1.
She was an aged woman; and the years
Which she had numbered on her toilsome way
Had bowed her natural powers to decay.
She was an aged woman; yet the ray
Which faintly glimmered through her starting tears,
Pressed into light by silent misery,
Hath soul's imperishable energy.
She was a cripple, and incapable
To add one mite to gold-fed luxury:
And therefore did her spirit dimly feel
That poverty, the crime of tainting stain,
Would merge her in its depths, never to rise again.

2.
One only son's love had supported her.
She long had struggled with infirmity,
Lingering to human life-scenes; for to die,
When fate has spared to rend some mental tie,
Would many wish, and surely fewer dare.
But, when the tyrant's bloodhounds forced the child

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...

Judge we of coming, by the by-past, years,
And still can Hope, the siren, soothe our fears?
Cheated, deceived, our cherished day-dreams o'er,
We cling the closer, and we trust the more.
Oh, who can say there's bliss in the review
Of hours, when Hope with fairy fingers drew
A magic sketch of "rapture yet to be,"
A rainbow horizon, a life of glee!
The world all bright before us vivid scene
Of cloudless sunshine and of fadeless green;
A treacherous picture of our coming years,
Bright in prospective welcomed but with tears.

How false the view, a backward glance will tell!
A tale of visions wrecked, of broken spell,
Of valued hearts estranged or careless grown,
Affection's links dissevered or unknown;
Of joys, deemed fadeless, gone to swift decay,
And lo...

Nurse not your grief, nor make obsequious moan
When I have shed this flesh I love so well,
Nor slowly toll the dull heart-bruising knell,
Nor carve my name in customary stone;
But let the generous earth reclaim her own
And my usurious profit who can tell?
Dash tears aside, let joy resume her spell;
Stars glitter where the storm is overblown.
Because I have lived I would not have one say:
“Here long ago a man of such a name
Was left to moulder in his pit of clay.”
Let only love remember how I came
And built an earthen altar in my day
And lit thereon a comfortable flame.

    A child was born in sin and shame,
    Wronged by his very birth,
    Without a home, without a name,
    One over in the earth.

    No wifely triumph he inspired,
    Allayed no husband's fear;
    Intruder bare, whom none desired,
    He had a welcome drear.

    Heaven's beggar, all but turned adrift
    For knocking at earth's gate,
    His mother, like an evil gift,
    Shunned him with sickly hate.

    And now the mistress on her knee
    The unloved baby bore,
    The while the servant sullenly
    Prepared to leave her door.

    Her eggs are dear to mother-dove,
    Her chickens to the hen;
    All young ones bring with them their love,
    Of sheep, or goats, or men!

    This one lone child shall no...

Friends . . . old friends . . .
One sees how it ends.
A woman looks
Or a man tells lies,
And the pleasant brooks
And the quiet skies,
Ruined with brawling
And caterwauling,
Enchant no more
As they did before.
And so it ends
With friends.

Friends . . . old friends . . .
And what if it ends?
Shall we dare to shirk
What we live to learn?
It has done its work,
It has served its turn;
And, forgive and forget
Or hanker and fret,
We can be no more
As we were before.
When it ends, it ends
With friends.

Friends . . . old friends . . .
So it breaks, so it ends.
There let it rest!
It has fought and won,
And is still the best
That either has done.
Each as he stands
The work of its hands...

Expression, child of soul! I fondly trace
    Thy strong enchantments, when the poet's lyre,
    The painter's pencil catch thy sacred fire,
And beauty wakes for thee her touching grace -
But from this frighted glance thy form avert
    When horrors check thy tear, thy struggling sigh,
    When frenzy rolls in thy impassion'd eye,
Or guilt sits heavy on thy lab'ring heart -
Nor ever let my shudd'ring fancy bear
    The wasting groan, or view the pallid look
    Of him[A] the Muses lov'd - when hope forsook
His spirit, vainly to the Muses dear!
For charm'd with heav'nly song, this bleeding breast,
Mourns the blest power of verse could give despair no rest. -

[A]    Chatterton.

I am all alone in the house to-night;
    They would not have gone away
Had they known of the terrible, bloodless fight
    I have held with my heart to-day.
With the old sweet love and the old fierce pain
    I have battled hour by hour;
But the fates have willed that the strife is vain.
Alone in the hour my thoughts have reign,
    And I yield myself to their power.

Yield myself to the old time charm
    Of a dream of vanished bliss,
The thrill of a voice, and the fold of an arm,
    And a red lip's lingering kiss.
It all comes back like a flowing tide;
    That brief, but beautiful day.
Though it oft is checked by the dam of pride,
Till the waters flow back to the other side,
    To-night it has broken away.

I gave you all that I had t...

Roses, brier on brier,
Like a hedge of fire,
Walled it from the world and rolled
Crimson 'round it; manifold
Blossoms, 'mid which once of old
Walked my Heart's Desire.

There the golden Hours
Dwelt; and 'mid the bowers
Beauty wandered like a maid;
And the Dreams that never fade
Sat within its haunted shade
Gazing at the flowers.

There the winds that vary
Melody and marry
Perfume unto perfume, went,
Whispering to the buds, that bent,
Messages whose wonderment
Made them sweet to carry.

There the waters hoary
Murmured many a story
To the leaves that leaned above,
Listening to their tales of love,
While the happiness thereof
Flushed their green with glory.

There the sunset's shimmer
'Mid the bower...

        Let us begin, dear love, where we left off;
    Tie up the broken threads of that old dream,
    And go on happy as before, and seem
        Lovers again, though all the world may scoff.

        Let us forget the graves which lie between
    Our parting and our meeting, and the tears
    That rusted out the gold-work of the years,
        The frosts that fell upon our gardens green.

        Let us forget the cold, malicious Fate
    Who made our loving hearts her idle toys,
    And once more revel in the old sweet joys
        Of happy love. Nay, it is not too late!

        Forget the deep-ploughed furrows in my brow;
    Forget the silver gleaming in my hair;
    Look only in my eyes! Oh! darling, there
        The old love shone no warme...

Fast as the rolling seasons bring
The hour of fate to those we love,
Each pearl that leaves the broken string
Is set in Friendship's crown above.
As narrower grows the earthly chain,
The circle widens in the sky;
These are our treasures that remain,
But those are stars that beam on high.


We miss - oh, how we miss! - his face, -
With trembling accents speak his name.
Earth cannot fill his shadowed place
From all her rolls of pride and fame;
Our song has lost the silvery thread
That carolled through his jocund lips;
Our laugh is mute, our smile is fled,
And all our sunshine in eclipse.

And what and whence the wondrous charm
That kept his manhood boylike still, -
That life's hard censors could disarm
And lead them captive at his w...

Do not cry for me, Mother, seeing me in the grave.

I

This greatest hour was hallowed and thandered
By angel's choirs; fire melted sky.
He asked his Father:"Why am I abandoned...?"
And told his Mother: "Mother, do not cry..."


II

Magdalena struggled, cried and moaned.
Peter sank into the stone trance...
Only there, where Mother stood alone,
None has dared cast a single glance.

I told her when I left one day
That whatsoever weight of care
Might strain our love, Time's mere assault
Would work no changes there.
And in the night she came to me,
Toothless, and wan, and old,
With leaden concaves round her eyes,
And wrinkles manifold.

I tremblingly exclaimed to her,
"O wherefore do you ghost me thus!
I have said that dull defacing Time
Will bring no dreads to us."
"And is that true of YOU?" she cried
In voice of troubled tune.
I faltered: "Well . . . I did not think
You would test me quite so soon!"

She vanished with a curious smile,
Which told me, plainlier than by word,
That my staunch pledge could scarce beguile
The fear she had averred.
Her doubts then wrought their shape in me,
And when next day I ...

Sweet Flower! belike one day to have
A place upon thy Poet's grave,
I welcome thee once more:
But He, who was on land, at sea,
My Brother, too, in loving thee,
Although he loved more silently,
Sleeps by his native shore.

Ah! hopeful, hopeful was the day
When to that Ship he bent his way,
To govern and to guide:
His wish was gained: a little time
Would bring him back in manhood's prime
And free for life, these hills to climb;
With all his wants supplied.

And full of hope day followed day
While that stout Ship at anchor lay
Beside the shores of Wight;
The May had then made all things green;
And, floating there, in pomp serene,
That Ship was goodly to be seen,
His pride and his delight!

Yet then, when called ashore, he s...

Some day I shall rise and leave my friends
And seek you again through the world's far ends,
You whom I found so fair
(Touch of your hands and smell of your hair!),
My only god in the days that were.
My eager feet shall find you again,
Though the sullen years and the mark of pain
Have changed you wholly; for I shall know
(How could I forget having loved you so?),
In the sad half-light of evening,
The face that was all my sunrising.
So then at the ends of the earth I'll stand
And hold you fiercely by either hand,
And seeing your age and ashen hair
I'll curse the thing that once you were,
Because it is changed and pale and old
(Lips that were scarlet, hair that was gold!),
And I loved you before you were old and wise,
When the flame of youth was strong ...

I determined to find out whose it was -
The portrait he looked at so, and sighed;
Bitterly have I rued my meanness
    And wept for it since he died!

I searched his desk when he was away,
And there was the likeness - yes, my own!
Taken when I was the season's fairest,
    And time-lines all unknown.

I smiled at my image, and put it back,
And he went on cherishing it, until
I was chafed that he loved not the me then living,
    But that past woman still.

Well, such was my jealousy at last,
I destroyed that face of the former me;
Could you ever have dreamed the heart of woman
    Would work so foolishly!

'Croak, croak, croak,'
Thus the Raven spoke,
Perched on his crooked tree
As hoarse as hoarse could be.
Shun him and fear him,
Lest the Bridegroom hear him;
Scout him and rout him
With his ominous eye about him.

Yet, 'Croak, croak, croak,'
Still tolled from the oak;
From that fatal black bird,
Whether heard or unheard:
'O ship upon the high seas,
Freighted with lives and spices,
Sink, O ship,' croaked the Raven:
'Let the Bride mount to heaven.'

In a far foreign land,
Upon the wave-edged sand,
Some friends gaze wistfully
Across the glittering sea.
'If we could clasp our sister,'
Three say, 'now we have missed her!'
'If we could kiss our daughter!'
Two sigh across the water.

Oh, the ship sails fast
Wi...

The Gossoon (Weeping)

It’s bleedin’! It’s bleedin’!


The Ould Woman (Soothingly)

An’ shure, me lad, ‘t is bleedin’;
But come, me hearty laddy buck, be brave an’ do not cry;
A lad that’s learnin’ readin’ sh’u'd be far beyant the heedin’
Av a tiny bit o’ finger cut that hurrts a bit foreby.

‘Ere ye come till wan an’ twinty
Ye’ll be havin’ hurrts in plinty
An’ ye’ll learn a bit o’ bleedin’ doesn’t mean ye’re goin’ t’ die.


The Gossoon (Crying)

It’s bleedin’! It’s bleedin’!


The Ould Woman (Comfortingly)

An’ shure, me lad, ‘t is bleedin’;
But he’s me slashin’ buckeen, an’ he will not weep at all;
A rag is all ‘t is needin’ fer t’ sthop the whole proceedin’,
An’, shure, a bit o’ rosy blood won’t make me...