I mind me in the days departed,
How often underneath the sun
With childish bounds I used to run
To a garden long deserted.

The beds and walks were vanished quite;
And wheresoe'er had struck the spade,
The greenest grasses Nature laid
To sanctify her right.

I called the place my wilderness,
For no one entered there but I;
The sheep looked in, the grass to espy,
And passed it ne'ertheless.

The trees were interwoven wild,
And spread their boughs enough about
To keep both sheep and shepherd out,
But not a happy child.

Adventurous joy it was for me!
I crept beneath the boughs, and found
A circle smooth of mossy ground
Beneath a poplar tree.

Old garden rose-trees hedged it in,
Bedropt with roses waxen-white

    Aye Charles! I knew that this would fix thine eye,
    This woodbine wreathing round the broken porch,
    Its leaves just withering, yet one autumn flower
    Still fresh and fragrant; and yon holly-hock
    That thro' the creeping weeds and nettles tall
    Peers taller, and uplifts its column'd stem
    Bright with the broad rose-blossoms. I have seen
    Many a fallen convent reverend in decay,
    And many a time have trod the castle courts
    And grass-green halls, yet never did they strike
    Home to the heart such melancholy thoughts
    As this poor cottage. Look, its little hatch
    Fleeced with that grey and wintry moss; the roof
    Part mouldered in, the rest o'ergrown with weeds,
    House-leek and long thin grass and greener moss;
    So Natur...

When beechen buds begin to swell,
And woods the blue-bird's warble know,
The yellow violet's modest bell
Peeps from the last year's leaves below.

Ere russet fields their green resume,
Sweet flower, I love, in forest bare,
To meet thee, when thy faint perfume
Alone is in the virgin air.

Of all her train, the hands of Spring
First plant thee in the watery mould,
And I have seen thee blossoming
Beside the snow-bank's edges cold.

Thy parent sun, who bade thee view
Pale skies, and chilling moisture sip,
Has bathed thee in his own bright hue,
And streaked with jet thy glowing lip.

Yet slight thy form, and low thy seat,
And earthward bent thy gentle eye,
Unapt the passing view to meet,
When loftier flowers are flaunting nigh.

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;
Nature I lov’d, and next to Nature, Art;
I warm’d both hands before the fire of life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

"Sister, you've sat there all the day,
Come to the hearth awhile;
The wind so wildly sweeps away,
The clouds so darkly pile.
That open book has lain, unread,
For hours upon your knee;
You've never smiled nor turned your head;
What can you, sister, see?"

"Come hither, Jane, look down the field;
How dense a mist creeps on!
The path, the hedge, are both concealed,
Ev'n the white gate is gone
No landscape through the fog I trace,
No hill with pastures green;
All featureless is Nature's face.
All masked in clouds her mien.

"Scarce is the rustle of a leaf
Heard in our garden now;
The year grows old, its days wax brief,
The tresses leave its brow.
The rain drives fast before the wind,
The sky is blank and grey;
O Jane, what s...

I dug a grave, one smiling April day,
    A grave whose small proportions testified
To empty arms, and playthings put away,
    To ears which heard, when only fancy cried;
        I wondered, as I shaped that little mound,
        If in my home such grief should e'er be found.

I dug a grave, 'twas in the month of June;
    A grave for one who at his zenith died;
When, on that mound with floral tributes strewn,
    The tear-drops fell of one but late his bride,
        I wondered if upon my silent bier
        Should rest the moist impression of a tear.

I dug a grave by Autumn's sober light,
    A grave of full dimensions; 'twas for one
Whose hair had changed its raven hue to white,
    Whose course had finished with the setting sun;
        I wonde...

Tune - "Failte na Miosg."


I.

    My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
    My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
    A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe,
    My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
    Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
    The birth-place of valour, the country of worth;
    Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
    The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

II.

    Farewell to the mountains high cover'd with snow;
    Farewell to the straths and green valleys below:
    Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods;
    Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.
    My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
    My heart's in the Highlands...

    It's snowing and all I can think of
    are leaves to wrap your memory,
    leaves pungent as tea,
    green curls alive
    with the promise of fire,
    shutes like fingers
    to play a tap on your skin.

    The snow is wet like your eyes at parting,
    cold as the promise of a winter dawn
    wet again as city-streets
    I must tread to make a living,
    the flask of wine
    pressed to my lips.

    On the winter landscape all
    I see is the ghost white of sheets,
    our sheets wrapped to keep breath warm
    the log cannisters of our bed
    a heady raft upon which to travel
    to burn up an ocean of delight.

I.

Oh, melancholy child of want and woe!
    A brilliant meteor in an ebon sky!
Thy soul's weird music all did flow
    From heart-strings touched by destiny!


II.

The Raven, perched above thy chamber door,
    Responsive croaked with a prophetic word--
For in the realm of song may "Nevermore"
    Such strains as thine by mortal ear be heard!


III.

Where now doth that proud spirit dwell,
    Whose earthly days were clouded o'er with gloom?
In regions with the sweet-voiced "Israfel,"
    Where never-fading flowerets bloom?


IV.

Dost rest within some "distant Aidenn,
    Beyond the Night's Plutonian shore?
And clasp again a sainted maiden
    Whom the angels name Lenore?"


V....

As I lay awake in the white moonlight
I heard a faint singing in the wood,
            "Out of bed,
            Sleepyhead,
            Put your white foot, now;
            Here are we
            Beneath the tree
            Singing round the root now."

I looked out of window, in the white moonlight,
The leaves were like snow in the wood -
            "Come away,
            Child, and play
            Light with the gnomies;
            In a mound,
            Green and round,
            That's where their home is.

            "Honey sweet,
            Curds to eat,
            Cream and frumenty,
            Shells and beads,
            Poppy seeds,
            You shall have plenty."

But, as soon as I stoo...

No; no;
It must not be so:
They are the ways we do not go.

Still chew
The kine, and moo
In the meadows we used to wander through;

Still purl
The rivulets and curl
Towards the weirs with a musical swirl;

Haymakers
As in former years
Rake rolls into heaps that the pitchfork rears;

Wheels crack
On the turfy track
The waggon pursues with its toppling pack.

"Why then shun -
Since summer's not done -
All this because of the lack of one?"

Had you been
Sharer of that scene
You would not ask while it bites in keen

Why it is so
We can no more go
By the summer paths we used to know!

1913.

What pain, to wake and miss you!
    To wake with a tightened heart,
And mouth reaching forward to kiss you!

This then at last is the dawn, and the bell
    Clanging at the farm! Such bewilderment
Comes with the sight of the room, I cannot tell.

It is raining. Down the half-obscure road
    Four labourers pass with their scythes
Dejectedly; - a huntsman goes by with his load:

A gun, and a bunched-up deer, its four little feet
    Clustered dead. - And this is the dawn
For which I wanted the night to retreat!

        When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes,
        And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind
        Like aged warriors westward, tragic, thinned
        Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes,
        Stripped of its secret, open, stark and bleak,
        Blackens afar the half-forgotten creek,--
        Then leans on me the weight of the year, and crushes
        My heart.    I know that Beauty must ail and die,
        And will be born again,--but ah, to see
        Beauty stiffened, staring up at the sky!
        Oh, Autumn!    Autumn!--What is the Spring to me?

To range, deep-wrapt, along a heavenly height,
O'erseeing all that man but undersees;
To loiter down lone alleys of delight,
And hear the beating of the hearts of trees,
And think the thoughts that lilies speak in white
By greenwood pools and pleasant passages;

With healthy dreams a-dream in flesh and soul,
To pace, in mighty meditations drawn,
From out the forest to the open knoll
Where much thyme is, whence blissful leagues of lawn
Betwixt the fringing woods to southward roll
By tender inclinations; mad with dawn,

Ablaze with fires that flame in silver dew
When each small globe doth glass the morning-star,
Long ere the sun, sweet-smitten through and through
With dappled revelations read afar,
Suffused with saintly ecstasies of blue
As all th...

Prelude To "Illustrated Poems"

Full well I know the frozen hand has come
That smites the songs of grove and garden dumb,
And chills sad autumn's last chrysanthemum;

Yet would I find one blossom, if I might,
Ere the dark loom that weaves the robe of white
Hides all the wrecks of summer out of sight.

Sometimes in dim November's narrowing day,
When all the season's pride has passed away,
As mid the blackened stems and leaves we stray,

We spy in sheltered nook or rocky cleft
A starry disk the hurrying winds have left,
Of all its blooming sisterhood bereft.

Some pansy, with its wondering baby eyes
Poor wayside nursling! - fixed in blank surprise
At the rough welcome of unfriendly skies;

Or golden daisy, - will it dare disclaim

I.
June was not over
Though past the fall,
And the best of her roses
Had yet to blow,
When a man I know
(But shall not discover,
Since ears are dull,
And time discloses)
Turned him and said with a man’s true air,
Half sighing a smile in a yawn, as ’twere,
“If I tire of your June, will she greatly care?”

II.
Well, dear, in-doors with you!
True, serene deadness
Tries a man’s temper.
What’s in the blossom
June wears on her bosom?
Can it clear scores with you?
Sweetness and redness.
Eadem semper!
Go, let me care for it greatly or slightly!
If June mends her bowers now, your hand left unsightly
By plucking the roses, my June will do rightly.

III.
And after, for pastime,
If June be refulgent
With flo...

Bald heads forgetful of their sins,
Old, learned, respectable bald heads
Edit and annotate the lines
That young men, tossing on their beds,
Rhymed out in love’s despair
To flatter beauty’s ignorant ear.

They’ll cough in the ink to the world’s end;
Wear out the carpet with their shoes
Earning respect; have no strange friend;
If they have sinned nobody knows.
Lord, what would they say
Should their Catullus walk that way?

"'He cometh not,' she said."

Mariana


It will not be to-day and yet
I think and dream it will; and let
The slow uncertainty devise
So many sweet excuses, met
With the old doubt in hope's disguise.

The panes were sweated with the dawn;
Yet through their dimness, shriveled drawn,
The aigret of one princess-feather,
One monk's-hood tuft with oilets wan,
I glimpsed, dead in the slaying weather.

This morning, when my window's chintz
I drew, how gray the day was! Since
I saw him, yea, all days are gray!
I gazed out on my dripping quince,
Defruited, gnarled; then turned away

To weep, but did not weep: but felt
A colder anguish than did melt
About the tearful-visaged year!
Then flung the lattice wide, and smelt