Slowly up silent peaks, the white edge of the world,
Trod four archangels, clear against the unheeding sky,
Bearing, with quiet even steps, and great wings furled,
A little dingy coffin; where a child must lie,
It was so tiny. (Yet, you had fancied, God could never
Have bidden a child turn from the spring and the sunlight,
And shut him in that lonely shell, to drop for ever
Into the emptiness and silence, into the night. . . .)

They then from the sheer summit cast, and watched it fall,
Through unknown glooms, that frail black coffin, and therein
God's little pitiful Body lying, worn and thin,
And curled up like some crumpled, lonely flower-petal,
Till it was no more visible; then turned again
With sorrowful quiet faces downward to the plain.

Glee! The great storm is over!
Four have recovered the land;
Forty gone down together
Into the boiling sand.

Ring, for the scant salvation!
Toll, for the bonnie souls, --
Neighbor and friend and bridegroom,
Spinning upon the shoals!

How they will tell the shipwreck
When winter shakes the door,
Till the children ask, "But the forty?
Did they come back no more?"

Then a silence suffuses the story,
And a softness the teller's eye;
And the children no further question,
And only the waves reply.

I shut my eyes to rest 'em, just a bit ago it seems,
An' back among the Cotswolds I were wanderin' in me dreams.
I saw the old grey homestead, with the rickyard set around,
An' catched the lowin' of the herd, a pleasant, homelike sound.
Then on I went a-singin', through the pastures where the sheep
Was lyin' underneath the elms, a-tryin' for to sleep.

An' where the stream was tricklin' by, half stifled by the grass,
Heaped over thick with buttercups, I saw the corncrake pass.
For 'twas Summer, Summer, SUMMER! An' the blue forget-me-nots
Wiped out this dusty city and the smoky chimbley pots.
I clean forgot My Lady's gown, the dazzlin' sights I've seen;
I was back among the Cotswolds, where me heart has always been.

Then through the sixteen-acre on I went, a stiffish cl...

If these brief Records, by the Muses' art
Produced as lonely Nature or the strife
That animates the scenes of public life
Inspired, may in thy leisure claim a part;
And if these Transcripts of the private heart
Have gained a sanction from thy falling tears;
Then I repent not. But my soul hath fears
Breathed from eternity; for, as a dart
Cleaves the blank air, Life flies: now every day
Is but a glimmering spoke in the swift wheel
Of the revolving week. Away, away,
All fitful cares, all transitory zeal!
So timely Grace the immortal wing may heal,
And honour rest upon the senseless clay.

B.C. 570

(Macmillan's Magazine, October 1866.)


Here where I dwell I waste to skin and bone;
    The curse is come upon me, and I waste
    In penal torment powerless to atone.
The curse is come on me, which makes no haste
    And doth not tarry, crushing both the proud
    Hard man and him the sinner double-faced.
Look not upon me, for my soul is bowed
    Within me, as my body in this mire;
    My soul crawls dumb-struck, sore-bested and cowed.
As Sodom and Gomorrah scourged by fire,
    As Jericho before God's trumpet-peal,
    So we the elect ones perish in His ire.
Vainly we gird on sackcloth, vainly kneel
    With famished faces toward Jerusalem:
    His heart is shut against us not to feel,
His ears against our cry He shutte...

Lament who will, in fruitless tears,
The speed with which our moments fly;
I sigh not over vanished years,
But watch the years that hasten by.

Look, how they come, a mingled crowd
Of bright and dark, but rapid days;
Beneath them, like a summer cloud,
The wide world changes as I gaze.

What! grieve that time has brought so soon
The sober age of manhood on!
As idly might I weep, at noon,
To see the blush of morning gone.

Could I give up the hopes that glow
In prospect like Elysian isles;
And let the cheerful future go,
With all her promises and smiles?

The future! cruel were the power
Whose doom would tear thee from my heart.
Thou sweetener of the present hour!
We cannot, no, we will not part.

Oh, leave me, still,...

She laid it where the sunbeams fall
Unscann'd upon the broken wall.
Without a tear, without a groan,
She laid it near a mighty stone,
Which some rude swain had haply cast
Thither in sport, long ages past,
And Time with mosses had o'erlaid,
And fenced with many a tall grassblade,
And all about bid roses bloom
And violets shed their soft perfume.
There, in its cool and quiet bed,
She set her burden down and fled:
Nor flung, all eager to escape,
One glance upon the perfect shape
That lay, still warm and fresh and fair,
But motionless and soundless there.

No human eye had mark'd her pass
Across the linden-shadow'd grass
Ere yet the minster clock chimed seven:
Only the innocent birds of heaven -
The magpie, and the rook whose nest
Swi...

I have seen higher holier things than these,
And therefore must to these refuse my heart,
Yet am I panting for a little ease;
I’ll take, and so depart.

Ah, hold! the heart is prone to fall away,
Her high and cherished visions to forget,
And if thou takest, how wilt thou repay
So vast, so dread a debt?

How will the heart, which now thou trustest, then
Corrupt, yet in corruption mindful yet,
Turn with sharp stings upon itself! Again,
Bethink thee of the debt!

Hast thou seen higher, holier things than these,
And therefore must to these thy heart refuse?
With the true best, alack, how ill agrees
That best that thou would’st choose!

The Summum Pulchrum rests in heaven above;
Do thou, as best thou may’st, thy duty do
Amid the things...

I beg your pity, You, my only love;
My fallen heart lies in a deep abyss,
A universe of leaden heaviness,
Where cursing terrors swim the night above!

For six months stands a sun with heatless beams,
The other months are spent in total night;
It is a polar land to human sight
No greenery, no trees, no running streams!

But there is not a horror to surpass
The cruelty of that blank sun's cold glass,
And that long night, that Chaos come again!

I'm jealous of the meanest of the beasts
Who plunge themselves into a stupid sleep -
So slowly does the time unwind its skein!

Silently without my window,
Tapping gently at the pane,
Falls the rain.
Through the trees sighs the breeze
Like a soul in pain.
Here alone I sit and weep;
Thought hath banished sleep.

Wearily I sit and listen
To the water's ceaseless drip.
To my lip
Fate turns up the bitter cup,
Forcing me to sip;
'T is a bitter, bitter drink,
Thus I sit and think,--

Thinking things unknown and awful,
Thoughts on wild, uncanny themes,
Waking dreams.
Spectres dark, corpses stark,
Show the gaping seams
Whence the cold and cruel knife
Stole away their life.

Bloodshot eyes all strained and staring,
Gazing ghastly into mine;
Blood like wine
On the brow--clotted now--
Shows death's dreadful sign.
Lonely vigil still ...

    Sitting in the spendthrift dark
    lilting pennies away,
    deciphering fate ... .
    The bed, a warm reach past
    the pillow
    like personal mortality in the
    incest breath of life.

    Warm stuff of dreams -
    the calender with its days mesh &
    march like soldiers
    dearly departed
    (cindered and bludgeoned)
    or the old sea-faring chest
    where all men are sailors
    past light's corner.

    Sturdy trudgeons,
    clock bursts thru the room
    mindful of time and aching,
    decaying things.

    Hallow's Eve in movements of the curtains -
    a remembered Rembrandt,
    self-portrait of the old man
    standing alone in a clammy room,
    idling the seconds, with drab

Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below!
Now my brothers call from the bay,
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away!
This way, this way!

Call her once before you go
Call once yet!
In a voice that she will know:
"Margaret! Margaret!"
Children's voices should be dear
(Call once more) to a mother's ear;

Children's voices, wild with pain
Surely she will come again!
Call her once and come away;
This way, this way!
"Mother dear, we cannot stay!
The wild white horses foam and fret."
Margaret! Margaret!

Come, dear children, come away down;
Call no more!
One last look at th...

With all my soul, then, let us part,
    Since both are anxious to be free;
And I will sand you home your heart,
    If you will send mine back to me.

We've had some happy hours together,
    But joy must often change its wing;
And spring would be but gloomy weather,
    If we had nothing else but spring.

'Tis not that I expect to find
    A more devoted, fond and true one,
With rosier cheek or sweeter mind--
    Enough for me that she's a new one.

Thus let us leave the bower of love,
    Where we have loitered long in bliss;
And you may down that pathway rove,
    While I shall take my way through this.

O misera ed orribil visione.

HE CANNOT BELIEVE IN HER DEATH, BUT IF TRUE, HE PRAYS GOD TO TAKE HIM ALSO FROM LIFE.


    O misery! horror! can it, then, be true,
That the sweet light before its time is spent,
'Mid all its pains which could my life content,
And ever with fresh hopes of good renew?
If so, why sounds not other channels through,
Nor only from herself, the great event?
No! God and Nature could not thus consent,
And my dark fears are groundless and undue.
Still it delights my heart to hope once more
The welcome sight of that enchanting face,
The glory of our age, and life to me.
But if, to her eternal home to soar,
That heavenly spirit have left her earthly place,
Oh! then not distant may my last day be!

MACGREGOR.

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Yes! the vacant chairs tell sadly we are going, going fast,
And the thought comes strangely o'er me, who will live to be the last?
When the twentieth century's sunbeams climb the far-off eastern hill,
With his ninety winters burdened, will he greet the morning still?

Will he stand with Harvard's nurslings when they hear their mother's call
And the old and young are gathered in the many alcoved hall?
Will he answer to the summons when they range themselves in line
And the young mustachioed marshal calls out "Class of '29 "?

Methinks I see the column as its lengthened ranks appear
In the sunshine of the morrow of the nineteen hundredth year;
Through the yard 't is creeping, winding, by the walls of dusky red, -
What shape is that which totters at the long procession's head?<...

In Bruges town is many a street
Whence busy life hath fled;
Where, without hurry, noiseless feet
The grass-grown pavement tread.
There heard we, halting in the shade
Flung from a Convent-tower,
A harp that tuneful prelude made
To a voice of thrilling power.

The measure, simple truth to tell,
Was fit for some gay throng;
Though from the same grim turret fell
The shadow and the song.
When silent were both voice and chords,
The strain seemed doubly dear,
Yet sad as sweet, for 'English' words
Had fallen upon the ear.

It was a breezy hour of eve;
And pinnacle and spire
Quivered and seemed almost to heave,
Clothed with innocuous fire;
But, where we stood, the setting sun
Showed little of his state;
And, if the glory reached ...

No--leave my heart to rest, if rest it may,
When youth, and love, and hope, have past away.
Couldst thou, when summer hours are fled,
To some poor leaf that's fallen and dead,
Bring back the hue it wore, the scent it shed?
No--leave this heart to rest, if rest it may,
When youth, and love, and hope, have past away.

Oh, had I met thee then, when life was bright,
Thy smile might still have fed its tranquil light;
But now thou comest like sunny skies,
Too late to cheer the seaman's eyes,
When wrecked and lost his bark before him lies!
No--leave this heart to rest, if rest it may,
Since youth, and love, and hope have past away.