O but there is wisdom
In what the sages said;
But stretch that body for a while
And lay down that head
Till I have told the sages
Where man is comforted.

How could passion run so deep
Had I never thought
That the crime of being born
Blackens all our lot?
But where the crime's committed
The crime can be forgot.

I.
Stop, let me have the truth of that!
Is that all true? I say, the day
Ten years ago when both of us
Met on a morning, friends as thus
We meet this evening, friends or what?

II.
Did you because I took your arm
And sillily smiled, “A mass of brass
That sea looks, blazing underneath!”
While up the cliff-road edged with heath,
We took the turns nor came to harm

III.
Did you consider “Now makes twice
“That I have seen her, walked and talked
“With this poor pretty thoughtful thing,
“Whose worth I weigh: she tries to sing;
“Draws, hopes in time the eye grows nice;

IV.
“Reads verse and thinks she understands;
“Loves all, at any rate, that’s great,
“Good, beautiful; but much as we
“Down at the bath-house love the sea,<...

An ancient minstrel sagely said,
"Where is the life which late we led?"
That motley clown in Arden wood,
Whom humorous Jaques with envy viewed,
Not even that clown could amplify,
On this trite text, so long as I.
Eleven years we now may tell,
Since we have known each other well;
Since, riding side by side, our hand,
First drew the voluntary brand;
And sure, through many a varied scene,
Unkindness never came between.
Away these winged years have flown,
To join the mass of ages gone;
And though deep marked, like all below,
With checkered shades of joy and woe;
Though thou o'er realms and seas hast ranged,
Marked cities lost, and empires changed,
While here, at home, my narrower ken
Somewhat of manners saw, and men;
Though varying wishes, hope...

I send,
O sweetest friend,
A kiss;
Such as fair ladies gave
Of old, when knights were brave,
And smiles were won
Through foes undone.
And this will be
For you to give again to me;
And then, its present errand o'er,
I'll give it unto you once more,
Ere briefest time elapse,
With interest, perhaps.
Its mission spent,
Again to me it may be lent.
And thus, day after day,
As we a simple law obey,
Forever, to and fro,
The selfsame kiss will go;
A busy shuttle that shall weave
A web of love, to soften and relieve
Our daily care.
And so,
As thus we share,
With lip to lip,
Our frugal partnership,
One kiss will always do
For two.
And, oh, how easy it will be
To practice this economy!

(For Osceola and Pocahontas)


Was it a hundred years ago,
Or was it but yesterday,
When we found the roads that grow
Blossom and song of May?
Maybe it was but yesterday,
Or a hundred years ago.

The roads from Bersabee to Dan
Are old and quickly tire,
But to the heart of child or man
Youth is a fairy fire:
Our youthful roads, they never tire
From Bersabee to Dan.

Ponce de Leon found no spring,
But legend's long, long ruth;
But the grace of God is a magic thing
Abides with chivalrous youth:
The grace of God that brings no ruth
For them who find the spring.

There is a land, there is a May
Beyond the graveyard tree;
Ten thousand years are like a day
Of a youth that we shall see:
Our young hearts pass ...

OD. i. 24.


Unshamed, unchecked, for one so dear
We sorrow. Lead the mournful choir,
Melpomene, to whom thy sire
Gave harp, and song-notes liquid-clear!

Sleeps He the sleep that knows no morn?
Oh Honour, oh twin-born with Right,
Pure Faith, and Truth that loves the light,
When shall again his like be born?

Many a kind heart for Him makes moan;
Thine, Virgil, first. But ah! in vain
Thy love bids heaven restore again
That which it took not as a loan:

Were sweeter lute than Orpheus given
To thee, did trees thy voice obey;
The blood revisits not the clay
Which He, with lifted wand, hath driven

Into his dark assemblage, who
Unlocks not fate to mortal's prayer.
Hard lot! Yet light their griefs who BEAR
The ills ...

[From "The Champion"]

    Emblazoned Vapour! Half-eternal Shade!
    That gathers strength from ruin and decay;--
    Emperor of empires! (for the world hath made
    No substance that dare take thy shade away;)
    Thy banners nought but victories display:
    In undisturbed success thou'rt grown sublime:
    Kings are thy subjects, and their sceptres lay
    Round thy proud footstool: tyranny and crime
    Thy serving vassals are. Then hail, victorious Time!

    The elements that wreck the marble dome
    Proud with the polish of the artisan--
    Bolts that crash shivering through the humble home,
    Traced with the insignificance of man--
    Are architects of thine, and proudly plan
    Rich monuments to show thy growing prime:
    Earthquake...

Because her eyes were far too deep
And holy for a laugh to leap
Across the brink where sorrow tried
To drown within the amber tide;
Because the looks, whose ripples kissed
The trembling lids through tender mist,
Were dazzled with a radiant gleam -
Because of this I called her "Dream."

Because the roses growing wild
About her features when she smiled
Were ever dewed with tears that fell
With tenderness ineffable;
Because her lips might spill a kiss
That, dripping in a world like this,
Would tincture death's myrrh-bitter stream
To sweetness - so I called her "Dream."

Because I could not understand
The magic touches of a hand
That seemed, beneath her strange control,
To smooth the plumage of the soul
And calm it, till, with folded ...

        A soaking sedge,
        A faded field, a leafless hill and hedge,

        Low clouds and rain,
        And loneliness and languor worse than pain.

        Mottled with moss,
        Each gravestone holds to heaven a patient Cross.

        Shrill streaks of light
        Two sycamores' clean-limbed, funereal white,

        And low between,
        The sombre cedar and the ivy green.

        Upon the stone
        Of each in turn who called this land his own

        The gray rain beats
        And wraps the wet world in its flying sheets,

        And at my eaves
        A slow wind, ghostlike, comes and grieves and grieves.

        O weak and weary world
        Forever struggling on,
    When will thy toils in comfort be impearled,
        When will thy sorrows and thy cares be gone?
    When shall the races, all ambition dead,
        Forsake the stony slope and rocky steep,
    And in contentment sweetly wed
        The joys that never sleep?

        O, weak and weary world,
        Long hast thou toiled in vain;
    The smoky fumes of woe are darkly curled
        With endless troubles and enduring pain;
    When will thy bosom, faint and helpless grown,
        Rest sweetly in the balmy bowers of ease?
    Avoid the woes that constant groan
        And follow shapes that please?

        O, weak and weary world,
        Why search the hills and seas?
   ...

What was it filled my youthful dreams,
In place of Greek or Latin themes,
Or beauty’s wild, bewildering beams?
Avitor!

What visions and celestial scenes
I filled with aerial machines,
Montgolfier’s and Mr. Green’s!
Avitor!

What fairy tales seemed things of course!
The roc that brought Sindbad across,
The Calendar’s own winged horse!
Avitor!

How many things I took for facts,
Icarus and his conduct lax,
And how he sealed his fate with wax!
Avitor!

The first balloons I sought to sail,
Soap-bubbles fair, but all too frail,
Or kites, but thereby hangs a tail.
Avitor!

What made me launch from attic tall
A kitten and a parasol,
And watch their bitter, frightful fall?
Avitor!

What youthful dre...

"Not by the justice that my father spurn'd,
Not for the thousands whom my father slew,
Altars unfed and temples overturn'd,
Cold hearts and thankless tongues, where thanks are due;
Fell this dread voice from lips that cannot lie,
Stern sentence of the Powers of Destiny.

"I will unfold my sentence and my crime.
My crime that, rapt in reverential awe,
I sate obedient, in the fiery prime
Of youth, self-govern'd, at the feet of Law;
Ennobling this dull pomp, the life of kings,
By contemplation of diviner things.

"My father loved injustice, and lived long;
Crown'd with grey hairs he died, and full of sway.
I loved the good he scorn'd, and hated wrong
The Gods declare my recompense to-day.
I look'd for life more lasting, rule more high;
And when six...

"My birth-day"--what a different sound
    That word had in my youthful ears!
And how, each time the day comes round,
    Less and less white its mark appears!

"When first our scanty years are told,
It seems like pastime to grow old;
And as Youth counts the shining links
    That Time around him binds so fast,
Pleased with the task, he little thinks
    How hard that chain will press at last.
Vain was the man, and false as vain,
    Who said--"were he ordained to run
"His long career of life again,
    "He would do all that he had done."--
Ah, 'tis not thus the voice that dwells
    In sober birth-days speaks to me;
Far otherwise--of time it tells,
    Lavished unwisely, carelessly:
Of counsel mockt; of talents made
    Haply for hi...

Once I seen a human ruin
In a elevator-well.
And his members was bestrewin'
All the place where he had fell.

And I says, apostrophisin'
That uncommon woeful wreck:
"Your position's so surprisin'
That I tremble for your neck!"

Then that ruin, smilin' sadly
And impressive, up and spoke:
"Well, I wouldn't tremble badly,
For it's been a fortnight broke."

Then, for further comprehension
Of his attitude, he begs
I will focus my attention
On his various arms and legs

How they all are contumacious;
Where they each, respective, lie;
How one trotter proves ungracious,
T' other one an alibi.

These particulars is mentioned
For to show his dismal state,
Which I wasn't first intentioned
To specifical relate.

What is the song the children sing,
When doorway lilacs bloom in Spring,
And the Schools are loosed, and the games are played
That were deadly earnest when Earth was made?
Hear them chattering, shrill and hard,
After dinner-time, out in the yard,
As the sides are chosen and all submit
To the chance of the lot that shall make them "It."
(Singing) "Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, Mo!
Catch a nigger by the toe!
(If he hollers let him go!
Eenee, Meenee. Mainee, Mo!
You-are-It!"

Eenee, Meenee, Mainee, and Mo
Were the First Big Four of the Long Ago,
When the Pole of the Earth sloped thirty degrees,
And Central Europe began to freeze,
And they needed Ambassadors staunch and stark
To steady the Tribes in the gathering dark:
But the frost was fierce and fle...

What! and not one to heave the pious sigh!
Not one whose sorrow-swoln and aching eye
For social scenes, for life's endearments fled,
Shall drop a tear and dwell upon the dead!
Poor wretched Outcast! I will weep for thee,
And sorrow for forlorn humanity.
Yes I will weep, but not that thou art come
To the stern Sabbath of the silent tomb:
For squalid Want, and the black scorpion Care,
Heart-withering fiends! shall never enter there.
I sorrow for the ills thy life has known
As thro' the world's long pilgrimage, alone,
Haunted by Poverty and woe-begone,
Unloved, unfriended, thou didst journey on:
Thy youth in ignorance and labour past,
And thine old age all barrenness and blast!
Hard was thy Fate, which, while it doom'd to woe,
Denied thee wisdom to support t...

Se bianche non son prima ambe le tempie.

THOUGH NOT SECURE AGAINST THE WILES OF LOVE, HE FEELS STRENGTH ENOUGH TO RESIST THEM.


    Till silver'd o'er by age my temples grow,
Where Time by slow degrees now plants his grey,
Safe shall I never be, in danger's way
While Love still points and plies his fatal bow
I fear no more his tortures and his tricks,
That he will keep me further to ensnare
Nor ope my heart, that, from without, he there
His poisonous and ruthless shafts may fix.
No tears can now find issue from mine eyes,
But the way there so well they know to win,
That nothing now the pass to them denies.
Though the fierce ray rekindle me within,
It burns not all: her cruel and severe
Form may disturb, not break my slumbers here.

No grief is grown so desperate, but the ill
Is half way cured if the party will.