[1]

A husband's death brings always sighs;
The widow sobs, sheds tears - then dries.
Of Time the sadness borrows wings;
And Time returning pleasure brings.
Between the widow of a year
And of a day, the difference
Is so immense,
That very few who see her
Would think the laughing dame
And weeping one the same.
The one puts on repulsive action,
The other shows a strong attraction.
The one gives up to sighs, or true or false;
The same sad note is heard, whoever calls.
Her grief is inconsolable,
They say. Not so our fable,
Or, rather, not so says the truth.

To other worlds a husband went
And left his wife in prime of youth.
Above his dying couch she bent,
And cried, 'My love, O wait for me!
My soul would gladly g...

                            Scarlet coats, and crash o' the band,
                                The grey of a pauper's gown,
                            A soldier's grave in Zululand,
                                And a woman in Brecon Town.

                    My little lad for a soldier boy,
                    (Mothers o' Brecon Town!)
                    My eyes for tears and his for joy
                    When he went from Brecon Town,
                    His for the flags and the gallant sights
                    His for the medals and his for the fights,
                    And mine for the dreary, rainy nights
                    At home in Brecon Town.

                    They say he's laid beneath a tree,
                    (Come back to B...

There is too much beauty upon this earth
    For lonely men to bear,
Too many eyes, too enchanted skies,
    Too many things too fair;
And the man who would live the life of a man
Must turn his eyes away - if he can.

He must not look at the dawning day,
    Or watch the rising moon;
From the little feet, so white, so fleet,
    He must turn his eyes away;
And the flowers and the faces he must pass by
With stern self-sacrificing eye.

For beauty and duty are strangers forever,
    Work and wonder ever apart,
And the laws of life eternally sever
    The ways of the brain from the ways of the heart;
Be it flower or pearl, or the face of a girl,
Or the ways of the waters as they swirl.

Lo! beauty is sorrow, and sorrowful men
    Hav...

I saw thee once--once only--years ago:
I must not say how many--but not many.
It was a July midnight; and from out
A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
With quietude, and sultriness and slumber,
Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousand
Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe--
Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
That gave out, in return for the love-light,
Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death--
Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted
By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.

Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
I saw thee h...

I.

Beautiful Autumn is dead and gone -
                Weep for her!
Calm, and gracious, and very fair,
With sunny robe and with shining hair,
And a tender light in her dreamy eye,
She came to earth but to smile and die -
                Weep for her!

Nay, nay, I will not weep!
        She came with a smile,
        And tarried awhile,
    Quieting Nature to sleep; -
        Then went on her way
        O'er the hill-tops grey,
And yet - and yet, she is dead, you say!
Nay! - she brought us blessings, and left us cheer,
And alive and well shell return next year! -
            Why should I weep?


II.

Desolate Winter has come again -
                Frown on him!
    He comes with a withering breath,

Little red berries are
the crop of this stump tree.
They are the prize stubble
where little growth is come.

A transplant of hair after
a serious illness
or after fire ravages
the body's wilderness
is that first sip of broth taken.

Little by little, they bring cautious
hope that more will
stumble into other pocket crevices,
the bits of life amidst the spores of stillness.

‘From that sky livid, bizarre
as your tortured destiny,
what thoughts fill your empty heart,
Freethinker, answer me.’

Insatiable and avid
for vague and obscure skies,
I’ll not groan like Ovid,
banned from Rome and paradise.

Skies, shores split and seamed,
my pride’s mirrored in you:
your clouds in mourning, too,

are the hearses of my dreams,
Hell’s reflected in your light,
where my heart takes delight.

Why do ye weep, sweet babes? can tears
Speak grief in you,
Who were but born
just as the modest morn
Teem'd her refreshing dew?
Alas, you have not known that shower
That mars a flower,
Nor felt th' unkind
Breath of a blasting wind,
Nor are ye worn with years;
Or warp'd as we,
Who think it strange to see,
Such pretty flowers, like to orphans young,
To speak by tears, before ye have a tongue.

Speak, whimp'ring younglings, and make known
The reason why
Ye droop and weep;
Is it for want of sleep,
Or childish lullaby?
Or that ye have not seen as yet
The violet?
Or brought a kiss
From that Sweet-heart, to this?
No, no, this sorrow shown
By your tears shed,
Would have this lecture read,
That things of greatest, ...

For each ecstatic instant
We must an anguish pay
In keen and quivering ratio
To the ecstasy.

For each beloved hour
Sharp pittances of years,
Bitter contested farthings
And coffers heaped with tears.

When Death, or adverse Fortune's ruthless gale,
    Tears our best hopes away, the wounded Heart
    Exhausted, leans on all that can impart
    The charm of Sympathy; her mutual wail
How soothing! never can her warm tears fail
    To balm our bleeding grief's severest smart;
    Nor wholly vain feign'd Pity's solemn art,
    Tho' we should penetrate her sable veil.
Concern, e'en known to be assum'd, our pains
    Respecting, kinder welcome far acquires
    Than cold Neglect, or Mirth that Grief profanes.
Thus each faint Glow-worm of the Night conspires,
    Gleaming along the moss'd and darken'd lanes,
    To cheer the Gloom with her unreal fires.

June 1780.

        Time flies. The swift hours hurry by
    And speed us on to untried ways;
        New seasons ripen, perish, die,
    And yet love stays.
        The old, old love - like sweet, at first,
    At last like bitter wine -
        I know not if it blest or curst
    Thy life and mine.

        Time flies. In vain our prayers, our tears!
    We cannot tempt him to delays;
        Down to the past he bears the years,
    And yet love stays.
        Through changing task and varying dream
    We hear the same refrain,
        As one can hear a plaintive theme
    Run through each strain.

        Time flies. He steals our pulsing youth;
    He robs us of our care-free days;
        He takes away our trust and truth:
    And yet love s...

When Eve had led her lord away,
And Cain had killed his brother,
The stars and flowers, the poets say,
Agreed with one another.

To cheat the cunning tempter's art,
And teach the race its duty,
By keeping on its wicked heart
Their eyes of light and beauty.

A million sleepless lids, they say,
Will be at least a warning;
And so the flowers would watch by day,
The stars from eve to morning.

On hill and prairie, field and lawn,
Their dewy eyes upturning,
The flowers still watch from reddening dawn
Till western skies are burning.

Alas! each hour of daylight tells
A tale of shame so crushing,
That some turn white as sea-bleached shells,
And some are always blushing.

But when the patient stars look down
On all the...

("Sentiers où l'herbe se balance.")

[Bk. III. xi., July, 1853.]


O paths whereon wild grasses wave!
O valleys! hillsides! forests hoar!
Why are ye silent as the grave?
For One, who came, and comes no more!

Why is thy window closed of late?
And why thy garden in its sear?
O house! where doth thy master wait?
I only know he is not here.

Good dog! thou watchest; yet no hand
Will feed thee. In the house is none.
Whom weepest thou? child! My father. And
O wife! whom weepest thou? The Gone.

Where is he gone? Into the dark. -
O sad, and ever-plaining surge!
Whence art thou? From the convict-bark.
And why thy mournful voice? A dirge.

EDWIN ARNOLD, C.S.I.

O never laugh again!
Laughter is dead,
Deep hiding in her grave,
A sacred thing.
O never laugh again,
Never take hands and run
Through the wild streets,
Or sing,
Glad in the sun:
For she, the immortal sweetness of all sweets,
Took laughter with her
When she went away
With sleep.

O never laugh again!
Ours but to weep,
Ours but to pray.

THERE IS NO WORK, NOR DEVICE, NOR KNOWLEDGE, NOR WISDOM, IN THE GRAVE, WHITHER THOU GOEST. - Ecclesiastes.

The pale, the cold, and the moony smile
Which the meteor beam of a starless night
Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,
Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light,
Is the flame of life so fickle and wan
That flits round our steps till their strength is gone.

O man! hold thee on in courage of soul
Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way,
And the billows of cloud that around thee roll
Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day,
Where Hell and Heaven shall leave thee free
To the universe of destiny.

This world is the nurse of all we know,
This world is the mother of all we feel,
And the coming of death is a fearful blow
To a brain unenco...

Gray earth, gray mist, gray sky:
Through vapors hurrying by,
Larger than wont, on high
    Floats the horned, yellow moon.
Chill airs are faintly stirred,
And far away is heard,
Of some fresh-awakened bird,
    The querulous, shrill tune.


The dark mist hides the face
Of the dim land: no trace
Of rock or river's place
    In the thick air is drawn;
But dripping grass smells sweet,
And rustling branches meet,
And sounding water greet
    The slow, sure, sacred dawn.


Past is the long black night,
With its keen lightnings white,
Thunder and floods: new light
    The glimmering low east streaks.
The dense clouds part: between
Their jagged rents are seen
Pale reaches blue and green,
    As the mirk curtain b...

I, who went at nightfall, came again at dawn;
On Love's door again I knocked. Love was gone.

He who oft had bade me in, now would bid no more;
Silence sat within his house; barred its door.

When the slow door opened wide through it I could see
How the emptiness within stared at me.

Through the dreary chambers, long I sought and sighed,
But no answering footstep came; naught replied.

Then at last I entered, dim, a darkened room:
There a taper glimmered gray in the gloom.

And I saw one lying crowned with helichrys;
Never saw I face as fair as was his.

Like a wintry lily was his brow in hue;
And his cheeks were each a rose, wintry too.

Then my soul remembered all that made us part,
And what I had laughed at once broke my heart...

    One tone is mute within the starry singing,
    The unison fulfilled, complete before;
    One chord within the music sounds no more,
    And from the stir of flames forever winging
    The pinions of our sister, motionless
    In pits of indefinable duress,
    Are fallen beyond all recovery
    By exultation of the flying dance,
    Or rhythms holding as with sleep or trance
    The maze of stars that only death may free -
    Flung through the void's expanse.

    In gulfs depressed nor in the gulfs exalted
    Shall shade nor lightening of her flame be found;
    In space that litten orbits gird around,
    Nor in the bottomless abyss unvaulted
    Of unenvironed, all-outlying night.
    Allotted gyre nor lawless comet-flight
    Shall find, ...