Yes, 'tis the pulse of life! my fears were vain!
I wake, I breathe, and am myself again.
Still in this nether world; no seraph yet!
Nor walks my spirit, when the sun is set,
With troubled step to haunt the fatal board,
Where I died last--by poison or the sword;
Blanching each honest cheek with deeds of night,
Done here so oft by dim and doubtful light.
    --To drop all metaphor, that little bell
Call'd back reality, and broke the spell.
No heroine claims your tears with tragic tone;
A very woman--scarce restrains her own!
Can she, with fiction, charm the cheated mind,
When to be grateful is the part assign'd?
Ah, No! she scorns the trappings of her Art;
No theme but truth, no prompter but the heart!
    But, Ladies, say, must I alone unmask?
Is here no o...

Releas'd from the noise of the butcher and baker
Who, my old friends be thanked, did seldom forsake her,
And from the soft duns of my landlord the Quaker,

From chiding the footmen and watching the lasses,
From Nell that burn'd milk, and Tom that broke glasses
(Sad mischiefs thro' which a good housekeeper passes!)

From some real care but more fancied vexation,
From a life parti-colour'd half reason half passion,
Here lies after all the best wench in the nation.

From the Rhine to the Po, from the Thames to the Rhone,
Joanna or Janneton, Jinny or Joan,
'Twas all one to her by what name she was known.

For the idiom of words very little she heeded,
Provided the matter she drove at succeeded,
She took and gave languages just as she needed.

S...

There is a place hung o'er of summer boughs
And dreamy skies wherein the gray hawk sleeps;
Where water flows, within whose lazy deeps,
Like silvery prisms where the sunbeams drowse,
The minnows twinkle; where the bells of cows
Tinkle the stillness; and the bobwhite keeps
Calling from meadows where the reaper reaps,
And children's laughter haunts an oldtime house:
A place where life wears ever an honest smell
Of hay and honey, sun and elder-bloom,
Like some sweet, simple girl, within her hair;
Where, with our love for comrade, we may dwell
Far from the city's strife, whose cares consume.
Oh, take my hand and let me lead you there.

So, Calchas, on the sacred Palatine,
Thou thought of Mopsus, and o'er wastes of sea
A flower brought your message.    I divine
(Through my deep art) the kindly mockery
That played about your lips and in your eyes,
Plucking the frail leaf, while you dreamed of home.
Thanks for the silent greeting!    I shall prize,
Beyond June's rose, the scentless flower of Rome.
All the Campagna spreads before my sight,
The mouldering wall, the Caesars' tombs unwreathed,
Rome and the Tiber, and the yellow light,
Wherein the honey-colored blossom breathed.
But most I thank it - egoists that we be!
For proving then and there you thought of me.

The gentlest Shade that walked Elysian plains
Might sometimes covet dissoluble chains;
Even for the tenants of the zone that lies
Beyond the stars, celestial Paradise,
Methinks 'twould heighten joy, to overleap
At will the crystal battlements, and peep
Into some other region, though less fair,
To see how things are made and managed there.
Change for the worse might please, incursion bold
Into the tracts of darkness and of cold;
O'er Limbo lake with aery flight to steer,
And on the verge of Chaos hang in fear.
Such animation often do I find,
Power in my breast, wings growing in my mind,
Then, when some rock or hill is overpast,
Perhance without one look behind me cast.
Some barrier with which Nature, from the birth
Of things, has fenced this fairest spot o...

Occhi, piangete; accompagnate il core.

DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE POET AND HIS EYES.


    Playne ye, myne eyes, accompanye my harte,
For, by your fault, lo, here is death at hand!
Ye brought hym first into this bitter band,
And of his harme as yett ye felt no part;
But now ye shall: Lo! here beginnes your smart.
Wett shall you be, ye shall it not withstand
With weepinge teares that shall make dymm your sight,
And mystic clowdes shall hang still in your light.
Blame but yourselves that kyndlyd have this brand,
With suche desyre to strayne that past your might;
But, since by you the hart hath caught his harme,
His flamèd heat shall sometyme make you warme.

HARRINGTON.


P.    Weep, wretched eyes, accompany the heart
     ...

We will go adventuring, will you come adventuring,
Hail, to all who sail with us the seven pleasant seas:
All the shores with lily bells, all the flutes of woodland dells
Are calling like a legend upon a fragrant breeze.

Throw away the haughty cares, children here are millionaires,
Laughter take for baggage and give your laugh a song;
We must sail the seas of grass, round the isles of clover pass,
And delve in leagues of shadowland, when clouds come along.

Caves are walled with treasure trove, rich as any south-sea cove,
Bullion of the meadow where the gold sun flows;

Round the reefs of mignonette, up the waves of violet,
Fragrant go our sails and spars with attar of the rose.

On, gay adventurers, bravely ride the billowy furze,
Golden foil and dewy p...

Oh that Pieria's spring[1] would thro' my breast
Pour its inspiring influence, and rush
No rill, but rather an o'erflowing flood!
That, for my venerable Father's sake
All meaner themes renounced, my Muse, on wings
Of Duty borne, might reach a loftier strain.
For thee, my Father! howsoe'er it please,
She frames this slender work, nor know I aught,
That may thy gifts more suitably requite;
Though to requite them suitably would ask
Returns much nobler, and surpassing far
The meagre stores of verbal gratitude.
But, such as I possess, I send thee all.
This page presents thee in their full amount
With thy son's treasures, and the sum is nought;
Naught, save the riches that from airy dreams
In secret grottos and in laurel bow'rs,
I have, by golden Cli...

To this city joy reveal it!

Peace as its first signal peal it!

(Song of the Bell concluding lines.)

And so it proved! The nation felt, ere long,

That peaceful signal, and, with blessings fraught,
A new-born joy appear'd; in gladsome song

To hail the youthful princely pair we sought;
While in a living, ever-swelling throng

Mingled the crowds from ev'ry region brought,
And on the stage, in festal pomp array'd
The HOMAGE OF THE ARTS * we saw displayed.

(* The title of a lyric piece composed by Schiller in honour of
the marriage of the hereditary Prince of Weimar to the Princess
Maria of Russia, and performed in 1804.)

When, lo! a fearful midnight sound I hear,

That with a dull and mournful echo rings.
And can ...

Away! the moor is dark beneath the moon,
Rapid clouds have drank the last pale beam of even:
Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon,
And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven.

Pause not! The time is past! Every voice cries, Away!
Tempt not with one last tear thy friend's ungentle mood:
Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy stay:
Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude.

Away, away! to thy sad and silent home;
Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth;
Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come,
And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth.

The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around thine head:
The blooms of dewy spring shall gleam beneath thy feet:
But thy soul or this...

1.
We meet not as we parted,
We feel more than all may see;
My bosom is heavy-hearted,
And thine full of doubt for me: -
One moment has bound the free.

2.
That moment is gone for ever,
Like lightning that flashed and died -
Like a snowflake upon the river -
Like a sunbeam upon the tide,
Which the dark shadows hide.

3.
That moment from time was singled
As the first of a life of pain;
The cup of its joy was mingled
- Delusion too sweet though vain!
Too sweet to be mine again.

4.
Sweet lips, could my heart have hidden
That its life was crushed by you,
Ye would not have then forbidden
The death which a heart so true
Sought in your briny dew.

5.
...
...
...
Methinks too little cost<...

He loves not much who loves not honor more;
If men lack this then love must lack as well;
If this possessed no tongue love's depths can tell;
The heart an ocean filled from shore to shore.

Seeing in him the possibility
Of likeness to the great and Blessed One;
It may be even now in him begun.
I love him much for what I hope to be,

And show my love by yielding him his due;
For sentimental love is ever vain,
It cannot peace, much less heaven's favor gain;
But those who love in deed are blessed and true.

October, 1864

Shoe the steed with silver
That bore him to the fray,
When he heard the guns at dawning--
Miles away;
When he heard them calling, calling--
Mount! nor stay:
Quick, or all is lost;
They've surprised and stormed the post,
They push your routed host--
Gallop! retrieve the day.

House the horse in ermine--
For the foam-flake blew
White through the red October;
He thundered into view;
They cheered him in the looming.
Horseman and horse they knew.
The turn of the tide began,
The rally of bugles ran,
He swung his hat in the van;
The electric hoof-spark flew.

Wreathe the steed and lead him--
For the charge he led
Touched and turned the cypress
Into amaranths for the head
Of Philip, king of rid...

"[Greek text which cannot be reproduced]"

"A woman for whom great gods might strive!"
I said, and kissed her there:
And then I thought of the other five,
And of how charms outwear.

I thought of the first with her eating eyes,
And I thought of the second with hers, green-gray,
And I thought of the third, experienced, wise,
And I thought of the fourth who sang all day.

And I thought of the fifth, whom I'd called a jade,
And I thought of them all, tear-fraught;
And that each had shown her a passable maid,
Yet not of the favour sought.

So I traced these words on the bark of a beech,
Just at the falling of the mast:
"After scanning five; yes, each and each,
I've found the woman desired at last!"

" I feel a strange benumbing spell,...

[1]

Two friends, in Monomotapa,
Had all their interests combined.
Their friendship, faithful and refined,
Our country can't exceed, do what it may.
One night, when potent Sleep had laid
All still within our planet's shade,
One of the two gets up alarm'd,
Runs over to the other's palace,
And hastily the servants rallies.
His startled friend, quick arm'd,
With purse and sword his comrade meets,
And thus right kindly greets: -
'Thou seldom com'st at such an hour;
I take thee for a man of sounder mind
Than to abuse the time for sleep design'd.
Hast lost thy purse, by Fortune's power?
Here's mine. Hast suffer'd insult, or a blow,
I've here my sword - to avenge it let us go.'
'No,' said his friend, 'no need I feel
Of either silve...

I

I heard the young lads singing
In the still morning air,
Gaily the notes came ringing
Across the lilac'd square;
They sang like happy children
Who know not doubt or care,
"As WE GO MARCHING ON."

And each one sloped a rifle
And each one bore a pack;
They had no grief to stifle,
No tears to weep, alack;
They were too blithe to question
Which of them should come back,
As they went marching on.

II

Oh, thou whose eyes are sorrow,
And whose soul is sorrowing,
Who knowest that each to-morrow
A deeper woe may bring,
And knowest that all the comfort
Is the very littlest thing
While they go marching on;

These sons of thine seek glory,
As the bridegroom seeks the bride,
And who shall tell the st...

Oh, what a night for a soul to go!
The wind a hawk, and the fields in snow;
No screening cover of leaves in the wood,
Nor a star abroad the way to show.

Do they part in peace, soul with its clay?
Tenant and landlord, what do they say?
Was it sigh of sorrow or of release
I heard just now as the face turned gray?

What if, aghast on the shoreless main
Of Eternity, it sought again
The shelter and rest of the Isle of Time,
And knocked at the door of its house of pain!

On the tavern hearth the embers glow,
The laugh is deep and the flagons low;
But without, the wind and the trackless sky,
And night at the gates where a soul would go!

A clamour by day and a whisper by night,
And the Summer comes with the shining noons,
With the ripple of leaves, and the passionate light
Of the falling suns and the rising moons.

And the ripple of leaves and the purple and red
Die for the grapes and the gleam of the wheat,
And then you may pause with the splendours, or tread
On the yellow of Autumn with lingering feet.

You may halt with the face to a flying sea,
Or stand like a gloom in the gloom of things,
When the moon drops down and the desolate lea
Is troubled with thunder and desolate wings.

But alas for the grey of the wintering eves,
And the pondering storms and the ruin of rains;
And alas for the Spring like a flame in the leaves,
And the green of the woods and the gold of the lanes!