University of Virginia Library

FRAGMENTS

—when February studs
The naked larch with million buds—
Snowdrops, the tender infants of the year—
As, upon a day of March,
When blue glory fills the arch
Of ether, and the wave is bright
And the mountains robed in light,
Hours are lovely beyond measure,
Tranquil souls have perfect pleasure;
Yet, bethink you, hedge and tree
Stand as bare as bare can be,
Or but faintly hint the time,
Hastening on, of leafy prime—
The throstle singing in the leafless woods;
The alder-catkins, and the willow-buds
That change from silver into paly gold—
The moist aerial veil was softly drawn
O'er mountain peak, smooth hill, and verdant lawn.
—sown with wood-anemones
Thick as a frosty night with stars—
Listless I wander'd down the wood arcades
Mid slender stems and sprouting leaflets green,
With primrose tufts and mingling violet,
Wild orchis and the wood-anemone
Around my feet; the wafting western air
As sweet as tho' it blew from Childhood's Land.
—like wood-anemones
Changing in an April breeze,
Sheets of snow or purple pale
As the breath may blow or fail—
Or paint th' unutterably tender blue
Of April skies—
To-night, returning in my walk, I saw
The soft and lingering lines of sunset cloud,
The stars around the crescent moon; far west
Shone Venus, ere she went below the ridge.
Jove's planet lighted up north-eastern heaven
Hung 'neath the Twins, and thence with easy slant
I found Orion.
—a vernal day
Of sleet and sunshine, summer patch'd with winter.
As tufts of sweet lilac
Pale-purple or milky
In freshest green leafage
Delight us in May—
Flow'rs on the threshold of sweet May-morning,
Dead leaves drifted when summer's gone—
Blue mists of hyacinth in forest glades—
Ere from the apple-blossom fell
One dainty white or crimson shell,
Or its green boss began to swell—
And children at play in the shadowy grass
Of the pink-blossomed orchard.
(Beech)—The tender green that floats below
While upper boughs are bare—
—fresh as a green beech
Now in the young perfection of its leaves—
When ferns unroll their croziers into plumes—
Tender leaves like baby fingers
Feeling for the vernal air—
To see among those gay green clouds
Of foliage in the vernal woods
The hawthorn shining—
A cataract of snowy blossom!
The pearl'd thorn opes its fragrant flow'rs,
Whitening the hedge—
—a secret little bower
Of twisted stalks and happy leaves—
Ivory lilies, tongued with gold—
—where the June sun weaves
Green light, green shade, in a curtain of leaves.
The lush green tangle of a leafy hedge,
Bindweed and briony and honeysuckle
Twisted luxuriantly, large pure white bells,
Green berries, fragrant floating coronets,
Ivory and amber—
The forest leaves in pleasant idleness
Are fingering the cool air—
The green twigs whisper gaily, and the barren branches croak—
The forest cloisters, where the morning dew
Lies till the evening—
Root-netted paths and intricate wild ways
Through the dark forest—
Creaking boughs and hurtling leaves
When the wind through woodland grieves.
—a bank of cloud
Sweeping in one great whirl from west to east.
Like torn white lace the windy cloud
Lay scattered in the blue—
Fresh gold that veins the morning cloud—
Heaven's chalice over-brimm'd with sunny light—
In the blue sea of Heaven behold
Floating islands fring'd with gold—
White clouds that wander through airy deserts yonder,
Bound to far-off regions of blessedness and calm—
—a windy day
Of cloudy lights and flying shadows
Over the forests and moors and meadows—
—kindly rains
Clothe the poor naked earth in mantling green.
The sky is dark—no matter;
The west wind blows no ill;
This pleasant rain will scatter
New green on every hill.
—a huge soft curd-white rain-cloud
Mounded and moulded by the busy winds—
—above a streak of angry light
The ink-blue storm weigh'd down upon the hills.
Tower upon tower of dark embattled cloud—
Tumultuous silence of the stormy clouds—
Behind the murky curtain of the rain
Were pale expanses, gleaming wilds of sky—
Oceans of thunder breaking overhead—
—like lit clouds when a flash
Rends the black storm, and shows the frighten'd faces
Waiting for thunder—
—a thunderbolt
Treads swift its zigzag pathway down the clouds.
—mount
The lightning's zigzag path to heaven.
—as dull clouds
Muffle the thunder upon mountain-tops.
The gale's fantastic symphonies,
The gestures of the raving trees,
The driving clouds, the snowy wold,
The ruffled waters dark and cold—
Behind the stormy precipice of cloud
A pure serene illimitable sky—
Measureless altitudes of bright white clouds—
On the great mountain-altar now
The sun burn'd like a sacrifice;
Next moment he had sunk below,
And in the lucid golden skies
A star appeared, and many a star,
In purpling ether faint and far,
Until the mystic rule of Night
Was paramount.
And when the day had dropt away
Behind the western hills—
Through a red portal in the jagged clouds
The sun looks fierce in parting—
Evening gold leaking through cloudy chinks—
A cleft of scarlet fire in misty clouds—
—palace of sunset, with vaporous walls,
Descend into the sea.
The red of sunset like a murder-stain—
—sunset's fiery realm
Of vaporous continents with peak and crag
And unsubstantial headlands built of gold,
Which soon the dusky twilight doth enfold.
The tranquil flame of iridescent skies
With level woof of scarlet, tender green
Over the dark-blue mountain's edge; aloft,
Purple awaking into starlight—
And from a northern coast the Lovers watch'd
Midsummer sunset crimsoning the sea,
A bath of colours 'twixt the sky and sand
From east to furthest west. The ripple broke
Like azure flame along the level shore,
And every dimple, every ridge that nets
The glassy film was variably dyed
With floating brilliance of prismatic hues,
Green, orange, golden, exquisitely gay,
Like delicate music. Ever in the north
The dusking splendour crept behind the hills
Eastwards, and one cloud waited for the Dawn
To drink its fill of glory. To the beach,
Meanwhile, ran wave on wave in lovely sport,
Whispering a message to the dewy fields
Far-spread and hush'd beneath a dark-blue dome.
The night a spongy dimness fill'd with moonshine,
Gray river-course, black boats based on their shadows,
The river, misty trees, the night, the world—
A sudden meteor in the zenith flew,
As though great Night gave signal for some wonder;
Then all was still and motionless, no sound,
No stir in starry heav'n or dark earth under.
See in that clump of trees the starry Bull
Hangs clear like diamond fruit, and down the sky
How steel-blue Sirius sparkles—
I saw Night's dome alive with meteors,
Shooting and sailing, melting one and all
To darkness and dim starlight—
When night has settled on the vale below,
Faint scarlet dyes the lonely peaks of snow
From a lost sunset—
Black texture of the leafy trees, engraved
On the clear, solemn, pearly blue of dawn;
No bird as yet awake, no star asleep,
Though some look drowsy.
Ocean lies tranquil in the arms of night,
Uncurtain'd by Dawn's airy heralds; far
On every hand, up to the mountain mist,
Fields, hills, and cots, and every forest brake
Slumber in dew.
The shore-less ocean overhead,
Star-islanded—
Night stole her fingers over the instrument
With preludes scarcely heard, emboldened soon
And swelling to a hymn of solemn joy
To which the stars came forth, and all the space
From earth to heaven was full of adoration.
Hear through foliage of the darken'd vale
Bubbling music of a nightingale,
Throb and thrill and mingle with the stars
Till they seem to tingle and grow pale.
—small starry points
Glitter'd aloft in the pale violet heaven—
In orient sky a solemn fleet of stars
Sail'd upwards to the zenith, and pursued
The shadowy voyage of the sinking moon,
Till Night's fourth hour engulfed them in the west.
From those vast whirling Worlds, no sigh or sound
Pierces the petty turmoil of our life—
The night was a shroud,
Made all of one cloud,
To wrap the dead earth—
—all the gray and misty night
Fill'd like a sponge with pallid light
Of the unseen moon—
—a warder Star came forth
Upon the mountain's windy battlement,
And gazed into the night—
At kissing of the Twilight and the Dawn
In a June midnight—
—a calm clear moon
Over the ruins of tempestuous sunset—
A storm-cloud menaces the silver moon
With dusk gigantic arms—
—as Luna's pearly ship
Sails the black midnight gulfs from cloud to cloud—
The great moon roll'd her globe of gold
Above the dark world's edge—
The moon a silver fish in cloudy net—
So the grave moon, clad in white,
From the cloister of a cloud
Emerging softly into light
Walketh through the wastes of night,
Too unrivall'd to be proud.
Up the shining disc of the full moon
Creeps the shadow of the greater orb
Which controls her—
—the moon
Spills a faint golden lustre in the tide—
The mighty flood that curtseys to the moon—
See how the Witch Moon from a cave of cloud
Scatters her spells upon the sleeping Earth—
O well-head pure and deep of silver light
O'erflowing mistily this dreaming world!
A tender moonshine in a marbled sky—
And where the moon in the eddy plays
Like a fiery snake—
I saw, with blunted cusps, the waning moon;
Her slender golden crescent stood embost
On a green morning sky—
A black cloud flying like a monstrous bat
Across the moon—
—a waning moon,
Sharp as a lancet, pierced the level cloud
And spread a floating glimmer on the stream—
The moon's reflection like a fish of gold
Swam in the current—
The embers of the moon slumber in sunlight—
—see the mountains dyed
With the deep blueness of a mussel-shell—
As, when the sun is shining on the fields,
The swarthy mountain sulks beneath a cloud
Foreshadowing tempest—
The mountains fleeced with vapours—
The huge black mountain smear'd with ghastly white.
The black mountains vein'd with snow—
Fresh verdure streaming up the rifted crag
Whose head is in the lower waifs of cloud—
And like a solid vapour, motionless
A gray-blue mountain on the horizon stood—
—the rich mountain, like a carven vase
Of ancient malachite, imperial gift,
With clear green slopes and shady tortuous glens—
A mountain full of lights and shades
As purple velvet flung in folds—
As a great mountain stands against the sun
With robes of shadow sweeping to the vale—
Battalions of dark pine
Ranged on the windy hills—
—the down's green fold,
Bepatch'd with gorse's honey-gold
And harebell-sprinkled. Thence long shadows
Creep at evening over the meadows.
Shut round with trees, but over these
And far beyond the dell,
A mountain chain that like a strain
Of music rose and fell.
The waves of budding barley silvery green,
Like waters rippling under cloudy sky—
Broad green pastures where doth pass
A little river clear as glass
That wimples through its waving weeds—
The glassy brook runs shivering in the breeze—
Where, seldom by an ear surprised,
The little stream soliloquised,
In songs and murmurs of delight,
Heard clearest of a starry night,
Amid the hush of all the hills.
—branches green
Across the road to kiss each other lean.
Where overhead the branches meet
And grass is cool to weary feet—
Or the warm wind wandering over
Fields of grass and purple clover—
Over the level field of ripening corn
A vision of blue hills—
—between their stems the peeping lake
Like a blue flower—
Across the breathless mirror of the lake
The wild-duck drew a long dividing wake,
Blurr'd for an instant the reflected shore,
Then heath and rock lay pictured as before.
Under boughs that wash the stream,
Kingfisher darts, an azure gleam—
—from the blue midmost of the lough
With neck outstretch'd the startled widgeon skims,
And for a moment rips the quiet flood
Entering her reedy chamber—
—flying remote
Through pure and lofty spaces of the air—
The sky lark hearted in a golden cloud
Shoots rays of music down, brighter than light—
—the lark spills through the sky
His rapturous unintelligible ode—
—larks high in air
Sing to the sower in brown fields below—
The singing mountaineer of lofty clouds,
The lark—
When the lark shuts her wings and drops
Right down like arrowhead, then slopes
To her small home amid the grass—
Hear the winnowing white doves' wings,
And see their shadows crossing—
—the nightingale's,
First tremulous twittering on cold April eves.
—the love-intoxicated nightingale
Piping and gurgling his luxurious chant—
Softly from wooded hills remote
Comes the cuckoo's double note.
—from high to low
Like air-borne swallows in their facile sweep—
With delighted fancy follow
Viewless weavings of the swallow,
To and fro on golden air
Darting like a shuttle there—
As air-borne seagull sweeps the line of cliff
On sliding pinions—
—one hern
Gray sentry of the wide morass.
—the rook-army wavers home
Black on the sunset sky—
'Twas like the whirr of winglets
When sparrows rise from grain—
—little birds
Bustling and bickering through the bushes.
—a hawk
Balancing on the wind—
The wise muffled owl—
The proud eagle's royal melancholy—
—that winded far to Echo's call
And won a faint reply—
—to see rise
A vernal birch, green-fountain wise
With myriad sprinkling leaflets light,
Against a sky of blue and white—
Gay as a glittering birch-tree after rain—
—aged oak
Grappling the soil with monstrous claws—
Under the shelter of a sturdy oak
I heard the rain upon its roof of leaves
Beating like elfin hammers—
A huge old oak with gray and rocky trunk—
—a wizard oak
With branches fiercely scribbled on the sky.
A massy monumental poplar tree,
Its head among the stars—
An iron pillar'd yew-tree, canopied
With solemn darkness—
The yew spreads over them his fringèd pall—
A great tree on the midnight sky,
With stars like fruit among the boughs—
Gray mossy rocks o'ershadow'd with brown thorns—
—some old fairy-thorn
Stands like an islet mid the flowing corn—
The gray ash-stems mottled with brown moss
Like a serpent's skin—
(Ashbud)—like the hoof of an elfin steed.
Or elfin-haunted elder, nurse of dreams—
Black elder-berries beaded on the tree—

The Weathercock

North, south, east, west,
Would you fix me to the best?
Must obey the wind's behest!
Rusted, broken, I should rest.
High gabled cottage, all its lattices
Unfolded to sweet air—
—from the cottage roof
An avalanche of roses—
The rich old mansion muffled round with trees—
—you see
Nestled into a hollow of the downs,
Where sheep stray widely o'er the short green turf,
A little gray-wall'd church with lichen'd roof;
A farmyard and a huge old barn whose stacks
O'er-top the spire, the farmhouse lattices
Embower'd with vine; a figtree'd garden wall;
And one clump of rook-nested elms above
Gables and red tiled roofs and twisted chimneys.
An old green mound the summit crown'd,
Where dances the midnight elvish round,
Over the dust of pagan kings.
The bare green hills, the cloudy skies,
The sea that lone and sombre lies—
Pillars and carven stones of antique pride
Raised by dead men—
A pillar-stone set up for memory
Of some great thing, forgotten long ago.
The hill's green slope with sheep-paths interlaced—
The wing'd seeds with decaying wings
That lie upon the cold moist ground
Know this mild breath is heavenly Spring's.
And every germen hath unwound
His little coil of green, and put
A pale point forth, a timid shoot,
A slowly clasping spreading root,
A rising stem, a twig, a bud,
A thousand veins of pure green blood
Through breathing leaves, to stand one day,
When suns and moons have roll'd away,
A new Tree bearing flow'rs and fruit,
And many seeds like that one seed.
—more light
Than pigmy parachutes of thistle-seed
Floating on summer's breath—
—through pipy stalks
The sap runs eddying into fruit,
That sucks the sunshine to its core,
Condensing richest juices.
—tropic fruits
That take the sunshine deep into their hearts.
—the royal sun
With Midas-finger touching corn and fruit.
Warm-scented strawberries of luscious red—
The green javelins of the wheat—
Midsummer's monotonies of green—
Hollow lanes embank'd with fern—
A waste of flowers, a wilderness of bloom—
A nettle-leaf, that stings the timid hand,
Acquits the bold.
Ev'n as the baked and iron earth must yield
To the soft cleavage of a blade of grass—
The stony skeleton of a dead brook
Lay in the burnt-up field.
Somewhere on thy land
Shadeless and forlorn,
From a thought of love
Plant a little grove,
Which may sweet and sheltering stand
In the days unborn.
Praised be the man who plants a grove,
Beside the way, upon the hill,
To make a shelter for the rill—

A Mill

Two leaps the water from its race
Made to the brook below,
The first leap it was curving glass,
The second bounding snow.
—rush
With bubbling gush
Into its cold green pool.
Near where the riotous Atlantic surge
Booms heavily in storm, far-heard at night,
And flings ashore the bones of murder'd ships,
Or, in a gentler time, the milky wave,
The whispering weary wave, lies down to rest,
Lives a calm Well of water, a large Spring,
Pure and perennial. Often have I watch'd
Its crystal heart with ever tremulous pulse
Dim the green lining of the hollow'd sand,
Thick-platted cress within a spacious cup
Full at the solstice and for ever cold,
A soft pulsation scarcely to be heard
Save by a loving ear. Whole caravans
Creeping in torture through a burning waste
By one such Fount were saved. But here it brims,
With purest overflow for barefoot girls
Who tread the mossy track to dip their pails
Into the lonely Spring—
The green translucent river pool
Pouring over its rocky lip
A gush of diamonds—
—the black polish'd water pours
Over its ridge, an amber comb—
The rocky mountain rivulet,
The meadow-parting, peaceful stream—
The broken fern droops in the watercourse—
As on a lake the folded water-buds
Sleep in the tremulous image of the moon—
The long weeds, anchor'd in the current, sway
With fetter'd freedom—
Silvery grasses trailing in the stream—
—green weeds
Like flowing tresses of the River God—
Each fly that makes a gliding shadow-flower
Upon the sunny gravel of the pool—
Flies weave an airy tangle in the sun—
—the grasshopper,
Whose shifting tune works like a fairy mill,
Heard everywhere and nowhere to be found.
—butterfly,
The pretty gadabout of summer hours
To carry all the gossip of the flowers,
Not like the trading bee—
Now I am free
As a wildwood bee
Hiving in a hollow tree!
The stilted fly (Daddy Longlegs)—
Mail'd beetle and the courtier butterfly—
The cunning spider, fingering
Like a harper every string—
As blue flies creep from frosty sleep
In a ray of winter sun—
A multitudinous whisper, as of ants
Creeping among the dry leaves of a wood—
As the sea for a fish,
As the air for a bird,
All the world is a brave man's home—
(A Pearl)—This drop of curdled moonlight—
And joyous fancies danced like light
Upon a fountain'd grotto's roof—
Through sunny meadows by the fresh sea-wave—
Translucent green wave rushing into foam—
The loitering wave on sunny sand—
—hoarse-echoing caves,
Scooped by the immemorial waves—
Hush, hush, says the wave—
—the wide heaving sea,
Folded into thunder on a reef—
Raged like the fierce artillery of the surge
Against the ruin'd bastions of a cliff—
Black piles of rock, caved with the gnawing tide—
Rocks cross'd and scored as with a giant's knife—
Gray sandhills tufted with the pale-green bent
Faint rustling to the murmur of the sea—
—the drifting sand
Is filtered with a twist of rushes—
The shifting sands, the rocks that bide
The patient grooving of the tide—
There where the ocean-water swings and heaves
Its dark-green billow round an iron crag,
And bones of ships lie scatter'd on the strand—
—iron-gray the cloudy sky,
And iron-black the sea—
Deep in the mystic valleys of the sea—
The wave's green mantle edged with ermine froth—
A little ship upon the world's blue edge—
—the reappearing sun
Kindled a rainbow in the misty cloud,
Shone far across the green hills, and at sea
Lit the white sail.
Athwart the gloom on colour'd wings,
From earth to heav'n a rainbow springs—
Rough October's tawny flood—
As new green sprays
In autumn days
Sprout among the withering leaves—
The setting sun of Autumn shone
O'er leagues of forest, golden-brown,
Blue shadow, lustrous as a gem's,
Deepening richly here and there,
And close at hand the pillar'd stems
A-glow—
This is the second childhood of the year:
Pathetic reminiscences of Spring—
The brown fields ribbed with industry—
—when the fields are reap'd
And country-folk to market throng.
When fields are bare and granaries full—
To tame a savage woodland to the plough—
Large squares of tawny corn
Stood waiting for the hook;
On fields already shorn
Was ranged the tented stook;
The sky spread gray
But warm, the day
Had a quiet happy look;
And Matron Earth rejoiced in her increase,
At peace.
Fields are lone,
Swallows flown,
Dead leaves on the pathway strown—
—ancient moss
Tufted the quag with many a woolly boss.
The ghostly wind on autumn eves
Wailing among faded leaves—
Autumnal beech-woods dyed in sunset gold—
Brown woods, and flocking birds, and sodden fields,
A scarlet western flame, a creeping mist,
A wind that breathes of winter and of death,—
Sad Autumn!
Huge mountains and rough tumbling floods,
Great shadows upon shaggy woods—
Weak pallid flowers of winter,
Old age's children—
—the world of frost
Enchanted into stillness.
—as wan
As a white cloud reflected in a pool—
Faint as a day-moon—
At Christmas-time among the garden-beds
A sickly rose or pale hepatica,
Poor waifs and strays of Flora, touch us more
Than all the flush of May.
We tire of long blue summer: but it seems
In winter like a heavenly land of dreams.
Numb-finger'd winter—
The rich gold crocus upon Winter's hem—
To hear the humming of the wind
And the low-whispering fire.
Amid stark groves and hedgerows drear,
In myriad buds all brown and dim,
Folded in slumber lies the future Spring
With all its world of leaves.
Warm as in wintry woods the zest
Of holly berries or robin's breast—
—in the wide moon-stillness
Run ringing noises down a frozen lake—
—the snow
Came feathering down
The evening hills in orange haze of frost—
Then came the little Fairies of the Wood
Who dance as light as autumn's russet leaves,
Then came the Water-Nixies sweet and cold,
The Mine-Dwarfs, and the subtle Shapes of Air
That float about the changing atmosphere
And take its colours.
Dear Mother Nature! on thy breast,
With all my faults, I lie caressed:
Thou my mother, great and mild,
I thy wayward foolish child.
A little sigh as when you see
Two lovers' names upon a tree
Carved a hundred years ago.
They seem to live in the shadows of the Past,
As in old pictures, under solemn skies,
In landscapes green, by waters deep and still.
A music like the memory of first love—
Music deep as love or life—
Thoughts too shadowy to be traced in words—
Like a child, at even-song
The daisy folds itself to sleep—
A little child as pure and sweet
As the daisies round his feet—
Pure as a primrose in the morning dew,
Fresh-blown among bare woods—
I saw two children wandering here and there
Like sister butterflies in vernal air—
—the caressing wind
Toy'd with her dress.
It seem'd too great a grace
To look upon her face—
A fair sight dully seen may wake to joy
In memory—
Sad as the fragment of a castle wall,
Hoary and nameless, stooping in the field,
Till Time's wing brush it silently away.
The world's chill petrifying wave
Has turn'd his heart to stone—
Gloomy as that black river of the ghosts
That runs through Tartarus—
She died into eternal youth
In loving memories—
The world can give us much;
But what the world can take away again
Is least worth having. Use it like a king,
Who knows himself above his equipage,
And wears the real crown upon his thoughts.
If you have not known poverty
You know not the world—
If you have been always needy
You know not life.
—writhe in the grip of cold necessity—
You may look at a face for twenty years
And never know what it really is,
Till, some one moment, your vision clears,
And there! that face is hers or his.
Tears blur the harsher lines of grief, and touch them
Ev'n with prismatic fringes—
—this poor hope feebly shone,
Help'd by the sable background of despair.
—oft what lamplight shows for fair
The sun discredits.
A wicked thought is like a weed,
Single at first, but full of seed.
Virtue's toleration
Is sweet as flowers in May:
Vice's toleration
Has the sweet smell of decay.
—souls that die for want of air
Like fish in a frozen pond.
Trivial the act, but not the state of mind
Which in that act was shown, and lay behind.
Some men exhaust their poison in their youth,
Some store it up to burst in riper years—
Thou hast something of great worth;
Sell it not for all the earth.
Some one needs it; never stay
For asking,—give it all away.
Do it now: no, to-morrow.
Never, never, to my sorrow.
The rising tide up many an inlet rolls;
The spirit of the age fills many souls—
Unless I keep an altar-flame of life
Burning atop of stony circumstance,
My days are darkness and ignoble strife,
I the brute slave of appetite and chance.

Sufferer to Comforter

All very wise remarks! but, tell me true,
Were you in my place, would they comfort you?
—men to whom their dead opinions cling
Like last year's leaves upon a sheltered bough.
—most men are cowards:
A firmset purpose striding to its mark
Scatters the weak uncertain multitude,
Like birds, from off its way—
He can, who must.
The thoughtful scribe believes that, soon or late,
What's truly written will be truly read.
Too much liberty is worse than bondage.
Man's will diffused being weak, comprest is strong,
And will is freedom—
Each thinks himself exceptional:
Ridiculous!—and yet sublime.
The individual may be small,
Yet individuality's the prime
Glory and hope of us poor Sons of Time.
—good jesting only comes
From serious-thoughted men.
—I discern his soul
Like monstrous features of a hanging crag,
High, rude, and threatful.
Habit and mood enslave us, appetite
And ugly selfishness renew their hints,
Deaf to the music of divinest Order,
Blind to Experience with her threatening hand.
Habit is lord of even good men's lives—
When feet and will go different ways—
Despise not pleasure—that's unnatural,
But rate it at its worth—shun all which leaves
A sting of discontent, or sickly blank,
Nor baulk at any time a higher mood
For lower—
—the pleasure of living,
Each breath a mere joy, a thanksgiving.
To be just and firm is very good;
But run not your fruit-tree all to wood.
Death's hour glass, filled with human dust,
And every sand a life—
How swift our days!
Short while ago
We loved young April's showery gleams,
Then Summer warmed the woods and streams,
Then Autumn's haze,
And now the snow.
Even so.
—till conscience like a mirror dark and plain—
To praise the saints and live a beast—
Good Conscience fears no ghostly messenger,
Which if it came would come with news from heaven.
—hopes inaccessible
As cloudland's dells and peaks.
The sunbeam is not shaken by the wind,
Nor faith by accident of life—
Who dared to say what others fear'd to think—
Most men must be supported from without,
Only the strongest minds can live in doubt—
Priestcraft, with falsehood, ignorance and pride,
To rule men, labours ever to divide.
Religion seeks to join the human race
In one great bond before their Father's face.

The Little Town

And poor and small and shabby though it be,
Each little Town's the world's epitome.
Envy and hatred, avarice and pride,
Love, hope, and resignation, here abide,
And virtuous effort rises over fate,
And vice meets dismal shipwreck, soon or late.
Men respect not men enough,—
Far too much the rotten stuff
Of words, the masquerading dress
Wherewith we prank our nakedness.
But fling aside your dogmas! Just as well
Could Conic Sections save a soul from hell.
Frightened by the ghost of a dead creed.
He's bound to superstition like a cord
That's tangled in the texture of his life.
But who the proper limits shall descry,
Bid worship live, and superstition die?
Or damn'd while still alive, as by the curse
Of the great Florentine's revengeful verse.
Religion is a righteous life,
All the rest a wordy strife.

An Irish Priest

Big was this Priest and dark (few priests are fair),
His brows were thick, his eyes kept ambush there,
His straight black skirt reach'd far below the knee,
His band was clean, a broad brimm'd hat wore he;
He seldom spoke, and gravely; on his face
No smile diffused a transitory grace,
A scrap of rigid whisker, leaving bleak
The expanse below, stopp'd short on either cheek;
Large head was his, large chest, much snuff he took
And often carried in his hand a book.
Was orthodox in every dish;
Mince-pie at Christmas never fail'd,
Shrovetide brought pancakes, Lent salt-fish—
No one his country understands
Who has not lived in foreign lands.
The best of travel is to find
That home is better still.
All wonders of the earth and sea and sky
Fall cold upon a sad or thoughtful eye.
The generous heart flings open every door,
Half-emptied, he is richer than before:
The selfish nature, every gateway barr'd
Lies starving on his treasure cold and hard.

Iceland

Black rocks, white snows, and demon-haunted wastes—

Holland

Canals and barges, cities old and clean
With high towers o'er the watery-meadows seen—

Innsbrück

Where dark pine-forests hang above the town,
And wolves into the peopled streets look down—
White Paris glittering deep into the night—
Milan's white marble coronets, 'mid the green Lombard plain
Watch'd from afar by fifty leagues of mighty mountain chain—
—Florence,
A carven casket in a bed of flow'rs—
An Eastern City hid in bow'rs and woods,
With here and there a peeping minaret,
And many a palace by the flowing streams.
Our citied earth, with fields, woods, mountains, waters,
Is but the crust around a core of fire—

The Dance of Despair

No time to think, no time to weep,
To-morrow, to-morrow, for that, my dear,
To-morrow and all eternity.
How the music laments! how it waxes proud
Of its own despair!—in one wild sweep
Of joy, of flame from the nether sphere,
A torrent, a whirlpool of wailing sound,
It swings us round and round and round,
Embracing, enfolding thee and me,
Like a whirlwind catching a ship on the sea,
Like a net, a serpent, a swathing shroud,
It binds us, maddens us, hurries us on,
Whither, whither?
Together, together, wherever it be!
Resented—relented—consented—repented.
A moment's madness, a life's remorse.
A moment's rashness, and a life's regret.
He that's proud of being wise
Hath something still to learn—
All wisdom comes by mental fermentation
In the gross masses of the population,
And universal suffrage soon will show
Whether 'tis best to have a God or no!
Who for himself hath done the best,
Hath done as much for all the rest.

Nestor

Experience must accrue, no doubt.
Much ran in: has nothing run out?
Much is ripe: is nothing rotten?
Much is gotten: how much forgotten?
If women were only as sweet as they look!
But beauty is often a bait for a hook.
I've often laugh'd at this—
To think a smile,
A word, a look, a kiss,
Could men beguile:
And here am I to-day
Just as mad as they!
Where do all the lovely Children go to?
Are these stupid people what they grow to?
I like the bold and stirring city street,
Where men, by thousands in the hour, you meet;
Thousands of crossing threads, that weave alway
The God-seen pattern of a London day.
Who agree? not any two.
Why dispute then, I and you?
No two mortals are the same,
So let either bate his claim.
Leaves, lightly-poised and dallying with cool air,
Are millstones, weighed against her gravest mind.
Her thought is like the winging of a bat,
Rapid and variable—
—prove their wit
As much by all that they omit
As all they say.
A very fine thing to be serious, no doubt,—
But heavens! what poor things to be serious about!
I think with wonder on the days
Which seem'd too short;
I travell'd then in pleasant ways,
Work was but sport.
—nowadays a Throne
Is Ceremony's high key-stone—
Majestic oriental indolence—
What are Nations but Schools—Eton meets Harrow at cricket;
Germany, France, with cannon-balls and Paris for wicket.
The Soldier loses or wins, he plays for money and glory,
Quiet people must pay—that is the worst of the story.
When waves of war swept over the land—
Sung to the battle-rhyme of ringing blows—

On a Certain Mansion

Who lives in this fine house? Why, Titian;
Holbein and Turner in addition.
'Tis to them we pay our visit.
Who's the owner? Lord—who is it?
For his amusement Horace Walpole
Stirring up monkeys with a long pole—
O Simonides, Catullus,
Ronsard, Herrick, wherefore cull us
Little bunches? Don't ye know it's
Paltry to be minor poets?
Tommy Moore's Statue looks awkward and ill at ease,
Yet, don't disparage the sculptor's abilities;
So Erin's Bard would have look'd, not a doubt of it,
Fast fix'd in Dublin, not free to run out of it.
Life budded, bloom'd, and burgeon'd forth in Keats,
Luscious but hectic—
The Poet immeasurably transcends his work.
Over the broad bright stage of Shakespeare's mind
A thousand dramas moved; in Milton's thought
Rose fifty epics; ah, what poems flew
From this dull world with Keats's, Shelley's, mind!
Why say in verse what might be said in prose?
Why sing, unless your thought to music flows?

To Certain Folk.

I gave you works of art; you reckon'd them sorry stuff.
I'll give you chips and shavings; they are more than good enough.
How write freely, knowingly?—with two thousand a year one might.
But then, with two thousand a year one would hardly care to write.
Dazzling words of doubtful sense—
How cheap the verbally intense!
How oft a low completeness is preferr'd
To highest beauties dimly manifest.
Is Literature a Trade? O very well!
Please when you call to ring the tradesmen's bell.
Nobody drinks, but every one sips,
Nobody reads, but every one dips.
High climbs Autolycus in modern days;
He once cut purses, but he now writes plays.
Paper-currency, you know, is all the modern fashion;
Paper-money genius, paper-money passion,
Paper-money government, paper-money creed,—
Thus we pay our way through life and gold no longer need.
I do not wish my life to go to sleep,
I won't be sworn to look before I leap,
I can't be always prudent, safe and sure,
Nor bid one mood, however wise, endure!
In Purgatory rather let me stray
Than straight to Heav'n be nose-led all the way!
Taste the fruits of life in season,
Airy mirth and solid reason—
From the smoky choky city, from the ceaseless throng and riot,
Very gladly I withdraw to taste a little country quiet.
—with high wall and pale
Hath put the landscape into jail.
Busying himself to graft the wayside crabs
Leaves his own garden wild—
—the pig's great nose
Finds little sweetness in the rose.
Good manners which avoid all strife,
And still keep oil'd the wheels of life—

An Old Belief

Good Friday night 'twas revealed to me
Christ's Cross was made of an apple tree,
Of the very same stock that once did grow
In the Garden of Eden long ago.
The poor must be troublesome still,
And nothing on earth can prevent it,
For, preach or expound as you will,
You can't make the wretched contented.

Written on a Fan

Æolian Sceptre! Spare us East and North,
Waft but the South wind and the Zephir forth.
I knew poor Dives in his happy time,
His days of poverty, with youth, hope, trust,
Friendship and freedom—
This is our evangel
That Satan the black angel
Is waiting close behind you
To seize you and to bind you
And cast you into burning
Whence is no returning.

Epitaph (by the Departed)

I was a Bishop sleek and gracious,
Champion of St. Athanasius,
Now I sit above the sky
Watching unbelievers fry.

Epitaph (by the Departed)

If I be living, then I am not here,
If I be dead, the dust-hole is not I;
In either case, it plainly doth appear
If you say “Here he lies,” 'tis you that lie.
A is dyspeptic, ugly, and lame,
B is handsome, jovial and strong,—
No one can alter right and wrong,
But how shall their views of life be the same?
Slight not words that move in measure,
Such may bring delicious pleasure,
Such may prove your memory's treasure.
Only the young for poetry care.
So be it: young folk there always are.
An author's thoughts, in verse or prose,
To smiles or tears can win her;
She never heard how long his nose,
Or what he likes for dinner!

A Prolific Author

His books no man can number,
Nor line thereof remember.
Man is more than beast by language only, you find.
But how got Man a language?—before or after a mind?
Oh what clever guesses! Oh what gabble of geese!
And “Science” must have its day; and wonders will never cease.
This is the motto of great and small—
“Each for himself, and the Devil take all!”
That's if he can—for in this new Age
We don't keep a devil, except for the stage.
Say what you will, no hours can be
So sweet as 'twixt eleven and three,
When the teasing world is far from me,
And Time is part of Eternity.
O the morning hour,
Dew on the spirit's flow'r,
Freshness, joy and power!
When light comes in and stars go out
And early cocks begin to shout,
We quit the straw and shake our rags
And shoulder soon our brats and bags;
And if we see a fowl astray
We pick her up upon our way.
The wind knocks,
The night weeps,
The cradle rocks,
The baby sleeps.
Your father and your mother
Were children long ago,
And you'll be men and women
When you grow—when you grow!
Fowler and Jowler
Went to the bog:
Very good sport
For the Man and the Dog.
They killed a couple
And wounded a third—
“Very bad sport!”
Said the little brown Bird.
On the ripe red-currants robin redbreast revels!
—noisy as a rookery in May!
—as greedy for them
As a jackdaw for cherries!
Face, hands, dabbled in gore?
—Blackberry juice, no more!
A cheek well-ripen'd with the country sun—
—the infant staggering
And balancing on little sturdy stumps—
(Bubbles)—Bright little worlds that float and fly,
Made as tho' of a tear and a sigh—
—sees beauty in an old and faded face.
—a venerable face,
Touch'd with the tender light of infancy.
A light limb'd Child, fresh as an April breeze
That shakes the daffodils; a Maiden slim
And sweeter than the bending rosy spray;
A rich and stately Woman like a tree
In fruited autumn—
Childhood's health is water pure,
Manhood's, foaming wine—
—the happy Boy
Who hangs his kite upon the cold March breeze.
She moving through the fair crowd like a swan
Through water-lilies—
—her white thoughts
Gliding like swans with innocent dignity.
The freshness of her colour like the pink
Of a sea-shell, or of a daisy's rim
New blown in early meads—
Her hair was fair as flax when scutch'd and carded,
Her eyes were bluer than the blue flax-blossom,
Her shape was like a slender sapling guarded
Safe from all blasts, her youthful neck and bosom
Were closely, loosely, in her frock enfolded
As a vale-lily's swathing leaflets hold it.
—a maiden mild and fair
In Sunday frock and shining hair.
Her slender form and modest grace
The calm religion of her face—
Drooping in languid billows round her neck
The golden burthen of her plenteous hair
Her soft loose hair like a brown bird's wing—
The happy hour smiles yet
Tho' years withdrawn,—too happy, once, to smile!
The flushing cheek, the silence, hopes and fears
Commingling, till She look'd me in the face
And freely gave me both her tender hands.
Life moves and changes on; but love is ours,
And we are love's, thank Heav'n, for evermore.
Your hand in my hand, dearest. Pulse with pulse,
Consenting vital tides, and soul with soul
Throb harmony.
Calm on the pillow rests my head,
My heart upon the thought of you,
I sink to sleep and happy dreams,
That happier day confesses true.
Uncertain gleams, uncertain showers
That please and mock the childlike hours;
Uncertain showers, uncertain gleams,
Like frowns and smiles that come in dreams,
That pass away and leave no trace
Upon the sleeper's tranquil face.
As from the stars descended sleepy dreams
Wrapt in dim dew and fragrancy—
Veil on veil falls over one's eyes
Till a phantom dawn begins to rise
From the sea of sleep—
Like sounds that reach but do not wake
The dreamer of a dream—
As one who wakens in chill morn, and sleep
Weighs soft and heavy on his eyelids yet,
And daylight vexes with its toil and pain,
Then, shutting them a moment, all as swift
Relapses down the smooth and silent slope
To that deep grotto curtained round with dreams,
As though the day were flitting fantasy
And slumber only real.
As when the fever'd brow grows cool and moist,
And the face calm, and the wild wandering thought
Sooth'd into slumber—
My bedroom window faces to the east,
And when the dawn's conspiracy's afoot,
I watch its fine cold secrets working up
To sun-burst, till the rich confederate clouds
Abate, and one white splendour reigns supreme.
—like thoughts within the twilight of a dream.
And in my throbbing ear sounds palpably
The tread of Time through the still night—
Mystical Truth is solid and real,
Everything passes, except the Ideal,
Not seen with eye or told with tongue,—
Soul-music of spirits rightly strung.
Life's wondrousness, like weight o' th' air,
Unfelt because within us as without.
Some that I know make always start
A gush of sweet waters within my heart;
To others, do or say as they will,
A bitter fountain replieth still.
Came with him ever chill and gloom,
My heart rose when he left the room
With sigh of deep relief.
Green hills, blue mountains, rocks and streams,
Birds, woodland, starry-night, sea-foam,
Flowers, fairies, children, music, dreams,
A book, a garden-chair,—sweet home!
—the fix'd meditative eye may find
With awe on some horizon of the mind
New intimation, as when distantly
Gush cloudy sunbeams on a silent sea
To natural vision.
As sometimes on a day roof'd in with cloud,
Hills standing sombre, shadow everywhere,
The sun from the world's end at evening looks
To the far east, enkindling it once more,
So in the old man's thought a dying light
Struck on his scenes of youth—
—we dimly see
A Finger stooping to the dust of death
To write therein Eternity.
I know not what Eternity may mean:
But I am of it; and eternal things
Alone concern me.

That the human race is but a string of bubbles on the ceaseless fathomless River of Time, a fancy natural to some moods, can scarcely commend itself as a probable theory to any healthy soul.

You cannot shake off God, escape from God. You cannot find, or comprehend God. Nor is it conceivable that this should be otherwise.

Religions are of men, Religion is of God.

The greatest Truths are insusceptible of logical proof because they outgo human intelligence, though not human sensibility.

Well for him who can meet the exigencies of life and the day with calm energy, neither vainly opposing nor weakly giving way, expecting little and regretting less.

L'Envoi