If that my fate has now fulfill'd my year,
And so soon stopt my longer living here;
What was't, ye gods, a dying man to save,
But while he met with his paternal grave!
Though while we living 'bout the world do roam,
We love to rest in peaceful urns at home,
Where we may snug, and close together lie
By the dead bones of our dear ancestry.

Farewell to the feast-day! the pray'r book is stained
With tears; of the booth scarce a trace has remained;
The lime branch is withered, the osiers are dying,
And pale as a corpse the fair palm-frond is lying;
The boughs of grey willow are trodden and broken--
Friend, these are your hopes and your longings unspoken!

Lo, there lie your dreamings all dimm'd and rejected,
And there lie the joys were so surely expected!
And there is the happiness blighted and perished,
And all that aforetime your soul knew and cherished,
The loved and the longed for, the striven for vainly--
Your whole life before you lies pictured how plainly!

The branches are sapless, the leaves will decay,
An end is upon us, and whence, who shall say?
The broom of the beadle outside now has h...

        There will be rose and rhododendron
            When you are dead and under ground;
        Still will be heard from white syringas
            Heavy with bees, a sunny sound;

        Still will the tamaracks be raining
            After the rain has ceased, and still
        Will there be robins in the stubble,
            Brown sheep upon the warm green hill.

        Spring will not ail nor autumn falter;
            Nothing will know that you are gone,
        Saving alone some sullen plough-land
            None but yourself sets foot upon;

        Saving the may-weed and the pig-weed
            Nothing will know that you are dead,--
        These, and perhaps a useless wagon
            Standing beside some tumbled shed.

 ...

Heard ye that thrilling word -
    Accent of dread -
Flash like a thunderbolt,
    Bowing each head -
Crash through the battle dun,
Over the booming gun -
"Ashby, our bravest one, -
    Ashby is dead!"

Saw ye the veterans -
    Hearts that had known
Never a quail of fear,
    Never a groan -
Sob 'mid the fight they win,
- Tears their stern eyes within, -
"Ashby, our Paladin,
    Ashby is gone!"

Dash, - dash the tear away -
    Crush down the pain!
"Dulce et decus," be
    Fittest refrain!
Why should the dreary pall
Round him be flung at all?
Did not our hero fall
    Gallantly slain?

Catch the last word of cheer
    Dropt from his tongue;
Over the volley's din,
    Lo...

The bitterness of death and bitterer scorn
Breathes from the broad-leafed aloe-plant whence thou
Wast fain to gather for thy bended brow
A chaplet by no gentler forehead worn.
Grief deep as hell, wrath hardly to be borne,
Ploughed up thy soul till round the furrowing plough
The strange black soil foamed, as a black beaked prow
Bids night-black waves foam where its track has torn.
Too faint the phrase for thee that only saith
Scorn bitterer than the bitterness of death
Pervades the sullen splendour of thy soul,
Where hate and pain make war on force and fraud
And all the strengths of tyrants; whence unflawed
It keeps this noble heart of hatred whole.

Tenderly do we feel by Nature's law
For worst offenders: though the heart will heave
With indignation, deeply moved we grieve,
In after thought, for Him who stood in awe
Neither of God nor man, and only saw,
Lost wretch, a horrible device enthroned
On proud temptations, till the victim groaned
Under the steel his hand had dared to draw.
But oh, restrain compassion, if its course,
As oft befalls, prevent or turn aside
Judgments and aims and acts whose higher source
Is sympathy with the unforewarned, who died
Blameless, with them that shuddered o'er his grave,
And all who from the law firm safety crave.

The wind was on the forest,
And silence on the wold;
And darkness on the waters,
And heaven was starry cold;
When Sleep, with mystic magic,
Bade me this thing behold:

This side, an iron woodland;
That side, an iron waste;
And heaven, a tower of iron,
Wherein the wan moon paced,
Still as a phantom woman,
Ice-eyed and icy-faced.

And through the haunted tower
Of silence and of night,
My Soul and I went only,
My Soul, whose face was white,
Whose one hand signed me listen,
One bore a taper-light.

For, lo! a voice behind me
Kept sighing in my ear
The dreams my flesh accepted,
My mind refused to hear -
Of one I loved and loved not,
Whose spirit now spake near.

And, lo! a voice before me
Kept calling...

In the endless nights, from my bed, where sleepless in anguish I lie,
I startle the stillness and gloom with a bitter and strong cry:
0 Love! 0 Beloved long lost! come down from thy Heaven above,
For my heart is wasting and dying in uttermost famine for love!

Come down for a moment! oh, come! Come serious and mild
And pale, as thou wert on this earth, thou adorable Child!
Or come as thou art, with thy sanctitude, triumph and bliss,
For a garment of glory about thee; and give me one kiss,
One tender and pitying look of thy tenderest eyes,
One word of solemn assurance and truth that
the soul with its love never dies!

In the endless nights, from my bed, where sleepless in frenzy I lie,
I cleave through the crushing gloom with a bitter and deadly cry:
Oh! where have ...

Death himself in the rain . . . death himself . . .
Death in the savage sunlight . . . skeletal death . . .
I hear the clack of his feet,
Clearly on stones, softly in dust;
He hurries among the trees
Whirling the leaves, tossing he hands from waves.
Listen! the immortal footsteps beat.
Death himself in the grass, death himself,
Gyrating invisibly in the sun,
Scatters the grass-blades, whips the wind,
Tears at boughs with malignant laughter:
On the long echoing air I hear him run.
Death himself in the dusk, gathering lilacs,
Breaking a white-fleshed bough,
Strewing purple on a cobwebbed lawn,
Dancing, dancing,
The long red sun-rays glancing
On flailing arms, skipping with hideous knees
Cavorting grotesque ecstasies:
I do not see him, but I see th...

Part V

Winter

We, whom God sets a task,
    Striving, who ne'er attain,
We are the curst! - who ask
    Death, and still ask in vain.
We, whom God sets a task.


1

In the silence of his room. After many days.

All, all are shadows. All must pass
As writing in the sand or sea;
Reflections in a looking-glass
Are not less permanent than we.

The days that mould us - what are they?
That break us on their whirling wheel?
What but the potters! we the clay
They fashion and yet leave unreal.

Linked through the ages, one and all,
In long anthropomorphous chain,
The human and the animal
Inseparably must remain.

Within us still the monster shape
That shrieked in air and howled i...

To die be given us, or attain!
Fierce work it were, to do again.
So pilgrims, bound for Mecca, pray’d
At burning noon: so warriors said,
Scarf’d with the cross, who watch’d the miles
Of dust that wreath’d their struggling files
Down Lydian mountains: so, when snows
Round Alpine summits eddying rose,
The Goth, bound Rome-wards: so the Hun,
Crouch’d on his saddle, when the sun
Went lurid down o’er flooded plains
Through which the groaning Danube strains
To the drear Euxine: so pray all,
Whom labours, self-ordain’d, enthrall;
Because they to themselves propose
On this side the all-common close
A goal which, gain’d, may give repose.
So pray they: and to stand again
Where they stood once, to them were pain;
Pain to thread back and to renew
Past ...

Far off I heard dark waters rush;
The sky was cold; the dawn broke green;
And wrapped in twilight and strange hush
The gray wind moaned between.

A voice rang through the House of Sleep,
And through its halls there went a tread;
Mysterious raiment seemed to sweep
Around the pallid dead.

And then I knew that I had died,
I, who had suffered so and sinned -
And 't was myself I stood beside
In the wild dawn and wind.

[From the 'Dunciad', Book IV]


In vain, in vain--the all-composing Hour
Resistless falls: the Muse obeys the Pow'r.
She comes! she comes! the sable Throne behold
Of Night primæval and of Chaos old!
Before her, Fancy's gilded clouds decay,
And all its varying Rain-bows die away.
Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires,
The meteor drops, and in a flash expires.
As one by one, at dread Medea's strain,
The sick'ning stars fade off th' ethereal plain;
As Argus' eyes by Hermes' wand opprest,
Clos'd one by one to everlasting rest;
Thus at her felt approach, and secret might,
Art after Art goes out, and all is Night.
See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled,
Mountains of Casuistry heap'd o'er her head!
<...

Peace to the dead! The forest weaves,
Around your couch, its shroud of leaves;
While shadows dim and silence deep,
Bespeak the quiet of your sleep.

Rest, pilgrim, here! Your journey o'er,
Life's weary cares ye heed no more;
Time's sun has set, in yonder west
Your work is done rest, Pilgrim, rest!

Rest till the morning hour; wait
Here, at Eternity's dread gate,
Safe in the keeping of the sod,
And the sure promises of God.

Dark is your home yet round the tomb,
Tokens of hope sweet flowerets bloom;
And cherished memories, soft and dear,
Blest as their fragrance, linger here!

We speak, yet ye are dumb! How dread
This deep, stern silence of the Dead!
The whispers of the Grave, severe,
The listening Soul alone can hear!