Her last words, at parting, how can I forget?
    Deep treasured thro' life, in my heart they shall stay;
Like music, whose charm in the soul lingers yet,
    When its sounds from the ear have long melted away.
Let Fortune assail me, her threatenings are vain;
    Those still-breathing words shall my talisman be,--
"Remember, in absence, in sorrow, and pain,
    "There's one heart, unchanging, that beats but for thee."

From the desert's sweet well tho' the pilgrim must hie,
    Never more of that fresh-springing fountain to taste,
He hath still of its bright drops a treasured supply,
    Whose sweetness lends life to his lips thro' the waste.
So, dark as my fate is still doomed to remain,
    These words shall my well in the wilderness be,--
"Remember, in a...

Up and be doing, all who have a hand
To lift, a back to bend. It must not be
In times like these that vaguely linger we
To air our vaunts and hopes; and leave our land

Untended as a wild of weeds and sand.
- Say, then, "I come!" and go, O women and men
Of palace, ploughshare, easel, counter, pen;
That scareless, scathless, England still may stand.

Would years but let me stir as once I stirred
At many a dawn to take the forward track,
And with a stride plunged on to enterprize,

I now would speed like yester wind that whirred
Through yielding pines; and serve with never a slack,
So loud for promptness all around outcries!

March 1917.

Letters, letters, letters, letters!
Some that please and some that bore,
Some that threaten prison fetters
(Metaphorically, fetters
Such as bind insolvent debtors)
Invitations by the score.

One from COGSON, WILES, and RAILER,
My attorneys, off the Strand;
One from COPPERBLOCK, my tailor
My unreasonable tailor
One in FLAGG'S disgusting hand.

One from EPHRAIM and MOSES,
Wanting coin without a doubt,
I should like to pull their noses
Their uncompromising noses;
One from ALICE with the roses
Ah, I know what that's about !

Time was when I waited, waited
For the missives that she wrote,
Humble postmen execrated
Loudly, deeply execrated
When I heard I wasn't fated
To be gladdened with a note!

Time was when I'...

I

When moiling seems at cease
In the vague void of night-time,
And heaven's wide roomage stormless
Between the dusk and light-time,
And fear at last is formless,
We call the allurement Peace.

II

Peace, this hid riot, Change,
This revel of quick-cued mumming,
This never truly being,
This evermore becoming,
This spinner's wheel onfleeing
Outside perception's range.

1.
A portal as of shadowy adamant
Stands yawning on the highway of the life
Which we all tread, a cavern huge and gaunt;
Around it rages an unceasing strife
Of shadows, like the restless clouds that haunt
The gap of some cleft mountain, lifted high
Into the whirlwinds of the upper sky.

2.
And many pass it by with careless tread,
Not knowing that a shadowy ...
Tracks every traveller even to where the dead
Wait peacefully for their companion new;
But others, by more curious humour led,
Pause to examine; - these are very few,
And they learn little there, except to know
That shadows follow them where'er they go.

    Her lou'd I most,
    By thee that 's lost,
Though she were wonne with leasure;
    She was my gaine,
    But to my paine,
Thou spoyl'st me of my Treasure.

    The Ship full fraught
    With Gold, farre sought,
Though ne'r so wisely helmed,
    May suffer wracke
    In sayling backe,
By Tempest ouer-whelmed.

    But shee, good Sir,
    Did not preferre
You, for that I was ranging;
    But for that shee
    Found faith in mee,
And she lou'd to be changing.

    Therefore boast not
    Your happy Lot,
Be silent now you haue her;
    The time I knew
    She slighted you,
When I was in her fauour.

    None stands so fast,
    But may be cast
By Fortune, and disgraced:
    Once did I ...

Seen From The Lake Of Lugano


Thou sacred Pile! whose turrets rise
From yon steep mountain's loftiest stage,
Guarded by lone San Salvador;
Sink (if thou must) as heretofore,
To sulphurous bolts a sacrifice,
But ne'er to human rage!

On Horeb's top, on Sinai, deigned
To rest the universal Lord:
Why leap the fountains from their cells
Where everlasting Bounty dwells?
That, while the Creature is sustained,
His God may be adored.

Cliffs, fountains, rivers, seasons, times
Let all remind the soul of heaven;
Our slack devotion needs them all;
And Faith, so oft of sense the thrall,
While she, by aid of Nature, climbs
May hope to be forgiven.

Glory, and patriotic Love,
And all the Pomps of this frail "spot
Which men ...

No Muse will I invoke; for she is fled!
Lo! where she sits, breathing, yet all but dead.
She loved the heavens of old, she thought them fair;
And dream'd of Gods in Tempe's golden air.
For her the wind had voice, the sea its cry;
She deem'd heroic Greece could never die.
Breathless was she, to think what nymphs might play
In clear green depths, deep-shaded from the day;
She thought the dim and inarticulate god
Was beautiful, nor knew she man a sod;
But hoped what seem'd might not be all untrue,
And feared to look beyond the eternal blue.
But now the heavens are bared of dreams divine.
Still murmurs she, like Autumn, _This was mine!_
How should she face the ghastly, jarring Truth,
That questions all, and tramples without ruth?
And still she clings to Ida of her...

    This is the room that thou wast ushered in.
    Wouldst thou, perchance, a larger freedom win?
    Wouldst thou escape for deeper or no breath?
    There is no door but death.

    Do shadows crouch within the mocking light?
    Stand thou! but if thy terrored heart takes flight
    Facing maimed Hope and wide-eyed Nevermore,
    There is no less one door.

    Dost thou bewail love's end and friendship's doom,
    The dying fire, drained cup, and gathering gloom?
    Explore the walls, if thy soul ventureth,
    There is no door but death.

    There is no window. Heaven hangs aloof
    Above the rents within the stairless roof.
    Hence, soul, be brave across the ruined floor,
    Who knocks? Unbolt the door!

Dear Governor, if my skiff might brave
The winds that lift the ocean wave,
The mountain stream that loops and swerves
Through my broad meadow's channelled curves
Should waft me on from bound to bound
To where the River weds the Sound,
The Sound should give me to the Sea,
That to the Bay, the Bay to thee.

It may not be; too long the track
To follow down or struggle back.
The sun has set on fair Naushon
Long ere my western blaze is gone;
The ocean disk is rolling dark
In shadows round your swinging bark,
While yet the yellow sunset fills
The stream that scarfs my spruce-clad hills;
The day-star wakes your island deer
Long ere my barnyard chanticleer;
Your mists are soaring in the blue
While mine are sparks of glittering dew.

It ma...

The piping of our slender, peaceful reeds
Whispers uncared for while the trumpets bray;
Song is thin air; our hearts' exulting play
Beats time but to the tread of marching deeds,
Following the mighty van that Freedom leads,
Her glorious standard flaming to the day!
The crimsoned pavement where a hero bleeds
Breathes nobler lessons than the poet's lay.
Strong arms, broad breasts, brave hearts, are better worth
Than strains that sing the ravished echoes dumb.
Hark! 't is the loud reverberating drum
Rolls o'er the prairied West, the rock-bound North
The myriad-handed Future stretches forth
Its shadowy palms. Behold, we come, - we come!

Turn o'er these idle leaves. Such toys as these
Were not unsought for, as, in languid dreams,
We lay beside our lotus-feedi...

All hail the dawn of a new day breaking,
When a strong-armed nation shall take away
The weary burdens from backs that are aching
With maximum labour and minimum pay;
When no man is honoured who hoards his millions;
When no man feasts on another's toil;
And God's poor suffering, striving billions
Shall share His riches of sun and soil.

There is gold for all in the earth's broad bosom,
There is food for all in the land's great store;
Enough is provided if rightly divided;
Let each man take what he needs - no more.
Shame on the miser with unused riches,
Who robs the toiler to swell his hoard,
Who beats down the wage of the digger of ditches,
And steals the bread from the poor man's board.

Shame on the owner of mines whose cruel
And selfish measur...

The grey gulls drift across the bay
Softly and still as flakes of snow
Against the thinning fog. All day
I sat and watched them come and go;
And now at last the sun was set,
Filling the waves with colored fire
Till each seemed like a jewelled spire
Thrust up from some drowned city. Soon
From peak and cliff and minaret
The city's lights began to wink,
Each like a friendly word. The moon
Began to broaden out her shield,
Spurting with silver. Straight before
The brown hills lay like quiet beasts
Stretched out beside a well-loved door,
And filling earth and sky and field
With the calm heaving of their breasts.

Nothing was gone, nothing was changed,
The smallest wave was unestranged
By all the long ache of the years
Since last I saw them, ...

1

There is a mystic thread of life
So dearly wreath'd with mine alone,
That Destiny's relentless knife
At once must sever both, or none.


2

There is a Form on which these eyes
Have fondly gazed with such delight -
By day, that Form their joy supplies,
And Dreams restore it, through the night.


3

There is a Voice whose tones inspire
Such softened feelings in my breast,    -
I would not hear a Seraph Choir,
Unless that voice could join the rest.


4

There is a Face whose Blushes tell
Affection's tale upon the cheek,
But pallid at our fond farewell,
Proclaims more love than words can speak.


5

There is a Lip, which mine has prest,
But none had ever prest before;...

When I shall go
Into the narrow home that leaves
No room for wringing of the hands and hair,
And feel the pressing of the walls which bear
The heavy sod upon my heart that grieves,
(As the weird earth rolls on),
Then I shall know
What is the power of destiny. But still,
Still while my life, however sad, be mine,
I war with memory, striving to divine
Phantom to-morrows, to outrun the past;
For yet the tears of final, absolute ill
And ruinous knowledge of my fate I shun.
Even as the frail, instinctive weed
Tries, through unending shade, to reach at last
A shining, mellowing, rapture-giving sun;
So in the deed of breathing joy's warm breath,
Fain to succeed,
I, too, in colorless longings, hope till death.

Underneath an apple-tree
Sat a maiden and her lover;
And the thoughts within her he
Yearned, in silence, to discover.
Round them danced the sunbeams bright,
Green the grass-lawn stretched before them;
While the apple-blossoms white
Hung in rich profusion o'er them.

Naught within her eyes he read
That would tell her mind unto him;
Though their light, he after said,
Quivered swiftly through and through him;
Till at last his heart burst free
From the prayer with which 'twas laden,
And he said, "When wilt thou be
Mine for evermore, fair maiden?"

"When," said she, "the breeze of May
With white flakes our heads shall cover,
I will be thy brideling gay -
Thou shall be my husband-lover."
"How," said he, in sorrow bowed,
"Can I hope...

The mighty conflict, which we call existence,
    Doth wear upon the body and the soul,
Our vital forces wasted in resistance,
    So much there is to conquer and control.

The rock which meets the billows with defiance,
    Undaunted and unshaken day by day,
In spite of its unyielding self-reliance,
    Is by the warfare surely worn away.

And there are depths and heights of strong emotions
    That surge at times within the human breast,
More fierce than all the tides of all the oceans
    Which sweep on ever in divine unrest.

I sometimes think the rock worn with adventures,
    And sad with thoughts of conflicts yet to be,
Must envy the frail reed which no one censures,
    When, overcome, 'tis swallowed by the sea.

This life is all re...

Had I the gold that some so vainly spend,
For my lost loves a temple would I raise,
A shrine for each dear name: there should ascend
Incense for ever, and hymns of golden praise;
And I would live the remnant of my days,
Where hallowed windows cast their painted gleams,
At prayer before each consecrated face,
Kneeling within that cloister of old dreams.

And each fair altar, like a priest, I'd tend,
Trimming the tapers to a constant blaze,
And to each lovely and beloved friend
Garlands I'd bring, and virginal soft sprays
From April's bodice, and moon-breasted May's,
And there should be a sound for ever of streams
And birds 'mid happy leaves in that still place, -
Kneeling within that cloister of old dreams.

O'er missals of hushed memories would I ben...