Happy are they whom men and women love,
And you were happy as a river that flows
Down between lonely hills, and knows
The pang and virtue of that loneliness,
And moves unresting on until it move
Under the trees that stoop at the low brink
And deepen their cool shade, and drink
And sing and hush and sing again,
Breathing their music's many-toned caress;
While the river with his high clear music speaks
Sometimes of loneliness, of hills obscure,
Sometimes of sunlight dancing on the plain,
Or of the night of stars unbared and deep
Multiplied in his depths unbared and pure;
Sometimes of winds that from the unknown sea creep,
Sometimes of morning when most clear it breaks
Spilling its brightness on his breast like rain:--
And then flows on in loneliness again

You'll wait a long, long time for anything much
To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud
And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves.
The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch,
Nor strike out fire from each other nor crash out loud.
The planets seem to interfere in their curves
But nothing ever happens, no harm is done.
We may as well go patiently on with our life,
And look elsewhere than to stars and moon and sun
For the shocks and changes we need to keep us sane.
It is true the longest drouth will end in rain,
The longest peace in China will end in strife.
Still it wouldn't reward the watcher to stay awake
In hopes of seeing the calm of heaven break
On his particular time and personal sight.
That calm seems certainly safe to last to-night...

The words that pass from lip to lip
For souls still out of reach!
A friend for that companionship
That's deeper than all speech!

The weary Old Year is dead at last;
His corpse 'mid the ruins of Time is cast,
Where the mouldering wrecks of lost Thought lie,
And the rich-hued blossoms of Passion die
To a withering grass that droops o'er his grave,
The shadowy Titan's refuge cave.
Strange lights from pale moony Memory lie
On the weedy columns beneath its eye;
And strange is the sound of the ghostlike breeze,
In the lingering leaves on the skeleton trees;
And strange is the sound of the falling shower,
When the clouds of dead pain o'er the spirit lower;
Unheard in the home he inhabiteth,
The land where all lost things are gathered by Death.

Alone I reclined in the closing year;
Voice, nor breathing, nor step was near;
And I said in the weariness of my breast:
Weary Old Year, thou...

I am thinking of the Springtime
On the farm out in the West,
When my world held nothing for me that I wanted,
(Save a courage all undaunted),
And my foolish little rhymes,
Were but heart beats, rung in chimes,
That I sounded, just to ease my life's unrest.
Yes, I sang them, and I rang them,
Just to ease my youth's unrest.

When I heard the name of London,
In that early day, afar,
In that Springtime of my Country over yonder,
Then I used to sit and wonder
If the day would come to me,
When my ship should cross the sea,
To the land that seemed as distant as a star.
In my dreaming, ever gleaming
Like a distant unknown star.

Now in London in the Springtime,
I am sitting here, your guest.
Nay - I think it is a vision, or a fancy -

Sometimes, from the far-away,
Wing a little thought to me;
In the night or in the day,
It will give a rest to me.

I have praise of many here,
And the world gives me renown;
Let it go -- give me one tear,
'Twill be a jewel in my crown.

What care I for earthly fame?
How I shrink from all its glare!
I would rather that my name
Would be shrined in some one's prayer.

Many hearts are all too much,
Or too little in their praise;
I would rather feel the touch
Of one prayer that thrills all days.

I arise and go down to the River, and currents that come from the sea,
Still fresh with the salt of the ocean, are lovely and precious to me,
The waters are silver and silent, except where the kingfisher dips,
Or the ripples wash off from my shoulder the reddening stain of thy lips.

Two things make my joy at this moment: thy gold-coloured beauty by night,
And the delicate charm of the River, all pale in the day-breaking light,
So cool are the waters' caresses. Ah, which is the lovelier, - this?
Or the fire that it kindles at midnight, beneath the soft glow of thy kiss?

Ah, Love has a mighty dominion, he forges with passionate breath
The links which stretch out to the Future, with forces of life and of death,
But great is the charm of the River, so soft is the sigh of the reeds,...

(Written in the shadow of 1872.)

Ah, to be by Mooni now,
Where the great dark hills of wonder,
Scarred with storm and cleft asunder
By the strong sword of the thunder,
Make a night on morning’s brow!
Just to stand where Nature’s face is
Flushed with power in forest places
Where of God authentic trace is
Ah, to be by Mooni now!

Just to be by Mooni’s springs!
There to stand, the shining sharer
Of that larger life, and rarer
Beauty caught from beauty fairer
Than the human face of things!
Soul of mine from sin abhorrent
Fain would hide by flashing current,
Like a sister of the torrent,
Far away by Mooni’s springs.

He that is by Mooni now
Sees the water-sapphires gleaming
Where the River Spirit, dreaming,
Sleeps by fa...

(From 'A Faun's Holiday')

Come, ye sorrowful, and steep
Your tired brows in a nectarous sleep:
For our kisses lightlier run
Than the traceries of the sun
By the lolling water cast
Up grey precipices vast,
Lifting smooth and warm and steep
Out of the palely shimmering deep.

Come, ye sorrowful, and take
Kisses that are but half awake:
For here are eyes O softer far
Than the blossom of the star
Upon the mothy twilit waters,
And here are mouths whose gentle laughters
Are but the echoes of the deep
Laughing and murmuring in its sleep.

Come, ye sorrowful, and see
The raindrops flaming goldenly
On the stream's eddies overhead
And dragonflies with drops of red
In the crisp surface of each wing
Threading slant rains that ...

They bathed in the fire-flooded fountains;
    Life girdled them round and about;
They slept in the clefts of the mountains:
    The stars called them forth with a shout.

They prayed, but their worship was only
    The wonder at nights and at days,
As still as the lips of the lonely
    Though burning with dumbness of praise.

No sadness of earth ever captured
    Their spirits who bowed at the shrine;
They fled to the Lonely enraptured
    And hid in the Darkness Divine.

At twilight as children may gather
    They met at the doorway of death,
The smile of the dark hidden Father
    The Mother with magical breath.

Untold of in song or in story,
    In days long forgotten of men,
Their eyes were yet blind with a glory
    T...

The night is old, and all the world
Is wearied out with strife;
A long gray mist lies heavy and wan
Above the house of life.

Four stars burn up and are unquelled
By the low, shrunken moon;
Her spirit draws her down and down -
She shall be buried soon.

There is a sound that is no sound,
Yet fine it falls and clear,
The whisper of the spinning earth
To the tranced atmosphere.

An odour lives where once was air,
A strange, unearthly scent,
From the burning of the four great stars
Within the firmament.

The universe, deathless and old,
Breathes, yet is void of breath:
As still as death that seems to move
And yet is still as death.

1.
Like the ghost of a dear friend dead
Is Time long past.
A tone which is now forever fled,
A hope which is now forever past,
A love so sweet it could not last,
Was Time long past.

2.
There were sweet dreams in the night
Of Time long past:
And, was it sadness or delight,
Each day a shadow onward cast
Which made us wish it yet might last -
That Time long past.

3.
There is regret, almost remorse,
For Time long past.
'Tis like a child's beloved corse
A father watches, till at last
Beauty is like remembrance, cast
From Time long past.

Gentil mia donna, i' veggio.

IN PRAISE OF LAURA'S EYES: THEY LEAD HIM TO CONTEMPLATE THE PATH OF LIFE.


    Lady, in your bright eyes
Soft glancing round, I mark a holy light,
Pointing the arduous way that heavenward lies;
And to my practised sight,
From thence, where Love enthroned, asserts his might,
Visibly, palpably, the soul beams forth.
This is the beacon guides to deeds of worth,
And urges me to seek the glorious goal;
This bids me leave behind the vulgar throng,
Nor can the human tongue
Tell how those orbs divine o'er all my soul
Exert their sweet control,
Both when hoar winter's frosts around are flung,
And when the year puts on his youth again,
Jocund, as when this bosom first knew pain.

Oh! if in that high sphere,<...

Gorgeous and splendid was the sight;
From myriad lamps a fairy light
Enshrin'd in wreaths the Gothic wall,
And heav'nly music fill'd the hall!

But there was one - (alas! that I
Had ever seen) - the melody
Her voice surpassed, and brighter far
Her eyes than ev'ry mimic star!

I gaz'd, until, oh! thought divine!
I fancied she I saw was mine;
But soon the beauteous vision flew -
The stranger-form I lov'd withdrew.

Yet still she lives within my breast,
There mem'ry has her form imprest: -
Thus, when some minstrel's strain is done,
Sounds seem to breathe, for ever gone!

Hers was a lonely, shadowed lot;
Or so the unperceiving thought,
Who looked no deeper than her face,
Devoid of chiselled lines of grace -
No farther than her humble grate,
And wondered how she bore her fate.

Yet she was neither lone nor sad;
So much of love her spirit had,
She found an ever-flowing spring
Of happiness in everything.

So near to her was Nature's heart
It seemed a very living part
Of her own self; and bud and blade,
And heat and cold, and sun and shade,
And dawn and sunset, Spring and Fall,
Held raptures for her, one and all.

The year's four changing seasons brought
To her own door what thousands sought
In wandering ways and did not find -
Diversion and content of mind.

She loved the tasks that filled e...

Midsummer midnight skies,
Midsummer midnight influences and airs,
The shining, sensitive silver of the sea
Touched with the strange-hued blazonings of dawn;
And all so solemnly still I seem to hear
The breathing of Life and Death,
The secular Accomplices,
Renewing the visible miracle of the world.

The wistful stars
Shine like good memories.    The young morning wind
Blows full of unforgotten hours
As over a region of roses.    Life and Death
Sound on - sound on . . . And the night magical,
Troubled yet comforting, thrills
As if the Enchanted Castle at the heart
Of the wood's dark wonderment
Swung wide his valves, and filled the dim sea-banks
With exquisite visitants:
Words fiery-hearted yet, dreams and desires
With living looks intolerable...

Hearken, oh hearken! let your souls behind you
Turn, gently moved!
Our voices feel along the Dread to find you,
O lost, beloved!
Through the thick-shielded and strong-marshalled angels,
They press and pierce:
Our requiems follow fast on our evangels,
Voice throbs in verse.
We are but orphaned spirits left in Eden
A time ago:
God gave us golden cups, and we were bidden
To feed you so.
But now our right hand hath no cup remaining,
No work to do,
The mystic hydromel is spilt, and staining
The whole earth through.
Most ineradicable stains, for showing
(Not interfused!)
That brighter colours were the world’s foregoing,
Than shall be used.
Hearken, oh hearken! ye shall hearken surely
For years and years,
The noise beside you, dripping c...

CHARACTERS

The Father. The Child. Death. Angels.
        Two Travellers.

    *    *    *    *    *

The even settles still and deep,
In the cold sky the last gold burns,
Across the colour snow flakes creep.
Each one from grey to glory turns
Then flutters into nothingness;
The frost down falls with mighty stress
Through the swift cloud that parts on high;
The great stars shrivel into less
In the hard depth of the iron sky.

    *    *    *    *    *

The Child:

What is that light, dear father,
That light in the dark, dark sky?


The Father:

Those are the lights of the city
And the villages thereby.


The Child:

There must be fire in the city