William Barnes. 1801-1886
658. Mater Dolorosa
I'D a dream to-nightAs I fell asleep,O! the touching sightMakes me still to weep:Of my little lad,Gone to leave me sad,Ay, the child I had,But was not to keep.
As in heaven high,I my child did seek,There in train came byChildren fair and meek,Each in lily white,With a lamp alight;Each was clear to sight,But they did not speak.
Then, a little sad,Came my child in turn,But the lamp he had,O it did not burn!He, to clear my doubt,Said, half turn'd about,'Your tears put it out;Mother, never mourn.'
William Barnes. 1801-1886
659. The Wife a-lost
SINCE I noo mwore do zee your feäce,Up steärs or down below,I'll zit me in the lwonesome pleäce,Where flat-bough'd beech do grow;Below the beeches' bough, my love,Where you did never come,An' I don't look to meet ye now,As I do look at hwome.
Since you noo mwore be at my zide,In walks in zummer het,I'll goo alwone where mist do ride,Droo trees a-drippen wet;Below the raïn-wet bough, my love,Where you did never come,An' I don't grieve to miss ye now,As I do grieve at hwome.
Since now bezide my dinner-bwoardYour vaïce do never sound,I'll eat the bit I can avwordA-vield upon the ground;Below the darksome bough, my love,Where you did never dine,An' I don't grieve to miss ye now,As I at hwome do pine.
Since I do miss your vaïce an' feäceIn prayer at eventide,I'll pray wi' woone sad vaïce vor greäceTo goo where you do bide;Above the tree an' bough, my love,Where you be gone avore,An' be a-waïten vor me now,To come vor evermwore.
Winthrop Mackworth Praed. 1802-1839
660. Fairy Song
HE has conn'd the lesson now;He has read the book of pain:There are furrows on his brow;I must make it smooth again.
Lo! I knock the spurs away;Lo! I loosen belt and brand;Hark! I hear the courser neighFor his stall in Fairy-land.
Bring the cap, and bring the vest;Buckle on his sandal shoon;Fetch his memory from the chestIn the treasury of the moon.
I have taught him to be wiseFor a little maiden's sake;—Lo! he opens his glad eyes,Softly, slowly: Minstrel, wake!
Sara Coleridge. 1802-1850
661. O sleep, my Babe
O SLEEP, my babe, hear not the rippling wave,Nor feel the breeze that round thee ling'ring straysTo drink thy balmy breath,And sigh one long farewell.
Soon shall it mourn above thy wat'ry bed,And whisper to me, on the wave-beat shore,Deep murm'ring in reproach,Thy sad untimely fate.
Ere those dear eyes had open'd on the light,In vain to plead, thy coming life was sold,O waken'd but to sleep,Whence it can wake no more!
A thousand and a thousand silken leavesThe tufted beech unfolds in early spring,All clad in tenderest green,All of the self-same shape:
A thousand infant faces, soft and sweet,Each year sends forth, yet every mother viewsHer last not least belovedLike its dear self alone.
No musing mind hath ever yet foreshapedThe face to-morrow's sun shall first reveal,No heart hath e'er conceivedWhat love that face will bring.
O sleep, my babe, nor heed how mourns the galeTo part with thy soft locks and fragrant breath,As when it deeply sighsO'er autumn's latest bloom.
Sara Coleridge. 1802-1850
662. The Child
SEE yon blithe child that dances in our sight!Can gloomy shadows fall from one so bright?Fond mother, whence these fears?While buoyantly he rushes o'er the lawn,Dream not of clouds to stain his manhood's dawn,Nor dim that sight with tears.
No cloud he spies in brightly glowing hours,But feels as if the newly vested bowersFor him could never fade:Too well we know that vernal pleasures fleet,But having him, so gladsome, fair, and sweet,Our loss is overpaid.
Amid the balmiest flowers that earth can giveSome bitter drops distil, and all that liveA mingled portion share;But, while he learns these truths which we lament,Such fortitude as ours will sure be sent,Such solace to his care.
Gerald Griffin. 1803-1840
663. Eileen Aroon
WHEN like the early rose,Eileen Aroon!Beauty in childhood blows,Eileen Aroon!When, like a diadem,Buds blush around the stem,Which is the fairest gem?—Eileen Aroon!
Is it the laughing eye,Eileen Aroon!Is it the timid sigh,Eileen Aroon!Is it the tender tone,Soft as the string'd harp's moan?O, it is truth alone,—Eileen Aroon!
When like the rising day,Eileen Aroon!Love sends his early ray,Eileen Aroon!What makes his dawning glow,Changeless through joy or woe?Only the constant know:—Eileen Aroon!
I know a valley fair,Eileen Aroon!I knew a cottage there,Eileen Aroon!Far in that valley's shadeI knew a gentle maid,Flower of a hazel glade,—Eileen Aroon!
Who in the song so sweet?Eileen Aroon!Who in the dance so fleet?Eileen Aroon!Dear were her charms to me,Dearer her laughter free,Dearest her constancy,—Eileen Aroon!
Were she no longer true,Eileen Aroon!What should her lover do?Eileen Aroon!Fly with his broken chainFar o'er the sounding main,Never to love again,—Eileen Aroon!
Youth must with time decay,Eileen Aroon!Beauty must fade away,Eileen Aroon!Castles are sack'd in war,Chieftains are scatter'd far,Truth is a fixed star,—Eileen Aroon!
James Clarence Mangan. 1803-1849
664. Dark Rosaleen
O MY Dark Rosaleen,Do not sigh, do not weep!The priests are on the ocean green,They march along the deep.There 's wine from the royal Pope,Upon the ocean green;And Spanish ale shall give you hope,My Dark Rosaleen!My own Rosaleen!Shall glad your heart, shall give you hope,Shall give you health, and help, and hope,My Dark Rosaleen!
Over hills, and thro' dales,Have I roam'd for your sake;All yesterday I sail'd with sailsOn river and on lake.The Erne, at its highest flood,I dash'd across unseen,For there was lightning in my blood,My Dark Rosaleen!My own Rosaleen!O, there was lightning in my blood,Red lightning lighten'd thro' my blood.My Dark Rosaleen!
All day long, in unrest,To and fro, do I move.The very soul within my breastIs wasted for you, love!The heart in my bosom faintsTo think of you, my Queen,My life of life, my saint of saints,My Dark Rosaleen!My own Rosaleen!To hear your sweet and sad complaints,My life, my love, my saint of saints,My Dark Rosaleen!
Woe and pain, pain and woe,Are my lot, night and noon,To see your bright face clouded so,Like to the mournful moon.But yet will I rear your throneAgain in golden sheen;'Tis you shall reign, shall reign alone,My Dark Rosaleen!My own Rosaleen!'Tis you shall have the golden throne,'Tis you shall reign, and reign alone,My Dark Rosaleen!
Over dews, over sands,Will I fly, for your weal:Your holy delicate white handsShall girdle me with steel.At home, in your emerald bowers,From morning's dawn till e'en,You'll pray for me, my flower of flowers,My Dark Rosaleen!My fond Rosaleen!You'll think of me through daylight hours,My virgin flower, my flower of flowers,My Dark Rosaleen!
I could scale the blue air,I could plough the high hills,O, I could kneel all night in prayer,To heal your many ills!And one beamy smile from youWould float like light betweenMy toils and me, my own, my true,My Dark Rosaleen!My fond Rosaleen!Would give me life and soul anew,A second life, a soul anew,My Dark Rosaleen!
O, the Erne shall run red,With redundance of blood,The earth shall rock beneath our tread,And flames wrap hill and wood,And gun-peal and slogan-cryWake many a glen serene,Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die,My Dark Rosaleen!My own Rosaleen!The Judgement Hour must first be nigh,Ere you can fade, ere you can die,My Dark Rosaleen!
James Clarence Mangan. 1803-1849
665. The Nameless One
ROLL forth, my song, like the rushing river,That sweeps along to the mighty sea;God will inspire me while I deliverMy soul of thee!
Tell thou the world, when my bones lie whiteningAmid the last homes of youth and eld,That once there was one whose veins ran lightningNo eye beheld.
Tell how his boyhood was one drear night-hour,How shone for him, through his griefs and gloom,No star of all heaven sends to light ourPath to the tomb.
Roll on, my song, and to after agesTell how, disdaining all earth can give,He would have taught men, from wisdom's pages,The way to live.
And tell how trampled, derided, hated,And worn by weakness, disease, and wrong,He fled for shelter to God, who matedHis soul with song.
—With song which alway, sublime or vapid,Flow'd like a rill in the morning beam,Perchance not deep, but intense and rapid—A mountain stream.
Tell how this Nameless, condemn'd for years longTo herd with demons from hell beneath,Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, longFor even death.
Go on to tell how, with genius wasted,Betray'd in friendship, befool'd in love,With spirit shipwreck'd, and young hopes blasted,He still, still strove;
Till, spent with toil, dreeing death for others(And some whose hands should have wrought for him,If children live not for sires and mothers),His mind grew dim;
And he fell far through that pit abysmal,The gulf and grave of Maginn and Burns,And pawn'd his soul for the devil's dismalStock of returns.
But yet redeem'd it in days of darkness,And shapes and signs of the final wrath,When death, in hideous and ghastly starkness,Stood on his path.
And tell how now, amid wreck and sorrow,And want, and sickness, and houseless nights,He bides in calmness the silent morrow,That no ray lights.
And lives he still, then? Yes! Old and hoaryAt thirty-nine, from despair and woe,He lives, enduring what future storyWill never know.
Him grant a grave to, ye pitying noble,Deep in your bosoms: there let him dwell!He, too, had tears for all souls in trouble,Here and in hell.
Thomas Lovell Beddoes. 1803-1849
666. Wolfram's Dirge
IF thou wilt ease thine heartOf love and all its smart,Then sleep, dear, sleep;And not a sorrowHang any tear on your eyelashes;Lie still and deep,Sad soul, until the sea-wave washesThe rim o' the sun to-morrow,In eastern sky.
But wilt thou cure thine heartOf love and all its smart,Then die, dear, die;'Tis deeper, sweeter,Than on a rose-bank to lie dreamingWith folded eye;And there alone, amid the beamingOf Love's stars, thou'lt meet herIn eastern sky.
Thomas Lovell Beddoes. 1803-1849
667. Dream-Pedlary
IF there were dreams to sell,What would you buy?Some cost a passing bell;Some a light sigh,That shakes from Life's fresh crownOnly a rose-leaf down.If there were dreams to sell,Merry and sad to tell,And the crier rang the bell,What would you buy?
A cottage lone and still,With bowers nigh,Shadowy, my woes to still,Until I die.Such pearl from Life's fresh crownFain would I shake me down.Were dreams to have at will,This would best heal my ill,This would I buy.
Thomas Lovell Beddoes. 1803-1849
668. Song
HOW many times do I love thee, dear?Tell me how many thoughts there beIn the atmosphereOf a new-fall'n year,Whose white and sable hours appearThe latest flake of Eternity:So many times do I love thee, dear.
How many times do I love again?Tell me how many beads there areIn a silver chainOf evening rain,Unravell'd from the tumbling main,And threading the eye of a yellow star:So many times do I love again.
Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1803-1882
669. Give All to Love
GIVE all to love;Obey thy heart;Friends, kindred, days,Estate, good fame,Plans, credit, and the Muse—Nothing refuse.
'Tis a brave master;Let it have scope:Follow it utterly,Hope beyond hope:High and more highIt dives into noon,With wing unspent,Untold intent;But it is a god,Knows its own path,And the outlets of the sky.
It was never for the mean;It requireth courage stout,Souls above doubt,Valour unbending:Such 'twill reward;—They shall returnMore than they were,And ever ascending.
Leave all for love;Yet, hear me, yet,One word more thy heart behoved,One pulse more of firm endeavour—Keep thee to-day,To-morrow, for ever,Free as an ArabOf thy beloved.
Cling with life to the maid;But when the surprise,First vague shadow of surmise,Flits across her bosom young,Of a joy apart from thee,Free be she, fancy-free;Nor thou detain her vesture's hem,Nor the palest rose she flungFrom her summer diadem.
Though thou loved her as thyself,As a self of purer clay;Though her parting dims the day,Stealing grace from all alive;Heartily know,When half-gods goThe gods arrive.
Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1803-1882
670. Uriel
IT fell in the ancient periodsWhich the brooding soul surveys,Or ever the wild Time coin'd itselfInto calendar months and days.
This was the lapse of Uriel,Which in Paradise befell.Once, among the Pleiads walking,Sayd overheard the young gods talking;And the treason, too long pent,To his ears was evident.The young deities discuss'dLaws of form, and metre just,Orb, quintessence, and sunbeams,What subsisteth, and what seems.One, with low tones that decide,And doubt and reverend use defied,With a look that solved the sphere,And stirr'd the devils everywhere,Gave his sentiment divineAgainst the being of a line.'Line in nature is not found;Unit and universe are round;In vain produced, all rays return;Evil will bless, and ice will burn.'As Uriel spoke with piercing eye,A shudder ran around the sky;The stern old war-gods shook their heads;The seraphs frown'd from myrtle-beds;Seem'd to the holy festivalThe rash word boded ill to all;The balance-beam of Fate was bent;The bounds of good and ill were rent;Strong Hades could not keep his own,But all slid to confusion.
A sad self-knowledge withering fellOn the beauty of Uriel;In heaven once eminent, the godWithdrew that hour into his cloud;Whether doom'd to long gyrationIn the sea of generation,Or by knowledge grown too brightTo hit the nerve of feebler sight.Straightway a forgetting windStole over the celestial kind,And their lips the secret kept,If in ashes the fire-seed slept.But, now and then, truth-speaking thingsShamed the angels' veiling wings;And, shrilling from the solar course,Or from fruit of chemic force,Procession of a soul in matter,Or the speeding change of water,Or out of the good of evil born,Came Uriel's voice of cherub scorn,And a blush tinged the upper sky,And the gods shook, they knew not why.
Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1803-1882
671. Bacchus
BRING me wine, but wine which never grewIn the belly of the grape,Or grew on vine whose tap-roots, reaching throughUnder the Andes to the Cape,Suffer'd no savour of the earth to 'scape.
Let its grapes the morn saluteFrom a nocturnal root,Which feels the acrid juiceOf Styx and Erebus;And turns the woe of Night,By its own craft, to a more rich delight.
We buy ashes for bread;We buy diluted wine;Give me of the true,Whose ample leaves and tendrils curl'dAmong the silver hills of heavenDraw everlasting dew;Wine of wine,Blood of the world,Form of forms, and mould of statures,That I intoxicated,And by the draught assimilated,May float at pleasure through all natures;The bird-language rightly spell,And that which roses say so well:
Wine that is shedLike the torrents of the sunUp the horizon walls,Or like the Atlantic streams, which runWhen the South Sea calls.
Water and bread,Food which needs no transmuting,Rainbow-flowering, wisdom-fruiting,Wine which is already man,Food which teach and reason can.
Wine which Music is,—Music and wine are one,—That I, drinking this,Shall hear far Chaos talk with me;Kings unborn shall walk with me;And the poor grass shall plot and planWhat it will do when it is man.Quicken'd so, will I unlockEvery crypt of every rock.
I thank the joyful juiceFor all I know;Winds of rememberingOf the ancient being blow,And seeming-solid walls of useOpen and flow.
Pour, Bacchus! the remembering wine;Retrieve the loss of me and mine!Vine for vine be antidote,And the grape requite the lote!Haste to cure the old despair;Reason in Nature's lotus drench'd—The memory of ages quench'd—Give them again to shine;Let wine repair what this undid;And where the infection slid,A dazzling memory revive;Refresh the faded tints,Recut the aged prints,And write my old adventures with the penWhich on the first day drew,Upon the tablets blue,The dancing Pleiads and eternal men.
Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1803-1882
672. Brahma
IF the red slayer think he slays,Or if the slain think he is slain,They know not well the subtle waysI keep, and pass, and turn again.
Far or forgot to me is near;Shadow and sunlight are the same;The vanish'd gods to me appear;And one to me are shame and fame.
They reckon ill who leave me out;When me they fly, I am the wings;I am the doubter and the doubt,And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.
The strong gods pine for my abode,And pine in vain the sacred Seven;But thou, meek lover of the good!Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.
Richard Henry Horne. 1803-1884
673. The Plough A LANDSCAPE IN BERKSHIRE
ABOVE yon sombre swell of landThou see'st the dawn's grave orange hue,With one pale streak like yellow sand,And over that a vein of blue.
The air is cold above the woods;All silent is the earth and sky,Except with his own lonely moodsThe blackbird holds a colloquy.
Over the broad hill creeps a beam,Like hope that gilds a good man's brow;And now ascends the nostril-streamOf stalwart horses come to plough.
Ye rigid Ploughmen, bear in mindYour labour is for future hours:Advance—spare not—nor look behind—Plough deep and straight with all your powers!
Robert Stephen Hawker. 1804-1875
674. King Arthur's Waes-hael
WAES-HAEL for knight and dame!O merry be their dole!Drink-hael! in Jesu's nameWe fill the tawny bowl;But cover down the curving crest,Mould of the Orient Lady's breast.
Waes-hael! yet lift no lid:Drain ye the reeds for wine.Drink-hael! the milk was hidThat soothed that Babe divine;Hush'd, as this hollow channel flows,He drew the balsam from the rose.
Waes-hael! thus glow'd the breastWhere a God yearn'd to cling;Drink-hael! so Jesu press'dLife from its mystic spring;Then hush and bend in reverent signAnd breathe the thrilling reeds for wine.
Waes-hael! in shadowy sceneLo! Christmas children we:Drink-hael! behold we leanAt a far Mother's knee;To dream that thus her bosom smiled,And learn the lip of Bethlehem's Child.
Robert Stephen Hawker. 1804-1875
675. Are they not all Ministering Spirits?
WE see them not—we cannot hearThe music of their wing—Yet know we that they sojourn near,The Angels of the spring!
They glide along this lovely groundWhen the first violet grows;Their graceful hands have just unboundThe zone of yonder rose.
I gather it for thy dear breast,From stain and shadow free:That which an Angel's touch hath blestIs meet, my love, for thee!
Thomas Wade. 1805-1875
676. The Half-asleep
O FOR the mighty wakening that arousedThe old-time Prophets to their missions high;And to blind Homer's inward sunlike eyeShow'd the heart's universe where he carousedRadiantly; the Fishers poor unhoused,And sent them forth to preach divinity;And made our Milton his great dark defy,To the light of one immortal theme espoused!But half asleep are those now most awake;And save calm-thoughted Wordsworth, we have noneWho for eternity put time at stake,And hold a constant course as doth the sun:We yield but drops that no deep thirstings slake;And feebly cease ere we have well begun.
Francis Mahony. 1805-1866
677. The Bells of Shandon
WITH deep affection,And recollection,I often think ofThose Shandon bells,Whose sounds so wild would,In the days of childhood,Fling around my cradleTheir magic spells.On this I ponderWhere'er I wander,And thus grow fonder,Sweet Cork, of thee;With thy bells of Shandon,That sound so grand onThe pleasant watersOf the River Lee.
I've heard bells chimingFull many a clime in,Tolling sublime inCathedral shrine,While at a glib rateBrass tongues would vibrate—But all their musicSpoke naught like thine;For memory, dwellingOn each proud swellingOf the belfry knellingIts bold notes free,Made the bells of ShandonSound far more grand onThe pleasant watersOf the River Lee.
I've heard bells tollingOld Adrian's Mole in,Their thunder rollingFrom the Vatican,And cymbals gloriousSwinging uproariousIn the gorgeous turretsOf Notre Dame;But thy sounds were sweeterThan the dome of PeterFlings o'er the Tiber,Pealing solemnly—O, the bells of ShandonSound far more grand onThe pleasant watersOf the River Lee.
There 's a bell in Moscow,While on tower and kiosk O!In Saint SophiaThe Turkman gets,And loud in airCalls men to prayerFrom the tapering summitsOf tall minarets.Such empty phantomI freely grant them;But there 's an anthemMore dear to me,—'Tis the bells of Shandon,That sound so grand onThe pleasant watersOf the River Lee.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1806-1861
678. Rosalind's Scroll
I LEFT thee last, a child at heart,A woman scarce in years:I come to thee, a solemn corpseWhich neither feels nor fears.I have no breath to use in sighs;They laid the dead-weights on mine eyesTo seal them safe from tears.
Look on me with thine own calm look:I meet it calm as thou.No look of thine can change this smile,Or break thy sinful vow:I tell thee that my poor scorn'd heartIs of thine earth—thine earth—a part:It cannot vex thee now.
I have pray'd for thee with bursting sobWhen passion's course was free;I have pray'd for thee with silent lipsIn the anguish none could see;They whisper'd oft, 'She sleepeth soft'—But I only pray'd for thee.
Go to! I pray for thee no more:The corpse's tongue is still;Its folded fingers point to heaven,But point there stiff and chill:No farther wrong, no farther woeHath licence from the sin belowIts tranquil heart to thrill.
I charge thee, by the living's prayer,And the dead's silentness,To wring from out thy soul a cryWhich God shall hear and bless!Lest Heaven's own palm droop in my hand,And pale among the saints I stand,A saint companionless.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1806-1861
679. The Deserted Garden
I MIND me in the days departed,How often underneath the sunWith childish bounds I used to runTo a garden long deserted.
The beds and walks were vanish'd quite;And wheresoe'er had struck the spade,The greenest grasses Nature laid,To sanctify her right.
I call'd the place my wilderness,For no one enter'd there but I.The sheep look'd in, the grass to espy,And pass'd it ne'ertheless.
The trees were interwoven wild,And spread their boughs enough aboutTo keep both sheep and shepherd out,But not a happy child.
Adventurous joy it was for me!I crept beneath the boughs, and foundA circle smooth of mossy groundBeneath a poplar-tree.
Old garden rose-trees hedged it in,Bedropt with roses waxen-white,Well satisfied with dew and light,And careless to be seen.
Long years ago, it might befall,When all the garden flowers were trim,The grave old gardener prided himOn these the most of all.
Some Lady, stately overmuch,Here moving with a silken noise,Has blush'd beside them at the voiceThat liken'd her to such.
Or these, to make a diadem,She often may have pluck'd and twined;Half-smiling as it came to mind,That few would look at them.
O, little thought that Lady proud,A child would watch her fair white rose,When buried lay her whiter brows,And silk was changed for shroud!—
Nor thought that gardener (full of scornsFor men unlearn'd and simple phrase)A child would bring it all its praise,By creeping through the thorns!
To me upon my low moss seat,Though never a dream the roses sentOf science or love's compliment,I ween they smelt as sweet.
It did not move my grief to seeThe trace of human step departed:Because the garden was deserted,The blither place for me!
Friends, blame me not! a narrow kenHath childhood 'twixt the sun and sward:We draw the moral afterward—We feel the gladness then.
And gladdest hours for me did glideIn silence at the rose-tree wall:A thrush made gladness musicalUpon the other side.
Nor he nor I did e'er inclineTo peck or pluck the blossoms white:—How should I know but that they mightLead lives as glad as mine?
To make my hermit-home complete,I brought clear water from the springPraised in its own low murmuring,And cresses glossy wet.
And so, I thought, my likeness grew(Without the melancholy tale)To 'gentle hermit of the dale,'And Angelina too.
For oft I read within my nookSuch minstrel stories; till the breezeMade sounds poetic in the trees,And then I shut the book.
If I shut this wherein I write,I hear no more the wind athwartThose trees, nor feel that childish heartDelighting in delight.
My childhood from my life is parted,My footstep from the moss which drewIts fairy circle round: anewThe garden is deserted.
Another thrush may there rehearseThe madrigals which sweetest are;No more for me!—myself afarDo sing a sadder verse.
Ah me! ah me! when erst I layIn that child's-nest so greenly wrought,I laugh'd unto myself and thought,'The time will pass away.'
And still I laugh'd, and did not fearBut that, whene'er was pass'd awayThe childish time, some happier playMy womanhood would cheer.
I knew the time would pass away;And yet, beside the rose-tree wall,Dear God, how seldom, if at all,Did I look up to pray!
The time is past: and now that growsThe cypress high among the trees,And I behold white sepulchresAs well as the white rose,—
When wiser, meeker thoughts are given,And I have learnt to lift my face,Reminded how earth's greenest placeThe colour draws from heaven,—
It something saith for earthly pain,But more for heavenly promise free,That I who was, would shrink to beThat happy child again.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1806-1861
680. Consolation
ALL are not taken; there are left behindLiving Beloveds, tender looks to bringAnd make the daylight still a happy thing,And tender voices, to make soft the wind:But if it were not so—if I could findNo love in all this world for comforting,Nor any path but hollowly did ringWhere 'dust to dust' the love from life disjoin'd;And if, before those sepulchres unmovingI stood alone (as some forsaken lambGoes bleating up the moors in weary dearth)Crying 'Where are ye, O my loved and loving?'—I know a voice would sound, 'Daughter, I AM.Can I suffice for Heaven and not for earth?'
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1806-1861
681. Grief
I TELL you, hopeless grief is passionless;That only men incredulous of despair,Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight airBeat upward to God's throne in loud accessOf shrieking and reproach. Full desertnessIn souls as countries lieth silent-bareUnder the blanching, vertical eye-glareOf the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, expressGrief for thy Dead in silence like to death—Most like a monumental statue setIn everlasting watch and moveless woeTill itself crumble to the dust beneath.Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:If it could weep, it could arise and go.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1806-1861
682. Sonnets from the Portuguese i
I THOUGHT once how Theocritus had sungOf the sweet years, the dear and wish'd-for years,Who each one in a gracious hand appearsTo bear a gift for mortals old or young:And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,I saw in gradual vision through my tearsThe sweet, sad years, the melancholy years—Those of my own life, who by turns had flungA shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,So weeping, how a mystic Shape did moveBehind me, and drew me backward by the hair;And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,'Guess now who holds thee?'—'Death,' I said. But thereThe silver answer rang—'Not Death, but Love.'
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1806-1861
683. Sonnets from the Portuguese ii
UNLIKE are we, unlike, O princely Heart!Unlike our uses and our destinies.Our ministering two angels look surpriseOn one another, as they strike athwartTheir wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, artA guest for queens to social pageantries,With gages from a hundred brighter eyesThan tears even can make mine, to play thy partOf chief musician. What hast thou to doWith looking from the lattice-lights at me—A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing throughThe dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?The chrism is on thine head—on mine the dew—And Death must dig the level where these agree.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1806-1861
684. Sonnets from the Portuguese iii
GO from me. Yet I feel that I shall standHenceforward in thy shadow. NevermoreAlone upon the threshold of my doorOf individual life I shall commandThe uses of my soul, nor lift my handSerenely in the sunshine as before,Without the sense of that which I forbore—Thy touch upon the palm. The widest landDoom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mineWith pulses that beat double. What I doAnd what I dream include thee, as the wineMust taste of its own grapes. And when I sueGod for myself, He hears that name of thine,And sees within my eyes the tears of two.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1806-1861
685. Sonnets from the Portuguese iv
IF thou must love me, let it be for naughtExcept for love's sake only. Do not say,'I love her for her smile—her look—her wayOf speaking gently,—for a trick of thoughtThat falls in well with mine, and certes broughtA sense of pleasant ease on such a day'—For these things in themselves, Beloved, mayBe changed, or change for thee—and love, so wrought,May be unwrought so. Neither love me forThine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry:A creature might forget to weep, who boreThy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!But love me for love's sake, that evermoreThou mayst love on, through love's eternity.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1806-1861
686. Sonnets from the Portuguese v
WHEN our two souls stand up erect and strong,Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,Until the lengthening wings break into fireAt either curving point,—what bitter wrongCan the earth do us, that we should not longBe here contented? Think! In mounting higher,The angels would press on us, and aspireTo drop some golden orb of perfect songInto our deep, dear silence. Let us stayRather on earth, Beloved—where the unfitContrarious moods of men recoil awayAnd isolate pure spirits, and permitA place to stand and love in for a day,With darkness and the death-hour rounding it.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 1806-1861
687. A Musical Instrument
WHAT was he doing, the great god Pan,Down in the reeds by the river?Spreading ruin and scattering ban,Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,And breaking the golden lilies afloatWith the dragon-fly on the river.
He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,From the deep cool bed of the river;The limpid water turbidly ran,And the broken lilies a-dying lay,And the dragon-fly had fled away,Ere he brought it out of the river.
High on the shore sat the great god Pan,While turbidly flow'd the river;And hack'd and hew'd as a great god canWith his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeedTo prove it fresh from the river.
He cut it short, did the great god Pan(How tall it stood in the river!),Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,Steadily from the outside ring,And notch'd the poor dry empty thingIn holes, as he sat by the river.
'This is the way,' laugh'd the great god Pan(Laugh'd while he sat by the river),'The only way, since gods beganTo make sweet music, they could succeed.'Then dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,He blew in power by the river.
Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!Piercing sweet by the river!Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!The sun on the hill forgot to die,And the lilies revived, and the dragon-flyCame back to dream on the river.
Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,To laugh as he sits by the river,Making a poet out of a man:The true gods sigh for the cost and pain—For the reed which grows nevermore againAs a reed with the reeds of the river.
Frederick Tennyson. 1807-1898
688. The Holy Tide
THE days are sad, it is the Holy tide:The Winter morn is short, the Night is long;So let the lifeless Hours be glorifiedWith deathless thoughts and echo'd in sweet song:And through the sunset of this purple cupThey will resume the roses of their prime,And the old Dead will hear us and wake up,Pass with dim smiles and make our hearts sublime!
The days are sad, it is the Holy tide:Be dusky mistletoes and hollies strown,Sharp as the spear that pierced His sacred side,Red as the drops upon His thorny crown;No haggard Passion and no lawless MirthFright off the solemn Muse,—tell sweet old tales,Sing songs as we sit brooding o'er the hearth,Till the lamp flickers, and the memory fails.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 1807-1882
689. My Lost Youth
OFTEN I think of the beautiful townThat is seated by the sea;Often in thought go up and downThe pleasant streets of that dear old town,And my youth comes back to me.And a verse of a Lapland songIs haunting my memory still:'A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'
I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,And catch, in sudden gleams,The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,And islands that were the HesperidesOf all my boyish dreams.And the burden of that old song,It murmurs and whispers still:'A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'
I remember the black wharves and the slips,And the sea-tides tossing free;And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,And the beauty and mystery of the ships,And the magic of the sea.And the voice of that wayward songIs singing and saying still:'A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'
I remember the bulwarks by the shore,And the fort upon the hill;The sunrise gun with its hollow roar,The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er,And the bugle wild and shrill.And the music of that old songThrobs in my memory still:'A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'
I remember the sea-fight far away,How it thunder'd o'er the tide!And the dead sea-captains, as they layIn their graves o'erlooking the tranquil bayWhere they in battle died.And the sound of that mournful songGoes through me with a thrill:'A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'
I can see the breezy dome of groves,The shadows of Deering's woods;And the friendships old and the early lovesCome back with a Sabbath sound, as of dovesIn quiet neighbourhoods.And the verse of that sweet old song,It flutters and murmurs still:'A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'
I remember the gleams and glooms that dartAcross the schoolboy's brain;The song and the silence in the heart,That in part are prophecies, and in partAre longings wild and vain.And the voice of that fitful songSings on, and is never still:'A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'
There are things of which I may not speak;There are dreams that cannot die;There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,And bring a pallor into the cheek,And a mist before the eye.And the words of that fatal songCome over me like a chill:'A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'
Strange to me now are the forms I meetWhen I visit the dear old town;But the native air is pure and sweet,And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street,As they balance up and down,Are singing the beautiful song,Are sighing and whispering still:'A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'
And Deering's woods are fresh and fair,And with joy that is almost painMy heart goes back to wander there,And among the dreams of the days that wereI find my lost youth again.And the strange and beautiful song,The groves are repeating it still:'A boy's will is the wind's will,And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'
John Greenleaf Whittier. 1807-1892
690. Vesta
O CHRIST of God! whose life and deathOur own have reconciled,Most quietly, most tenderlyTake home thy star-named child!
Thy grace is in her patient eyes,Thy words are on her tongue;The very silence round her seemsAs if the angels sung.
Her smile is as a listening child'sWho hears its mother's call;The lilies of Thy perfect peaceAbout her pillow fall.
She leans from out our clinging armsTo rest herself in Thine;Alone to Thee, dear Lord, can weOur well-beloved resign.
O, less for her than for ourselvesWe bow our heads and pray;Her setting star, like Bethlehem's,To Thee shall point the way!
Helen Selina, Lady Dufferin. 1807-1867
691. Lament of the Irish Emigrant
I'M sittin' on the stile, Mary,Where we sat side by sideOn a bright May mornin' long ago,When first you were my bride;The corn was springin' fresh and green,And the lark sang loud and high—And the red was on your lip, Mary,And the love-light in your eye.
The place is little changed, Mary,The day is bright as then,The lark's loud song is in my ear,And the corn is green again;But I miss the soft clasp of your hand,And your breath warm on my cheek,And I still keep list'ning for the wordsYou never more will speak.
'Tis but a step down yonder lane,And the little church stands near,The church where we were wed, Mary,I see the spire from here.But the graveyard lies between, Mary,And my step might break your rest—For I've laid you, darling! down to sleep,With your baby on your breast.
I'm very lonely now, Mary,For the poor make no new friends,But, O, they love the better still,The few our Father sends!And you were all I had, Mary,My blessin' and my pride:There 's nothin' left to care for now,Since my poor Mary died.
Yours was the good, brave heart, Mary,That still kept hoping on,When the trust in God had left my soul,And my arm's young strength was gone:There was comfort ever on your lip,And the kind look on your brow—I bless you, Mary, for that same,Though you cannot hear me now.
I thank you for the patient smileWhen your heart was fit to break,When the hunger pain was gnawin' there,And you hid it, for my sake!I bless you for the pleasant word,When your heart was sad and sore—O, I'm thankful you are gone, Mary,Where grief can't reach you more!
I'm biddin' you a long farewell,My Mary—kind and true!But I'll not forget you, darling!In the land I'm goin' to;They say there 's bread and work for all,And the sun shines always there—But I'll not forget old Ireland,Were it fifty times as fair!
And often in those grand old woodsI'll sit, and shut my eyes,And my heart will travel back againTo the place where Mary lies;And I'll think I see the little stileWhere we sat side by side:And the springin' corn, and the bright May morn,When first you were my bride.
Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton. 1808-1876
692. I do not love Thee
I DO not love thee!—no! I do not love thee!And yet when thou art absent I am sad;And envy even the bright blue sky above thee,Whose quiet stars may see thee and be glad.
I do not love thee!—yet, I know not why,Whate'er thou dost seems still well done, to me:And often in my solitude I sighThat those I do love are not more like thee!
I do not love thee!—yet, when thou art gone,I hate the sound (though those who speak be dear)Which breaks the lingering echo of the toneThy voice of music leaves upon my ear.
I do not love thee!—yet thy speaking eyes,With their deep, bright, and most expressive blue,Between me and the midnight heaven arise,Oftener than any eyes I ever knew.
I know I do not love thee! yet, alas!Others will scarcely trust my candid heart;And oft I catch them smiling as they pass,Because they see me gazing where thou art.
Charles Tennyson Turner. 1808-1879
693. Letty's Globe
WHEN Letty had scarce pass'd her third glad year,And her young artless words began to flow,One day we gave the child a colour'd sphereOf the wide earth, that she might mark and know,By tint and outline, all its sea and land.She patted all the world; old empires peep'dBetween her baby fingers; her soft handWas welcome at all frontiers. How she leap'd,And laugh'd and prattled in her world-wide bliss;But when we turn'd her sweet unlearned eyeOn our own isle, she raised a joyous cry—'Oh! yes, I see it, Letty's home is there!'And while she hid all England with a kiss,Bright over Europe fell her golden hair.
Edgar Allan Poe. 1809-1849
694. To Helen
HELEN, thy beauty is to meLike those Nicean barks of yoreThat gently, o'er a perfumed sea,The weary way-worn wanderer boreTo his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,Thy Naiad airs have brought me homeTo the glory that was Greece,And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo, in yon brilliant window-nicheHow statue-like I see thee stand,The agate lamp within thy hand,Ah! Psyche, from the regions whichAre holy land!
Edgar Allan Poe. 1809-1849
695. Annabel Lee
IT was many and many a year ago,In a kingdom by the sea,That a maiden there lived whom you may knowBy the name of Annabel Lee.And this maiden she lived with no other thoughtThan to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a childIn this kingdom by the sea:But we loved with a love that was more than love—I and my Annabel Lee,With a love that the winged seraphs of heavenCoveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,In this kingdom by the sea,A wind blew out of a cloud, chillingMy beautiful Annabel Lee,So that her high-born kinsmen cameAnd bore her away from me,To shut her up in a sepulchreIn this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,Went envying her and me—Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,In this kingdom by the sea)That the wind came out of the cloud one night,Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the loveOf those who were older than we—Of many far wiser than we—And neither the angels in heaven above,Nor the demons down under the sea,Can ever dissever my soul from the soulOf the beautiful Annabel Lee:
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreamsOf the beautiful Annabel Lee;And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyesOf the beautiful Annabel Lee;And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the sideOf my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,In the sepulchre there by the sea,In her tomb by the sounding sea.
Edgar Allan Poe. 1809-1849
696. For Annie
THANK Heaven! the crisis—The danger is past,And the lingering illnessIs over at last—And the fever called 'Living'Is conquer'd at last.
Sadly, I knowI am shorn of my strength,And no muscle I moveAs I lie at full length:But no matter—I feelI am better at length.
And I rest so composedlyNow, in my bed,That any beholderMight fancy me dead—Might start at beholding me,Thinking me dead.
The moaning and groaning,The sighing and sobbing,Are quieted now,With that horrible throbbingAt heart—ah, that horrible,Horrible throbbing!
The sickness—the nausea—The pitiless pain—Have ceased, with the feverThat madden'd my brain—With the fever called 'Living'That burn'd in my brain.
And O! of all torturesThat torture the worstHas abated—the terribleTorture of thirstFor the naphthaline riverOf Passion accurst—I have drunk of a waterThat quenches all thirst.
—Of a water that flows,With a lullaby sound,From a spring but a very fewFeet under ground—From a cavern not very farDown under ground.
And ah! let it neverBe foolishly saidThat my room it is gloomy,And narrow my bed;For man never sleptIn a different bed—And, to sleep, you must slumberIn just such a bed.
My tantalized spiritHere blandly reposes,Forgetting, or neverRegretting its roses—Its old agitationsOf myrtles and roses:
For now, while so quietlyLying, it fanciesA holier odourAbout it, of pansies—A rosemary odour,Commingled with pansies—With rue and the beautifulPuritan pansies.
And so it lies happily,Bathing in manyA dream of the truthAnd the beauty of Annie—Drown'd in a bathOf the tresses of Annie.
She tenderly kiss'd me,She fondly caress'd,And then I fell gentlyTo sleep on her breast—Deeply to sleepFrom the heaven of her breast.
When the light was extinguish'd,She cover'd me warm,And she pray'd to the angelsTo keep me from harm—To the queen of the angelsTo shield me from harm.
And I lie so composedly,Now, in my bed(Knowing her love),That you fancy me dead—And I rest so contentedly,Now, in my bed(With her love at my breast),That you fancy me dead—That you shudder to look at me,Thinking me dead.
But my heart it is brighterThan all of the manyStars in the sky,For it sparkles with Annie—It glows with the lightOf the love of my Annie—With the thought of the lightOf the eyes of my Annie.
Edward Fitzgerald. 1809-1883
697. Old Song
TIS a dull sightTo see the year dying,When winter windsSet the yellow wood sighing:Sighing, O sighing!
When such a time comethI do retireInto an old roomBeside a bright fire:O, pile a bright fire!
And there I sitReading old things,Of knights and lorn damsels,While the wind sings—O, drearily sings!
I never look outNor attend to the blast;For all to be seenIs the leaves falling fast:Falling, falling!
But close at the hearth,Like a cricket, sit I,Reading of summerAnd chivalry—Gallant chivalry!
Then with an old friendI talk of our youth—How 'twas gladsome, but oftenFoolish, forsooth:But gladsome, gladsome!
Or, to get merry,We sing some old rhymeThat made the wood ring againIn summer time—Sweet summer time!
Then go we smoking,Silent and snug:Naught passes between us,Save a brown jug—Sometimes!
And sometimes a tearWill rise in each eye,Seeing the two old friendsSo merrily—So merrily!
And ere to bedGo we, go we,Down on the ashesWe kneel on the knee,Praying together!
Thus, then, live ITill, 'mid all the gloom,By Heaven! the bold sunIs with me in the roomShining, shining!
Then the clouds part,Swallows soaring between;The spring is alive,And the meadows are green!
I jump up like mad,Break the old pipe in twain,And away to the meadows,The meadows again!
Edward Fitzgerald. 1809-1883
698. From Omar Khayyám
A BOOK of Verses underneath the Bough,A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and ThouBeside me singing in the Wilderness—O, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
Some for the Glories of This World; and someSigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!
Look to the blowing Rose about us—'Lo,Laughing,' she says, 'into the world I blow,At once the silken tassel of my PurseTear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.'
And those who husbanded the Golden grainAnd those who flung it to the winds like RainAlike to no such aureate Earth are turn'dAs, buried once, Men want dug up again.
Think, in this batter'd CaravanseraiWhose Portals are alternate Night and Day,How Sultán after Sultán with his PompAbode his destined Hour, and went his way.
They say the Lion and the Lizard keepThe Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep:And Bahrám, that great Hunter—the wild AssStamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.
I sometimes think that never blows so redThe Rose as where some buried Caesar bled;That every Hyacinth the Garden wearsDropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.
And this reviving Herb whose tender GreenFledges the River-Lip on which we lean—Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knowsFrom what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clearsTO-DAY of past Regrets and Future Fears:To-morrow!—Why, To-morrow I may beMyself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years.
For some we loved, the loveliest and the bestThat from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest,Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,And one by one crept silently to rest.
And we, that now make merry in the RoomThey left, and Summer dresses in new bloom,Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of EarthDescend—ourselves to make a Couch—for whom?
Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,Before we too into the Dust descend;Dust unto Dust, and under Dust to lie,Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and—sans End!
Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide,And wash my Body whence the Life has died,And lay me, shrouded in the living Leaf,By some not unfrequented Garden-side….
Yon rising Moon that looks for us again—How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;How oft hereafter rising look or usThrough this same Garden—and for one in vain!
And when like her O Sákí, you shall passAmong the Guests star-scatter'd on the Grass,And in your joyous errand reach the spotWhere I made One—turn down an empty Glass!
Alfred Tennyson, Lord Tennyson. 1809-1892
699. Mariana
WITH blackest moss the flower-plotsWere thickly crusted, one and all:The rusted nails fell from the knotsThat held the pear to the gable-wall.The broken sheds look'd sad and strange:Unlifted was the clinking latch;Weeded and worn the ancient thatchUpon the lonely moated grange.She only said, 'My life is dreary,He cometh not,' she said;She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,I would that I were dead!'
Her tears fell with the dews at even;Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;She could not look on the sweet heaven,Either at morn or eventide.After the flitting of the bats,When thickest dark did trance the sky,She drew her casement-curtain by,And glanced athwart the glooming flats.She only said, 'The night is dreary,He cometh not,' she said;She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,I would that I were dead!'
Upon the middle of the night,Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:The cock sung out an hour ere light:From the dark fen the oxen's lowCame to her: without hope of change,In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn,Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed mornAbout the lonely moated grange.She only said, 'The day is dreary,He cometh not,' she said;She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,I would that I were dead!'