Half hands hold my fate.
Where will it sink...
My steps are tiny, like those of a woman.
One evening lay waste all dreams.
Sleep does not come to me -

They're taking me to the gallows, mother--they mean to hang me high;
They're going to gather round me there, and watch me till I die;
All earthly joy has vanished now, and gone each mortal hope,--
They'll draw a cap across my eyes, and round my neck a rope;
The crazy mob will shout and groan--the priest will read a prayer,
The drop will fall beneath my feet and leave me in the air.
They think I murdered Allen Bayne; for so the Judge has said,
And they'll hang me to the gallows, mother--hang me till I'm dead!

The grass that grows in yonder meadow, the lambs that skip and play,
The pebbled brook behind the orchard, that laughs upon its way,
The flowers that bloom in the dear old garden, the birds that sing and fly,
Are clear and pure of human blood, and, mother, so am I!
By f...

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
As to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm’d in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplac’d,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgrac’d,
And strength by limping sway disabled
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,
And simple truth miscall’d simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
Tir’d with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

'Twas a fearful night - the tempest raved
    With loud and wrathful pride,
The storm-king harnessed his lightning steeds,
    And rode on the raging tide.

The sea-king lay on his bed of death,
    Pale mourners around him bent;
They knew the wild and fitful life
    Of their chief was almost spent.

His ear was growing dull in death
    When the angry storm he heard,
The sluggish blood in the old man's veins
    With sudden vigor stirred.

"I hear them call," cried the dying man,
    His eyes grew full of light;
"Now bring me here my warrior robes,
    My sword and armor bright.

"In the tempest's lull I heard a voice,
    I knew 'twas Odin's call.
The Valkyrs are gathering round my bed
    To lead me unto his hall.

1.
Let those who pine in pride or in revenge,
Or think that ill for ill should be repaid,
Who barter wrong for wrong, until the exchange
Ruins the merchants of such thriftless trade,
Visit the tower of Vado, and unlearn
Such bitter faith beside Marenghi's urn.

2.
A massy tower yet overhangs the town,
A scattered group of ruined dwellings now...

...

3.
Another scene are wise Etruria knew
Its second ruin through internal strife
And tyrants through the breach of discord threw
The chain which binds and kills. As death to life,
As winter to fair flowers (though some be poison)
So Monarchy succeeds to Freedom's foison.

4.
In Pisa's church a cup of sculptured gold
Was brimming with the blood of feuds forsworn:
A Sacram...

Tune - "Death of Captain Cook."


I.

    Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray,
        That lov'st to greet the early morn,
    Again thou usherest in the day
        My Mary from my soul was torn.
    O Mary! dear departed shade!
        Where is thy place of blissful rest?
    Seest thou thy lover lowly laid?
        Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?

II.

    That sacred hour can I forget,
        Can I forget the hallow'd grove,
    Where by the winding Ayr we met,
        To live one day of parting love!
    Eternity cannot efface
        Those records dear of transports past;
    Thy image at our last embrace;
        Ah! little thought we 'twas our last!

III.

    Ayr, gurgli...

On the Busts of Nero in the Uffizj.

I.

A child of brighter than the morning's birth
And lovelier than all smiles that may be smiled
Save only of little children undefiled,
Sweet, perfect, witless of their own dear worth,
Live rose of love, mute melody of mirth,
Glad as a bird is when the woods are mild,
Adorable as is nothing save a child,
Hails with wide eyes and lips his life on earth,
His lovely life with all its heaven to be.
And whoso reads the name inscribed or hears
Feels his own heart a frozen well of tears,
Child, for deep dread and fearful pity of thee
Whom God would not let rather die than see
The incumbent horror of impending years.

II.

Man, that wast godlike being a child, and now,
No less than kinglike, ar...

Day goeth bold in cloth of gold,
A royal bridegroom he;
But Night in jewelled purple walks,
A Queen of Mystery.

Day filleth up his loving-cup
With vintage golden-clear;
But Night her ebon chalice crowns
With wine as pale as Fear.

Day drinks to Life, to ruddy Life,
And holds a kingly feast.
Night drinks to Death; and while she drinks,
Day rises in the East!

They may not meet; they may not greet;
Each keeps a separate way:
Day knoweth not the stars of Night,
Nor Night the Star of Day.

So runs the reign of Other Twain.
Behold! the Preacher saith
Death knoweth not the Light of Life,
Nor Life the Light of Death!

I
FATHER AND CHILD
She hears me strike the board and say
That she is under ban
Of all good men and women,
Being mentioned with a man
That has the worst of all bad names;
And thereupon replies
That his hair is beautiful,
Cold as the March wind his eyes.

II
BEFORE THE WORLD WAS MADE

IF I make the lashes dark
And the eyes more bright
And the lips more scarlet,
Or ask if all be right
From mirror after mirror,
No vanity's displayed:
I'm looking for the face I had
Before the world was made.
What if I look upon a man
As though on my beloved,
And my blood be cold the while
And my heart unmoved?
Why should he think me cruel
Or that he is betrayed?
I'd have him love the thing that was
Before the world wa...

A shadowed form before the light,
A gleaming face against the night,
Clutched hands across a halo bright
Of blowing hair, - her fixed sight
Stares down where moving black, below,
The river's deathly waves in murmurous silence flow.

The moon falls fainting on the sky,
The dark woods bow their heads in sorrow,
The earth sends up a misty sigh:
A soul defies the morrow!

I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house,
Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.
I said, ‘O Soul, make merry and carouse,
Dear soul, for all is well.’

A huge crag-platform, smooth as burnish’d brass
I chose. The ranged ramparts bright
From level meadow-bases of deep grass
Suddenly scaled the light.

Thereon I built it firm. Of ledge or shelf
The rock rose clear, or winding stair.
My soul would live alone unto herself
In her high palace there.

And ‘while the world runs round and round,’ I said,
‘Reign thou apart, a quiet king,
Still as, while Saturn whirls, his steadfast shade
Sleeps on his luminous ring.’

To which my soul made answer readily:
‘Trust me, in bliss I shall abide
In this great mansion, that is built for me,
So royal...

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.

Ite, rime dolenti, al duro sasso.

HE PRAYS THAT SHE WILL BE NEAR HIM AT HIS DEATH, WHICH HE FEELS APPROACHING.


    Go, plaintive verse, to the cold marble go,
Which hides in earth my treasure from these eyes;
There call on her who answers from yon skies,
Although the mortal part dwells dark and low.
Of life how I am wearied make her know,
Of stemming these dread waves that round me rise:
But, copying all her virtues I so prize,
Her track I follow, yet my steps are slow.
I sing of her, living, or dead, alone;
(Dead, did I say? She is immortal made!)
That by the world she should be loved, and known.
Oh! in my passage hence may she be near,
To greet my coming that's not long delay'd;
And may I hold in heaven the rank herself holds there!
...

Had the fierce ashes of some fiery peak
Been hurl’d so high they ranged about the globe?
For day by day, thro’ many a blood-red eve,
In that four-hundredth summer after Christ,
The wrathful sunset glared against a cross
Rear’d on the tumbled ruins of an old fane
No longer sacred to the Sun, and flamed
On one huge slope beyond, where in his cave
The man, whose pious hand had built the cross,
A man who never changed a word with men,
Fasted and pray’d, Telemachus the Saint.
Eve after eve that haggard anchorite
Would haunt the desolated fane, and there
Gaze at the ruin, often mutter low
‘Vicisti Galilæe’; louder again,
Spurning a shatter’d fragment of the God,
‘Vicisti Galilæe!’ but—when now
Bathed in that lurid crimson—ask’d ‘Is earth
On fire to the Wes...

In the year's early nonage, when the sun
Tempers his tresses in Aquarius' urn,
And now towards equal day the nights recede,
When as the rime upon the earth puts on
Her dazzling sister's image, but not long
Her milder sway endures, then riseth up
The village hind, whom fails his wintry store,
And looking out beholds the plain around
All whiten'd, whence impatiently he smites
His thighs, and to his hut returning in,
There paces to and fro, wailing his lot,
As a discomfited and helpless man;
Then comes he forth again, and feels new hope
Spring in his bosom, finding e'en thus soon
The world hath chang'd its count'nance, grasps his crook,
And forth to pasture drives his little flock:
So me my guide dishearten'd when I saw
His troubled forehead, and so speedily...

Two angels, one of Life and one of Death,
    Passed o'er our village as the morning broke;
The dawn was on their faces, and beneath,
    The sombre houses hearsed with plumes of smoke.

Their attitude and aspect were the same,
    Alike their features and their robes of white;
But one was crowned with amaranth, as with flame,
    And one with asphodels, like flakes of light.

I saw them pause on their celestial way;
    Then said I, with deep fear and doubt oppressed,
"Beat not so loud, my heart, lest thou betray
    The place where thy beloved are at rest!"

And he who wore the crown of asphodels,
    Descending, at my door began to knock,
And my soul sank within me, as in wells
    The waters sink before an earthquake's shock.

I recogni...

                There is no length of days
    But yours, boys who were children once.    Of old
    The past beset you in your childish ways,
                With sense of Time untold!

                What have you then forgone?
    A history?    This you had.    Or memories?
    These, too, you had of your far-distant dawn.
                No further dawn seems his,

                The old man who shares with you,
    But has no more, no more.    Time’s mystery
    Did once for him the most that it can do:
                He has had infancy.

                And all his dreams, and all
    His loves for mighty Nature, sweet and few,
    Are but the dwindling past he can recall
                Of what his childhood knew.

               ...

I bore a daughter flower-fair,
In Pydel Vale, alas for me;
I joyed to mother one so rare,
But dead and gone I now would be.

Men looked and loved her as she grew,
And she was won, alas for me;
She told me nothing, but I knew,
And saw that sorrow was to be.

I knew that one had made her thrall,
A thrall to him, alas for me;
And then, at last, she told me all,
And wondered what her end would be.

She owned that she had loved too well,
Had loved too well, unhappy she,
And bore a secret time would tell,
Though in her shroud she'd sooner be.

I plodded to her sweetheart's door
In Pydel Vale, alas for me:
I pleaded with him, pleaded sore,
To save her from her misery.

He frowned, and swore he could not wed,
Seven tim...