I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again
The pavement stones resound,
As he totters o'er the ground
With his cane.

They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round
Through the town.

But now he walks the streets,
And he looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
"They are gone."

The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.

My grandmamma has said -
Poor old lady, she is dead
Long ago -
That he had a Roman nose,
And his cheek was like a r...

A wan sky greener than the lawn,
A wan lawn paler than the sky.
She gave a flower into my hand,
And all the hours of eve went by.

Who knows what round the corner waits
To smite? If shipwreck, snare, or slur
Shall leave me with a head to lift,
Worthy of him that spoke with her.

A wan sky greener than the lawn,
A wan lawn paler than the sky.
She gave a flower into my hand,
And all the days of life went by.

Live ill or well, this thing is mine,
From all I guard it, ill or well.
One tawdry, tattered, faded flower
To show the jealous kings in hell.

There's heaven above, and night by night
I look right through its gorgeous roof;
No suns and moons though e'er so bright
Avail to stop me; splendor-proof
I keep the broods of stars aloof:
For I intend to get to God,
For 't is to God I speed so fast,
For in God's    breast, my own abode,
Those shoals of dazzling glory, passed,
I lay my spirit down at last.
I lie where I have always lain,
God smiles as he has always smiled;
Ere suns and moons could wax and wane,
Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled
The heavens, God thought on me his child;
Ordained a life for me, arrayed
Its circumstances every one
To the minutest; ay, God said
This head this hand should rest upon
Thus, ere he fashioned star or sun.
And having thus created me,
Thus roote...

Day breaks on England down the Kentish hills,
Singing in the silence of the meadow-footing rills,
Day of my dreams, O day!
I saw them march from Dover, long ago,
With a silver cross before them, singing low,
Monks of Rome from their home where the blue seas break in foam,
Augustine with his feet of snow.

Noon strikes on England, noon on Oxford town,
- Beauty she was statue cold - there's blood upon her gown:
Noon of my dreams, O noon!
Proud and godly kings had built her, long ago,
With her towers and tombs and statues all arow,
With her fair and floral air and the love that lingers there,
And the streets where the great men go.

Evening on the olden, the golden sea of Wales,
When the first star shivers and the last wave pales:
O evening dreams!

("His Friends" To Quintus Horatius Flaccus.)

"Hæc decies repetita [non] placebit."--Ars Poetica.


Flaccus, you write us charming songs:
No bard we know possesses
In such perfection what belongs
To brief and bright addresses;

No man can say that Life is short
With mien so little fretful;
No man to Virtue's paths exhort
In phrases less regretful;

Or touch, with more serene distress,
On Fortune's ways erratic;
And then delightfully digress
From Alp to Adriatic:

All this is well, no doubt, and tends
Barbarian minds to soften;
But, HORACE--we, we are your friends--
Why tell us this so often?

Why feign to spread a cheerful feast,
And then thrust in our faces
These barren scraps (to say the least)
Of S...

    When, long ago, the daring of my youth
    Drew nigh thy greatness with a little thing,
    Thou didst receive me; and thy sky of truth

    Has domed me since, a heaven of sheltering,
    Made homely by the tenderness and grace
    Which round thy absolute friendship ever fling

    A radiant atmosphere. Turn not thy face
    From that small part of earnest thanks, I pray,
    Which, spoken, leaves much more in speechless case.

    I see thee far before me on thy way
    Up the great peaks, and striding stronger still;
    Thy intellect unrivalled in its sway,

    Upheld and ordered by a regnant will;
    Thy wisdom, seer and priest of holy fate,
    Searching all truths its prophecy to fill;

    But this my joy: throned in thy hear...

If to Tradition faith be due,
And echoes from old verse speak true,
Ere the meek Saint, Columba, bore
Glad tidings to Iona's shore,
No common light of nature blessed
The mountain region of the west,
A land where gentle manners ruled
O'er men in dauntless virtues schooled,
That raised, for centuries, a bar
Impervious to the tide of war;
Yet peaceful Arts did entrance gain
Where haughty Force had striven in vain,
And, 'mid the works of skilful hands,
By wanderers brought from foreign lands
And various climes, was not unknown
The clasp that fixed the Roman Gown;
The Fibula, whose shape, I ween,
Still in the Highland Broach is seen,
Worn at the breast of some grave Dame
On road or path, or at the door
Of fern-thatched Hut on heathy moor:
B...

How deep the April night is in its noon,
The hopeful, solemn, many-murmured night!
The earth lies hushed with expectation; bright
Above the world's dark border burns the moon,
Yellow and large; from forest floorways, strewn
With flowers, and fields that tingle with new birth,
The moist smell of the unimprisoned earth
Comes up, a sigh, a haunting promise. Soon,
Ah, soon, the teeming triumph! At my feet
The river with its stately sweep and wheel
Moves on slow-motioned, luminous, grey like steel.
From fields far off whose watery hollows gleam,
Aye with blown throats that make the long hours sweet,
The sleepless toads are murmuring in their dream.

Spirit of Song! whose whispers
Delight my pensive brain,
When will the perfect harmony
Ring through my feeble strain?

When will the rills of melody
Be widened to a stream!
When will the bright and gladsome Day
Succeed this morning dream?

"Mortal," the spirit whispered,
"If thou wouldst truly win
The race thou art pursuing,
Heed well the voice within:

And it shall gently teach thee
To read thy heart, and know
No human strain is perfect,
However sweet it flow.

And if thou readest truly,
As surely shalt thou find
That truths, like rills, though diverse,
Are choicest in their kind.

The souls of Poet-Dreamers
Touch heaven on their way;
With the light of Song to guide them
It should be always Day."

As I near my lonely cottage,
    At the close of weary day,
There's a little bit of gladness
    Comes to meet me on the way:
Dimpled, tanned, and petticoated,
    Innocent as angels are,
Like a smiling, straying sunbeam
    Is my Stella - like a star.

Soon a hand of tissue-softness
    Slips confidingly in mine,
And with tender look appealing
    Eyes of beauty sweetly shine;
Like a gentle shepherd guiding
    Some lost lamb unto the fold,
So she leads me homeward, prattling
    Till her stories are all told.

"Papa, I'm so glad to see you -
    Cousin Mabel came today -
And the gas-man brought a letter
    That he said you'd better pay -
Yes, and awful things is happened:
    My poor kitty's drowned to death -
...

Vogelweid the Minnesinger,
    When he left this world of ours,
Laid his body in the cloister,
    Under Wurtzburg's minster towers.

And he gave the monks his treasures,
    Gave them all with this behest:
They should feed the birds at noontide
    Daily on his place of rest;

Saying, "From these wandering minstrels
    I have learned the art of song;
Let me now repay the lessons
    They have taught so well and long."

Thus the bard of love departed;
    And, fulfilling his desire,
On his tomb the birds were feasted
    By the children of the choir.

Day by day, o'er tower and turret,
    In foul weather and in fair,
Day by day, in vaster numbers,
    Flocked the poets of the air.

On the tree whose heavy branches...

Now the sweet Dawn on brighter fields afar
Has walked among the daisies, and has breathed
The glory of the mountain winds, and sheathed
The stubborn sword of Night's last-shining star.
In Bathrolaire when Day's old doors unbar
The motley mask, fantastically wreathed,
Pass through a strong portcullis brazen teethed,
And enter glowing mines of cinnabar.
Stupendous prisons shut them out from day,
Gratings and caves and rayless catacombs,
And the unrelenting rack and tourniquet
Grind death in cells where jetting gaslight gloams,
And iron ladders stretching far away
Dive to the depths of those eternal domes.

The mountains glitter in the snow
A thousand leagues asunder;
Yet here, amid the banquet's glow,
I hear their voice of thunder;
Each giant's ice-bound goblet clinks;
A flowing stream is summoned;
Wachusett to Ben Nevis drinks;
Monadnock to Ben Lomond!

Though years have clipped the eagle's plume
That crowned the chieftain's bonnet,
The sun still sees the heather bloom,
The silver mists lie on it;

With tartan kilt and philibeg,
What stride was ever bolder
Than his who showed the naked leg
Beneath the plaided shoulder?

The echoes sleep on Cheviot's hills,
That heard the bugles blowing
When down their sides the crimson rills
With mingled blood were flowing;
The hunts where gallant hearts were game,
The slashing on the bor...

The sun is wrapped within a pall of mist,
Moon of my life! enshroud yourself like him;
Sleep, damp your fires; be silent, dim,
And plunge to ennui's most profound abyss;

I love you this way! But, if you decline,
And choose to move from your eclipse to light,
To strut yourself where Folly throngs tonight,
Spring, charming dagger, from your sheath! That's fine!

Light up your eyes with flames of candle glow!
Light up the lust in yokels at the show!
I love your moods, no one of them the best;

Be night or dawn, do what you want to do;
I cry in every fibre of my flesh:
'0 my Beelzebub, I worship you!'

I.

    I lang hae thought, my youthfu' friend,
        A something to have sent you,
    Though it should serve nae ither end
        Than just a kind memento;
    But how the subject-theme may gang,
        Let time and chance determine;
    Perhaps it may turn out a sang,
        Perhaps, turn out a sermon.

II.

    Ye'll try the world soon, my lad,
        And, Andrew dear, believe me,
    Ye'll find mankind an unco squad,
        And muckle they may grieve ye:
    For care and trouble set your thought,
        Ev'n when your end's attain'd;
    And a' your views may come to nought,
        Where ev'ry nerve is strained.

III.

    I'll no say men are villains a';
        The real, harden'd wicked,
    Wha...

Proud were ye, Mountains, when, in times of old,
Your patriot sons, to stem invasive war,
Intrenched your brows; ye gloried in each scar:
Now, for your shame, a Power, the Thirst of Gold,
That rules o'er Britain like a baneful star,
Wills that your peace, your beauty, shall be sold,
And clear way made for her triumphal car
Through the beloved retreats your arms enfold!
Heard Ye that Whistle? As her long-linked Train
Swept onwards, did the vision cross your view?
Yes, ye were startled; and, in balance true,
Weighing the mischief with the promised gain,
Mountains, and Vales, and Floods, I call on you
To share the passion of a just disdain.

Riches I hold in light esteem,
And Love I laugh to scorn;
And lust of fame was but a dream,
That vanished with the morn:

And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is, "Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!"

Yes, as my swift days near their goal:
'Tis all that I implore;
In life and death a chainless soul,
With courage to endure.

Perch' io t' abbia guardato di menzogna.

IN HER PRESENCE HE CAN NEITHER SPEAK, WEEP, NOR SIGH.


    Although from falsehood I did thee restrain
With all my power, and paid thee honour due,
Ungrateful tongue; yet never did accrue
Honour from thee, but shame, and fierce disdain:
Most art thou cold, when most I want the strain
Thy aid should lend while I for pity sue;
And all thy utterance is imperfect too,
When thou dost speak, and as the dreamer's vain.
Ye too, sad tears, throughout each lingering night
Upon me wait, when I alone would stay;
But, needed by my peace, you take your flight:
And, all so prompt anguish and grief t' impart,
Ye sighs, then slow, and broken breathe your way:
My looks alone truly reveal my heart.

NOTT.