RESIGNATION

There is no flock, however watched and tended,
    But one dead lamb is there!
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
    But has one vacant chair!

The air is full of farewells to the dying,
    And mournings for the dead;
The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,
    Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient!    These severe afflictions
    Not from the ground arise,
But oftentimes celestial benedictions
    Assume this dark disguise.

We see but dimly through the mists and vapors;
    Amid these earthly damps
What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers
    May be heaven's distant lamps.

There is no Death!    What seems so is transition;
    This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of the life elysi...

    Some lives have themes.
    Goldfish that stubbornly die;
    compatability only with distant lovers
    - flowers (but no sweet-breads)
    that wilt to the touch.

    Waiting. Charcoal-grey cat
    agreeably on a green linoleum table
    with light basking in....
    a tad playful,
    paws up,
    (classic boxer stance)
    but no one notices.
    Others oblique in their transparency,
    are unmindful of even the empty closet
    and greeting cards that smile hello.

    In the dark
    this room shimmers below
    life-raft status;
    chairs are buoys
    bobbing under waves
    of congealed fright.
    In the morning
    the first pigeons
    rifle over rooftops,
    mad flutterings like your eyes

In spring of youth it was my lot
To haunt of the wide world a spot
The which I could not love the less,
So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
And the tall pines that towered around.

But when the Night had thrown her pall
Upon the spot, as upon all,
And the mystic wind went by
Murmuring in melody,
Then,ah, then, I would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.

Yet that terror was not fright,
But a tremulous delight,
A feeling not the jewelled mine
Could teach or bribe me to define,
Nor Love,although the Love were thine.

Death was in that poisonous wave,
And in its gulf a fitting grave
For him who thence could solace bring
To his lone imagining,
Whose solitary soul could make
An Eden of t...

For a season there must be pain
For a little, little space
I shall lose the sight of her face,
Take back the old life again
While She is at rest in her place.

For a season this pain must endure,
For a little, little while
I shall sigh more often than smile
Till time shall work me a cure,
And the pitiful days beguile.

For that season we must be apart,
For a little length of years,
Till my life's last hour nears,
And, above the beat of my heart,
I hear Her voice in my ears.

But I shall not understand
Being set on some later love,
Shall not know her for whom I strove,
Till she reach me forth her hand,
Saying, "Who but I have the right?"
And out of a troubled night
Shall draw me safe to the land.

I

Where art thou, my beloved Son,
Where art thou, worse to me than dead?
Oh find me, prosperous or undone!
Or, if the grave be now thy bed,
Why am I ignorant of the same
That I may rest; and neither blame
Nor sorrow may attend thy name?

II

Seven years, alas! to have received
No tidings of an only child;
To have despaired, have hoped, believed,
And been for evermore beguiled;
Sometimes with thoughts of very bliss!
I catch at them, and then I miss;
Was ever darkness like to this?

III

He was among the prime in worth,
An object beauteous to behold;
Well born, well bred; I sent him forth
Ingenuous, innocent, and bold:
If things ensued that wanted grace,
As hath been said, they were not base;
And never...

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed, and gazed, but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the blis...

I'm buried now; I've done with life;
I've done with hate, revenge and strife;
I've done with joy, and hope and love
And all the bustling world above.

Long have I dwelt forgotten here
In pining woe and dull despair;
This place of solitude and gloom
Must be my dungeon and my tomb.

No hope, no pleasure can I find:
I am grown weary of my mind;
Often in balmy sleep I try
To gain a rest from misery,

And in one hour of calm repose
To find a respite from my woes,
But dreamless sleep is not for me
And I am still in misery.

I dream of liberty, 'tis true,
But then I dream of sorrow too,
Of blood and guilt and horrid woes,
Of tortured friends and happy foes;

I dream about the world, but then
I dream of fiends instead ...

Looking for placer pangar,
    Loafing about in the hills,
Getting your grub with a rifle,
    Taking your drink from rills.
Getting your bed from the spruce tree,
    Taking your course by your dreams,
Just camping alone in the mountains,
    Siwashing along the streams.

Locating the hind sight on Nature,
    Traveling alone and far,
Thinking with no one to guide you,
    Digesting the things that are.
Back trailing the life that's past you,
    Peeping at what's in store,
Pondering over life's mistakes,
    Wondering, how many more.

Dreaming alone of childhood days,
    Regretting some things that are past,
Recalling lost opportunities,
    And chances too good to last.
Living your whole life over,
    Recalling the daily...

I know an aged Man constrained to dwell
In a large house of public charity,
Where he abides, as in a Prisoner's cell,
With numbers near, alas! no company.

When he could creep about, at will, though poor
And forced to live on alms, this old Man fed
A Redbreast, one that to his cottage door
Came not, but in a lane partook his bread.

There, at the root of one particular tree,
An easy seat this worn-out Labourer found
While Robin pecked the crumbs upon his knee
Laid one by one, or scattered on the ground.

Dear intercourse was theirs, day after day;
What signs of mutual gladness when they met!
Think of their common peace, their simple play,
The parting moment and its fond regret.

Months passed in love that failed not to fulfil,
In spite...

I

Blind

When first the shadows fell, like prison bars,
And darkness spread before me, like a pall,
I cried out for the sun, the earth, the stars,
And beat the air, as madmen beat a wall,
Till, impotent, and broken with despair,
I turned my vision inward.    Lo, a spark -
A light - a torch; and all my world grew bright;
For God's dear eyes were shining through the dark.
Then, bringing to me gifts of recompense,
Came keener hearing, finer taste, and touch;
And that oft unappreciated sense,
Which finds sweet odours, and proclaims them such;
And not until my mortal eyes were blind
Did I perceive how kind the world, how kind.

II

Deaf

I can recall a time, when on mine ears
There fell chaotic sounds of earthly life,
S...

That hour when thou and Grief were first acquainted
Thou wrotest, "Come, for I have lookt on death."
Piteous I held my indeterminate breath
And sought thee out, and saw how he had painted
Thine eyes with rings of black; yet never fainted
Thy radiant immortality underneath
Such stress of dark; but then, as one that saith,
"I know Love liveth," sat on by death untainted.

O to whom Grief too poignant was and dry
To sow in thee a fountain crop of tears!
O youth, O pride, set too remote and high
For touch of solace that gives grace to men!
Thy life must be our death, thy hopes our fears:
We weep, thou lookest strangely--we know thee then!

Whose is the voice that will not let me rest?
        I hear it speak.
Where is the shore will gratify my quest,
        Show what I seek?
Not yours, weak Muse, to mimic that far voice,
        With halting tongue;
No peace, sweet land, to bid my heart rejoice
        Your groves among.

Whose is the loveliness I know is by,
        Yet cannot place?
Is it perfection of the sea or sky,
        Or human face?
Not yours, my pencil, to delineate
        The splendid smile!
Blind in the sun, we struggle on with Fate
        That glows the while.

Whose are the feet that pass me, echoing
        On unknown ways?
Whose are the lips that only part to sing
        Through all my days?
Not yours, fond youth, to fill mine eager eyes
  ...

I will throw by my book. The weariness
Of too much study presses on my brain,
And thought's close fetter binds upon my brow
Like a distraction, and I must give o'er.
Morning hath seen me here, and noon, and eve;
And midnight with its deep and solemn hush
Has look'd upon my labors, and the dawn,
With its sweet voices, and its tempting breath
Has driven me to rest - and I can bear
The burden of such weariness no more.
I have foregone society, and fled
From a sweet sister's fondness, and from all
A home's alluring blandishments, and now
When I am thirsting for them, and my heart
Would leap at the approaches of their kind
And gentle offices, they are not here,
And I must feel that I am all alone.
Oh, for the fame of this forgetful world
How much we suffe...

Shines the last age, the next with hope is seen,
To-day slinks poorly off unmarked between:
Future or Past no richer secret folds,
O friendless Present! than thy bosom holds.

A diamond of a morning
Waked me an hour too soon;
Dawn had taken in the stars
And left the faint white moon.

O white moon, you are lonely,
It is the same with me,
But we have the world to roam over,
Only the lonely are free.

Ye brown old oaks that spread the silent wood,
How soothing sweet your stillness used to be;
And still could bless, when wrapt in musing mood,
But now confusion suits the best to me.
"Is it for love," the breezes seem to say,
"That you forsake our woodland silence here?
Is it for love, you roam so far away
From these still shades you valu'd once so dear?"
"No, breezes, no!"--I answer with a sigh,
"Love never could so much my bosom grieve;
Turnhill, my friend!--alas! so soon to die--
That is the grief which presses me to leave:
Though noise can't heal, it may some balm bestow;
But silence rankles in the wounds of woe."

Now lonely is the wood:
    No flower now lingers, none!
The virgin sisterhood
    Of roses, all are gone;
Now Autumn sheds her latest leaf;
And in my heart is grief.

Ah me, for all earth rears,
    The appointed bound is placed!
After a thousand years
    The great oak falls at last:
And thou, more lovely, canst not stay,
Sweet rose, beyond thy day.

Our life is not the life
    Of roses and of leaves;
Else wherefore this deep strife,
    This pain, our soul conceives?
The fall of ev'n such short-lived things
To us some sorrow brings.

And yet, plant, bird, and fly
    Feel no such hidden fire.
Happy they live; and die
    Happy, with no desire.
They in their brief life have fulfill'd
All Nature in them will'...

Cercato ho sempre solitaria vita.

THINKING ALWAYS OF LAURA, IT PAINS HIM TO REMEMBER WHERE SHE IS LEFT.


    Still have I sought a life of solitude;
The streams, the fields, the forests know my mind;
That I might 'scape the sordid and the blind,
Who paths forsake trod by the wise and good:
Fain would I leave, were mine own will pursued,
These Tuscan haunts, and these soft skies behind,
Sorga's thick-wooded hills again to find;
And sing and weep in concert with its flood.
But Fortune, ever my sore enemy,
Compels my steps, where I with sorrow see
Cast my fair treasure in a worthless soil:
Yet less a foe she justly deigns to prove,
For once, to me, to Laura, and to love;
Favouring my song, my passion, with her smile.

NOTT.