Dear Heart, I think the young impassioned priest
When first he takes from out the hidden shrine
His God imprisoned in the Eucharist,
And eats the bread, and drinks the dreadful wine,

Feels not such awful wonder as I felt
When first my smitten eyes beat full on thee,
And all night long before thy feet I knelt
Till thou wert wearied of Idolatry.

Ah! hadst thou liked me less and loved me more,
Through all those summer days of joy and rain,
I had not now been sorrow's heritor,
Or stood a lackey in the House of Pain.

Yet, though remorse, youth's white-faced seneschal,
Tread on my heels with all his retinue,
I am most glad I loved thee think of all
The suns that go to make one speedwell blue!

La donna che 'l mio cor nel viso porta.

HER KIND AND GENTLE SALUTATION THRILLS HIS HEART WITH PLEASURE.


    She, in her face who doth my gone heart wear,
As lone I sate 'mid love-thoughts dear and true,
Appear'd before me: to show honour due,
I rose, with pallid brow and reverent air.
Soon as of such my state she was aware,
She turn'd on me with look so soft and new
As, in Jove's greatest fury, might subdue
His rage, and from his hand the thunders tear.
I started: on her further way she pass'd
Graceful, and speaking words I could not brook,
Nor of her lustrous eyes the loving look.
When on that dear salute my thoughts are cast,
So rich and varied do my pleasures flow,
No pain I feel, nor evil fear below.

MACGREGOR.

Now have I left the world and all its tears,
And high above the sunny cloud-banks fly,
Alone in all this vast and lonely sky -
This limpid space in which the myriad spheres
Go thundering on, whose song God only hears
High in his heavens. Ah! how small seem I,
And yet I know he hears my little cry
Down there among Mankind's cruel jest and sneers.

And I forget the grief which I have known,
And I forgive the mockers and their jest,
And in this mightly solitude alone,
I taste the joys of everlasting rest,
Which I shall know when I have passed away
To live in Heaven's never-fading day.

Written in the Air.

The tears that trickled down our eyes,
They do not touch the earth to-day;
But soar like angels to the skies,
And, like the angels, may not die;
    For ah! our immortality
    Flows thro' each tear -- sounds in each sigh.

What waves of tears surge o'er the deep
Of sorrow in our restless souls!
And they are strong, not weak, who weep
Those drops from out the sea that rolls
    Within their hearts forevermore,
    Without a depth -- without a shore.

But ah! the tears that are not wept,
The tears that never outward fall;
The tears that grief for years has kept
Within us -- they are best of all;
    The tears our eyes shall never know,
    Are dearer than the tears that flow.

Each night upon earth's flowers below,
The dew comes do...

(TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN)

Hello!    Hello!
Are you there?    Are you there?
Ah!    That you?    Well,--
This is just to tell you
That there's trouble in the air...
Trouble,--
T-R-O-U-B-L-E--Trouble!
Where?
In the air.
Trouble in the air!
Got that?    ...    Right!
Then--take a word of warning,
And ...    Beware!

What trouble?
Every trouble,--everywhere,
Every wildest kind of nightmare
That has ridden you is there,
In the air.
And it's coming like a whirlwind,
Like a wild beast mad with hunger,
To rend and wrench and tear,--
To tear the world in pieces maybe,
Unless it gets its share.
Can't you see the signs and portents?
Can't you feel them in the air?
Can't you see,--you unbeliever?
Can't you s...

"Then what is life?" I cried. And with that cry
I woke from deeper slumber - was it sleep? -
And saw a hooded figure standing by
The bed whereon I lay.

    "Why do you keep,
O spirit beautiful and swift, this guard
About my slumber? Shelley, from the deep
Why do you come with veiled face, mighty bard,
As that unearthly shape was veiled to you
At Casa Magni?"

        Then the room was starred
With light as I was speaking, and I knew
The god, my brother, from whose face the veil
Melted as mist.

        "What mission fair and true,
While I am sleeping, brings you? For I pale
Amid this solemn stillness, for your face
Unutterably majestic."

    As when the dale
At midnight echoes for a little space,
The night-bird's cry, ...

I wandered o'er the vast green plains of youth,
And searched for Pleasure. On a distant height
Fame's silhouette stood sharp against the skies.
Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad high-way
I caught the glimmer of a golden goal,
While from a blooming bower smiled siren Love.

Straight gazing in her eyes, I laughed at Love,
With all the haughty insolence of youth,
As past her bower I strode to seek my goal.
"Now will I climb to glory's dizzy height,"
I said, "for there above the common way
Doth pleasure dwell companioned by the skies."

But when I reached that summit near the skies,
So far from man I seemed, so far from Love -
"Not here," I cried, "doth Pleasure find her way,"
Seen from the distant borderland of youth.
Fame smiles upon us from her...

Come down, O maid, from yonder mountain height:
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang)
In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine,
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;
And come, for Love is of the valley, come,
For Love is of the valley, come thou down
And find him; by the happy threshold, he,
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize,
Or red with spirted purple of the vats,
Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk
With Death and Morning on the silver horns,
Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine,
Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice,
That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors:
But follow; let the torr...

    Star high,
    Baby low:
    'Twixt the two
    Wise men go;
    Find the baby,
    Grasp the star--
    Heirs of all things
    Near and far!

The immediate provocation to this fierce satire upon the Irish Parliament was the introduction of a Bill to put an end to the tithe on pasturage, called agistment, and thus to free the landlords from a legal payment, with severe loss to the Church.


As I stroll the city, oft I
See a building large and lofty,
Not a bow-shot from the college;
Half the globe from sense and knowledge
By the prudent architect,
Placed against the church direct,[1]
Making good my grandam's jest,
"Near the church" - you know the rest.[2]
    Tell us what the pile contains?
Many a head that has no brains.
These demoniacs let me dub
With the name of Legion[3] Club.
Such assemblies, you might swear,
Meet when butchers bait a bear:
Such a noise, and such haranguing,
When...

    But is old, old, good old Christmas gone? Nothing but the hair of his good, gray old head and beard left? Well, I will have that, seeing I cannot have more of him.
- HUE AND CRY AFTER CHRISTMAS.



A man might then behold
At Christmas, in each hall
Good fires to curb the cold,
And meat for great and small.
The neighbors were friendly bidden,
And all had welcome true,
The poor from the gates were not chidden
When this old cap was new.
- OLD SONG.



Nothing in England exercises a more delightful spell over my imagination than the lingerings of the holiday customs and rural games of former times. They recall the pictures my fancy used to draw in the May morning of life, when as yet I only knew the world through books, and believed it to be all th...

O'Er field and plain, in childhood's artless days,

Thou sprang'st with me, on many a spring-morn fair.

"For such a daughter, with what pleasing care,
Would I, as father, happy dwellings raise!"

And when thou on the world didst cast thy gaze,

Thy joy was then in household toils to share.

"Why did I trust her, why she trust me e'er?
For such a sister, how I Heaven should praise!"

Nothing can now the beauteous growth retard;

Love's glowing flame within my breast is fann'd.

Shall I embrace her form, my grief to end?

Thee as a queen must I, alas, regard:

So high above me placed thou seem'st to stand;

Before a passing look I meekly bend.

Whatever place he goes, on land or sea,
under a sky on fire, or a polar sun,
servant of Jesus, follower of Cytherea,
shadowy beggar, or Croesus the glittering one,


city-dweller or rustic, traveller or sedentary,
whether his tiny brain works fast or slow,
everywhere man knows the terror of mystery,
and with a trembling eye looks high or low.


Above, the Sky! That burial vault that stifles,
a ceiling lit for a comic opera, blind walls,
where each actor treads a blood-drenched stage:


Freethinkers’ fear, the hermit sets his hope on:
the Sky! The black lid of the giant cauldron,
under which we vast, invisible Beings rage.

On the wooden deck of the wooden Junk, silent, alone, we lie,
With silver foam about the bow, and a silver moon in the sky:
A glimmer of dimmer silver here, from the anklets round your feet,
Our lips may close on each other's lips, but never our souls may meet.

For though in my arms you lie at rest, your name I have never heard,
To carry a thought between us two, we have not a single word.
And yet what matter we do not speak, when the ardent eyes have spoken,
The way of love is a sweeter way, when the silence is unbroken.

As a wayward Fancy, tired at times, of the cultured Damask Rose,
Drifts away to the tangled copse, where the wild Anemone grows;
So the ordered and licit love ashore, is hardly fresh and free
As this light love in the open wind and salt of the outer sea.<...

Shadowed so long by the storm-cloud of danger,
Thou whom the prayers of an empire defend,
Welcome, thrice welcome! but not as a stranger,
Come to the nation that calls thee its friend!

Bleak are our shores with the blasts of December,
Fettered and chill is the rivulet's flow;
Throbbing and warm are the hearts that remember
Who was our friend when the world was our foe.

Look on the lips that are smiling to greet thee,
See the fresh flowers that a people has strewn
Count them thy sisters and brothers that meet thee;
Guest of the Nation, her heart is thine own!

Fires of the North, in eternal communion,
Blend your broad flashes with evening's bright star!
God bless the Empire that loves the Great Union;
Strength to her people! Long life to the Czar!

[1]


Wo, wo unto him who would check or disturb it--
    That beautiful Light which is now on its way;
Which beaming, at first, o'er the bogs of Belturbet,
    Now brightens sweet Ballinafad with its ray!

Oh Farnham, Saint Farnham, how much do we owe thee!
    How formed to all tastes are thy various employs.
The old, as a catcher of Catholics, know thee;
    The young, as an amateur scourger of boys.

Wo, wo to the man who such doings would smother!--
    On, Luther of Bavan! On, Saint of Kilgroggy!
With whip in one hand and with Bible in t'other,
    Like Mungo's tormentor, both "preachee and floggee."

Come, Saints from all quarters, and marshal his way;
    Come, Lorton, who, scorning profane erudition,
Popt Shakespeare, th...

This is the heart's own day:
With dreaming eyes
Life seems to look away
Beyond the skies
Into some long-gone May.

A May that can not die;
Across whose hills
Youth's heart goes singing by,
'Mid daffodils,
With Love the young and shy.

Love of the slender form
And elvish face;
Who with uplifted arm
Points to one place
A place of oldtime charm.

Where once the lilies grew
For Love to twine,
With violets, white and blue,
And columbine,
Of gold and crimson hue.

Gone is the long-ago;
Gone like the wind;
And Love we used to know
Sits dumb and blind,
With locks of winter snow.

And by him Memory
Sits sketching back
Into the used-to-be,
In white and black,
One flower on his knee...

1.
Like the ghost of a dear friend dead
Is Time long past.
A tone which is now forever fled,
A hope which is now forever past,
A love so sweet it could not last,
Was Time long past.

2.
There were sweet dreams in the night
Of Time long past:
And, was it sadness or delight,
Each day a shadow onward cast
Which made us wish it yet might last -
That Time long past.

3.
There is regret, almost remorse,
For Time long past.
'Tis like a child's beloved corse
A father watches, till at last
Beauty is like remembrance, cast
From Time long past.