Couentry, that do'st adorne[1]
The Countrey wherein I was borne,
Yet therein lyes not thy prayse
Why I should crowne thy Tow'rs with Bayes:
'Tis not thy Wall, me to thee weds
Thy Ports, nor thy proud Pyrameds,
Nor thy Trophies of the Bore,[2]
But that Shee which I adore,
Which scarce Goodnesse selfe can payre,
First their breathing blest thy Ayre;
IDEA, in which Name I hide
Her, in my heart Deifi'd,
For what good, Man's mind can see,
Onely her IDEAS be;
She, in whom the Vertues came
In Womans shape, and tooke her Name,
She so farre past Imitation,
As but Nature our Creation
Could not alter, she had aymed,
More then Woman to haue framed:
She, whose truely written Story,
To thy poore Name shall adde more glory,

Would I woo, and would I win?
Would I well my work begin?
Would I evermore be crowned
With the end that I propound?
Would I frustrate or prevent
All aspects malevolent?
Thwart all wizards, and with these
Dead all black contingencies:
Place my words and all works else
In most happy parallels?
All will prosper, if so be
I be kiss'd or bless'd by thee.

    In my childhood, "Verdun," meant madness.
    Bars on the windows, cages around the intellect.
    Time was a poor keeper of souls, it seems, wore out all but
    a fragment of my memories. Musical, poetic. The sounds of clay china
    being dropped on the floor. Fierce Celts with a gift for the muse in
    keeping with their love of lyricism and war.

    Driving by 999 Queen in Toronto accompanies a lot of the above.
    A cuckoo bin by any calculation and a reference not meant to be
    pejorative. A subject so clothed in solemnity only irreverent
    "kidding," can hope to disarm its grasp. Still, the truth must be told.
    In university, no one shrinked from whispering the ultimate fate -
    a stint in Sydenham or a trip down the road to Cedar Springs.
    Delight...

Henceforth, please God, forever I forego
The yoke of men's opinions. I will be
Light-hearted as a bird, and live with God.
I find him in the bottom of my heart,
I hear continually his voice therein.

Still lie the sheltering snows, undimmed and white;
And reigns the winter's pregnant silence still;
No sign of spring, save that the catkins fill,
And willow stems grow daily red and bright.
These are the days when ancients held a rite
Of expiation for the old year's ill,
And prayer to purify the new year's will:
Fit days, ere yet the spring rains blur the sight,
Ere yet the bounding blood grows hot with haste,
And dreaming thoughts grow heavy with a greed
The ardent summer's joy to have and taste;
Fit days, to give to last year's losses heed,
To reckon clear the new life's sterner need;
Fit days, for Feast of Expiation placed!

The twilight o'er Italia's sky
Had spread a shadowy veil,
And one by one the solemn stars
Looked forth, serene and pale;
As quietly the waning light
Through a high casement stole,
And fell on one with silver hair,
Who shrived a passing soul.

No costly pomp or luxury
Relieved that chamber's gloom,
But glowing forms, by limner's art
Created, thronged the room:
And as the low winds carried far
The chime for evening prayer,
The dying painter's earnest tones
Fell on the languid air.

"The spectral form of Death is nigh,
The thread of life is spun:
Ave Maria! I have looked
Upon my latest sun.
And yet 't is not with pale disease
This frame is worn away;
Nor yet - nor yet with length of years; -
A child but yesterday,"

That Christ did die, the pagan saith;
But that He rose, that's Christians' faith.

The skies are blue above my head,
    The prairie green below,
And flickering o'er the tufted grass
    The shifting shadows go,
Vague-sailing, where the feathery clouds
    Fleck white the tranquil skies,
Black javelins darting where aloft
    The whirring pheasant flies.

A glimmering plain in drowsy trance
    The dim horizon bounds,
Where all the air is resonant
    With sleepy summer sounds, -
The life that sings among the flowers,
    The lisping of the breeze,
The hot cicala's sultry cry,
    The murmurous dream of bees.

The butterfly - a flying flower -
    Wheels swift in flashing rings,
And flutters round his quiet kin,
    With brave flame-mottled wings.
The wild Pinks burst in crimson fire
    The Phlox' bright c...

The time has been that these wild solitudes,
Yet beautiful as wild, were trod by me
Oftener than now; and when the ills of life
Had chafed my spirit, when the unsteady pulse
Beat with strange flutterings, I would wander forth
And seek the woods. The sunshine on my path
Was to me as a friend. The swelling hills,
The quiet dells retiring far between,
With gentle invitation to explore
Their windings, were a calm society
That talked with me and soothed me. Then the chant
Of birds, and chime of brooks, and soft caress
Of the fresh sylvan air, made me forget
The thoughts that broke my peace, and I began
To gather simples by the fountain's brink,
And lose myself in day-dreams. While I stood
In nature's loneliness, I was with one
With whom I early grew familiar, ...

Where yesterday rolled long waves of gold
Beneath the burnished blue of the sky,
A silver-white sea lies still and cold,
And a bitter wind blows by.

But nothing passes the door all day,
Though my watching eyes grow worn and dim,
Save a lean, grey wolf that swings away
To the far horizon rim.

Then, one by one, the stars glisten out
Like frozen tears on a purple pall -
The darkness folds my cabin about
And the snow begins to fall.

I will make a hearth-fire red and bright
And set a light by the window pane
For one who follows the trail to-night
That will bring him home again.

Love will ride with him my heart to bless -
Joy will out-step him across the floor -
What matters the great white loneliness
When we bar the cabin door...

I would not sin, in this half-playful strain,
Too light perhaps for serious years, though born
Of the enforced leisure of slow pain,
Against the pure ideal which has drawn
My feet to follow its far-shining gleam.
A simple plot is mine: legends and runes
Of credulous days, old fancies that have lain
Silent, from boyhood taking voice again,
Warmed into life once more, even as the tunes
That, frozen in the fabled hunting-horn,
Thawed into sound: a winter fireside dream
Of dawns and-sunsets by the summer sea,
Whose sands are traversed by a silent throng
Of voyagers from that vaster mystery
Of which it is an emblem; and the dear
Memory of one who might have tuned my song
To sweeter music by her delicate ear.


When heats as of a tropic clime
Bur...

Hence Burgundy, Claret, and Port,
Away with old Hock and madeira,
Too earthly ye are for my sport;
There's a beverage brighter and clearer.
Instead of a piriful rummer,
My wine overbrims a whole summer;
My bowl is the sky,
And I drink at my eye,
Till I feel in the brain
A Delphian pain
Then follow, my Caius! then follow:
On the green of the hill
We will drink our fill
Of golden sunshine,
Till our brains intertwine
With the glory and grace of Apollo!
God of the Meridian,
And of the East and West,
To thee my soul is flown,
And my body is earthward press'd.
It is an awful mission,
A terrible division;
And leaves a gulph austere
To be fill'd with worldly fear.
Aye, when the soul is fled
To high above our head,
Affr...

A simple nosegay! was that much to ask?
    (Winter still gloomed, with scarce a bud yet showing).
He loved her ill, if he resigned the task.
    'Somewhere,' she cried, 'there must be blossom blowing.'
It seems my lady wept and the troll swore
    By Heaven he hated tears: he'd cure her spleen;
Where she had begged one flower, he'd shower four-score,
    A haystack bunch to amaze a China Queen.

Cold fog-drawn Lily, pale mist-magic Rose
    He conjured, and in a glassy cauldron set
    With elvish unsubstantial Mignonette
And such vague bloom as wandering dreams enclose.
    But she?
        Awed,
                Charmed to tears,
                Distracted,
        Yet,
Even yet, perhaps, a trifle piqued, who knows?

'Tis May morning,
All-adorning,
No cloud warning
Of rain to-day.
Where shall I go to,
Go to, go to? -
Can I say No to
Lyonnesse-way?

Well what reason
Now at this season
Is there for treason
To other shrines?
Tristram is not there,
Isolt forgot there,
New eras blot there
Sought-for signs!

Stratford-on-Avon -
Poesy-paven -
I'll find a haven
There, somehow! -
Nay I'm but caught of
Dreams long thought of,
The Swan knows nought of
His Avon now!

What shall it be, then,
I go to see, then,
Under the plea, then,
Of votary?
I'll go to Lakeland,
Lakeland, Lakeland,
Certainly Lakeland
Let it be.

But why to that place,
That place, that place,
Such a hard come-a...

Honour thy parents; but good manners call
Thee to adore thy God the first of all.

    Fair one! embodiment of Loveliness!
    Angelic beauty beams upon thy countenance,
    And from its image of Lucretian purity
    Thine inborn virtue shines divinely forth.

    Thy sparkling eyes of bright cerulean blue,
    Rich sapphire gems, flash with Arcadian artlessness,
    Impelling Cupid's arrows, passion-fraught,
    Discharged from bow of myrtle 'gainst my heart,
    Which throbs and flutters, quivering from the thrust.

I know not what among the grass thou art,
    Thy nature, nor thy substance, fairest flower,
    Nor what to other eyes thou hast of power
To send thine image through them to the heart;
But when I push the frosty leaves apart
    And see thee hiding in thy wintry bower
    Thou growest up within me from that hour,
And through the snow I with the spring depart.

I have no words. But fragrant is the breath,
    Pale beauty, of thy second life within.
There is a wind that cometh for thy death,
    But thou a life immortal dost begin,
Where in one soul, which is thy heaven, shall dwell
Thy spirit, beautiful Unspeakable!

("La salle est magnifique.")

[IV. Aug. 23, 1839.]


The hall is gay with limpid lustre bright -
The feast to pampered palate gives delight -
The sated guests pick at the spicy food,
And drink profusely, for the cheer is good;
And at that table - where the wise are few -
Both sexes and all ages meet the view;
The sturdy warrior with a thoughtful face -
The am'rous youth, the maid replete with grace,
The prattling infant, and the hoary hair
Of second childhood's proselytes - are there; -
And the most gaudy in that spacious hall,
Are e'er the young, or oldest of them all
Helmet and banner, ornament and crest,
The lion rampant, and the jewelled vest,
The silver star that glitters fair and white,
The arms that tell of many a nation's mig...