Here, take my heart--'twill be safe in thy keeping,
    While I go wandering o'er land and o'er sea;
Smiling or sorrowing, waking or sleeping,
    What need I care, so my heart is with thee?

If in the race we are destined to run, love,
    They who have light hearts the happiest be,
Then happier still must be they who have none, love.
    And that will be my case when mine is with thee.

It matters not where I may now be a rover,
    I care not how many bright eyes I may see;
Should Venus herself come and ask me to love her,
    I'd tell her I couldn't--my heart is with thee.

And there let it lie, growing fonder and, fonder--
    For, even should Fortune turn truant to me,
Why, let her go--I've a treasure beyond her,
    As long as my heart'...

Return to greet me, colours that were my joy,
Not in the woeful crimson of men slain,
But shining as a garden; come with the streaming
Banners of dawn and sundown after rain.

I want to fill my gaze with blue and silver,
Radiance through living roses, spires of green
Rising in young-limbed copse and lovely wood,
Where the hueless wind passes and cries unseen.

I am not sad; only I long for lustre, -
Tired of the greys and browns and the leafless ash.
I would have hours that move like a glitter of dancers
Far from the angry guns that boom and flash.

Return, musical, gay with blossom and fleetness,
Days when my sight shall be clear and my heart rejoice;
Come from the sea with breadth of approaching brightness,
When the blithe wind laughs on the hills ...

    I know what beauty is, for thou
        Hast set the world within my heart;
        Of me thou madest it a part;
    I never loved it more than now.

    I know the Sabbath afternoons;
        The light asleep upon the graves:
        Against the sky the poplar waves;
    The river murmurs organ tunes.

    I know the spring with bud and bell;
        The hush in summer woods at night;
        Autumn, when trees let in more light;
    Fantastic winter's lovely spell.

    I know the rapture music gives,
        Its mystery of ordered tones:
        Dream-muffled soul, it loves and moans,
    And, half-alive, comes in and lives.

    And verse I know, whose concord high
        Of thought and music lifts the soul
        Where ...

By a void and soundless river
On the outer edge of space,
Where the body comes not ever,
But the absent dream hath place,
Stands a city, tall and quiet,
And its air is sweet and dim;
Never sound of grief or riot
Makes it mad, or makes it grim.

And the tender skies thereover
Neither sun, nor star, behold -
Only dusk it hath for cover, -
But a glamour soft with gold,
Through a mist of dreamier essence
Than the dew of twilight, smiles
On strange shafts and domes and crescents,
Lifting into eerie piles.

In its courts and hallowed places
Dreams of distant worlds arise,
Shadows of transfigured faces,
Glimpses of immortal eyes,
Echoes of serenest pleasure,
Notes of perfect speech that fall,
Through an air of endless leisure,<...

    Think Valentine, as speeding on thy way
        Homeward thou hastest light of heart along,
    If heavily creep on one little day
        The medley crew of travellers among,
    Think on thine absent friend: reflect that here
        On Life's sad journey comfortless he roves,
    Remote from every scene his heart holds dear,
        From him he values, and from her he loves.
    And when disgusted with the vain and dull
        Whom chance companions of thy way may doom,
    Thy mind, of each domestic comfort full,
        Turns to itself and meditates on home,
    Ah think what Cares must ache within his breast
Who loaths the lingering road, yet has no home of rest!

Furl that Banner, for 'tis weary;
Round its staff 'tis drooping dreary;
    Furl it, fold it, it is best;
For there's not a man to wave it,
And there's not a sword to save it,
And there's not one left to lave it
In the blood which heroes gave it;
And its foes now scorn and brave it;
    Furl it, hide it -- let it rest!

Take that Banner down! 'tis tattered;
Broken is its staff and shattered;
And the valiant hosts are scattered
    Over whom it floated high.
Oh! 'tis hard for us to fold it;
Hard to think there's none to hold it;
Hard that those who once unrolled it
    Now must furl it with a sigh.

Furl that Banner! furl it sadly!
Once ten thousands hailed it gladly,
And ten thousands wildly, madly,
    Swore it should forever wav...

Thou art sleeping, brother, sleeping
    In thy lonely battle grave;
Shadows o'er the past are creeping,
Death, the reaper, still is reaping,
Years have swept, and years are sweeping
Many a memory from my keeping,
But I'm waiting still, and weeping
    For my beautiful and brave.

When the battle songs were chanted,
    And war's stirring tocsin pealed,
By those songs thy heart was haunted,
And thy spirit, proud, undaunted,
Clamored wildly -- wildly panted:
"Mother! let my wish be granted;
I will ne'er be mocked and taunted
That I fear to meet our vaunted
    Foemen on the bloody field.

"They are thronging, mother! thronging,
    To a thousand fields of fame;
Let me go -- 'tis wrong, and wronging
God and thee to crush this longin...

The time I've lost in wooing,
In watching and pursuing
    The light, that lies
    In woman's eyes,
Has been my heart's undoing.
Tho' Wisdom oft has sought me,
I scorned the lore she brought me,
    My only books
    Were woman's looks,
And folly's all they've taught me.

Her smile when Beauty granted,
I hung with gaze enchanted,
    Like him the Sprite,[1]
    Whom maids by night
Oft meet in glen that's haunted.
Like him, too, Beauty won me,
But while her eyes were on me,
    If once their ray
    Was turned away,
O! winds could not outrun me.

And are those follies going?
And is my proud heart growing
    Too cold or wise
    For brilliant eyes
Again to set it glowing?
No, vain, alas! the end...

    They turned him loose; he bowed his head,
    A felon, bent and grey.
    His face was even as the Dead,
    He had no word to say.

    He sought the home of his old love,
    To look on her once more;
    And where her roses breathed above,
    He cowered beside the door.

    She sat there in the shining room;
    Her hair was silver grey.
    He stared and stared from out the gloom;
    He turned to go away.

    Her roses rustled overhead.
    She saw, with sudden start.
    "I knew that you would come," she said,
    And held him to her heart.

    Her face was rapt and angel-sweet;
    She touched his hair of grey;
    . . . . .
    BUT HE, SOB-SHAKEN, AT HER FEET,
    COULD ONLY PRAY AND PRAY.

I have dreamed sweet dreams of a summer night,
When the moon was walking in cloudless light,
And my soul to the regions of Fancy sprung,
While the spirits of air their soft anthems sung,
Strains wafted down from those heavenly spheres
Which may not be warbled in waking ears;
More sweet than the voice of waters flowing,
Than the breeze over beds of violets blowing,
When it stirs the pines, and sultry day
Fans himself cool with their tremulous play.
On the sleeper's ear those rich notes stealing,
Speak of purer and holier feeling
Than man in his pilgrimage here below,
In the bondage of sin, can ever know.

    I heard in my slumbers the ceaseless roar
Of the sparkling waves, as they met the shore,
Till lulled by the surge of the moon-lit deep,
By the h...

Anteros.


I.

    This is the feast-day of my soul and me,
    For I am half a god and half a man.
    These are the hours in which are heard by sea,
    By land and wave, and in the realms of space,
    The lute-like sounds which sanctify my span,
    And give me power to sway the human race.


II.

    I am the king whom men call Lucifer,
    I am the genius of the nether spheres.
    Give me my Christian name, and I demur.
    Call me a Greek, and straightway I rejoice.
    Yea, I am Anteros, and with my tears
    I salt the earth tha...

Once upon a time, I lay
Fast asleep at dawn of day;
Windows open to the south,
Fancy pouting her sweet mouth
To my ear.
    She turned a globe
In her slender hand, her robe
Was all spangled; and she said,
As she sat at my bed's head,
"Poet, poet, what, asleep!
Look! the ray runs up the steep
To your roof." Then in the golden
Essence of romances olden,
Bathed she my entrancéd heart.
And she gave a hand to me,
Drew me onward, "Come!" said she;
And she moved with me apart,
Down the lovely vale of Leisure.

Such its name was, I heard say,
For some Fairies trooped that way;
Common people of the place,
Taking their accustomed pleasure,
(All the clocks being stopped) to race
Down the slope on palfreys fleet.
Bridle bells m...

'Tis a land where no hurricane falls,
But the infinite azure regards
Its waters for ever, its walls
Of granite, its limitless swards;
Where the fens to their innermost pool
With the chorus of May are aring,
And the glades are wind-winnowed and cool
With perpetual spring;

Where folded and half withdrawn
The delicate wind-flowers blow,
And the bloodroot kindles at dawn
Her spiritual taper of snow;
Where the limits are met and spanned
By a waste that no husbandman tills,
And the earth-old pine forests stand
In the hollows of hills.

'Tis the land that our babies behold,
Deep gazing when none are aware;
And the great-hearted seers of old
And the poets have known it, and there
Made halt by the well-heads of truth
On their difficu...

I have opened the window to warm my hands on the sill
Where the sunlight soaks in the stone: the afternoon
Is full of dreams, my love, the boys are all still
In a wistful dream of Lorna Doone.

The clink of the shunting engines is sharp and fine,
Like savage music striking far off, and there
On the great, uplifted blue palace, lights stir and shine
Where the glass is domed in the blue, soft air.

There lies the world, my darling, full of wonder and wistfulness and strange
Recognition and greetings of half-acquaint things, as I greet the cloud
Of blue palace aloft there, among misty indefinite dreams that range
At the back of my life's horizon, where the dreamings of past lives crowd.

Over the nearness of Norwood Hill, through the mellow veil
Of the afternoon ...

Soon as the glazed and gleaming snow
Reflects the day-dawn cold and clear,
The hunter of the west must go
In depth of woods to seek the deer.

His rifle on his shoulder placed,
His stores of death arranged with skill,
His moccasins and snow-shoes laced,
Why lingers he beside the hill?

Far, in the dim and doubtful light,
Where woody slopes a valley leave,
He sees what none but lover might,
The dwelling of his Genevieve.

And oft he turns his truant eye,
And pauses oft, and lingers near;
But when he marks the reddening sky,
He bounds away to hunt the deer.

Tho' right be aft put down by strength,
As mony a day we saw that,
The true and leilfu' cause at length
Shall bear the grie for a' that.
For a' that an a' that,
Guns, guillotines, and a' that,
The Fleur-de-lis, that lost her right,
Is queen again for a' that!

We'll twine her in a friendly knot
With England's rose and a' that,
The Shamrock shall not be forgot,
For Wellington made bra' that.
The Thistle, tho' her leaf be rude,
Yet faith we'll no misca' that,
She sheltered in her solitude
The Fleur-de-lis, for a' that!

The Austrian Vine, the Prussian pine.
(For Blucher's sake, hurra that,)
The Spanish olive too shall join,
And bloom in peace for a' that.
Stout Russia's hemp, so surely twin'd
Around our wreath we'll draw that,<...

Standomi un giorno solo alla finestra.

UNDER VARIOUS ALLEGORIES HE PAINTS THE VIRTUE, BEAUTY, AND UNTIMELY DEATH OF LAURA.


    While at my window late I stood alone,
So new and many things there cross'd my sight,
To view them I had almost weary grown.
A dappled hind appear'd upon the right,
In aspect gentle, yet of stately stride,
By two swift greyhounds chased, a black and white,
Who tore in the poor side
Of that fair creature wounds so deep and wide,
That soon they forced her where ravine and rock
The onward passage block:
Then triumph'd Death her matchless beauties o'er,
And left me lonely there her sad fate to deplore.

Upon the summer wave a gay ship danced,
Her cordage was of silk, of gold her sails,
Her sides with ivory and...