I loved my love from green of Spring
    Until sere Autumn's fall;
But now that leaves are withering
    How should one love at all?
    One heart's too small
For hunger, cold, love, everything.

I loved my love on sunny days
    Until late Summer's wane;
But now that frost begins to glaze
    How should one love again?
    Nay, love and pain
Walk wide apart in diverse ways.

I loved my love - alas to see
    That this should be, alas!
I thought that this could scarcely be,
    Yet has it come to pass:
    Sweet sweet love was,
Now bitter bitter grown to me.

        They locked him in a prison cell,
                Murky and mean.
        She kissed him there a wife's farewell
                The bars between.
        And when she turned to go, the crowd,
        Thinking to see her shamed and bowed,
        Saw her pass out as calm and proud
                As any queen.

        She passed a kinsman on the street,
                To whose sad eyes
        She made reply with smile as sweet
                As April skies.
        To one who loved her once and knew
        The sorrow of her life, she threw
        A gay word, ere his tale was due
                Of sympathies.

        She met a playmate, whose red rose
                Had never a thorn,
        Whom fortune guided when she cho...

    When factious rage to cruel exile drove
    The queen of beauty,[1] and the court of love,
    The Muses droop'd, with their forsaken arts,
    And the sad Cupids broke their useless darts:
    Our fruitful plains to wilds and deserts turn'd
    Like Eden's face, when banish'd man it mourn'd,
    Love was no more, when loyalty was gone,
    The great supporter of his awful throne.
    Love could no longer after beauty stay,
    But wander'd northward to the verge of day,
    As if the sun and he had lost their way.
    But now the illustrious nymph, return'd again,
    Brings every grace triumphant in her train.
    The wondering Nereids, though they raised no storm,
    Foreflow'd her passage, to behold her form:
    Some cried, A Venus; some, A The...

Ah, thankless! canst thou envy him who gains
    The Stoic's cold and indurate repose?
    Thou! with thy lively sense of bliss and woes! -
    From a false balance of life's joys and pains
Thou deem'st him happy. - Plac'd 'mid fair domains,
    Where full the river down the valley flows,
    As wisely might'st thou wish thy home had rose
    On the parch'd surface of unwater'd plains,
For that, when long the heavy rain descends,
    Bursts over guardian banks their whelming tide! -
    Seldom the wild and wasteful Flood extends,
But, spreading plenty, verdure, beauty wide,
    The cool translucent Stream perpetual bends,
    And laughs the Vale as the bright waters glide.

"O he's suffering maybe dying and I not there to aid,
And smooth his bed and whisper to him! Can I nohow go?
Only the nurse's brief twelve words thus hurriedly conveyed,
    As by stealth, to let me know.

"He was the best and brightest! candour shone upon his brow,
And I shall never meet again a soldier such as he,
And I loved him ere I knew it, and perhaps he's sinking now,
    Far, far removed from me!"

- The yachts ride mute at anchor and the fulling moon is fair,
And the giddy folk are strutting up and down the smooth parade,
And in her wild distraction she seems not to be aware
    That she lives no more a maid,

But has vowed and wived herself to one who blessed the ground she trod
To and from his scene of ministry, and thought her history known
I...

Down where the unconquered river still flows on,
One strong free thing within a prison's heart,
I drew me with my sacred grief apart,
That it might look that spacious joy upon:
And as I mused, lo! Dante walked with me,
And his face spake of the high peace of pain
Till all my grief glowed in me throbbingly
As in some lily's heart might glow the rain.

So like a star I listened, till mine eye
Caught that lone land across the water-way
Wherein my lady breathed, - now breathing is -
'O Dante,' then I said, 'she more than I
Should know thy comfort, go to her, I pray.'
'Nay!' answered he, 'for she hath Beatrice.'

To give a thing and take again
Is counted meanness among men;
To take away what once is given
Cannot then be the way of heaven!

But human hearts are crumbly stuff,
And never, never love enough,
Therefore God takes and, with a smile,
Puts our best things away a while.

Thereon some weep, some rave, some scorn,
Some wish they never had been born;
Some humble grow at last and still,
And then God gives them what they will.

O jealousy, that art
The canker of the heart;
And mak'st all hell
Where thou do'st dwell;
For pity be
No fury, or no firebrand to me.

Far from me I'll remove
All thoughts of irksome love:
And turn to snow,
Or crystal grow,
To keep still free,
O! soul-tormenting jealousy, from thee.

I

He sang above the vineyards of the world.
    And after him the vines with woven hands
Clambered and clung, and everywhere unfurled
    Triumphing green above the barren lands;
Till high as gardens grow, he climbed, he stood,
    Sun-crowned with life and strength, and singing toil,
And looked upon his work; and it was good:
                The corn, the wine, the oil.

He sang above the noon. The topmost cleft
    That grudged him footing on the mountain scars
He planted and despaired not; till he left
    His vines soft breathing to the host of stars.
He wrought, he tilled; and even as he sang,
    The creatures of his planting laughed to scorn
The ancient threat of deserts where there sprang
                The wine, the oil, the corn!

Still sits the school-house by the road,
A ragged beggar sleeping;
Around it still the sumachs grow,
And blackberry-vines are creeping.

Within, the master’s desk is seen,
Deep scarred by raps official;
The warping floor, the battered seats,
The jack-knife’s carved initial;

The charcoal frescos on its wall;
Its door’s worn sill, betraying
The feet that, creeping slow to school,
Went storming out to playing!

Long years ago a winter sun
Shone over it at setting;
Lit up its western window-panes,
And low eaves’ icy fretting.

It touched the tangled golden curls,
And brown eyes full of grieving,
Of one who still her steps delayed
When all the school were leaving.

For near her stood the little boy
Her childish fav...

I

The face, which, duly as the sun,
Rose up for me with life begun,
To mark all bright hours of the day
With hourly love, is dimmed away
And yet my days go on, go on.

II

The tongue which, like a stream, could run
Smooth music from the roughest stone,
And every morning with 'Good day'
Make each day good, is hushed away,
And yet my days go on, go on.

III

The heart which, like a staff, was one
For mine to lean and rest upon,
The strongest on the longest day
With steadfast love, is caught away,
And yet my days go on, go on.

IV

And cold before my summer's done,
And deaf in Nature's general tune,
And fallen too low for special fear,
And here, with hope no longer here,
While the tears drop, ...

Noëra, when sad Fall
Has grayed the fallow;
Leaf-cramped the wood-brook's brawl
In pool and shallow;
When, by the woodside, tall
Stands sere the mallow.

Noëra, when gray gold
And golden gray
The crackling hollows fold
By every way,
Shall I thy face behold,
Dear bit of May?

When webs are cribs for dew,
And gossamers
Streak by you, silver-blue;
When silence stirs
One leaf, of rusty hue,
Among the burrs:

Noëra, through the wood,
Or through the grain,
Come, with the hoiden mood
Of wind and rain
Fresh in thy sunny blood,
Sweetheart, again.

Noëra, when the corn,
Reaped on the fields,
The asters' stars adorn;
And purple shields
Of ironweeds lie torn
Among the wealds:

N...

To R.K. Leather
(July 16th, 1892.)

PAOLO AND FRANCESCA

It happened in that great Italian land
Where every bosom heateth with a star -
At Rimini, anigh that crumbling strand
The Adriatic filcheth near and far -
In that same past where Dante's dream-days are,
That one Francesca gave her youthful gold
Unto an aged carle to bolt and bar;
Though all the love which great young hearts can hold,
How could she give that love unto a miser old?

Nay! but young Paolo was the happy lad,
A youth of dreaming eye yet dauntless foot,
Who all Francesca's wealth of loving had;
One brave to scale a wall and steal the fruit,
Nor fear because some dotard owned the root;
Yea! one who wore his love like sword on thigh
And kept not all his valour for his lut...

Out of the melancholy that is made
Of ebbing sorrow that too slowly ebbs,
Comes back a sighing whisper of the reed,
A note in new love-pipings on the bough,
Grieving with grief till all the full-fed air
And shaken milky corn doth wot of it,
The pity of it trembling in the talk
Of the beforetime merrymaking brook -
Out of that melancholy will the soul,
In proof that life is not forsaken quite
Of the old trick and glamour which made glad;
Be cheated some good day and not perceive
How sorrow ebbing out is gone from view,
How tired trouble fall'n for once on sleep,
How keen self-mockery that youth's eager dream
Interpreted to mean so much is found
To mean and give so little - frets no more,
Floating apart as on a cloud - O then
Not e'en so much as murmur...

        "Harry, where have you been all morning?"
            "Down at the pool in the meadow-brook."
        "Fishing?" "Yes, but the trout were wary,
            Couldn't induce them to take a hook."
        "Why, look at your coat! You must have fallen,
            Your back's just covered with leaves and moss."
        How he laughs! Good-natured fellow!
            Fisherman's luck makes most men cross.

        "Nellie, the Wrights have called. Where were you?"
            "Under the tree, by the meadow-brook
        Reading, and oh, it was too lovely;
            I never saw such a charming book."
        The charming book must have pleased her, truly,
            There's a happy light in her bright young eyes
        And she hugs the cat with unusual fervor...

If I speak to thee in friendship's name,
    Thou think'st I speak too coldly;
If I mention Love's devoted flame,
    Thou say'st I speak too boldly.
Between these two unequal fires,
    Why doom me thus to hover?
I'm a friend, if such thy heart requires,
    If more thou seek'st, a lover.
Which shall it be? How shall I woo?
    Fair one, choose between the two.

Tho' the wings of Love will brightly play,
    When first he comes to woo thee,
There's a chance that he may fly away,
    As fast as he flies to thee.
While Friendship, tho' on foot she come,
    No flights of fancy trying,
Will, therefore, oft be found at home,
    When Love abroad is flying.
Which shall it be? How shall I woo?
    Dear one, choose between the two.

To this city joy reveal it!

Peace as its first signal peal it!

(Song of the Bell concluding lines.)

And so it proved! The nation felt, ere long,

That peaceful signal, and, with blessings fraught,
A new-born joy appear'd; in gladsome song

To hail the youthful princely pair we sought;
While in a living, ever-swelling throng

Mingled the crowds from ev'ry region brought,
And on the stage, in festal pomp array'd
The HOMAGE OF THE ARTS * we saw displayed.

(* The title of a lyric piece composed by Schiller in honour of
the marriage of the hereditary Prince of Weimar to the Princess
Maria of Russia, and performed in 1804.)

When, lo! a fearful midnight sound I hear,

That with a dull and mournful echo rings.
And can ...

Love and thy vain employs, away
From this too oft deluded breast!
No longer will I court thy stay,
To be my bosom's teazing guest.
Thou treacherous medicine, reckoned pure,
Thou quackery of the harassed heart,
That kills what it pretends to cure,
Life's mountebank thou art.

With nostrums vain of boasted powers,
That, ta'en, a worse disorder leave;
An asp hid in a group of flowers,
That bites and stings when few perceive;
Thou mock-truce to the troubled mind,
Leading it more in sorrow's way,
Freedom, that leaves us more confined,
I bid thee hence away.

Dost taunt, and deem thy power beyond
The resolution reason gave?
Tut! Falsity hath snapt each bond,
That kept me once thy quiet slave,
And made thy snare a spider's thread,
W...