The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.

And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.

‘I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces,
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins. . . . ‘
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,

I wayed by star and planet shine
Towards the dear one's home
At Kingsbere, there to make her mine
When the next sun upclomb.

I edged the ancient hill and wood
Beside the Ikling Way,
Nigh where the Pagan temple stood
In the world's earlier day.

And as I quick and quicker walked
On gravel and on green,
I sang to sky, and tree, or talked
Of her I called my queen.

- "O faultless is her dainty form,
And luminous her mind;
She is the God-created norm
Of perfect womankind!"

A shape whereon one star-blink gleamed
Glode softly by my side,
A woman's; and her motion seemed
The motion of my bride.

And yet methought she'd drawn erstwhile
Adown the ancient leaze,
Where once were pile and peristyle
For men's id...

"All hail!" the bells of Christmas rang,
"All hail!" the monks at Christmas sang,
The merry monks who kept with cheer
The gladdest day of all their year.

But still apart, unmoved thereat,
A pious elder brother sat
Silent, in his accustomed place,
With God's sweet peace upon his face.

"Why sitt'st thou thus?" his brethren cried.
"It is the blessed Christmas-tide;
The Christmas lights are all aglow,
The sacred lilies bud and blow.

"Above our heads the joy-bells ring,
Without the happy children sing,
And all God's creatures hail the morn
On which the holy Christ was born!

"Rejoice with us; no more rebuke
Our gladness with thy quiet look."
The gray monk answered: "Keep, I pray,
Even as ye list, the Lord's birthday.

DIVERTING in extreme there is a play,
Which oft resumes its fascinating sway;
Delights the sex, or ugly, fair, or sour;
By night or day: - 'tis sweet at any hour.
The frolick, ev'ry where is known to fame;
Conjecture if you can, and tells its name.

THIS play's chief charm to husbands is unknown;
'Tis with the lover it excels alone;
No lookers-on, as umpires, are required;
No quarrels rise, though each appears inspired;
All seem delighted with the pleasing game: -
Conjecture if you can, and tell its name.

BE this as 'twill, and called whate'er it may;
No longer trifling with it I shall stay,
But now disclose a method to transmit
(As oft we find) to ninnies sense and wit.
Till Alice got instruction in this school,
She was regarded as a silly foo...

'Twas August - Hastings every day was filling -
Hastings, that "greenest spot on memory's waste"!
With crowds of idlers willing and unwilling
To be bedipped - be noticed - or be braced,
And all things rose a penny in a shilling.
Meanwhile, from window, and from door, in haste
"Accommodation bills" kept coming down,
Gladding "the world of-letters" in that town.

Each day poured in new coachfuls of new cits,
Flying from London smoke and dust annoying,
Unmarried Misses hoping to make hits,
And new-wed couples fresh from Tunbridge toying,
Lacemen and placemen, ministers and wits,
And Quakers of both sexes, much enjoying
A morning's reading by the ocean's rim,
That sect delighting in the sea's broad brim.

And lo! amongst all these appeared a creature,

We fly from luxury and wealth,
To hardships, in pursuit of health;
From generous wines, and costly fare,
And dozing in an easy-chair;
Pursue the goddess Health in vain,
To find her in a country scene,
And every where her footsteps trace,
And see her marks in every face;
And still her favourites we meet,
Crowding the roads with naked feet.
But, oh! so faintly we pursue,
We ne'er can have her full in view.

    He bent above our darling's bed
        When her life was ebbing low,
    And in his serious look we read
        The truth we feared to know.

    We knew a slender thread was all
        That held her now; we saw
    The dark, portentous shadow fall,
        And near and nearer draw.

    Our hopes were centred all in him;
        We stood with bated breath
    As, pitiful and calm and grim,
        He fought and fought with Death.

    We hung upon the desperate fight,
        And saw in him combined
    The tiger's stealth, the lion's might,
        The man's superior mind.

    We saw the fearful hate he bore
        His old, relentless foe,
    His beautiful compassion for
        The one we cherished so.

O youths and virgins: o declining eld:
O pale misfortune's slaves: o ye who dwell
Unknown with humble quiet; ye who wait
In courts, or fill the golden seat of kings:
O sons of sport and pleasure: o thou wretch
That weep'st for jealous love, or the sore wounds
Of conscious guilt, or death's rapacious hand
Which left thee void of hope: o ye who roam
In exile; ye who through the embattled field
Seek bright renown; or who for nobler palms
Contend, the leaders of a public cause;
Approach: behold this marble. Know ye not
The features? Hath not oft his faithful tongue
Told you the fashion of your own estate,
The secrets of your bosom? Here then, round
His monument with reverence while ye stand,
Say to each other: "This was Shakespeare's form;
"Who walk'd in ever...

WRITTEN AFTER VIEWING THE RUINS OF THE ONE, AND HEARING THE CHURCH SERVICE IN THE OTHER.

Glory and boast of Avalon's fair vale,
How beautiful thy ancient turrets rose!
Fancy yet sees them, in the sunshine pale,
Gleaming, or, more majestic, in repose,
When, west-away, the crimson landscape glows,
Casting their shadows on the waters wide.[198]
How sweet the sounds, that, at still day-light's close,
Came blended with the airs of eventide,
When through the glimmering aisle faint "Misereres" died!

But all is silent now! silent the bell,
That, heard from yonder ivied turret high,
Warned the cowled brother from his midnight cell;
Silent the vesper-chant, the litany
Responsive to the organ! - scattered lie
The wrecks of the proud pile, 'mid arches gray,
Wh...

Two Suns of Love make day of human life,
Which else with all its pains, and griefs, and deaths,
Were utter darkness–one, the Sun of dawn
That brightens thro’ the Mother’s tender eyes,
And warms the child’s awakening world–and one
The later-rising Sun of spousal Love,
Which from her household orbit draws the child
To move in other spheres. The Mother weeps
At that white funeral of the single life,
Her maiden daughter’s marriage; and her tears
Are half of pleasure, half of pain–the child
Is happy–even in leaving her! but thou,
True daughter, whose all-faithful, filial eyes
Have seen the loneliness of earthly thrones,
Wilt neither quit the widow’d Crown, nor let
This later light of Love have risen in vain,
But moving thro’ the Mother’s home, between
The two ...

When falls the soldier brave,
Dead at the feet of wrong,
The poet sings and guards his grave
With sentinels of song.

Songs, march! he gives command,
Keep faithful watch and true;
The living and dead of the conquered land
Have now no guards save you.

Gray ballads! mark ye well!
Thrice holy is your trust!
Go! halt by the fields where warriors fell;
Rest arms! and guard their dust.

List, songs! your watch is long,
The soldiers' guard was brief;
Whilst right is right, and wrong is wrong,
Ye may not seek relief.

Go! wearing the gray of grief!
Go! watch o'er the dead in gray!
Go! guard the private and guard the chief,
And sentinel their clay!

And the songs, in stately rhyme
And with softly sounding tread,
G...

WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER, 1693


Thrice, with a prophet's voice, and prophet's power,
    The Muse was called in a poetic hour,
And insolently thrice the slighted maid
Dared to suspend her unregarded aid;
Then with that grief we form in spirits divine,
Pleads for her own neglect, and thus reproaches mine.
    Once highly honoured! false is the pretence
You make to truth, retreat, and innocence!
Who, to pollute my shades, bring'st with thee down
The most ungenerous vices of the town;
Ne'er sprung a youth from out this isle before
I once esteem'd, and loved, and favour'd more,
Nor ever maid endured such courtlike scorn,
So much in mode, so very city-born;
'Tis with a foul design the Muse you send,
Like a cast mistress, to your wicked friend;
But find s...

Proud word you never spoke, but you will speak
Four not exempt from pride some future day.
Resting on one white hand a warm wet cheek,
Over my open volume you will say,
'This man loved me', then rise and trip away.

PIANO DI SORRENTO


Fortù, Fortù, my beloved one,
Sit here by my side,
On my knees put up both little feet!
I was sure, if I tried,
I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco:
Now, open your eyes,
Let me keep you amused till he vanish
In black from the skies,
With telling my memories over
As you tell your beads;
All the memories plucked at Sorrento
The flowers, or the weeds.

Time for rain! for your long hot dry Autumn
Had net-worked with brown
The white skin of each grape on the bunches,
Marked like a quail’s crown,
Those creatures you make such account of,
Whose heads, speckled with white
Over brown like a great spider’s back,
As I told you last night,
Your mother bites off for her supper;
Red-ripe as could b...

        The débutantes are in force to-night,
            Sweet as their roses, pure as truth;
        Dreams of beauty in clouds of tulle;
            Blushing, fair in their guileless youth.
        Flashing bright glances carelessly
            Carelessly, think you! Wait and see
        How their sweetest smile is kept for him
            Whom "mother" considers a good parti.

        For the matrons watch and guard them well
            Little for youth or love care they;
        The man they seek is the man with gold,
            Though his heart be black, and his hair be gray.
        "Nellie, how could you treat him so!
            You know very well he is Goldmore's heir,"
        "Jennie, look modest! Glance down and blush,
     ...

Mournful groans, as when a tempest lowers,
Echo from the dreary house of woe;
Death-notes rise from yonder minster's towers!
Bearing out a youth, they slowly go;
Yes! a youth unripe yet for the bier,
Gathered in the spring-time of his days,
Thrilling yet with pulses strong and clear,
With the flame that in his bright eye plays
Yes, a son the idol of his mother,
(Oh, her mournful sigh shows that too well!)
Yes! my bosom-friend, alas my brother!
Up! each man the sad procession swell!

Do ye boast, ye pines, so gray and old,
Storms to brave, with thunderbolts to sport?
And, ye hills, that ye the heavens uphold?
And, ye heavens, that ye the suns support!
Boasts the graybeard, who on haughty deeds
As on billows, seeks perfection's height?
Boasts the ...

Over vale and torrent far
Rolls along the sun's bright car.
Ah! he wakens in his course

Mine, as thy deep-seated smart

In the heart.
Ev'ry morning with new force.

Scarce avails night aught to me;
E'en the visions that I see
Come but in a mournful guise;

And I feel this silent smart

In my heart
With creative pow'r arise.

During many a beauteous year
I have seen ships 'neath me steer,
As they seek the shelt'ring bay;

But, alas, each lasting smart

In my heart
Floats not with the stream away.

I must wear a gala dress,
Long stored up within my press,
For to-day to feasts is given;

None know with what bitter smart

Is my heart
Fearfully and madly riven.

Sec...

O! were I one of the Olympian twelve,
Their godships should pass this into law,
That when a man doth set himself in toil
After some beauty veiled far away,
Each step he took should make his lady's hand
More soft, more white, and her fair cheek more fair;
And for each briar-berry he might eat,
A kiss should bud upon the tree of love,
And pulp and ripen richer every hour,
To melt away upon the traveller's lips.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

1.
The sun, with his great eye,
Sees not so much as I;
And the moon, all silve-proud,
Might as well be in a cloud.

2.
And O the spring the spring!
I lead the life of a king!
Couch'd in the teeming grass,
I spy each pretty lass.

3.
I look where no one dares,
And I st...