A thousand perfect men and women appear,
Around each gathers a cluster of friends, and gay children and youths, with offerings.

    I.

    We bore him through the golden land,
    One early harvest morn;
    The corn stood ripe on either hand--
    He knew all about the corn.

    How shall the harvest gathered be
    Without him standing by?
    Without him walking on the lea,
    The sky is scarce a sky.

    The year's glad work is almost done;
    The land is rich in fruit;
    Yellow it floats in air and sun--
    Earth holds it by the root.

    Why should earth hold it for a day
    When harvest-time is come?
    Death is triumphant o'er decay,
    And leads the ripened home.


    II.

    And though the sun be not so warm,
    His shining is not lost;
    Both corn and hope, of heart and farm,
    Lie hid from coming...

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.

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.

Hast never come to thee an hour,
A sudden gleam divine, precipitating, bursting all these bubbles, fashions, wealth?
These eager business aims--books, politics, art, amours,
To utter nothingness?

"Where shall we land you, sweet?" - Swinburne.


All listlessly we float
Out seaward in the boat
        That beareth Love.
Our sails of purest snow
Bend to the blue below
    And to the blue above.
        Where shall we land?

We drift upon a tide
Shoreless on every side,
    Save where the eye
Of Fancy sweeps far lands
Shelved slopingly with sands
    Of gold and porphyry.
        Where shall we land?

The fairy isles we see,
Loom up so mistily -
    So vaguely fair,
We do not care to break
Fresh bubbles in our wake
    To bend our course for there.
        Where shall we land?

The warm winds of the deep
Have lulled our sails to sleep,
    And so we glide
Careless of wave or wind,
O...

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...

Yes, fairest Proof of Beauty's Pow'r,
Dear Idol of My panting Heart,
Nature points This my fatal Hour:
And I have liv'd; and We must part.

While now I take my last Adieu,
Heave Thou no Sigh, nor shed a Tear;
Lest yet my half-clos'd Eye may view
On Earth an Object worth it's Care.

From Jealousy's tormenting Strife
For ever be Thy Bosom free'd:
That nothing may disturb Thy Life,
Content I hasten to the Dead.

Yet when some better-fated Youth
Shall with his am'rous Parly move Thee;
Reflect One Moment on His Truth,
Who dying Thus, persists to love Thee.

A budding mouth and warm blue eyes;
A laughing face; and laughing hair, -
So ruddy was its rise
From off that forehead fair;

Frank fervor in whate'er she said,
And a shy grace when she was still;
A bright, elastic tread;
Enthusiastic will;

These wrought the magic of a maid
As sweet and sad as the sun in spring; -
Joyous, yet half-afraid
Her joyousness to sing.

I have been reading Pomfret’s “Choice” this spring,
A pretty kind of—sort of—kind of thing,
Not much a verse, and poem none at all,
Yet, as they say, extremely natural.
And yet I know not. There’s an art in pies,
In raising crusts as well as galleries;
And he’s the poet, more or less, who knows
The charm that hallows the least truth from prose,
And dresses it in its mild singing clothes.
Not oaks alone are trees, nor roses flowers;
Much humble wealth makes rich this world of ours.
Nature from some sweet energy throws up
Alike the pine-mount and the buttercup;
And truth she makes so precious, that to paint
Either, shall shrine an artist like a saint,
And bring him in his turn the crowds that press
Round Guido’s saints or Titian’s goddesses.

Our trivi...

Exiled afar from youth and happy love,
If Death should ravish my fond spirit hence
I have no doubt but, like a homing dove,
It would return to its dear residence,
And through a thousand stars find out the road
Back into earthly flesh that was its loved abode.

This ancient silver bowl of mine, it tells of good old times,
Of joyous days and jolly nights, and merry Christmas times;
They were a free and jovial race, but honest, brave, and true,
Who dipped their ladle in the punch when this old bowl was new.

A Spanish galleon brought the bar, - so runs the ancient tale;
'T was hammered by an Antwerp smith, whose arm was like a flail;
And now and then between the strokes, for fear his strength should fail,
He wiped his brow and quaffed a cup of good old Flemish ale.

'T was purchased by an English squire to please his loving dame,
Who saw the cherubs, and conceived a longing for the same;
And oft as on the ancient stock another twig was found,
'T was filled with candle spiced and hot, and handed smoking round.

But, changing...

        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...

It was a wet wan hour in spring,
And Nature met King Doom beside a lane,
Wherein Hodge trudged, all blithely ballading
The Mother's smiling reign.

"Why warbles he that skies are fair
And coombs alight," she cried, "and fallows gay,
When I have placed no sunshine in the air
Or glow on earth to-day?"

"'Tis in the comedy of things
That such should be," returned the one of Doom;
"Charge now the scene with brightest blazonings,
And he shall call them gloom."

She gave the word: the sun outbroke,
All Froomside shone, the hedgebirds raised a song;
And later Hodge, upon the midday stroke,
Returned the lane along,

Low murmuring: "O this bitter scene,
And thrice accurst horizon hung with gloom!
How deadly like this sky, these fields, the...

Though black the night, I know upon the sky,
A little paler now, if clouds were none,
The stars would be. Husht now the thickets lie,
And now the birds are moving one by one,,
A note, and now from bush to bush it goes,
A prelude, now victorious light along
The west will come till every bramble glows
With wash of sunlit dew shaken in song.
Shaken in song;    O heart, be ready now,
Cold in your night, be ready now to sing.
Dawn as it wakes the sleeping bird on bough
Shall summon you to instant reckoning,,
She is your dawn, O heart,, sing, till the night
Of death shall come, the gospel of her light.

Delicious gloom! asylum of repose!
Within your verdant shades, your tranquil bound,
A wretched fugitive[A], oppress'd by woes,
The balm of peace, that long had left him, found.

Ne'er does the trump of war disturb this grove;
Throughout its deep recess the warbling bird
Discourses sweetly of its happy lore,
Or distant sounds of rural joy are heard.

Life's checquer'd scene is softly pictur'd here;
Here the proud moss-rose spreads its transient pride;
Close by, the willow drops a dewy tear,
And gaudy flow'rs the modest lily hide.

Alas! poor Hermit! happy had it been
For thee, if in these shades thy days had past,
If, well contented with the happy scene,
Thou ne'er again had fac'd life's stormy blast!

And Pity oft shall shed the ...

("Non! je n'y puis tenir.")

[CROMWELL, Act III. sc. iv.]


Stay! I no longer can contain myself,
But cry you: Look on John, who bares his mind
To Oliver - to Cromwell, Milton speaks!
Despite a kindling eye and marvel deep
A voice is lifted up without your leave;
For I was never placed at council board
To speak my promptings. When awed strangers come
Who've seen Fox-Mazarin wince at the stings
In my epistles - and bring admiring votes
Of learned colleges, they strain to see
My figure in the glare - the usher utters,
"Behold and hearken! that's my Lord Protector's
Cousin - that, his son-in-law - that next" - who cares!
Some perfumed puppet! "Milton?" "He in black -
Yon silent scribe who trims their eloquence!"
Still 'chroniclin...

Is it a sin to wish that I may meet thee
    In that dim world whither our spirits stray,
    When sleep and darkness follow life and day?
Is it a sin, that there my voice should greet thee
    With all that love that I must die concealing?
    Will my tear-laden eyes sin in revealing
The agony that preys upon my soul?
Is't not enough through the long, loathsome day,
To hold each look, and word, in stern control?
    May I not wish the staring sunlight gone,
    Day and its thousand torturing moments done,
And prying sights and sounds of men away?
    Oh, still and silent Night! when all things sleep,
    Locked in thy swarthy breast my secret keep:
    Come, with thy vision'd hopes and blessings now!
    I dream the only happiness I know.