He gloomily sat by the wall,
As gaily she danced with them all.
Her laughter's light spell
On every one fell;
His heartstrings were near unto rending,
But this there was none comprehending.

She fled from the house, when at eve
He came there to take his last leave.
To hide her she crept,
She wept and she wept;
Her life-hope was shattered past mending,
But this there was none comprehending.

Long years dragged but heavily o'er,
And then he came back there once more.
    - Her lot was the best,
    In peace and at rest;
Her thought was of him at life's ending,
But this there was none comprehending.

"Gingerbread,
Go to the head.
Your task is done;
A soul is won.
Take it and go
Where muffins grow,
Where sweet loaves rise
To the very skies,
And biscuits fair
Perfume the air.
Away, away!
Make no delay;
In the sea of flour
Plunge this hour.
Safe in your breast
Let the yeast-cake rest,
Till you rise in joy,
A white bread boy!"

Nettie, Nettie! oh, she's pretty!
With her wreath of golden curls;
None compare with charming Nettie,
She's the prettiest of girls.
Not her face alone is sweetest, -
Nor her eyes the bluest blue,
But her figure is the neatest
Of all forms I ever knew.
But she has a fault, - the greatest
That a pretty girl could have;
When she's looking the sedatist,
And pretending to be grave, -
You discover, 'spite of hiding,
What I feel constrained to tell;
That she knows she is a beauty, -
Knows it, - knows it, - aye, too well.
May be when the bloom has vanished;
Which we know in time it will;
And her foolish fancies banished,
May be, she'll be lovely still.
For though Time may put his finger,
On her dainty-fashioned face;
There will still some...

Cease, empty Faith, the Spectrum saith,
I was, and lo, have been;
I, God, am nought: a shade of thought,
Which, but by darkness seen,
Upon the unknown yourselves have thrown,
Placed it and light between.

At morning’s birth on darkened earth,
And as the evening sinks,
Awfully vast abroad is cast
The lengthened form that shrinks
And shuns the sight in midday light,
And underneath you slinks.

From barren strands of wintry lands
Across the seas of time,
Borne onward fast ye touch at last
An equatorial clime;

In equatorial noon sublime
At zenith stands the sun,
And lo, around, far, near, are found
Yourselves, and Shadow none.

A moment! yea! but when the day
At length was perfect day!
A moment! so! and light we k...

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grady
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so wryly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell he so,
And they are better for her praise.

Those who die on Christmas Day
(I heard the triumphant Seraph say)
Will be remembered, for they died
Upon the Holy Christmastide;
When they attain to Paradise,
The Angels with the tranquil Eyes
Will ask if Jesus rules on Earth
The Anniversary of His Birth;
This Question do they ask alway
Of those who die on Christmas Day.

Those who are born on Christmas Day
(I heard the triumphant Seraph say)
Will bring again the Peace on Earth
That came with gentle Christ His Birth;
They may be lowly Folk and poor
Living about the Manger Door,
They may be Kings of Mighty Line,
Their Lives alike will be benign;
To them belongeth Peace alway,
Those who are born on Christmas Day.

The year lies fallen and faded
On cliffs by clouds invaded,
With tongues of storms upbraided,
With wrath of waves bedinned;
And inland, wild with warning,
As in deaf ears or scorning,
The clarion even and morning
Rings of the south-west wind.

The wild bents wane and wither
In blasts whose breath bows hither
Their grey-grown heads and thither,
Unblest of rain or sun;
The pale fierce heavens are crowded
With shapes like dreams beclouded,
As though the old year enshrouded
Lay, long ere life were done.

Full-charged with oldworld wonders,
From dusk Tintagel thunders
A note that smites and sunders
The hard frore fields of air;
A trumpet stormier-sounded
Than once from lists rebounded
When strong men sense-confounded
Fel...

It was the Angel Azrael the Lord God sent below
At midnight, into every house in Egypt, long ago -
0 long, and long ago.


All day the wife of Pharaoh had paced the palace hall
Or the long white pillared court that was open to the sky;
A passion of wild restlessness ensnared her in its thrall
While she fought a fear within her - a thing that would not die.

She had sent away her maidens - their weeping vexed her ears -
Their pallid faces filled her with impatient pitying scorn; -
But she kept one time-worn woman, who long had outgrown fears,
The old brown nurse who held her son the day that he was born.

The mighty gods had failed her - the river-gods and the sun,
And the little gods of brass and stone - who stared but made no sign,
So she pled with them ...

        Earth's wheels run oiled with blood.    Forget we that.
        Let us lie down and dig ourselves in thought.
        Beauty is yours and you have mastery,
        Wisdom is mine, and I have mystery.
        We two will stay behind and keep our troth.
        Let us forego men's minds that are brute's natures,
        Let us not sup the blood which some say nurtures,
        Be we not swift with swiftness of the tigress.
        Let us break ranks from those who trek from progress.
        Miss we the march of this retreating world
        Into old citadels that are not walled.
        Let us lie out and hold the open truth.
        Then when their blood hath clogged the chariot wheels
        We will go up and wash them from deep wells.
        What though we s...

Where forlorn sunsets flare and fade
On desolate sea and lonely sand,
Out of the silence and the shade
What is the voice of strange command
Calling you still, as friend calls friend
With love that cannot brook delay,
To rise and follow the ways that wend
Over the hills and far away?

Hark in the city, street on street
A roaring reach of death and life,
Of vortices that clash and fleet
And ruin in appointed strife,
Hark to it calling, calling clear,
Calling until you cannot stay
From dearer things than your own most dear
Over the hills and far away.

Out of the sound of ebb and flow,
Out of the sight of lamp and star,
It calls you where the good winds blow,
And the unchanging meadows are:
From faded hopes and hopes agleam,
It ...

With a turn of his magical rod,
That extended and suddenly shone,
From the round of his glory some god
Looks forth and is gone.

To the summit of heaven the clouds
Are rolling aloft like steam;
There's a break in their infinite shrouds,
And below it a gleam.
O'er the drift of the river a whiff
Comes out from the blossoming shore;
And the meadows are greening, as if
They never were green before.

The islands are kindled with gold
And russet and emerald dye;
And the interval waters outrolled
Are more blue than the sky.
From my feet to the heart of the hills
The spirits of May intervene,
And a vapor of azure distills
Like a breath on the opaline green.

Only a moment! - and then
The chill and the shadow decline,
On the...

To see the clouds his spirit yearned toward so
Over new mountains piled and unploughed waves,
Back of old-storied spires and architraves
To watch Arcturus rise or Fomalhaut,

And roused by street-cries in strange tongues when day
Flooded with gold some domed metropolis,
Between new towers to waken and new bliss
Spread on his pillow in a wondrous way:

These were his joys. Oft under bulging crates,
Coming to market with his morning load,
The peasant found him early on his road
To greet the sunrise at the city-gates, -

There where the meadows waken in its rays,
Golden with mist, and the great roads commence,
And backward, where the chimney-tops are dense,
Cathedral-arches glimmer through the haze.

White dunes that breaking show a strip of s...

Hence they have borne my Lord; behold! the stone
Is rolled away and my sweet Saviour's gone.
Tell me, white angel, what is now become
Of Him we lately sealed up in this tomb?
Is He, from hence, gone to the shades beneath,
To vanquish hell as here He conquered death?
If so, I'll thither follow without fear,
And live in hell if that my Christ stays there.

Of all the good things whatsoe'er we do,
God is the {ARCHÊ}, and the {TELOS} too.

I asked the rock beside the road what joy existence lent.
It answered, 'For a million years my heart has been content.'

I asked the truffle-seeking swine, as rooting by he went,
'What is the keynote of your life?'    He grunted out, 'Content.'

I asked a slave, who toiled and sung, just what his singing meant.
He plodded on his changeless way, and said, 'I am content.'

I asked a plutocrat of greed, on what his thoughts were bent.
He chinked the silver in his purse, and said, 'I am content.'

I asked the mighty forest tree from whence its force was sent.
Its thousand branches spoke as one, and said, 'From discontent.'

I asked the message speeding on, by what great law was rent
God's secret from the waves of space.    It said, 'From discontent.'

I ...

Offspring of heaven, fair Freedom! impart
The light of thy spirit to quicken each heart.
Though the chains of oppression our free limbs ne'er bound,
Bid us feel for the wretch round whose soul they are wound;
Whose breast is corroded with anguish so deep
That the eye of the slave is too blood-shot to weep;
No balm from the fountain of nature will flow
When the mind is degraded by fetter and blow.

    The friends of humanity nobly have striven,
But the bonds of the heart-broken slave are unriven!
Whilst Religion extends o'er those champions her shield,
May they never to party or prejudice yield
The glorious cause by all freemen espoused.
A light shines abroad and the lion is roused;
The crush of the iron has struck fire from the stone;
Bid them back to the cha...

Come with the spring-time forth, fair maid, and be
This year again the meadow's deity.
Yet ere ye enter give us leave to set
Upon your head this flowery coronet;
To make this neat distinction from the rest,
You are the prime and princess of the feast;
To which with silver feet lead you the way,
While sweet-breath nymphs attend on you this day.
This is your hour, and best you may command,
Since you are lady of this fairy land.
Full mirth wait on you, and such mirth as shall
Cherish the cheek but make none blush at all.

I.

LOHENGRIN

Love, out of the depth of things,
As a dewfall felt from above,
From the heaven whence only springs
Love,

Love, heard from the heights thereof,
The clouds and the watersprings,
Draws close as the clouds remove.

And the soul in it speaks and sings,
A swan sweet-souled as a dove,
An echo that only rings
Love.

II.

TRISTAN UND ISOLDE

Fate, out of the deep sea's gloom,
When a man's heart's pride grows great,
And nought seems now to foredoom
Fate,

Fate, laden with fears in wait,
Draws close through the clouds that loom,
Till the soul see, all too late,

More dark than a dead world's tomb,
More high than the sheer dawn's gate,
More deep than the wide sea's womb,<...

Think not, because thine inmost heart means well,
Thou hast the freedom of rude speech: sweet words
Are like the voices of returning birds
Filling the soul with summer, or a bell
That calls the weary and the sick to prayer.
Even as thy thought, so let thy speech be fair.