Oh, thou hadst been a wife for Shakspeare's self!
No head, save some world-genius, ought to rest
Above the treasures of that perfect breast,
Or nightly draw fresh light from those keen stars
Through which thy soul awes ours:    yet thou art bound -
O waste of nature! - to a craven hound;
To shameless lust, and childish greed of pelf;
Athene to a Satyr:    was that link
Forged by The Father's hand?    Man's reason bars
The bans which God allowed. - Ay, so we think:
Forgetting, thou hadst weaker been, full blest,
    Than thus made strong by suffering; and more great
    In martyrdom, than throned as Caesar's mate.

Eversley, 1851.

Pasco la mente d' un sì nobil cibo.

TO SEE AND HEAR HER IS HIS GREATEST BLISS.


    I feed my fancy on such noble food,
That Jove I envy not his godlike meal;
I see her--joy invades me like a flood,
And lethe of all other bliss I feel;
I hear her--instantly that music rare
Bids from my captive heart the fond sigh flow;
Borne by the hand of Love I know not where,
A double pleasure in one draught I know.
Even in heaven that dear voice pleaseth well,
So winning are its words, its sound so sweet,
None can conceive, save who had heard, their spell;
Thus, in the same small space, visibly, meet
All charms of eye and ear wherewith our race
Art, Genius, Nature, Heaven have join'd to grace.

MACGREGOR.


    Such noble aliment...

[1]


By the Feal's wave benighted,
    No star in the skies,
To thy door by Love lighted,
    I first saw those eyes.
Some voice whispered o'er me,
    As the threshold I crost,
There was ruin before me,
    If I loved, I was lost.

Love came, and brought sorrow
    Too soon in his train;
Yet so sweet, that to-morrow
    'Twere welcome again.
Though misery's full measure
    My portion should be,
I would drain it with pleasure,
    If poured out by thee.

You, who call it dishonor
    To bow to this flame,
If you've eyes, look but on her,
    And blush while you blame.
Hath the pearl less whiteness
    Because of its birth?
Hath the violet less brightness
    For growing near earth?
<...

The damned ship lurched and slithered. Quiet and quick
My cold gorge rose; the long sea rolled; I knew
I must think hard of something, or be sick;
And could think hard of only one thing, YOU!
You, you alone could hold my fancy ever!
And with you memories come, sharp pain, and dole.
Now there's a choice, heartache or tortured liver!
A sea-sick body, or a you-sick soul!

Do I forget you? Retchings twist and tie me,
Old meat, good meals, brown gobbets, up I throw.
Do I remember? Acrid return and slimy,
The sobs and slobber of a last years woe.
And still the sick ship rolls. 'Tis hard, I tell ye,
To choose 'twixt love and nausea, heart and belly.

Monsignore,
Right Reverend Bishop Valentinus,
Sometime of Interamna, which is called Ferni,
Now of the delightful Court of Heaven,
I respectfully salute you,
I genuflect
And I kiss your episcopal ring.

It is not, Monsignore,
The fragrant memory of your holy life,
Nor that of your shining and joyous martyrdom,
Which causes me now to address you.
But since this is your august festival, Monsignore,
It seems appropriate to me to state
According to a venerable and agreeable custom,
That I love a beautiful lady.
Her eyes, Monsignore,
Are so blue that they put lovely little blue reflections
On everything that she looks at,
Such as a wall
Or the moon
Or my heart.
It is like the light coming through blue stained glass,
Yet not quite ...

In Clementina’s artless mien
Lucilla asks me what I see,
And are the roses of sixteen
Enough for me?

Lucilla asks, if that be all,
Have I not cull’d as sweet before:
Ah yes, Lucilla! and their fall
I still deplore.

I now behold another scene,
Where Pleasure beams with Heaven’s own light,
More pure, more constant, more serene,
And not less bright.

Faith, on whose breast the Loves repose,
Whose chain of flowers no force can sever,
And Modesty who, when she goes,
Is gone for ever.

The island dreams under the dawn
And great boughs drop tranquillity;
The peahens dance on a smooth lawn,
A parrot sways upon a tree,
Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea.
Here we will moor our lonely ship
And wander ever with woven hands,
Murmuring softly lip to lip,
Along the grass, along the sands,
Murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands:
How we alone of mortals are
Hid under quiet boughs apart,
While our love grows an Indian star,
A meteor of the burning heart,
One with the tide that gleams, the wings that gleam
and dart,
The heavy boughs, the burnished dove
That moans and sighs a hundred days:
How when we die our shades will rove,
When eve has hushed the feathered ways,
With vapoury footsole by the water's drowsy blaze.

Low was our pretty Cot: our tallest Rose
Peep'd at the chamber-window. We could hear
At silent noon, and eve, and early morn,
The Sea's faint murmur. In the open air
Our Myrtles blossom'd; and across the porch
Thick Jasmins twined: the little landscape round
Was green and woody, and refresh'd the eye.
It was a spot which you might aptly call
The Valley of Seclusion! Once I saw
(Hallowing his Sabbath-day by quiteness)
A wealthy son of Commerce saunter by,
Bristowa's citizen: methought, it calm'd
His thirst of idle gold, and made him muse
With wiser feelings: for he paus'd, and look'd
With a pleas'd sadness, and gaz'd all around,
Then eyed our Cottage, and gaz'd round again,
And sigh'd, and said, it was a Blesséd Place.
And we were bless'd. Oft with patient...

    I knew a little boy, not very long ago,
    Who was as bright and happy as any boy you know.
    He had an only fault, and you will all agree
    That from a fault like this a boy himself might free.

    "I wonder who is there, oh, see! now, why is this?"
    And "Oh, where are they going?" and "Tell me what it is?"
    Ah! "which" and "why" and "who," and "what" and "where" and "when,"
    We often wished that never need we hear those words again.

    He seldom stopped to think; he almost always knew
    The answer to the questions that around the world he threw.
    To children seeking knowledge a quick reply we give,
    But answering what he asked was pouring water through a sieve.
    Yet you'll admit his fate was as sad as it was strange.
    Our eyes w...

DOROTHEA.

As the man on a journey, who, just at the moment of sunset,
Fixes his gaze once more on the rapidly vanishing planet,
Then on the side of the rocks and in the dark thicket still sees he
Hov'ring its image; wherever he turns his looks, on in front still
Runs it, and glitters and wavers before him in colours all splendid,
So before Hermanns eyes did the beautiful form of the maiden
Softly move, and appear'd to follow the path through the cornfields.

But he roused himself up from his startling dream, and then slowly
Turn'd tow'rd the village his steps, and once more started, for once more
Saw he the noble maiden's stately figure approaching.
Fixedly gazed he; it was no phantom in truth; she herself 'twas
In her hands by the handle she carried two pitchers, one ...

I.

This is the sweetness of an April day;
    The softness of the spring is on the face
    Of the old year. She has no natural grace,
But something comes to her from far away

Out of the Past, and on her old decay
    The beauty of her childhood you can trace.--
    And yet she moveth with a stormy pace,
And goeth quickly.--Stay, old year, oh, stay!

We do not like new friends, we love the old;
    With young, fierce, hopeful hearts we ill agree;
But thou art patient, stagnant, calm, and cold,
    And not like that new year that is to be;--
        Life, promise, love, her eyes may fill, fair child!
        We know the past, and will not be beguiled.

II.

Yet the free heart will not be captive long;
    And if she changes often...

Though she depart, a vision flitting,
If I these thoughts in words exhale:
I love you, you blonde maiden, sitting
Within your pure white beauty's veil.
I love you for your blue eyes dreaming,
    Like moonlight moving over snow,
And 'mid the far-off forests beaming
    On something hid I may not know.

I love this forehead's fair perfection
Because it stands so starry-clear,
In flood of thought sees its reflection
And wonders at the image near.
I love these locks in riot risen
    Against the hair-net's busy bands;
To free them from their pretty prison
    Their sylphs entice my eyes and hands.

I love this figure's supple swinging
In rhythm of its bridal song,
Of strength and life-joy daily singing
With youthful yearnings deep ...

Now that we've done our best and worst, and parted,
I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend.
(O heart, I do not dare go empty-hearted)
I'll think of Love in books, Love without end;
Women with child, content; and old men sleeping;
And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain;
And babes that weep, and so forget their weeping;
And the young heavens, forgetful after rain;
And evening hush, broken by homing wings;
And Song's nobility, and Wisdom holy,
That live, we dead. I would think of a thousand things,
Lovely and durable, and taste them slowly,
One after one, like tasting a sweet food.
I have need to busy my heart with quietude.

'Maiden, thou wert thoughtless once
Of beauty or of grace,
Simple and homely in attire
Careless of form and face.
Then whence this change, and why so oft
Dost smooth thy hazel hair?
And wherefore deck thy youthful form
With such unwearied care?
'Tell us, and cease to tire our ears
With yonder hackneyed strain
Why wilt thou play those simple tunes
So often o'er again?'
'Nay, gentle friends, I can but say
That childhood's thoughts are gone.
Each year its own new feelings brings
And years move swiftly on,

And for these little simple airs,
I love to play them o'er
So much I dare not promise now
To play them never more.'
I answered and it was enough;
They turned them to depart;
They could not read my secret thoughts
Nor see ...

Why doe I speake of ioy, or write of loue,
When my hart is the very Den of horror,
And in my soule the paynes of hell I proue,
With all his torments and infernall terror?
Myne eyes want teares thus to bewayle my woe,
My brayne is dry with weeping all too long;
My sighes be spent with griefe and sighing so,
And I want words for to expresse my wrong.
But still, distracted in loues lunacy,
And Bedlam like thus rauing in my griefe,
Now rayle vpon her hayre, now on her eye,
Now call her Goddesse, then I call her thiefe;
    Now I deny her, then I doe confesse her,
    Now I doe curse her, then againe I blesse her.

i.

O thou refulgent essence of all grace!
    O thou that with the witchery of thy face
Hast made of me thy servant unto death,
I pray thee pause, ere, musical of breath,
And rapt of utterance, thou condemn indeed
My venturous wooing, and the wanton speed
    With which I greet thee, dear and tender soul!
From out the fullness of my passion-creed.


ii.

I am so truly thine that nevermore
    Shall man be found, this side the Stygian shore,
So meek as I, so patient under blame,
And yet, withal, so minded to proclaim
His life-long ardour. For my theme is just:
A heart enslaved, a smile, a broken trust,
    A soft mirage, a glimpse of fairyland,
And then the wreck thereof in tears and dust.


iii.

Thou wast not...

Ripensando a quel ch' oggi il ciel onora.

HE WOULD DIE OF GRIEF WERE SHE NOT SOMETIMES TO CONSOLE HIM BY HER PRESENCE.


    To that soft look which now adorns the skies,
The graceful bending of the radiant head,
The face, the sweet angelic accents fled,
That soothed me once, but now awake my sighs
Oh! when to these imagination flies,
I wonder that I am not long since dead!
'Tis she supports me, for her heavenly tread
Is round my couch when morning visions rise!
In every attitude how holy, chaste!
How tenderly she seems to hear the tale
Of my long woes, and their relief to seek!
But when day breaks she then appears in haste
The well-known heavenward path again to scale,
With moisten'd eye, and soft expressive cheek!

MOREHEAD.
...

Be void of feeling!
A heart that soon is stirr'd,
Is a possession sad
Upon this changing earth.

Behrisch, let spring's sweet smile
Never gladden thy brow!
Then winter's gloomy tempests
Never will shadow it o'er.

Lean thyself ne'er on a maiden's
Sorrow-engendering breast.
Ne'er on the arm,
Misery-fraught, of a friend.

Already envy
From out his rocky ambush
Upon thee turns
The force of his lynx-like eyes,

Stretches his talons,
On thee falls,
In thy shoulders
Cunningly plants them.

Strong are his skinny arms,
As panther-claws;
He shaketh thee,
And rends thy frame.

Death 'tis to part,
'Tis threefold death
To part, not hoping
Ever to meet again.

Thou wouldst rejoic...