Dusk is thy dawn; when Eve puts on its state
Of gold and purple in the marbled west,
Thou comest forth like some embodied trait,
Or dim conceit, a lily bud confessed;
Or of a rose the visible wish; that, white,
Goes softly messengering through the night,
Whom each expectant flower makes its guest.

All day the primroses have thought of thee,
Their golden heads close-haremed from the heat;
All day the mystic moonflowers silkenly
Veiled snowy faces, - that no bee might greet,
Or butterfly that, weighed with pollen, passed; -
Keeping Sultana charms for thee, at last,
Their lord, who comest to salute each sweet.

Cool-throated flowers that avoid the day's
Too fervid kisses; every bud that drinks
The tipsy dew and to the starlight plays
Nocturnes of ...

Oh, lost, forever lost--no more
    Shall Vesper light our dewy way
Along the rocks of Crissa's shore,
    To hymn the fading fires of day;
No more to Tempe's distant vale
    In holy musings shall we roam,
Through summer's glow and winter's gale,
    To bear the mystic chaplets home.[1]

'Twas then my soul's expanding zeal,
    By nature warmed and led by thee,
In every breeze was taught to feel
    The breathings of a Deity.
Guide of my heart! still hovering round.
    Thy looks, thy words are still my own--
I see thee raising from the ground
    Some laurel, by the winds o'er thrown.
And hear thee say, "This humble bough
    Was planted for a doom divine;
And, though it droop in languor now,
    Shall flourish on the Delphic s...

In tracing here these lines, my friend,
Which spring from friendly heart,
I here record an earnest wish,
For thee, before we part:

May health and happiness serene,
Long, long with thee abide,
May youthful joys no sorrow bring,
Nor future woes betide.

And when thy youthful beauty leaves,
And youthful thoughts thy breast,
May thou in calm old age still live,
In happiness and rest.

Who supports herself, and an aged and infirm Mother, by selling Stockings and Gloves of her own Knitting, which she offers to Travellers as they pass by; in doing which she has been known to run close by the Side of a Carriage for several Miles.

Poor Blind Bet.


The morning purple on the hill,
The village spire, the ivy'd tow'r,
The sparkling wheel of yonder mill,
The grove, green field, and op'ning flow'r,
Are lost to thee!

Dark child of Nature, as thou art!
Yet thy poor bosom heaves no sigh;
E'en now thy dimpling cheeks impart
Their knowledge of some pleasure nigh: -
'Tis good for thee!

Thou seem'st to say "I've sunshine too;
'Tis beaming in a spotless breast;
No shade of guilt obstructs the view,
And there are many not so blest,

ARGUMENT. i(Baile and Aillinn were lovers, but Aengus, the)
i(Master of Love, wishing them to he happy in his own land)
i(among the dead, told to each a story of the other's death, so)
i(that their hearts were broken and they died.)

I HARDLY i(hear the curlew cry,)

On the heir of Uladh, Buan's son,
Baile, who had the honey mouth;
And that mild woman of the south,
Aillinn, who was King Lugaidh's heir.
Their love was never drowned in care
Of this or that thing, nor grew cold
Because their hodies had grown old.
Being forbid to marry on earth,
They blossomed to immortal mirth.>1
About the time when Christ was born,
When the long wars for the White Horn
And the Brown Bull had not yet come,
Young Baile Honey Mouth, whom some
Called rather Ba...

(For John Bunker)



The roar of the world is in my ears.
Thank God for the roar of the world!
Thank God for the mighty tide of fears
Against me always hurled!

Thank God for the bitter and ceaseless strife,
And the sting of His chastening rod!
Thank God for the stress and the pain of life,
And Oh, thank God for God!

Once when the snow of the year was beginning to fall,
We stopped by a mountain pasture to say, “Whose colt?”
A little Morgan had one forefoot on the wall,
The other curled at his breast. He dipped his head
And snorted to us. And then we saw him bolt.
We heard the miniature thunder where he fled,
And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim and gray,
Like a shadow across instead of behind the flakes.
The little fellow’s afraid of the falling snow.
He never saw it before. It isn’t play
With the little fellow at all. He’s running away.
He wouldn’t believe when his mother told him, ‘Sakes,
It’s only weather.’ He thought she didn’t know!
So this is something he has to bear alone
And now he comes again with a clatter of stone,
He mounts the wall again with whited eyes

What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone;
For men were born to pray and save:
Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Yet they were of a different kind
The names that stilled your childish play,
They have gone about the world like wind,
But little time had they to pray
For whom the hangman’s rope was spun,
And what, God help us, could they save:
Romantic Ireland’s dead and gone,
It’s with O’Leary in the grave.

Was it for this the wild geese spread
The grey wing upon every tide;
For this that all that blood was shed,
For this Edward Fitzgerald died,
And Robert Emmet and ...

    Merry, merry we well may be,
    For Jesus Christ is come down to see:
    Long before, at the top of the stair,
    He set our angels a waiting there,
    Waiting hither and thither to fly,
    Tending the children of the sky,
    Lest they dash little feet against big stones,
    And tumble down and break little bones;
    For the path is rough, and we must not roam;
    We have learned to walk, and must follow him home!

Dear Reynolds, as last night I lay in bed,
There came before my eyes that wonted thread
Of shapes, and shadows, and remembrances,
That every other minute vex and please:
Things all disjointed come from north and south,
Two witch's eyes above a cherub's mouth,
Voltaire with casque and shield and habergeon,
And Alexander with his nightcap on;
Old Socrates a-tying his cravat,
And Hazlitt playing with Miss Edgeworth's cat;
And Junius Brutus, pretty well so-so,
Making the best of's way towards Soho.

Few are there who escape these visitings
Perhaps one or two whose lives have patent wings,
And through whose curtains peeps no hellish nose,
No wild-boar tushes, and no mermaid's toes;
But flowers bursting out with lusty pride,
And young AEolian harps personi...

Sound the deep waters: -
    Who shall sound that deep? -
Too short the plummet,
    And the watchmen sleep.
Some dream of effort
    Up a toilsome steep;
Some dream of pasture grounds
    For harmless sheep.

White shapes flit to and fro
    From mast to mast;
They feel the distant tempest
    That nears them fast:
Great rocks are straight ahead,
    Great shoals not past;
They shout to one another
    Upon the blast.

Oh, soft the streams drop music
    Between the hills,
And musical the birds' nests
    Beside those rills:
The nests are types of home
    Love-hidden from ills,
The nests are types of spirits
    Love-music fills.

So dream the sleepers,
    Each man in his place;
The lightning ...

    Mostly in a dull rotation
    We bear our loads and eat and drink and sleep.
    Feeling no tears, knowing no meditation,
    Too tired to think, too clogged with earth to weep.

    Dimly convinced, poor groping wretches,
    Like eyeless insects in a murky pond
    That out and out this city stretches,
    Away, away, and there is no beyond.

    No larger earth, no loftier heaven,
    No cleaner, gentler airs to breathe.    And yet,
    Even to us sometimes is given
    Visions of things we other times forget.

    Some day is done, its labour ended,
    And as we sit and brood at windows high,
    A steady wind from far descended,
    Blows off the filth that hid the deeper sky;

    There are the empty waiting spaces,
    We w...

COUNT.

I Know a flower of beauty rare,

Ah, how I hold it dear!
To seek it I would fain repair,

Were I not prison'd here.
My sorrow sore oppresses me,
For when I was at liberty,

I had it close beside me.

Though from this castle's walls so steep

I cast mine eyes around,
And gaze oft from the lofty keep,

The flower can not be found.
Whoe'er would bring it to my sight,
Whether a vassal he, or knight,

My dearest friend I'd deem him.

THE ROSE.

I blossom fair, thy tale of woes

I hear from 'neath thy grate.
Thou doubtless meanest me, the rose.

Poor knight of high estate!
Thou hast in truth a lofty mind;
The queen of flowers is then enshrin'd,

I doubt not, in thy...

Sweet girl! though only once we met,
That meeting I shall ne'er forget;
And though we ne'er may meet again,
Remembrance will thy form retain;
I would not say, "I love," but still,
My senses struggle with my will:
In vain to drive thee from my breast,
My thoughts are more and more represt;
In vain I check the rising sighs,
Another to the last replies:
Perhaps, this is not love, but yet,
Our meeting I can ne'er forget.

What, though we never silence broke,
Our eyes a sweeter language spoke;
The tongue in flattering falsehood deals,
And tells a tale it never feels:
Deceit, the guilty lips impart,
And hush the mandates of the heart;
But soul's interpreters, the eyes,
Spurn such restraint, and scorn disguise.
As thus our glances oft convers...

Overcome -- O bitter sweetness,
Inhabitant of the soft cheek of a girl --
The rich man and his affairs,
The fat flocks and the fields' fatness,
Mariners, rough harvesters;
Overcome Gods upon Parnassus;

Overcome the Empyrean; hurl
Heaven and Earth out of their places,
That in the Same calamity
Brother and brother, friend and friend,
Family and family,
City and city may contend,
By that great glory driven wild.

Pray I will and sing I must,
And yet I weep -- Oedipus' child
Descends into the loveless dust.

His name was Aladdin.
The clothes he was clad in
Proclaimed him an Arab at sight,
And he had for a chum
An uncommonly rum
Old afreet, six cubits in height.
This person infernal,
Who seemed so fraternal,
At bottom was frankly a scamp:
His future to sadden,
He gave to Aladdin
A wonderful magical lamp.

A marvel he dubbed it.
He said if one rubbed it
One's wishes were done on the spot.
Now what would you do
Were it offered to you?
Refuse it undoubtedly (not)!
It's thus comprehensive
With pleasure extensive
Aladdin accepted the gift,
And, by it befriended,
Erected a splendid
Château, with a bath and a lift!

Not dreaming of malice,
One year in his palace
He led a luxurious life,
Till his genius dread...

You call authority "a grievous thing."
With careless hands you snap the leading string,
And, for a frolic (so it seems to you),
Put off the old love, and put on the new.

For "What does Mother know of love?" you say.
"Did her soul ever thrill?
Did little tendernesses ever creep
Into her dreams, and over-ride her will?
Did her eyes shine, or her heart ever leap
As my heart leaps to-day?
I, who am young; who long to try my wings!

How should she understand,
She, with her calm cool hand?
She never felt such yearnings? And, beside,
It's clear I can't be tied
For ever to my mother's apron strings."

There are Infinities of Knowledge, dear.
And there are mysteries, not yet made clear
To you, the Uninitiate. . . . Life's book
Is open, ye...

Then, fare thee well, my own dear love,
    This world has now for us
No greater grief, no pain above
    The pain of parting thus,
            Dear love!
    The pain of parting thus.

Had we but known, since first we met,
    Some few short hours of bliss,
We might, in numbering them, forget
    The deep, deep pain of this,
            Dear love!
    The deep, deep pain of this.

But no, alas, we've never seen
    One glimpse of pleasure's ray,
But still there came some cloud between,
    And chased it all away,
            Dear love!
    And chased it all away.

Yet, even could those sad moments last,
    Far dearer to my heart
Were hours of grief, together past,
    Than years of mirth apart,
            Dear lo...