I

He called her in from me and shut the door.
And she so loved the sunshine and the sky! -
She loved them even better yet than I
That ne'er knew dearth of them - my mother dead,
Nature had nursed me in her lap instead:
And I had grown a dark and eerie child
That rarely smiled,
Save when, shut all alone in grasses high,
Looking straight up in God's great lonesome sky
And coaxing Mother to smile back on me.
'Twas lying thus, this fair girl suddenly
Came to me, nestled in the fields beside
A pleasant-seeming home, with doorway wide -
The sunshine beating in upon the floor

Like golden rain. -
O sweet, sweet face above me, turn again
And leave me! I had cried, but that an ache
Within my throat so gripped it I could make
No sound but a thi...

He puts the poem by, to say
His eyes are not themselves to-day!

A sudden glamour o'er his sight -
A something vague, indefinite -

An oft-recurring blur that blinds
The printed meaning of the lines,

And leaves the mind all dusk and dim
In swimming darkness - strange to him!

It is not childishness, I guess, -
Yet something of the tenderness

That used to wet his lashes when
A boy seems troubling him again; -

The old emotion, sweet and wild,
That drove him truant when a child,

That he might hide the tears that fell
Above the lesson - "Little Nell."

And so it is he puts aside
The poem he has vainly tried

To follow; and, as one who sighs
In failure, through a poor disguise

Of smiles, he ...

(My Soul) I summon to the winding ancient stair;
Set all your mind upon the steep ascent,
Upon the broken, crumbling battlement,
Upon the breathless starlit air,
"Upon the star that marks the hidden pole;
Fix every wandering thought upon
That quarter where all thought is done:
Who can distinguish darkness from the soul

(My Self). The consecretes blade upon my knees
Is Sato's ancient blade, still as it was,
Still razor-keen, still like a looking-glass
Unspotted by the centuries;
That flowering, silken, old embroidery, torn
From some court-lady's dress and round
The wodden scabbard bound and wound
Can, tattered, still protect, faded adorn

(My Soul.) Why should the imagination of a man
Long past his prime remember things that are
Emblematica...

I have slept upon my couch,
But my spirit did not rest,
For the labours of the day
Yet my weary soul opprest;

And, before my dreaming eyes
Still the learned volumes lay,
And I could not close their leaves,
And I could not turn away.

But I oped my eyes at last,
And I heard a muffled sound;
'Twas the night-breeze, come to say
That the snow was on the ground.

Then I knew that there was rest
On the mountain's bosom free;
So I left my fevered couch,
And I flew to waken thee!

I have flown to waken thee
For, if thou wilt not arise,
Then my soul can drink no peace
From these holy moonlight skies.

And, this waste of virgin snow
To my sight will not be fair,
Unless thou wilt smiling come,
Love, to wander w...

Virgins promised when I died,
That they would each primrose-tide
Duly, morn and evening, come,
And with flowers dress my tomb.
Having promised, pay your debts
Maids, and here strew violets.

Behold the Day an image of the Year!
    The Year an image of our life's short span!
    Morn, like the Spring, with growing light began,
    Spring, like our Youth, with joy, and beauty fair;
Noon picturing Summer; - Summer's ardent sphere
    Manhood's gay portrait. - Eve, like Autumn, wan,
    Autumn resembling faded age in Man;
    Night, with its silence, and its darkness drear,
Emblem of Winter's frore and gloomy reign,
    When torpid lie the vegetative Powers;
    Winter, so shrunk, so cold, reminds us plain
Of the mute Grave, that o'er the dim Corse lours;
    There shall the Weary rest, nor ought remain
    To the pale Slumberer of Life's checker'd hours.

It's my grief that I am not a little white duck,
And I'd swim over the sea to France or to Spain;
I would not stay in Ireland for one week only,
To be without eating, without drinking, without a full jug.

Without a full jug, without eating, without drinking,
Without a feast to get, without wine, without meat,
Without high dances, without a big name, without music;
There is hunger on me, and I astray this long time.

It's my grief that I am not an old crow,
I would sit for awhile up on the old branch,
I could satisfy my hunger, and I not as I am
With a grain of oats or a white potato

It's my grief that I am not a red fox,
Leaping strong and swift on the mountains,
Eating cocks and hens without pity,
Taking ducks and geese as a conquerer.

...

You played and sang a snatch of song,
A song that all-too well we knew;
But whither had flown the ancient wrong;
And was it really I and you?
O since the end of life's to live
And pay in pence the common debt,
What should it cost us to forgive
Whose daily task is to forget?

You babbled in the well-known voice,
Not new, not new, the words you said.
You touched me off that famous poise,
That old effect, of neck and head.
Dear, was it really you and I?
In truth the riddle's ill to read,
So many are the deaths we die
Before we can be dead indeed.

Parnell's Funeral

Under the Great Comedian's tomb the crowd.
A bundle of tempestuous cloud is blown
About the sky; where that is clear of cloud
Brightness remains; a brighter star shoots down;
What shudders run through all that animal blood?
What is this sacrifice? Can someone there
Recall the Cretan barb that pierced a star?
Rich foliage that the starlight glittered through,
A frenzied crowd, and where the branches sprang
A beautiful seated boy; a sacred bow;
A woman, and an arrow on a string;
A pierced boy, image of a star laid low.
That woman, the Great Mother imaging,
Cut out his heart. Some master of design
Stamped boy and tree upon Sicilian coin.
An age is the reversal of an age:
When strangers murdered Emmet, Fitzgerald, Tone,
We lived l...

I Picked a rustic nosegay lately,
And bore it homewards, musing greatly;
When, heated by my hand, I found
The heads all drooping tow'rd the ground.
I plac'd them in a well-cool'd glass,
And what a wonder came to pass
The heads soon raised themselves once more.
The stalks were blooming as before,
And all were in as good a case
As when they left their native place.


*    *    *    *

So felt I, when I wond'ring heard
My song to foreign tongues transferr'd.

Hadst thou a genius on thy peak,
What tales, white-headed Ben,
Could'st thou of ancient ages speak,
That mock th' historian's pen!

Thy long duration makes our livea
Seem but so many hours;
And likens, to the bees' frail hives,
Our most stupendous towers.

Temples and towers thou seest begun,
New creeds, new conquerers sway;
And, like their shadows in the sun,
Hast seen them swept away.

Thy steadfast summit, heaven-allied
(Unlike life's little span),
Looks down a mentor on the pride
Of perishable man.

What adverse passions rule my changeful breast,
With hope exalted, or by fear deprest!
Now, by the Muse inspired, I snatch the lyre,
And proudly to poetic fame aspire;
Now dies the sacred flame, my pride declines,
And diffidence the immortal wreath resigns.
Friends, void of taste, warm advocates for trade,
With shafts of ridicule, my peace invade:
'A Poet!' thus they sneeringly exclaim
'Well may you court that glorious, envied name;
For, sure, no common joys his lot attend;
None but himself those joys can comprehend.

O, superhuman bliss, employ sublime,
To scribble fiction, and to jingle rhyme!
Caged in some muse-behaunted, Grub-street garret,
To prate his feeders' promptings, like a parrot!
And what, though want and scorn his life assail?
What, tho...

We were two green rushes by opposing banks,
    And the small stream ran between.
Not till the water beat us down
    Could we be brought together,
Not till the winter came
Could we be mingled in a frosty sleep,
    Locked down and close.

From the Chinese of J. Wing (nineteenth century).

When roses cease to bloom, dear,
And violets are done,
When bumble-bees in solemn flight
Have passed beyond the sun,

The hand that paused to gather
Upon this summer's day
Will idle lie, in Auburn, --
Then take my flower, pray!

Never, no never, listen too long,
To the chattering wind in the willow, the night bird's song.

'Tis sad in sooth to lie under the grass,
But none too gladsome to wake and grow cold where life's shadows pass.

Dumb the old Toll-Woman squats,
And, for every green copper battered and worn, doles out Nevers and Nots.

I know a Blind Man, too,
Who with a sharp ear listens and listens the whole world through.

Oh, sit we snug to our feast,
With platter and finger and spoon - and good victuals at least.

ART.


One is so fair, I turn to go,
As others go, its beckoning length;
Such paths can never lead to woe,
I say in eager, early strength.
What is the goal?
Visions of heaven, wake;
But the wind's whispers round me roll:
"For you, mistake!"


LOVE.


One leads beneath high oaks, and birds
Choose there their joyous revelry;
The sunbeams glint in golden herds,
The river mirrors silently.
Under these trees
My heart would bound or break;
Tell me what goal, resonant breeze?
"For you, mistake!"


CHARITY.


What is there left? The arid way,
The chilling height, whence all the world
Looks little, and each radiant day,
Like the soul's banner, flies unfurled.
May I stand here;
In ...

While with false pride, and narrow jealousy,
    Numbers reject each new expression, won,
    Perchance, from language richer than our own,
    O! with glad welcome may the POET see
Extension's golden vantage! the decree
    Each way exclusive, scorn, and re-enthrone
    The obsolete, if strength, or grace of tone
    Or imagery await it, with a free,
And liberal daring! - For the Critic Train,
    Whose eyes severe our verbal stores review,
    Let the firm Bard require that they explain
Their cause of censure; then in balance true
    Weigh it; but smile at the objections vain
    Of sickly Spirits, hating for they do[1]!

1: The particle for is used in the same sense with because, by Shakespear, and Beaumont and Fletcher.

"...

Padre del ciel, dopo i perduti giorni.

CONSCIOUS OF HIS FOLLY, HE PRAYS GOD TO TURN HIM TO A BETTER LIFE.


    Father of heaven! after the days misspent,
After the nights of wild tumultuous thought,
In that fierce passion's strong entanglement,
One, for my peace too lovely fair, had wrought;
Vouchsafe that, by thy grace, my spirit bent
On nobler aims, to holier ways be brought;
That so my foe, spreading with dark intent
His mortal snares, be foil'd, and held at nought.
E'en now th' eleventh year its course fulfils,
That I have bow'd me to the tyranny
Relentless most to fealty most tried.
Have mercy, Lord! on my unworthy ills:
Fix all my thoughts in contemplation high;
How on the cross this day a Saviour died.

DACRE.