Lady! if for the cold and cloudy clime
Where I was born, but where I would not die,
Of the great Poet-Sire of Italy
I dare to build[276] the imitative rhyme,
Harsh Runic[277] copy of the South's sublime,
Thou art the cause; and howsoever I
Fall short of his immortal harmony,
Thy gentle heart will pardon me the crime.
Thou, in the pride of Beauty and of Youth,
Spakest; and for thee to speak and be obeyed
Are one; but only in the sunny South
Such sounds are uttered, and such charms displayed,
So sweet a language from so fair a mouth - [278]
Ah! to what effort would it not persuade?

Ravenna, June 21, 1819.

Near Martinpuisch that night of hell
Two men were struck by the same shell,
Together tumbling in one heap
Senseless and limp like slaughtered sheep.

One was a pale eighteen-year-old,
Girlish and thin and not too bold,
Pressed for the war ten years too soon,
The shame and pity of his platoon.

The other came from far-off lands
With bristling chin and whiskered hands,
He had known death and hell before
In Mexico and Ecuador.

Yet in his death this cut-throat wild
Groaned "Mother!    Mother!" like a child,
While that poor innocent in man's clothes
Died cursing God with brutal oaths.

Old Sergeant Smith, kindest of men,
Wrote out two copies there and then
Of his accustomed funeral speech
To cheer the womenfolk of each.

O Sub! you certainly have been,
A little raking, roguish creature,
And in that face may still be seen,
Each laughing loves bewitching feature!

For thou hast stolen many a heart--
And robb'd the sweetness of the rose;
Plac'd on that cheek, it doth impart
More lovely tints, more fragrant blows!

Yes, thou art nature's favorite child,
Array'd in smiles, seducing, killing;
Did Joseph live, you'd drive him wild,
And set his very soul a thrilling!

A poet, much too poor to live,
Too poor, in this rich world to rove,
Too poor, for aught but verse to give,
But not, thank God, too poor to love!

Gives thee his little doggerel lay--
One truth I tell, in sorrow tell it,
I'm forc'd to give my verse away,
Because, alas! I cannot sell it....

    And when I come to the dim trail-end,
    I who have been Life's rover,
    This is all I would ask, my friend,
    Over and over and over:

    A little space on a stony hill
    With never another near me,
    Sky o' the North that's vast and still,
    With a single star to cheer me;

    Star that gleams on a moss-grey stone
    Graven by those who love me -
    There would I lie alone, alone,
    With a single pine above me;

    Pine that the north wind whinneys through -
    Oh, I have been Life's lover!
    But there I'd lie and listen to
    Eternity passing over.

Tune - "The Weaver and his Shuttle, O."


I.

    My father was a farmer
        Upon the Carrick border, O,
    And carefully he bred me,
        In decency and order, O;
    He bade me act a manly part,
        Though I had ne'er a farthing, O;
    For without an honest manly heart,
        No man was worth regarding, O.

II.

    Then out into the world
        My course I did determine, O;
    Tho' to be rich was not my wish,
        yet to be great was charming, O:
    My talents they were not the worst,
        Nor yet my education, O;
    Resolv'd was I, at least to try,
        To mend my situation, O.

III.

    In many a way, and vain essay,
        I courted fortune's favour, O;

Near Clapham village, where fields began,
Saint Edward met a beggar man.
It was Christmas morning, the church bells tolled,
The old man trembled for the fierce cold.

Saint Edward cried, "It is monstrous sin
A beggar to lie in rags so thin!
An old grey-beard and the frost so keen:
I shall give him my fur-lined gaberdine."

He stripped off his gaberdine of scarlet
And wrapped it round the aged varlet,
Who clutched at the folds with a muttered curse,
Quaking and chattering seven times worse.

Said Edward, "Sir, it would seem you freeze
Most bitter at your extremities.
Here are gloves and shoes and stockings also,
That warm upon your way you may go."

The man took stocking and shoe and glove,
Blaspheming Christ our Saviour's love,
Ye...

The Grasshopper, singing
All summer long,
Now found winter stinging,
And ceased in his song.
Not a morsel or crumb in his cupboard -
So he shivered, and ceased in his song.

Miss Ant was his neighbor;
To her he went:
"O, you're rich from labor,
And I've not a cent.
Lend me food, and I vow I'll return it,
Though at present I have not a cent."

The Ant's not a lender,
I must confess.
Her heart's far from tender
To one in distress.
So she said: "Pray, how passed you the summer,
That in winter you come to distress?"

"I sang through the summer,"
Grasshopper said.
"But now I am glummer
Because I've no bread."
"So you sang!" sneered the Ant. "That relieves me.
Now it's winter - go dance for your bread!"

Too frail to keep the lofty vow
That must have followed when his brow
Was wreathed "The Vision" tells us how
With holly spray,
He faltered, drifted to and fro,
And passed away.

Well might such thoughts, dear Sister, throng
Our minds when, lingering all too long,
Over the grave of Burns we hung
In social grief
Indulged as if it were a wrong
To seek relief.

But, leaving each unquiet theme
Where gentlest judgments may misdeem,
And prompt to welcome every gleam
Of good and fair,
Let us beside this limpid Stream
Breathe hopeful air.

Enough of sorrow, wreck, and blight;
Think rather of those moments bright
When to the consciousness of right
His course was true,
When Wisdom prospered in his sight
And virtue grew.

Glion? Ah, twenty years, it cuts
All meaning from a name!
White houses prank where once were huts.
Glion, but not the same!

And yet I know not! All unchanged
The turf, the pines, the sky!
The hills in their old order ranged;
The lake, with Chillon by!

And, 'neath those chestnut-trees, where stiff
And stony mounts the way,
The crackling husk-heaps burn, as if
I left them yesterday!

Across the valley, on that slope,
The huts of Avant shine!
lts pines, under their branches, ope
Ways for the pasturing kine.

Full-foaming milk-pails, Alpine fare,
Sweet heaps of fresh-cut grass,
Invite to rest the traveller there
Before he climb the pass

The gentian-flower'd pass, its crown
With yellow spires aflame;
Whence ...

The big mountains sit still in the afternoon light
Shadows in their lap;
The bees roll round in the wild-thyme with delight.

We sitting here among the cranberries
So still in the gap
Of rock, distilling our memories

Are sinners! Strange! The bee that blunders
Against me goes off with a laugh.
A squirrel cocks his head on the fence, and wonders

What about sin? - For, it seems
The mountains have
No shadow of us on their snowy forehead of dreams

As they ought to have. They rise above us
Dreaming
For ever. One even might think that they love us.

    Little red cranberries cheek to cheek,
Two great dragon-flies wrestling;
You, with your forehead nestling
Against me, and bright peak shining to peak - 

There's...

Out of the Northland sombre weirds are calling;
A shadow falleth southward day by day;
Sad summer's arms grow cold; his fire is falling;
His feet draw back to give the stern one way.

It is the voice and shadow of the slayer,
Slayer of loves, sweet world, slayer of dreams;
Make sad thy voice with sober plaint and prayer;
Make gray thy woods, and darken all thy streams.

Black grows the river, blacker drifts the eddy:
The sky is grey; the woods are cold below:
Oh make thy bosom, and thy sad lips ready,
For the cold kisses of the folding snow.

True as the church clock hand the hour pursues
He plods about his toils and reads the news,
And at the blacksmith's shop his hour will stand
To talk of "Lunun" as a foreign land.
For from his cottage door in peace or strife
He neer went fifty miles in all his life.
His knowledge with old notions still combined
Is twenty years behind the march of mind.
He views new knowledge with suspicious eyes
And thinks it blasphemy to be so wise.
On steam's almighty tales he wondering looks
As witchcraft gleaned from old blackletter books.
Life gave him comfort but denied him wealth,
He toils in quiet and enjoys his health,
He smokes a pipe at night and drinks his beer
And runs no scores on tavern screens to clear.
He goes to market all the year about
And keeps one hou...

(For Eleanor Rogers Cox)



For blows on the fort of evil
That never shows a breach,
For terrible life-long races
To a goal no foot can reach,
For reckless leaps into darkness
With hands outstretched to a star,
There is jubilation in Heaven
Where the great dead poets are.

There is joy over disappointment
And delight in hopes that were vain.
Each poet is glad there was no cure
To stop his lonely pain.
For nothing keeps a poet
In his high singing mood
Like unappeasable hunger
For unattainable food.

So fools are glad of the folly
That made them weep and sing,
And Keats is thankful for Fanny Brawne
And Drummond for his king.
They know that on flinty sorrow
And failure and desire
The steel of their souls...

There is a wind where the rose was;
Cold rain where sweet grass was;
And clouds like sheep
Stream o'er the steep
Grey skies where the lark was.

Nought gold where your hair was;
Nought warm where your hand was;
But phantom, forlorn,
Beneath the thorn,
Your ghost where your face was.

Sad winds where your voice was;
Tears, tears where my heart was;
And ever with me,
Child, ever with me,
Silence where hope was.

What way does the wind come? What way does he go?
He rides over the water, and over the snow,
Through wood, and through vale; and, o'er rocky height
Which the goat cannot climb, takes his sounding flight;
He tosses about in every bare tree,
As, if you look up, you plainly may see;
But how he will come, and whither he goes,
There's never a scholar in England knows.

He will suddenly stop in a cunning nook
And ring a sharp 'larum; but, if you should look,
There's nothing to see but a cushion of snow
Round as a pillow, and whiter than milk,
And softer than if it were covered with silk.
Sometimes he'll hide in the cave of a rock,
Then whistle as shrill as the buzzard cock;
Yet seek him, and what shall you find in the place?
Nothing but silence and empty space...

I.

O’er the bare woods, whose outstretched hands
Plead with the leaden heavens in vain,
I see, beyond the valley lands,
The sea’s long level dim with rain.
Around me all things, stark and dumb,
Seem praying for the snows to come,
And, for the summer bloom and greenness gone,
With winter’s sunset lights and dazzling morn atone.

II.

Along the river’s summer walk,
The withered tufts of asters nod;
And trembles on its arid stalk
The boar plume of the golden-rod.
And on a ground of sombre fir,
And azure-studded juniper,
The silver birch its buds of purple shows,
And scarlet berries tell where bloomed the sweet wild-rose!

III.

With mingled sound of horns and bells,
A far-heard clang, the wild geese fly,
Storm-se...

Victory comes late,
And is held low to freezing lips
Too rapt with frost
To take it.
How sweet it would have tasted,
Just a drop!
Was God so economical?
His table 's spread too high for us
Unless we dine on tip-toe.
Crumbs fit such little mouths,
Cherries suit robins;
The eagle's golden breakfast
Strangles them.
God keeps his oath to sparrows,
Who of little love
Know how to starve!

The trees in trouble because of autumn,
    And scarlet berries falling from the bush,
And all the myriad houseless seeds
    Loosing hold in the wind's insistent push

Moan softly with autumnal parturition,
    Poor, obscure fruits extruded out of light
Into the world of shadow, carried down
    Between the bitter knees of the after-night.

Bushed in an uncouth ardour, coiled at core
    With a knot of life that only bliss can unravel,
Fall all the fruits most bitterly into earth
    Bitterly into corrosion bitterly travel.

What is it internecine that is locked,
    By very fierceness into a quiescence
Within the rage? We shall not know till it burst
    Out of corrosion into new florescence.

Nay, but how tortured is the frightful seed