Identity

It's my grief that I am not a little white duck,
And I'd swim over the sea to France or to Spain;
I would not stay in Ireland for one week only,
To be without eating, without drinking, without a full jug.

Without a full jug, without eating, without drinking,
Without a feast to get, without wine, without meat,
Without high dances, without a big name, without music;
There is hunger on me, and I astray this long time.

It's my grief that I am not an old crow,
I would sit for awhile up on the old branch,
I could satisfy my hunger, and I not as I am
With a grain of oats or a white potato

It's my grief that I am not a red fox,
Leaping strong and swift on the mountains,
Eating cocks and hens without pity,
Taking ducks and geese as a conquerer.

...

"What hast thou seen in the olden time,
    Dark ruin, lone and gray?"
"Full many a race from thy native clime,
    And the bright earth, pass away.
The organ has pealed in these roofless aisles,
    And priests have knelt to pray
At the altar, where now the daisy smiles
    O'er their silent beds of clay.

"I've seen the strong man a wailing child,
    By his mother offered here;
I've seen him a warrior fierce and wild;
    I've seen him on his bier,
His warlike harness beside him laid
    In the silent earth to rust;
His plumed helm and trusty blade
    To moulder into dust!

"I've seen the stern reformer scorn
    The things once deemed divine,
And the bigot's zeal with gems adorn
    The altar's sacred shrine.
I've seen the si...

From Recollections of Early Childhood

The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.


I

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.


II

The Rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the Rose,
The Moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there ha...

I.

Fame, like a wayward girl, will still be coy
To those who woo her with too slavish knees,
But makes surrender to some thoughtless boy,
And dotes the more upon a heart at ease;
She is a Gypsy, will not speak to those
Who have not learnt to be content without her;
A Jilt, whose ear was never whisper'd close,
Who thinks they scandal her who talk about her;
A very Gypsy is she, Nilus-born,
Sister-in-law to jealous Potiphar;
Ye love-sick Bards! repay her scorn for scorn;
Ye Artists lovelorn! madmen that ye are!
Make your best bow to her and bid adieu,
Then, if she likes it, she will follow you.

II.

"You cannot eat your cake and have it too."
- Proverb.


How fever'd is the man, who cannot look
Upon his mortal day...

Addressed to Francis Greenleaf Allison of Burlington, New Jersey.


You scarcely need my tardy thanks,
Who, self-rewarded, nurse and tend
A green leaf on your own Green Banks
The memory of your friend.

For me, no wreath, bloom-woven, hides
The sobered brow and lessening hair
For aught I know, the myrtled sides
Of Helicon are bare.

Their scallop-shells so many bring
The fabled founts of song to try,
They've drained, for aught I know, the spring
Of Aganippe dry.

Ah well! The wreath the Muses braid
Proves often Folly's cap and bell;
Methinks, my ample beaver's shade
May serve my turn as well.

Let Love's and Friendship's tender debt
Be paid by those I love in life.
Why should the unborn critic whet
For m...

When Life's realities the Soul perceives
    Vain, dull, perchance corrosive, if she glows
    With rising energy, and open throws
    The golden gates of Genius, she achieves
His fairy clime delighted, and receives
    In those gay paths, deck'd with the thornless rose,
    Blest compensation. - Lo! with alter'd brows
    Lours the false World, and the fine Spirit grieves;
No more young Hope tints with her light and bloom
    The darkening Scene. - Then to ourselves we say,
    Come, bright IMAGINATION, come! relume
Thy orient lamp; with recompensing ray
    Shine on the Mind, and pierce its gathering gloom
    With all the fires of intellectual Day!

You see that porcelain ranged there in the window,
Platters and soup-plates done with pale pink rosebuds,
And tiny violets, and wreaths of ivy?
See how the pattern clings to the gleaming edges!
They’re works of art, minutely seen and felt,
Each petal done devoutly. Is it failure
To spend your blood like this?

Study them . . . you will see there, in the porcelain,
If you stare hard enough, a sort of swimming
Of lights and shadows, ghosts within a crystal,
My brain unfolding! There you’ll see me sitting
Day after day, close to a certain window,
Looking down, sometimes, to see the people . . .

Sometimes my wife comes there to speak to me . . .
Sometimes the grey cat waves his tail around me . . .
Goldfish swim in a bowl, glisten in sunlight,
Dilate to...

He
Fill your bowl with roses: the bowl, too, have of crystal.
Sit at the western window. Take the sun
Between your hands like a ball of flaming crystal,
Poise it to let it fall, but hold it still,
And meditate on the beauty of your existence;
The beauty of this, that you exist at all.

She
The sun goes down, but without lamentation.
I close my eyes, and the stream of my sensation
In this, at least, grows clear to me:
Beauty is a word that has no meaning.
Beauty is naught to me.

He
The last blurred raindrops fall from the half-clear sky,
Eddying lightly, rose-tinged, in the windless wake of the sun.
The swallow ascending against cold waves of cloud
Seems winging upward over huge bleak stairs of stone.
The raindrop finds...

This is our place of meeting; opposite
That towered and pillared building: look at it;
King's Chapel in the Second George's day,
Rebellion stole its regal name away, -
Stone Chapel sounded better; but at last
The poisoned name of our provincial past
Had lost its ancient venom; then once more
Stone Chapel was King's Chapel as before.
(So let rechristened North Street, when it can,
Bring back the days of Marlborough and Queen Anne!)
Next the old church your wandering eye will meet -
A granite pile that stares upon the street -
Our civic temple; slanderous tongues have said
Its shape was modelled from St. Botolph's head,
Lofty, but narrow; jealous passers-by
Say Boston always held her head too high.
Turn half-way round, and let your look survey
The white fac...

Poet, a truce to your song!
Have you heard the heart sing?
Like a brook among trees,
Like the humming of bees,
Like the ripple of wine:
Had you heard, would you stay
Blowing bubbles so long?
You have ears for the spheres -
Have you heard the heart sing?

*            *            *            *            *

Have you loved the good books of the world, -
And written none?
Have you loved the great poet, -
And burnt your little rhyme?
'O be my friend, and teach me to be thine.'

*            *            *            *            *

By many hands the work of God is done,
Swart toil, pale thought, flushed dream, he spurneth none:
Yea! and the weaver of a little rhyme
Is seen his worker in his own full time.

Those breathing Tokens of your kind regard,
(Suspect not, Anna, that their fate is hard;
Not soon does aught to which mild fancies cling
In lonely spots, become a slighted thing;)
Those silent Inmates now no longer share,
Nor do they need, our hospitable care,
Removed in kindness from their glassy Cell
To the fresh waters of a living Well
An elfin pool so sheltered that its rest
No winds disturb; the mirror of whose breast
Is smooth as clear, save where with dimples small
A fly may settle, or a blossom fall.
'There' swims, of blazing sun and beating shower
Fearless (but how obscured!) the golden Power,
That from his bauble prison used to cast
Gleams by the richest jewel unsurpast;
And near him, darkling like a sullen Gnome,
The silver Tenant of the crysta...

Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong,
And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song;
Nor can remembrance, Mathew! bring to view
A fate more pleasing, a delight more true
Than that in which the brother Poets joy'd,
Who with combined powers, their wit employ'd
To raise a trophy to the drama's muses.
The thought of this great partnership diffuses
Over the genius loving heart, a feeling
Of all that's high, and great, and good, and healing.

Too partial friend! fain would I follow thee
Past each horizon of fine poesy;
Fain would I echo back each pleasant note
As o'er Sicilian seas, clear anthems float
'Mong the light skimming gondolas far parted,
Just when the sun his farewell beam has darted:
But 'tis impossible, far different cares
Beckon me sternly fr...

1.

The irresponsive silence of the land,
The irresponsive sounding of the sea,
Speak both one message of one sense to me: -
Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand
Thou too aloof bound with the flawless band
Of inner solitude; we bind not thee;
But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free?
What heart shall touch thy heart? what hand thy hand? -
And I am sometimes proud and sometimes meek,
And sometimes I remember days of old
When fellowship seemed not so far to seek
And all the world and I seemed much less cold,
And at the rainbow's foot lay surely gold,
And hope felt strong and life itself not weak.


2.

Thus am I mine own prison. Everything
Around me free and sunny and at ease:
Or if in shadow, in a shade of trees
Which...

MUSKOKA

A stream of tender gladness,
Of filmy sun, and opal tinted skies;
Of warm midsummer air that lightly lies
In mystic rings,
Where softly swings
The music of a thousand wings
That almost tones to sadness.

Midway 'twixt earth and heaven,
A bubble in the pearly air, I seem
To float upon the sapphire floor, a dream
Of clouds of snow,
Above, below,
Drift with my drifting, dim and slow,
As twilight drifts to even.

The little fern-leaf, bending
Upon the brink, its green reflection greets,
And kisses soft the shadow that it meets
With touch so fine,
The border line
The keenest vision can't define;
So perfect is the blending.

The far, fir trees that cover
The brownish hills with needles green and gold,

You in the flesh and here,
Your very self! Now, wait!
One word! May I hope or fear?
Must I speak in love or hate?
Stay while I ruminate!

The fact and each circumstance
Dare you disown? Not you!
That vast dome, that huge dance,
And the gloom which overgrew
A possibly festive crew!

For why should men dance at all
Why women a crowd of both
Unless they are gay? Strange ball
Hands and feet plighting troth,
Yet partners enforced and loth!

Of who danced there, no shape
Did I recognize: thwart, perverse,
Each grasped each, past escape
In a whirl or weary or worse:
Man’s sneer met woman’s curse,

While he and she toiled as if
Their guardian set galley-slaves
To supple chained limbs grown stiff:
Unmanacled trulls...

1.
Swifter far than summer's flight -
Swifter far than youth's delight -
Swifter far than happy night,
Art thou come and gone -
As the earth when leaves are dead,
As the night when sleep is sped,
As the heart when joy is fled,
I am left lone, alone.

2.
The swallow summer comes again -
The owlet night resumes her reign -
But the wild-swan youth is fain
To fly with thee, false as thou. -
My heart each day desires the morrow;
Sleep itself is turned to sorrow;
Vainly would my winter borrow
Sunny leaves from any bough.

3.
Lilies for a bridal bed -
Roses for a matron's head -
Violets for a maiden dead -
Pansies let MY flowers be:
On the living grave I bear
Scatter them without a tear -
Let no friend, however d...