I look down the lengthening distance
    Far back to youth's valley of hope.
How strange seemed the ways of existence,
    How infinite life and its scope!

What dreams, what ambitions came thronging
    To people a world of my own!
How the heart in my bosom was longing,
    For pleasures and places unknown.

But the hill-tops of pleasure and beauty
    Were covered with mist at the dawn;
And only the rugged road Duty
    Shone clear, as my feet wandered on.

I loved not the path and its leading,
    I hated the rocks and the dust;
But a Voice from the Silence was pleading,
    It spoke but one syllable - "Trust."

I saw, as the morning grew older,
    The fair flowered hills of delight;
And the feet of my comrades grew bolder,

Come, brothers, let us sing a dirge, -
A dirge for myriad chances dead;
In grief your mournful accents merge:
Sing, sing the girls we might have wed!

Sweet lips were those we never pressed
In love that never lost the dew
In sunlight of a love confessed, -
Kind were the girls we never knew!

Sing low, sing low, while in the glow
Of fancy's hour those forms we trace,
Hovering around the years that go;
Those years our lives can ne'er replace!

Sweet lips are those that never turn
A cruel word; dear eyes that lead
The heart on in a blithe concern;
White hand of her we did not wed;

Fair hair or dark, that falls along
A form that never shrinks with time;
Bright image of a realm of song,
Standing beside our years of prime; -
...

written on the first of January, 1794

Come melancholy Moralizer--come!
Gather with me the dark and wintry wreath;
        With me engarland now
        The SEPULCHRE OF TIME!

Come Moralizer to the funeral song!
I pour the dirge of the Departed Days,
        For well the funeral song
        Befits this solemn hour.

But hark! even now the merry bells ring round
With clamorous joy to welcome in this day,
        This consecrated day,
        To Mirth and Indolence.

Mortal! whilst Fortune with benignant hand
Fills to the brim thy cup of happiness,
        Whilst her unclouded sun
        Illumes thy summer day,

Canst thou rejoice--rejoice that Time flies fast?
That Night shall shadow soon thy summer sun?
        That s...

Walking in bright Phoebus' blaze,
Where with heat oppressed I was,
I got to a shady wood,
Where green leaves did newly bud;
And of grass was plenty dwelling,
Decked with pied flowers sweetly smelling.

In this wood a man I met,
On lamenting wholly set;
Ruing change of wonted state,
Whence he was transformed late,
Once to shepherds' God retaining,
Now in servile court remaining.

There he wand'ring malecontent,
Up and down perplexed went,
Daring not to tell to me,
Spake unto a senseless tree,
One among the rest electing,
These same words, or this affecting:

"My old mates I grieve to see
Void of me in field to be,
Where we once our lovely sheep
Lovingly like friends did keep;
Oft each other's friendship proving,

1.

Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story -
The days of our Youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.[604]


2.

What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?
Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled:
Then away with all such from the head that is hoary,
What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?

3.

Oh Fame! - if I e'er took delight in thy praises,
'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear One discover,
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

4.

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;

We know not what lies in us, till we seek;
    Men dive for pearls - they are not found on shore,
The hillsides most unpromising and bleak
    Do sometimes hide the ore.

Go, dive in the vast ocean of thy mind,
    O man! far down below the noisy waves,
Down in the depths and silence thou mayst find
    Rare pearls and coral caves.

Sink thou a shaft into the mine of thought;
    Be patient, like the seekers after gold;
Under the rocks and rubbish lieth what
    May bring thee wealth untold.

Reflected from the vasty Infinite,
    However dulled by earth, each human mind
Holds somewhere gems of beauty and of light
    Which, seeking, thou shalt find.

Her heart is still and leaps no more
With holy passion when the breeze,
Her whilom playmate, as before,
Comes with the language of the bees,
Sad songs her mountain cedars sing,
And water-music murmuring.

Her calm white feet, - erst fleet and fast
As Daphne's when a god pursued, -
No more will dance like sunlight past
The gold-green vistas of the wood,
Where every quailing floweret
Smiled into life where they were set.

Hers were the limbs of living light,
And breasts of snow; as virginal
As mountain drifts; and throat as white
As foam of mountain waterfall;
And hyacinthine curls, that streamed
Like crag-born mists, and gloomed and gleamed.

Her presence breathed such scents as haunt
Moist, mountain dells and solitudes;
Aroma...

When will the day bring its pleasure?
When will the night bring its rest?
Reaper and gleaner and thresher
Peer toward the east and the west: -
The Sower He knoweth, and He knoweth best.

Meteors flash forth and expire,
Northern lights kindle and pale;
These are the days of desire,
Of eyes looking upward that fail;
Vanishing days as a finishing tale.

Bows down the crop in its glory
Tenfold, fifty-fold, hundred-fold;
The millet is ripened and hoary,
The wheat ears are ripened to gold: -
Why keep us waiting in dimness and cold?

The Lord of the harvest, He knoweth
Who knoweth the first and the last:
The Sower Who patiently soweth,
He scanneth the present and past:
He saith, "What thou hast, what remaineth, hold fast."

Yet...

Hou, O my Grief, be wise and tranquil still,
The eve is thine which even now drops down,
To carry peace or care to human will,
And in a misty veil enfolds the town.

While the vile mortals of the multitude,
By pleasure, cruel tormentor, goaded on,
Gather remorseful blossoms in light mood
Grief, place thy hand in mine, let us be gone

Far from them. Lo, see how the vanished years,
In robes outworn lean over heaven's rim;
And from the water, smiling through her tears,

Remorse arises, and the sun grows dim;
And in the east, her long shroud trailing light,
List, O my grief, the gentle steps of Night.

Kisse mee, Sweet: The wary lover
Can your favours keepe, and cover,
When the common courting jay
All your bounties will betray.
Kisse againe: no creature comes.
Kisse, and score up wealthy summes
On my lips, thus hardly sundred,
While you breathe. First give a hundred,
Then a thousand, then another
Hundred, then unto the tother
Adde a thousand, and so more:
Till you equall with the store,
All the grasse that Rumney yeelds,
Or the sands in Chelsey fields,
Or the drops in silver Thames,
Or the stars, that guild his streames,
In the silent sommer-nights,
When youths ply their stoln delights.
That the curious may not know
How to tell 'hem as they flow,
And the envious, when they find
What their number is, be pin'd.

When the clouds in the Western sky
Flush red with the setting sun,--
When the veil of twilight falls,
And the busy day is done,--
I sit and watch the clouds,
With their crimson hues alight,
And ponder with anxious heart,
Oh, where is my boy to-night?

It is just a year to-day
Since he bade me a gay good-by,
To march where banners float,
And the deadly missiles fly.
As I marked his martial step
I felt my color rise
With all a mother's pride,
And my heart was in my eyes.

There's a little room close by,
Where I often used to creep
In the hush of the summer night
To watch my boy asleep.
But he who used to rest
Beneath the spread so white
Is far away from me now,--
Oh, where is my boy to-night?

Perchance in t...

(February 23, 1821)

At midnight when the moonlit cypress trees
Have woven round his grave a magic shade,
Still weeping the unfinished hymn he made,
There moves fresh Maia like a morning breeze
Blown over jonquil beds when warm rains cease.
And stooping where her poet’s head is laid,
Selene weeps while all the tides are stayed
And swaying seas are darkened into peace.
But they who wake the meadows and the tides
Have hearts too kind to bid him wake from sleep
Who murmurs sometimes when his dreams are deep,
Startling the Quiet Land where he abides,
And charming still, sad-eyed Persephone
With visions of the sunny earth and sea.

Let all the flowers wake to life;
    Let all the songsters sing;
Let everything that lives on earth
    Become a joyous thing.

Wake up, thou pansy, purple-eyed,
    And greet the dewy spring;
Swell out, ye buds, and o'er the earth
    Thy sweetest fragrance fling.

Why dost thou sleep, sweet violet?
    The earth has need of thee;
Wake up and catch the melody
    That sounds from sea to sea.

Ye stars, that dwell in noonday skies,
    Shine on, though all unseen;
The great White Throne lies just beyond,
    The stars are all between.

Ring out, ye bells, sweet Easter bells,
    And ring the glory in;
Ring out the sorrow, born of earth--
    Ring out the stains of sin.

O banners wide, that sweep the sky,
    ...

Now how could I, with gold to spare,
Who know the harlot's arms, and wine,
Sit in this green field all alone,
If Nature was not truly mine?

That Pleasure life wakes stale at morn,
From heavy sleep that no rest brings:
This life of quiet joy wakes fresh,
And claps its wings at morn, and sings.

So here sit I, alone till noon,
In one long dream of quiet bliss;
I hear the lark and share his joy,
With no more winedrops than were his.

Such, Nature, is thy charm and power,
Since I have made the Muse my wife,
To keep me from the harlot's arms,
And save me from a drunkard's life.

If the rose of all flowers be the rarest
That heaven may adore from above,
And the fervent moss-rose be the fairest
That sweetens the summer with love,
Can it be that a fairer than any
Should blossom afar from the tree?
Yet one, and a symbol of many,
Shone sudden for eyes that could see.
In the grime and the gloom of November
The bliss and the bloom of July
Bade autumn rejoice and remember
The balm of the blossoms gone by.
Would you know what moss-rose now it may be
That puts all the rest to the blush,
The flower was the face of a baby,
The moss was a bonnet of plush.

In my thought I see you stand with a path on either hand,
--Hills that look into the sun, and there a river'd meadow-land.
And your lost voice with the things that it decreed across me thrills,
    When you thought, and chose the hills.

'If it prove a life of pain, greater have I judged the gain.
With a singing soul for music's sake, I climb and meet the rain,
And I choose, whilst I am calm, my thought and labouring to be
    Unconsoled by sympathy.'

But how dared you use me so?    For you bring my ripe years low
To your child's whim and a destiny your child-soul could not know.
And that small voice legislating I revolt against, with tears.
    But you mark not, through the years.

'To the mountain leads my way.    If the plains are green to-day,
These my ba...

Beyond the moon, within a land of mist,
    Lies the dim Garden of all Dead Desires,
Walled round with morning's clouded amethyst,
    And haunted of the sunset's shadowy fires;
There all lost things we loved hold ghostly tryst -
    Dead dreams, dead hopes, dead loves, and dead desires.

Sad are the stars that day and night exist
    Above the Garden of all Dead Desires;
And sad the roses that within it twist
    Deep bow'rs; and sad the wind that through it quires;
But sadder far are they who there hold tryst -
    Dead dreams, dead hopes, dead loves, and dead desires.

There, like a dove, upon the twilight's wrist,
    Soft in the Garden of all Dead Desires,
Sleep broods; and there, where never a serpent hissed,
    On the wan willows music hangs her l...

There are two stars in yonder steeps
That watch the baby while he sleeps.
But while the baby is awake
And singing gayly all day long,
The little stars their slumbers take
Lulled by the music of his song.
So sleep, dear tired baby, sleep
While little stars their vigils keep.

Beside his loving mother-sheep
A little lambkin is asleep;
What does he know of midnight gloom---
He sleeps, and in his quiet dreams
He thinks he plucks the clover bloom
And drinks at cooling, purling streams.
And those same stars the baby knows
Sing softly to the lamb's repose.

Sleep, little lamb; sleep, little child--
The stars are dim--the night is wild;
But o'er the cot and o'er the lea
A sleepless eye forever beams--
A shepherd watches over thee
In ...