Poussin! most pleasantly thy pictur'd scenes
Beguile the lonely hour; I sit and gaze
With lingering eye, till charmed FANCY makes
The lovely landscape live, and the rapt soul
From the foul haunts of herded humankind
Flies far away with spirit speed, and tastes
The untainted air, that with the lively hue
Of health and happiness illumes the cheek
Of mountain LIBERTY. My willing soul
All eager follows on thy faery flights
FANCY! best friend; whose blessed witcheries
With loveliest prospects cheat the traveller
O'er the long wearying desart of the world.
Nor dost thou FANCY with such magic mock
My heart, as, demon-born, old Merlin knew,
Or Alquif, or Zarzafiel's sister sage,
Whose vengeful anguish for so many a year
Held in the jacinth sepulchre entranced

Oft does the lucid pebble shine,
Just cover'd by the murm'ring sea;
Thus precious, thus conceal'd, it shews,
Fair maid! thy mind and modesty.

If searching eyes the stone discern,
Quick will the hand of Art remove
Each ruder part, till, brilliant grown,
It seals the fond record of love.

And here the sweet connexion ends,
Eliza! 'twixt the gem and thee;
For thou wast polish'd from the first,
By Nature's hand, more happily!

Each day upon the yellow Nile, 'tis said.
Joseph, the youthful ruler, cast forth wheat,
That haply, floating to his father's feet,--
The sad old father, who believed him dead,--
It might be sign in Egypt there was bread;
And thus the patriarch, past the desert sands
And scant oasis fringed with thirsty green,
Be lured toward the love that yearned unseen.
So, flung and scattered--ah! by what dear hands?--
On the swift-rushing and invisible tide,
Small tokens drift adown from far, fair lands,
And say to us, who in the desert bide,
"Are you athirst? Are there no sheaves to bind?
Beloved, here is fulness; follow on and find."

LONELINESS
(Her Word)

One ought not to have to care
So much as you and I
Care when the birds come round the house
To seem to say good-bye;
Or care so much when they come back
With whatever it is they sing;
The truth being we are as much
Too glad for the one thing
As we are too sad for the other here
With birds that fill their breasts
But with each other and themselves
And their built or driven nests.

HOUSE FEAR

Always I tell you this they learned
Always at night when they returned
To the lonely house from far away
To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray,
They learned to rattle the lock and key
To give whatever might chance to be
Warning and time to be off in flight:
And preferring the out- to the in-door night,

(Chant Royal)

O MIGHTY Queen, our Lady of the fire,
The light, the music, and the honey, all
Blent in one Power, one passionate Desire
Man calleth Love - 'Sweet love,' the blessed call - :
I come a sad-eyed suppliant to thy knee,
If thou hast pity, pity grant to me;
If thou hast bounty, here a heart I bring
For all that bounty 'thirst and hungering.
O Lady, save thy grace, there is no way
For me, I know, but lonely sorrowing -
Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!

I lay in darkness, face down in the mire,
And prayed that darkness might become my pall;
The rabble rout roared round me like some quire
Of filthy animals primordial;
My heart seemed like a toad eternally
Prisoned in stone, ugly and sad as he;
Sweet sunlight seemed a dr...

Poi che voi ed io più volte abbiam provato.

TO A FRIEND, COUNSELLING HIM TO ABANDON EARTHLY PLEASURES.


    Still has it been our bitter lot to prove
How hope, or e'er it reach fruition, flies!
Up then to that high good, which never dies,
Lift we the heart--to heaven's pure bliss above.
On earth, as in a tempting mead, we rove,
Where coil'd 'mid flowers the traitor serpent lies;
And, if some casual glimpse delight our eyes,
'Tis but to grieve the soul enthrall'd by Love.
Oh! then, as thou wouldst wish ere life's last day
To taste the sweets of calm unbroken rest,
Tread firm the narrow, shun the beaten way--
Ah! to thy friend too well may be address'd:
"Thou show'st a path, thyself most apt to stray,
Which late thy truant feet, fond youth, ha...

Have you love for me,
Yours my love shall be,
While the days of life are flowing.
Short was summer's stay,
Grass now pales away,
With our play will come regrowing.

What you said last year
Sounds yet in my ear, -
Birdlike at the window sitting,
Tapping, trilling there,
Singing, in would bear
Joy the warmth of sun befitting.

Litli-litli-lu,
Do you hear me too,
Youth behind the birch-trees biding?
Now the words I send,
Darkness will attend,
May be you can give them guiding.

Take it not amiss!
Sang I of a kiss?
No, I surely never planned it.
Did you hear it, you?
Give no heed thereto,
Haste I make to countermand it.

Oh, good-night, good-night
Dreams enfold me bright
Of your eyes' persuasive ...

The days have slain the days,
and the seasons have gone by
And brought me the summer again;
and here on the grass I lie
As erst I lay and was glad
ere I meddled with right and with wrong.
Wide lies the mead as of old,
and the river is creeping along
By the side of the elm-clad bank
that turns its weedy stream;
And grey o'er its hither lip
the quivering rushes gleam.
There is work in the mead as of old;
they are eager at winning the hay,
While every sun sets bright
and begets a fairer day.
The forks shine white in the sun
round the yellow red-wheeled wain,
Where the mountain of hay grows fast;
and now from out of the lane
Comes the ox-team drawing another,
comes the bailiff and the beer,
And thump, thump, goes the farmer's nag

I.

    My Love is a lady fair and free,
    A lady fair from over the sea,
    And she hath eyes that pierce my breast
    And rob my spirit of peace and rest.


II.

    A youthful warrior, warm and young,
    She takes me prisoner with her tongue,
    Aye! and she keeps me, - on parole, -
    Till paid the ransom of my soul.


III.

    I swear the foeman, arm'd for war
    From cap-à-pie, with many a scar,
    More mercy finds for prostrate foe
    Than she who deals me never a blow.


IV.

    And so 'twill be, this many a day;
    She comes to wound, if not to slay.
    But in my dreams, - in honied sleep, -
    'Tis I to smile, and she to weep!

The rosy day was sweet and young,
The clod-brown lark that hail'd the morn
Had just her summer anthem sung,
And trembling dropped in the corn;
The dew-rais'd flower was perk and proud,
The butterfly around it play'd;
The sky's blue clear, save woolly cloud
That pass'd the sun without a shade.

On the pismire's castle hill,
While the burnet-buttons quak'd,
While beside the stone-pav'd rill
Cowslip bunches nodding shak'd,
Bees in every peep did try,
Great had been the honey shower,
Soon their load was on their thigh,
Yellow dust as fine as flour.

Brazen magpies, fond of clack,
Full of insolence and pride,
Chattering on the donkey's back
Perch'd, and pull'd his shaggy hide;
Odd crows settled on the path,
Dames from milking trot...

Like the south-flying swallow the summer has flown,
Like a fast-falling star, from unknown to unknown
Life flashes and falters and fails from our sight,
Good-night, friends, good-night.

Like home-coming swallows that seek the old eaves,
Like the buds that wait patient beneath the dead leaves,
Love shall sleep in our hearts till our hands meet again,
Till then, friends, till then!

I.

    O thou to whom, athwart the perish'd days
    And parted nights long sped, we lift our gaze,
    Behold! I greet thee with a modern rhyme,
    Love-lit and reverent as befits the time,
    To solemnize the feast-day of thy son.


II.

    And who was he who flourish'd in the smiles
    Of thy fair face? 'Twas Shakespeare of the Isles,
    Shakespeare of England, whom the world has known
    As thine, and ours, and Glory's, in the zone
    Of all the seas and all the lands of earth.


III.

    He was un-famous when he came to thee,
    But sound, and sweet, and good for eyes to see,
    And born at Stratford, on St. George's Day,
    A week before the wondrous month of May;
    And God therein was gracious to us ...

Singe wee the Rose
Then which no flower there growes
    Is sweeter:
And aptly her compare
With what in that is rare
    A parallel none meeter.

Or made poses,
Of this that incloses
    Suche blisses,
That naturally flusheth
As she blusheth
    When she is robd of kisses.

Or if strew'd
When with the morning dew'd
    Or stilling,
Or howe to sense expos'd
All which in her inclos'd,
    Ech place with sweetnes filling.

That most renown'd
By Nature richly crownd
    With yellow,
Of that delitious layre
And as pure, her hayre
    Vnto the same the fellowe,

Fearing of harme
Nature that flower doth arme
    From danger,
The touch giues her offence
But with reuerence
    Vnto her...

She loved him--but she heeded not--
    Her heart had only room for pride:
All other feelings were forgot,
    When she became another's bride.
As from a dream she then awoke,
    To realize her lonely state,
And own it was the vow she broke
    That made her drear and desolate!

She loved him--but the sland'rer came,
    With words of hate that all believed;
A stain thus rested on his name--
    But he was wronged and she deceived;
Ah! rash the act that gave her hand,
    That drove her lover from her side--
Who hied him to a distant land,
    Where, battling for a name, he died!

She loved him--and his memory now
    Was treasured from the world apart:
The calm of thought was on her brow,
    The seeds of death were in her heart.

A delicate fabric of bird song
Floats in the air,
The smell of wet wild earth
Is everywhere.

Red small leaves of the maple
Are clenched like a hand,
Like girls at their first communion
The pear trees stand.

Oh I must pass nothing by
Without loving it much,
The raindrop try with my lips,
The grass with my touch;

For how can I be sure
I shall see again
The world on the first of May
Shining after the rain?

    Away, away, from the sultry ways
        Where the pleasures fall and fade,
    To the bannered corn and the meadowed bloom
        And the forest's cooling shade!

    Afar, afar, from the rooms of care
        With the toils of life distressed,
    To the grassy hills and the fragrant slopes
        And the quiet vales of rest!

    Away from the weary, dusty town,
        Where the sorrows dim the days,
    To the sleeping lake and the silent stream
        And the wildwood's tangled ways!

    To margins wide of the woodland pools,
        Where the wild birds troll their songs,
    Where the lilies laugh and the willows wave,
        And the pleasures dance in throngs!

    The dark-eyed nymphs and the fairy elves
        In t...

The leaves are flutter'd by no tell-tale gales,
Clear melts the azure in the rosy west,
Scarce heard, the river winds along the vales,
And Eve has lull'd the vocal grove to rest.

To yon thick elms, my Delia! let us rove,
As slow the glories of the day retire;
There to thy lute breathe dulcet notes of love,
While thro' the vale they linger and expire.

Those honey'd tones, that melt upon the tongue, -
Thy looks, serener than the scenes I sing, -
Thy chaste desires, which angels might have sung,
Alone can quiet in this bosom bring,
Which burns for thee, and, kindled by thine eyes,
Bears a pure flame - the flame that never dies!

You go a long and lovely journey,
For all the stars, like burning dew,
Are luminous and luring footprints
Of souls adventurous as you.

Oh, if you lived on earth elated,
How is it now that you can run
Free of the weight of flesh and faring
Far past the birthplace of the sun?