I

What is this I read in history,
Full of marvel, full of mystery,
Difficult to understand?
Is it fiction, is it truth?
Children in the flower of youth,
Heart in heart, and hand in hand,
Ignorant of what helps or harms,
Without armor, without arms,
Journeying to the Holy Land!

Who shall answer or divine?
Never since the world was made
Such a wonderful crusade
Started forth for Palestine.
Never while the world shall last
Will it reproduce the past;
Never will it see again
Such an army, such a band,
Over mountain, over main,
Journeying to the Holy Land.

Like a shower of blossoms blown
From the parent trees were they;
Like a flock of birds that fly
Through the unfrequented sky,
Holding nothing as their own...

Yes, there it hangs upon the wall
And never gives a sound,
The hand that trimmed its greenhide fall
Is hidden underground,
There, in that patch of sally shade,
Beneath that grassy mound.

I never take it from the wall,
That whip belonged to him,
The man I singled from them all,
He was my husband, Jim;
I see him now, so straight and tall,
So long and lithe of limb.

That whip was with him night and day
When he was on the track;
I’ve often heard him laugh. and say
That when they heard its crack,
After the breaking of the drought,
The cattle all came back.

And all the time that Jim was here
A-working on the run
I’d hear that whip ring sharp and clear
Just about set of sun
To let me know that he was near
And that ...

Or ever a lick of Art was done,
    Or ever a one to care,
I was a Purple Polygon,
    And you were a Sky-Blue Square.

You yearned for me across a void,
    For I lay in a different plane,
I'd set my heart on a Red Rhomboid,
    And your sighing was in vain.

You pined for me as well I knew,
    And you faded day by day,
Until the Square that was heavenly Blue,
    Had paled to an ashen grey.

A myriad years or less or more,
    Have softly fluttered by,
Matters are much as they were before,
    Except 'tis I that sigh.

I yearn for you, but I have no chance,
    You lie in a different plane,
I break my heart for a single glance,
    And I break said heart in vain.

And ever I grow more pale and wan,
  ...

No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed;
Lay that on your heart,
My young angry dear;
This truth, this hard and precious stone,
Lay it on your hot cheek,
Let it hide your tear.
Hold it like a crystal
When you are alone
And gaze in the depths of the icy stone.
Long, look long and you will be blessed:
No one worth possessing
Can be quite possessed.

Never the time and the place
And the loved one all together!
This path, how soft to pace!
This May, what magic weather!
Where is the loved one's face?
In a dream that loved one's face meets mine,
But the house is narrow, the place is bleak
Where, outside, rain and wind combine
With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak,
With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,
With a malice that marks each word, each sign!
O enemy sly and serpentine,
Uncoil thee from the waking man!
Do I hold the Past
Thus firm and fast
Yet doubt if the Future hold I can?
This path so soft to pace shall lead
Thro' the magic of May to herself indeed!
Or narrow if needs the house must be,
Outside are the storms and strangers: we
Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she,
I and...

The Play is over. While the light
Yet lingers in the darkening hall,
I come to say a last Good-night
Before the final Exeunt all.

We gathered once, a joyous throng:
The jovial toasts went gayly round;
With jest, and laugh, and shout, and song,
We made the floors and walls resound.

We come with feeble steps and slow,
A little band of four or five,
Left from the wrecks of long ago,
Still pleased to find ourselves alive.

Alive! How living, too, are they
Whose memories it is ours to share!
Spread the long table's full array, -
There sits a ghost in every chair!

One breathing form no more, alas!
Amid our slender group we see;
With him we still remained "The Class," -
Without his presence what are we?

The hand...

The darkness that hung upon Willumberg's walls
    Had long been remembered with awe and dismay;
For years not a sunbeam had played in its halls,
    And it seemed as shut out from the regions of day.

Though the valleys were brightened by many a beam,
    Yet none could the woods of that castle illume;
And the lightning which flashed on the neighboring stream
    Flew back, as if fearing to enter the gloom!

"Oh! when shall this horrible darkness disperse!"
    Said Willumberg's lord to the Seer of the Cave;--
"It can never dispel," said the wizard of verse,
    "Till the bright star of chivalry sinks in the wave!"

And who was the bright star of chivalry then?
    Who could be but Reuben, the flower of the age?
For Reuben was first in the combat ...

1.

Thou Power! who hast ruled me through Infancy's days,
Young offspring of Fancy, 'tis time we should part;
Then rise on the gale this the last of my lays,
The coldest effusion which springs from my heart.


2.

This bosom, responsive to rapture no more,
Shall hush thy wild notes, nor implore thee to sing;
The feelings of childhood, which taught thee to soar,
Are wafted far distant on Apathy's wing.


3.

Though simple the themes of my rude flowing Lyre,
Yet even these themes are departed for ever;
No more beam the eyes which my dream could inspire,
My visions are flown, to return, - alas, never!


4.

When drain'd is the nectar which gladdens the bowl,
How vain is the effort delight to prolong!
Whe...

Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But Gregory's wood and one bare hill
Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind.
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.
I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour
And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,
And-under the arches of the bridge, and scream
In the elms above the flooded stream;
Imagining in excited reverie
That the future years had come,
Dancing to a frenzied drum,
Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.
May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,
Or hers before a looking-glass...

1.
The flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;
All that we wish to stay
Tempts and then flies.
What is this world's delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.

2.
Virtue, how frail it is!
Friendship how rare!
Love, how it sells poor bliss
For proud despair!
But we, though soon they fall,
Survive their joy, and all
Which ours we call.

3.
Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,
Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;
Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou - and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep.

    Hic pietatis honos? sic nos in sceptra reponis!

                                                VIRG.


Her Guilford clasps her, beautiful in death,
And with a kiss recalls her fleeting breath,
To tapers thus, which by a blast expire,
A lighted taper, touch'd, restores the fire:
She rear'd her swimming eye, and saw the light,
And Guilford too, or she had loath'd the sight:
Her father's death she bore, despis'd her own,
But now she must, she will, have leave to groan:
Ah! Guilford, she began, and would have spoke;
But sobs rush'd in, and ev'ry accent broke:
Reason itself, as gusts of passion blew,
Was ruffled in the tempest, and withdrew.
    So the youth lost his image in the well,
When tears upon the yielding surface fell.
The scatter'd fe...

I came your way in the years gone by,
    In the summers that now are old,
And then there was light in your beaming eye,
And love was living and hopes were high
    At the Sign of the Heart of Gold.

I come today and the lights are fled,
    And the trail of the mold and rust
Has saddened the hall where the feast was spread,
And love has vanished and youth is dead
    At the Sign of the Heart of Dust.

Quando il suave mio fido conforto.

SHE APPEARS TO HIM, AND, WITH MORE THAN WONTED AFFECTION, ENDEAVOURS TO CONSOLE HIM.


    When she, the faithful soother of my pain,
This life's long weary pilgrimage to cheer,
Vouchsafes beside my nightly couch to appear,
With her sweet speech attempering reason's strain;
O'ercome by tenderness, and terror vain,
I cry, "Whence comest thou, O spirit blest?"
She from her beauteous breast
A branch of laurel and of palm displays,
And, answering, thus she says.
"From th' empyrean seat of holy love
Alone thy sorrows to console I move."

In actions, and in words, in humble guise
I speak my thanks, and ask, "How may it be
That thou shouldst know my wretched state?" and she
"Thy floods of tears perpetual,...

To have known him, to have loved him
After loneness long;
And then to be estranged in life,
And neither in the wrong;
And now for death to set his seal--
Ease me, a little ease, my song!

By wintry hills his hermit-mound
The sheeted snow-drifts drape,
And houseless there the snow-bird flits
Beneath the fir-trees' crape:
Glazed now with ice the cloistral vine
That hid the shyest grape.

    Let us forget.    What matters it that we
        Once reigned o'er happy realms of long-ago,
        And talked of love, and let our voices low,
    And ruled for some brief sessions royally?
    What if we sung, or laughed, or wept maybe?
        It has availed not anything, and so
        Let it go by that we may better know
    How poor a thing is lost to you and me.
        But yesterday I kissed your lips, and yet
    Did thrill you not enough to shake the dew
        From your drenched lids - and missed, with no regret,
    Your kiss shot back, with sharp breaths failing you;
        And so, to-day, while our worn eyes are wet
        With all this waste of tears, let us forget!

I.

Like idle clouds our lives move on,
By change and chance as idly blown;
Our hopes like netted sparrows fly,
And vainly beat their wings and die.
Fate conquers all with stony will,
Oh, heart, be still - be still!

II.

No! change and chance are slaves that wait
On Him who guides the clouds, not fate,
But the High King rules seas and sun,
He conquers, He, the Mighty One.
So powerless, 'neath that changeless will,
Oh, heart, be still - be still!

III.

As a young bird fallen from its nest
Beats wildly the kind hand against
That lifts it up, so tremblingly
Our hearts lie in God's hand, as He
Uplifts them by His loving will,
Oh, heart, be still - be still!

IV.

Uplifts them to a perfect peace,

I

I cannot heed the words they say,
The lights grow far away and dim,
Amid the laughing men and maids
My eyes unbidden seek for him.

I hope that when he smiles at me
He does not guess my joy and pain,
For if he did, he is too kind
To ever look my way again.

II

I have a secret in my heart
No ears have ever heard,
And still it sings there day by day
Most like a caged bird.

And when it beats against the bars,
I do not set it free,
For I am happier to know
It only sings for me.

III

I wrote his name along the beach,
I love the letters so.
Far up it seemed and out of reach,
For still the tide was low.

But oh, the sea came creeping up,
And washed the name away,
And on the san...

Long is it since they ceased to look on light,
To thrill with hope in our fond human way.
Why grudge them rest in their sweet ancient night,
            Ungrieved, if never gay,
            Eased from Life's sorry day?

Is it because at times when storms subside
Through which thou oarest Life's ill-fitted bark,
Dreams rise, from sounds of lapping of the tide,
            To veil the daylight stark,
            Its anguish and its cark?

What was their joy here? Absence of great pain?
Some music in lamentings of the wind?
The mystic whispers of the dripping rain?
            Sad yearnings toward their kind?
            Ruth for old loves that pined?

For these would'st thou revoke their flawless rest?
Restore hope unfulfilled which they knew here...