Empty as death and slow as pain
The days went by on leaden feet;
And parson’s week had come again
As I walked down the little street.

Without, the weary doves were calling,
The sun burned on the banks of mud;
Within, old maids were caterwauling
A dismal tale of thorns and blood.

I thought of all the church bells ringing
In towns that Christian folks were in;
I heard the godly maidens singing;
I turned into the house of sin.

The house of sin was dark & mean,
With dying flowers round the door;
They spat their betel juice between
The rotten bamboos of the floor.

Why did I come, the woman cried,
So seldom to her beds of ease?
When I was not, her spirit died,
And would I give her ten rupees.

The weeks went by, a...

Hou, O my Grief, be wise and tranquil still,
The eve is thine which even now drops down,
To carry peace or care to human will,
And in a misty veil enfolds the town.

While the vile mortals of the multitude,
By pleasure, cruel tormentor, goaded on,
Gather remorseful blossoms in light mood
Grief, place thy hand in mine, let us be gone

Far from them. Lo, see how the vanished years,
In robes outworn lean over heaven's rim;
And from the water, smiling through her tears,

Remorse arises, and the sun grows dim;
And in the east, her long shroud trailing light,
List, O my grief, the gentle steps of Night.

[From Farmer Harrington's Calendar.]

SEPTEMBER 10, 18 - .

        Ah me! it makes a sinner wondrous blue,
        To see so many other sinners too!
        When I rake over all my faults, and then
        Notice the same, or worse, in other men,
        It makes me very much surprised and sad,
        That Heaven should see Earth turning out so bad!

        Vice, vice, vice, vice! The country's mean enough,
        And has some villains that are pretty rough;
        But in this town, where art and nature both
        Are shoved into their very greatest growth,
        And where the utmost of all things is found,
        The Devil has his best men on the ground,
        And gives them weapons meeting his own views,
        And all th...

    As the wind at play with a spark
    Of fire that glows through the night;
    As the speed of the soaring lark
    That wings to the sky his flight -
    So swiftly thy soul has sped
    In its upward wonderful way,
    Like the lark when the dawn is red,
    In search of the shining day.

    Thou art not with the frozen dead
    Whom earth in the earth we lay,
    While the bearers softly tread,
    And the mourners kneel and pray;
    From thy semblance, dumb and stark,
    The soul has taken its flight -
    Out of the finite dark,
    Into the infinite Light.

Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man,
How angrily thou spurn’st all simpler fare!
Christ, some one says, was human as we are;
No judge eyes us from heaven, our sin to scan;

We live no more, when we have done our span.
‘Well, then, for Christ,’ thou answerest, ‘who can care?
‘From sin, which heaven records not, why forbear
‘Live we like brutes our life without a plan!’

So answerest thou; but why not rather say
Hath man no second life? Pitch this one high!
‘Sits there no judge in heaven, our sin to see?

‘More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!
‘Was Christ a man like us? Ah! let us try
‘If we then, too, can be such men as he!’

A sky of wind! And while these fitful gusts
Are beating round the windows in the cold,
With sullen sobs of rain, behold I shape
A settler’s story of the wild old times:
One told by camp-fires when the station drays
Were housed and hidden, forty years ago;
While swarthy drivers smoked their pipes, and drew,
And crowded round the friendly gleaming flame
That lured the dingo, howling, from his caves,
And brought sharp sudden feet about the brakes.

A tale of Love and Death. And shall I say
A tale of love in death for all the patient eyes
That gathered darkness, watching for a son
And brother, never dreaming of the fate
The fearful fate he met alone, unknown,
Within the ruthless Australasian wastes?

For in a far-off, sultry summer, rimmed
With thun...

Turn thine eyes from me, Angel of Heaven--
    Read not my soul, Angel of Heaven--
Sorrow is steeping my pale cheeks with weeping,
    Evermore keeping her wand on my heart,
    On my cold stony heart, while the tear-fountains start
To purge it from leaven too sinful for Heaven--
    Read not my soul, yet, Angel of Heaven!

Why hast thou ta'en her, Angel of Heaven?
    Ta'en her so soon, Angel of Heaven?
Yearning to gain her, hast thou thus slain her
    Ere sin could stain her--borne her away,
    Borne her far, far away, into eternal day,
    Left me alone to stay--left me to weep and pray?
Why hast thou ta'en her, Angel of Heaven?
    Ta'en her so soon, Angel of Heaven?

Shines the place brighter, Angel of Heaven?
    Brighter for her, Angel of He...

Hell's dunnest gloom, or night unlustrous, dark,
Of every planes 'reft, and pall'd in clouds,
Did never spread before the sight a veil
In thickness like that fog, nor to the sense
So palpable and gross. Ent'ring its shade,
Mine eye endured not with unclosed lids;
Which marking, near me drew the faithful guide,
Offering me his shoulder for a stay.

As the blind man behind his leader walks,
Lest he should err, or stumble unawares
On what might harm him, or perhaps destroy,
I journey'd through that bitter air and foul,
Still list'ning to my escort's warning voice,
"Look that from me thou part not." Straight I heard
Voices, and each one seem'd to pray for peace,
And for compassion, to the Lamb of God
That taketh sins away. Their prelude still
Was "Agnus ...

(Mr Norman Dewar, commission merchant, a native of Glengarry, Canada who had been assisting Captain McCabe as commissary of the Memphis Relief Committee, died of yellow fever after three days illness A brave and gentle nature, he was loved by a host of friends and will long be remembered as among the noblest of the band of gallant men who during this fearful epidemic died at the post of duty)


Far away from stricken Memphis
    Came the tidings sad and sure
That among the many fallen,
    Fell the clansman Norman Dewar

There are eyes unused to weeping
    With the tears of sorrow dim,
Hearts with nature's anguish heaving,
    Yet 'tis wrong to weep for him

None who fell in glorious battle,
    In the shock of meeting steel,
Fell more bravely, died more nobly

O Love! divinest dream of youth,
Thy day of ecstacy is o'er,
My bosom, touch'd by time and truth,
Thrills at thy dear deceits no more.

Nor thou, Ambition! e'er again,
With splendour dazzling to betray,
And aspirations fierce and vain,
Shall tempt my steps--away! away!

Alas! by stern Experience cleft,
When life's romance is turn'd to sport;
If man hath consolation left
On this side death--'tis good old port.

And thou, Advice! who glum and chill,
Do'st the third bottle still gainsay;
Smile, and partake it, if you will,
But if you wont--away! away!

Aye, lay him in his grave, the old dead year!
His life is lived--fulfilled his destiny.
Have you for him no sad, regretful tear
To drop beside the cold, unfollowed bier?
Can you not pay the tribute of a sigh?

Was he not kind to you, this dead old year?
Did he not give enough of earthly store?
Enough of love, and laughter, and good cheer?
Have not the skies you scanned sometimes been clear?
How, then, of him who dies, could you ask more?

It is not well to hate him for the pain
He brought you, and the sorrows manifold.
To pardon him these hurts still I am fain;
For in the panting period of his reign,
He brought me new wounds, but he healed the old.

One little sigh for thee, my poor, dead friend--
One little sigh while my companions sing.
T...

Not long in bed had Lyndhurst lain,
    When, as his lamp burned dimly,
The ghosts of corporate bodies slain,[1]
    Stood by his bedside grimly.
Dead aldermen who once could feast,
    But now, themselves, are fed on,
And skeletons of mayors deceased,
    This doleful chorus led on:--
                Oh Lord Lyndhurst,
                "Unmerciful Lord Lyndhurst,
                    "Corpses we,
                    "All burkt by thee,
                "Unmerciful Lord Lyndhurst!"

"Avaunt, ye frights!" his Lordship cried,
    "Ye look most glum and whitely."
"Ah, Lyndhurst dear!" the frights replied,
    "You've used us unpolitely.
"And now, ungrateful man! to drive
    "Dead bodies from your door so,
"Who quite corrupt enough, al...

On the lone waters' shore
    Wander I yet;
Brooding those moments o'er
    I should forget.
'Till the broad foaming surge
    Warns me to fly,
While despair's whispers urge
    To stay and die.
When the night's solemn watch
    Falls on the seas,
'Tis thy voice that I catch
    In the low breeze;
When the moon sheds her light
    On things below,
Beams not her ray so bright,
    Like thy young brow?
Spirit immortal! say,
    When wilt thou come,
To marshal me the way
    To my long home?

I come, ye little noisy Crew,
Not long your pastime to prevent;
I heard the blessing which to you
Our common Friend and Father sent.
I kissed his cheek before he died;
And when his breath was fled,
I raised, while kneeling by his side,
His hand:, it dropped like lead.
Your hands, dear Little-ones, do all
That can be done, will never fall
Like his till they are dead.
By night or day blow foul or fair,
Ne'er will the best of all your train
Play with the locks of his white hair,
Or stand between his knees again.
Here did he sit confined for hours;
But he could see the woods and plains,
Could hear the wind and mark the showers
Come streaming down the streaming panes.
Now stretched beneath his grass-green mound
He rests a prisoner of the ground....

The bustle in a house
The morning after death
Is solemnest of industries
Enacted upon earth, --

The sweeping up the heart,
And putting love away
We shall not want to use again
Until eternity.

They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young,
The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave:
But the men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung,
Shall they come with years and honour to the grave?

They shall not return to us; the strong men coldly slain
In sight of help denied from day to day:
But the men who edged their agonies and chid them in their pain,
Are they too strong and wise to put away?

Our dead shall not return to us while Day and Night divide,
Never while the bars of sunset hold.
But the idle-minded overlings who quibbled while they died,
Shall they thrust for high employments as of old?

Shall we only threaten and be angry for an hour:
When the storm is ended shall we find
How softly but how swiftly they have sidled back to p...

Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis,
Et fugiunt freno non remorante dies.--OVID, Fastorum, Lib. vi.


"O Caesar, we who are about to die
Salute you!" was the gladiators' cry
In the arena, standing face to face
With death and with the Roman populace.

O ye familiar scenes,--ye groves of pine,
That once were mine and are no longer mine,--
Thou river, widening through the meadows green
To the vast sea, so near and yet unseen,--
Ye halls, in whose seclusion and repose
Phantoms of fame, like exhalations, rose
And vanished,--we who are about to die
Salute you; earth and air and sea and sky,
And the Imperial Sun that scatters down
His sovereign splendors upon grove and town.

Ye do not answer us! ye do not hear!
We are forgotten; an...

Fare thee well, love!--We must sever!
Nor for years, love; but for ever!
We must meet no more--or only
Meet as strangers--sad and lonely.
            Fare thee well!

Fare thee well, love!--How I languish
For the cause of all my anguish!
None have ever met and parted
So forlorn and broken-hearted.
            Fare thee well!

Fare thee well, love--Till I perish
All my truth for thee I'll cherish;
And, when thou my requiem hearest,
Know till death I loved thee, dearest.
            Fare thee well!