For thirty years Tubbs has been proud and poor;
'Tis now his habit, which he can't give o'er.

How cold the old porch seems.    A dreary chill
    Creeps upward from the river at twilight,
    And yet, I like to linger here at night,
And dream the summer tarries with us still.

The summer and the summer guests, or guest.
    (Men rarely dream in plurals.)    Over there
    Beyond the pillars, stands the rustic chair,
As bare and empty as a robin's nest.

No pretty head reclines its golden bands
    Against the back.    No playful winds disclose
    Distracting glimpses of embroidered hose:
No palm leaf waves in dainty, dangerous hands.

How cold it is!    That star up yonder gleams
    A white ice sickle from the heavenly eaves.
    That bleak wind from the river sighs and grieves,
Perchance o'er some poor fellow's broken dreams.

Co...

'Tis not ev'ry day that I
Fitted am to prophesy:
No, but when the spirit fills
The fantastic pannicles,
Full of fire, then I write
As the Godhead doth indite.
Thus enraged, my lines are hurl'd,
Like the Sibyl's, through the world:
Look how next the holy fire
Either slakes, or doth retire;
So the fancy cools: till when
That brave spirit comes again.

I.
Would it were I had been false, not you!
I that am nothing, not you that are all
I, never the worse for a touch or two
On my speckled hide; not you, the pride
Of the day, my swan, that a first fleck’s fall
On her wonder of white must unswan, undo!

II.
I had dipped in life’s struggle and, out again,
Bore specks of it here, there, easy to see,
When I found my swan and the cure was plain;
The dull turned bright as I caught your white
On my bosom: you saved me saved in vain
If you ruined yourself, and all through me!

III.
Yes, all through the speckled beast that I am,
Who taught you to stoop; you gave me yourself,
And bound your soul by the vows that damn:
Since on better thought you break, as you ought,
Vows words, no angel set down,...

I stood beside a hill
Smooth with new-laid snow,
A single star looked out
From the cold evening glow.

There was no other creature
That saw what I could see
I stood and watched the evening star
As long as it watched me.

Noonday and midnight shall at once be seen:
Trees, at one time, shall be both sere and green:
Fire and water shall together lie
In one self-sweet-conspiring sympathy:
Summer and winter shall at one time show
Ripe ears of corn, and up to th' ears in snow:
Seas shall be sandless; fields devoid of grass;
Shapeless the world, as when all chaos was,
Before, my dear Perilla, I will be
False to my vow, or fall away from thee.

Calvert! it must not be unheard by them
Who may respect my name, that I to thee
Owed many years of early liberty.
This care was thine when sickness did condemn
Thy youth to hopeless wasting, root and stem
That I, if frugal and severe, might stray
Where'er I liked; and finally array
My temples with the Muse's diadem.
Hence, if in freedom I have loved the truth;
If there be aught of pure, or good, or great,
In my past verse; or shall be, in the lays
Of higher mood, which now I meditate;
It gladdens me, O worthy, short-lived, Youth!
To think how much of this will be thy praise.

This poem must be done to-day;
Then, I 'll e'en to it.
I must not dream my time away,--
I 'm sure to rue it.
The day is rather bright, I know
The Muse will pardon
My half-defection, if I go
Into the garden.
It must be better working there,--
I 'm sure it's sweeter:
And something in the balmy air
May clear my metre.

[In the Garden.]

Ah this is noble, what a sky!
What breezes blowing!
The very clouds, I know not why,
Call one to rowing.
The stream will be a paradise
To-day, I 'll warrant.
I know the tide that's on the rise
Will seem a torrent;
I know just how the leafy boughs
Are all a-quiver;
I know how many skiffs and scows
Are on the river.
I think I 'll just go out awhile
Before I write it;...

Ah! sweet romantic spot, adieu!
Ere your green fields again I view,
These looks may change their youthful hue.

Dependence sternly bids me part
From all that ye, lov'd scenes! impart,
Far from my treasure and my heart.

Tho' winter shall your bloom invade,
Fancy may visit ev'ry shade,
Each bow'r shall kiss the wand'ring maid.

To busier scenes of life I fly,
Where many smile, where many sigh,
As Chance, not Worth, turns up the die.

Mentre che 'l cor dagli amorosi vermi.

HAD SHE NOT DIED SO EARLY, HE WOULD HAVE LEARNED TO PRAISE HER MORE WORTHILY.


    While on my heart the worms consuming prey'd
Of Love, and I with all his fire was caught;
The steps of my fair wild one still I sought
To trace o'er desert mountains as she stray'd;
And much I dared in bitter strains to upbraid
Both Love and her, whom I so cruel thought;
But rude was then my genius, and untaught
My rhymes, while weak and new the ideas play'd.
Dead is that fire; and cold its ashes lie
In one small tomb; which had it still grown on
E'en to old age, as oft by others felt,
Arm'd with the power of rhyme, which wretched I
E'en now disclaim, my riper strains had won
E'en stones to burst, and in soft sorrows melt...

To-day the woods are trembling through and through
With shimmering forms, that flash before my view,
Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue.
The leaves that wave against my cheek caress
Like women's hands; the embracing boughs express
A subtlety of mighty tenderness;
The copse-depths into little noises start,
That sound anon like beatings of a heart,
Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart.
The beech dreams balm, as a dreamer hums a song;
Through that vague wafture, expirations strong
Throb from young hickories breathing deep and long
With stress and urgence bold of prisoned spring
And ecstasy of burgeoning.
Now, since the dew-plashed road of morn is dry,
Forth venture odors of more quality
And heavenlier giving. Like Jove's locks awry,
Long musca...

I ask'd thee oft what poets thou hast read,
And lik'st the best. Still thou reply'st: The dead.
I shall, ere long, with green turfs cover'd be;
Then sure thou'lt like or thou wilt envy me.

Born in a dark wood's lonely dell,
Where echoes roar'd, and tendrils curl'd
Round a low cot, like hermit's cell,
Old Salcey Forest was my world.
I felt no bonds, no shackles then,
For life in freedom was begun;
I gloried in th' exploits of men,
And learn'd to lift my father's gun.

O what a joy it gave my heart!
Wild as a woodbine up I grew;
Soon in his feats I bore a part,
And counted all the game he slew.
I learn'd the wiles, the shifts, the calls,
The language of each living thing;
I mark'd the hawk that darting falls,
Or station'd spreads the trembling wing.

I mark'd the owl that silent flits,
The hare that feeds at eventide,
The upright rabbit, when he sits
And mocks you, ere he deigns to hide.
I heard the fox bark through t...

I mind me in the days departed,
How often underneath the sun
With childish bounds I used to run
To a garden long deserted.

The beds and walks were vanished quite;
And wheresoe'er had struck the spade,
The greenest grasses Nature laid
To sanctify her right.

I called the place my wilderness,
For no one entered there but I;
The sheep looked in, the grass to espy,
And passed it ne'ertheless.

The trees were interwoven wild,
And spread their boughs enough about
To keep both sheep and shepherd out,
But not a happy child.

Adventurous joy it was for me!
I crept beneath the boughs, and found
A circle smooth of mossy ground
Beneath a poplar tree.

Old garden rose-trees hedged it in,
Bedropt with roses waxen-white

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!
One mellow smile through the soft vapoury air,
Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds run,
Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare.
One smile on the brown hills and naked trees,
And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast,
And the blue gentian flower, that, in the breeze,
Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.
Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee
Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way,
The cricket chirp upon the russet lea,
And man delight to linger in thy ray.
Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear
The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air.

    Aye Charles! I knew that this would fix thine eye,
    This woodbine wreathing round the broken porch,
    Its leaves just withering, yet one autumn flower
    Still fresh and fragrant; and yon holly-hock
    That thro' the creeping weeds and nettles tall
    Peers taller, and uplifts its column'd stem
    Bright with the broad rose-blossoms. I have seen
    Many a fallen convent reverend in decay,
    And many a time have trod the castle courts
    And grass-green halls, yet never did they strike
    Home to the heart such melancholy thoughts
    As this poor cottage. Look, its little hatch
    Fleeced with that grey and wintry moss; the roof
    Part mouldered in, the rest o'ergrown with weeds,
    House-leek and long thin grass and greener moss;
    So Natur...

    O silly love! O cunning love!
    An old maid to trepan:
    I cannot go about my work
    For loving of a man.
    I cannot bake, I cannot brew,
    And, do the best I can,
    I burn the bread and chill the mash,
    Through loving of a man.

    Shrove Tuesday last I tried, and tried,
    To turn the cakes in pan,
    And dropt the batter on the floor,
    Through thinking of a man.
    My mistress screamed, my master swore,
    Boys cursed me in a troop;
    The cat was all the friends I had,
    Who helped to clean it up.

    Last Christmas eve, from off the spit
    I took the goose to table,
    Or should have done, but teasing Love
    Did make me quite unable;
    And down slipt dish, and goose, and all
    With...

They say to me, thy clear and crystal eyes:
"Why dost thou love me so, strange lover mine?"
Be sweet, be still! My heart and soul despise
All save that antique brute-like faith of thine;

And will not bare the secret of their shame
To thee whose hand soothes me to slumbers long,
Nor their black legend write for thee in flame!
Passion I hate, a spirit does me wrong.

Let us love gently. Love, from his retreat,
Ambushed and shadowy, bends his fatal bow,
And I too well his ancient arrows know:

Crime, horror, folly. O pale marguerite,
Thou art as I, a bright sun fallen low,
O my so white, my so cold Marguerite.