A troth, and a grief, and a blessing,
Disguised them and came this way,
And one was a promise, and one was a doubt,
And one was a rainy day.

And they met betimes with this maiden,
And the promise it spake and lied,
And the doubt it gibbered and hugged itself,
And the rainy day - she died.

Parrà forse ad alcun, che 'n lodar quella.

HE INVITES THOSE TO WHOM HIS PRAISES SEEM EXCESSIVE TO BEHOLD THE OBJECT OF THEM.


    Haply my style to some may seem too free
In praise of her who holds my being's chain,
Queen of her sex describing her to reign,
Wise, winning, good, fair, noble, chaste to be:
To me it seems not so; I fear that she
My lays as low and trifling may disdain,
Worthy a higher and a better strain;
--Who thinks not with me let him come and see.
Then will he say, She whom his wishes seek
Is one indeed whose grace and worth might tire
The muses of all lands and either lyre.
But mortal tongue for state divine is weak,
And may not soar; by flattery and force,
As Fate not choice ordains, Love rules its course.

MACG...

O Christ of God! whose life and death
Our own have reconciled,
Most quietly, most tenderly
Take home thy star-named child!

Thy grace is in her patient eyes,
Thy words are on her tongue;
The very silence round her seems
As if the angels sung.

Her smile is as a listening child's
Who hears its mother's call;
The lilies of Thy perfect peace
About her pillow fall.

She leans from out our clinging arms
To rest herself in Thine;
Alone to Thee, dear Lord, can we
Our well-beloved resign.

O, less for her than for ourselves
We bow our heads and pray;
Her setting star, like Bethlehem's,
To Thee shall point the way!

The world is a snob, and the man who wins
Is the chap for its money's worth:
And the lust for success causes half of the sins
That are cursing this brave old earth.
For it 's fine to go up, and the world's applause
Is sweet to the mortal ear;
But the man who fails in a noble cause
Is a hero that 's no less dear.

'T is true enough that the laurel crown
Twines but for the victor's brow;
For many a hero has lain him down
With naught but the cypress bough.
There are gallant men in the losing fight,
And as gallant deeds are done
As ever graced the captured height
Or the battle grandly won.

We sit at life's board with our nerves highstrung,
And we play for the stake of Fame,
And our odes are sung and our banners hung
For the man who wins t...

I.

Silent as ever, stoic as of old,
The scattered nomads of that dusky race
Whose story shall forever be untold,
Sit mid the ruins of their dwelling place
And watch the white man's empire grow apace.
Passive as one who knows his earthly doom,
And only waits with calm but hopeless face
The while the seasons go with blight and bloom,
So live they day by day beside their nation's tomb.


II.

In the deep woods and by the rolling streams
They made their home, and knew no other clime;
They lived their lives and dreamed barbaric dreams,
Nor heard the menace of relentless Time
As on his thunderous legions swept sublime
Bearing the torch of progress through the night,
Till lo! the primal wastes were all a-chime
With traffic's strange new...

Away, haunt thou me not,
Thou vain Philosophy!
Little hast thou bestead,
Save to perplex the head,
And leave the spirit dead.
Unto thy broken cisterns wherefore go,
While from the secret treasure-depths below,
Fed by the skyey shower,
And clouds that sink and rest on hilltops high,
Wisdom at once, and Power,
Are welling, bubbling forth, unseen, incessantly?
Why labor at the dull mechanic oar,
When the fresh breeze is blowing,
And the strong current flowing,
Right onward to the Eternal Shore?

"Hospes comesque corporis,
Quae nunc abitis in loca?"

Cease, Wind, to blow
And drive the peopled snow,
And move the haunted arras to and fro,
And moan of things I fear to know
Yet would rend from thee, Wind, before I go
On the blind pilgrimage.
Cease, Wind, to blow.

Thy brother too,
I leave no print of shoe
In all these vasty rooms I rummage through,
No word at threshold, and no clue
Of whence I come and whither I pursue
The search of treasures lost
When time was new.

Thou janitor
Of the dim curtained door,
Stir thy old bones along the dusty floor
Of this unlighted corridor.
Open! I have been this dark way before;
Thy hollow face shall peer
In mine no more. . . . .

Sky, the dear sky!
Ah, ghostly h...

News!
What is the word that they tell now, now, now!
The little drums beating in the bazaars?
They beat (among, the buyers and the sellers)
‘Nimrud, ah, Nimrud!
God tends a gnat against Nimrud!’
Watchers, O Watchers a thousand!

News!
At the edge of the crops, now, now, where the well-wheels are halted,
One prepares to loose the bullocks and one scrapes his hoe,
They beat (among the Bowers and the reapers)
‘Nimrud, ah, Nimrud!
God prepares an ill day far Nimrud!’
Watchers, O Watchers ten thousand.

News!
By the fires of the camps, now, now, where the travellers meet,
Where the camels come in and the horses: their men conferring,
They beat (among the packmen and the drivers)
‘Nimrud, ah, Nimrud!
Thus it befell last noon to Nimrud!’

Out of the pregnant darkness, where from fire
To glimmering fire the watchword leaps,
The dirge floats up from those who build the pyre
High and still higher
That yet shall blaze across the verminous deeps.

Farewell, O brother-heart,
Yet we shall not forget;
Though hand from hand must part,
Your hope is with us yet.
The clank of the swaggerer’s sword
And clink of the grasper’s gold
Are not so loud as the lover’s word
In a thousand echoes rolled.

The lords of the tottering order sit and plot,
With cunning courtesy haggling still:
The insistent chorus cannot be forgot
Its words are shot
Like summoning rockets from the eastern hill.

You, it was you who showed
How Murder made his pact
In busy Greed’s abode,
Preparing for ...

"You never attained to Him?" "If to attain
    Be to abide, then that may be."
"Endless the way, followed with how much pain!"
    "The way was He."

O' Lyric Love, half angel and half bird,
And all a wonder and a wild desire,
Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun,
Took sanctuary within the holier blue,
And sang a kindred soul out to his face,
Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart
When the first summons from the darkling earth
Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue,
And bared them of the glory to drop down,
To toil for man, to suffer or to die,
This is the same voice: can thy soul know change?
Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help!
Never may I commence my song, my due
To God who best taught song by gift of thee,
Except with bent head and beseeching hand
That still, despite the distance and the dark,
What was, again may be; some interchange
Of grace, some splendor once thy ve...

    When I lie musing on my bed alone,
    And listen to the wintry waterfall;[1]
    And many moments that are past and gone,
    Moments of sunshine and of joy, recall;

    Though the long night is dark and damp around,
    And no still star hangs out its friendly flame;
    And the winds sweep the sash with sullen sound,
    And freezing palsy creeps o'er all my frame;

    I catch consoling phantasies that spring
    From the thick gloom, and as the night airs beat,
    They touch my heart, like wind-swift wires[2] that ring
    In mournful modulations, strange and sweet.

    Was it the voice of thee, my buried friend?
    Was it the whispered vow of faithful love?
    Do I in Knoyle's green shades thy steps attend,
    An...

Turn Thou the key upon our thoughts, dear Lord,
And let us sleep;
Give us our portion of forgetfulness,
Silent and deep.

Lay Thou Thy quiet hand upon our eyes
To close their sight;
Shut out the shining of the moon and stars
And candle-light.

Keep back the phantoms and the visions sad,
The shades of grey,
The fancies that so haunt the little hours
Before the day.

Quiet the time-worn questions that are all
Unanswered yet,
Take from the spent and troubled souls of us
Their vain regret;

And lead us far into Thy silent land,
That we may go
Like children out across the field o' dreams
Where poppies blow.

So all Thy saints - and all Thy sinners too -
Wilt Thou not keep,
Since not alone unto Thy well-beloved<...

(Written for THE PORTFOLIO SOCIETY, October 1861.)


The yellow poplar-leaves came down
And like a carpet lay,
No waftings were in the sunny air
To flutter them away;
And he stepped on blithe and debonair
That warm October day.

"The boy," saith he, "hath got his own,
But sore has been the fight,
For ere his life began the strife
That ceased but yesternight;
For the will," he said, "the kinsfolk read,
And read it not aright.

"His cause was argued in the court
Before his christening day,
And counsel was heard, and judge demurred,
And bitter waxed the fray;
Brother with brother spake no word
When they met in the way.

"Against each one did each contend,
And all against the heir.
I would not bend, for I knew the ...

Now the busy screw is churning,
Now the horrid sirens blow;
Now are India's guests returning
Home from India's Greatest Show;
Now the gleeful Asiatic
Speeds them on their wild career,
And, though normally phlegmatic,
Gives a half-unconscious cheer.

India's years were years of leanness,
Till the Late Performance drew
These, whose confidential greenness
She has run for all she knew.
Gladly rose the land to bid them
Welcome for a fleeting spell -
Nobly took them in and did them -
And has done extremely well.

Peace be theirs, important Packet,
Genial skies and happy calms -
No derogatory racket,
No humiliating qualms!
Gales, I charge you, shun to rouse and
Lash the seas to angry foam,
While Britannia's Great Ten Thousand

Sent to a friend who had complained that I was glad enough to see
him when he came, but didn't seem to miss him if he stayed away.

And cannot pleasures, while they last,
Be actual unless, when past,
They leave us shuddering and aghast,
With anguish smarting?
And cannot friends be firm and fast,
And yet bear parting?

And must I then, at Friendship's call,
Calmly resign the little all
(Trifling, I grant, it is and small)
I have of gladness,
And lend my being to the thrall
Of gloom and sadness?

And think you that I should be dumb,
And full Dolorum Omnium,
Excepting when you choose to come
And share my dinner?
At other times be sour and glum
And daily thinner?

Must he then only live to weep,
Who'd prove his friendsh...

OD. i. 9.


One dazzling mass of solid snow
Soracte stands; the bent woods fret
Beneath their load; and, sharpest-set
With frost, the streams have ceased to flow.

Pile on great faggots and break up
The ice: let influence more benign
Enter with four-years-treasured wine,
Fetched in the ponderous Sabine cup:

Leave to the Gods all else. When they
Have once bid rest the winds that war
Over the passionate seas, no more
Grey ash and cypress rock and sway.

Ask not what future suns shall bring,
Count to-day gain, whate'er it chance
To be: nor, young man, scorn the dance,
Nor deem sweet Love an idle thing,

Ere Time thy April youth hath changed
To sourness. Park and public walk
Attract thee now, and whispered talk
At...

I came upon a fountain on my way
When it was hot, and sat me down to drink
Its sparkling stream, when all around the brink
I spied full many vessels made of clay,
Whereon were written, not without display,
In deep engraving or with merely ink,
The blessings which each owner seemed to think
Would light on him who drank with each alway.
I looked so hard my eyes were looking double
Into them all, but when I came to see
That they were filthy, each in his degree,
I bent my head, though not without some trouble,
To where the little waves did leap and bubble,
And so I journeyed on most pleasantly.