I bore with thee long weary days and nights,
    Through many pangs of heart, through many tears;
I bore with thee, thy hardness, coldness, slights,
    For three and thirty years.

Who else had dared for thee what I have dared?
    I plunged the depth most deep from bliss above;
I not My flesh, I not My spirit spared:
    Give thou Me love for love.

For thee I thirsted in the daily drouth,
    For thee I trembled in the nightly frost:
Much sweeter thou than honey to My mouth:
    Why wilt thou still be lost?

I bore thee on My shoulders and rejoiced:
    Men only marked upon My shoulders borne
The branding cross; and shouted hungry-voiced,
    Or wagged their heads in scorn.

Thee did nails grave upon My hands, thy name
    Did thorn...

If I were but a syndicate,
    And love were merchandise,
I'd buy it at the market rate,
    And hold it for a rise.

And should the price of all this love
    Bound upward like a ball,
And reach 1000 or above,
    Still you should have it all.

Come, dear old friend, and with us twain
To calm Digentian groves repair;
The turtle coos his sweet refrain
And posies are a-blooming there;
And there the romping Sabine girls
Bind myrtle in their lustrous curls.

I know a certain ilex-tree
Whence leaps a fountain cool and clear.
Its voices summon you and me;
Come, let us haste to share its cheer!
Methinks the rapturous song it sings
Should woo our thoughts from mortal things.

But, good old friend, I charge thee well,
Watch thou my brother all the while,
Lest some fair Lydia cast her spell
Round him unschooled in female guile.
Those damsels have no charms for me;
Guard thou that brother,--I'll guard thee!

And, lo, sweet friend! behold this cup,
Round which the garlands intertwin...

Sennuccio, I would have thee know the shame
That's dealt to me, and what a life is mine.
Even as of yore, I struggle, burn and pine.
Laura transports me, I am still the same.
All meekness here, all pride she there became,
Now harsh, now kind, now cruel, now benign;
Here honor clothed her, there a grace divine;
Now gentle, now disdainful of my flame.
Here sweetly did she sing; there sat awhile;
There she turned back, she lingered in this spot.
Here with her splendid eyes my heart she clove.
She uttered there a word, and here did smile.
Here she changed color. Ah, in such fond thought,
Holds me by day and night, our master Love.

To-night a strong south wind in thunder sings
Across the city. Now by salt wet flats,
And ridges perished with the breath of drought,
Comes up a deep, sonorous, gulf-like voice
Far-travelled herald of some distant storm
That strikes with harsh gigantic wings the cliff,
Where twofold Otway meets his straitened surf,
And makes a white wrath of a league of sea.

To-night the fretted Yarra chafes its banks,
And dusks and glistens; while the city shows
A ring of windy light. From street to street
The noise of labour, linked to hurrying wheels,
Rolls off, as rolls the stately sound of wave,
When he that hears it hastens from the shore.

To-night beside a moody window sits
A wife who watches for her absent love;
Her home is in a dim suburban street,
In...

Mother, sit down, for I have much to say
Anent this widespread ever-growing theme
Of woman and her virtues and her rights.

I left you for the large, loud world of men,
When I had lived one little score of years.
I judged all women by you, and my heart
Was filled with high esteem and reverence
For your angelic sex; and for the wives,
The sisters, daughters, mothers of my friends
I held but holy thoughts.    To fallen stars
(Of whom you told me in our last sweet talk,
Warning me of the dangers in my path)
I gave wide pity as you bade me to,
Saying their sins harked back to my base sex.

Now listen, mother mine:    Ten years have passed
Since that clean-minded and pure-bodied youth,
Thinking to write his name upon the stars,
Went from your presenc...

No rest--not one day in the seven for me?
Not one, from the maddening yoke to be free?
Not one to escape from the boss on the prowl,
His sinister glance and his furious growl,
The cry of the foreman, the smell of the shop,--
To feel for one moment the manacles drop?
--'Tis rest then you want, and you fain would forget?
To rest and oblivion they'll carry you yet.

The flow'rs and the trees will have withered ere long,
The last bird already is ending his song;
And soon will be leafless and shadeless the bow'rs...
I long, oh I long for the perfume of flow'rs!
To feel for a moment ere stripped are the trees,
In meadow lands open, the breath of the breeze.
--You long for the meadow lands breezy and fair?
O, soon enough others will carry you there.

I.
Would it were I had been false, not you!
I that am nothing, not you that are all
I, never the worse for a touch or two
On my speckled hide; not you, the pride
Of the day, my swan, that a first fleck’s fall
On her wonder of white must unswan, undo!

II.
I had dipped in life’s struggle and, out again,
Bore specks of it here, there, easy to see,
When I found my swan and the cure was plain;
The dull turned bright as I caught your white
On my bosom: you saved me saved in vain
If you ruined yourself, and all through me!

III.
Yes, all through the speckled beast that I am,
Who taught you to stoop; you gave me yourself,
And bound your soul by the vows that damn:
Since on better thought you break, as you ought,
Vows words, no angel set down,...

Bless'd be thy slumbers, little love!
Unconscious of the ills so near;
May no rude noise thy dreams remote,
Or prompt the artless early tear; -

For she who gave thee life is gone,
Whose trust it was thy life to rear,
Now in the cold and mould'ring stone
Calls for that artless early tear.

Sleep on, thou little dreamer! sleep;
For, long as I shall tarry here,
I'll soothe thee; thou shalt never weep,
Tho' flows for thee the tend'rest tear.

Then be thy gentle visions blest,
Nor e'er thy bosom know that fear,
Which thro' the night disturbs my rest,
And prompts Affection's trembling tear.

Thou source of bliss, thou cause of woe,
Disturber of the mind of man,
Wilt thou still calmly onward go,
A sightless leader of the van?

In court and camp wilt thou still rule,
And nation's destinies still sway;
Make wise men act as doth the fool,
And blindly follow thee, away?

Thou siren nymph, ethereal sprite,
Thou skilful charmer of mankind,
Oh, when wilt thou lead man aright,
And when will they thy cords unbind?

Thy potent spells have still their force,
And reason's dictates still are scorn'd,
And reason runs a shackl'd course,
While life, with love, is still adorn'd.

Thou fond inmate of maiden's breast,
Thou lighter up of manly heart;
Thou surely hast some high behest,
And we shall surely never part.

We'll ...

How sweet the sacred legend - if unblamed
In my slight verse such holy things are named -
Of Mary's secret hours of hidden joy,
Silent, but pondering on her wondrous boy!
Ave, Maria! Pardon, if I wrong
Those heavenly words that shame my earthly song!
The choral host had closed the Angel's strain
Sung to the listening watch on Bethlehem's plain,
And now the shepherds, hastening on their way,
Sought the still hamlet where the Infant lay.
They passed the fields that gleaning Ruth toiled o'er, -
They saw afar the ruined threshing-floor
Where Moab's daughter, homeless and forlorn,
Found Boaz slumbering by his heaps of corn;
And some remembered how the holy scribe,
Skilled in the lore of every jealous tribe,
Traced the warm blood of Jesse's royal son
To that fa...

I shall never forget you, never.    Never escape
Your memory woven about the beautiful things of life.

The sudden Thought of your Face is like a Wound
    When it comes unsought
On some scent of Jasmin, Lilies, or pale Tuberose.
Any one of the sweet white fragrant flowers,
Flowers I used to love and lay in your hair.

Sunset is terribly sad. I saw you stand
Tall against the red and the gold like a slender palm;
The light wind stirred your hair as you waved your hand,
Waved farewell, as ever, serene and calm,
To me, the passion-wearied and tost and torn,
Riding down the road in the gathering grey.
    Since that day
The sunset red is empty, the gold forlorn.

Often across the Banqueting board at nights
Men linger about your name in careless prai...

When I had wings, my brother,
Such wings were mine as thine:
Such life my heart remembers
In all as wild Septembers
As this when life seems other,
Though sweet, than once was mine;
When I had wings, my brother,
Such wings were mine as thine.
Such life as thrills and quickens
The silence of thy flight,
Or fills thy note's elation
With lordlier exultation
Than man's, whose faint heart sickens
With hopes and fears that blight
Such life as thrills and quickens
The silence of thy flight.
Thy cry from windward clanging
Makes all the cliffs rejoice;
Though storm clothe seas with sorrow,
Thy call salutes the morrow;
While shades of pain seem hanging
Round earth's most rapturous voice,
Thy cry from windward clanging
Makes all the clif...

The twentieth year is well-nigh past
Since first our sky was overcast,
Ah, would that this might be the last!
My Mary!

Thy spirits have a fainter flow,
I see thee daily weaker grow--
'Twas my distress that brought thee low,
My Mary!

Thy needles, once a shining store,
For my sake restless heretofore,
Now rust disused, and shine no more,
My Mary!

For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil
The same kind office for me still,
Thy sight now seconds not thy will,
My Mary!

But well thou playedst the housewife's part,
And all thy threads with magic art
Have wound themselves about this heart,
My Mary!

Thy indistinct expressions seem
Like language uttered in a dream;
Yet me they charm, whate'er the theme,
My Mar...

Sorrow, my friend,
When shall you come again?
The wind is slow, and the bent willows send
Their silvery motions wearily down the plain.
The bird is dead
That sang this morning through the summer rain!

Sorrow, my friend,
I owe my soul to you.
And if my life with any glory end
Of tenderness for others, and the words are true,
Said, honoring, when I'm dead, -
Sorrow, to you, the mellow praise, the funeral
wreath, are due.

And yet, my friend,
When love and joy are strong,
Your terrible visage from my sight I rend
With glances to blue heaven. Hovering along,
By mine your shadow led,
"Away!" I shriek, "nor dare to work my new-sprung mercies wrong!"

Still, you are near:
Who can your care withstand?
When deep eternity shall l...

The search for beauty is the search for God
Who is All Beauty.    He who seeks shall find.
And all along the paths my feet have trod,
I have sought hungrily with heart and mind,
    And open eyes for beauty, everywhere.
    Lo! I have found the world is very fair.
The search for beauty is the search for God.

Beauty was first revealed to me by stars,
    Before I saw it in my mother's eyes,
Or, seeing, sensed it beauty, I was stirred
To awe and wonder by those orbs of light
    All palpitant against empurpled skies.
They spoke a language to my childish heart
Of mystery and splendour, and of space,
Friendly with gracious, unseen presences.
Beauty was first revealed to me by stars.

Sunsets enlarged the meaning of the word.
    There was a window ...

Though I have loved you well, I ween,
And you, too, fancied me,
Your heart hath too divided been
A constant heart to be.
And like the gay and youthful knight,
Who loved and rode away,
Your fleeting fancy takes a flight
With every fleeting day.

So let it be as you propose,
Tho’ hard the struggle be;
’Tis fitter far, that goodness knows!
Since we cannot agree.
Let’s quarrel once for all, my sweet,
Forget the past, and then
I’ll kiss each pretty girl I meet,
While you’ll flirt with the men.

Love breathed a secret to her listening heart,
    And said "Be silent."    Though she guarded it,
And dwelt as one within a world apart,
    Yet sun and star seemed by that secret lit.
And where she passed, each whispering wind ablow,
    And every little blossom in the sod,
Called joyously to her, "We know, we know,
    For are we not the intimates of God?"
Life grew so radiant, and so opulent,
    That when her fragile body and her brain
By mortal throes of agony were rent,
    She felt a curious rapture in her pain.
Then, after anguish, came the supreme bliss -
They brought the little baby, for her kiss!