For there were nights . . . my love to him whose brow
Has glistened with the spoils of nights like those,
Home turning as a conqueror turns home,
What time green dawn down every street uprears
Arches of triumph! He has drained as well
Joy's perfumed bowl and cried as I have cried:
Be Fame their mistress whom Love passes by.
This only matters: from some flowery bed,
Laden with sweetness like a homing bee,
If one have known what bliss it is to come,
Bearing on hands and breast and laughing lips
The fragrance of his youth's dear rose. To him
The hills have bared their treasure, the far clouds
Unveiled the vision that o'er summer seas
Drew on his thirsting arms. This last thing known,
He can court danger, laugh at perilous odds,
And, pillowed on a memory so sweet,...

I watch'd her as she stoop'd to pluck
A wildflower in her hair to twine;
And wish'd that it had been my luck
To call her mine.

Anon I heard her rate with mad
Mad words her babe within its cot;
And felt particularly glad
That it had not.

I knew (such subtle brains have men)
That she was uttering what she shouldn't;
And thought that I would chide, and then
I thought I wouldn't:

Who could have gazed upon that face,
Those pouting coral lips, and chided?
A Rhadamanthus, in my place,
Had done as I did:

For ire wherewith our bosoms glow
Is chain'd there oft by Beauty's spell;
And, more than that, I did not know
The widow well.

So the harsh phrase pass'd unreproved.
Still mute - (O brothers, was it sin?) -
I ...

"Perhaps it is foolish to remark it, but there are times and places when I am a child at those things"
--MACKENZIE.

Each scene of youth to me's a pleasing toy,
Which memory, like a lover, doats upon;
And mix'd with them I am again a boy,
With tears and sighs regretting pleasures gone.

Ah! with enthusiast excesses wild
The scenes of childhood meet my moist'ning eye,
And with the very weakness of a child
I feel the raptures of delights gone by.

And still I fancy, as around I stroll
Each boyish scene, to mark the sport and game,
Others are living with a self-like soul,
That think, and love such trifles, just the same.

An old familiar spot I witness here,
With young companions where we oft have met:
Tho' since we play'd 'tis bleach'd with m...

MUSE.
Give me a kiss, my poet, take thy lyre;
The buds are bursting on the wild sweet-briar.
To-night the Spring is born - the breeze takes fire.
Expectant of the dawn behold the thrush,
Perched on the fresh branch of the first green bush;
Give me a kiss, my poet, take thy lyre.


POET.
How black it looks within the vale!
I thought a muffled form did sail
Above the tree-tops, through the air.
It seemed from yonder field to pass,
Its foot just grazed the tender grass;
A vision strange and fair it was.
It melts and is no longer there.


MUSE.
My poet, take thy lyre; upon the lawn
Night rocks the zephyr on her veiled, soft breast.
The rose, still virgin, holds herself withdrawn
From the winged, irised wasp with love possessed.

Aw dooat on a lass wi' a bonny face,
Wi' a twinkle ov fun in her ee; -
An aw like a lass 'at's some style an grace,
An aw'm fond o' one winnin an shy.
An ther's one 'at's a lot o' curly hair,
An a temptinly dimpled chin,
An one 'at's sedate an cold tho' fair,
But shoo wod'nt be easy to win.

Ther's one 'at's a smile ivvery time we meet,
An ther's one 'at seems allus sad;
Yet ther's sum mat abaat 'em all seems sweet, -
Just a sum mat aw wish aw had.
But somha aw connot mak up mi mind,
Which one to seek for a wife;
An its wise to be careful if love is blind,
For a weddin oft lasts for a life.

Ther's one 'at has nawther beauty nor wit, -
Just a plain lukkin, sensible lass;
But shoo's one thing 'at adds to her vally a bit, -
An that is 'a...

I
Soft, small, and sweet as sunniest flowers
That bask in heavenly heat
When bud by bud breaks, breathes, and cowers,
Soft, small, and sweet.
A babe's hands open as to greet
The tender touch of ours
And mock with motion faint and fleet
The minutes of the new strange hours
That earth, not heaven, must mete;
Buds fragrant still from heaven's own bowers,
Soft, small, and sweet.

II
A velvet vice with springs of steel
That fasten in a trice
And clench the fingers fast that feel
A velvet vice
What man would risk the danger twice,
Nor quake from head to heel?
Whom would not one such test suffice?
Well may we tremble as we kneel
In sight of Paradise,
If both a babe's closed fists conceal
A velvet vice.

III
Two f...

1.
The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon's transparent might,
The breath of the moist earth is light,
Around its unexpanded buds;
Like many a voice of one delight,
The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,
The City's voice itself, is soft like Solitude's.

2.
I see the Deep's untrampled floor
With green and purple seaweeds strown;
I see the waves upon the shore,
Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:
I sit upon the sands alone, -
The lightning of the noontide ocean
Is flashing round me, and a tone
Arises from its measured motion,
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

3.
Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
Nor peace wit...

I

Once a fowler, young and artless,
To the quiet greenwood came;
Full of skill was he and heartless
In pursuit of feathered game.
And betimes he chanced to see
Eros perching in a tree.

"What strange bird is that, I wonder?"
Thought the youth, and spread his snare;
Eros, chuckling at the blunder,
Gayly scampered here and there.
Do his best, the simple clod
Could not snare the agile god!

Blubbering, to his aged master
Went the fowler in dismay,
And confided his disaster
With that curious bird that day;
"Master, hast thou ever heard
Of so ill-disposed a bird?"

"Heard of him? Aha, most truly!"
Quoth the master with a smile;
"And thou too, shall know him duly--
Thou art young, but bide awhile,
And old Eros ...

The grand, authentic songs that roll
Across grey widths of wild-faced sea,
The lordly anthems of the Pole,
Are loud upon the lea.

Yea, deep and full the South Wind sings
The mighty symphonies that make
A thunder at the mountain springs
A whiteness on the lake.

And where the hermit hornet hums,
When Summer fires his wings with gold,
The hollow voice of August comes,
Across the rain and cold.

Now on the misty mountain tops,
Where gleams the crag and glares the fell,
Wild Winter, like one hunted, stops
And shouts a fierce farewell.

Keen fitful gusts shoot past the shore
And hiss by moor and moody mere
The heralds bleak that come before
The turning of the year.

A sobbing spirit wanders where
By fits and starts...

Letter V. Confessions.


I.

    O Lady mine! O Lady of my Life!
    Mine and not mine, a being of the sky
    Turn'd into Woman, and I know not why -
    Is't well, bethink thee, to maintain a strife
    With thy poor servant? War unto the knife,
    Because I greet thee with a lover's eye?


II.

    Is't well to visit me with thy disdain,
    And rack my soul, because, for love of thee,
    I was too prone to sink upon my knee,
    And too intent to make my meaning plain,
    And too resolved to make my loss a gain
    To...

The sandy spits, the shore-lock’d lakes,
Melt into open, moonlit sea;
The soft Mediterranean breaks
At my feet, free.

Dotting the fields of corn and vine
Like ghosts, the huge, gnarl’d olives stand;
Behind, that lovely mountain-line!
While by the strand

Cette, with its glistening houses white,
Curves with the curving beach away
To where the lighthouse beacons bright
Far in the bay.

Ah, such a night, so soft, so lone,
So moonlit, saw me once of yore
Wander unquiet, and my own
Vext heart deplore!

But now that trouble is forgot;
Thy memory, thy pain, to-night,
My brother! and thine early lot,
Possess me quite.

The murmur of this Midland deep
Is heard to-night around thy grave
There where Gibraltar’s cann...

I know it all . . . I know.
For I am God. I am Jehovah, He
Who made you what you are; and I can see
The tears that wet your pillow night by night,
When nurse has lowered that too-brilliant light;
When the talk ceases, and the ward grows still,
And you have doffed your will:
I know the anguish and the helplessness.
I know the fears that toss you to and fro.
And how you wrestle, weariful,
With hosts of little strings that pull
About your heart, and tear it so.
I know.

Lord, do You know
I had no time to put clean curtains up;
No time to finish darning all the socks;
Nor sew clean frilling in the children's frocks?
And do You know about my Baby's cold?
And how things are with my sweet three- year-old?
Will Jane remember right
Their cough ...

I'm free from thee; and thou no more shalt hear
My puling pipe to beat against thine ear.
Farewell my shackles, though of pearl they be;
Such precious thraldom ne'er shall fetter me.
He loves his bonds who, when the first are broke,
Submits his neck unto a second yoke.

Spirit of Love, whose locks unrolled,
Stream on the breeze like floating gold;
Come, within a fragrant cloud
Blushing with light, thy votary shroud;
And, on those wings that sparkling play,
Waft, oh, waft me hence away!
Love! my soul is full of thee,
Alive to all thy luxury.
But she, the nymph for whom I glow
The lovely Lesbian mocks my woe;
Smiles at the chill and hoary hues
That time upon my forehead strews.
Alas! I fear she keeps her charms,
In store for younger, happier arms!

    Where is my love -
In silence and shadow she lies,
Under the April-grey, calm waste of the skies;
    And a bird above,
In the darkness tender and clear,
Keeps saying over and over, Love lies here!

    Not that she's dead;
Only her soul is flown
Out of its last pure earthly mansion;
    And cries instead
In the darkness, tender and clear,
Like the voice of a bird in the leaves, Love - love lies here.

Lying apart now, each in a separate bed,
He with a book, keeping the light on late,
She like a girl dreaming of childhood,
All men elsewhere, it is as if they wait
Some new event: the book he holds unread,
Her eyes fixed on the shadows overhead.

Tossed up like flotsam from a former passion,
How cool they lie. They hardly ever touch,
Or if they do it is like a confession
Of having little feeling, or too much.
Chastity faces them, a destination
For which their whole lives were a preparation.

Strangely apart, yet strangely close together,
Silence between them like a thread to hold
And not wind in. And time itself's a feather
Touching them gently. Do they know they're old,
These two who are my father and my mother
Whose fire from which I came, has...

        Poi disse un altro.... "Io son Buonconte:
        Giovanna o altri non ha di me cura;
        Per ch' io vo tra costor con bassa fronte."

        Seguito il terzo spirito al secondo,
        "Ricorditi di me, che son la Pia;
        Siena mi fe, disfecemi Maremma.
        Salsi colui che inannellata pria
        Disposata m' avea colla sua gemma."

                    PURGATORIO, CANTO V.


        I

        BUONCONTE

        Sister, the sun has ceased to shine;
        By companies of twain and trine
        Stars gather; from the sea
        The moon comes momently.

        On all the roads that ring our hill
        The sighing and the hymns are still:
        It is our time to gain
    ...

Farewell, thou little Nook of mountain-ground,
Thou rocky corner in the lowest stair
Of that magnificent temple which doth bound
One side of our whole vale with grandeur rare;
Sweet garden-orchard, eminently fair,
The loveliest spot that man hath ever found,
Farewell! we leave thee to Heaven's peaceful care,
Thee, and the Cottage which thou dost surround.

Our boat is safely anchored by the shore,
And there will safely ride when we are gone;
The flowering shrubs that deck our humble door
Will prosper, though untended and alone:
Fields, goods, and far-off chattels we have none:
These narrow bounds contain our private store
Of things earth makes, and sun doth shine upon;
Here are they in our sight we have no more.

Sunshine and shower be with you, bud ...