Fierce roars the midnight storm
O'er the wild mountain,
Dark clouds the night deform,
Swift rolls the fountain -

See! o'er yon rocky height,
Dim mists are flying -
See by the moon's pale light,
Poor Laura's dying!

Shame and remorse shall howl,
By her false pillow -
Fiercer than storms that roll,
O'er the white billow;

No hand her eyes to close,
When life is flying,
But she will find repose,
For Laura's dying!

Then will I seek my love,
Then will I cheer her,
Then my esteem will prove,
When no friend is near her.

On her grave I will lie,
When life is parted,
On her grave I will die,
For the false hearted.

DECEMBER, 1809.

If this importunate heart trouble your peace
With words lighter than air,
Or hopes that in mere hoping flicker and cease;
Crumple the rose in your hair;
And cover your lips with odorous twilight and say,
‘O Hearts of wind-blown flame!
‘O Winds, elder than changing of night and day,
‘That murmuring and longing came,
‘From marble cities loud with tabors of old
‘In dove-gray faery lands;
‘From battle banners fold upon purple fold,
‘Queens wrought with glimmering hands;
‘That saw young Niamh hover with love-lorn face
‘Above the wandering tide;
‘And lingered in the hidden desolate place,
‘Where the last Phoenix died
‘And wrapped the flames above his holy head;
‘And still murmur and long:
‘O Piteous Hearts, changing till change be dead
‘In a tumultuou...

Rain will fall on the fading flowers,
Winds will blow through the dripping tree,
When Fall leads in her tattered Hours
With Death to keep them company.
All night long in the weeping weather,
All night long in the garden grey,
A ghost and a dream will talk together
And sad are the things they will have to say:
Old sad things of the bough that's broken;
Heartbreak things of the leaf that's dead;
Old sad things no tongue hath spoken;
Sorrowful things no man hath said.

I cannot tell, of twain beneath this bond,
Which one in grief the other goes beyond,---
Narcissus, who to end the pain he bore
Died of the love that could not help him more;
Or I, that pine because I cannot see
The lady who is queen and love to me.

Nay--for Narcissus, in the forest pond
Seeing his image, made entreaty fond,
"Beloved, comfort on my longing pour":
So for a while he soothed his passion sore;
So cannot I, for all too far is she---
The lady who is queen and love to me.

But since that I have Love's true colours donned,
I in his service will not now despond,
For in extremes Love yet can all restore:
So till her beauty walks the world no more
All day remembered in my hope shall be
The lady who is queen and love to me.

Against the groaning mast I stand,
The Atlantic surges swell,
To bear me from my native land
And Zoe's wild farewell.

From billow upon billow hurl'd
I can yet hear her say,
`And is there nothing in the world
Worth one short hour's delay?'

`Alas, my Zoe! were it thus,
I should not sail alone,
Nor seas nor fates had parted us,
But are you all my own?'

Thus were it, never would burst forth
My sighs, Heaven knows how true!
But, though to me of little worth,
The world is much to you.

`Yes,' you shall say, when once the dream
(So hard to break!) is o'er,
`My love was very dear to him,
My fame and peace were more.'

Where is now my peace of mind?
    Gone, alas! for evermore:
Turn where'er I may, I find
    Thorns where roses bloomed before!
O'er the green-fields of my soul,
    Where the springs of joy were found,
Now the clouds of sorrow roll,
    Shading all the prospect round!

Do I merit pangs like these,
    That have cleft my heart in twain?
Must I, to the very lees,
    Drain thy bitter chalice, Pain?
Silent grief all grief excels;
    Life and it together part--
Like a restless worm it dwells
    Deep within the human heart!

I marked her ruined hues,
Her custom-straitened views,
And asked, "Can there indwell
My Amabel?"

I looked upon her gown,
Once rose, now earthen brown;
The change was like the knell
Of Amabel.

Her step's mechanic ways
Had lost the life of May's;
Her laugh, once sweet in swell,
Spoilt Amabel.

I mused: "Who sings the strain
I sang ere warmth did wane?
Who thinks its numbers spell
His Amabel?" -

Knowing that, though Love cease,
Love's race shows undecrease;
All find in dorp or dell
An Amabel.

- I felt that I could creep
To some housetop, and weep,
That Time the tyrant fell
Ruled Amabel!

I said (the while I sighed
That love like ours had died),
"Fond things I'll no more tell
...

The mystery of Life, the mystery
Of Death, I see
Darkly as in a glass;
Their shadows pass,
And talk with me.

As the flush of a Morning Sky,
As a Morning Sky colorless -
Each yields its measure of light
To a wet world or a dry;
Each fares through day to night
With equal pace,
And then each one
Is done.

As the Sun with glory and grace
In his face,
Benignantly hot,
Graciously radiant and keen,
Ready to rise and to run, -
Not without spot,
Not even the Sun.

As the Moon
On the wax, on the wane,
With night for her noon;
Vanishing soon,
To appear again.

As Roses that droop
Half warm, half chill, in the languid May,
And breathe out a scent
Sweet and faint;
Till the wind gives one ...

The spirit of beautiful faces,
The light on the forehead of Love,
And the spell of past visited places,
And the songs and the sweetness thereof;
These, touched by a hand that is hoary;
These, vext with a tune of decay,
Are spoiled of their glow and their glory;
And the burden is, “Passing away!
Passing away!”

Old years and their changes come trooping
At nightfall to you and to me,
When Autumn sits faded and drooping
By the sorrowful waves of the sea.
Faint phantoms that float in the gloaming,
Return with the whispers that say,
“The end which is quiet is coming;
Ye are weary, and passing away!
Passing away!”

It is hard to awake and discover
The swiftness that waits upon Time;
But youth and its beauty are over,
And Love has a...

    Ye dear stars of the Bear, I did not think
    I should again be turning, as I used,
    To see you over father's garden shine,
    And from the windows talk with you again
    Of this old house, where as a child I dwelt,
    And where I saw the end of all my joys.
    What charming images, what fables, once,
    The sight of you created in my thought,
    And of the lights that bear you company!
    Silent upon the verdant clod I sat,
    My evening thus consuming, as I gazed
    Upon the heavens, and listened to the chant
    Of frogs that in the distant marshes croaked;
    While o'er the hedges, ditches, fire-flies roamed,
    And the green avenues and cypresses
    In yonder grove were murmuring to the wind;
    While in the house were heard, at inter...

    Sorrowful pleading on her face is written
    With love commingled, and my heart throbs fast,
    Flooded with currents of a deep emotion
    Stirred by the memory of that awful past.
    Note the sad gaze of him who bends above her,
    What say his eyes in answer to her own?
    What did he think as tenderly he kissed her?
    What was the meaning of his whispered tone?
    Spoke he of honor's claim poor love's outweighing,
    Or did her circling arms so well enfold
    That the white kerchief wearing-badge of safety -
    He passed the lurking foe with spirit bold.

    Ah, they are vanished now - the maid and lover,
    Their history the wisest cannot tell.
    Mayhap upon that night of cruel slaughter,
    Eager to meet the zealot's hate he fell.

    Throb, throb, throb,
Far away in the blue transparent Night,
On the outer horizon of a dreaming consciousness,
She hears the sound of her lover's nearing boat
    Afar, afloat
On the river's loneliness, where the Stars are the only light;
    Hear the sound of the straining wood
    Like a broken sob
    Of a heart's distress,
    Loving misunderstood.

She lies, with her loose hair spent in soft disorder,
On a silken sheet with a purple woven border,
Every cell of her brain is latent fire,
Every fibre tense with restrained desire.
    And the straining oars sound clearer, clearer,
    The boat is approaching nearer, nearer;
    "How to wait through the moments' space
    Till I see the light of my lover's face?"

    Throb, throb, thro...

Never dry, never dry,

Tears that eternal love sheddeth!
How dreary, how dead doth the world still appear,
When only half-dried on the eye is the tear!

Never dry, never dry,

Tears that unhappy love sheddeth!

I

She gave up beauty in her tender youth,
    Gave all her hope and joy and pleasant ways;
    She covered up her eyes lest they should gaze
On vanity, and chose the bitter truth.
Harsh towards herself, towards others full of ruth,
    Servant of servants, little known to praise,
    Long prayers and fasts trenched on her nights and days:
She schooled herself to sights and sounds uncouth
That with the poor and stricken she might make
    A home, until the least of all sufficed
Her wants; her own self learned she to forsake,
Counting all earthly gain but hurt and loss.
So with calm will she chose and bore the cross
    And hated all for love of Jesus Christ.

II

They knelt in silent anguish by her bed,
    And could not weep; but calmly th...

[1]


Mary, I believed thee true,
    And I was blest in thus believing
But now I mourn that e'er I knew
    A girl so fair and so deceiving.
        Fare thee well.

Few have ever loved like me,--
    Yes, I have loved thee too sincerely!
And few have e'er deceived like thee.--
    Alas! deceived me too severely.

Fare thee well!--yet think awhile
    On one whose bosom bleeds to doubt thee:
Who now would rather trust that smile,
    And die with thee than live without thee.

Fare thee well! I'll think of thee.
    Thou leavest me many a bitter token;
For see, distracting woman, see,
    My peace is gone, my heart is broken!--
        Fare thee well!

Thou wert once the purest wave
Where the tempests roar;
Thou art now a golden wave
On the golden shore --
Ever -- ever -- evermore!

Thou wert once the bluest wave
Shadows e'er hung o'er;
Thou art now the brightest wave
On the brightest shore --
Ever -- ever -- evermore!

Thou wert once the gentlest wave
Ocean ever bore;
Thou art now the fairest wave
On the fairest shore --
Ever -- ever -- evermore!

Whiter foam than thine, O wave,
Wavelet never wore,
Stainless wave; and now you lave
The far and stormless shore --
Ever -- ever -- evermore!

Who bade thee go, O bluest wave,
Beyond the tempest's roar?
Who bade thee flow, O fairest wave,
Unto the golden shore,
Ever -- ever -- evermore?

Who wav...

I lay upon the headland-height, and listened
To the incessant sobbing of the sea
    In caverns under me,
And watched the waves, that tossed and fled and glistened,
Until the rolling meadows of amethyst
    Melted away in mist.

Then suddenly, as one from sleep, I started;
For round about me all the sunny capes
    Seemed peopled with the shapes
Of those whom I had known in days departed,
Apparelled in the loveliness which gleams
    On faces seen in dreams.

A moment only, and the light and glory
Faded away, and the disconsolate shore
    Stood lonely as before;
And the wild-roses of the promontory
Around me shuddered in the wind, and shed
    Their petals of pale red.

There was an old belief that in the embers
Of all things the...

They say there's a high windless world and strange,
Out of the wash of days and temporal tide,
Where Faith and Good, Wisdom and Truth abide,
'Aeterna corpora', subject to no change.
There the sure suns of these pale shadows move;
There stand the immortal ensigns of our war;
Our melting flesh fixed Beauty there, a star,
And perishing hearts, imperishable Love. . . .

Dear, we know only that we sigh, kiss, smile;
Each kiss lasts but the kissing; and grief goes over;
Love has no habitation but the heart.
Poor straws! on the dark flood we catch awhile,
Cling, and are borne into the night apart.
The laugh dies with the lips, 'Love' with the lover.