(F.M.L.)


Living child or pictured cherub,
Ne'er o'ermatched its baby grace;
And the mother, moving nearer,
Looked it calmly in the face;
Then with slight and quiet gesture,
And with lips that scarcely smiled,
Said - "A Portrait of my daughter
When she was a child."

Easy thought was hers to fathom,
Nothing hard her glance to read,
For it seemed to say, "No praises
For this little child I need:
If you see, I see far better,
And I will not feign to care
For a stranger's prompt assurance
That the face is fair."

Softly clasped and half extended,
She her dimpled hands doth lay:
So they doubtless placed them, saying -
"Little one, you must not play."
And while yet his work was growing,
This the painter's hand hath...

    Dreary! weary!
    Weary! dreary!
Sighs my soul this lonely night.
    Farewell gladness!
    Welcome sadness!
Vanished are my visions bright.

    Stars are shining!
    Winds are pining!
In the sky and o'er the sea;
    Shine forever
    Stars! but never
Can the starlight gladden me.

    Stars! you nightly
    Sparkle brightly,
Scattered o'er your azure dome;
    While earth's turning,
    There you're burning,
Beacons of a better home.

    Stars! you brighten
    And you lighten
Many a heart-grief here below;
    But your gleaming
    And your beaming
Cannot chase away my woe.

    Stars! you're shining,
    I am pining --
I am dark, but you are bright;
    Hanging o'er me

O! nothing earthly save the ray
(Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye,
As in those gardens where the day
Springs from the gems of Circassy,
O! nothing earthly save the thrill
Of melody in woodland rill,
Or (music of the passion-hearted)
Joy's voice so peacefully deParted
That like the murmur in the shell,
Its echo dwelleth and will dwell,
Oh, nothing of the dross of ours,
Yet all the beauty, all the flowers
That list our Love, and deck our bowers,
Adorn yon world afar, afar,
The wandering star.

'Twas a sweet time for Nesace, for there
Her world lay lolling on the golden air,
Near four bright suns, a temporary rest,
An oasis in desert of the blest.
Away, away, 'mid seas of rays that roll
Empyrean splendor o'er th' unchained soul,<...

Today, through your Easter market
In the lazy Southern sun,
I strolled with hands in pockets
Past the flower-stalls one by one.

Indolent, dreamy, ready
For anything to amuse,
Shyfoot out for a ramble
In his oldest hat and shoes.

Roses creamy and yellow,
Azaleas crimson and white,
And the flaky fresh carnations
My Orient of delight,--

Masses and banks of blossom
That dazzle and summon the eye,
Till the buyers are half bewildered
To know what they want. Not I.

Who would not rather be artist
And slip through the crowd unseen
To gather it all in a picture
And guess what the faces mean?

So down through the chaffering darkies
I pass to the sidewalk's end,
Through the smiling gingham bonnets
With their ...

I dreamt, last night, Thou didst transfuse
Oil from Thy jar into my cruse;
And pouring still Thy wealthy store,
The vessel full did then run o'er;
Methought I did Thy bounty chide
To see the waste; but 'twas replied
By Thee, dear God, God gives man seed
Ofttimes for waste, as for his need.
Then I could say that house is bare
That has not bread and some to spare.

    Fate says, and flaunts her stores of gold,
    "I'll loan you happiness untold.
    What is it you desire of me?"
    A perfect hour in which to be
    In love with life, and glad, and good,
    The bliss of being understood,
    Amid life's cares a little space
    To feast your eyes upon a face,
    The whispered word, the love-filled tone,
    The warmth of lips that meet your own,
        To-day of Fate you borrow;
        In hunger of the heart, and pain,
        In loneliness, and longing vain,
        You pay the debt to-morrow!

    Prince, let grim Fate take what she will
    Of treasures rare, of joys that thrill,
    Enact the cruel usurer's part,
    Leave empty arms and hungry heart,
    Take what she can of love and trust,

Come, gentle sleep! thou soft restorer, come,
And close these wearied eyes, by grief oppress'd;
For one short hour, be this thy peaceful home,
And bid the sighs that rend my bosom rest.

Depriv'd of thee, at midnight's awful hour,
Oft have I listen'd to the angry wind;
While busy memory, with tyrant pow'r,
Would picture faded joys, or friends unkind.

Or tell of her who rear'd my helpless years,
But torn away, ere yet I knew her worth;
How oft, tho' nature still the thought endears,
Has my worn bosom heav'd its tribute forth.

Come, then, soft pow'r, whose balmy roses fall
As heavenly manna sweet, or morning dew;
Beneath thy wings, my troubled thoughts recall,
And, haply, lend them some serener hue.

    Fantasy, Capri. The edge of a pillow.
    Certain words - murmur, seashells.
    A face beckoning thru time, lacy windows with
    purple shades simultaneously drawn.
    Tears of gold. Love signs,
    glass of champagne.

    A tree of hemlock nearby. A delightful print
    tablecloth that signals the breeze. The courtier
    in fancy dress. Twin bottles of vintage wine abreast
    rider and horse.

    Potables. A blue eggshell. The sun stirring Virginia Creeper
    that moves in unison with the wind.

    Electra and electricity, the current that prods the mind.

Below me half a world I see outspread;
        Above, blue heaven; around, peaks of snow;
And yet the happy pulse of life is slow,
        I dream of distant places, pleasures dead.
The woods of Lithuania I would tread
        Where happy-throated birds sing songs I know;
Above the trembling marshland I would go
        Where chill-winged curlews dip and call o'er head.

A tragic, lonely terror grips my heart,
        A longing for some peaceful, gentle place,
And memories of youthful love I trace.
        Unto my childhood home I long to start,
And yet if all the leaves my name could cry
        She would not pause nor heed as she passed by.

My thoughts impelled me to the resting-place
Where sleep my parents, many a friend and brother.
I asked them (no one heard and none replied):
"Do ye forsake me, too, oh father, mother?"
Then from the grave, without a tongue, these cried,
And showed my own place waiting by their side.

Moses Ben Esra (About 1100).

They left their home of summer ease
Beneath the lowland’s sheltering trees,
To seek, by ways unknown to all,
The promise of the waterfall.

Some vague, faint rumor to the vale
Had crept, perchance a hunter’s tale,
Of its wild mirth of waters lost
On the dark woods through which it tossed.

Somewhere it laughed and sang; somewhere
Whirled in mad dance its misty hair;
But who had raised its veil, or seen
The rainbow skirts of that Undine?

They sought it where the mountain brook
Its swift way to the valley took;
Along the rugged slope they clomb,
Their guide a thread of sound and foam.

Height after height they slowly won;
The fiery javelins of the sun
Smote the bare ledge; the tangled shade
With rock and vine their steps delay...

The need to love that all the stars obey
Entered my heart and banished all beside.
Bare were the gardens where I used to stray;
Faded the flowers that one time satisfied.

Before the beauty of the west on fire,
The moonlit hills from cloister-casements viewed,
Cloud-like arose the image of desire,
And cast out peace and maddened solitude.

I sought the City and the hopes it held:
With smoke and brooding vapors intercurled,
As the thick roofs and walls close-paralleled
Shut out the fair horizons of the world -

A truant from the fields and rustic joy,
In my changed thought that image even so
Shut out the gods I worshipped as a boy
And all the pure delights I used to know.

Often the veil has trembled at some tide
Of lovely reminiscence ...

Soul of the leaping flame;
Heart of the scarlet fire,
Spirit that hath for name
Only the name - Desire!

Subtle art thou and strong;
Glowing in sunlit skies;
Sparkling in wine and song;
Shining in women's eyes;

Gleaming on shores of Sleep
Moon of the wild dream-clan
Burning within the deep
Passionate heart of Man.

Spirit we can but name,
Essence of Forms that seem,
Odour of violet flame,
Weaver of Thought and Dream.

Laught of the World's great Heart,
Who shall thy rune recote?
Child of the gods thou art,
Offspring of Day and Night.

Lord of the Rainbow ealm,
Many a shape hast thou
Glory with laurelled helm;
Love with the myrtled brow;

Sanctity, robed in white;
Liberty, proud and cal...

    There will be a singing in your heart,
    There will be a rapture in your eyes;
    You will be a woman set apart,
    You will be so wonderful and wise.
    You will sleep, and when from dreams you start,
    As of one that wakes in Paradise,
    There will be a singing in your heart,
    There will be a rapture in your eyes.

    There will be a moaning in your heart,
    There will be an anguish in your eyes;
    You will see your dearest ones depart,
    You will hear their quivering good-byes.
    Yours will be the heart-ache and the smart,
    Tears that scald and lonely sacrifice;
    There will be a moaning in your heart,
    There will be an anguish in your eyes.

    There will come a glory in your eyes,
    There will come a peac...

The Human Voice

    You knew then, starting let us say with ether,
    You would become electrons, out of whirling
    Would rise to atoms; then as an atom resting
    Till through Yourself in other atoms moving
    And by the fine affinity of power
    Atom with atom massed, You would go on
    Over the crest of visible forms transformed,
    Would be a molecule, a little system
    Wherein the atoms move like suns and planets
    With satellites, electrons. So as worlds build
    From star-dust, as electron to electron,
    The same attraction drawing, molecules
    Would wed and pass over the crest again
    Of visible forms, lying content as crystals,
    Or colloids - ready now to use the gleam
    Of life. As 'twere I see You with a match,

Out through the hills of midnight,
Hurtling and thundering on,
The night express from the outer world
Speeds for the open of dawn.

Out of the past and gloom-wrack,
Out of the dim and yore,
Freighted as train or caravan
Was never freighted before;

Built when the Sphinx's query
Was new on the lips of peace;
Hurled through the aching and hollow years
Till time shall have release;

Stealing and swift as a shadow,
Sinuous, urging, and blind,
Unpent as a joy or the flight of a bird,
With oblivion behind;

Down to the morrow country
Into the unknown land!
And the Driver grips the throttle-bar;
Our lives are in his hand.

The sleeping hills awake;
A tremor, a dread, a roar;
The terror is flying, is come, is past...

E'en as the bird, who midst the leafy bower
Has, in her nest, sat darkling through the night,
With her sweet brood, impatient to descry
Their wished looks, and to bring home their food,
In the fond quest unconscious of her toil:
She, of the time prevenient, on the spray,
That overhangs their couch, with wakeful gaze
Expects the sun; nor ever, till the dawn,
Removeth from the east her eager ken;
So stood the dame erect, and bent her glance
Wistfully on that region, where the sun
Abateth most his speed; that, seeing her
Suspense and wand'ring, I became as one,
In whom desire is waken'd, and the hope
Of somewhat new to come fills with delight.

Short space ensued; I was not held, I say,
Long in expectance, when I saw the heav'n
Wax more and more resplen...

Who gave thee, O Beauty,
The keys of this breast,--
Too credulous lover
Of blest and unblest?
Say, when in lapsed ages
Thee knew I of old?
Or what was the service
For which I was sold?
When first my eyes saw thee,
I found me thy thrall,
By magical drawings,
Sweet tyrant of all!
I drank at thy fountain
False waters of thirst;
Thou intimate stranger,
Thou latest and first!
Thy dangerous glances
Make women of men;
New-born, we are melting
Into nature again.

Lavish, lavish promiser,
Nigh persuading gods to err!
Guest of million painted forms,
Which in turn thy glory warms!
The frailest leaf, the mossy bark,
The acorn's cup, the raindrop's arc,
The swinging spider's silver line,
The ruby of the drop of wi...