All her youth is gone, her beautiful youth outworn,
Daughter of tarn and tor, the moors that were once her home
No longer know her step on the upland tracks forlorn
                Where she was wont to roam.

All her hounds are dead, her beautiful hounds are dead,
That paced beside the hoofs of her high and nimble horse,
Or streaked in lean pursuit of the tawny hare that fled
                Out of the yellow gorse.

All her lovers have passed, her beautiful lovers have passed,
The young and eager men that fought for her arrogant hand,
And the only voice which endures to mourn for her at the last
                Is the voice of the lonely land.

Just at the corner of the wall
    We met yes, he and I -
Who had not faced in camp or hall
    Since we bade home good-bye,
And what once happened came back all -
    Out of those years gone by.

And that strange woman whom we knew
    And loved long dead and gone,
Whose poor half-perished residue,
    Tombless and trod, lay yon!
But at this moment to our view
    Rose like a phantom wan.

And in his fixed face I could see,
    Lit by a lurid shine,
The drama re-enact which she
    Had dyed incarnadine
For us, and more. And doubtless he
    Beheld it too in mine.

A start, as at one slightly known,
    And with an indifferent air
We passed, without a sign being shown
    That, as it real were,
A memory-acted scene ...

'Twas a death-bed summons, and forth I went
By the way of the Western Wall, so drear
On that winter night, and sought a gate -
The home, by Fate,
Of one I had long held dear.

And there, as I paused by her tenement,
And the trees shed on me their rime and hoar,
I thought of the man who had left her lone -
Him who made her his own
When I loved her, long before.

The rooms within had the piteous shine
That home-things wear when there's aught amiss;
From the stairway floated the rise and fall
Of an infant's call,
Whose birth had brought her to this.

Her life was the price she would pay for that whine -
For a child by the man she did not love.
"But let that rest for ever," I said,
And bent my tread
To the chamber up above.

We who are left, how shall we look again
Happily on the sun or feel the rain
Without remembering how they who went
Ungrudgingly and spent
Their lives for us loved, too, the sun and rain?

A bird among the rain-wet lilac sings -
But we, how shall we turn to little things
And listen to the birds and winds and streams
Made holy by their dreams,
Nor feel the heart-break in the heart of things?

I ranted to the knave and fool,
But outgrew that school,
Would transform the part,
Fit audience found, but cannot rule
My fanatic heart.
I sought my betters: though in each
Fine manners, liberal speech,
Turn hatred into sport,
Nothing said or done can reach
My fanatic heart,
Out of Ireland have we come.
Great hatred, little room,
Maimed us at the start.
I carry from my mother's womb
A fanatic heart.

Hush, sweet Lute, thy songs remind me
    Of past joys, now turned to pain;
Of ties that long have ceased to bind me,
    But whose burning marks remain.
In each tone, some echo falleth
    On my ear of joys gone by;
Every note some dream recalleth
    Of bright hopes but born to die.

Yet, sweet Lute, though pain it bring me,
    Once more let thy numbers thrill;
Tho' death were in the strain they sing me,
    I must woo its anguish still.
Since no time can e'er recover
    Love's sweet light when once 'tis set,--
Better to weep such pleasures over,
    Than smile o'er any left us yet.

With many a thousand kiss not yet content,

At length with One kiss I was forced to go;

After that bitter parting's depth of woe,
I deem'd the shore from which my steps I bent,

Its hills, streams, dwellings, mountains, as I went,

A pledge of joy, till daylight ceased to glow;

Then on my sight did blissful visions grow
In the dim-lighted, distant firmament,

And when at length the sea confined my gaze,

My ardent longing fill'd my heart once more;

What I had lost, unwillingly I sought.

Then Heaven appear'd to shed its kindly rays:

Methought that all I had possess'd of yore

Remain'd still mine that I was reft of nought.

Lovers of whores don’t care,
happy, calm and replete:
But my arms are incomplete,
grasping the empty air.

Thanks to stars, incomparable ones,
that blaze in the depths of the skies,
all my destroyed eyes
see, are the memories of suns.

I look, in vain, for beginning and end
of the heavens’ slow revolve:
Under an unknown eye of fire, I ascend
feeling my wings dissolve.

And, scorched by desire for the beautiful,
I will not know the bliss,
of giving my name to that abyss,
that knows my tomb and funeral.

Swings the way still by hollow and hill,
And all the world's a song;
"She's far," it sings me, "but fair," it rings me,
"Quiet," it laughs, "and strong!"

Oh! spite of the miles and years between us,
Spite of your chosen part,
I do remember; and I go
With laughter in my heart.

So above the little folk that know not,
Out of the white hill-town,
High up I clamber; and I remember;
And watch the day go down.

Gold is my heart, and the world's golden,
And one peak tipped with light;
And the air lies still about the hill
With the first fear of night;

Till mystery down the soundless valley
Thunders, and dark is here;
And the wind blows, and the light goes,
And the night is full of fear,

And I know, one night, on some fa...

There is a land whereon the sun's warm gaze,
    God-like, all-seeing, falls right down through space,
And the weak Earth, quite smitten by its rays,
    Lies scorch'd and powerless with mute silent face,
Like a tranced body, where no changing glow
Tells that the life-streams through its channels flow.

Peopled it is by nations scant and few,
    Set far apart among the trackless sands,
Unlearn'd, uncultured, wild and swart of hue,
    Roaming the deserts in divided bands,
Where the green pastures call them, and the deer
Troop yet within the range of bow and spear.

Unhappy Afric! can thy boundless plains,
    Where the royal lion snuffs the free pure air,
And every breeze laughs at the tyrant's chains,
    Be but the nest of slavery and despair,
Rea...

Shall we, too, rise forgetful from our sleep,
And shall my soul that lies within your hand
Remember nothing, as the blowing sand
Forgets the palm where long blue shadows creep
When winds along the darkened desert sweep?

Or would it still remember, tho' it spanned
A thousand heavens, while the planets fanned
The vacant ether with their voices deep?
Soul of my soul, no word shall be forgot,
Nor yet alone, beloved, shall we see

The desolation of extinguished suns,
Nor fear the void wherethro' our planet runs,
For still together shall we go and not
Fare forth alone to front eternity.

To meet, and part, as we have met and parted,
    One moment cherished and the next forgot,
To wear a smile when almost broken-hearted,
    I know full well is hapless woman's lot;
Yet let me, to thy tenderness appealing,
    Avert this brief but melancholy doom--
Content that close beside the thorn of feeling,
    Grows memory, like a rose, in guarded bloom.

Love's history, dearest, is a sad one ever,
    Yet often with a smile I've heard it told!
Oh, there are records of the heart which never
    Are to the scrutinizing gaze unrolled!
My eyes to thine may scarce again aspire--
    Still in thy memory, dearest let me dwell,
And hush, with this hope, the magnetic wire,
    Wild with our mingled welcome and farewell!

The sun now sinks behind the woodland green,
And twittering spangles glow the leaves between;
So bright and dazzling on the eye it plays
As if noon's heat had kindled to a blaze,
But soon it dims in red and heavier hues,
And shows wild fancy cheated in her views.
A mist-like moisture rises from the ground,
And deeper blueness stains the distant round.
The eye each moment, as it gazes o'er,
Still loses objects which it mark'd before;
The woods at distance changing like to clouds,
And spire-points croodling under evening's shrouds;
Till forms of things, and hues of leaf and flower,
In deeper shadows, as by magic power,
With light and all, in scarce-perceiv'd decay,
Put on mild evening's sober garb of grey.

Now in the sleepy gloom that blackens round
D...

I.

O what memories sweet entwine
Around each word and faded line!
Yellow and dim with the touch of years,
And soiled with the marks of tears--
A sacred treasure of the heart
Which death alone can from him part--
A letter--cherished as no other--
And ending with the name of--Mother!


II.

Writ it was to a wayward boy,
When life to him seemed full of joy--
Pleading with him so to live
That he her heart no grief would give--
That after years might ne'er be fraught
With sorrow that himself had wrought:--
"May guardian angels 'round you hover,"
She wrote--and signed the name of--Mother!


III.

The paper has the taint of must--
The hand that traced the lines is dust,
And silvery hair is on the head
...

Thou hast made all the house an empty thing,
Dear Ursula, by this thy vanishing.
Though we are here, 'tis yet a vacant place,
One little soul had filled so great a space.
For thou didst sing thy joyousness to all,
Running through every nook of house and hall.
Thou wouldst not have thy mother grieve, nor let
Thy father with too solemn thinking fret
His head, but thou must kiss them, daughter mine,
And all with that entrancing laugh of thine!
Now on the house has fallen a dumb blight:
Thou wilt not come with archness and delight,

But every corner lodges lurking grief
And all in vain the heart would seek relief.

Warm yellowy-green
In the blue serene,
How they skip and sway
On this autumn day!
They cannot know
What has happened below, -
That their boughs down there
Are already quite bare,
That their own will be
When a week has passed, -
For they jig as in glee
To this very last.

But no; there lies
At times in their tune
A note that cries
What at first I fear
I did not hear:
"O we remember
At each wind's hollo -
Though life holds yet -
We go hence soon,
For 'tis November;
- But that you follow
You may forget!"

Where the waters of the Mohawk
Through a quiet valley glide,
From the brown church to her dwelling
She that morning passed a bride.
In the mild light of October
Beautiful the forest stood,
As the temple on Mount Zion
When God filled its solitude.

Very quietly the red leaves,
On the languid zephyr's breath,
Fluttered to the mossy hillocks
Where their sisters slept in death:
And the white mist of the Autumn
Hung o'er mountain-top and dale,
Soft and filmy, as the foldings
Of the passing bridal veil.

From the field of Saratoga
At the last night's eventide,
Rode the groom, - a gallant soldier
Flushed with victory and pride,
Seeking, as a priceless guerdon
From the dark-eyed Madeline,
Leave to lead her to the altar
When...

Do you remember the wood, love,
That skirted the meadow so green;
Where the cooing was heard of the stock-dove,
And the sunlight just glinted between.
The trees, that with branches entwining
Made shade, where we wandered in bliss,
And our eyes with true love-light were shining, -
When you gave me the first loving kiss?

The ferns grew tall, graceful and fair,
But none were so graceful as you;
Wild flow'rs in profusion were there,
But your eyes were a lovelier blue;
And the tint on your cheek shamed the rose,
And your brow as the lily was white,
And your curls, bright as gold, when it glows,
In the crucible, liquid and bright.

And do you remember the stile,
Where so cosily sitting at eve,
Breathing forth ardent love-vows the while,
We ...