Oh! take, young Seraph, take thy harp,
And play to me so cheerily;
For grief is dark, and care is sharp,
And life wears on so wearily.
Oh! take thy harp!
Oh! sing as thou wert wont to do,
When, all youth's sunny season long,
I sat and listened to thy song,
And yet 'twas ever, ever new,
With magic in its heaven-tuned string--
The future bliss thy constant theme.
Oh! then each little woe took wing
Away, like phantoms of a dream;
    As if each sound
    That flutter'd round,
Had floated over Lethe's stream!

By all those bright and happy hours
We spent in life's sweet eastern bow'rs,
Where thou wouldst sit and smile, and show,
Ere buds were come, where flowers would blow,
And oft anticipate the rise
Of life's warm sun that scaled th...

Brook, of the listening grass,
Brook of the sun-fleckt wings,
Brook of the same wild way and flickering spell!
Must you begone? Will you forever pass,
After so many years and dear to tell?--
Brook of all hoverings ...
Brook that I kneel above;
Brook of my love.

Ah, but I have a charm to trouble you;
A spell that shall subdue
Your all-escaping heart, unheedful one
And unremembering!
Now, when I make my prayer
To your wild brightness there
That will but run and run,
O mindless Water!--
Hark,--now will I bring
A grace as wild,--my little yearling daughter,
My Alison.

Heed well that threat;
And tremble for your hill-born liberty
So bright to see!--
Your shadow-dappled way, unthwarted yet,
And the high hills whence all...

    Infinite peace is hanging in the air,
        Infinite peace is resting on mine eyes,
    That just an hour ago learnt how to bear
        Seeing your body's flaming harmonies.
    The grey clouds flecked with orange are and gold,
        Birds unto rest are falling, falling, falling,
            And all the earth goes slowly into night,
            Steadily turning from the harshly bright
    Sunset.    And now the wind is growing cold
        And in my heart a hidden voice is calling.

    Say, is our sense of beauty mixed with earth
        When lip on lip and breast on breast we cling,
    When ecstasy brings short bright sobs to birth
        And all our pulses, both our bodies sing?
    When through the haze that gathers on my sight
        I see you...

Who recalls the twilight and the ranged tents in order
(Violet peaks uplifted through the crystal evening air?)
And the clink of iron teacups and the piteous, noble laughter,
And the faces of the Sisters with the dust upon their hair?

(Now and not hereafter, while the breath is in our nostrils,
Now and not hereafter, ere the meaner years go by,
Let us now remember many honourable women,
Such as bade us turn again when we were like to die.)

Who recalls the morning and the thunder through the foothills,
(Tufts of fleecy shrapnel strung along the empty plains?)
And the sun-scarred Red-Cross coaches creeping guarded to the culvert,
And the faces of the Sisters looking gravely from the trains?

(When the days were torment and the nights were clouded terror,
When ...

It rained last night,
But fair weather has come back
This morning.

The green clusters of the palm-trees
Open and begin to throw shadows.

But sorrow drifts slowly down about me.

I come and go in my room,
Heart-heavy with memories.

The neighbour green casts shadows of green
On my blind;
The moss, soaked in dew,
Takes the least print
Like delicate velvet.

I see again a gauze tunic of oranged rose
With shadowy underclothes of grenade red.

How things still live again.

I go and sit by the day balustrade

And do nothing

Except count the plains
And the mountains
And the valleys
And the rivers
That separate from my Spring.

From the Chinese (early nineteenth century).

O word and thing most beautiful!
Our yesterday was cold and dull,
Gray mists obscured the setting sun,
Its evening wept with sobbing rain;
But to and fro, mid shrouding night,
Some healing angel swift has run,
And all is fresh and fair again.

O, word and thing most beautiful!
The hearts, which were of cares so full,
The tired hands, the tired feet,
So glad of night, are glad of morn,--
Where are the clouds of yesterday?
The world is good, the world is sweet,
And life is new and hope re-born.

O, word and thing most beautiful!
O coward soul and sorrowful,
Which sighs to note the ebbing light
Give place to evening's shadowy gray!
What are these things but parables,--
That darkness heals the wrongs of day,
And dawning clears all mis...

Let the dream go. Are there not other dreams
    In vastness of clouds hid from thy sight
That yet shall gild with beautiful gold gleams,
    And shoot the shadows through and through with light?
    What matters one lost vision of the night?
    Let the dream go!

Let the hope set. Are there not other hopes
    That yet shall rise like new stars in thy sky?
Not long a soul in sullen darkness gropes
    Before some light is lent it from on high;
    What folly to think happiness gone by!
    Let the hope set!

Let the joy fade. Are there not other joys,
    Like frost-bound bulbs, that yet shall start and bloom?
Severe must be the winter that destroys
    The hardy roots locked in their silent tomb.
    What cares the earth for her brief time of gloo...

The place is fair and tranquil, Judaea's cloudless sky
Smiles down on distant mountain, on glade and valley nigh,
And odorous winds bring fragrance from palm-tops darkly green,
And olive trees whose branches wave softly o'er the scene.

Whence comes the awe-struck feeling that fills the gazer's breast,
The breath, quick-drawn and panting, the awe, the solemn rest?
What strange and holy magic seems earth and air to fill,
That worldly thoughts and feelings are now all hushed and still?

Ah! here, one solemn evening, in ages long gone by,
A mourner knelt and sorrowed beneath the starlit sky,
And He whose drops of anguish bedewed the sacred sod
Was Lord of earth and heaven, our Saviour and our God!

Hark to the mournful whispers from olive leaf and bough!
They fan...

A maiden meek, with solemn, steadfast eyes,
    Full of eternal constancy and faith,
And smiling lips, through whose soft portal sighs
    Truth's holy voice, with ev'ry balmy breath;
So journeys she along life's crowded way,
    Keeping her soul's sweet counsel from all sight;
Nor pomp, nor vanity, lead her astray,
    Nor aught that men call dazzling, fair, or bright:
For pity, sometimes, doth she pause, and stay
    Those whom she meeteth mourning, for her heart
    Knows well in suffering how to bear its part.
Patiently lives she through each dreary day,
    Looking with little hope unto the morrow;
    And still she walketh hand in hand with sorrow.

My sun has set, I dwell
In darkness as a dead man out of sight;
And none remains, not one, that I should tell
To him mine evil plight
This bitter night.
I will make fast my door
That hollow friends may trouble me no more.

'Friend, open to Me.' - Who is this that calls?
Nay, I am deaf as are my walls:
Cease crying, for I will not hear
Thy cry of hope or fear.
Others were dear,
Others forsook me: what art thou indeed
That I should heed
Thy lamentable need?
Hungry should feed,
Or stranger lodge thee here?

'Friend, My Feet bleed.
Open thy door to Me and comfort Me.'
I will not open, trouble me no more.
Go on thy way footsore,
I will not rise and open unto thee.

'Then is it nothing to thee? Open, see
Who stands t...

"Whom have I in heaven but thee?"


'Twere nought to me, yon glorious arch of night,
    Decked with the gorgeous blazonry of heaven,
If, to my faith, amid its splendors bright,
    No vision of the Eternal One were given;
I could but view a dreary, soulless waste -
    A vast expanse of solitude unknown; -
More cheerless for the splendors o'er it cast,
    For all its grandeur more intensely lone.

'Twere nought to me, this ever-changing scene
    Of earthly beauty, sunshine, and delight -
The wood's deep shadows and the valley's green,
    Morn's tender glow, and sunset's splendors bright -
Nought, if my Father smiled not from the sky,
    The cloud, the flower, the landscape, and the leaf;
My soul would pine 'mid Earth's vain pageantry,
    A...

Sirs, when you pity us, I say
You waste your pity.    Let it stay,
Well corked and stored upon your shelves,
Until you need it for yourselves.

We do appreciate God's thought
In forming you, before He brought
Us into life.    His art was crude,
But oh! so virile in its rude,

Large, elemental strength; and then
He learned His trade in making men,
Learned how to mix and mould the clay
And fashion in a finer way.

How fine that skilful way can be
You need but lift your eyes to see;
And we are glad God placed you there
To lift your eyes and find us fair.

Apprentice labour though you were,
He made you great enough to stir
The best and deepest depths of us,
And we are glad He made you thus.

Aye! we are glad of many thi...

Why is this age worse than earlier ages?
In a stupor of grief and dread
have we not fingered the foulest wounds
and left them unhealed by our hands?

In the west the falling light still glows,
and the clustered housetops glitter in the sun,
but here Death is already chalking the doors with crosses,
and calling the ravens, and the ravens are flying in.

When the rose is faded,
Memory may still dwell on
Her beauty shadowed,
And the sweet smell gone.

That vanishing loveliness,
That burdening breath
No bond of life hath then
Nor grief of death.

'Tis the immortal thought
Whose passion still
Makes of the changing
The unchangeable.

Oh, thus thy beauty,
Loveliest on earth to me,
Dark with no sorrow, shines
And burns, with Thee.

The joys that touched thee once, be mine!
The sympathies of sky and sea,
The friendships of each rock and pine,
That made thy lonely life, ah me!
In Tempe or in Gargaphie.

Such joy as thou didst feel when first,
On some wild crag, thou stood'st alone
To watch the mountain tempest burst,
With streaming thunder, lightning-sown,
On Latmos or on Pelion.

Thy awe! when, crowned with vastness, Night
And Silence ruled the deep's abyss;
And through dark leaves thou saw'st the white
Breasts of the starry maids who kiss
Pale feet of moony Artemis.

Thy dreams! when, breasting matted weeds
Of Arethusa, thou didst hear
The music of the wind-swept reeds;
And down dim forest-ways drew near
Shy herds of slim Arcadian deer.

Thy wisdom...

Drab discoloration
Of faces, façades, pawn-shops,
Second-hand clothing,
Smoky and fly-blown glass of lunch-rooms,
Odors of rancid life...

Deadly uniformity
Of eyes and windows
Alike devoid of light...
Holes wherein life scratches -
Mangy life
Nosing to the gutter's end...

Show-rooms and mimic pillars
Flaunting out of their gaudy vestibules
Bosoms and posturing thighs...

Over all the Elevated
Droning like a bloated fly.

Rapt CONTEMPLATION, bring thy waking dreams
    To this umbrageous vale at noon-tide hour,
    While full of thee seems every bending flower,
    Whose petals tremble o'er the shadow'd streams!
Give thou HONORA's image, when her beams,
    Youth, beauty, kindness, shone; - what time she wore
    That smile, of gentle, yet resistless power
    To sooth each painful Passion's wild extremes.
Here shall no empty, vain Intruder chase,
    With idle converse, thy enchantment warm,
    That brings, in all its interest, all its grace,
The dear, persuasive, visionary Form.
    Can real Life a rival blessing boast
    When thou canst thus restore HONORA early lost?

Take this rose, and very gently place it on the tender, deep
Mosses where our little darling, Araluen, lies asleep.
Put the blossom close to baby kneel with me, my love, and pray;
We must leave the bird we’ve buried say good-bye to her to-day.
In the shadow of our trouble we must go to other lands,
And the flowers we have fostered will be left to other hands:
Other eyes will watch them growing other feet will softly tread
Where two hearts are nearly breaking, where so many tears are shed.
Bitter is the world we live in: life and love are mixed with pain;
We will never see these daisies never water them again.

Ah! the saddest thought in leaving baby in this bush alone
Is that we have not been able on her grave to place a stone:
We have been too poor to do it; but, my darling...