"A woman never agreed to it!" said my knowing friend to me.
"That one thing she'd refuse to do for Solomon's mines in fee:
No woman ever will make herself look older than she is."
I did not answer; but I thought, "you err there, ancient Quiz."

It took a rare one, true, to do it; for she was surely rare -
As rare a soul at that sweet time of her life as she was fair.
And urging motives, too, were strong, for ours was a passionate case,
Yea, passionate enough to lead to freaking with that young face.

I have told no one about it, should perhaps make few believe,
But I think it over now that life looms dull and years bereave,
How blank we stood at our bright wits' end, two frail barks in distress,
How self-regard in her was slain by her large tenderness.

I said: "Th...

South winds jostle them,
Bumblebees come,
Hover, hesitate,
Drink, and are gone.

Butterflies pause
On their passage Cashmere;
I, softly plucking,
Present them here!

Dry leaves upon the wall,
Which flap like rustling wings and seek escape,
A single frosted cluster on the grape
Still hangs--and that is all.

It hangs forgotten quite,--
Forgotten in the purple vintage-day,
Left for the sharp and cruel frosts to slay,
The daggers of the night.

It knew the thrill of spring;
It had its blossom-time, its perfumed noons;
Its pale-green spheres were rounded to soft runes
Of summer's whispering.

Through balmy morns of May;
Through fragrances of June and bright July,
And August, hot and still, it hung on high
And purpled day by day.

Of fair and mantling shapes,
No braver, fairer cluster on the tree;
And what then is this thing has come to thee
Among the other grapes,

Thou lonely tenan...

Know, that I would accounted be
True brother of a company
That sang, to sweeten Ireland's wrong,
Ballad and story, rann and song;
Nor be I any less of them,
Because the red-rose-bordered hem
Of her, whose history began
Before God made the angelic clan,
Trails all about the written page.
When Time began to rant and rage
The measure of her flying feet
Made Ireland's heart begin to beat;
And Time bade all his candles flare
To light a measure here and there;
And may the thoughts of Ireland brood
Upon a measured quietude.
Nor may I less be counted one
With Davis, Mangan, Ferguson,
Because, to him who ponders well,
My rhymes more than their rhyming tell
Of things discovered in the deep,
Where only body's laid asleep.
For the elemental c...

0 Lord, my God, how long
Shall my poor heart pant for a boundless joy?
How long, O mighty Spirit, shall I hear
The murmur of Truth's crystal waters slide
From the deep caverns of their endless being,
But my lips taste not, and the grosser air
Choke each pure inspiration of thy will?

I am a denseness 'twixt me and the light;
1 cannot round myself; my purest thought,
Ere it is thought, hath caught the taint of earth,
And mocked me with hard thoughts beyond my will.

I would be a wind
Whose smallest atom is a viewless wing,
All busy with the pulsing life that throbs
To do thy bidding; yea, or the meanest thing
That has relation to a changeless truth,
Could I but be instinct with thee--each thought
The lightning of a pure intelligence,
And eve...

[From Farmer Harrington's Calendar.]

FEBRUARY 5, 18 - .

        Want - want - want - want! O God! forgive the crime,
        If I, asleep, awake, at any time,
        Upon my bended knees, my back, my feet,
        In church, on bed, on treasure-lighted street,
        Have ever hinted, or, much less, have pleaded
        That I hadn't ten times over all I needed!
        Lord save my soul! I never knew the way
        That people starve along from day to day;
        May gracious Heaven forgive me, o'er and o'er,
        That I have never found these folks before!

        Of course some news of it has come my way,
        Like a faint echo on a drowsy day;
        At home I "gave," whene'er by suffering grieved,
        And called i...

If ever in the sylvan shade
A song immortal we have made,
Come now, O lute, I prithee come,
Inspire a song of Latium!

A Lesbian first thy glories proved;
In arms and in repose he loved
To sweep thy dulcet strings, and raise
His voice in Love's and Liber's praise.
The Muses, too, and him who clings
To Mother Venus' apron-strings,
And Lycus beautiful, he sung
In those old days when you were young.

O shell, that art the ornament
Of Phoebus, bringing sweet content
To Jove, and soothing troubles all,--
Come and requite me, when I call!

Love took chambers on our street
Opposite to mine;
On his door he tacked a neat,
Clearly lettered sign.

Straightway grew his custom great,
For his sign read so:
“Hearts united while you wait.
Step in. Love and Co.”

Much I wondered who was “Co.”
In Love’s partnership;
Thought across the street I’d go,
Learn from Love’s own lip.

So I went; and since that day
Life is hard for me.
I was buncoed! (By the way,
“Co.” is Jealousy.)

Enraged against a quondam friend,
To Wisdom once proud Fortune said
"I'll give thee treasures without end,
If thou wilt be my friend instead."

"My choicest gifts to him I gave,
And ever blest him with my smile;
And yet he ceases not to crave,
And calls me niggard all the while."

"Come, sister, let us friendship vow!
So take the money, nothing loth;
Why always labor at the plough?
Here is enough I'm sure for both!"

Sage wisdom laughed, the prudent elf!
And wiped her brow, with moisture hot:
"There runs thy friend to hang himself,
Be reconciled I need thee not!"

Love came to Flora asking for a flower
That would of flowers be undisputed queen,
The lily and the rose, long, long had been
Rivals for that high honour. Bards of power
Had sung their claims. "The rose can never tower
Like the pale lily with her Juno mien"--
"But is the lily lovelier?" Thus between
Flower-factions rang the strife in Psyche's bower.
"Give me a flower delicious as the rose
And stately as the lily in her pride"--
"But of what colour?"--"Rose-red," Love first chose,
Then prayed,--"No, lily-white,--or, both provide;"
And Flora gave the lotus, "rose-red" dyed,
And "lily-white,"--the queenliest flower that blows.

    Though better men may fear that trumpet's warning,
    I meet you, lady, on the Judgment morning,
    With golden hope my spirit still adorning.

    Our God who made you all so fair and sweet
    Is three times gentle, and before his feet
    Rejoicing I shall say: - "The girl you gave
    Was my first Heaven, an angel bent to save.
    Oh, God, her maker, if my ingrate breath
    Is worth this rescue from the Second Death,
    Perhaps her dear proud eyes grow gentler too
    That scorned my graceless years and trophies few.
    Gone are those years, and gone ill-deeds that turned
    Her sacred beauty from my songs that burned.
    We now as comrades through the stars may take
    The rich and arduous quests I did forsake.
    Grant me a seraph-guide to ...

Children of the future age,
Reading this indignant page,
Know that in a former time
Love, sweet love, was thought a crime.

In the age of gold,
Free from winter's cold,
Youth and maiden bright,
To the holy light,
Naked in the sunny beams delight.

Once a youthful pair,
Filled with softest care,
Met in garden bright
Where the holy light
Had just removed the curtains of the night.

Then, in rising day,
On the grass they play;
Parents were afar,
Strangers came not near,
And the maiden soon forgot her fear.

Tired with kisses sweet,
They agree to meet
When the silent sleep
Waves o'er heaven's deep,
And the weary tired wanderers weep.

To her father white
Came the maiden bright;
But his lovi...

For I must sing of all I feel and know,
Waiting with Memnon passive near the palms,
Until the heavenly light doth dawn and grow
And thrill my silence into mystic psalms;
From unknown realms the wind streams sad or gay,
The trees give voice responsive to its sway.

For I must sing: of mountains, deserts, seas,
Of rivers ever flowing, ever flowing;
Of beasts and birds, of grass and flowers and trees
Forever fading and forever growing;
Of calm and storm, of night and eve and noon,
Of boundless space, and sun and stars and moon;

And of the secret sympathies that bind
All beings to their wondrous dwelling-place;
And of the perfect Unity enshrined
In omnipresence throughout time and space,
Alike informing with its full control
The dust, the stars, th...

RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED TO HIS PATRONESS AND FRIEND, BY THE LITTLE, BROWN SINGER HIMSELF.


                    Merrily!
                    Merrily!
        Tschee! tschee! tschee!
What can the meaning of these things be?
Tiniest buds and leaflets green -
Who shall tell me what these things mean?
                    Merrily!
                    Merrily!
        Tschee! tschee! tschee!
Much I guess they were meant for me!

                    Tsu-ert!
                    Tsu-ert!
        Tschee! tschee! tschee!
So I shall eat them up you see
Somebody, somewhere, is kindly stirred
To think of me, a poor, brown bird! -
                    Merrily!
                    Merrily!
        Tschee! tschee! tschee!
Somebody, somewhere, ...

At last I put off love,
For twice ten years
The daysman of my thought,
And hope, and doing;
Being ashamed thereof,
And faint of fears
And desolations, wrought
In his pursuing,

Since first in youthtime those
Disquietings
That heart-enslavement brings
To hale and hoary,
Became my housefellows,
And, fool and blind,
I turned from kith and kind
To give him glory.

I was as children be
Who have no care;
I did not shrink or sigh,
I did not sicken;
But lo, Love beckoned me,
And I was bare,
And poor, and starved, and dry,
And fever-stricken.

Too many times ablaze
With fatuous fires,
Enkindled by his wiles
To new embraces,
Did I, by wilful ways
And baseless ires,
Return the anxious sm...

    The moon had climbed the eastern hill
    Which rises o'er the sands of Dee,
    And from its highest summit shed
    A silver light on tower and tree,
    When Mary laid her down to sleep
    (Her thoughts on Sandy far at sea);
    When soft and low a voice was heard,
    Saying, 'Mary, weep no more for me.'


    She from her pillow gently raised
    Her head, to see who there might be,
    And saw young Sandy, shivering stand
    With visage pale and hollow e'e.
    'Oh Mary dear, cold is my clay;
    It lies beneath the stormy sea;
    Far, far from thee, I sleep in death.
    Dear Mary, weep no more for me.


    'Three stormy nights and stormy days
    We tossed upon the raging main.
    And long we strove our bark to sa...

By night when others soundly slept,
And had at once both case and rest,
My waking eyes were open kept
And so to lie I found it best.

I sought Him whom my soul did love,
With tears I sought Him earnestly;
He bowed His ear down from above.
In vain I did not seek or cry.

My hungry soul He filled with good,
He in His bottle put my tears,
My smarting wounds washed in His blood,
And banished thence my doubts and fears.

What to my Savior shall I give,
Who freely hath done this for me?
I'll serve Him here whilst I shall live
And love Him to eternity.

Rorate Coeli desuper, et nubes pluant Justum.
Aperiatur Terra, et germinet Salvatorem.

No sudden thing of glory and fear
    Was the Lord's coming; but the dear
Slow Nature's days followed each other
To form the Saviour from his Mother
-One of the children of the year.

The earth, the rain, received the trust,
-The sun and dews, to frame the Just.
    He drew his daily life from these,
    According to his own decrees
Who makes man from the fertile dust.

Sweet summer and the winter wild,
These brought him forth, the Undefiled.
    The happy Springs renewed again
    His daily bread, the growing grain,
The food and raiment of the Child.