‘Old things need not be therefore true,’
O brother men, nor yet the new;
Ah! still awhile the old thought retain,
And yet consider it again!

The souls of now two thousand years,
Have laid up here their toils and fears,
And all the earnings of their pain,
Ah, yet consider it again!

We! what do we see? each a space
Of some few yards before his face;
Does that the whole wide plan explain?
Ah, yet consider it again!

Alas! the great world goes its way,
And takes its truth from each new day;
They do not quit, nor can retain,
Far less consider it again.

Maiden most beautiful, mother most bountiful, lady of lands,
Queen and republican, crowned of the centuries whose years are thy sands,
See for thy sake what we bring to thee, Italy, here in our hands.

This is the banner thy gonfalon, fair in the front of thy fight,
Red from the hearts that were pierced for thee, white as thy mountains are white,
Green as the spring of thy soul everlasting, whose life-blood is light.

Take to thy bosom thy banner, a fair bird fit for the nest,
Feathered for flight into sunrise or sunset, for eastward or west,
Fledged for the flight everlasting, but held yet warm to thy breast.

Gather it close to thee, song-bird or storm-bearer, eagle or dove,
Lift it to sunward, a beacon beneath to the beacon above,
Green as our hope in it, white as ou...

Oh, is there not one maiden breast
Which does not feel the moral beauty
Of making worldly interest
Subordinate to sense of duly?
Who would not give up willingly
All matrimonial ambition,
To rescue such a one as I
From his unfortunate position?

Oh, is there not one maiden here,
Whose homely face and bad complexion
Have caused all hopes to disappear
Of ever winning man's affection?
To such a one, if such there be,
I swear by Heaven's arch above you,
If you will cast your eyes on me,
However plain you be I'll love you!

Life is a house where many chambers be,
    And all the doors will yield to him who tries,
    Save one, whereof men say, behind it lies
The haunting secret.    He who keeps the key,

Keeps it securely, smiles perchance to see
    The eager hands stretched out to clutch the prize,
    Or looks with pity in the yearning eyes,
And is half moved to let the secret free.

And truly some at every hour pass through,
    Pass through, and tread upon that solemn floor,
            Yet come not back to tell what they have found.
We will not importune, as others do,
    With tears and cries, the keeper of the door,
            But wait till our appointed hour comes round.

He advances to the edge of the crater. Smoke and fire break forth with a loud noise, and CALLICLES is heard below singing:



The lyre’s voice is lovely everywhere!
In the court of Gods, in the city of men,
And in the lonely rock-strewn mountain glen.
In the still mountain air.

Only to Typho it sounds hatefully!
To Typho only, the rebel o’erthrown,
Through whose heart Etna drives her roots of stone,
To imbed them in the sea.

Wherefore dost thou groan so loud?
Wherefore do thy nostrils flash,
Through the dark night, suddenly,
Typho, such red jets of flame?
Is thy tortur’d heart still proud?
Is thy fire-scath’d arm still rash?
Still alert thy stone-crush’d frame?
Doth thy fierce soul still deplore
The ancient rout by the Ci...

How like a hooded friar, bent and grey,
Whose pensive lips speak only when they pray
Doth sad November pass upon his way.

Through forest aisles while the wind chanteth low -
In God's cathedral where the great trees grow,
Now all day long he paceth to and fro.

When shadows gather and the night-mists rise,
Up to the hills he lifts his sombre eyes
To where the last red rose of sunset lies.

A little smile he weareth, wise and cold,
The smile of one to whom all things are old,
And life is weary, as a tale twice told.

"Come see," he seems to say - "where joy has fled -
The leaves that burned but yesterday so red
Have turned to ashes - and the flowers are dead.

"The summer's green and gold hath taken flight,
October days have gone. Now b...

Not of the seething cities with their swarming human hives,
Their fetid airs, their reeking streets, their dwarfed and poisoned lives,
Not of the buried yesterdays, but of the days to be,
The glory and the gateway of the yellow West is she.

The Northern Lights dance down her plains with soft and silvery feet,
The sunrise gilds her prairies when the dawn and daylight meet;
Along her level lands the fitful southern breezes sweep,
And beyond her western windows the sublime old mountains sleep.

The Redman haunts her portals, and the Paleface treads her streets,
The Indian's stealthy footstep with the course of commerce meets,
And hunters whisper vaguely of the half forgotten tales
Of phantom herds of bison lurking on her midnight trails.

Not hers the lore of olden l...

My wearied bark, O let it now be crown'd!
The haven reach'd to which I first was bound.

"Whom seek you here, sweet Mistress Fell?"
"One who loved me passing well.
Dark his eye, wild his face -
Stranger, if in this lonely place
Bide such an one, then, prythee, say
I am come here to-day."

"Many his like, Mistress Fell?"
"I did not look, so cannot tell.
Only this I surely know,
When his voice called me, I must go;
Touched me his fingers, and my heart
Leapt at the sweet pain's smart."

"Why did he leave you, Mistress Fell?"
"Magic laid its dreary spell. -
Stranger, he was fast asleep;
Into his dream I tried to creep;
Called his name, soft was my cry;
He answered - not one sigh.

"The flower and the thorn are here;
Falleth the night-dew, cold and clear;
Out of her bower the bird replies,
Mocking the dark with e...

Two mice, dear boy, of genteel fashion,
And, what is more, good education,
Frolic and gay, in infant years
Equally shared their parents' cares.
The sire of these two babes (poor creature)
Paid his last debt to human nature;
A wealthy widow left behind,
Four babes, three male, one female kind,
The sire being under ground, and buried,
'Twas thought his spouse would soon have married;
Matches proposed, and numerous suitors,
Most tender husbands, careful tutors,
She modestly refused, and show'd
She'd be a mother to her brood.

Mother, dear mother, that endearing thought
Has thousand and ten thousand fancies brought.
Tell me, oh! tell me (thou art now above)
How to describe thy true maternal love,
Thy early pangs, thy growing anxious cares,
Thy ...

Ne commonentem recta sperne.—Buchanan.


Despise not my good counsel.


He who sits from day to day
Where the prison’d lark is hung,
Heedless of his loudest lay,
Hardly knows that he has sung.


Where the watchman in his round
Nightly lifts his voice on high,
None, accustom’d to the sound,
Wakes the sooner for his cry.


So your verse-man I, and clerk,
Yearly in my song proclaim
Death at hand—yourselves his mark—
And the foe’s unerring aim.


Duly at my time I come,
Publishing to all aloud—
Soon the grave must be your home,
And your only suit, a shroud.


But the monitory strain,
Oft repeated in your ears,
Seems to sound too much in vain,
Wins no notice, wakes no fears.
<...

Sometimes I fly at dawn above the sea,
Where, underneath, the restless waters flow -
Silver, and cold, and slow.
Dim in the East there burns a new-born sun,
Whose rosy gleams along the ripples run,
Save where the mist droops low,
Hiding the level loneliness from me.

And now appears beneath the milk-white haze
A little fleet of anchored ships, which lie
In clustered company,
And seem as they are yet fast bound by sleep,
Although the day has long begun to peep,
With red-inflamèd eye,
Along the still, deserted ocean ways.

The fresh, cold wind of dawn blows on my face
As in the sun's raw heart I swiftly fly,
And watch the seas glide by.
Scarce human seem I, moving through the skies,
And far removed from warlike enterprise -
Like some gre...

    With our hearts like drifting suns, had we but walked,
    As often before, the April fields till star - light
    Silkened over with viewless gauze the darkness
    Under the cliff, our trysting place in the wood,
    Where the brook turns! Had we but passed from wooing
    Like notes of music that run together, into winning,
    In the inspired improvisation of love!
    But to put back of us as a canticle ended
    The rapt enchantment of the flesh,
    In which our souls swooned, down, down,
    Where time was not, nor space, nor ourselves -
    Annihilated in love!
    To leave these behind for a room with lamps:
    And to stand with our Secret mocking itself,
    And hiding itself amid flowers and mandolins,
    Stared at by all between salad and coffee....

Earth, sweet Earth, sweet landscape, with leavès throng
And louchèd low grass, heaven that dost appeal
To, with no tongue to plead, no heart to feel;
That canst but only be, but dost that long -

Thou canst but be, but that thou well dost; strong
Thy plea with him who dealt, nay does now deal,
Thy lovely dale down thus and thus bids reel
Thy river, and o'er gives all to rack or wrong.

And what is Earth's eye, tongue, or heart else, where
Else, but in dear and dogged man? - Ah, the heir
To his own selfbent so bound, so tied to his turn,
To thriftless reave both our rich round world bare
And none reck of world after, this bids wear
Earth brows of such care, care and dear concern.

Our souls shall be Leviathans
In purple seas of wine
When drunkenness is dead with death,
And drink is all divine;
Learning in those immortal vats
What mortal vineyards mean;
For only in heaven we shall know
How happy we have been.

Like clouds that wallow in the wind
Be free to drift and drink;
Tower without insolence when we rise,
Without surrender sink:
Dreams dizzy and crazy we shall know
And have no need to write
Our blameless blasphemies of praise,
Our nightmares of delight.

For so in such misshapen shape
The vision came to me,
Where such titanian dolphins dark
Roll in a sunset sea:
Dark with dense colours, strange and strong
As terrible true love,
Haloed like fish in phospher light
The holy monsters move.

And he is risen? Well, be it so . . .
And still the pensive lands complain,
And dead men wait as long ago,
As if, much doubting, they would know
What they are ransomed from, before
They pass again their sheltering door.

I stand amid them in the rain,
While blusters vex the yew and vane;
And on the road the weary wain
Plods forward, laden heavily;
And toilers with their aches are fain
For endless rest though risen is he.

(To a tune of Blake’s)
I.
Baby, baby bright,
Sleep can steal from sight
Little of your light:
Soft as fire in dew,
Still the life in you
Lights your slumber through.
Four white eyelids keep
Fast the seal of sleep
Deep as love is deep:
Yet, though closed it lies,
Love behind them spies
Heaven in two blue eyes.

II.
Baby, baby dear,
Earth and heaven are near
Now, for heaven is here.
Heaven is every place
Where your flower-sweet face
Fills our eyes with grace.
Till your own eyes deign
Earth a glance again,
Earth and heaven are twain.
Now your sleep is done,
Shine, and show the sun
Earth and heaven are one.

III.
Baby, baby sweet,
Love’s own lips are meet
Scarce to kiss your fee...

I have brought no store from the field now the day is ended,
    The harvest moon is up and I bear no sheaves;
When the toilers carry the fruits hanging gold and splendid,
I have but leaves.

When the saints pass by in the pride of their stainless raiment,
    Their brave hearts high with the joy of the gifts they bring,
I have saved no whit from the sum of my daily payment
For offering.

Not there is my place where the workman his toil delivers,
    I scarce can see the ground where the hero stands,
I must wait as the one poor fool in that host of givers,
With empty hands.

There was no time lent to me that my skill might fashion
    Some work of praise, some glory, some thing of light,
For the swarms of hell came on in their power and passion,
I co...