Though swift the days flow from her day,
    No one has left her day unnamed:
We know what light broke from her ray
    On us, who in the truth proclaimed

Grew brother with the stars and powers
    That stretch away--away to light,
And fade within the primal hours,
    And in the wondrous First unite.

We lose with her the right to scorn
    The voices scornful of her truth:
With her a deeper love was born
    For those who filled her days with ruth.

To her they were not sordid things:
    In them sometimes--her wisdom said--
The Bird of Paradise had wings;
    It only dreams, it is not dead.

We cannot for forgetfulness
    Forego the reverence due to them,
Who wear at times they do not guess
    The sceptre and the diadem...

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear respose for limbs with travel tir’d;
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired:
For then my thoughts, from far where I abide
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
Save that my soul’s imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.
Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.

[From Arthur Selwyn's Note-book.]

        When Prometheus stole the flame,
        Did he know what with it came?
        Did he look afar and see
        All the blessings that would be?
        Could he view the gentle gloam
        Of the fireside of a home?
        Or the centre-table's blaze,
        Turning evenings into days,
        Where, encamped with quiet zest,
        Happy children toil and rest?
        Did he view the parlor's gleam,
        Or the 'wildering palace dream?
        See the torch's floating glare
        Burn its way through walls of air;
        Or, through under-regions trace
        Earth's remotest hiding-place?
        Did he see the flags of steam
        O'er the cities flash and gleam?
        ...

Winter is past; the heart of Nature warms
Beneath the wrecks of unresisted storms;
Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen,
The southern slopes are fringed with tender green;
On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves,
Spring's earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves,
Bright with the hues from wider pictures won,
White, azure, golden, - drift, or sky, or sun, -
The snowdrop, bearing on her patient breast
The frozen trophy torn from Winter's crest;
The violet, gazing on the arch of blue
Till her own iris wears its deepened hue;
The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould
Naked and shivering with his cup of gold.
Swelled with new life, the darkening elm on high
Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky
On all her boughs the stately ches...

Censored lies that mimic truth...
        Censored truth as pale as fear...
My heart is like a rousing bell -
        And but the dead to hear...

My heart is like a mother bird,
        Circling ever higher,
And the nest-tree rimmed about
        By a forest fire...

My heart is like a lover foiled
        By a broken stair -
They are fighting to-night in Sackville Street,
        And I am not there!

Well it becomes thee, Britain, to avow
    JOHNSON's high claims! - yet boasting that his fires
    Were of unclouded lustre, TRUTH retires
    Blushing, and JUSTICE knits her solemn brow;
The eyes of GRATITUDE withdraw the glow
    His moral strain inspir'd. - Their zeal requires
    That thou should'st better guard the sacred Lyres,
    Sources of thy bright fame, than to bestow
Perfection's wreath on him, whose ruthless hand,
    Goaded by jealous rage, the laurels tore,
    That JUSTICE, TRUTH, and GRATITUDE demand
Should deck those Lyres till Time shall be no more. -
    A radiant course did Johnson's Glory run,
    But large the spots that darken'd on its Sun.

Up from the spirit-depths ringing,
        Softly your melody swells,
Sweet as a seraphim's singing,
        Tender-toned memory-bells!
                The laughter of childhood,
                The song of the wildwood,
The tinkle of streams through the echoing dell,
                The voice of a mother,
                The shout of a brother.
Up from life's morning melodiously swell.

Up from the spirit-depths ringing
        Richly your melody swells,
Sweet reminiscences bringing,
        Joyous-toned memory-bells! -
                Youth's beautiful bowers,
                Her dew-spangled flowers,
The pictures which Hope of futurity drew, -
                Love's rapturous vision
                Of regions Elysian,
In glowing perspect...

Time, who with soft pale ashes veils the brand
Of many a hope that flared against the sky
To plant its heaven-storming banners high,
Has touched you with no desecrating hand;
Your beauty wins a ripeness sweet and bland
As opulent summer, and your glancing eye
Glows with a deeper lustre, and your sigh
Of love is still my clamouring heart’s command.

Yet what if all your fairness were defaced,
Wilted by passionate whirlwinds, battle-scarred,
Your skin of delicate satin hard and dry?
Still you would be the laughing girl who graced
A gloomy manhood, by forebodings marred,
In the deep wood where still we love to lie.

If he whose bosom with no transport swells
    In vernal airs and hours commits the crime
    Of sullenness to Nature, 'gainst the Time,
    And its great RULER, he alike rebels
Who seriousness and pious dread repels,
    And aweless gazes on the faded Clime,
    Dim in the gloom, and pale in the hoar rime
    That o'er the bleak and dreary prospect steals. -
Spring claims our tender, grateful, gay delight;
    Winter our sympathy and sacred fear;
    And sure the Hearts that pay not Pity's rite
O'er wide calamity; that careless hear
    Creation's wail, neglect, amid her blight,
    THE SOLEMN LESSON OF THE RUIN'D YEAR.

December 1st, 1782.

Just as a fawn, in forest shade,
Trembling to meet th' admiring eye,
I've seen thee try to hide, sweet maid!
Thy charms behind thy modesty.

Thus too I've seen at midnight steal
A fleecy cloud before the wind,
And veil, tho' it could not conceal,
The brilliant light that shone behind.

I lost Young Love so long ago
I had forgot him quite,
Until a little lass and lad
Went by my door to-night.

Ah, hand in hand, but not alone,
They passed my open door,
For with them walked that other one
Who paused here Mays before.

And I, who had forgotten long,
Knew suddenly the grace
Of one who in an empty land
Beholds a kinsman's face.

Oh, Young Love, gone these many years,
'Twas you came back to-night,
And laid your hand on my two eyes
That they might see aright,

And took my listless hand in yours
(Your hands without a stain),
And touched me on my tired heart
That it might beat again.

Let no man pray that he know not sorrow,
    Let no soul ask to be free from pain,
For the gall of to-day is the sweet of to-morrow,
    And the moment's loss is the lifetime's gain.

Through want of a thing does its worth redouble,
    Through hunger's pangs does the feast content,
And only the heart that has harbored trouble,
    Can fully rejoice when joy is sent.

Let no man shrink from the bitter tonics
    Of grief, and yearning, and need, and strife,
For the rarest chords in the soul's harmonies,
    Are found in the minor strains of life.

As vanquished Erin wept beside
    The Boyne's ill-fated river,
She saw where Discord, in the tide,
    Had dropt his loaded quiver.
"Lie hid," she cried, "ye venomed darts,
    "Where mortal eye may shun you;
"Lie hid--the stain of manly hearts,
    "That bled for me, is on you."

But vain her wish, her weeping vain,--
    As Time too well hath taught her--
Each year the Fiend returns again,
    And dives into that water;
And brings, triumphant, from beneath
    His shafts of desolation,
And sends them, winged with worse than death,
    Through all her maddening nation.

Alas for her who sits and mourns,
    Even now, beside that river--
Unwearied still the Fiend returns,
    And stored is still his quiver.
"When will this end, y...

Do I not tell thee surly Winter's flown,
    That the brook's verge is green; - and bid thee hear,
    In yon irriguous vale, the Blackbird clear,
    At measur'd intervals, with mellow tone,
Choiring [1]the hours of prime? and call thine ear
    To the gay viol dinning in the dale,
    With tabor loud, and bag-pipe's rustic drone
    To merry Shearer's dance; - or jest retail
From festal board, from choral roofs the song;
    And speak of Masque, or Pageant, to beguile
    The caustic memory of a cruel wrong? -
Thy lips acknowledge this a generous wile,
    And bid me still the effort kind prolong;
    But ah! they wear a cold and joyless smile.

1: "While Day arises, that sweet hour of prime." MILTON'S PAR. LOST.

Not far from Mellstock - so tradition saith -
Where barrows, bulging as they bosoms were
Of Multimammia stretched supinely there,
Catch night and noon the tempest's wanton breath,

A battle, desperate doubtless unto death,
Was one time fought. The outlook, lone and bare,
The towering hawk and passing raven share,
And all the upland round is called "The He'th."

Here once a woman, in our modern age,
Fought singlehandedly to shield a child -
One not her own - from a man's senseless rage.
And to my mind no patriots' bones there piled
So consecrate the silence as her deed
Of stoic and devoted self-unheed.

I.

Gone, O gentle heart and true,
Friend of hopes foregone,
Hopes and hopeful days with you
Gone?

Days of old that shone
Saw what none shall see anew,
When we gazed thereon.

Soul as clear as sunlit dew,
Why so soon pass on,
Forth from all we loved and knew
Gone?

II.

Friend of many a season fled,
What may sorrow send
Toward thee now from lips that said
'Friend'?

Sighs and songs to blend
Praise with pain uncomforted
Though the praise ascend?

Darkness hides no dearer head:
Why should darkness end
Day so soon, O dear and dead
Friend?

III.

Dear in death, thou hast thy part
Yet in life, to cheer
Hearts that held thy gentle heart
Dear.

Time and...

'Tis time, I feel, to leave thee now,
    While yet my soul is something free;
While yet those dangerous eyes allow
    One minute's thought to stray from thee.

Oh! thou becom'st each moment dearer;
    Every chance that brings me nigh thee
Brings my ruin nearer, nearer,--
    I am lost, unless I fly thee.

Nay, if thou dost not scorn and hate me,
    Doom me not thus so soon to fall
Duties, fame, and hopes await me,--
    But that eye would blast them all!

For, thou hast heart as false and cold
    As ever yet allured and swayed,
And couldst, without a sigh, behold
    The ruin which thyself had made.

Yet,--could I think that, truly fond,
    That eye but once would smile on me,
Even as thou art, how far beyond
   ...

FROM BERMUDA, JANUARY, 1804.


Lady! where'er you roam, whatever land
Woos the bright touches of that artist hand;
Whether you sketch the valley's golden meads,
Where mazy Linth his lingering current leads;[1]
Enamored catch the mellow hues that sleep,
At eve, on Meillerie's immortal steep;
Or musing o'er the Lake, at day's decline,
Mark the last shadow on that holy shrine,[2]
Where, many a night, the shade of Tell complains
Of Gallia's triumph and Helvetia's chains;
Oh! lay the pencil for a moment by,
Turn from the canvas that creative eye,
And let its splendor, like the morning ray
Upon a shepherd's harp, illume my lay.

Yet, Lady, no--for song so rude as mine,
Chase not the wonders of your art divine;
Still, radiant...