Johnny, sweetheart, can you be true
To all those famous vows you've made,
Will you love me as I love you
Until we both in earth are laid?
Or shall the old wives nod and say
His love was only for a day:
    The mood goes by,
    His fancies fly,
And Mary's left to sigh.

Mary, alas, you've hit the truth,
And I with grief can but admit
Hot-blooded haste controls my youth,
My idle fancies veer and flit
From flower to flower, from tree to tree,
And when the moment catches me,
    Oh, love goes by
    Away I fly
And leave my girl to sigh.

Could you but now foretell the day,
Johnny, when this sad thing must be,
When light and gay you'll turn away
And laugh and break the heart in me?
For like a nut for true love's sake
My...

It is May, and the moon leans down at night
    Over a blossomy land;
Leans from her window a lady white,
    With her cheek upon her hand.

"Oh, why in the blue so misty, moon?
    Why so dull in the sky?
Thou look'st like one that is ready to swoon
    Because her tear-well is dry.

"Enough, enough of longing and wail!
    Oh, bird, I pray thee, be glad!
Sing to me once, dear nightingale,
    The old song, merry mad.

"Hold, hold with thy blossoming, colourless, cold,
    Apple-tree white as woe!
Blossom yet once with the blossom of old,
    Let the roses shine through the snow!"

The moon and the blossoms they gloomily gleam,
    The bird will not be glad:
The dead never speak when the mournful dream,
    They are too weak...

1.

The irresponsive silence of the land,
The irresponsive sounding of the sea,
Speak both one message of one sense to me: -
Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand
Thou too aloof bound with the flawless band
Of inner solitude; we bind not thee;
But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free?
What heart shall touch thy heart? what hand thy hand? -
And I am sometimes proud and sometimes meek,
And sometimes I remember days of old
When fellowship seemed not so far to seek
And all the world and I seemed much less cold,
And at the rainbow's foot lay surely gold,
And hope felt strong and life itself not weak.


2.

Thus am I mine own prison. Everything
Around me free and sunny and at ease:
Or if in shadow, in a shade of trees
Which...

O Exiled Hearts--for you, for you--
Love still can find the way!
Hear the voices of the women on the road!
O Shadowed Lives--for you, for you--
Hope hath not lost her ray!
Hear the laughter of the children on the road!
O Gloomy Night--for you, for you--
Dawn tells of coming day!
Hear the clink of breaking fetters on the road!
O Might sans Right--for you, for you--
The feet of crumbling clay!
Hear the slow, sure tread of Freedom on the road!

I.
A word across the water
Against our ears is borne,
Of threatenings and of slaughter,
Of rage and spite and scorn:
We have not, alack, an ally to befriend us,
And the season is ripe to extirpate and end us:
Let the German touch hands with the Gaul,
And the fortress of England must fall;
And the sea shall be swept of her seamen,
And the waters they ruled be their graves,
And Dutchmen and Frenchmen be free men,
And Englishmen slaves.

II.
Our time once more is over,
Once more our end is near:
A bull without a drover,
The Briton reels to rear,
And the van of the nations is held by his betters,
And the seas of the world shall be loosed from his fetters,
And his glory shall pass as a breath,
And the life that is in him be death;

If the foolish call them 'flowers,'
Need the wiser tell?
If the savans 'classify' them,
It is just as well!

Those who read the Revelations
Must not criticise
Those who read the same edition
With beclouded eyes!

Could we stand with that old Moses
Canaan denied, --
Scan, like him, the stately landscape
On the other side, --

Doubtless we should deem superfluous
Many sciences
Not pursued by learnèd angels
In scholastic skies!

Low amid that glad _Belles lettres_
Grant that we may stand,
Stars, amid profound Galaxies,
At that grand 'Right hand'!

The holy mountains,
The gay streams,
Heavy shadows,
And tall, trembling trees;
The light that sleeps
Between the heavy shadows,
Wind that creeps
Faintly, from far-off seas----

The mountains' light,
Waters' noise,
Trees' shadows,
Clear, slow, calm air,
Are dreams, dreams,
And far, far-fallen echoes
Of secret worlds
And inconceivable dark seas.

Who veileth love should first have vanquished fate.
    She folded up the dream in her deep heart,
    Her fair full lips were silent on that smart,
Thick fringèd eyes did on the grasses wait.
What good? one eloquent blush, but one, and straight
    The meaning of a life was known; for art
    Is often foiled in playing nature's part,
And time holds nothing long inviolate.
Earth's buried seed springs up - slowly, or fast:
The ring came home, that one in ages past
    Flung to the keeping of unfathomed seas:
    And golden apples on the mystic trees
Were sought and found, and borne away at last,
    Though watched of the divine Hesperides.

(To R. F. B.)


We are the Choice of the Will: God, when He gave the word
That called us into line, set in our hand a sword;

Set us a sword to wield none else could lift and draw,
And bade us forth to the sound of the trumpet of the Law.

East and west and north, wherever the battle grew,
As men to a feast we fared, the work of the Will to do.

Bent upon vast beginnings, bidding anarchy cease,
(Had we hacked it to the Pit, we had left it a place of peace!)

Marching, building, sailing, pillar of cloud or fire,
Sons of the Will, we fought the fight of the Will, our sire.

Road was never so rough that we left its purpose dark;
Stark was ever the sea, but our ships were yet more stark;

We tracked the winds of the world to the steps of t...

O thou bright Sun! beneath the dark blue line
Of western distance that sublime descendest,
And, gleaming lovelier as thy beams decline,
Thy million hues to every vapour lendest,
And, over cobweb lawn and grove and stream
Sheddest the liquid magic of thy light,
Till calm Earth, with the parting splendour bright,
Shows like the vision of a beauteous dream;
What gazer now with astronomic eye
Could coldly count the spots within thy sphere?
Such were thy lover, Harriet, could he fly
The thoughts of all that makes his passion dear,
And, turning senseless from thy warm caress, -
Pick flaws in our close-woven happiness.

So closed our tale, of which I give you all
The random scheme as wildly as it rose:
The words are mostly mine; for when we ceased
There came a minute's pause, and Walter said,
'I wish she had not yielded!' then to me,
'What, if you drest it up poetically?'
So prayed the men, the women: I gave assent:
Yet how to bind the scattered scheme of seven
Together in one sheaf? What style could suit?
The men required that I should give throughout
The sort of mock-heroic gigantesque,
With which we bantered little Lilia first:
The women--and perhaps they felt their power,
For something in the ballads which they sang,
Or in their silent influence as they sat,
Had ever seemed to wrestle with burlesque,
And drove us, last, to quite a solemn close--
They hated banter, wi...

We hev tumbled ez dust
Or ez worms of the yearth;
Wot we looked for hez bust!
We are objects of mirth!
They have played us old Pards of the river! they hev played us for all we was worth!

Was it euchre or draw
Cut us off in our bloom?
Was it faro, whose law
Is uncertain ez doom?
Or an innocent “Jack pot” that opened was to us ez the jaws of the tomb?

It was nary! It kem
With some sharps from the States.
Ez folks sez, “All things kem
To the fellers ez waits;”
And we’d waited six months for that suthin’ had me and Bill Nye in such straits!

And it kem. It was small;
It was dream-like and weak;
It wore store clothes that’s all
That we knew, so to speak;
But it called itself “Billson, Thought-Reader” which ain’t half a name for its ...

    Born with the sun, the fair daughters of time,
We silently lead to a lovelier clime,
Where the day is undimmed by the shadows of night,
But eternally beams from the fountain of light;
Where the sorrows of time and its cares are unknown
To the beautiful forms that encircle the throne
Of the mighty Creator! the First and the Last!
Who the wonderful frame of the universe cast,
And composed every link of the mystical chain
Of minutes, and hours, which are numbered in vain
By the children of dust, in their frantic career,
When their moments are wasted unthinkingly here,
Lavished on earth which in mercy were given
That men might prepare for the joys of heaven!--

    Somehow, someway, I can not see the light;
        The giant hills of doubting reach the skies,
    Abiding shadows bring eternal night,
        And on my ways no suns of morning rise;
    Dark mysteries across the years of might
        Crush down my hopes, until each yearning dies,
    Until my soul is weary, dim my sight,
        And ghostly echoes mock my fainting cries.

    Ah, I shall know beyond these narrow years,
        The glorious mornings of eternal day,
        Where perfect love and tender trust shall play,
    And smiles and laughter banish all the tears,
    And all the heavy mists of doubts and fears
        Shall leave my longing soul somehow, someway!

    I
    Queen of a double empire still she stands,
    And watches with superb indifferent eyes
    The eager wooing of Imperial hands
    Towards so fair and coveted a prize.

    Royal and imperial suitors has she known
    Pass one by one across her dreaming years,
    And some a while have climbed the golden throne,
    And some have passed away in blood and tears;

    For many emperors have sought her grace
    Since the first Constantine in sweeping cloak
    Her seven hills with broad unhurrying pace
    Measured, and rested not till Heaven spoke.

    A haughty fatalist Byzantium waits
    What chance the storing centuries bring forth:
    Another lover almost at the gates,
    Heralded by the cannon of the North,

    A Nor...

The spirit-harp within the breast
A spirit's touch alone can know,
Yet thine the power to wake its rest,
And bid its echoing numbers flow.

Yes, and thy minstrel art the while,
Can blend the tones of weal and we,
So archly, that the heart may smile,
Though bright, unbidden tear-drops flow.

And thus thy wizard skill can weave
Music's soft twilight o'er the breast,
As mingling day and night, at eve,
Robe the far purpling hills for rest.

Thy voice is treasured in my soul,
And echoing memory shall prolong
Those woman tones, whose sweet control
Melts joy and sorrow into song.

The tinted sea-shell, borne away
Far from the ocean's pebbly shore,
Still loves to hum the choral lay,
The whispering mermaid taught of yore.

T...

'T is midnight: through my troubled dream
Loud wails the tempest's cry;
Before the gale, with tattered sail,
A ship goes plunging by.
What name? Where bound? - The rocks around
Repeat the loud halloo.
- The good ship Union, Southward bound:
God help her and her crew!

And is the old flag flying still
That o'er your fathers flew,
With bands of white and rosy light,
And field of starry blue?
- Ay! look aloft! its folds full oft
Have braved the roaring blast,
And still shall fly when from the sky
This black typhoon has past!

Speak, pilot of the storm-tost bark!
May I thy peril share?
- O landsman, there are fearful seas
The brave alone may dare!
- Nay, ruler of the rebel deep,
What matters wind or wave?
The rocks that wrec...

Were God not with us all the time--
Israel may loud declare it--
Were God not with us all the time,
We must have now despaired;
For we are such a little flock
Despised by such a crowd of folk,
Who all do set upon us!

'Gainst us so angry is their mood,
If God had given them tether
Us they had swallowed where we stood,
Body and soul together.
We should have been drowned all, like those
O'er whom the waters great did close,
And swept them off relentless.

Thank God! their throat who did not let
Us swallow when it gaped;
As from a snare a bird doth flit
So is our soul escaped.
The snare's in two, and we are through:
The name of God it standeth true,
The God of earth and heaven. Amen.