Heartbreak

Fill for me a brimming bowl
And in it let me drown my soul:
But put therein some drug, designed
To Banish Women from my mind:
For I want not the stream inspiring
That fills the mind with—fond desiring,
But I want as deep a draught
As e'er from Lethe's wave was quaff'd;
From my despairing heart to charm
The Image of the fairest form
That e'er my reveling eyes beheld,
That e'er my wandering fancy spell'd.
In vain! away I cannot chace
The melting softness of that face,
The beaminess of those bright eyes,
That breast—earth's only Paradise.
My sight will never more be blest;
For all I see has lost its zest:
Nor with delight can I explore,
The Classic page, or Muse's lore.
Had she but known how beat my heart,
And with one smile reliev'd its ...

Roses, brier on brier,
Like a hedge of fire,
Walled it from the world and rolled
Crimson 'round it; manifold
Blossoms, 'mid which once of old
Walked my Heart's Desire.

There the golden Hours
Dwelt; and 'mid the bowers
Beauty wandered like a maid;
And the Dreams that never fade
Sat within its haunted shade
Gazing at the flowers.

There the winds that vary
Melody and marry
Perfume unto perfume, went,
Whispering to the buds, that bent,
Messages whose wonderment
Made them sweet to carry.

There the waters hoary
Murmured many a story
To the leaves that leaned above,
Listening to their tales of love,
While the happiness thereof
Flushed their green with glory.

There the sunset's shimmer
'Mid the bower...

It worn't for her winnin ways,
Nor for her bonny face
But shoo wor th' only lass we had,
An that quite alters th' case.

We'd two fine lads as yo need see,
An' weel we love 'em still;
But shoo war th' only lass we had,
An' we could spare her ill.

We call'd her bi mi mother's name,
It saanded sweet to me;
We little thowt ha varry sooin
Awr pet wod have to dee.

Aw used to watch her ivery day,
Just like a oppenin bud;
An' if aw couldn't see her change,
Aw fancied' at aw could.

Throo morn to neet her little tongue
Wor allus on a stir;
Awve heeard a deeal o' childer lisp,
But nooan at lispt like her.

Sho used to play all sooarts o' tricks,
'At childer shouldn't play;
But then, they wor soa nicely done,

O what to me the little room
That was brimmed up with prayer and rest;
He bade me out into the gloom,
And my breast lies upon his breast.

O what to me my mother’s care,
The house where I was safe and warm;
The shadowy blossom of my hair
Will hide us from the bitter storm.

O hiding hair and dewy eyes,
I am no more with life and death,
My heart upon his warm heart lies,
My breath is mixed into his breath.

    "Alas! how oft does goodness wound itself!
    And sweet affection prove the spring of woe."

Home.


I.

    O thou pale orb, that silent shines,
        While care-untroubled mortals sleep!
    Thou seest a wretch who inly pines,
        And wanders here to wail and weep!
    With woe I nightly vigils keep,
        Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam,
    And mourn, in lamentation deep,
        How life and love are all a dream.

II.

    A joyless view thy rays adorn
        The faintly marked distant hill:
    I joyless view thy trembling horn,
        Reflected in the gurgling rill:
    My fondly-fluttering heart, be still:
        Thou busy pow'r, Remembrance, cease!
    Ah! must the agonizing thrill
    ...

Not with a club the heart is broken,
Nor with a stone;
A whip, so small you could not see it.
I've known

To lash the magic creature
Till it fell,
Yet that whip's name too noble
Then to tell.

Magnanimous of bird
By boy descried,
To sing unto the stone
Of which it died.

Annie I dreamed a strange dream last night,
At my bedside, I dreamed, you stood clad in white;
Your dark curly hair 'round your snow-white brow, -
(Are those locks as raven and curly now?)
And those rosebud lips, which in days lang syne,
I have kissed and blest, because they were mine.
And thine eyes soft light,
Shone as mellow and bright,
As it did years ago, -
Years ago.

And I fancy I heard the soft soothing sound
Of thy voice, that sweet melody breathed all around,
Whilst enraptured I gazed, and once more the sweet smile,
Made sunshine, my sorrowing heart to beguile,
And thy milkwhite hands stroked my heated brow; -
(Oh! what would I give could I feel them now!)
But alas! Woe is me!
No more can it be,
As it was years ago, -
Years ago.

Pale brows, still hands and dim hair,
I had a beautiful friend
And dreamed that the old despair
Would end in love in the end:
She looked in my heart one day
And saw your image was there;
She has gone weeping away.

With grief and mourning I sit to spin;
My Love passed by, and he didn't come in;
He passes by me, both day and night,
And carries off my poor heart's delight.

There is a tavern in yonder town,
My Love goes there and he spends a crown;
He takes a strange girl upon his knee,
And never more gives a thought to me.

Says he, 'We'll wed without loss of time,
And sure our love's but a little crime;'
My apron-string now it's wearing short,
And my Love he seeks other girls to court.

O with him I'd go if I had my will,
I'd follow him barefoot o'er rock and hill;
I'd never once speak of all my grief
If he'd give me a smile for my heart's relief.

In our wee garden the rose unfolds,
With bachelor's-buttons and marigolds;
I'll tie no posies ...

The Desert sands are heated, parched and dreary,
    The tigers rend alive their quivering prey
In the near Jungle; here the kites rise, weary,
    Too gorged with living food to fly away.

All night the hungry jackals howl together
    Over the carrion in the river bed,
Or seize some small soft thing of fur or feather
    Whose dying shrieks on the night air are shed.

I hear from yonder Temple in the distance
    Whose roof with obscene carven Gods is piled,
Reiterated with a sad insistence
    Sobs of, perhaps, some immolated child.

Strange rites here, where the archway's shade is deeper,
    Are consummated in the river bed;
Parias steal the rotten railway sleeper
    To burn the bodies of their cholera dead.

But yet, their lust, thei...

Hide me, Mother! my Fathers belong’d to the church of old,
I am driven by storm and sin and death to the ancient fold,
I cling to the Catholic Cross once more, to the Faith that saves,
My brain is full of the crash of wrecks, and the roar of waves,
My life itself is a wreck, I have sullied a noble name,
I am flung from the rushing tide of the world as a waif of shame,
I am roused by the wail of a child, and awake to a livid light,
And a ghastlier face than ever has haunted a grave by night,
I would hide from the storm without, I would flee from the storm within,
I would make my life one prayer for a soul that died in his sin,
I was the tempter, Mother, and mine was the deeper fall;
I will sit at your feet, I will hide my face, I will tell you all.

II.
He that they gave...

Sitting alone by the window,
    Watching the moonlit street,
Bending my head to listen
    To the well-known sound of your feet,
I have been wondering, darling,
    How I can bear the pain,
When I watch, with sighs and tear-wet eyes,
    And wait for your coming in vain.

For I know that a day approaches
    When your heart will tire of me;
When by door and gate I may watch and wait
    For a form I shall not see;
When the love that is now my heaven,
    The kisses that make my life,
You will bestow on another,
    And that other will be - your wife.

You will grow weary of sinning
    (Though you do not call it so),
You will long for a love that is purer
    Than the love that we two know.
God knows I have loved you dearly,

Over the darkened city, the city of towers,
The city of a thousand gates,
Over the gleaming terraced roofs, the huddled towers,
Over a somnolent whisper of loves and hates,
The slow wind flows, drearily streams and falls,
With a mournful sound down rain-dark walls.
On one side purples the lustrous dusk of the sea,
And dreams in white at the city’s feet;
On one side sleep the plains, with heaped-up hills.
Oaks and beeches whisper in rings about it.
Above the trees are towers where dread bells beat.

The fisherman draws his streaming net from the sea
And sails toward the far-off city, that seems
Like one vague tower.
The dark bow plunges to foam on blue-black waves,
And shrill rain seethes like a ghostly music about him
In a quiet shower.

Rain wi...

1.
The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon's transparent might,
The breath of the moist earth is light,
Around its unexpanded buds;
Like many a voice of one delight,
The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,
The City's voice itself, is soft like Solitude's.

2.
I see the Deep's untrampled floor
With green and purple seaweeds strown;
I see the waves upon the shore,
Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:
I sit upon the sands alone, -
The lightning of the noontide ocean
Is flashing round me, and a tone
Arises from its measured motion,
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

3.
Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
Nor peace wit...