They lifted her out of a story
Too sordid and selfish by far,
They left me the innocent glory
Of love that was pure as a star;
They left me all guiltless of “evil”
That would have brought years of distress
When the chance to be man, god or devil,
Was mine, on return from Success.

With a name and a courage uncommon
She had come in the soul striving days,
She had come as a child, girl and woman,
Come only to comfort and praise.
There was never a church that could marry,
For never a court could divorce,
In the season of Hannah and Harry
When the love of my life ran its course.

Her hair was red gold on head Grecian,
But fluffed from the parting away,
And her eyes were the warm grey Venetian
That comes with the dawn of the day.
No Fa...

Why did you give no hint that night
That quickly after the morrow's dawn,
And calmly, as if indifferent quite,
You would close your term here, up and be gone
    Where I could not follow
    With wing of swallow
To gain one glimpse of you ever anon!

    Never to bid good-bye,
    Or give me the softest call,
Or utter a wish for a word, while I
Saw morning harden upon the wall,
    Unmoved, unknowing
    That your great going
Had place that moment, and altered all.

Why do you make me leave the house
And think for a breath it is you I see
At the end of the alley of bending boughs
Where so often at dusk you used to be;
    Till in darkening dankness
    The yawning blankness
Of the perspective sickens me!

    You were sh...

What heartache - ne'er a hill!
Inexorable, vapid, vague and chill
The drear sand-levels drain my spirit low.
With one poor word they tell me all they know;
Whereat their stupid tongues, to tease my pain,
Do drawl it o'er again and o'er again.
They hurt my heart with griefs I cannot name:
Always the same, the same.

Nature hath no surprise,
No ambuscade of beauty 'gainst mine eyes
From brake or lurking dell or deep defile;
No humors, frolic forms - this mile, that mile;
No rich reserves or happy-valley hopes
Beyond the bend of roads, the distant slopes.
Her fancy fails, her wild is all run tame:
Ever the same, the same.

Oh might I through these tears
But glimpse some hill my Georgia high uprears,
Where white the quartz and pink the pebble s...

Here in the dark, O heart;
Alone with the enduring Earth, and Night,
And Silence, and the warm strange smell of clover;
Clear-visioned, though it break you; far apart
From the dead best, the dear and old delight;
Throw down your dreams of immortality,
O faithful, O foolish lover!
Here's peace for you, and surety; here the one
Wisdom, the truth! "All day the good glad sun
Showers love and labour on you, wine and song;
The greenwood laughs, the wind blows, all day long
Till night."    And night ends all things.
    Then shall be
No lamp relumed in heaven, no voices crying,
Or changing lights, or dreams and forms that hover!
(And, heart, for all your sighing,
That gladness and those tears are over, over. . . .)

And has the truth brought no new hope at ...

The old brown thorn-trees break in two high over Cummen Strand,
Under a bitter black wind that blows from the left hand;
Our courage breaks like an old tree in a black wind and dies,
But we have hidden in our hearts the flame out of the eyes
Of Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.
The wind has bundled up the clouds high over Knock- narea,
And thrown the thunder on the stones for all that Maeve can say.
Angers that are like noisy clouds have set our hearts abeat;
But we have all bent low and low and kissed the quiet feet
Of Cathleen, the daughter of Houlihan.
The yellow pool has overflowed high up on Clooth-na-Bare,
For the wet winds are blowing out of the clinging air;
Like heavy flooded waters our bodies and our blood;
But purer than a tall candle before the Holy Rood
I...

My beautiful steed,
'Tis painful indeed
To think we are parted forever;
That on no sunny day,
With light spirits and gay,
Over hills far away,
We shall joyously travel together.

Thy soft glossy mane
I shall ne'er see again,
Nor thy proudly arched neck 'gain behold;
Nor admire that in thee,
Which so seldom we see,
A kind, gentle spirit, yet bold.
Thou wert pleasant indeed
My darling grey steed,
"In my mind's eye" thou'rt beautiful still;
For when thou wert old
Thy heart grew not cold,
Its warm current time never could chill.

Not a stone marks the spot
Where they laid thee, Lightfoot,
And no fence to enclose thee around;
But what if there's not,
Deep engraved on my heart
Thy loved image may ever b...

Wide solemn eyes that question me,
Wee hand that pats my head,
Where only two have stroked before,
And both of them are dead.
‘Ah, poo-ah Daddy mine,’ she says,
With wondrous sympathy,
Oh, baby girl, you don’t know how
You break the heart in me!
Let friends and kinsfolk work their worst,
And the world say what it will,
Your baby arms go round my neck,
I’m your own Daddy still!
And you kiss me and I kiss you,
Fresh kisses frank and free,
Ah, baby girl, you don’t know how
You break the heart in me!

I dreamed when I was good that when
The snow showed in my hair,
A household angel in her teens
Would flit about my chair,
To comfort me as I grew old;
But that shall never be,
Ah, baby girl, you don’t know how
You break the hea...

    Quieter than any twilight
    Shed over earth's last deserts,
    Quiet and vast and shadowless
    Is that unfounded keep,
    Higher than the roof of the night's high chamber
    Deep as the shaft of sleep.

    And solitude will not cry there,
    Melancholy will not brood there,
    Hatred, with its sharp corroding pain,
    And fear will not come there at all:
    Never will a tear or a heart-ache enter
    Over that enchanted wall.

        But, O, if you find that castle,
        Draw back your foot from the gateway,
        Let not its peace invite you,
        Let not its offerings tempt you.
    For faded and decayed like a garment,
    Love to a dust will have fallen,
    And song and laughter will have gone with sorrow,

About the land I wander, all forlorn,
About the land, with sorrow-quenchèd eyes;
Seeking my love among the silent woods;
Seeking her by the fountains and the streams;
Calling her name unto lone mountain tops;
Sending it flying on the clouds to heaven.
I drop my tears amid the dews at morn;
I trouble all the night with prayers and sighs,
That, like a veil thick set with golden stars,
Hideth my woe, but cannot silence it;
Yet never more at morning, noon, or night,
Cometh there answer back, Eurydice,
Thy voice speaks never more, Eurydice;
O far, death-stricken, lost Eurydice!

Hear'st thou my weary cries, Eurydice?
Hearing, but answering not from out the past,
Wrapp'd in thy robe of everlasting light,
Round which the accents flutter faintingly,
Lik...

1.
When the lamp is shattered
The light in the dust lies dead -
When the cloud is scattered
The rainbow's glory is shed.
When the lute is broken,
Sweet tones are remembered not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.

2.
As music and splendour
Survive not the lamp and the lute,
The heart's echoes render
No song when the spirit is mute: -
No song but sad dirges,
Like the wind through a ruined cell,
Or the mournful surges
That ring the dead seaman's knell.

3.
When hearts have once mingled
Love first leaves the well-built nest;
The weak one is singled
To endure what it once possessed.
O Love! who bewailest
The frailty of all things here,
Why choose you the frailest
For your cradle, yo...

I.

An empty sky, a world of heather,
Purple of foxglove, yellow of broom;
We two among them wading together,
Shaking out honey, treading perfume.

Crowds of bees are giddy with clover,
Crowds of grasshoppers skip at our feet,
Crowds of larks at their matins hang over,
Thanking the Lord for a life so sweet.

Flusheth the rise with her purple favor,
Gloweth the cleft with her golden ring,
'Twixt the two brown butterflies waver,
Lightly settle, and sleepily swing.

We two walk till the purple dieth
And short dry grass under foot is brown.
But one little streak at a distance lieth
Green like a ribbon to prank the down.


II.

Over the grass we stepped unto it,
And God He knoweth how blithe we were!
Never a vo...

Because your voice was at my side
I gave him pain,
Because within my hand I held
Your hand again.

There is no word nor any sign
Can make amend,
He is a stranger to me now
Who was my friend.

Shame on this faithless heart! that could allow
Such transport, though but for a moment's space;
Not while, to aid the spirit of the place
The crescent moon clove with its glittering prow
The clouds, or night-bird sang from shady bough;
But in plain daylight: She, too, at my side,
Who, with her heart's experience satisfied,
Maintains inviolate its slightest vow!
Sweet Fancy! other gifts must I receive;
Proofs of a higher sovereignty I claim;
Take from 'her' brow the withering flowers of eve,
And to that brow life's morning wreath restore;
Let 'her' be comprehended in the frame
Of these illusions, or they please no more.

O Donall og, if you go across the sea, bring myself with you and do not forget    it; and you will have a sweetheart for fair days and market days, and the daughter of the King of Greece beside you at night. It is late last night the dog was speaking of you; the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh. It is you are the lonely bird through the woods; and that you may be without a mate until you find me.

You promised me, and you said a lie to me, that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked; I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you, and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb.

You promised me a thing that was hard for you, a ship of gold under a silver mast; twelve towns with a market in all of them, and a fine white court by the side of the sea.

You promised me a thing that is not p...

All my life long I heard the step
Of some one I would know,
Break softly in upon my days
And lightly come and go.

A foot so brisk I said must bear
A heart that's clean and clear;
If that companion blithe would come,
I should be happy here.

But though I waited long and well,
He never came at all,
I grew aweary of the void,
Even of the light foot-fall.

From loneliness to loneliness
I felt my spirit grope -
At last I knew the uttermost,
The loneliness of hope.

And just upon the border land,
Where flesh and spirit part,
I knew the secret foot-fall was
The beating of my heart.

(November 2, 1899)



I

O it was sad enough, weak enough, mad enough -
Light in their loving as soldiers can be -
First to risk choosing them, leave alone losing them
Now, in far battle, beyond the South Sea! . . .

II

- Rain came down drenchingly; but we unblenchingly
Trudged on beside them through mirk and through mire,
They stepping steadily - only too readily! -
Scarce as if stepping brought parting-time nigher.

III

Great guns were gleaming there, living things seeming there,
Cloaked in their tar-cloths, upmouthed to the night;
Wheels wet and yellow from axle to felloe,
Throats blank of sound, but prophetic to sight.

IV

Gas-glimmers drearily, blearily, eerily
Lit our pale faces outstretched ...

With sombre mien, the Evening gray
Comes nagging at the heels of Day,
And driven faster and still faster
Before the dusky-mantled Master,
The light fades from her fearful eyes,
She hastens, stumbles, falls, and dies.

Beside me Amaryllis weeps;
The swelling tears obscure the deeps
Of her dark eyes, as, mistily,
The rushing rain conceals the sea.
Here, lay my tuneless reed away,--
I have no heart to tempt a lay.

I scent the perfume of the rose
Which by my crystal fountain grows.
In this sad time, are roses blowing?
And thou, my fountain, art thou flowing,

While I who watched thy waters spring
Am all too sad to smile or sing?
Nay, give me back my pipe again,
It yet shall breathe this single strain:
Farewell to Arcady!

The day is done, the winter sun
Is setting in its sullen sky;
And drear the course that has been run,
And dim the hearts that slowly die.

No star will light my coming night;
No morn of hope for me will shine;
I mourn not heaven would blast my sight,
And I ne'er longed for joys divine.

Through life's hard task I did not ask
Celestial aid, celestial cheer;
I saw my fate without its mask,
And met it too without a tear.

The grief that pressed my aching breast
Was heavier far than earth can be;
And who would dread eternal rest
When labour's hour was agony?

Dark falls the fear of this despair
On spirits born of happiness;
But I was bred the mate of care,
The foster-child of sore distress.

No sighs for me, no sympathy...