My fayre, looke from those turrets of thine eyes,
Into the Ocean of a troubled minde,
Where my poor soule, the Barke of sorrow, lyes,
Left to the mercy of the waues and winde.
See where she flotes, laden with purest loue,
Which those fayre Ilands of thy lookes affoord,
Desiring yet a thousand deaths to proue,
Then so to cast her Ballase ouerboard.
See how her sayles be rent, her tacklings worne,
Her Cable broke, her surest Anchor lost:
Her Marryners doe leaue her all forlorne,
Yet how shee bends towards that blessed Coast!
    Loe! where she drownes in stormes of thy displeasure,
    Whose worthy prize should haue enricht thy treasure.

Mine eyes with such an eager coveting,
Were bent to rid them of their ten years' thirst,
No other sense was waking: and e'en they
Were fenc'd on either side from heed of aught;
So tangled in its custom'd toils that smile
Of saintly brightness drew me to itself,
When forcibly toward the left my sight
The sacred virgins turn'd; for from their lips
I heard the warning sounds: "Too fix'd a gaze!"

Awhile my vision labor'd; as when late
Upon the' o'erstrained eyes the sun hath smote:
But soon to lesser object, as the view
Was now recover'd (lesser in respect
To that excess of sensible, whence late
I had perforce been sunder'd) on their right
I mark'd that glorious army wheel, and turn,
Against the sun and sev'nfold lights, their front.
As when, their buck...

The look that thy sweet eyes on mine impress

The pledge thy lips to mine convey, the kiss,

He who, like me, hath knowledge sure of this,
Can he in aught beside find happiness?

Removed from thee, friend-sever'd, in distress,

These thoughts I vainly struggle to dismiss:

They still return to that one hour of bliss,
The only one; then tears my grief confess.

But unawares the tear makes haste to dry:

He loves, methinks, e'en to these glades so still,

And shalt not thou to distant lands extend?

Receive the murmurs of his loving sigh;

My only joy on earth is in thy will,

Thy kindly will tow'rd me; a token send!

And I, cooing in my saddle, with lost time.
His weapons and horses the finest.
Beloved of God, engendered fiercely
for the occasion - with
pin stripes and a drinking vessel
of the most expert silver.

Pharaonic splendor,
ingots of the heaviest gold
borrowed sun bright yet so untarnished
they hold up the morning sky.

Two hands encase that handsome
volume - finest of imported leather and
saddle soap transparent to the eye
so that all might ring forth
its belated vision;
not be dreary earthed with brine
but terse,
furtive inside the gathering glade.

Round clouds roll in the arms of the wind,
The round earth rolls in a clasp of blue sky,
And see, where the budding hazels are thinned,
The wild anemones lie
In undulating shivers beneath the wind.

Over the blue of the waters ply
White ducks, a living flotilla of cloud;
And, look you, floating just thereby,
The blue-gleamed drake stems proud
Like Abraham, whose seed should multiply.

In the lustrous gleam of the water, there
Scramble seven toads across the silk, obscure leaves,
Seven toads that meet in the dusk to share
The darkness that interweaves
The sky and earth and water and live things everywhere.

Look now, through the woods where the beech-green spurts
Like a storm of emerald snow, look, see
A great bay stallion dances, skirts

All beauty calls you to me, and you seem,
Past twice a thousand miles of shifting sea,
To reach me. You are as the wind I breathe
Here on the ship’s sun-smitten topmost deck,
With only light between the heavens and me.
I feel your spirit and I close my eyes,
Knowing the bright hair blowing in the sun,
The eager whisper and the searching eyes.

Listen, I love you. Do not turn your face
Nor touch me. Only stand and watch awhile
The blue unbroken circle of the sea.
Look far away and let me ease my heart
Of words that beat in it with broken wing.
Look far away, and if I say too much,
Forget that I am speaking. Only watch,
How like a gull that sparkling sinks to rest,
The foam-crest drifts along a happy wave
Toward the bright verge, the boundary of the wo...

    How great my joy! How grand my recompense!
    I bow to thee; I keep thee in my sight.
    I call thee mine, in love though not in sense
    I share with thee the hermitage immense
    Of holy dreams which come to us at night,
    When, through the medium of the spirit-lens
    We see the soul, in its primeval light,
    And Reason spares the hopes it cannot blight.
    It is the soul of thee, and not the form,
    And not the face, I yearn-to in my sleep.
    It is thyself. The body is the storm,
    The soul the star beyond it in the deep
    Of Nature's calm. And yonder on the steep
    The Sun of Faith, quiescent, round, and warm!

The wind, that beats the mountain, blows
More softly round the open wold,
And gently comes the world to those
That are cast in gentle mould.

And me this knowledge bolder made,
Or else I had not dared to flow
In these words toward you, and invade
Even with a verse your holy woe.

’Tis strange that those we lean on most,
Those in whose laps our limbs are nursed,
Fall into shadow, soonest lost:
Those we love first are taken first.

God gives us love. Something to love
He lends us; but, when love is grown
To ripeness, that on which it throve
Falls off, and love is left alone.

This is the curse of time. Alas!
In grief I am not all unlearn’d;
Once thro’ mine own doors Death did pass;
One went, who never hath return’d.

...

I.

When boyhood's fire was in my blood
I read of ancient freemen
For Greece and Rome who bravely stood,
THREE HUNDRED MEN AND THREE MEN.[1]
And then I prayed I yet might see
Our fetters rent in twain,
And Ireland, long a province, be
A NATION ONCE AGAIN.


II.

And, from that time, through wildest woe,
That hope has shone, a far light;
Nor could love's brightest summer glow
Outshine that solemn starlight:
It seemed to watch above my head
In forum, field and fane;
Its angel voice sang round my bed,
"A NATION ONCE AGAIN."


III.

It whispered, too, that "freedom's ark
And service high and holy,
Would be profaned by feelings dark
And passions vain or lowly:
For freedom comes from Go...

"Teach me, love, to be true;
    Teach me, love, to love;
Teach me to be pure like you.
    It will be more than enough!

"Ah, and in days to come,
    Give me, my seraph, too,
A son nobler than I,
    A daughter true like you:

"A son to battle the wrong,
    To seek and strive for the right;
A beautiful daughter of song,
    To point us on to the light!"

Kind friend, you do not know how much
    I prize this time-ly treasure,
So dainty, diligent, and such
    A constant source of pleasure.

The man of brains who could invent
    So true a chrono-meter
Has set a charming precedent,
    And made a good repeater.

It speaks with clear, commanding clicks,
    Suggestive of the donor;
And 'tends to business - never sick
    A bit more than the owner.

It goes when I do; when I stop
    (As by the dial showing)
It never lets a second drop,
    But simply keeps on going.

It tells me when I am to eat,
    Which isn't necessary;
When food with me is obsolete,
    I'll be a reliquary.

It tells me early when to rise,
    And bother with dejeuner;
To sally fo...

A sickness of this world it most occasions
When best men die;
A wishfulness their far condition
To occupy.

A chief indifference, as foreign
A world must be
Themselves forsake contented,
For Deity.

Lo! where the castle of bold Pfeiffer throws
Its sullen shadow on the rolling tide,
No more the home where joy and wealth repose,
But now where wassailers in cells abide;
See yon long quay that stretches far and wide,
Well known to citizens as wharf of Meiggs:
There each sweet Sabbath walks in maiden pride
The pensive Margaret, and brave Pat, whose legs
Encased in broadcloth oft keep time with Peg’s.

Here cometh oft the tender nursery-maid,
While in her ear her love his tale doth pour;
Meantime her infant doth her charge evade,
And rambleth sagely on the sandy shore,
Till the sly sea-crab, low in ambush laid,
Seizeth his leg and biteth him full sore.
Ah me! what sounds the shuddering echoes bore
When his small treble mixed with Ocean’s roar!

H...

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

The swallows in their torpid state
Compose their useless wing,
And bees in hives as idly wait
The call of early Spring.


The keenest frost that binds the stream,
The wildest wind that blows,
Are neither felt nor fear’d by them,
Secure of their repose.


But man, all feeling and awake,
The gloomy scene surveys;
With present ills his heart must ache,
And pant for brighter days.


Old Winter, halting o’er the mead,
Bids me and Mary mourn;
But lovely Spring peeps o’er his head,
And whispers your return.


Then April, with her sister May,
Shall chase him from the bowers,
And weave fresh garlands every day,
To crown the smiling hours.


And if a tear that speaks regret
Of happier times, appe...

Dearest, best and brightest,
Come away,
To the woods and to the fields!
Dearer than this fairest day
Which, like thee to those in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough Year just awake
In its cradle in the brake.
The eldest of the Hours of Spring,
Into the Winter wandering,
Looks upon the leafless wood,
And the banks all bare and rude;
Found, it seems, this halcyon Morn
In February's bosom born,
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
Kissed the cold forehead of the Earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free;
And waked to music all the fountains,
And breathed upon the rigid mountains,
And made the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, Dear.

Radiant Sister of the Day,

'Tis morning now, yet silently I stand,
Uplift the curtain with a weary hand,
Look out while darkness overspreads the way,
        And long for day.

Calm peace is frighted with my mood to-night,
Nor visits my dull chamber with her light,
To guide my senses into her sweet rest
        And leave me blest.

Long hours since the city rocked and sung
Itself to slumber: only the stars swung
Aloft their torches in the midnight skies
        With watchful eyes.

No sound awakes; I, even, breathe no sigh,
Nor hear a single footstep passing by;
Yet I am not alone, for now I feel
        A presence steal

Within my chamber walls; I turn to see
The sweetest guest that courts humanity;
With subtle, slow enchantment draws she near,
      ...

WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF THE
PRINCE OF WALES

I.

Welcome, welcome with one voice!
In your welfare we rejoice,
Sons and brothers that have sent,
From isle and cape and continent,
Produce of your field and flood,
Mount and mine, and primal wood;
Works of subtle brain and hand,
And splendors of the morning land,
Gifts from every British zone;
Britons, hold your own!


II.

May we find, as ages run,
The mother featured in the son:
And may yours for ever be
That old strength and constancy
Which has made your fathers great
In our ancient island State,
And wherever her flag fly,
Glorying between sea and sky,
Makes the might of Britain known;
Britons, hold your own!


III.

Britain ...