AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO E. J.


Experience, like a pale musician, holds
A dulcimer of patience in his hand,
Whence harmonies, we cannot understand,
Of God; will in his worlds, the strain unfolds
In sad-perplexed minors: deathly colds
Fall on us while we hear, and countermand
Our sanguine heart back from the fancyland
With nightingales in visionary wolds.
We murmur' Where is any certain tune
Or measured music in such notes as these?'
But angels, leaning from the golden seat,
Are not so minded their fine ear hath won
The issue of completed cadences,
And, smiling down the stars, they whisper sweet.

        Wild years that are to be
    The sad completion of my weary life,
    In ghostly mantles of despairing strife
    Your phanton dimness darkly shadows me!
    Gaunt demons dancing from your horrid halls
    Entwine my soul in gloomy arms of woe,
    While mystic fancies to my madness show
        The monsters on your walls.

        Your forms are skeletons,
    Whose bony hands with mortal fingers play,
    Where grinning skulls are heaping on the way,
    And airy specters meet the timid ones;
    Death drops his arrows from your sullen skies,
    Destruction dances in your noisome shades,
    And in the dreadful darkness of your glades
        The horrid shriekings rise.

        There in your cycles are
    Dark valleys where my wear...

How low soe’er men rank us,
How high soe’er we win,
The children far above us
Dwell, and they deign to love us,
With lovelier love than ours,
And smiles more sweet than flowers;
As though the sun should thank us
For letting light come in.

With too divine complaisance,
Whose grace misleads them thus,
Being gods, in heavenly blindness
They call our worship kindness,
Our pebble-gift a gem:
They think us good to them,
Whose glance, whose breath, whose presence,
Are gifts too good for us.

The poet high and hoary
Of meres that mountains bind
Felt his great heart more often
Yearn, and its proud strength soften
From stern to tenderer mood,
At thought of gratitude
Shown than of song or story
He heard of hearts unkind.

Tune - "Let me in this ae night."



I.

    Forlorn, my love, no comfort near,
    Far, far from thee, I wander here;
    Far, far from thee, the fate severe
        At which I most repine, love.
            O wert thou, love, but near me;
            But near, near, near me;
            How kindly thou wouldst cheer me,
                And mingle sighs with mine, love

II.

    Around me scowls a wintry sky,
    That blasts each bud of hope and joy;
    And shelter, shade, nor home have I,
        Save in those arms of thine, love.

III.

    Cold, alter'd friendship's cruel part,
    To poison Fortune's ruthless dart,
    Let me not break thy faithful heart,
        And say that fate is mine, lov...

But I have looked on pictures made by man,
Wherein, at first, appeared but chaos wild;
So high the art transcended, it beguiled
The eye as formless, and without a plan;
Until the spirit, brooding o'er, began
To see a purpose rise, like mountains piled,
When God said: Let the dry earth, undefiled,
Rise from the waves: it rose in twilight wan.
And so I fear thy pictures were too strange
For us to pierce beyond their outmost look;
A vapour and a darkness; a sealed book;
An atmosphere too high for wings to range:
At God's designs our spirits pale and change,
Trembling as at a void, thought cannot brook.

How he sleepeth! having drunken
Weary childhood's mandragore,
From his pretty eyes have sunken
Pleasures, to make room for more
Sleeping near the withered nosegay, which he pulled the day before.

Nosegays! leave them for the waking:
Throw them earthward where they grew.
Dim are such, beside the breaking
Amaranths he looks unto
Folded eyes see brighter colours than the open ever do.

Heaven-flowers, rayed by shadows golden
From the paths they sprang beneath,
Now perhaps divinely holden,
Swing against him in a wreath
We may think so from the quickening of his bloom and of his breath.

Vision unto vision calleth,
While the young child dreameth on.
Fair, O dreamer, thee befalleth
With the glory thou hast won!
Darker wert thou in the ...

OD. i. 14.

Yet on fresh billows seaward wilt thou ride,
O ship? What dost thou? Seek a hav'n, and there
Rest thee: for lo! thy side
Is oarless all and bare,

And the swift south-west wind hath maimed thy mast,
And thy yards creak, and, every cable lost,
Yield must thy keel at last
On pitiless sea-waves tossed

Too rudely. Goodly canvas is not thine,
Nor gods, to hear thee now, when need is sorest:-
Though thou - a Pontic pine,
Child of a stately forest, -

Boastest high name and empty pedigree,
Pale seamen little trust the gaudy sail:
Stay, unless doomed to be
The plaything of the gale.

Flee - what of late sore burden was to me,
Now a sad memory and a bitter pain, -
Those shining Cyclads flee
That stud the far-off...

Donne, the delight of Phoebus and each Muse
Who, to thy one, all other brains refuse;
Whose every work of thy most early wit
Came forth example, and remains so yet;
Longer a-knowing than most wits do live;
And which no affection praise enough can give!
To it, thy language, letters, arts, best life,
Which might with half mankind maintain a strife.
All which I meant to praise, and yet I would;
But leave, because I cannot as I should!

Night and the sea, and heaven overhead
Cloudless and vast, as 'twere of hollowed spar,
Wherein the facets gleamed of many a star,
And the half-moon a crystal radiance shed.
Then suddenly, with burning banners spread,
In pale celestial armour, as for war,
Into the heaven, flaming from afar,
The Northern Lights their phalanxed splendours led.
Night, for the moment, seemed to catch her breath,
And earth gazed, silent with astonishment,
As spear on spear the auroral armies came;
As when, triumphant over hell and death,
The victor angels thronged God's firmament
With sword on sword and burning oriflamme.

The dying words of Goethe.

"Light! more light! the shadows deepen,
    And my life is ebbing low,
Throw the windows widely open:
    Light! more light! before I go.

"Softly let the balmy sunshine
    Play around my dying bed,
E'er the dimly lighted valley
    I with lonely feet must tread.

"Light! more light! for Death is weaving
    Shadows 'round my waning sight,
And I fain would gaze upon him
    Through a stream of earthly light."

Not for greater gifts of genius;
    Not for thoughts more grandly bright,
All the dying poet whispers
    Is a prayer for light, more light.

Heeds he not the gathered laurels,
    Fading slowly from his sight;
All the poet's aspirations
    Centre in that prayer for light.
<...

What is it now that I shall seek
Where woods dip downward, in the hills? -
A mossy nook, a ferny creek,
And May among the daffodils.

Or in the valley's vistaed glow,
Past rocks of terraced trumpet vines,
Shall I behold her coming slow,
Sweet May, among the columbines?

With redbud cheeks and bluet eyes,
Big eyes, the homes of happiness,
To meet me with the old surprise,
Her wild-rose hair all bonnetless.

Who waits for me, where, note for note,
The birds make glad the forest trees? -
A dogwood blossom at her throat,
My May among th' anemones.

As sweetheart breezes kiss the blooms,
And dews caress the moon's pale beams,
My soul shall drink her lips' perfumes,
And know the magic of her dreams.

Yes! thou art fair, yet be not moved
To scorn the declaration,
That sometimes I in thee have loved
My fancy's own creation.

Imagination needs must stir;
Dear Maid, this truth believe,
Minds that have nothing to confer
Find little to perceive.

Be pleased that nature made thee fit
To feed my heart's devotion,
By laws to which all Forms submit
In sky, air, earth, and ocean.

Place thy lilly-white hand in mine,
Maid with the wealth of golden hair; -
Tresses, that gleaming like gold, entwine,
Round about a sweet face so fair.

Sweetheart, oh! whisper once more the words,
That came from those coral lips of thine,
And bound thee to me by those silken cords, -
And place thy lilly-white hand in mine,

Place thy lilly-white hand in mine,
That its gentle pressure may tell my heart
That the idol round which I had reared a shrine,
Is mine, - mine, - never from me to part.

Sweetest and fairest of woman kind!
Gentlest, kindest, lovingest, best, -
Virtues with beauties are so combined,
That manhood pays homage at love's behest.

Place thy lilly-white hand in mine,
Let its velvet touch on my horny palm,
Comfort, e...

"We have the receipt of fern seed: we walk invisible."

Henry IV

And we have met but twice or thrice!
Three times enough to make me love!
I praised your hair once; then your glove;
Your eyes; your gown; you were like ice;
And yet this might suffice, my love,
And yet this might suffice.

St. John hath told me what to do:
To search and find the ferns that grow
The fern seed that the faeries know;
Then sprinkle fern seed in my shoe,
And haunt the steps of you, my dear,
And haunt the steps of you.

You'll see the poppy pods dip here;
The blow-ball of the thistle slip,
And no wind breathing but my lip
Next to your anxious cheek and ear,
To tell you I am near, my love,
To tell you I am near.

On wood-ways I shall tread y...

You remember Ellen, our hamlet's pride,
    How meekly she blest her humble lot,
When the stranger, William, had made her his bride,
    And love was the light of their lowly cot.
Together they toiled through winds and rains,
    Till William, at length, in sadness said,
"We must seek our fortune on other plains;"--
    Then, sighing, she left her lowly shed.

They roamed a long and a weary way,
    Nor much was the maiden's heart at ease,
When now, at close of one stormy day,
    They see a proud castle among the trees.
"To-night," said the youth, "we'll shelter there;
    "The wind blows cold, the hour is late:"
So he blew the horn with a chieftain's air,
    And the Porter bowed, as they past the gate.

"Now, welcome, Lady," exclaimed the youth,--...

Autumn, thy rushing blast
    Sweeps in wild eddies by,
Whirling the sear leaves past,
    Beneath my feet, to die.
Nature her requiem sings
    In many a plaintive tone,
As to the wind she flings
    Sad music, all her own.

The murmur of the rill
    Is hoarse and sullen now,
And the voice of joy is still
    In grove and leafy bough.
There's not a single wreath,
    Of all Spring's thousand flowers,
To strew her bier in death,
    Or deck her faded bowers.

I hear a spirit sigh
    Where the meeting pines resound,
Which tells me all must die,
    As the leaf dies on the ground.
The brightest hopes we cherish,
    Which own a mortal trust,
But bloom awhile to perish
    And moulder in the dust.

Sweep on...

Oh, I am weak to serve thee as I ought;
My shroud of flesh obscures thy deity,
So thy sweet Spirit that should embolden me
To shake my wings out wide, serves me for nought,
But receives tarnish, vile dishonour, wrought
By that thou earnest to bless--O agony
And unendurable shame! that, loving thee,
I dare not love, fearing my poisonous thought!

Man is too vile for any such high grace,
For that he seeks to honour he can but mar;
So had I rather shun thy starry face
And fly the exultation to know thee near--
For if one glance from me wrought thee a scar
'Twould not be death, but life that I should fear.

    If I have given myself to you and you,
    And if these pale hands are not virginal,
    Nor these bright lips beneath your own lips true,
    What matters it?    I do not stand nor fall
    By your old foolish judgments of desire:
    If this were Helen's way it is not mine;
    I bring you beauty, but no Troys to fire:
    The cup I hold brims not with Borgia's wine.
    You, so soon snared of sudden brows and breasts,
    Lightly you think upon these lips, this hair.
    My thoughts are kinder: you are pity's guests:
    Compassion's bed you share.

    It was not lust delivered me to you;
    I gave my wondering mouth for pity's sake,
    For your strange, sighing lips I did but break
    Many times this bread, and poured this wine anew.
    My bo...