Happiness

My song is of that city which
Has men too poor and men too rich;
Where some are sick, too richly fed,
While others take the sparrows' bread:
Where some have beds to warm their bones,
While others sleep on hard, cold stones
That suck away their bodies' heat.
Where men are drunk in every street;
Men full of poison, like those flies
That still attack the horses' eyes.
Where some men freeze for want of cloth,
While others show their jewels' worth
And dress in satin, fur or silk;
Where fine rich ladies wash in milk,
While starving mothers have no food
To make them fit in flesh and blood;
So that their watery breasts can give
Their babies milk and make them live.
Where one man does the work of four,
And dies worn out before his hour;
While some s...

In the youth of the year, when the birds were building,
    When the green was showing on tree and hedge,
And the tenderest light of all lights was gilding
    The world from zenith to outermost edge,
My soul grew sad and longingly lonely!
    I sighed for the season of sun and rose,
And I said, "In the Summer and that time only
    Lies sweet contentment and blest repose."

With bee and bird for her maids of honor
    Came Princess Summer in robes of green.
And the King of day smiled down upon her
    And wooed her, and won her, and made her queen.
Fruit of their union and true love's pledges,
    Beautiful roses bloomed day by day,
And rambled in gardens and hid in hedges
    Like royal children in sportive play.

My restless soul for a little seas...

There are legends of Lost Haven,
Come, I know not whence, to me,
When the wind is in the clover,
When the sun is on the sea.

There are rumors in the pine-tops,
There are whispers in the grass;
And the flocking crows at nightfall
Bring home hints of things that pass

Out upon the broad dike yonder,
All day long beneath the sun,
Where the tall ships cloud and settle
Down the sea-curve, one by one.

And the crickets in fine chorus--
Every slim and tiny reed--
Strive to chord the broken rhythmus
Of the world, and half succeed.

There are myriad traditions
Treasured by the talking rain;
And with memories the moonlight
Walks the cold and silent plain.

Where the river tells his hill-tales
To the lone complaining bar...

Isabelle has gold, and lands,
Fate gave her a fair lot;
Like the white lilies of the field
Her soft hands toil not.
I gaze upon her splendor
Without an envious sigh;
I have no wealth in lands and gold,
And yet sweet peace have I.

I know the blue sky smiles as bright
On the low field violet,
As on the proud crest of the pine
On loftiest mountain set.
I am content - God loveth all,
And if He tenderly
The sparrow guides, He knoweth best
The place where I should be.

Her violet velvet curtains trail
Down to the floor,
But brightly God's rich sunshine streams
Into my cottage door;
And not a picture on her walls,
Hath beauty unto me,
Like that which from my window frame
I daily lean to see.

She has known such ...

My heart to-day is like a southern wood,
    Through summer months it has been drunk with heat;
    And slumbered on unmindful of the beat
Of life beyond it: sleep alone seemed good.

Now milder Autumn's tints are in the sky;
    The fervid heats of summer noons depart;
    And backward to the old haunts in my heart
The golden robins and the blue birds fly.

I hear the flutter of their airy wings,
    They flock about the Spring's deserted nest,
    And suddenly I feel within my breast
The stirring of sweet half-forgotten things.

Bright sunny mornings -golden growing hours -
    The building of glad birds among the trees;
    Wide open windows and the kindly breeze
Bringing the perfume of half-open flowers.

A blithe face at the window fai...

No Muse will I invoke; for she is fled!
Lo! where she sits, breathing, yet all but dead.
She loved the heavens of old, she thought them fair;
And dream'd of Gods in Tempe's golden air.
For her the wind had voice, the sea its cry;
She deem'd heroic Greece could never die.
Breathless was she, to think what nymphs might play
In clear green depths, deep-shaded from the day;
She thought the dim and inarticulate god
Was beautiful, nor knew she man a sod;
But hoped what seem'd might not be all untrue,
And feared to look beyond the eternal blue.
But now the heavens are bared of dreams divine.
Still murmurs she, like Autumn, This was mine!
How should she face the ghastly, jarring Truth,
That questions all, and tramples without ruth?
And still she clings to Ida o...

Yes, write, if you want to, there's nothing like trying;
Who knows what a treasure your casket may hold?
I'll show you that rhyming's as easy as lying,
If you'll listen to me while the art I unfold.

Here's a book full of words; one can choose as he fancies,
As a painter his tint, as a workman his tool;
Just think! all the poems and plays and romances
Were drawn out of this, like the fish from a pool!

You can wander at will through its syllabled mazes,
And take all you want, - not a copper they cost, -
What is there to hinder your picking out phrases
For an epic as clever as "Paradise Lost"?

Don't mind if the index of sense is at zero,
Use words that run smoothly, whatever they mean;
Leander and Lilian and Lillibullero
Are much the same thing in th...

In the youth of the year, when the birds were building,
    When the green was showing on tree and hedge,
And the tenderest light of all lights was gilding
    The world from zenith to outermost edge,
My soul grew sad and longingly lonely!
    I sighed for the season of sun and rose,
And I said, "In the Summer and that time only
    Lies sweet contentment and blest repose."

With bee and bird for her maids of honour
    Came Princess Summer in robes of green.
And the King of day smiled down upon her
    And wooed her, and won her, and made her queen.
Fruit of their union and true love's pledges,
    Beautiful roses bloomed day by day,
And rambled in gardens and hid in hedges
    Like royal children in sportive play.

My restless soul for a little sea...

O ye dead Poets, who are living still
    Immortal in your verse, though life be fled,
    And ye, O living Poets, who are dead
    Though ye are living, if neglect can kill,
Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill,
    With drops of anguish falling fast and red
    From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head,
    Ye were not glad your errand to fulfil?
Yes; for the gift and ministry of Song
    Have something in them so divinely sweet,
    It can assuage the bitterness of wrong;
Not in the clamor of the crowded street,
    Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
    But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.

I

"Why are your songs all wild and bitter sad
As funeral dirges with the orphans' cries?
Each night since first the world was made hath had
A sequent day to laugh it down the skies.
Chant us a glee to make our hearts rejoice,
Or seal in silence this unmanly moan."
My friend, I have no power to rule my voice
A spirit lifts me where I lie alone,
And thrills me into song by its own laws;
That which I feel, but seldom know, indeed
Tempering the melody it could not cause.
The bleeding heart cannot forever bleed
Inwardly solely; on the wan lips, too,
Dark blood will bubble ghastly into view.


II

Striving to sing glad songs, I but attain
Wild discords sadder than Grief's saddest tune;
As if an owl with his harsh screech should strain<...

    I woo'd a woman once,
But she was sharper than an eastern wind.
                        - TENNYSON.

"What may I do to make you glad,
To make you glad and free,
    Till your light smiles glance
    And your bright eyes dance
Like sunbeams on the sea?
    Read some rhyme that is blithe and gay
    Of a bright May morn and a marriage day?"
And she sighed in a listless way she had, -
"Do not read - it will make me sad!"

"What shall I do to make you glad -
To make you glad and gay,
    Till your eyes gleam bright
    As the stars at night
When as light as the light of day
    Sing some song as I twang the strings
    Of my sweet guitar through its wanderings?"
And she sighed in the weary way she had, -
"Do not sing - it will mak...

A vision beauteous as the morn,
    With heavenly eyes and tresses streaming,
Slow glided o'er a field late shorn
    Where walked a poet idly dreaming.
He saw her, and joy lit his face,
    "Oh, vanish not at human speaking,"
He cried, "thou form of magic grace,
    Thou art the poem I am seeking.

"I've sought thee long!    I claim thee now -
    My thought embodied, living, real."
She shook the tresses from her brow.
    "Nay, nay!" she said, "I am ideal.
I am the phantom of desire -
    The spirit of all great endeavour,
I am the voice that says, 'Come higher,'
    That calls men up and up for ever.

"'Tis not alone thy thought supreme
    That here upon thy path has risen;
I am the artist's highest dream,
    The ray of light he c...

I

Who has not felt his heart leap up, and glow
What time the Tulips first begin to blow,
Has one sweet joy still left for him to know.

It is like early love's imagining,
That fragile pleasure which the Tulips bring,
When suddenly we see them, in the Spring.

Not all the garden's later royal train,
Not great triumphant Roses, when they reign,
Can bring that delicate delight again.

II

One of the sweetest hours is this;
(Of all I think we like it best);
A little restful oasis,
Between the breakfast and the post.
Just south of coffee and of toast,
Just north of daily task and duty;
Just west of dreams, this island gleams,
A fertile spot of peace and beauty.

We wander out across the lawn;
We idle by a bush in b...

In sky and wave the white clouds swam,
And the blue hills of Nottingham
Through gaps of leafy green
Across the lake were seen,

When, in the shadow of the ash
That dreams its dream in Attitash,
In the warm summer weather,
Two maidens sat together.

They sat and watched in idle mood
The gleam and shade of lake and wood;
The beach the keen light smote,
The white sail of a boat;

Swan flocks of lilies shoreward lying,
In sweetness, not in music, dying;
Hardback, and virgin's-bower,
And white-spiked clethra-flower.

With careless ears they heard the plash
And breezy wash of Attitash,
The wood-bird's plaintive cry,
The locust's sharp reply.

And teased the while, with playful band,
The shaggy dog of Newfoundland,

Fancy and Reality.--Rain-drops and Lakes.--Plan of a Story.--Where to place the Scene of it.--In some unknown Region.--Psalmanazar's Imposture with respect to the Island of Formosa.


The more I've viewed this world the more I've found,
    That, filled as 'tis with scenes and creatures rare.
Fancy commands within her own bright round
    A world of scenes and creatures far more fair.
Nor is it that her power can call up there
    A single charm, that's not from Nature won,
No more than rainbows in their pride can wear
    A single hue unborrowed from the sun--
But 'tis the mental medium it shines thro'
That lends to Beauty all its charm and hue;
As the same light that o'er the level lake
    One dull monotony of lustre flings,
Will, entering in the rounded ...

Ah, thankless! canst thou envy him who gains
    The Stoic's cold and indurate repose?
    Thou! with thy lively sense of bliss and woes! -
    From a false balance of life's joys and pains
Thou deem'st him happy. - Plac'd 'mid fair domains,
    Where full the river down the valley flows,
    As wisely might'st thou wish thy home had rose
    On the parch'd surface of unwater'd plains,
For that, when long the heavy rain descends,
    Bursts over guardian banks their whelming tide! -
    Seldom the wild and wasteful Flood extends,
But, spreading plenty, verdure, beauty wide,
    The cool translucent Stream perpetual bends,
    And laughs the Vale as the bright waters glide.

O gift of God! O perfect day:
Whereon shall no man work, but play;
Whereon it is enough for me,
Not to be doing, but to be!

Through every fibre of my brain,
Through every nerve, through every vein,
I feel the electric thrill, the touch
Of life, that seems almost too much.

I hear the wind among the trees
Playing celestial symphonies;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.

And over me unrolls on high
The splendid scenery of the sky,
Where though a sapphire sea the sun
Sails like a golden galleon,

Towards yonder cloud-land in the West,
Towards yonder Islands of the Blest,
Whose steep sierra far uplifts
Its craggy summits white with drifts.

Blow, winds! and waft through all the rooms<...

After the Hazara War

I lie alone beneath the Almond blossoms,
    Where we two lay together in the spring,
And now, as then, the mountain snows are melting,
    This year, as last, the water-courses sing.

That was another spring, and other flowers,
    Hung, pink and fragile, on the leafless tree,
The land rejoiced in other running water,
    And I rejoiced, because you were with me.

You, with your soft eyes, darkly lashed and shaded,
    Your red lips like a living, laughing rose,
Your restless, amber limbs so lithe and slender
    Now lost to me.    Gone whither no man knows.

You lay beside me singing in the sunshine;
    The rough, white fur, unloosened at the neck,
Showed the smooth skin, fair as the Almond blossoms,
    On which th...