather'd up
Such treasures of affection? She was lov'd
Only as idols are. She was the pride
Of her familiar sphere - the daily joy
Of all who ...

That little pretty bleeding part
Of foreskin send to me:
And I'll return a bleeding heart
For New-Year's gift to Thee.

Rich is the gem that Thou did'st send,
Mine's faulty too and small;
But yet this gift Thou wilt commend
Because I send Thee all.

I wonder if with you, as it is with me,
If under your slipping words, that easily flow
About you as a garment, easily,
Your violent heart beats to and fro!

Long have I waited, never once confessed,
Even to myself, how bitter the separation;
Now, being come again, how make the best
Reparation?

If I could cast this clothing off from me,
If I could lift my naked self to you,
Or if only you would repulse me, a wound would be
Good; it would let the ache come through.

But that you hold me still so kindly cold
Aloof my flaming heart will not allow;
Yea, but I loathe you that you should withhold
Your pleasure now.

Cowslip bud, so early peeping,
Warm'd by April's hazard hours;
O'er thy head though sunshine's creeping,
Close the threatening tempest lowers:
Trembling blossom, let me bear thee
To a better, safer home;
Though a fairer blossom wear thee,
Never tempest there shall come:
Mary's bonny breast to charm thee,
Bosom soft as down can be,
Eyes like any suns to warm thee,
And scores of sweets unknown to me;--
Ah! for joys thou'lt there be meeting,
In a station so divine,
I could wish, what's vain repeating,
Cowslip bud, thy life were mine.

Over the waves of the Western sea,
    Led by the hand of Hope she came -
The beautiful Angel of Liberty -
    When the sky was red with the sunset's flame, -
Came to a rocky and surf-beat shore,
    Lone, and wintry, and stern, and wild,
The waves behind her, and wastes before,
    And the Angel of Liberty, pausing, smiled.

"Here, O Sister, shall be our rest!"
    Softly she sang, and the waters shone
While a mellower radiance flushed the west,
    Lingering mountain and vale upon; -
Sweetly the murmurous melody blent
    With flow of rivers and woodland song,
And wandering breezes that singing went,
    Joyously wafted the notes along.

Acadia lifted her mist-wreathed brow,
    Westerly gazing with eager eye,
And lakes that sat in the su...

The tropic day's redundant charms
    Cool twilight soothes away,
The sun slips down behind the palms
    And leaves the landscape grey.
    I want to take you in my arms
    And kiss your lips away!

I wake with sunshine in my eyes
    And find the morning blue,
A night of dreams behind me lies
    And all were dreams of you!
    Ah, how I wish the while I rise,
    That what I dream were true.

The weary day's laborious pace,
    I hasten and beguile
By fancies, which I backwards trace
    To things I loved erstwhile;
    The weary sweetness of your face,
    Your faint, illusive smile.

The silken softness of your hair
    Where faint bronze shadows are,
Your strangely slight and youthful air,
    No passions seem to ...

I said - I care not if I can
    But look into her eyes again,
But lay my hand within her hand
    Just once again.

Though all the world be filled with snow
    And fire and cataclysmal storm,
I'll cross it just to lay my head
    Upon her bosom warm.

Ah! bosom made of April flowers,
    Might I but bring this aching brain,
This foolish head, and lay it down
    On April once again!

Go Valentine and tell that lovely maid
    Whom Fancy still will pourtray to my sight,
How her Bard lingers in this sullen shade,
    This dreary gloom of dull monastic night.
Say that from every joy of life remote
    At evening's closing hour he quits the throng,
Listening alone the ring-dove's plaintive note
    Who pours like him her solitary song.
Say that her absence calls the sorrowing sigh,
    Say that of all her charms he loves to speak,
In fancy feels the magic of her eye,
    In fancy views the smile illume her cheek,
Courts the lone hour when Silence stills the grove
And heaves the sigh of Memory and of Love.

When my arms wrap you round I press
My heart upon the loveliness
That has long faded from the world;
The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled
In shadowy pools, when armies fled;
The love-tales wrought with silken thread
By dreaming ladies upon cloth
That has made fat the murderous moth;
The roses that of old time were
Woven by ladies in their hair,
The dew-cold lilies ladies bore
Through many a sacred corridor
Where such grey clouds of incense rose
That only God's eyes did not close:
For that pale breast and lingering hand
Come from a more dream-heavy land,
A more dream-heavy hour than this;
And when you sigh from kiss to kiss
I hear white Beauty sighing, too,
For hours when all must fade like dew.
But flame on flame, and deep on deep,

Tell me, enigmatic man, whom do you love best? Your father, your mother, your sister, or your brother?
"I have neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor brother."
Your friends, then?
"You use a word that until now has had no meaning for me."
Your country?
"I am ignorant of the latitude in which it is situated."
Then Beauty?
"Her I would love willingly, goddess and immortal."
Gold?
"I hate it as you hate your God."
What, then, extraordinary stranger, do you love?
"I love the clouds the clouds that pass yonder the marvelous clouds."

I wish this world and its green hills were mine,
But it is not; the wandering shepherd star
Is not more distant, gazing from afar
On the unreapèd pastures of the sea,
Than I am from the world, the world from me.
At night the stars on milky way that shine
Seem things one might possess, but this round green
Is for the cows that rest, these and the sheep:
To them the slopes and pastures offer sleep;
My sleep I draw from the far fields of blue,
Whence cold winds come and go among the few
Bright stars we see and many more unseen.

Birds sing on earth all day among the flowers,
Taking no thought of any other thing
But their own hearts, for out of them they sing:
Their songs are kindred to the blossom heads,
Faint as the petals which the blackthorn sheds,
A...