I do not count the hours I spend
In wandering by the sea;
The forest is my loyal friend,
Like God it useth me.

In plains that room for shadows make
Of skirting hills to lie,
Bound in by streams which give and take
Their colors from the sky;

Or on the mountain-crest sublime,
Or down the oaken glade,
O what have I to do with time?
For this the day was made.

Cities of mortals woe-begone
Fantastic care derides,
But in the serious landscape lone
Stern benefit abides.

Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy,
And merry is only a mask of sad,
But, sober on a fund of joy,
The woods at heart are glad.

There the great Planter plants
Of fruitful worlds the grain,
And with a million spells enchants
The souls that walk...

I


So we had come at last, my soul and I,
Into that land of shadowy plain and peak,
On which the dawn seemed ever about to break
On which the day seemed ever about to die.


II


Long had we sought fulfillment of our dreams,
The everlasting wells of Joy and Youth;
Long had we sought the snow-white flow'r of Truth,
That blooms eternal by eternal streams.


III


And, fonder still, we hoped to find the sweet
Immortal presence, Love; the bird Delight
Beside her; and, eyed with sidereal night,
Faith, like a lion, fawning at her feet.


IV


But, scorched and barren, in its arid well,
We found our dreams' forgotten fountain-head;
And by black, bitter waters, crushed and dead,
Amon...

Here, in the heart of the world,
    Here, in the noise and the din,
Here, where our spirits were hurled
    To battle with sorrow and sin,
This is the place and the spot
    For knowledge of infinite things
This is the kingdom where Thought
    Can conquer the prowess of kings

Wait for no heavenly life,
    Seek for no temple alone;
Here, in the midst of the strife,
    Know what the sages have known.
See what the Perfect Ones saw -
    God in the depth of each soul,
God as the light and the law,
    God as beginning and goal.

Earth is one chamber of Heaven,
    Death is no grander than birth.
Joy in the life that was given,
    Strive for perfection on earth;
Here, in the turmoil and roar,
    Show what it is to be calm;<...

Nell' età sua più bella e più fiorita.

HE DESIRES TO DIE, THAT HIS SOUL MAY BE WITH HER, AS HIS THOUGHTS ALREADY ARE.


    E'en in youth's fairest flower, when Love's dear sway
Is wont with strongest power our hearts to bind,
Leaving on earth her fleshly veil behind,
My life, my Laura, pass'd from me away;
Living, and fair, and free from our vile clay,
From heaven she rules supreme my willing mind:
Alas! why left me in this mortal rind
That first of peace, of sin that latest day?
As my fond thoughts her heavenward path pursue,
So may my soul glad, light, and ready be
To follow her, and thus from troubles flee.
Whate'er delays me as worst loss I rue:
Time makes me to myself but heavier grow:
Death had been sweet to-day three years ago!
<...

"Sister, you've sat there all the day,
Come to the hearth awhile;
The wind so wildly sweeps away,
The clouds so darkly pile.
That open book has lain, unread,
For hours upon your knee;
You've never smiled nor turned your head;
What can you, sister, see?"

"Come hither, Jane, look down the field;
How dense a mist creeps on!
The path, the hedge, are both concealed,
Ev'n the white gate is gone
No landscape through the fog I trace,
No hill with pastures green;
All featureless is Nature's face.
All masked in clouds her mien.

"Scarce is the rustle of a leaf
Heard in our garden now;
The year grows old, its days wax brief,
The tresses leave its brow.
The rain drives fast before the wind,
The sky is blank and grey;
O Jane, what s...

Thee have I seen in some waste Arden old,
A white-browed maiden by a foaming stream,
With eyes profound and looks like threaded gold,
And features like a dream.

Upon thy wrist the jessied falcon fleet,
A silver poniard chased with imageries
Hung at a buckled belt, while at thy feet
The gasping heron dies.

Have fancied thee in some quaint ruined keep
A maiden in chaste samite, and her mien
Like that of loved ones visiting our sleep,
Or of a fairy queen.

She, where the cushioned ivy dangling hoar
Disturbs the quiet of her sable hair,
Pores o'er a volume of romantic lore,
Or hums an olden air.

Or a fair Bradamant both brave and just,
Intense with steel, her proud face lit with scorn,
At heathen castles, demons' dens of lust,

When you were born, beloved, was your soul
New made by God to match your body's flower,
And were they both at one same precious hour
Sent forth from heaven as a perfect whole?
Or had your soul since dim creation burned,
A star in some still region of the sky,
That leaping earthward, left its place on high
And to your little new-born body yearned?
No words can tell in what celestial hour
God made your soul and gave it mortal birth,
Nor in the disarray of all the stars
Is any place so sweet that such a flower
Might linger there until thro' heaven's bars,
It heard God's voice that bade it down to earth.

Jam non consilio bonus, sed more eo perductus, ut non tantum
recte facere possim, sed nisi recte facere non possim
(Seneca, Letters 130.10)



Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove;
Thou, who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations dost set free;
And calm’st the weary strife of frail humanity!

There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them; who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth:
Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot;
Who do thy work, and know it not:
Oh! if through confidence misplaced
They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power! around them cast.

Serene wil...

Tempo era omai da trovar pace o tregua.

HE CONSOLES HIMSELF WITH THE BELIEF THAT SHE NOW AT LAST SYMPATHISES WITH HIM.


    'Twas time at last from so long war to find
Some peace or truce, and, haply, both were nigh,
But Death their welcome feet has turn'd behind,
Who levels all distinctions, low as high;
And as a cloud dissolves before the wind,
So she, who led me with her lustrous eye,
Whom ever I pursue with faithful mind,
Her fair life briefly ending, sought the sky.
Had she but stay'd, as I grew changed and old
Her tone had changed, and no distrust had been
To parley with me on my cherish'd ill:
With what frank sighs and fond I then had told
My lifelong toils, which now from heaven, I ween,
She sees, and with me sympathises still.
...

    When I lie musing on my bed alone,
    And listen to the wintry waterfall;[1]
    And many moments that are past and gone,
    Moments of sunshine and of joy, recall;

    Though the long night is dark and damp around,
    And no still star hangs out its friendly flame;
    And the winds sweep the sash with sullen sound,
    And freezing palsy creeps o'er all my frame;

    I catch consoling phantasies that spring
    From the thick gloom, and as the night airs beat,
    They touch my heart, like wind-swift wires[2] that ring
    In mournful modulations, strange and sweet.

    Was it the voice of thee, my buried friend?
    Was it the whispered vow of faithful love?
    Do I in Knoyle's green shades thy steps attend,
    An...

[PARIS, 1896]


Oh, damsel fair at the Porte Maillot,
With the soft blue eyes that haunt me so,
        Pray what should I do
        When a girl like you
Bestows her smile, her glance, and her sigh
On the first fond fool that is passing by,
Who listens and longs as the sweet words flow
From her pretty red lips at the Porte Maillot?

There were lips as red ere you were born,
Now wreathed in smiles, now curled in scorn,
        And other bright eyes
        With their truth and lies,
That broke the heart and turned the brain
Of many a tender, lovelorn swain;
But never, I ween, brought half the woe
That comes from the lips at the Porte Maillot.

A charming picture, there you stand,
A perfect work from a master's hand!
        W...

So well I knew your habits and your ways,
That like a picture painted on the skies,
At the sweet closing of the summer days,
    You stand before my eyes.

I see you on the old verandah there,
While slow the shadows of the twilight fall,
I see the very carving on the chair
    You tilt against the wall.

The West grows dim.    The faithful evening star
Comes out and sheds its tender patient beam.
I almost catch the scent of your cigar,
    As you sit there and dream.

But dream of what?    I know your outward life -
Your ways, your habits; know they have not changed.
But has one thought of me survived the strife
    Since we two were estranged?

I know not of the workings of your heart;
And yet I sometimes make myself believe
That...

Mary, you know I've no love nonsense,
And though I pen on such a day,
I don't mean flirting, on my conscience,
Or writing in the courting way.

Though Beauty hasn't formed your feature,
It saves you p'rhaps from being vain,
And many a poor unhappy creature
May wish that she was half as plain.

Your virtues would not rise an inch,
Although your shape was two foot taller,
And wisely you let others pinch
Great waists and feet to make them smaller.

You never try to spare your hands
From getting red by household duty,
But doing all that it commands,
Their coarseness is a moral beauty.

Let Susan flourish her fair arms,
And at your old legs sneer and scoff,
But let her laugh, for you have charms
That nobody knows nothing of.

I wish I were as in the years of old
While yet the blessed daylight made itself
Ruddy thro’ both the roofs of sight, and woke
These eyes, now dull, but then so keen to seek
The meanings ambush’d under all they saw,
The flight of birds, the flame of sacrifice,
What omens may foreshadow fate to man
And woman, and the secret of the Gods.
My son, the Gods, despite of human prayer,
Are slower to forgive than human kings.
The great God, Arês, burns in anger still
Against the guiltless heirs of him from Tyre
Our Cadmus, out of whom thou art, who found
Beside the springs of Dircê, smote, and still’d
Thro’ all its folds the multitudinous beast
The dragon, which our trembling fathers call’d
The God’s own son.
A tale, that told to me,
When but thine age, by age...

As from the darkening gloom a silver dove
Upsoars, and darts into the eastern light,
On pinions that nought moves but pure delight,
So fled thy soul into the realms above,
Regions of peace and everlasting love;
Where happy spirits, crown'd with circlets bright
Of starry beam, and gloriously bedight,
Taste the high joy none but the blest can prove.
There thou or joinest the immortal quire
In melodies that even heaven fair
Fill with superior bliss, or, at desire,
Of the omnipotent Father, cleav'st the air
On holy message sent, What pleasure's higher?
Wherefore does any grief our joy impair?

O, have you blessed, behind the stars,
The blue sheen in the skies,
When June the roses round her calls? -
Then do you know the light that falls
From her beloved eyes.

And have you felt the sense of peace
That morning meadows give? -
Then do you know the spirit of grace,
The angel abiding in her face,
Who makes it good to live.

She shines before me, hope and dream,
So fair, so still, so wise,
That, winning her, I seem to win
Out of the dust and drive and din
A nook of Paradise.

1877

Your hands, my dear, adorable,
Your lips of tenderness
Oh, I've loved you faithfully and well,
Three years, or a bit less.
It wasn't a success.

Thank God, that's done! and I'll take the road,
Quit of my youth and you,
The Roman road to Wendover
By Tring and Lilley Hoo,
As a free man may do.

For youth goes over, the joys that fly,
The tears that follow fast;
And the dirtiest things we do must lie
Forgotten at the last;
Even Love goes past.

What's left behind I shall not find,
The splendour and the pain;
The splash of sun, the shouting wind,
And the brave sting of rain,
I may not meet again.

But the years, that take the best away,
Give something in the end;
And a better friend than love have they,
For no...

The lad I was I longer now
Nor am nor shall be evermore.
Spring's lovely blossoms from my brow
Have shed their petals on the floor.
Thou, Love, hast been my lord, thy shrine
Above all gods' best served by me.
Dear Love, could life again be mine
How bettered should that service be!