I.

    She is a winsome wee thing,
    She is a handsome wee thing,
    She is a bonnie wee thing,
        This sweet wee wife o' mine.

II.

    I never saw a fairer,
    I never lo'ed a dearer;
    And niest my heart I'll wear her,
        For fear my jewel tine.

III.

    She is a winsome wee thing,
    She is a handsome wee thing,
    She is a bonnie wee thing,
        This sweet wee wife o' mine.

IV.

    The warld's wrack we share o't,
    The warstle and the care o't;
    Wi' her I'll blythely bear it,
        And think my lot divine.

My books are on their shelves again
And clouds lie low with mist and rain.
Afar the Arno murmurs low
The tale of fields of melting snow.
List to the bells of times agone
The while I wait me for the dawn.

Beneath great Giotto's Campanile
The gray ghosts throng; their whispers steal
From poets' bosoms long since dust;
They ask me now to go. I trust
Their fleeter footsteps where again
They come at night and live as men.

The rain falls on Ghiberti's gates;
The big drops hang on purple dates;
And yet beneath the ilex-shades--
Dear trysting-place for boys and maids--
There comes a form from days of old,
With Beatrice's hair of gold.

The breath of lands or lilied streams
Floats through the fabric of my dreams;
And yonder from the...

Earth, sweet Earth, sweet landscape, with leavès throng
And louchèd low grass, heaven that dost appeal
To, with no tongue to plead, no heart to feel;
That canst but only be, but dost that long -

Thou canst but be, but that thou well dost; strong
Thy plea with him who dealt, nay does now deal,
Thy lovely dale down thus and thus bids reel
Thy river, and o'er gives all to rack or wrong.

And what is Earth's eye, tongue, or heart else, where
Else, but in dear and dogged man? - Ah, the heir
To his own selfbent so bound, so tied to his turn,
To thriftless reave both our rich round world bare
And none reck of world after, this bids wear
Earth brows of such care, care and dear concern.

I.

Full well I know that wishing never yet has brought
    The things that seem to us would satisfy the heart,
And that anticipated pleasure, when at last 'tis caught,
    Has naught but transitory solace to impart;
And yet, somehow, I've ever felt and thought
    A joy there is that never can depart--
(As long as we are capable of feeling--wishing)--
    And that's to leave dull care behind, and--go a-fishing!


II.

Some dream of wealth--of place--of fame--
    And fleeting shadows vainly they pursue;
And some have sighed to win a deathless name
    Where fields of carnage corpses thickly strew,
And shrieks of agony are heard 'mid smoke and flame;
    But these are dizzy heights attained by few;
So, when Dame Fortune is her favors dishin...

To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I ey’d,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold,
Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn’d,
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv’d;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv’d:
For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:
Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.

I

Hot through Troy's ruin Menelaus broke
To Priam's palace, sword in hand, to sate
On that adulterous whore a ten years' hate
And a king's honour. Through red death, and smoke,
And cries, and then by quieter ways he strode,
Till the still innermost chamber fronted him.
He swung his sword, and crashed into the dim
Luxurious bower, flaming like a god.

High sat white Helen, lonely and serene.
He had not remembered that she was so fair,
And that her neck curved down in such a way;
And he felt tired. He flung the sword away,
And kissed her feet, and knelt before her there,
The perfect Knight before the perfect Queen.


II

So far the poet. How should he behold
That journey home, the long connubial years?
He does not tell you how...

Look off, dear Love, across the sallow sands,
And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea,
How long they kiss in sight of all the lands.
Ah! longer, longer, we.

Now in the sea's red vintage melts the sun,
As Egypt's pearl dissolved in rosy wine,
And Cleopatra night drinks all. 'Tis done,
Love, lay thine hand in mine.

Come forth, sweet stars, and comfort heaven's heart;
Glimmer, ye waves, round else unlighted sands.
O night! divorce our sun and sky apart
Never our lips, our hands.


1876.

Out, traytor Absence, dar'st thou counsell me
From my deare captainesse to run away,
Because in braue array heere marcheth she,
That, to win mee, oft shewes a present pay?
Is faith so weake? or is such force in thee?
When sun is hid, can starres such beames display?
Cannot heau'ns food, once felt, keepe stomakes free
From base desire on earthly cates to pray?
Tush, Absence; while thy mistes eclipse that light,
My orphan sense flies to the inward sight,
Where memory sets forth the beames of loue;
That, where before hart lou'd and eyes did see,
In hart both sight and loue now coupled be:
Vnited pow'rs make each the stronger proue.

Ognor che l' idol mio.


Whene'er the idol of these eyes appears
        Unto my musing heart so weak and strong,
        Death comes between her and my soul ere long
        Chasing her thence with troops of gathering fears.
Nathless this violence my spirit cheers
        With better hope than if she had no wrong;
        While Love invincible arrays the throng
        Of dauntless thoughts, and thus harangues his peers:
But once, he argues, can a mortal die;
        But once be born: and he who dies afire,
        What shall he gain if erst he dwelt with me?
That burning love whereby the soul flies free,
        Doth lure each fervent spirit to aspire
        Like gold refined in flame to God on high.

Go, speed the stars of Thought
On to their shining goals;--
The sower scatters broad his seed;
The wheat thou strew'st be souls.

One's ardour, Nature, makes you bright,
One finds within you mourning, grief!
What speaks to one of tombs and death
Says to the other, Splendour! Life!

Mystical Hermes, help to me,
Intimidating though you are,
You make me Midas' counterpart,
No sadder alchemist than he;

My gold is iron by your spell,
And paradise turns into hell;
I see in winding-sheets of clouds

A dear cadaver in its shroud,
And there upon celestial strands
I raise huge tombs above the sands.

Clear from the deep sky pours the moon
Her silver on the heavy dark;
The small stars blink.

Against the moon the maple bough
Flutters distinct her leafy spears;
All sound falls weak....

Weak the train's whistle, the dog's bark,
Slow steps; and rustling into her nest
At last, the thrush.

All's still; only earth turns and breathes.
Then that amazing trembling note
Cleaves the deep wave

Of silence. Shivers even that silvery one;
Sigh all the trees, even the cedar dark
----O joy, and I.

    Oh, a big broad-shouldered fellow was Ben,
    And homely as you would see,
    Such an awkward walker and stammering talker,
    And as bashful as he could be.

    The son of a lone, widowed mother was he,
    And right well did he act his part,
    A giant at sowing and reaping and mowing -
    His farm was the pride of his heart.

    His mother depended on his strong arm;
    In the cottage so neat and trim
    He kept the fires burning, did sweeping and churning -
    Oh, the odd jobs saved up for him!

    "My Ben's a comfort," she said every day,
    With pride that made his head whirl,
    "As handy at sweeping as he is at reaping -
    Ben is just as good as a girl!"

    "A six-foot fellow to work round the house!
    We...

    I would I were a child,
    That I might look, and laugh, and say, My Father!
    And follow thee with running feet, or rather
        Be led through dark and wild!

        How I would hold thy hand,
    My glad eyes often to thy glory lifting!
    Should darkness 'twixt thy face and mine come drifting,
        My heart would but expand.

        If an ill thing came near,
    I would but creep within thy mantle's folding,
    Shut my eyes close, thy hand yet faster holding,
        And soon forget my fear.

        O soul, O soul, rejoice!
    Thou art God's child indeed, for all thy sinning;
    A poor weak child, yet his, and worth the winning
        With saviour eyes and voice.

        Who spake the words? Didst Thou?
    Th...

    Let us forget.    What matters it that we
        Once reigned o'er happy realms of long-ago,
        And talked of love, and let our voices low,
    And ruled for some brief sessions royally?
    What if we sung, or laughed, or wept maybe?
        It has availed not anything, and so
        Let it go by that we may better know
    How poor a thing is lost to you and me.
        But yesterday I kissed your lips, and yet
    Did thrill you not enough to shake the dew
        From your drenched lids - and missed, with no regret,
    Your kiss shot back, with sharp breaths failing you;
        And so, to-day, while our worn eyes are wet
        With all this waste of tears, let us forget!

(See Note 55)

With death's dark eye acquainted she had been made ere this,
When to her son, her first-born, she gave the farewell kiss,
And when afar she hastened beside her mother's bed,
It followed all her faring with warning fraught and dread;
It filled her with foreboding when standing by the bier:
More sheaves to gather hopeth the harvester austere.
So soon she saw her husband, that man of strength, succumb,
She said with sorrow stricken: « I knew that it would come!"
She thought that he was chosen by God from earth to go,
Would check, her hands upthrusting, the harsh behest of woe;
And with her slender body, too weak for such a strife,
Would ward her gallant consort, - and gave for him her life.

She smiled, serene and blissful, as death's dark eye she brave...

He comes to me like air on parching grass;
His eyes are wells where truth lives, found at last;
Summer is fragrant should he this way pass;
His calm love is a chain that binds me fast....
Yet often melancholy will forecast
That time when I shall have grown old - when he -
Still rapturous in his struggle with life's blast -
Shall give a pitying side glance to me,
Who skirt the fog-fringe of eternity,
Straining mine eyes to catch what shadowy sign
Of good or evil omen there may be,
Yet no sure good nor evil can divine:
Only some hints of doubtful sound and light,
That lonelier leave the uncompanioned night.

"When will the grave fling her cold arms around me,
    And earth on her dark bosom pillow my head?
Sorrow and trouble and anguish, have found me,
    Oh that I slumbered in peace with the dead!

"The forests are budding, the fruit-trees in bloom,
    And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
But my soul is bowed down by the spirit of gloom,
    I no longer rejoice as the blossoms expand.

"And April is here with her rich varied skies,
    Where the sunbeams of hope with the tempest contend,
And the bright drops that flow from her deep azure eyes
    On the bosom of nature like diamonds descend.

"She scatters her jewels o'er forest and lea,
    And casts in earth's lap all the wealth of the year;
But the promise she brings wakes no transports in ...