Within my veins it beats
    And burns within my brain;
For when the year is sad and sear
    I dream the dream again.

    Ah! over young am I
    God knows! yet in this sleep
More pain and woe than women know
    I know, and doubly deep!...

    Seven towers of shaggy rock
    Rise red to ragged skies,
Built in a marsh that, black and harsh,
    To dead horizons lies.

    Eternal sunset pours,
    Around its warlock towers,
A glowing urn where garnets burn
    With fire-dripping flowers.

    O'er bat-like turrets high,
    Stretched in a scarlet line,
The crimson cranes through rosy rains
    Drop like a ruby wine.

    Once in the banquet-hall
    These scarlet storks are heard:
I sit at board wit...

    There is a quiet in my heart
    Like one who rests from days of pain.
    Outside, the sparrows on the roof
    Are chirping in the dripping rain.

    Rain in my heart; rain on the roof;
    And memory sleeps beneath the gray
    And windless sky and brings no dreams
    Of any well remembered day.

    I would not have the heavens fair,
    Nor golden clouds, nor breezes mild,
    But days like this, until my heart
    To loss of you is reconciled.

    I would not see you. Every hope
    To know you as you were has ranged.
    I, who am altered, would not find
    The face I loved so greatly changed.

I heard a gentle maiden, in the spring,
Set her sweet sighs to music, and thus sing:
"Fly through the world, and I will follow thee,
Only for looks that may turn back on me;

"Only for roses that your chance may throw -
Though withered - Twill wear them on my brow,
To be a thoughtful fragrance to my brain, -
Warm'd with such love, that they will bloom again."

"Thy love before thee, I must tread behind,
Kissing thy foot-prints, though to me unkind;
But trust not all her fondness, though it seem,
Lest thy true love should rest on a false dream."

"Her face is smiling, and her voice is sweet;
But smiles betray, and music sings deceit;
And words speak false; - yet, if they welcome prove,
I'll be their echo, and repeat their love."

"Only if wa...

Of love that never found his earthly close,
What sequel? Streaming eyes and breaking hearts?
Or all the same as if he had not been?
Not so. Shall Error in the round of time
Still father Truth? O shall the braggart shout
For some blind glimpse of freedom work itself
Thro’ madness, hated by the wise, to law
System and empire? Sin itself be found
The cloudy porch oft opening on the Sun?
And only he, this wonder, dead, become
Mere highway dust? or year by year alone
Sit brooding in the ruins of a life,
Nightmare of youth, the spectre of himself!
If this were thus, if this, indeed, were all,
Better the narrow brain, the stony heart,
The staring eye glazed o’er with sapless days,
The long mechanic pacings to and fro,
The set gray life, and apathetic end.
B...

1

Hangs stormed with stars the night,
Deep over deep,
A majesty, a might,
To feel and keep.


2

Ah! what is such and such,
Love, canst thou tell?
That shrinks - though 'tis not much -
To weep farewell.


3

That hates the dawn and lark;
Would have the wail, -
Sobbed through the ceaseless dark, -
O' the nightingale.


4

Yes, earth, thy life were worth
Not much to me,
Were there not after earth
Eternity.


5

God gave thee life to keep -
And what hath life? -
Love, faith, and care, and sleep
Where dreams are rife.


6

Death's sleep, whose shadows start
The tears in eyes
Of love, that fill the heart
That breaks and d...

Shall our memories live, when the sod rolls above us
    And marks our last home with a mouldering heap?
Shall the voices of those who profess that they love us
    E'er mention our names, as we dreamlessly sleep?

Will their eyes ever dim at some fond recollection,
    Or their hands ever plant a small flower o'er the breast,
Or will they gaze with a sad circumspection
    At the tablets, which tell of our last solemn rest?

Ah! soon shall the hearts which our memories cherish
    Forget, as they strive with the cares of their own;
And even the last dim remembrance shall perish
    As we peacefully slumber, unwept and unknown.

But if our lives, though of transient duration,
    Are filled with some work in humanity's name,
Some uplifting effort, or self...

Whatever you want, if you wish for it long,
    With constant yearning and fervent desire,
If your wish soars upward on wings so strong
    That they never grow languid and never tire, -

Why, over the storm clouds and out of the dark
    It shall come flying some day to you.
As the dove with the olive branch flew to the ark,
    And the dream you have cherished -it shall come true.

But lest much rapture shall make you mad,
    Or too bright sunshine should strike you blind,
Along with your blessing a something sad
    Shall come like a shadow that follows behind.

Something unwelcome and unforeseen,
    Yet of your hope and your wish, a part,
Shall stand like a sentinel in between
    The perfect joy and the human heart.

I wished for a c...

A wanderer is man from his birth.
He was born in a ship
On the breast of the river of Time;
Brimming with wonder and joy
He spreads out his arms to the light,
Rivets his gaze on the banks of the stream.

As what he sees is, so have his thoughts been.
Whether he wakes,
Where the snowy mountainous pass,
Echoing the screams of the eagles,
Hems in its gorges the bed
Of the new-born clear-flowing stream;
Whether he first sees light
Where the river in gleaming rings
Sluggishly winds through the plain;
Whether in sound of the swallowing sea
As is the world on the banks,
So is the mind of the man.

Vainly does each, as he glides,
Fable and dream
Of the lands which the river of Time
Had left ere he woke on its breast,
Or shall re...

I

Of ownership, As if one fit to own things could not at pleasure enter upon all, and incorporate them into himself or herself.

II

Of waters, forests, hills;
Of the earth at large, whispering through medium of me;
Of vista, Suppose some sight in arriere, through the formative chaos, presuming the growth, fulness, life, now attain’d on the journey;
(But I see the road continued, and the journey ever continued;)
Of what was once lacking on earth, and in due time has become supplied, And of what will yet be supplied,
Because all I see and know, I believe to have purport in what will yet be supplied.

    Two infants in their cradles lie,
        Where lullabies of peace
    In gentle strains of tender music die.
        And carols never cease.

    Two urchins o'er the meadow lands
        Are bounding in their plays,
    Where sweet enjoyment with angelic hands
        Winds gladness o'er the days.

    Two boys, where golden fancies bless,
        Repose in sunny beams,
    And muse away the hours of happiness
        On couches made of dreams.

    Two men upon a summer sea
        Are toiling, brave and strong,
    Where pleasures roll their elfin harmony
        And labor ends in song.

    Two gray-haired sages, silvered o'er,
        In life meet once again,
    To name the wondrous happiness they bore
        Amon...

Phoebus, arise!
And paint the sable skies
With azure, white, and red:
Rouse Memnon’s mother from her Tithon’s bed
That she may thy career with roses spread:
The nightingales thy coming each-where sing:
Make an eternal spring!
Give life to this dark world which lieth dead;
Spread forth thy golden hair
In larger locks than thou wast wont before,
And emperor-like decore
With diadem of pearl thy temples fair:
Chase hence the ugly night
Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light.

This is that happy morn,
That day, long-wished day,
Of all my life so dark,
(If cruel stars have not my ruin sworn,
And fates my hopes betray),
Which, purely white, deserves
An everlasting diamond should it mark.
This is the morn should bring unto this ...

A singing voice is in my dream
The voice of Erskine, on his boulders,
Babbling and shouting till he shoulders
Stoutly against the heavier stream.

No longer now my curtained sight,
On serried books and pictures dwelling,
Of long-neglected work is telling,
But looks beyond the travelling night.

And here no longer is my home,
For you and I are far asunder:
I hear again the cascade thunder
And watch the little pool of foam.

And where the water, pouring sleek,
In sudden whiteness flings his treasure,
I see you sitting, Queen of Pleasure,
Clad only by the glittering creek.

I hold my arms to you once more,
For O my longing flesh is aching,
And you, your rocky throne forsaking,
Come cool and radiant to the shore.

I see...

    Ah, holy midnight of the soul,
        When stars alone are high;
    When winds are resting at their goal,
        And sea-waves only sigh!

    Ambition faints from out the will;
        Asleep sad longing lies;
    All hope of good, all fear of ill,
        All need of action dies;

    Because God is, and claims the life
        He kindled in thy brain;
    And thou in him, rapt far from strife,
        Diest and liv'st again.

Only a breath - hardly a breath! The shore
Is still a huddled alabaster floor
Of shelving ice and shattered slabs of cold,
Stern wreckage of the fiercely frozen wave,
Gleaming in mailed wastes of white and gold;
As though the sea, in an enchanted grave,
Of fearful crystal locked, no more shall stir
Softly, all lover, to the April moon:
Hardly a breath! yet was I now aware
Of a most delicate balm upon the air,
Almost a voice that almost whispered "soon"!

Not of the earth it was - no living thing
Moves in the iron landscape far or near,
Saving, in raucous flight, the winter crow,
Staining the whiteness with its ebon wing,
Or silver-sailing gull, or 'mid the drear
Rock cedars, like a summer soul astray,
A lone red squirrel makes believe to play,
N...

The sky was like a waterdrop
In shadow of a thorn,
Clear, tranquil, beautiful,
Dark, forlorn.

Lightning along its margin ran;
A rumour of the sea
Rose in profundity and sank
Into infinity.

Lofty and few the elms, the stars
In the vast boughs most bright;
I stood a dreamer in a dream
In the unstirring night.

Not wonder, worship, not even peace
Seemed in my heart to be:
Only the memory of one,
Of all most dead to me.

Oh, who will hush that cry outside the doors,
    While we are glad within?
Go forth, go forth, all you my servitors;
    (And gather close, my kin.)
Go out to her. Tell her we keep a feast,--
    Lost Loveliness who will not sit her down
        Though we implore.
It is her silence binds me unreleased,
    It is her silence that no flute can drown,
        It is her moonlit silence at the door,
Wide as the whiteness, but a fire on high
    That frights my heart with an immortal Cry,
        Calling me evermore.

Louder, you viols;--louder, O my harp;
    Let me not hear her voice;
And drown her keener silence, silver-sharp,
    With waves of golden noise!
For she is wise as Eden, even mute,
    To search my spirit through the deep and height

Già fiammeggiava l' amorosa stella.

LAURA, WHO IS ILL, APPEARS TO HIM IN A DREAM, AND ASSURES HIM THAT SHE STILL LIVES.


    Throughout the orient now began to flame
The star of love; while o'er the northern sky
That, which has oft raised Juno's jealousy,
Pour'd forth its beauteous scintillating beam:
Beside her kindled hearth the housewife dame,
Half-dress'd, and slipshod, 'gan her distaff ply:
And now the wonted hour of woe drew nigh,
That wakes to tears the lover from his dream:
When my sweet hope unto my mind appear'd,
Not in the custom'd way unto my sight;
For grief had bathed my lids, and sleep had weigh'd;
Ah me, how changed that form by love endear'd!
"Why lose thy fortitude?" methought she said,
"These eyes not yet from thee ...

A bending staff I would not break,
A feeble faith I would not shake,
Nor even rashly pluck away
The error which some truth may stay,
Whose loss might leave the soul without
A shield against the shafts of doubt.

And yet, at times, when over all
A darker mystery seems to fall,
(May God forgive the child of dust,
Who seeks to know, where Faith should trust!)
I raise the questions, old and dark,
Of Uzdom's tempted patriarch,
And, speech-confounded, build again
The baffled tower of Shinar's plain.

I am: how little more I know!
Whence came I? Whither do I go?
A centred self, which feels and is;
A cry between the silences;
A shadow-birth of clouds at strife
With sunshine on the hills of life;
A shaft from Nature's quiver cast
Into...