Round them a fierce, wide, crazy noon
    Heaves with crushed lips and glowing sides
    Against the huge and drowsy sun.
    Beneath them turn the glittering tides
    Where dizzy waters reel with gold,
    And strange, rich trophies sink and rise
    From decks of sunken argosies.
    With shining arms they cleave the cold
    Far reaches of the sea, and beat
    The hissing foam with flash of feet
    Into bright fangs, while breathlessly
    Curls over them the amorous sea.

    Naked they laugh and revel there.
    One shakes the sea-drops from his hair,
    Then, singing, takes the bubbles: one
    Lies couched among the shells, the sands
    Telling gold hours between his hands:
    One floats like sea-wrack in the sun.
    The gods o...

My soul is sad, and much dismay’d,
See, Lord, what legions of my foes,
With fierce Apollyon at their head,
My heavenly pilgrimage oppose!


See, from the ever-burning lake
How like a smoky cloud they rise!
With horrid blasts my soul they shake,
With storms of blasphemies and lies.


Their fiery arrows reach the mark,[1]
My throbbing heart with anguish tear;
Each lights upon a kindred spark,
And finds abundant fuel there.


I hate the thought that wrongs the Lord;
Oh! I would drive it from my breast,
With thy own sharp two-edged sword,
Far as the east is from the west.


Come, then, and chase the cruel host,
Heal the deep wounds I have received!
Nor let the powers of darkness boast,
That I am foi...

In Finland there is a Castle which is called the New Rock, moated about with a river of unfounded depth, the water black and the fish therein very distateful to the palate. In this are spectres often seen, which foreshew either the death of the Governor, or some prime officer belonging to the place; and most commonly it appeareth in the shape of an harper, sweetly singing and dallying and playing under the water.

It is reported of one Donica, that after she was dead, the Devil walked in her body for the space of two years, so that none suspected but that she was still alive; for she did both speak and eat, though very sparingly; only she had a deep paleness on her countenance, which was the only sign of death. At length a Magician coming by where she was then in the company of many other virgins, as soon as he beheld her he sai...

An old man cocked his ear upon a bridge;
He and his friend, their faces to the South,
Had trod the uneven road. Their boots were soiled,
Their Connemara cloth worn out of shape;
They had kept a steady pace as though their beds,
Despite a dwindling and late risen moon,
Were distant. An old man cocked his ear.

Aherne What made that sound?

Robartes A rat or water-hen
Splashed, or an otter slid into the stream.
We are on the bridge; that shadow is the tower,
And the light proves that he is reading still.
He has found, after the manner of his kind,
Mere images; chosen this place to live in
Because, it may be, of the candle light
From the far tower where Milton’s platonist
Sat late, or Shelley’s visionary prince:
The lonely light that Samuel Palmer ...

If this great world of joy and pain
Revolve in one sure track;
If freedom, set, will rise again,
And virtue, flown, come back;
Woe to the purblind crew who fill
The heart with each day's care;
Nor gain, from past or future, skill
To bear, and to forbear!

Beneath the shade a spreading Beech displays,
Hylas and Aegon sung their rural lays,
This mourn'd a faithless, that an absent Love,
And Delia's name and Doris' fill'd the Grove.
Ye Mantuan nymphs, your sacred succour bring;
Hylas and Ægon's rural lays I sing.
Thou, whom the Nine with Plautus' wit inspire,
The art of Terence, and Menander's fire;
Whose sense instructs us, and whose humour charms,
Whose judgement sways us, and whose spirit warms!
Oh, skill'd in Nature! see the hearts of Swains,
Their artless passions, and their tender pains.
Now setting Phœbus shone serenely bright,
And fleecy clouds were streak'd with purple light;
When tuneful Hylas with melodious moan,
Taught rocks to weep, and made the mountains groan.
Go, gentle gales, and bear my sighs awa...

Verdi panni, sanguigni, oscuri o persi.

WHETHER OR NOT HE SHOULD CEASE TO LOVE LAURA.


    Green robes and red, purple, or brown, or gray
No lady ever wore,
Nor hair of gold in sunny tresses twined,
So beautiful as she, who spoils my mind
Of judgment, and from freedom's lofty path
So draws me with her that I may not bear
Any less heavy yoke.

And if indeed at times--for wisdom fails
Where martyrdom breeds doubt--
The soul should ever arm it to complain
Suddenly from each reinless rude desire
Her smile recalls, and razes from my heart
Every rash enterprise, while all disdain
Is soften'd in her sight.

For all that I have ever borne for love,
And still am doom'd to bear,
Till she who wounded it shall heal my heart,

To-night I close my eyes and see
A strange procession passing me
The years before I saw your face
Go by me with a wistful grace;
They pass, the sensitive shy years,
As one who strives to dance, half blind with tears.

The years went by and never knew
That each one brought me nearer you;
Their path was narrow and apart
And yet it led me to your heart
Oh sensitive shy years, oh lonely years,
That strove to sing with voices drowned in tears.

1.
Mine eyes were dim with tears unshed;
Yes, I was firm - thus wert not thou; -
My baffled looks did fear yet dread
To meet thy looks - I could not know
How anxiously they sought to shine
With soothing pity upon mine.

2.
To sit and curb the soul's mute rage
Which preys upon itself alone;
To curse the life which is the cage
Of fettered grief that dares not groan,
Hiding from many a careless eye
The scorned load of agony.

3.
Whilst thou alone, then not regarded,
The ... thou alone should be,
To spend years thus, and be rewarded,
As thou, sweet love, requited me
When none were near - Oh! I did wake
From torture for that moment's sake.

4.
Upon my heart thy accents sweet
Of peace and pity fell like dew
On f...

Up to the little grave, with blossoms kept,
They went together; and one hid her face,
And spoke aloud the boy's dear name, and wept.
The other woman stood apart a space.
And prayed to God. "If only I," she said,
"Might keep a grave, and mourn my little dead!"

As still Savitri sat beside
Her husband dying,--dying fast,
She saw a stranger slowly glide
Beneath the boughs that shrunk aghast.
Upon his head he wore a crown
That shimmered in the doubtful light;
His vestment scarlet reached low down,
His waist, a golden girdle dight.
His skin was dark as bronze; his face
Irradiate, and yet severe;
His eyes had much of love and grace,
But glowed so bright, they filled with fear.

A string was in the stranger's hand
Noosed at its end. Her terrors now
Savitri scarcely could command.
Upon the sod beneath a bough,
She gently laid her husband's head,
And in obeisance bent her brow.
"No mortal form is thine,"--she said,
"Beseech thee say what god art thou?
And what can be thine errand here?"
"Savitri...

    Regret not me;
    Beneath the sunny tree
I lie uncaring, slumbering peacefully.

    Swift as the light
    I flew my faery flight;
Ecstatically I moved, and feared no night.

    I did not know
    That heydays fade and go,
But deemed that what was would be always so.

    I skipped at morn
    Between the yellowing corn,
Thinking it good and glorious to be born.

    I ran at eves
    Among the piled-up sheaves,
Dreaming, "I grieve not, therefore nothing grieves."

    Now soon will come
    The apple, pear, and plum
And hinds will sing, and autumn insects hum.

    Again you will fare
    To cider-makings rare,
And junketings; but I shall not be there.

    Yet gaily sing
    Until the pe...

One dark, dark night--it was long ago,
    The air was heavy and still and warm--
It fell to me and a man I know,
    To see two girls to their father's farm.

There was little seeing, that I recall:
    We seemed to grope in a cave profound.
They might have come by a painful fall,
    Had we not helped them over the ground.

The girls were sisters.    Both were fair,
    But mine was the fairer (so I say).
The dark soon severed us, pair from pair,
    And not long after we lost our way.

We wandered over the country-side,
    And we frightened most of the sheep about,
And I do not think that we greatly tried,
    Having lost our way, to find it out.

The night being fine, it was not worth while.
    We strayed through furrow and corn ...

        It seemeth such a little way to me
    Across to that strange country - the Beyond;
        And yet, not strange, for it has grown to be
    The home of those of whom I am so fond,
        They make it seem familiar and most dear,
        As journeying friends bring distant regions near.

        So close it lies that when my sight is clear
    I think I almost see the gleaming strand.
        I know I feel those who have gone from here
    Come near enough sometimes to touch my hand.
        I often think, but for our veiled eyes,
        We should find Heaven right round about us lies.

        I cannot make it seem a day to dread,
    When from this dear earth I shall journey out
        To that still dearer country of the dead,
    And join th...

Singer of songs of the hills
Dreamer, by waters unstirred,
Back in a valley of rills,
Home of the leaf and the bird!
Read in this fall of the year
Just the compassionate phrase,
Faded with traces of tear,
Written in far-away days:

“Gone is the light of my lap
(Lord, at Thy bidding I bow),
Here is my little one’s cap,
He has no need of it now,
Give it to somebody’s boy
Somebody’s darling” she wrote.
Touching was Bob in his joy
Bob without boots or a coat.

Only a cap; but it gave
Capless and comfortless one
Happiness, bright as the brave,
Beautiful light of the sun.
Soft may the sanctified sod
Rest on the father who led
Bob from the gutter, unshod
Covered his cold little head!

Bob from the foot to the cro...

The doors were wide, the story saith,
Out of the night came the patient wraith.
He might not speak, and he could not stir
A hair of the Baron’s minniver.
Speechless and strengthless, a shadow thin,
He roved the castle to find his kin.
And oh! ’twas a piteous sight to see
The dumb ghost follow his enemy!
The Return of Imray.



Before my Spring I garnered Autumn's gain,
Out of her time my field was white with grain,
The year gave up her secrets, to my woe.
Forced and deflowered each sick season lay
In mystery of increase and decay;
I saw the sunset ere men see the day,
Who am too wise in all I should not know.
Without Benefit of Clergy.



There’s a convict more in the Central Jail,
Behind the old mud wall;
There’s a...

The sunsets fall and the sunsets fade,
But still I walk this shadowy land;
And grapple the dark and only the dark
In my search for a loving hand.

For it’s here a still, deep woodland lies,
With spurs of pine and sheaves of fern;
But I wander wild, and wail like a child
For a face that will never return!

And it’s here a mighty water flows,
With drifts of wind and wimpled waves;
But the darling head of a dear one dead
Is hidden beneath its caves.

1858

Flash out a stream of blood-red wine,
For I would drink to other days,
And brighter shall their memory shine,
Seen flaming through its crimson blaze!
The roses die, the summers fade,
But every ghost of boyhood's dream
By nature's magic power is laid
To sleep beneath this blood-red stream!

It filled the purple grapes that lay,
And drank the splendors of the sun,
Where the long summer's cloudless day
Is mirrored in the broad Garonne;
It pictures still the bacchant shapes
That saw their hoarded sunlight shed, -
The maidens dancing on the grapes, -
Their milk-white ankles splashed with red.

Beneath these waves of crimson lie,
In rosy fetters prisoned fast,
Those flitting shapes that never die, -
The swift-winged visions o...