Who then is rich, who poor? I'll tell you now
        Of one, a meagre life who had to live,
    Wear dingy garb, and scarcely could allow
        Himself what men call comfort; yet to give
    Was his delight, - to give full-heartedly.
        Though Fate had hampered him, he always knew
    Some one still poorer. In humility
        He thus gave hope to him who had small view
    Of happier things; - solace to him who wept; -
        And to the beaten courage to endure.
    He shared his little with the starved, and kept
        His best for those who needed most. Though poor,
                By giving he grew richer day by day
                In all that brightens life's uncertain way.

    There was another who had never known
        A wish unsatisfie...

I Bring you with reverent hands
The books of my numberless dreams,
White woman that passion has worn
As the tide wears the dove-grey sands,
And with heart more old than the horn
That is brimmed from the pale fire of time:
White woman with numberless dreams,
I bring you my passionate rhyme.

We reached the place by night,
And heard the waves breaking:
They came to meet us with candles alight
To show the path we were taking.
A myrtle, trained on the gate, was white
With tufted flowers down shaking.

With head beneath her wing,
A little wren was sleeping -
So near, I had found it an easy thing
To steal her for my keeping
From the myrtle-bough that with easy swing
Across the path was sweeping.

Down rocky steps rough-hewed,
Where cup-mosses flowered,
And under the trees, all twisted and rude,
Wherewith the dell was dowered,
They led us, where deep in its solitude
Lay the cottage, leaf-embowered.

The thatch was all bespread
With climbing passion-flowers;
They were wet, and glistened with raindrops, shed
That da...

'Tis time, I feel, to leave thee now,
    While yet my soul is something free;
While yet those dangerous eyes allow
    One minute's thought to stray from thee.

Oh! thou becom'st each moment dearer;
    Every chance that brings me nigh thee
Brings my ruin nearer, nearer,--
    I am lost, unless I fly thee.

Nay, if thou dost not scorn and hate me,
    Doom me not thus so soon to fall
Duties, fame, and hopes await me,--
    But that eye would blast them all!

For, thou hast heart as false and cold
    As ever yet allured and swayed,
And couldst, without a sigh, behold
    The ruin which thyself had made.

Yet,--could I think that, truly fond,
    That eye but once would smile on me,
Even as thou art, how far beyond
   ...

I.

Though the day of my Destiny's over,
And the star of my Fate hath declined,[o]
Thy soft heart refused to discover
The faults which so many could find;
Though thy Soul with my grief was acquainted,
It shrunk not to share it with me,
And the Love which my Spirit hath painted[p]
It never hath found but in Thee.

II.

Then when Nature around me is smiling,[78]
The last smile which answers to mine,
I do not believe it beguiling,[q]
Because it reminds me of thine;
And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,[r]
If their billows excite an emotion,
It is that they bear me from Thee.

III.

Though the rock of my last Hope i...

Yet sighes, deare sighs, indeede true friends you are,
That do not leaue your best friend at the wurst,
But, as you with my breast I oft haue nurst,
So, gratefull now, you waite vpon my care.
Faint coward Ioy no longer tarry dare,
Seeing Hope yeeld when this wo strake him furst;
Delight exclaims he is for my fault curst,
Though oft himselfe my mate in Armes he sware;
Nay, Sorrow comes with such maine rage, that he
Kils his owne children (teares) finding that they
By Loue were made apt to consort with me.
Only, true Sighs, you do not goe away:
Thanke may you haue for such a thankfull part,
Thank-worthiest yet when you shall break my hart.

        So you're going to give up flirtation, my dear,
            And lead a life sober and quiet?
        There, there, I don't doubt the intention's sincere.
            But wait till occasion shall try it.
                    Is Ramsay engaged?
                    Now, don't look enraged!
            You like him, I know don't deny it!

        What! Give up flirtation? Change dimples for frowns
            Why, Nell, what's the use? You're so pretty,
        That your beauty all sense of your wickedness drowns
            When, some time, in country or city,
                    Your fate comes at last.
                    We'll forgive all the past,
            And think of you only with pity.

        Indeed! so "you feel for the woes of my sex!"
 ...

Stella, the onely planet of my light,
Light of my life, and life of my desire,
Chiefe good whereto my hope doth only aspire,
World of my wealth, and heau'n of my delight;
Why dost thou spend the treasures of thy sprite
With voice more fit to wed Amphions lyre,
Seeking to quench in me the noble fire
Fed by thy worth, and kindled by thy sight?
And all in vaine: for while thy breath most sweet
With choisest words, thy words with reasons rare,
Thy reasons firmly set on Vertues feet,
Labour to kill in me this killing care:
O thinke I then, what paradise of ioy
It is, so faire a vertue to enioy!

She waited in a rose-hued room;
    A wanton-hearted creature she,
    But beautiful and bright to see
As some great orchid just in bloom.

Upon wide cushions stretched at ease
    She lolled in garments filmy fine,
    Which but enhanced each rounded line;
A living picture, framed to please.

A bold electric eye of light
    Leered through its ruddy screen of lace
    And feasted on her form and face
As some wine-crimsoned roué might.

From wall and niche, nude nymph beguiled
    Fair goddesses of world-wide fame,
    But Psyche's self was put to shame
By one who from the cushions smiled.

Exotic blossoms from a vase
    Their sweet narcotic breath exhaled;
    The lights, the objects round her paled -
She lost the sense of ...

A withered shamrock, yet to me 'tis fair
    As the sweet rose to other eyes might be,
Because its leaves spread in my native air,
    And the same land gave birth to it and me.

They were as plentiful as drops of dew
    In our green meadows sprinkled everywhere,
Heedless I wandered o'er them life was new,
    Now as a friend I greet thee shamrock fair

Because I dwelt with my own people then,
    Erin's bright eyes, and kindly hearts and true,
That from my cradle loved me, and again
    We'll never meet--spoken our last adieu

I am a stranger here, I have not seen
    One friendly face of all that I have known,
And my heart mourns for thee my island green,
    Because I am a stranger and alone

So thou art welcome as a friend to me,
...

I.

A plague upon the people fell,
A famine after laid them low;
Then thorpe and byre arose in fire,
For on them brake the sudden foe;
So thick they died the people cried,
‘The Gods are moved against the land.’
The Priest in horror about his altar
To Thor and Odin lifted a hand:
‘Help us from famine
And plague and strife!
What would you have of us?
Human life?
Were it our nearest,
Were it our dearest,–
Answer, O answer!–
We give you his life.’


II.

But still the foeman spoil’d and burn’d,
And cattle died, and deer in wood,
And bird in air, and fishes turn’d
And whiten’d all the rolling flood;
And dead men lay all over the way,
Or down in a furrow scathed with flame;
And ever and aye the Priesthood m...

The soul of love is harmony; as such
All melodies, that with wide pinions beat
Elastic bars, which mew it in the flesh,
Till 'twould away to kiss their throats and cling,
Are kindred to the soul, and while they sway,
Lords of its action molding all at will.

Ah! neither was I I, nor knew the clay,
For all my soul lay on full waves of song
Reverberating 'twixt the earth and moon.

O soft complaints, that haunted all the heart
With dreams of love long cherished, love dreams found
On sunset mountains gorgeous toward the West:
Kisses - soft kisses bartered 'mid pale buds
Of bursting Springs; and vows of fondest faith
Kept evermore; and eyes whose witchery
Might lure old saints down to the lowest hell
For one swift glance, - sweet, melancholy eyes
Ye...

(He.) Never until this night have I been stirred.
The elaborate starlight throws a reflection
On the dark stream,
Till all the eddies gleam;
And thereupon there comes that scream
From terrified, invisible beast or bird:
Image of poignant recollection.

(She.) An image of my heart that is smitten through
Out of all likelihood, or reason,
And when at last,
Youth's bitterness being past,
I had thought that all my days were cast
Amid most lovely places; smitten as though
It had not learned its lesson.

(He.) Why have you laid your hands upon my eyes?
What can have suddenly alarmed you
Whereon 'twere best
My eyes should never rest?
What is there but the slowly fading west,
The river imaging the flashing skies,
All that to this moment c...

Spirit of Earth! thy hand is chill:
I've felt its icy clasp;
And, shuddering, I remember still
That stony-hearted grasp.
Thine eye bids love and joy depart:
Oh, turn its gaze from me!
It presses down my shrinking heart;
I will not walk with thee!

"Wisdom is mine," I've heard thee say:
"Beneath my searching eye
All mist and darkness melt away,
Phantoms and fables fly.
Before me truth can stand alone,
The naked, solid truth;
And man matured by worth will own,
If I am shunned by youth.

"Firm is my tread, and sure though slow;
My footsteps never slide;
And he that follows me shall know
I am the surest guide."
Thy boast is vain; but were it true
That thou couldst safely steer
Life's rough and devious pathway through,
S...

    I.

    The flush of green that dyed the day
    Hath vanished in the moon;
    Flower-scents float stronger out, and play
    An unborn, coming tune.

    One southern eve like this, the dew
    Had cooled and left the ground;
    The moon hung half-way from the blue,
    No disc, but conglobed round;

    Light-leaved acacias, by the door,
    Bathed in the balmy air,
    Clusters of blossomed moonlight bore,
    And breathed a perfume rare;

    Great gold-flakes from the starry sky
    Fell flashing on the deep:
    One scent of moist earth floating by,
    Almost it made me weep.


    II.

    Those gorgeous stars were not my own,
    They made me alien go!
    The mother o'er her head had thrown...

Oh, have you forgotten those afternoons
With riot of roses and amber skies,
When we thrilled to the joy of a million Junes,
And I sought for your soul in the deeps of your eyes?
I would love you, I promised, forever and aye,
And I meant it too; yet, oh, isn't it odd?
When we met in the Underground to-day
I addressed you as Mary instead of as Maude.

Oh, don't you remember that moonlit sea,
With us on a silver trail afloat,
When I gracefully sank on my bended knee
At the risk of upsetting our little boat?
Oh, I vowed that my life was blighted then,
As friendship you proffered with mournful mien;
But now as I think of your children ten,
I'm glad you refused me, Evangeline.

Oh, is that moment eternal still
When I breathed my love in your shell-lik...

Some day of days! Some dawning yet to be
I shall be clothed with immortality!

And, in that day, I shall not greatly care
That Jane spilt candle grease upon the stair.

It will not grieve me then, as once it did,
That careless hands have chipped my teapot lid.

I groan, being burdened. But, in that glad day,
I shall forget vexations of the way.

That needs were often great, when means were small,
Will not perplex me any more at all
A few short years at most (it may be less),
I shall have done with earthly storm and stress.

So, for this day, I lay me at Thy feet.
O, keep me sweet, my Master! Keep me sweet!

    The harvest sun lay hot and strong
    On waving grain and grain in sheaf,
    On dusty highway stretched along,
    On hill and vale, on stalk and leaf.

    The wind which stirred the tasseled corn
    Came creeping through the casement wide,
    And softly kissed the babe new born
    That nestled at its mother's side.

    That mother spoke in tones that thrilled:
    "My firstborn's cradled in my arm,
    Upon my breast his cry is stilled,
    And here he lies so dear, so warm."

    To her had come a generous share
    Of worldly honors and of fame,
    Of hours replete with gladness rare,
    But no one hour seemed just the same

    As that which came when, white and spent
    With pain of travail great, she lay,
    T...