The sky is like an envelope,
    One of those blue official things;
And, sealing it, to mock our hope,
    The moon, a silver wafer, clings.
What shall we find when death gives leave
To read - our sentence or reprieve?

I'm holding it down on God's scrap-pile, up on the fag-end of earth;
O'er me a menace of mountains, a river that grits at my feet;
Face to face with my soul-self, weighing my life at its worth;
Wondering what I was made for, here in my last retreat.

Last! Ah, yes, it's the finish. Have ever you heard a man cry?
(Sobs that rake him and rend him, right from the base of the chest.)
That's how I've cried, oh, so often; and now that my tears are dry,
I sit in the desolate quiet and wait for the infinite Rest.

Rest! Well, it's restful a...

"So pulse, and pulse, thou rhythmic-hearted Noon
That liest, large-limbed, curved along the hills,
In languid palpitation, half a-swoon
With ardors and sun-loves and subtle thrills;

"Throb, Beautiful! while the fervent hours exhale
As kisses faint-blown from thy finger-tips
Up to the sun, that turn him passion-pale
And then as red as any virgin's lips.

"O tender Darkness, when June-day hath ceased,
- Faint Odor from the day-flower's crushing born,
- Dim, visible Sigh out of the mournful East
That cannot see her lord again till morn:

"And many leaves, broad-palmed towards the sky
To catch the sacred raining of star-light:
And pallid petals, fain, all fain to die,
Soul-stung by too keen passion of the night:

"And short-breath'd winds, und...

Lulled by the sound of pastoral bells,
Rude Nature's Pilgrims did we go,
From the dread summit of the Queen
Of mountains, through a deep ravine,
Where, in her holy chapel, dwells
"Our Lady of the Snow."

The sky was blue, the air was mild;
Free were the streams and green the bowers;
As if, to rough assaults unknown,
The genial spot had 'ever' shown
A countenance that as sweetly smiled
The face of summer-hours.

And we were gay, our hearts at ease;
With pleasure dancing through the frame
We journeyed; all we knew of care
Our path that straggled here and there;
Of trouble, but the fluttering breeze;
Of Winter, but a name.

If foresight could have rent the veil
Of three short days, but hush, no more!
Calm is the grave, and calme...

There is a chillness in the air -
A coldness in the smile of day;
And e'en the sunbeam's crimson glare
Seems shaded with a tinge of gray.

Weary of journeys to and fro,
The sun low creeps adown the sky;
And on the shivering earth below,
The long, cold shadows grimly lie.

But there will fall a deeper shade,
More chilling than the Autumn's breath:
There is a flower that yet must fade,
And yield its sweetness up to death.

She sits upon the window-seat,
Musing in mournful silence there,
While on her brow the sunbeams meet,
And dally with her golden hair.

She gazes on the sea of light
That overflows the western skies,
Till her great soul seems plumed for flight
From out the window of her eyes.

Hopes unfulfilled have ...

In my thought I see you stand with a path on either hand,
--Hills that look into the sun, and there a river'd meadow-land.
And your lost voice with the things that it decreed across me thrills,
    When you thought, and chose the hills.

'If it prove a life of pain, greater have I judged the gain.
With a singing soul for music's sake, I climb and meet the rain,
And I choose, whilst I am calm, my thought and labouring to be
    Unconsoled by sympathy.'

But how dared you use me so?    For you bring my ripe years low
To your child's whim and a destiny your child-soul could not know.
And that small voice legislating I revolt against, with tears.
    But you mark not, through the years.

'To the mountain leads my way.    If the plains are green to-day,
These my ba...

Serene was morning with clear, winnowed air,
    But threatening soon the low, blue mass of cloud
Rose in the west, with mutterings faint and rare
    At first, but waxing frequent and more loud.
    Thick sultry mists the distant hill-tops shroud;
The sunshine dies; athwart black skies of lead
Flash noiselessly thin threads of lightning red.


Breathless the earth seems waiting some wild blow,
    Dreaded, but far too close to ward or shun.
Scared birds aloft fly aimless, and below
    Naught stirs in fields whence light and life are gone,
    Save floating leaves, with wisps of straw and down,
Upon the heavy air; 'neath blue-black skies,
Livid and yellow the green landscape lies.


And all the while the dreadful thunder breaks,
    Within the ...

O d' ardente virtute ornata e calda.

HE CELEBRATES LAURA'S BEAUTY AND VIRTUE.


    O mind, by ardent virtue graced and warm'd.
To whom my pen so oft pours forth my heart;
Mansion of noble probity, who art
A tower of strength 'gainst all assault full arm'd.
O rose effulgent, in whose foldings, charm'd,
We view with fresh carnation snow take part!
O pleasure whence my wing'd ideas start
To that bless'd vision which no eye, unharm'd,
Created, may approach--thy name, if rhyme
Could bear to Bactra and to Thule's coast,
Nile, Tanaïs, and Calpe should resound,
And dread Olympus.--But a narrower bound
Confines my flight: and thee, our native clime
Between the Alps and Apennine must boast.

CAPEL LOFFT.


    With glowing vir...

I've paid thee what I promis'd; that's not all;
Besides I give thee here a verse that shall
(When hence thy circummortal part is gone),
Arch-like, hold up thy name's inscription.
Brave men can't die, whose candid actions are
Writ in the poet's endless calendar:
Whose vellum and whose volume is the sky,
And the pure stars the praising poetry.
Farewell

On a blank leaf of "poems printed, not published.


Well thought! who would not rather hear
The songs to Love and Friendship sung
Than those which move the stranger's tongue,
And feed his unselected ear?

Our social joys are more than fame;
Life withers in the public look.
Why mount the pillory of a book,
Or barter comfort for a name?

Who in a house of glass would dwell,
With curious eyes at every pane?
To ring him in and out again,
Who wants the public crier's bell?

To see the angel in one's way,
Who wants to play the ass's part,
Bear on his back the wizard Art,
And in his service speak or bray?

And who his manly locks would shave,
And quench the eyes of common sense,
To share the noisy recompense
Th...

I

If suddenly a clod of earth should rise,
And walk about, and breathe, and speak, and love,
How one would tremble, and in what surprise
Gasp: 'Can you move?'

I see men walking, and I always feel:
'Earth! How have you done this? What can you be?'
I can't learn how to know men, or conceal
How strange they are to me.


II

A flower is looking through the ground,
Blinking at the April weather;
Now a child has seen the flower:
Now they go and play together.

Now it seems the flower will speak,
And will call the child its brother -
But, oh strange forgetfulness! -
They don't recognize each other.

(TO L. AND H.H.)

O you that dwell 'mid farm and fold,
Yet keep so quick undulled a heart,
I send you here that book of gold,
So loved so long;
The fairest art,
The sweetest English song.

And often in the far-off town,
When summer sits with open door,
I'll dream I see you set it down
Beside the churn,

Whose round shall slacken more and more,
Till you forget to turn.

And I shall smile that you forget,
And Dad will scold - but never mind!
Butter is good, but better yet,
Think such as we,
To leave the farm and fold behind,
And follow such as he.

On the bleakness of my lot
Bloom I strove to raise.
Late, my acre of a rock
Yielded grape and maize.

Soil of flint if steadfast tilled
Will reward the hand;
Seed of palm by Lybian sun
Fructified in sand.

Thou say'st my lines are hard,
And I the truth will tell -
They are both hard and marr'd
If thou not read'st them well.

Never was sun so bright before,
    No matin of the lark so sweet,
    No grass so green beneath my feet,
Nor with such dewdrops jewelled o'er.

I stand with thee outside the door,
    The air not yet is close with heat,
    And far across the yellowing wheat
The waves are breaking on the shore.

A lovely day!    Yet many such,
    Each like to each, this month have passed,
            And none did so supremely shine.
One thing they lacked: the perfect touch
    Of thee--and thou art come at last,
            And half this loveliness is thine.

Autumn is gone: through the blue woodlands bare
Shatters the rainy wind. A myriad leaves,
Like birds that fly the mournful Northern air.
Flutter away from the old forest's eaves.

Autumn is gone: as yonder silent rill,
Slow eddying o'er thick leaf-heaps lately shed,
My spirit, as I walk, moves awed and still,
By thronging fancies wild and wistful led.

Autumn is gone: alas, how long ago
The grapes were plucked, and garnered was the grain!
How soon death settles on us, and the snow
Wraps with its white alike our graves, our gain!

Yea, autumn's gone! Yet it robs not my mood
Of that which makes moods dear, - some shoot of spring
Still sweet within me; or thoughts of yonder wood
We walked in, - memory's rare environing.

And, though they die, ...

"Ille terrarum mihi præter omnes
Angulus Ridet."
--Hor. ii. 6.


It was an elm-tree root of yore,
With lordly trunk, before they lopped it,
And weighty, said those five who bore
Its bulk across the lawn, and dropped it
Not once or twice, before it lay.
With two young pear-trees to protect it,
Safe where the Poet hoped some day
The curious pilgrim would inspect it.

He saw him with his Poet's eye,
The stately Maori, turned from etching
The ruin of St. Paul's, to try
Some object better worth the sketching:--
He saw him, and it nerved his strength
What time he hacked and hewed and scraped it,
Until the monster grew at length
The Master-piece to which he shaped it.

To wit--a goodly garden seat,
And fit alike for Shah or Sop...

    Such days as break the wild bird's heart;
        Such days as kill it and its songs;
    A death which knows a sweeter part
        Of days to which such death belongs.

    And now old eyes are filled with tears,
        As with the rain the frozen flowers;
    Time moves so slowly one but fears
        The burthen on his wasted powers.

    And so he stopped;--and thou art dead!
        And that is found which once was feared:--
    A farewell to thy gray, gray head,
        A goodnight to thy goodly beard!

    Autumn clouds are flying, flying
    O'er the waste of blue;
    Summer flowers are dying, dying,
    Late so lovely new.
    Labouring wains are slowly rolling
    Home with winter grain;
    Holy bells are slowly tolling
    Over buried men.

    Goldener light sets noon a sleeping
    Like an afternoon;
    Colder airs come stealing, creeping
    From the misty moon;
    And the leaves, of old age dying,
    Earthy hues put on;
    Out on every lone wind sighing
    That their day is gone.

    Autumn's sun is sinking, sinking
    Down to winter low;
    And our hearts are thinking, thinking
    Of the sleet and snow;
    For our sun is slowly sliding
    Down the hill of might;
    And no moon is softly gliding