The door was shut. I looked between
    Its iron bars; and saw it lie,
    My garden, mine, beneath the sky,
Pied with all flowers bedewed and green:

From bough to bough the song-birds crossed,
    From flower to flower the moths and bees;
    With all its nests and stately trees
It had been mine, and it was lost.

A shadowless spirit kept the gate,
    Blank and unchanging like the grave.
    I peering through said: 'Let me have
Some buds to cheer my outcast state.'

He answered not. 'Or give me, then,
    But one small twig from shrub or tree;
    And bid my home remember me
Until I come to it again.'

The spirit was silent; but he took
    Mortar and stone to build a wall;
    He left no loophole great or small
Through wh...

Is there room for the poet, fair Canada's sons.
To live his strange life, and to warble his songs,
To follow each current of thought as it runs,
And to sing of your victories, glories and wrongs?

Is there room for the poet, ye senators grave?
Ye orators, statesmen and law-makers, say;
May he of the calling so gentle e'er crave
Your patronage, and of your kindness a ray?

Ye toilers in cities, ye workers in fields,
Who handle the hammer, the pen or the plow,
Can the poet implicitly trust, as he yields
His heart, and his hopes, and his name to you now?

Wilt thou pardon his follies, forgive him his faults
In manners, in habits, in distance and time?
For when on his charger, Pegasus, he vaults,
He rises o'er reason's safe, temperate clime.

H...

The Summer lightning comes and goes
In one pale cloud above the hill,
As if within its soft repose
A burning heart were never still -
As in my bosom pulses beat
Before the coming of his feet.

All drugged with odorous sleep, the rose
Breathes dewy balm about the place,
As if the dreams the garden knows
Took immaterial form and face -
As in my heart sweet thoughts arise
Beneath the ardour of his eyes.

The moon above the darkness shows
An orb of silvery snow and fire,
As if the night would now disclose
To heav'n her one divine desire -
As in the rapture of his kiss
All of my soul is drawn to his.

The cloud, it knows not that it glows;
The rose knows nothing of its scent;
Nor knows the moon that it bestows
Light on...

Past seven o'clock: time to be gone;
Twelfth-night's over and dawn shivering up:
A hasty cut of the loaf, a steaming cup,
Down to the door, and there is Coachman John.

Ruddy of cheek is John and bright of eye;
But John it appears has none of your grins and winks;
Civil enough, but short: perhaps he thinks:
Words come once in a mile, and always dry.

Has he a mind or not? I wonder; but soon
We turn through a leafless wood, and there to the right,
Like a sun bewitched in alien realms of night,
Mellow and yellow and rounded hangs the moon.

Strangely near she seems, and terribly great:
The world is dead: why are we travelling still?
Nightmare silence grips my struggling will;
We are driving for ever and ever to find a gate.

"When you come to...

Send out the singers,let the room be still;
They have not eased my pain nor brought me sleep.
Close out the sun, for I would have it dark
That I may feel how black the grave will be.
The sun is setting, for the light is red,
And you are outlined in a golden fire,
Like Ursula upon an altar-screen.
Come, leave the light and sit beside my bed,
For I have had enough of saints and prayers.
Strange broken thoughts are beating in my brain,
They come and vanish and again they come.
It is the fever driving out my soul,
And Death stands waiting by the arras there.

Ornella, I will speak, for soon my lips
Shall keep a silence till the end of time.
You have a mouth for loving,listen then:
Keep tryst with Love before Death comes to tryst;
For I, who die, could wi...

Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told;
The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge; that branchless ash,
Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends
Behold the dark green file of long lank w...

Wilt thou suddenly enshroud thee,

Who this moment wert so nigh?
Heavy rising masses cloud thee,

Thou art hidden from mine eye.

Yet my sadness thou well knowest,

Gleaming sweetly as a star!
That I'm loved, 'tis thou that showest,

Though my loved one may be far.

Upward mount then! clearer, milder,

Robed in splendour far more bright!
Though my heart with grief throbs wilder,

Fraught with rapture is the night!

(The refrain is quoted by Edward Fitzgerald in one of his letters)


I

Growing, growing, all the glory going;
Flashing out of fire and light, burning to a husk,
All the world's a-dying and failing in the dusk -
Growing, growing, all the glory going.

Rust is on the door-latch, ashes at the root,
Dry rot in the ridge-pole, canker in the fruit;
Growing, growing, all the glory going.

Plot, ye subtle statesmen, - a trace of melted wax;
Bind, ye haughty prelates, - a thread of ravelled flax;
Growing, growing, all the glory going.

March, ye mighty captains, - an eddy in the dust;
Rave, ye furious lovers, - a stain of crimson rust;
Growing, growing, all the glory going.

Pictures, poems, music - their essen...

It is of Corca Dubhne she was, and she had her youth seven times over, and every man that had lived with her died of old age, and her grandsons and great-grandsons were tribes and races. And through a hundred years she wore upon her head the veil Cuimire had blessed. Then age and weakness came upon her and it is what she said:

Ebb-tide to me as to the sea; old age brings me reproach; I used to wear a shift that was always new; to-day, I have not even a cast one.

It is riches you are loving, it is not men; it was men we loved in the time we were living.

There were dear men on whose plains we used to be driving; it is good the time we passed with them; it is little we were broken afterwards.

When my arms are seen it is long and thin they are; once they used to be fondling, they used to be around g...

This book is all that's left me now!--
    Tears will unbidden start--
With faltering lip and throbbing brow
    I press it to my heart.
For many generations past,
    Here is our family tree;
My mother's hands this Bible clasped,
    She, dying, gave it me.

Ah! well do I remember those
    Whose names these records bear;
Who round the hearth-stone used to close
    After the evening prayer,
And speak of what these pages said,
    In tones my heart would thrill!
Though they are with the silent dead,
    Here are they living still!

My father read this holy book
    To brothers, sisters dear;
How calm was my poor mother's look
    Who leaned God's word to hear!
Her angel face--I see it yet!
    What vivid memories come!--

[C. K. loquitur.]



I dreamed I was in fair Niphon.
Amid tea-fields I journeyed on,
Reclined in my jinrikishaw;
Across the rolling plains I saw
The lordly Fusi-yama rise,
His blue cone lost in bluer skies.

At last I bade my bearers stop
Before what seemed a china-shop.
I roused myself and entered in.
A fearful joy, like some sweet sin,
Pierced through my bosom as I gazed,
Entranced, transported, and amazed.

For all the house was but one room,
And in its clear and grateful gloom,
Filled with all odours strange and strong
That to the wondrous East belong,
I saw above, around, below,
A sight to make the warm heart glow,
And leave the eager soul no lack, -
An endless wealth of bric-a-brac.

I saw bronze sta...

Over a slow-dying fire,
Dreaming old dreams, I am sitting;
The flames leap up and expire;
A woman sits opposite knitting.

I’ve taken a Fate to wife;
She knits with a half-smile mocking
Me, and my dreams, and my life,
All into a worsted stocking.

In the midst of life, we are
Aye in Death's embraces.
Who is there who help us can
And in safety place us?
Lord, thou art he, thou only.
From our ill deeds we sorrowing turn
That have made thy anger burn.
Holy, holy Lord God,
Holy, mighty Lord God,
Holy Saviour with the tender heart,
Everlasting God,
Let us not be swallowed
In the misery of death:
Lord, have mercy upon us.

In the midst of death, behold
Hell's jaws gaping at us!
Who will from such dire distress
Free and scathless set us?
Lord, that dost thou, thou only:
It fills thy tender heart with woe
We should sin and suffer so.
Holy, holy Lord God,
Holy, mighty Lord God,
Holy Saviour with the tender heart,
Everlasting God,
Let us not be gasted
By hell...

The night lamp is faintly gleaming
    Within my chamber still,
And the heavy shades of midnight
    Each gloomy angle fill,
And my worn and weary watchers
    Scarce dare to move or weep,
For they think that I am buried
    In deep and quiet sleep.

But, hush! what are those voices
    Heard on the midnight air,
Of strange celestial sweetness,
    Breathing of love and prayer?
Nearer they grow and clearer,
    I hear now what they say -
To the Kingdom of God's glory,
    They're calling me away!

See my gentle mother softly
    To me approaches now,
What is the change she readeth
    Upon my pale damp brow?
She clasps her hands in anguish
    Whose depth no words might say?
Has she, too, heard the voices
    That a...

What time the groues were clad in greene,
    The Fields drest all in flowers,
And that the sleeke-hayred Nimphs were seene,
    To seeke them Summer Bowers.

Forth rou'd I by the sliding Rills,
    To finde where CYNTHIA sat,
Whose name so often from the hills,
    The Ecchos wondred at.

When me vpon my Quest to bring,
    That pleasure might excell,
The Birds stroue which should sweetliest sing,
    The Flowers which sweet'st should smell.

Long wand'ring in the Woods (said I)
    Oh whether's CYNTHIA gone?
When soone the Eccho doth reply,
    To my last word, goe on.

At length vpon a lofty Firre,
    It was my chance to finde,
Where that deare name most due to her,
    Was caru'd vpon the rynde.

Which whilst w...

The doubtful dawn came dim and wan,
And dimmer grew the day:
The kildee whistled among the weeds,
The blue crane clanged in the river reeds,
And a mist fell wild and gray.

At dawn she stood, her heavy hood
Flung back, in the ferry boat,
To watch the rebel raiders ride,
Her rebel-love, with his men beside,
His kiss on her mouth and throat.

Like some dark spell the tempest fell,
Like some wild curse night came:
For hours she heard the warring dead,
Whose batteries opened overhead
With thunder and with flame.

And now again, in wind and rain,
She toiled at the creaking oar:
Oh what had she heard in the night and storm?
Whose voice was that? and whose the form
That galloped to the shore?

Across the stream, in the tempest'...

Deem not, sweet rose, that bloom’st’ midst many a thorn,
Thy friend, though to a cloister’s shade consign’d,
Can e’er forget the charms he left behind,
Or pass unheeded this auspicious morn!
In happier days to brighter prospects born,
O tell thy thoughtless sex, the virtuous mind,
Like thee, content in every state may find,
And look on Folly’s pageantry with scorn.
To steer with nicest art betwixt th’ extreme
Of idle mirth, and affectation coy;
To blend good sense with elegance and ease;
To bid Affliction’s eye no longer stream;
Is thine; best gift, the unfailing source of joy,
The guide to pleasures which can never cease!

THE husband's dire mishap, and silly maid,
In ev'ry age, have proved the fable's aid;
The fertile subject never will be dry:
'Tis inexhaustible, you may rely.
No man's exempt from evils such as these: -
Who thinks himself secure, but little sees.
One laughs at sly intrigues who, ere 'tis long,
May, in his turn, be sneered at by the throng:
With such vicissitudes, to be cast down,
Appears rank nonsense worthy Folly's crown.
He, whose adventures I'm about to write,
In his mischances, - found what gave delight.

A CERTAIN Citizen, with fortune large,
When settled with a handsome wife in charge,
Not long attended for the marriage fruit:
The lady soon put matters 'yond dispute;
Produced a girl at first, and then a boy,
To fill th' expecting parent's breas...