Was, Is, and Yet-to-Be
Were chatting over a cup of tea.

In tarnished finery smelling of must,
Was talked of people long turned to dust;

Of titles and honours and high estate,
All forgotten or out of date;

Of wonderful feasts in the long ago,
Of pride that perished with nothing to show.

"I loathe the present," said Was, with a groan;
"I live in pleasures that I HAVE known."

The Yet-to-be, in a gown of gauze,
Looked over the head of musty Was,

And gazed far off into misty space
With a wrapt expression upon her face.

"Such wonderful pleasures are coming to me,
Such glory, such honour," said Yet-to-be.

"No one dreamed, in the vast Has-Been,
Of such successes as I shall win.

"The past, the present -why...

God sees me always. When I sleep,
    He kindly watches near;
He loves the little child to keep,
    Who tries to please Him here.

When I'm alone He sees me too,
    Though no one else is by;
And every naughty thing I do,
    He sees it from on high.

He sees me, too, when I am rude,
    And cry, and fret, and tease;
He loves to see me when I'm good
    And try mamma to please.

Then, since He sees me day and night,
    And is so kind to me,
I must do always what is right,
    His gentle child must be.

After so long an absence
    At last we meet again:
Does the meeting give us pleasure,
    Or does it give us pain?

The tree of life has been shaken,
    And but few of us linger now,
Like the Prophet's two or three berries
    In the top of the uppermost bough.

We cordially greet each other
    In the old, familiar tone;
And we think, though we do not say it,
    How old and gray he is grown!

We speak of a Merry Christmas
    And many a Happy New Year
But each in his heart is thinking
    Of those that are not here.

We speak of friends and their fortunes,
    And of what they did and said,
Till the dead alone seem living,
    And the living alone seem dead.

And at last we hardly distinguish
    Between th...

PROEM.

Tho' soldiers are the true supports,
The natural allies of Courts,
Woe to the Monarch, who depends
Too much on his red-coated friends;
For even soldiers sometimes think--
    Nay, Colonels have been known to reason,--

And reasoners, whether clad in pink
Or red or blue, are on the brink
    (Nine cases out of ten) of treason

Not many soldiers, I believe, are
    As fond of liberty as Mina;
Else--woe to Kings! when Freedom's fever
    Once turns into a Scarletina!
For then--but hold--'tis best to veil
My meaning in the following tale:--

FABLE.

A Lord of Persia, rich and great,
Just come into a large estate,
Was shockt to find he had, for neighbors,
Close to his gate, some rascal...

And is not Earth thy living picture, where
Thou utterest beauty, simple and profound,
In the same form by wondrous union bound;
Where one may see the first step of the stair,
And not the next, for brooding vapours there?
And God is well content the starry round
Should wake the infant's inarticulate sound,
Or lofty song from bursting heart of prayer.
And so all men of low or lofty mind,
Who in their hearts hear thy unspoken word,
Have lessons low or lofty, to their kind,
In these thy living shows of beauty, Lord;
While the child's heart that simply childlike is,
Knows that the Father's face looks full in his.

Unreconciled by life's fleet years, that fled
With changeful clang of pinions wide and wild,
Though two great spirits had lived, and hence had sped
Unreconciled;

Though time and change, harsh time's imperious child,
That wed strange hands together, might not wed
High hearts by hope's misprision once beguiled;

Faith, by the light from either's memory shed,
Sees, radiant as their ends were undefiled,
One goal for each, not twain among the dead
Unreconciled.

Come, Anthea, know thou this,
Love at no time idle is;
Let's be doing, though we play
But at push-pin half the day;
Chains of sweet bents let us make
Captive one, or both, to take:
In which bondage we will lie,
Souls transfusing thus, and die.

Mother! Mother!
    The startled cry of childish fright
    Rang through the silence of the night,
    As but the mother's fond caress
    Could soothe its infantile distress;
    And the mother answered, with loving stroke
    Of her gentle hand, as she softly spoke:
    "Hush, hush, my child, that troubled cry;
    What evil can harm thee, with mother nigh?"

Mother! Mother!
    Long years have passed, and the fevered brow
    Of a bearded man, she is stroking now,
    As through delirium and pain
    He cries as a little child, again.
    And the mother answered, with loving stroke
    Of her careworn hand, as she softly spoke:
    "Hush, hush, my child, that troubled cry;
    What evil can harm thee, with mother nigh?"

Mother! Mother!<...

Hack and Hew were the sons of God
In the earlier earth than now;
One at his right hand, one at his left,
To obey as he taught them how.

And Hack was blind and Hew was dumb,
But both had the wild, wild heart;
And God's calm will was their burning will,
And the gist of their toil was art.

They made the moon and the belted stars,
They set the sun to ride;
They loosed the girdle and veil of the sea,
The wind and the purple tide.

Both flower and beast beneath their hands
To beauty and speed outgrew,--
The furious fumbling hand of Hack,
And the glorying hand of Hew.

Then, fire and clay, they fashioned a man,
And painted him rosy brown;
And God himself blew hard in his eyes:
"Let them burn till they smoulder down!"

An...

Couldst thou look as dear as when
    First I sighed for thee;
Couldst thou make me feel again
Every wish I breathed thee then,
    Oh, how blissful life would be!
Hopes that now beguiling leave me,
    Joys that lie in slumber cold--
All would wake, couldst thou but give me
    One dear smile like those of old.

No--there's nothing left us now,
    But to mourn the past;
Vain was every ardent vow--
Never yet did Heaven allow
    Love so warm, so wild, to last.
Not even hope could now deceive me--
    Life itself looks dark and cold;
Oh, thou never more canst give me
    One dear smile like those of old

Yes! had I leisure to sigh and mourn,
    Fanny, dearest, for thee I'd sigh;
And every smile on my cheek should turn
    To tears when thou art nigh.
But, between love, and wine, and sleep,
    So busy a life I live,
That even the time it would take to weep
    Is more than my heart can give.
Then bid me not to despair and pine,
    Fanny, dearest of all the dears!
The Love that's ordered to bathe in wine,
    Would be sure to take cold in tears.

Reflected bright in this heart of mine,
    Fanny, dearest, thy image lies;
But, ah, the mirror would cease to shine,
    If dimmed too often with sighs.
They lose the half of beauty's light,
    Who view it through sorrow's tear;
And 'tis but to see thee truly bright
    That I keep my eye-beam c...

Now that the winter's gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost
Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream
Upon the silver lake or crystal stream;
But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth,
And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth
To the dead swallow; wakes in hollow tree
The drowsy cuckoo, and the humble-bee.

Now do a choir of chirping minstrels bring
In triumph to the world the youthful Spring.
The valleys, hills, and woods in rich array
Welcome the coming of the long'd-for May.
Now all things smile, only my love doth lour;
Nor hath the scalding noonday sun the power
To melt that marble ice, which still doth hold
Her heart congeal'd, and makes her pity cold.

The ox, which lately did for shelter fly
Into the sta...

“And if there’s blood upon his hand,
‘Tis but the blood of deer.”
- W. Scott.


To beasts of the field, and fowls of the air,
And fish of the sea alike,
Man’s hand is ever slow to spare,
And ever ready to strike;
With a license to kill, and to work our will,
In season by land or by water,
To our heart’s content we may take our fill
Of the joys we derive from slaughter.

And few, I reckon, our rights gainsay
In this world of rapine and wrong,
Where the weak and the timid seem lawful prey
For the resolute and the strong;
Fins, furs, and feathers, they are and were
For our use and pleasure created,
We can shoot, and hunt, and angle, and snare,
Unquestioned, if not unsated.

I have neither the will nor the right to blame,<...

    Bounce Buckram, velvet's dear;
    Christmas comes but once a year.

Good morning, Life, and all
Things glad and beautiful.
My pockets nothing hold,
But he that owns the gold,
The Sun, is my great friend,
His spending has no end.

Hail to the morning sky,
Which bright clouds measure high;
Hail to you birds whose throats
Would number leaves by notes;
Hail to you shady bowers,
And you green fields of flowers.

Hail to you women fair,
That make a show so rare
In cloth as white as milk,
Be't calico or silk:
Good morning, Life, and all
Things glad and beautiful.

"Oh, would we were further! Oh, would we were home,
The phantoms of night tow'rd us hastily come,

The band of the Sorceress sisters.
They hitherward speed, and on finding us here,
They'll drink, though with toil we have fetch'd it, the beer,

And leave us the pitchers all empty."

Thus speaking, the children with fear take to flight,
When sudden an old man appears in their sight:

"Be quiet, child! children, be quiet!
From hunting they come, and their thirst they would still,
So leave them to swallow as much as they will,

And the Evil Ones then will be gracious."

As said, so 'twas done! and the phantoms draw near,
And shadowlike seem they, and grey they appear,

~Yet blithely they sip and they revel
The beer has all vanish'd, t...

Ill-fated hour! oft as thy annual reign
Leads on th' autumnal tide, my pinion'd joys
Fade with the glories of the fading year;
"Remembrance wakes, with all her busy train,"
And bids affection heave the heart-drawn sigh
O'er the cold tomb, rich with the spoils of death,
And wet with many a tributary tear!

Eight times has each successive season sway'd
The fruitful sceptre of our milder clime
Since my loved----died! but why, ah! why
Should melancholy cloud my early years?
Religion spurns earth's visionary scene,
Philosophy revolts at misery's chain:
Just Heaven recall'd its own; the pilgrim call'd
From human woes: from sorrow's rankling worm--
Shall frailty then prevail?

Oh! be it mine
To curb the sigh which bursts o'er Heaven's decree;
To t...

Draw closer to my side to-night,
Dear wife, give me thy hand,
My heart is sad with memories
Which thou canst understand,
Its twenty years this very day,
I know thou minds it well,
Since o'er our happy wedded life
The heaviest trouble fell.

We stood beside the little cot,
But not a word we said;
With breaking hearts we learned, alas,
Our little Claude was dead,
He was the last child born to us,
The loveliest, - the best,
I sometimes fear we loved him more
Than any of the rest.

We tried to say "Thy will be done,"
We strove to be resigned;
But all in vain, our loss had left
Too deep a wound behind.
I saw the tears roll down thy cheek,
And shared thy misery,
But could not speak a soothing word,
I could but grieve with...