Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you?
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems, and new!

But you were living before that,
And you are living after,
And the memory I started at
My starting moves your laughter!

I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
And a certain use in the world no doubt,
Yet a hand’s-breadth of it shines alone
’Mid the blank miles round about:

For there I picked up on the heather
And there I put inside my breast
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather
Well, I forget the rest.

New feet within my garden go,
New fingers stir the sod;
A troubadour upon the elm
Betrays the solitude.

New children play upon the green,
New weary sleep below;
And still the pensive spring returns,
And still the punctual snow!

When up aloft
I fly and fly,
I see in pools
The shining sky,
And a happy bird
Am I, am I!

When I descend
Towards their brink
I stand, and look,
And stoop, and drink,
And bathe my wings,
And chink and prink.

When winter frost
Makes earth as steel
I search and search
But find no meal,
And most unhappy
Then I feel.

But when it lasts,
And snows still fall,
I get to feel
No grief at all,
For I turn to a cold stiff
Feathery ball!

    Is there a whim-inspired fool,
    Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule,
    Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,
        Let him draw near;
    And owre this grassy heap sing dool,
        And drap a tear.

    Is there a bard of rustic song,
    Who, noteless, steals the crowds among,
    That weekly this area throng,
        O, pass not by!
    But with a frater-feeling strong,
        Here heave a sigh.

    Is there a man, whose judgment clear,
    Can others teach the course to steer,
    Yet runs, himself, life's mad career,
        Wild as the wave;
    Here pause, and, through the starting tear,
        Survey this grave.

    The poor inhabitant below
    Was quick to learn and wise to know,
    And keen...

Soul of the Poet! wheresoe'er,
Reclaimed from earth, thy genius plume
Her wings of immortality;
Suspend thy harp in happier sphere,
And with thine influence illume
The gladness of our jubilee.

And fly like fiends from secret spell,
Discord and Strife, at Burn's name,
Exorcised by his memory;
For he was chief of bards that swell
The heart with songs of social flame,
And high delicious revelry.

And Love's own strain to him was given,
To warble all its ecstacies
With Pythian words unsought, unwilled,
Love, the surviving gift of Heaven
The choicest sweet of Paradise,
In life's else bitter cup distilled.

Who that has melted o'er his lay
To Mary's soul, in Heaven above ,
But pictured sees, in fancy strong,
The landscape and...

Feathery frost on the window-pane,
Who placed you there? "I cannot explain,"
Each little feather at once replied;
"But this I know, I'm the children's pride,
As they think I fell from an angel's wing,
And coming to earth must rich blessings bring.

"I once formed part of a lovely bay;
The sun shone out, and I turned to spray,
And rose aloft on the ambient air,
To the regions high where all is rare;
Then I mingled with my old friends again,
Who were my neighbors in the haunts of men.

"On the blustering wind, I rode along,
Sometimes hard tossed by the tempest strong,
And then at rest, as when in the bay,
Though much enlarged, the wise savants say;
Though I cannot tell you how long my sleep,
With a chill I woke and began to weep.

"And m...

My crippled sense fares bow'd along
His uncompanioned way,
And wronged by death pays life with wrong
And I wake by night and dream by day.

And the Morning seems but fatigued Night
That hath wept his visage pale,
And the healthy mark 'twixt dark and light
In sickly sameness out doth fail.

And the woods stare strange, and the wind is dumb,
- O Wind, pray talk again -
And the Hand of the Frost spreads stark and numb
As Death's on the deadened window-pane.

Still dumb, thou Wind, old voluble friend?
And the middle of the day is cold,
And the heart of eve beats lax i' the end
As a legend's climax poorly told.

Oh vain the up-straining of the hands
In the chamber late at night,
Oh vain the complainings, the hot demands,
The praye...

    Tom Van Arden, my old friend,
        Our warm fellowship is one
    Far too old to comprehend
        Where its bond was first begun:
            Mirage-like before my gaze
            Gleams a land of other days,
            Where two truant boys, astray,
            Dream their lazy lives away.

    There's a vision, in the guise
        Of Midsummer, where the Past
    Like a weary beggar lies
        In the shadow Time has cast;
            And as blends the bloom of trees
            With the drowsy hum of bees,
            Fragrant thoughts and murmurs blend,
            Tom Van Arden, my old friend.

    Tom Van Arden, my old friend,
        All the pleasures we have known
    Thrill me now as I extend
        This old hand...

Where we made the fire,
In the summer time,
Of branch and briar
On the hill to the sea
I slowly climb
Through winter mire,
And scan and trace
The forsaken place
Quite readily.

Now a cold wind blows,
And the grass is gray,
But the spot still shows
As a burnt circle aye,
And stick-ends, charred,
Still strew the sward
Whereon I stand,
Last relic of the band
Who came that day!

Yes, I am here
Just as last year,
And the sea breathes brine
From its strange straight line
Up hither, the same
As when we four came.
- But two have wandered far
From this grassy rise
Into urban roar
Where no picnics are,
And one has shut her eyes
For evermore.

Thrice welcome here again, thou flutt'ring thing,
That gaily seek'st about the opening flower,
And opest and shutt'st thy gaudy-spangled wing
Upon its bosom in the sunny hour;
Fond grateful thoughts from thy appearance spring:
To see thee, Fly, warm me once more to sing
His universal care who hapt thee down,
And did thy winter-dwelling please to give.
That Being's smiles on me dampt winter's frown,
And snatch'd me from the storm, and bade me live.
And now again the welcome season's come,
'Tis thine and mine, in nature's grateful pride,
To thank that God who snatch'd us from the tomb,
And stood our prop, when all gave way beside.

Voi, ch' ascoltate in rime sparse il suono.

HE CONFESSES THE VANITY OF HIS PASSION


    Ye who in rhymes dispersed the echoes hear
Of those sad sighs with which my heart I fed
When early youth my mazy wanderings led,
Fondly diverse from what I now appear,
Fluttering 'twixt frantic hope and frantic fear,
From those by whom my various style is read,
I hope, if e'er their hearts for love have bled,
Not only pardon, but perhaps a tear.
But now I clearly see that of mankind
Long time I was the tale: whence bitter thought
And self-reproach with frequent blushes teem;
While of my frenzy, shame the fruit I find,
And sad repentance, and the proof, dear-bought,
That the world's joy is but a flitting dream.

CHARLEMONT.


    O...

Stand by the magic of my powerful rhymes
'Gainst all the indignation of the times.
Age shall not wrong thee; or one jot abate
Of thy both great and everlasting fate.
While others perish, here's thy life decreed,
Because begot of my immortal seed.

Serene, indifferent of Fate,
Thou sittest at the Western Gate;

Upon thy height, so lately won,
Still slant the banners of the sun;

Thou seest the white seas strike their tents,
O Warder of two continents!

And, scornful of the peace that flies
Thy angry winds and sullen skies,

Thou drawest all things, small, or great,
To thee, beside the Western Gate.

O lion’s whelp, that hidest fast
In jungle growth of spire and mast!

I know thy cunning and thy greed,
Thy hard high lust and willful deed,

And all thy glory loves to tell
Of specious gifts material.

Drop down, O Fleecy Fog, and hide
Her skeptic sneer and all her pride!

Wrap her, O Fog, in gown and hood
Of her Franciscan Brotherhood.

H...

I only knew one poet in my life:
And this, or something like it, was his way.

You saw go up and down Valladolid,
A man of mark, to know next time you saw.
His very serviceable suit of black
Was courtly once and conscientious still,
And many might have worn it, though none did:
The cloak that somewhat shone and shewed the threads
Had purpose, and the ruff, significance.
He walked and tapped the pavement with his cane,
Scenting the world, looking it full in face,
An old dog, bald and blindish, at his heels.
They turned up, now, the alley by the church,
That leads no whither; now, they breathed themselves
On the main promenade just at the wrong time.
You’d come upon his scrutinising hat,
Making a peaked shade blacker than itself
Against the single wind...

[Knows he who tills this lonely field
To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?]

That field by spirits bad and good,
By Hell and Heaven is haunted,
And every rood in the hemlock wood
I know is ground enchanted.

[In the long sunny afternoon
The plain was full of ghosts:
I wandered up, I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.]

For in those lonely grounds the sun
Shines not as on the town,
In nearer arcs his journeys run,
And nearer stoops the moon.

There in a moment I have seen
The buried Past arise;
The fields of Thessaly grew green,
Old gods forsook the skies.

I cannot publish in my rhyme
What pranks the greenwood played;
It was the Carnival of time,
And ...

Though flowers have perished at the touch
Of Frost, the early comer,
I hail the season loved so much,
The good St. Martin’s summer.

O gracious morn, with rose-red dawn,
And thin moon curving o’er it!
The old year’s darling, latest born,
More loved than all before it!

How flamed the sunrise through the pines!
How stretched the birchen shadows,
Braiding in long, wind-wavered lines
The westward sloping meadows!

The sweet day, opening as a flower
Unfolds its petals tender,
Renews for us at noontide’s hour
The summer’s tempered splendor.

The birds are hushed; alone the wind,
That through the woodland searches,
The red-oak’s lingering leaves can find,
And yellow plumes of larches.

But still the balsam-breathing pine<...

It is night time, and cold, and snow is falling,
And no wind grieves the walls.
In the small world of light around the arc-lamp
A swarm of snowflakes falls and falls.
The street grows silent. The last stranger passes.
The sound of his feet, in the snow, is indistinct.
What forgotten sadness is it, on a night like this,
Takes possession of my heart?
Why do I think of a camellia tree in a southern garden,
With pink blossoms among dark leaves,
Standing, surprised, in the snow?
Why do I think of spring?
The snowflakes, helplessly veering,
Fall silently past my window;
They come from darkness and enter darkness.
What is it in my heart is surprised and bewildered
Like that camellia tree,
Beautiful still in its glittering anguish?
And spring so far away!

The leafless branch and meadow sere,
        The dull and leaden skies,
Join with the mournful wind and drear
In dirges for the passing year,
        Which unreturning flies.

The night in starless gloom descends,
        Nor can the pale moonshine
Break through the clouds whose veil extends
In boundless form, and darkly blends
        With the horizon's line.

Fond nature, in a playful mood,
        In cover of the night,
Arrays the plain and forest rude,
The city and the solitude,
        In robe of spotless white.