Mine are the night and morning,
The pits of air, the gulf of space,
The sportive sun, the gibbous moon,
The innumerable days.

I hide in the solar glory,
I am dumb in the pealing song,
I rest on the pitch of the torrent,
In slumber I am strong.

No numbers have counted my tallies,
No tribes my house can fill,
I sit by the shining Fount of Life
And pour the deluge still;

And ever by delicate powers
Gathering along the centuries
From race on race the rarest flowers,
My wreath shall nothing miss.

And many a thousand summers
My gardens ripened well,
And light from meliorating stars
With firmer glory fell.

I wrote the past in characters
Of rock and fire the scroll,
The building in the coral sea,
The pla...

Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill,
Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.
You said, "Through glory and ecstasy we pass;
Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still,
When we are old, are old. . . ." "And when we die
All's over that is ours; and life burns on
Through other lovers, other lips," said I,
"Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!"

"We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here.
Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!" we said;
"We shall go down with unreluctant tread
Rose-crowned into the darkness!" . . . Proud we were,
And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.
And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.

Can I forget how, when you stood
'Mid orchards whence spring bloom had fled,
Stars made the orchards seem a-bud,
And weighed the sighing boughs o'erhead
With shining ghosts of blossoms dead!

Or when you bowed, a lily tall,
Above your August lilies slim,
Transparent pale, that by the wall
Like softest moonlight seemed to swim,
Brimmed with faint fragrance to the brim.

And in the cloud that lingered low -
A silent pallor in the West -
There stirred and beat a golden glow
Of some great heart that could not rest,
A heart of gold within its breast.

Your heart, your life was in the wild,
Your joy to hear the whip-poor-will
Lament its love, when wafted mild
The harvest drifted from the hill:
The deep, deep wildwood where had trod

Just in the hush before dawn
A little wistful wind is born.
A little chilly errant breeze,
That thrills the grasses, stirs the trees.
And, as it wanders on its way,
While yet the night is cool and dark,
The first carol of the lark, -
Its plaintive murmurs seem to say
"I wait the sorrows of the day."

I
Ere frost-flower and snow-blossom faded and fell, and the splendour of winter had passed out of sight,
The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger than dreams that fulfil us in sleep with delight;
The breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops and branches that glittered and swayed
Such wonders and glories of blossomlike snow or of frost that outlightens all flowers till it fade
That the sea was not lovelier than here was the land, nor the night than the day, nor the day than the night,
Nor the winter sublimer with storm than the spring: such mirth had the madness and might in thee made,
March, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms that enkindle the season they smite.

II
And now that the rage of thy rapture is satiate with revel and ravin and spo...

Hope stood one morning by the way,
And stretched her fair right hand to me,
And softly whispered, "For this day
I'll company with thee."

"Ah, no, dear Hope," I sighing said;
"Oft have you joined me in the morn,
But when the evening came, you fled
And left me all forlorn.

"'Tis better I should walk alone
Than have your company awhile,
And then to lose it, and go on
For weary mile on mile,"

She turned, rebuked. I went my way,
But sad the sunshine seemed, and chill;
I missed her, missed her all the day,
And O, I miss her still.

Upon the mead a violet stood,
Retiring, and of modest mood,

In truth, a violet fair.
Then came a youthful shepherdess,
And roam'd with sprightly joyousness,
And blithely woo'd

With carols sweet the air

"Ah!" thought the violet, "had I been
For but the smallest moment e'en

Nature's most beauteous flower,
'Till gather'd by my love, and press'd,
When weary, 'gainst her gentle breast,
For e'en, for e'en

One quarter of an hour!"

Alas! alas! the maid drew nigh,
The violet failed to meet her eye,

She crush'd the violet sweet.
It sank and died, yet murmur'd not:
"And if I die, oh, happy lot,
For her I die,

And at her very feet!"

I.

Pensive within the Colosseum's walls
I stood with thee, O Poet of the West! -
The day when each had been a welcome guest
In San Clemente's venerable halls: -
Ah, with what pride my memory now recalls
That hour of hours, that flower of all the rest,
When with thy white beard falling on thy breast -
That noble head, that well might serve as Paul's
In some divinest vision of the saint
By Raffael dreamed, I heard thee mourn the dead -
The martyred host who fearless there, though faint,
Walked the rough road that up to Heaven's gate led:
These were the pictures Calderon loved to paint
In golden hues that here perchance have fled.


II.

Yet take the colder copy from my hand,
Not for its own but for THE MASTER'S sake, -
Take it, as ...

Vanish, dark clouds on high,

Offspring of night!
Let a more radiant beam
Through the blue ether gleam,

Charming the sight!
Would the dark clouds on high

Melt into air!
Stars glimmer tenderly,

Planets more fair

Shed their soft light.
Spirits of heav'nly birth,
Fairer than sons of earth,
Quivering emotions true

Hover above;
Yearning affections, too,

In their train move.
See how the spirit-band,
By the soft breezes fann'd,
Covers the smiling land,
Covers the leafy grove,
Where happy lovers rove,
Deep in a dream of love,
True love that never dies!
Bowers on bowers rise,

Soft tendrils twine;
While from the press escapes,
Born of the juicy grapes,

Foaming, th...

The waves were weary, and they went to sleep;
    The winds were hushed;
    The starlight flushed
The furrowed face of all the mighty deep.

The billows yester eve so dark and wild,
    Wore strangely now
    A calm upon their brow,
Like that which rests upon a cradled child.

The sky was bright, and every single star,
    With gleaming face,
    Was in its place,
And looked upon the sea -- so fair and far.

And all was still -- still as a temple dim,
    When low and faint,
    As murmurs plaint,
Dies the last note of the Vesper hymn.

A bark slept on the sea, and in the bark
    Slept Mary's Son --
    The only One
Whose face is light! where all, all else, is dark.

His brow was heavenward turned, His face was fa...

So sang young Love in high and holy dream
Of a white Love that hath no earthly taint,
So rapt within his vision he did seem
Less like a boyish singer than a saint.

Ah, Boy, it is a dream for life too high,
It is a bird that hath no feet for earth:
Strange wings, strange eyes, go seek another sky
And find thy fellows of an equal birth.

For many a body-sweet material thing,
What canst thou give us half so dear as these?
We would not soar amid the stars to sing,
Warm and content amid the nested trees.

Young Seraph, go and lake thy song to heaven,
We would not grow unhappy with our lot,
Leave us the simple love the earth hath given -
Sing where thou wilt, so that we hear thee not.

    When gods and men I saw in Cupid's chain
Promiscuous led, a long uncounted train,
By sad example taught, I learn'd at last
Wisdom's best rule--to profit from the past
Some solace in the numbers too I found,
Of those that mourn'd, like me, the common wound
That Phoebus felt, a mortal beauty's slave,
That urged Leander through the wintry wave;
That jealous Juno with Eliza shared,
Whose more than pious hands the flame prepared;
That mix'd her ashes with her murder'd spouse.
A dire completion of her nuptial vows.
(For not the Trojan's love, as poets sing,
In her wan bosom fix'd the secret string.)
And why should I of common ills complain,
Shot by a random shaft, a thoughtless swain?
Unarm'd and unprepared to meet the foe,
My naked bosom seem'd to court th...

I

Once more I join the Thespian choir,
And taste the inspiring fount again:
O parent of the Grecian lyre,
Admit me to thy powerful strain
And lo, with ease my step invades
The pathless vale and opening shades,
Till now I spy her verdant seat;
And now at large I drink the sound,
While these her offspring, listening round,
By turns her melody repeat.
I see Anacreon smile and sing,
His silver tresses breathe perfume;
His cheek displays a second spring
Of roses taught by wine to bloom.
Away, deceitful cares, away,
And let me listen to his lay;
Let me the wanton pomp injoy,
While in smooth dance the light-wing'd Hours
Lead round his lyre it's patron powers,
Kind laughter and convivial joy.
Broke from the fetters of his native land,

All that's not love is the dearth of my days,
The leaves of the volume with rubric unwrit,
The temple in times without prayer, without praise,
The altar unset and the candle unlit.

Let me survive not the lovable sway
Of early desire, nor see when it goes
The courts of Life's abbey in ivied decay,
Whence sometime sweet anthems and incense arose.

The delicate hues of its sevenfold rings
The rainbow outlives not; their yellow and blue
The butterfly sees not dissolve from his wings,
But even with their beauty life fades from them too.

No more would I linger past Love's ardent bounds
Nor live for aught else but the joy that it craves,
That, burden and essence of all that surrounds,
Is the song in the wind and the smile on the waves.

How I adore, dear indolent,
Your lovely body, when
Like silken cloth it shimmers
Your sleek and glimmering skin!

Within the ocean of your hair,
All pungent with perfumes,
A fragrant and a wayward sea
Of waves of browns and blues,

Like a brave ship awakening
To winds at break of day,
My dreamy soul sets forth on course
For skies so far away.

Your eyes, where nothing is revealed,
The bitter nor the sweet,
Are two cold stones, in which the tinctures
Gold and iron meet.

Viewing the rhythm of your walk,
Beautifully dissolute,
One seems to see a serpent dance
Before a wand and flute.

Your childlike head lolls with the weight
Of all your idleness,
And sways with all the slackness of
A baby elephant's,

When I was forst from Stella euer deere,
Stella, food of my thoughts, hart of my hart;
Stella, whose eyes make all my tempests cleere,
By Stellas lawes of duetie to depart;
Alas, I found that she with me did smart;
I saw that teares did in her eyes appeare;
I sawe that sighes her sweetest lips did part,
And her sad words my sadded sense did heare.
For me, I wept to see pearles scatter'd so;
I sigh'd her sighes, and wailed for her wo;
Yet swam in ioy, such loue in her was seene.
Thus, while th' effect most bitter was to me,
And nothing then the cause more sweet could be,
I had bene vext, if vext I had not beene.

If ever life was prosperously cast,
    If ever life was like the lengthened flow
Of some sweet music, sweetness to the last,
    'Twas his who, mourned by many, sleeps below.

The sunny temper, bright where all is strife.
    The simple heart above all worldly wiles;
Light wit that plays along the calm of life,
    And stirs its languid surface into smiles;

Pure charity that comes not in a shower,
    Sudden and loud, oppressing what it feeds,
But, like the dew, with gradual silent power,
    Felt in the bloom it leaves along the meads;

The happy grateful spirit, that improves
    And brightens every gift by fortune given;
That, wander where it will with those it loves,
    Makes every place a home, and home a heaven:

All these were his...

In the frail hepaticas,
That the early Springtide tossed,
Sapphire-like, along the ways
Of the woodlands that she crossed,
I behold, with other eyes,
Footprints of a dream that flies.
One who leads me; whom I seek:
In whose loveliness there is
All the glamour that the Greek
Knew as wind-borne Artemis.
I am mortal. Woe is me!
Her sweet immortality!
Spirit, must I always fare,
Following thy averted looks?
Now thy white arm, now thy hair,
Glimpsed among the trees and brooks?
Thou who hauntest, whispering,
All the slopes and vales of Spring.
Cease to lure! or grant to me
All thy beauty! though it pain,
Slay with splendor utterly!
Flash revealment on my brain!
And one moment let me see
All thy immortality!