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Plays and poems

Boker, George H. (1823-1890)

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POEMS.
  
THE PODESTA'S DAUGHTER;
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THE IVORY CARVER.
  
PROLOGUE.
  
THE IVORY CARVER.
  
EPILOGUE.
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THE SONG OF THE EARTH.
  
PRELUDE.
  
SONG OF THE EARTH.
  
FINALE.
  
THE VISION OF THE GOBLET.
  
ODE TO ENGLAND.
  
THE QUEEN'S TOUCH.
  
[I have a cottage where the sunbeams lurk]
  
ODE TO A MOUNTAIN OAK.
  
THE RIVER AND THE MAIDEN.
  
VESTIGIA RETRORSUM.
  
A BALLAD OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.
  
THE SIEGE OF CABEZON.
  
COUNT CANDESPINA'S STANDARD.
  
THE DEATH OF DOÑA URRACA.
  
THE LEGEND OF MARIA CORONEL.
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SONGS AND SONNETS.
  
THE ROSE OF GRANADA.
  
[There was a gay maiden lived down by the mill]
  
LIDA.
  
[Yes, I loved her! Bear me witness]
  
[When we meet again, shall I behold no shrinking]
  
[The fever in my blood has died]
  
[I sit beneath the sunbeams' glow]
  
[Wheel on thy axle, softly run]
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STREET LYRICS.
  
I. THE GROCER'S DAUGHTER.
  
II. A MYSTERY.
  
III. THE TWO BIRDS.
  
IV. FLOWERS AT THE WINDOW.
  
THE AWAKING OF THE POETICAL FACULTY.
  
TO ANDREW JACKSON.
  
TO LOUIS NAPOLEON.
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TO ENGLAND.
 1. 
[I. Lear and Cordelia! 'twas an ancient tale]
 2. 
[II. Stand, thou great bulwark of man's liberty]
 3. 
[III. At length the tempest from the North has burst]
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[IV. Far from the Baltic to the Euxine's strand]
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[V. O, men of England, with an anxious heart]
 6. 
[VI. Once more old England's banner on the gale]
 7. 
[VII. Faint not nor tremble, birthplace of my sires]
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TO AMERICA.
 1. 
[I. What, cringe to Europe! Band it all in one]
 2. 
[II. What though the cities blaze, the ports be sealed]
  
TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN SERGEANT.
  
TO THE MEMORY OF M. A. R.
  
TO THE MEMORY OF S. S.
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TO BAYARD TAYLOR.
 1. 
[I. What changes of our natures have not been]
 2. 
[II. The world seems strangely altered to me, friend]
  
[How the fixed gaze of unadmiring time]
  
[Dear is the fruit of sorrow, priceless store]
  
[Not when the buxom form which nature wears]
  
[Spring, in the gentle look with which she turns]
  
[Either the sum of this sweet mutiny]
  
[I'll call thy frown a headsman, passing grim]
  
[Nay, not to thee, to nature I will tie]
  
[How canst thou call my modest love impure]
  
[Why shall I chide the hand of wilful Time]
  
[Love is that orbit of the restless soul]
  
[Thou who dost smile upon me, yet unknown]
  
[Fear not, dear maid, the love I give to thee]
  
[Where lags my mistress while the drowsy year]
  
[O! would that Fortune might bestow on me]
  
[Your love to me appears in doubtful signs]
  
[No gentle touches of your timid hand]
  
[Doubt is the offspring of a self-distrust]
  
[As at an altar, love, behold me kneel]
  
[I do assure thee, love, each kiss of thine]
  
[To win and lose thee! In one hour to sa,]
  
[Here part we, love, beneath the world's broad eye]
  
[And shall we part without a parting kis?]
  
[No hope is mine, no comfort mine; for I]
  
[Imagine, love, that I bent over thee]
  
[My lady sighs, and I am far away]
  
[If, by an absence of unnumbered years]
  
[Hence, cold despair! I do believe that they]
  
ON MY LADY'S LETTER.
  
[The ghostly midnight settles on my heart]
  
[In this deep hush and quiet of my soul]
  
[I have been mounted on life's topmost wave]
  
[Ah! would to heaven that this dear misery]
  
[Sometimes, in bitter fancy, I bewail]
  
[To-night the tempest rages. All without]
  
[Another shriek like that, O furious wind]
  
[Again the tireless winds are rushing past]
  
[Thank Heaven, a lull—a lull in the long roar]
  
[What fancy, or what flight of wingéd thought]
  
[I know art hardens what my love would speak]
  
[Yet, love, forgive thy Poet if his lays]
  
[O! for some spirit, some magnetic spark]
  
[There is a sorrow underlies mere grief]
  
[To love thee absent were sufficient pain]
  
[Why should I cheat my heart with open lies]
  
[Ah! let me live on memories of old]
  
[In vain to thee I stretch imploring arms]
  
[Time shall not dry thy ever-falling tears]
  
[I do not sorrow that thy love was cast]
  
[I heard a voice that through the midnight cried]
  
[Like old King Hamlet sleeping in the flowers]
  
[No forward step in all my history]
  
[I will not blazon forth thy sacred name]
  
[As a sad hermit in his cloistered cell]
  
[Only through this, this precious gift of song]
  
[Fate, of all seasons, chose the happy time]
  
[I shall be faithful, though the weary years]
  
[I have not turned for sympathy to friends]
  
[Across the waters, through the void of night]
  
[Here let the motions of the world be still]
  
[All the world's malice, all the spite of fate]

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446

[I shall be faithful, though the weary years]

I shall be faithful, though the weary years
Spread out before me like a mountain chain,
Rugged and steep, ascending from the plain,
Without a path; though where the cliff uprears
Its sternest front, and echoes in my ears
My own deep sobs of solitary pain,
It is my fate to scale; though all in vain
I spend my labor, and my idle tears
Torture but me: I know, despite my ill,
That with each step a little wastes away—
A little of this life wastes day by day;
And far beyond the desert which I fill
With my vast sorrow, I have faith to say
That we shall meet; so I press onward still.
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