Of all the numerous ills that hurt our peace,
    That press the soul, or wring the mind with anguish,
    Beyond comparison the worst are those
    That to our folly or our guilt we owe.
    In every other circumstance, the mind
    Has this to say, 'It was no deed of mine;'
    But when to all the evil of misfortune
    This sting is added, 'Blame thy foolish self!'
    Or worser far, the pangs of keen remorse;
    The torturing, gnawing consciousness of guilt,
    Of guilt, perhaps, where we've involved others;
    The young, the innocent, who fondly lov'd us,
    Nay, more, that very love their cause of ruin!
    O burning hell! in all thy store of torments,
    There's not a keener lash!
    Lives there a man so firm, who, while his heart
    Feels al...

What beck’ning ghost, along the moon-light shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
’Tis she!—but why that bleeding bosom gor’d,
Why dimly gleams the visionary sword?
Oh ever beauteous, ever friendly! tell,
Is it, in heav’n, a crime to love too well?
To bear too tender, or too firm a heart,
To act a lover’s or a Roman’s part?
Is there no bright reversion in the sky,
For those who greatly think, or bravely die?

Why bade ye else, ye pow’rs! her soul aspire
Above the vulgar flight of low desire?
Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes;
The glorious fault of angels and of gods;
Thence to their images on earth it flows,
And in the breasts of kings and heroes glows.
Most souls, ’tis true, but peep out once an age,
Dull sullen pris’ners in ...

Go! heart of mine! the way is long --
The night is dark -- the place is far;
Go! kneel and pray, or chant a song,
Beside two graves where Mary's star
Shines o'er two children's hearts at rest,
With Mary's medals on their breast.

Go! heart! those children loved you so,
Their little lips prayed oft for you!
But ah! those necks are lying low
Round which you twined the badge of blue.
Go to their graves, this Virgin's feast,
With poet's song and prayer of priest.

Go! like a pilgrim to a shrine,
For that is holy ground where sleep
Children of Mary and of thine;
Go! kneel, and pray and sing and weep;
Last summer how their faces smiled
When each was blessed as Mary's child.

    *    *    *    *    *

My heart is gone! I cannot sin...

I turn the key in this idle hour
Of an ivory box, and looking, lo -
See only dust - the dust of a flower;
The waters will ebb, the waters will flow,
And dreams will come, and dreams will go,
    Forever.

Oh, friend, if you and I should meet
Beneath the boughs of the bending lime,
Should you in the same low voice repeat
The tender words of the old love rhyme,
It could not bring back the same old time,
    Never.

When you laid this rose against my brow,
I was quite unused to the ways of men,
With my trusting heart; I am wiser now,
So I smile, remembering my heart-throbs then,
The dust of a rose cannot blossom again,
    Never.

The brow that you praised has colder grown,
And hearts will change, I suppose they must,
A rose to ...

1

Hold up thy head and crush
    Thy heart's despair;
From thy wan temples brush
    The tear-wet hair.


2

Look on me thus as I
    Gaze upon thee;
Nor question how nor why
    Such things can be.


3

Thou thought'st it love! - poor fool!
    That which was lust!
Which made thee, beautiful,
    Vile as the dust!


4

Thy flesh I craved, thy face! -
    Love shrinks at this -
Now on thy lips to place
    One farewell kiss! -


5

Weep not, but die! - 'tis given -
    And so - farewell! -
Die! - that which makes death heaven,
    Makes life a hell.

I know, although when looks meet
I tremble to the bone,
The more I leave the door unlatched
The sooner love is gone,
For love is but a skein unwound
Between the dark and dawn.

A lonely ghost the ghost is
That to God shall come;
I - love's skein upon the ground,
My body in the tomb -
Shall leap into the light lost
In my mother's womb.

But were I left to lie alone
In an empty bed,
The skein so bound us ghost to ghost
When he turned his head
passing on the road that night,
Mine must walk when dead.

We laugh when our souls are the saddest,
We shroud all our griefs in a smile;
Our voices may warble their gladdest,
And our souls mourn in anguish the while.

And our eyes wear a summer's bright glory,
When winter is wailing beneath;
And we tell not the world the sad story
Of the thorn hidden back of the wreath.

Ah! fast flow the moments of laughter,
And bright as the brook to the sea
But ah! the dark hours that come after
Of moaning for you and for me.

Yea, swift as the sunshine, and fleeting
As birds, fly the moments of glee!
And we smile, and mayhap grief is sleeting
Its ice upon you and on me.

And the clouds of the tempest are shifting
O'er the heart, tho' the face may be bright;
And the snows of woe's winter are drifting

What would I give for a heart of flesh to warm me through,
Instead of this heart of stone ice-cold whatever I do;
Hard and cold and small, of all hearts the worst of all.

What would I give for words, if only words would come;
But now in its misery my spirit has fallen dumb:
Oh, merry friends, go your own way, I have never a word to say.

What would I give for tears, not smiles but scalding tears,
To wash the black mark clean, and to thaw the frost of years,
To wash the stain ingrain and to make me clean again.

The long grief left her old--and then
Came love and made her young again
As though some newer, gentler Spring
Should start dead roses blossoming;
Old roses that have lain full long
In some forgotten book of song,
Brought from their darkness to be one
With lilting winds and rain and sun;
And as they too might bring away
From that dim volume where they lay
Some lyric hint, some song's perfume
To add its beauty to their bloom,
So love awakes her heart that lies
Shrouded in fragrant memories,
And bids it bloom again and wake
Sweeter for that old sorrow's sake.

When dull November's misty shroud,
All Nature's charms depress,
Flinging a damp, dark, deadening cloud,
O'er each heart's joyousness.
Our fancies quit their lighter vein,
And out from Memory's shrine,
We marshal thoughts of grief and pain,
Known, - once upon a time.

'Tis then that faces, long forgot,
In shadows reappear; -
Voices, that once we heeded not,
Come whispering in the ear;
And ghosts of friends whom once we met,
When life was in its prime,
Recall acts we would fain forget,
Done, - once upon time.

Regretfull sighs for thoughtless deeds,
That worked another wrong;
Vows that we broke, like rotten reeds
Like spectres glide along;
Tears naught avail to heal the smart,
We caused - nor deemed it crime,
Whilst selfis...

        The thought of old, dear things is in thine eyes,
        O, month of memories!
        Musing on days thine heart hath sorrow of,
        Old joy, dead hope, dear love,

        I see thee stand where all thy sisters meet
        To cast down at thy feet
        The garnered largess of the fruitful year,
        And on thy cheek a tear.

        Thy glory flames in every blade and leaf
        To blind the eyes of grief;
        Thy vineyards and thine orchards bend with fruit
        That sorrow may be mute;

        A hectic splendor lights thy days to sleep,
        Ere the gray dusk may creep
        Sober and sad along thy dusty ways,
        Like a lone nun, who prays;

        High and faint-heard thy passing migrant calls;<...

It wor dark an mi way wor across a wild mooar,
An noa signs could aw find ov a track,
'Twor a place whear aw nivver had rambled befooar;
An aw eearnestly wished misen back.
As aw went on an on mooar uneven it grew,
An farther mi feet seem'd to stray,
When a chap made me start, as he shaated "Halloa!
Maister, yor missin yor way!"

Wi' his help aw contrived to land safely back hooam,
An aw thowt as o'th' hearthstun aw set,
What a blessin 'twod be if when other fowk rooam,
They should meet sich a friend as aw'd met.
An aw sat daan to write just theas words ov advice,
Soa read 'em young Yorksher fowk, pray;
An aw'st think for mi trubble aw'm paid a rare price,
If aw've saved one throo missin ther way.

Yo lads 'at's but latly begun to wear hats,
An ...

The thanking heart can only silence keep;
The breaking heart can only die alone:
Our happy love above abysses deep
Of unguessed power hovers, and is gone!

Come, take my hand, O friend I take for life!
You cannot reach my soul through touch or gaze;
Be our full lips with infinite meanings rife:
The longed-for words, which of us ever says?

    A woman in her youth, but lost to all
    The joys of innocence. Love she had known,
    Such love as leaves the soul filled full of shame.
    Passion was hers, hate and impurity,
    The gnawing of remorse, the longing vain
    To lose the mark of sin, the scarlet flush
    Of fallen womanhood, the envy of
    The spotless, the desire that they might sink
    Low in the mire as she.
            Oh, what a soul
    She carried on that day! The women drew
    Their robes back from her touch, men leered,
    And children seemed afraid to meet
    The devilish beauty of her form and face.
            Shunned and alone,
    Till One came to her side,
    And spake her name, and took her hand in His.
            And what He said
    Is past the telli...

Warm perfumes like a breath from vine and tree
Drift down the darkness. Plangent, hidden from eyes
Somewhere an 'eukaleli' thrills and cries
And stabs with pain the night's brown savagery.
And dark scents whisper; and dim waves creep to me,
Gleam like a woman's hair, stretch out, and rise;
And new stars burn into the ancient skies,
Over the murmurous soft Hawaian sea.

And I recall, lose, grasp, forget again,
And still remember, a tale I have heard, or known,
An empty tale, of idleness and pain,
Of two that loved, or did not love, and one
Whose perplexed heart did evil, foolishly,
A long while since, and by some other sea.

Why comes not Francis? From the doleful City
He fled, and, in his flight, could hear
The death-sounds of the Minster-bell:
That sullen stroke pronounced farewell
To Marmaduke, cut off from pity!
To Ambrose that! and then a knell
For him, the sweet half-opened Flower!
For all all dying in one hour!
Why comes not Francis? Thoughts of love
Should bear him to his Sister dear
With the fleet motion of a dove;
Yea, like a heavenly messenger
Of speediest wing, should he appear.
Why comes he not? for westward fast
Along the plain of York he past;
Reckless of what impels or leads,
Unchecked he hurries on; nor heeds
The sorrow, through the Villages,
Spread by triumphant cruelties
Of vengeful military force,
And punishment without remorse.
He mark...

I gave my heart to a woman -
I gave it her, branch and root.
She bruised, she wrung, she tortured,
She cast it under foot.

Under her feet she cast it,
She trampled it where it fell,
She broke it all to pieces,
And each was a clot of hell.

There in the rain and the sunshine
They lay and smouldered long;
And each, when again she viewed them,
Had turned to a living song.

When Grief comes this way by
With her wan lip and drooping eye,
Bid her welcome, woo her boldly;
Soon she'll look on thee less coldly.

Her tears soon cease to flow.
'Tis now not Grief but Joy we know;
From her smiling face the roses
Tell the glad metempsychosis.